10 Fabulous Summer Backyard Barbecue Dessert Ideas

An ice cream sundae bar is an easy summer party treat. You can even make your own ice cream. Here are some of the toppings you can add to your sundae bar:

☀ Nuts (check with your guests to make sure no one is allergic to nuts)
☀ hot fudge
☀ peanut butter topping
☀ caramel sauce
☀ strawberries
☀ peaches
☀ bananas
☀ chopped cookies
☀ chopped candies
☀ cherries
☀ chocolate chips
☀ whipped topping
☀ mini chocolate bars
☀ sprinkles

Image via sxc.hu

The perfect recipe for a summer brunch or garden luncheon. They look fabulous, they're light, and super simple to make.

Simply layer fruit and yogurt into parfait, or wine glasses. Then top them with a few more pieces of fruit and a sprinkle of granola cereal. Strawberries, and blueberries, with plain or vanilla yogurt work wonderful.

You could also use bananas, peach slices, or blackberries with your favorite flavor of yogurt.

They're also very yummy in the fall with apple slices, and vanilla yogurt topped with walnuts.

Image (c) L Gerlach

Watermelon Cupcakes

What you'll need~

* 8 cupcake liners
* 8 cupcake shaped pieces of seedless watermelon, (see below)
* 2 cups pineapple cream cheese frosting
* Sprinkles for garnish

How to make them~

Place the liners in an 8-cup cupcake tin. Cut 3-inch thick slices of seedless watermelon. Cut round cupcake sized pieces from the slices. Put a watermelon 'cupcake' in each liner. Place a dollop of frosting on each cupcake. Decorate as desired with sprinkles. Serves 8.

Watermelon cupcake recipe and image courtesy of NWPB

Here is an easy summer dessert, that your friends will think you spent a ton of time and effort on, but it's really quite simple.

It takes ten minutes max to prepare, then just pop it in the fridge for a couple hours to chill. You can even make it a day or two ahead if you need to.

Creamy Berry Fruit Mould
Ingredients:

2 - 15 oz. cans of peaches in light syrup (or their own juice)
3 packets of plain gelatin
1 cup silken tofu (or cottage cheese)
1 1/4 cups water + about 1/2 cup
1-2 cups fresh strawberries
1 cup fresh blueberries
1/3 cup honey (or sugar)
Non stick cooking spray

Drain and reserve the juice from the peaches, add enough water to the reserved juice to make 1 1/2 cups. Sprinkle the gelatin over the peach juice water mixture and set it aside for about 4 minutes.

Boil 1 1/4 cups of water, then add the honey, and stir until it dissolves. Pour the hot water mixture into the peach juice mixture.

Put the pears, tofu, and juice mixture into a blender and process until all is smooth. Spray a mold or bundt pan lightly with the non stick spray ( I used a Wilton Silicone Mini Fluted Tube pan). Add the strawberries (sliced) and blueberries and peach mixture in layers. Chill for a couple hours (you and the mold).

You don't have to have a tube pan to make this you can make it in an ordinary bowl.

To remove the mold from the pan, dip the bottom in hot water for a minute, place a plate over the mold and flip. Garnish with mint, or lemon balm leaves.

You can use frozen berries, but this dessert is better in the summer with fresh strawberries and blueberries straight from the garden or farmers market.

This is not a super sweet dessert, the fruit is the star, and the tofu/ peach mixture adds a creamy texture.

Image (c) L Gerlach

Ice twelve cupcakes with royal blue icing, use one of the star tips to make white stars on the blue cupcakes. Arrange the blue cupcakes in 3 rows of 4.

Ice the rest of the cupcakes with white icing. Arrange the white cupcakes 4 more cupcakes to finish off the blue rows. Add 3 more rows of white cupcakes below. For a total of 6 rows of 8 cupcakes. Add strawberry slices to make stripes.

I covered a baking sheet with silver foil to make the flag on. If you will be traveling with your cupcake flag, add a tiny dollop of icing under each cupcake to help hold them in place.

More on this recipe

Image (c) L Gerlach

Make your dirt cake in a new clay flower pot, and add some gummy worms, plastic flowers, and a new (clean) garden spade for serving.

Here's the recipe:

1 large pkg of Oreo cookies

1 (12 oz) bowl of whipped topping

1 (16 oz) pkg of cream cheese

2 small pkg of instant french vanilla pudding

1 cup of powdered sugar

3 1/2 cups milk

1/4 cup butter

In a bowl mix cream cheese, butter, and sugar together. In a separate bowl mix whipped topping, pudding, and milk together.

