This Independence Day, impress your friends and family with a variety of red, white and blue desserts that will please the whole crowd. Most of these recipes are so simple that they only take a few minutes to cook or prepare. Although a cook is somewhat limited in the number of dessert foods or fruits that appear red or blue in color, he can combine them, along with a few other ingredients to make various scrumptious dishes. One very simple recipe is to use a graham cracker crust then load it with vanilla, strawberry and blueberry ice cream. Leave in freezer until time to serve. A variation of this recipe is to put a scoop of vanilla ice cream on a saucer, then place fresh strawberry slices on the ice cream and around the saucer, and cover it all with blueberry syrup. Still another, similar dish is to serve vanilla ice cream in a clear ice cream glass, then alternate strawberry syrup and blueberry syrup down the sides and on the top of the ice cream. When finished, you should see red, white and blue stripes through the glass.
What’s simpler than gelatin? Make a package of red gelatin and a package of blue. After it sets up, cut the gelatin into squares, place the red and blue squares together in a dish, and then squirt whipped cream on top. You can also cut the red gelatin in strips and lay 3 or 4 of the strips on a plate. In between each red strip of gelatin, squirt whipped cream. For the last strip, make it shorter than the other strips, and beside it, place one large blue cube of gelatin to form a flag dessert. You can also use ice cream to in place of the whipped cream.
For a big crowd, make a large box of pudding mix, prepared as directed on the box. Cut an angel food cake into squares, or simply tear into small pieces. Now place 8 ounces of whipped cream in the bottom of a large, clear bowl, then half of the cake pieces, then half of the pudding, and a layer of strawberry slices, spreading each layer out flat as you go along. Now put another 8 ounces of whipped cream in the bowl, then the other half of the cake pieces, the rest of the pudding, a layer of strawberries and finally, the rest of the whipped cream. Keep chilled until ready to serve.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Thaw a 20 oz roll of refrigerated sugar cookie dough, roll out and cut with star-shaped cookie cutters. Bake for 5 minutes. Combine a 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk, a half cup of sour cream, a cup of lemon juice, a half teaspoon of lemon peel, and stir until thick. Cover and chill. Place a cookie on a dessert plate, spread with mixture, top with whipped cream, dyed blue, and place a strawberry on top.
Bake a white or yellow cake, round or rectangular and frost with white icing. Use decorator frosting to paint a flag on the cake, and then edge the cake with whole strawberries or blueberries. Or use strawberry slices to make the red stripes, then gather some blueberries in the corner and squirt tiny whipped cream stars in between the blueberries. You can also make the entire cake red by using food coloring to dye the frosting, then slice thin strips of frozen ice cream and place on top of the cake to make the white stripes. Add blueberries in the corner with whipped cream stars. No matter which of these desserts you choose to make next 4th of July, you’re sure to get cheers.
