Whether you are hosting a few friends, going to a picnic, or hanging at home celebrate little red, white, and blue with easy fourth of July desserts. I love how colorful these desserts are without adding any food coloring, using the natural colors of these summertime fruits. This quick mixed fruit tart uses store-bought pastry puff dough, although you could use homemade of course. One of my favorite cakes is this cream cheese bunt cake with raspberries and blueberries on the side. This cake does take a few hours so I would make it the morning of. If you’re into regular layer cakes you can also decorate with berries and buttercream for a patriotic dessert.
Mixed Fruit American Flag Tart
This tart definitely falls into the category of an easy fourth of July desserts. To make this fruit tart you only need a few simple ingredients:
- Frozen Store bought Pastry Puff Sheet, put in the fridge to thaw the night before
- Small Container of Strawberries
- Small Container of Blue Berries
- 2 Granny Smith Apples
- White Sugar for Sprinkling or Honey
- Egg for Egg Wash
Instructions:
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and prepare a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Pull your thawed pastry puff sheet from the fridge and place it on a lightly floured counter.
- Using a rolling pin, roll out the sheet to a rectangle that will fit on your baking sheet and smooth out seams.
- Transfer the dough to your cookie sheet covered with parchment.
- With a knife score the dough in a rectangle about 3/4 of an inch in from the outside edge. (you can see if the photos above)
- Use a fork to prick holes all over the inside of your scored rectangle to keep the center from puffing up. (you can see in the photos above)
- Cut strawberries in thin slices and arrange on your dough for your stripes.
- Cut the green apples in thin slices and arrange in between your strawberries. You may want to leave a small gap from the other fruits to help keep the red from bleeding into the white.
- Score a square with a knife where your blueberries are going just as you did with the outside border.
- Place blueberries using smaller ones to fill in the left corner.
- With a spoon sprinkle a tablespoon or so of sugar on the tart or drizzle with honey
- Scramble an egg in a small bowl and using a brush, brush on egg wash to outside dough border of the tart.
- Bake for about 25 minutes when the pastry is golden brown on the edges.
- You can drizzle with a little more honey if desired and serve immediately warm or can be made earlier in the day and served room temperature. You can also make the morning off and warm in the oven later before serving. Do know that some of the red and blue can seep into the apples while cooling.
Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Berries
I love this pound cake and its so easy to add some red and blue berries for a patriotic dessert. I’m not a huge fan of frosting and its one less step, so this cake is a win for me. To make this cake you will need some time as it does take 1 hour and 40 minutes to bake, however, it is easy to make and put together. The recipe I love is from Elizabeth’s Edible Experience.
Red White and Blue Berry Cake
Although this cake is a little more work having to make the frosting, using berries on vanilla buttercream is an easy way to decorate a cake with red white, and blue and give it a little something extra. Generally, if I’m making layered cakes like this I just buy a box of cake mix. It’s easy and yummy and I still consider it homemade. I do think that making the frosting, is completely worth making from scratch. I used a simple vanilla buttercream recipe and used a piece of parchment to press and smooth the buttercream but of course, you could do swirls or just smooth with your knife. Then I added washed berries to decorate for another easy fourth of July desserts.
If you’re looking for a 4th of July dessert that’s a little more difficult you can check out my patriotic red white and blue macarons post. I hope everyone stays safe and enjoys their holiday weekend with a little extra dessert.
