5 Quick And Easy Desserts Anyone Can Make
Here are 5 quick and easy desserts anyone can make to share with you today. We have graduations, weddings, baby showers, wedding showers, and other special events that are right around the corner for a lot of people, and people will love to eat these recipes! I bet they’ll even ask you for the recipe. I don’t know about you, but I would rather have a homemade dessert over a store-purchased one every time. In Southern Utah, strawberries will start being shipped in from California, so get ready to use these easy desserts for your next party.
I grow strawberries, but they won’t be ready to harvest for at least 60 days from today. These easy desserts are from my friends and family and they have made the rounds for over 40 years. It’s so funny that some of the recipes call for ingredients that I doubt you can still buy, so I have had to modify them a bit. Easy desserts equal homemade goodness!
5 Easy Desserts
1. Fruit Tart/Cake
This is an easy cake to make from scratch. I like this one because you typically always have the ingredients in your home.
- 1/2 cup butter or one cube
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 3/4 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 eggs
- Vanilla or banana instant pudding or whipping cream
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Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place the ingredients into a medium-size mixing bowl, except for the pudding or whipping cream. Grease a tart/cake pan and spread the mixture as evenly as possible. The dough/mixture is quite sticky. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes. Wait ten minutes and turn the cake onto a large plate or cake platter. Let the cake cool. Fill the tart cake with whipping cream or pudding to cover completely. Next, you place sliced fruit all over the pudding or the whipping. I love strawberries, raspberries, sliced bananas, sliced Kiwi, Mandarin oranges or sliced peaches. Top with a dollop of whipped cream and serve.
2. Fluffy Cake With Strawberries
- White cake mix
- 1 pint of whipping cream
- 1-8- ounce package of cream cheese
- 1 cup of powdered sugar
- 1 large package of strawberry Danish Dessert (use 1-1/2 cups water instead of 2 cups)
- Fresh strawberries sliced (as many as you like)
- 1 pint of whipping cream (whipped to garnish the pieces when served)
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Prepare a white cake mix, as directed, in a greased 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan. Cool. Cream the package of cream cheese and powdered sugar. Fold in the whipping cream. Spread this layer over the cake. Next, you place the fresh strawberries over the whipping cream mixture. Cook the Danish dessert and cool slightly then spread over the strawberries. Refrigerate the cake. Place a dollop of whipping cream on each serving. Yummy!
3. Cake Roll
- 3/4 cup flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 eggs
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 4 ounces cream cheese (softened)
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- 3 cups thawed Cool Whip
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Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Beat the eggs until they are frothy. Add the sugar and mix until thick. Fold in the dry ingredients. Add the vanilla. Grease a cookie sheet and cover the cookie sheet with waxed paper. Grease the waxed paper. Spread the batter evenly on the cookie sheet and bake for 13 minutes. Turn the cake upside down on a kitchen towel sprinkled with powdered sugar. Peel off the waxed paper and roll the cake up with the towel while hot. Cool. Spread with filling and roll back up. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and refrigerate until cold. Please note: you can use food coloring to make all different colors of cake with different fillings.
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Fillings: Lemon pudding, Danish dessert with strawberries or raspberries, vanilla or banana pudding, ice cream (soften the ice cream then spread on cake and put the cake in the freezer) keep the other cake rolls in the refrigerator until ready to serve covered with plastic wrap.
Cream Cheese Filling: Combine the cream cheese, powdered sugar, and Cool Whip, mix until smooth with a hand mixer, spread evenly on cake, roll up and refrigerate.
4. Linda’s Peach Glaze Cake
- 1/2 cup butter or one cube
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 3/4 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 eggs
- Whipping Cream
- 6-7 sliced peaches-mash some peaches to make one cup and set the cup aside
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 cup sugar
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Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place all of the ingredients into a medium-size mixing bowl. Grease a flan/tart cake pan and spread the mixture as evenly as possible. The dough/mixture is quite sticky. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes. Wait ten minutes and turn the cake onto a large plate or cake platter.
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Combine the one cup of mashed peaches with the water and sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Let the glaze simmer until clear. Remove from stove and stir in the butter. Let cool before assembling the fruit on flan/tart cake and then scoop the glaze carefully over the sliced peaches. Garnish with whipped cream.
5. Sour Cream Pound Cake
- 1 cup butter at room temperature
- 3 cups sugar
- 6 eggs at room temperature (separate the whites from the yolks)
- 1 cup sour cream
- 3 cups flour
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
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Preheat oven to 325 degrees. The recipe says to sift (I never do) the flour and salt together for a minimum of three times. Cream the butter with sugar, add one yolk at a time beating one minute after each egg. Add the vanilla, flour, sour cream, baking soda, and salt. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture above. Bake in a greased 10-inch fluted pan for 1-1/4 hours to 1-1/2 hours or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for ten minutes before inverting on a cake platter.
I wanted to share these easy desserts today because I’m getting ready to plant some more seeds and waiting until there is no danger to set my tomato plants outside. Have you started a garden where you live?
It’s a great time to make some easy desserts, right? Let me know what you are baking this week. May God bless you and your family.
Here’s a recipe from Kathie:
- 1 Can Sliced Peaches drained (reserve ¼ C juice)
- 1¼ C Sugar (divided)
- 1 C Flour
- 2 t Baking powder
- 1 C Milk
- ½ C Butter
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Heat peaches and ¼ C juice just to boiling.
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Melt butter and pour into 13”x9” baking pan.
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Mix flour, 1 C sugar, baking powder, salt, and milk. Pour over melted butter. Spoon peaches and juice over top, distributing evenly. Sprinkle with ¼ C sugar.
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Bake at 400° about 25-30 minutes.
