Cobblers, crisps, ice cream, and more! Recipes for creamy, fruity, refreshing ways to sweeten your Fourth of July BBQ.

These Amazing Fourth of July Desserts Are the Ultimate Crowd-Pleasers
Photo: James Carrier

There’s nothing like a Fourth of July dessert. Any July day, of course, is a great time for ice cream, the greatest and most versatile of all sweets. But you also get to incorporate summer bounty, like stone fruit. The red, white, and blue colors of the holiday are a fun challenge to try to incorporate—luckily blueberries are plentiful at this time of year, too.

For your Independence Day gathering, you can go full-on 4th with a patriotic pie—either blueberry or multi-fruit—that mimics the flag. But if that’s a little too on-the-nose, we’ve got a baker’s dozen and then some of great ideas for fresh, summery treats that are easy to scale up for a crowd.

Some are rich and flavorful, like a marionberry pie à la mode. Some are light and refreshing, like watermelon granita, and some are so light as to be barely there, like this crisp-crunchy Pavlova topped with caramel and peach. We’ve got custard pies, fruit crisp, and ice cream several different ways (including a minty sundae), and frozen-yogurt graham-cracker sandwiches that taste more decadent then they are.

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For something a little more out-of-the-box, we have two recipes that cook right on the grill. (You’ll have a grill going, right? It’s practically required on the Fourth of July.) One is an otherwise conventional apple crisp, the other a slightly offbeat but delicious sweet kebab made with strawberries and chunks of cake. And if you think strawberry shortcake sounds good, wait until you discover strawberry tallcake—which has all the creamy deliciousness you expect, just several layers higher.

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