Combine both mixtures together until smooth. Crumble Oreos in food processor or roll with a rolling pin. Layer the Oreos and pudding mixture to the top beginning and ending with Oreos. If you decide to use a clean flower pot, line it with tin foil for added protection.

Chill for several hours or overnight. Decorate with gummy worms, silk flowers, or construction toys.

More dirt cake ideas

Image via Flickr Creative Commons

This is a wonderful summer recipe! Strawberry rhubarb crunch is a great alternative for strawberry rhubarb pie. There's still a little sugar, and oil, but there's plenty of fiber and natural goodness to make up for it. Plus there's nothing better than the flavor of fresh in season strawberries and rhubarb. Yum!

Strawberry Rhubarb Crunch Recipe

One quart of fresh strawberries

One cup of chopped rhubarb

1/4 cup plus two tablespoons of evaporated cane sugar

1/4 cup canola oil

1/4 cup maple syrup

2 cups of rolled oats

cooking spray

Preheat your oven to 325`and spray a 9×9 baking dish with cooking spray. Chop the strawberries and the rhubarb, and place them in the baking dish. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of sugar over the top. In another bowl combine the rest of the sugar, the rolled oats, maple syrup and canola oil. When they're thoroughly mixed pour the mixture over the top of the berries and rhubarb. Bake for about 35-40 minutes, or until the crunch topping is golden brown.

Strawberry rhubarb crunch is wonderful hot out of the oven with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream. Yum!

This recipe has quite a bit of juice when you're done baking it, I love it that way. If you want your crunch a little thicker you can add a tablespoon or two of flour to the strawberry rhubarb mixture before you bake it.

This recipe freezes well. If you have extra berries and rhubarb, you can double or triple the recipe and freeze individual servings in plastic containers. It will be quick and easy to pull out later for a quick dessert.

Image (c) L Gerlach

There is no better flavor than fresh picked blueberries! This is the perfect blueberry season recipe. Make extra and store them in the freezer so you can pull them out later and be reminded of summer!.

These muffins turn out super moist and delicious!

You can find the oat bran for this recipe in the cereal aisle of most grocery stores, with the rolled oats and hot cereals.

Blueberry Oat Bran Muffins

2 cups oat bran cereal (plain)

2 egg whites lightly beaten

1/4 cup of honey or maple syrup

1/3 cup evaporated cane juice (or 1/4 cup packed brown sugar)

2 tablespoons of canola oil

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 cup water (you can also use milk, but I'm not a milk fan)

1 heaping cup of fresh blueberries
Preheat the oven to 400`F. Combine all the ingredients together in a large bowl, except the blueberries. Mix thoroughly, then add the blueberries and stir them in gently. Spray 12 muffin cups with cooking spray, or line the muffin cups with paper baking cups. I prefer the spray, these muffins slide right out of the cups, and the crispy outside hot out of the oven is the best part of the muffin.

Fill the muffin cups each 3/4 full and bake for 17-18 minutes, or until done. Serve them hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for an extra special treat!

Image (c) L Gerlach all rights reserved

Simply candy some violets, lilacs, violas, or nasturtiums. You can do this ahead of time, while they're in full bloom. They'll keep nicely in a sealed container once they're candied.

On the day of your party bake your favorite cupcake recipe. Ice the cupcakes with your favorite color of icing and top them with the candied flowers. I used lilacs and violets here.

The flowers add a delicate summer touch to your party. I used Wilton Decorating Tip 2D and gave the icing some pattern and dimension by swirling the icing around the cupcakes. Quick and easy!

More on Candy Flower Cupcakes

More on making candied flowers

This is a late summer recipe I came up with to use up all those extra apples we usually have laying around. It's a combination of several recipes I've had through the years.

Grilled Stuffed Apples

* 4 tart apples
* 1/2 cup walnut pieces
* 1/2 cup dried fruit (I used dried cranberries) raisins, dates, cranberries
* 1 T honey
* 1 t cinnamon
* dash of nutmeg
* 3/4 to one cup maple syrup

Peel and core the apples. Mix the walnuts, dried fruit, honey and spices together in a bowl. Put the apples in a 5×7 metal baking dish, or grill pan. Stuff the walnut fruit mixture into the center of the cored apples. Drizzle the maple syrup over the top of the stuffed apples. Grill the apples at 325` for about an hour. While the apples are cooking baste them a couple times with the maple syrup, by spooning it over the top. Enjoy!

Stuffed Apple Images (c) L Gerlach