It’s one of those quick but delicious things – and you don’t even have to use your mixer. A whisk works perfectly!
My favorite cake pans:
My Book: “Prepare Your Family For Survival”
Copyright pictures:
Fruit Tart: AdobeStock_143557521 by M Studio
Strawberry Cake: AdobeStock_138836654 by beats
Cake Rolls: AdobeStock_65238124 by Munandme
Pound Cake: AdobeStock_34081036 by Rojo Images
Oh, Linda, those all look so good! Believe it or not, I made a sour cream pound cake just last week. I use a bit less sugar and almond extract, but other than that, our recipes are very close. Another of my favorite easy fruit desserts is fruit pizza. I use a sour cream sugar cookie crust. After it cools, I top it with whatever fruit is available, then top it all off with a cream cheese glaze (which is basically just thinned down cream cheese frosting). I’m going to have to make your tart/cake soon. It sounds a lot like a spongy cookie pizza! Yum! *G*
Have a great day! Hugs, Mare
Hi Mare, you are so cute!! I love your comment as always! This is so funny because I could not find my cookie crust recipe! I used to make a fruit pizza with a cookie crust! I love it! Hugs, Linda
And I use my homemade ‘canned’ crescent dough recipe to which I add a couple T. sugar when stirring.
I don’t know where you are living, but in the United States, 1/2 cup butter is one stick, not 1 cube. We would call 1 cube as 1 tablespoon as that’s what the stick is marked out as. I don’t know any company who makes butter in 1/2 cup = 1 cube measurement. I may be wrong but in my 69 years I’ve never seen it that way.
Hi Belinda, I’m 68 years old and I live in Utah. I was raised in Nevada. Thanks for your comment, these recipes are really old, handed down from generations. I learned 1/2 cup is one stick or one cube. I started adding the 1/2 cup so there wouldn’t be any confusion. Thanks again, Linda
Belinda, I am 63 and I have lived in 7 states around the US, and have seen 100’s of recipes calling for 1 cube of butter, always meaning 1 stick. When I lived in Alabama in the mid-seventies, several women spoke of cubes instead of sticks. I have never heard anybody refer to any other amount as a “cube” of butter. Oh, except in one late 19th century recipe calling for “a cube of butter about the size of a walnut.”
This is my easy go-to dessert:
Peach Cobbler
1 Can Sliced Peaches, drained (reserve ¼ C juice)
1¼ C Sugar, divided
1 C Flour
2 t Baking powder
1 C Milk
½ C Butter
Heat peaches and ¼ C juice just to boiling.
Melt butter and pour into 13”x9” baking pan.
Mix flour, 1 C sugar, baking powder, salt and milk. Pour over melted butter. Spoon peaches and juice over top, distributing evenly. Sprinkle with ¼ C sugar.
Bake at 400° about 25-30 minutes.
It’s one of those quick but delicious things – and you don’t even have to use your mixer. A wisk works perfect!
Hi Kathie, thanks for this yummy recipe, I’m going to add it to my post, thank you!! I have got to make this one!!! Linda
Can this be baked in a loaf pan? I’ve been craving a good old fashioned pound cake and can’t wait to make it, BUT I don’t have a bundt pan.
And have you ever added lemon extract, or almond extract with poppy seeds?
Hi Carol, I’m sure you can make it in a loaf pan. I remember my mom making it in a loaf pan. I only have one-pound bread pans. I have never used any extract in mine but I’m sure you can. Oh my gosh, now my mouth is watering for one with poppy seeds!! If you use a toothpick and it comes out clean, its cooked. I just picked up some more strawberries yesterday, I’m going to try making one in a loaf pan. I will have to try making it in two of my one-pound bread pans. Fingers crossed. Linda
nobody cares Marlene, she talks however she wants and i think its fine. If i can understand this then so can a haggard old granny like you.
Sincerely, Catrina.
2 fast desserts we make occasionally…..usually for get togethers….
Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies
Easy dessert that was gone by the end of our family evening together….
Oven 350°
Grease an 11x15x1 pan (we always use shortening for greasing pans, such as Spectrum brand)
1 c. butter, softened in microwave but NOT melted
1 and 1/4 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. sugar
1 T. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 and 3/4 c. flour (we use 1 cup of whole wheat flour + 1 and 3/4 c. flour)
1 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
12 oz. semi sweet chocolate chips
Beat softened butter, sugars, vanilla, eggs until fluffy. Add: flour, salt baking soda, mix in to combine. Stir in chocolate chips. Place batter in large dobs on greased pan, then gently smooth together into one even layer. Bake 22 to 25 minutes, until outer edges are getting slightly golden, this is the key: just to slightly getting golden. Remove from oven and let cool. Cut into bars.
Fast Fudge
We add 1 cup of chopped walnuts, but it’s just as good plain….
2 T. butter
3 c. semi sweet chocolate chips
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
Line an 8×8 square pan with a large piece of foil that goes over edges, press foil to fit pan, then butter the foil.
In microwave proof large glass bowl: Melt butter only first; then add chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk. Microwave for 2 minutes. Stir. Then do 10 second intervals and stir after each time, until smooth. When melted/smooth, add the vanilla (and chopped nuts if using). Scrape into buttered pan, smooth top. Cool on cabinet for a while (I put it on a wire rack), then cover with plastic and chill for 1+ hours. (NOTE: do not cover with plastic and try chilling when it’s hot…..let cool to luke-warmish FIRST). When chilled/hard/cold, remove carefully by lifting foil/fudge from pan; turn over onto cutting board. Use a pizza cutter, to cut fudge.
Hi Janet, I have got to add these recipes to my post, thank you much!!!! Linda