Easy Summer Desserts

Summertime is one of the few seasons where desserts always seem like a mandatory part of every party. After all, what would the boardwalk be without ice cream or saltwater taffy? Worse would be a picnic or summer BBQ without popsicles for the kids.

If you want to have a great dessert for a summertime party but don't have a lot of time (or skill) on your hands, don't spazz. These easy summer desserts require minimal skill or effort — and maximize the good vibes of the summer sun.

DIY Ice Pops

When you talk about easy summer desserts, nothing quite matches the ease of DIY ice pops. For this treat, all you need is a popsicle tray with sticks and some juice.

Ingredients:

• Juice (Orange, grape, and apple juice work well. Tomato juice doesn't.)

How To Make It:

1. Just pour the juice in the tray, put the stick parts of the popsicle tray in, and freeze it for about an hour.
2. Pull them out of the freezer, and ta da — fruity, juicy, popsicles.

Frozen Bananas

This was one of the few easy summer desserts I learned from an old family friend as a kid. When her two sons were young, she had a very hard time actually getting them to eat fruit — unless it was frozen bananas, that is.

Ingredients:

• 1-2 bananas, peeled and sliced
• Chocolate Fondue chips.

How To Make It:

1. Place the sliced bananas on a plate.
2. Melt the chocolate.
3. Dip the bananas in the melted chocolate.
4. Freeze them.
5. Take them out, and enjoy your delicious frozen treats!

Frozen Banana Ice Cream

Ever wanted DIY ice cream? There are some easy summer desserts that feature making your own ice cream...using bananas. (You could say I'm going bananas for these recipes!) As long as you have a freezer and a blender, you'll be able to whip up a pretty chill banana-flavored ice cream dessert in a pinch.

Ingredients:

• 4 bananas

How To Make It:

1. Freeze the bananas until they are solid.
2. Put the frozen bananas in a blender and whip until they're fluffy as soft serve ice cream. If you like more traditional ice cream, you can actually put them in a container and freeze the banana ice cream until it's solid.

Fruit Salad

If you're looking for a diet-friendly dessert that can literally be made by dumping whatever fruit you find in your house together, this is it. Fruit salad is as easy as it gets, and it's also incredibly good for you. Easy summer desserts started with a classic fruit salad, so we might as well include one here.

Ingredients:

• 2 peaches, chopped and pitted
• 2 cups strawberries, sliced
• 1 handful of chopped apples
• 2 kiwi fruits, sliced and skinned
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup orange-pineapple juice
• Shredded coconut with sugar (optional)

How To Make It:

1. Pour all the ingredients in a bowl and mix.
2. Leave the salad to sit in the fridge for an hour or so before serving for the fruit salad to soak up the juices.
3. Top with shredded coconut (optional) and serve.

Easy Root Beer Float Pie

We'll admit it, we got this recipe from Taste of Home, but it definitely fits the category of easy summer desserts — and they're right, this is a recipe that will have kids thinking back to time spent at your home. It's also easy as pie. (Pun intended.)

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces reduced-fat whipped topping (refrigerated)
• 3/4 cup cold root beer
• 1/2 cup fat-free milk
• 1 package (1 oz) sugar-free instant vanilla pudding mix
• 1 graham cracker crust, 9-inch diameter

How To Make It:

1. Grab a bowl, and whisk the root beer, milk, and pudding mix together. Add half of the whipped topping to the mixture, stirring gently.
2. Put the mixture into the pie crust you got.
3. Add the remaining whipped topping on top, then refrigerate the pie for 8 hours.
4. Serve!

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

This is one of my own personal recipes — one which I inadvertently discovered by accident when my roommate had bought cherry cookie icing rather than strawberry icing. It's one of the best easy summer desserts I've ever made, and if you can bake, you can do it in a pinch.

Ingredients:

• 1 roll of sugar cookie dough, like the Pillsbury Sugar Cookie tubes in grocery stores
• 1 package strawberries, cleaned and stemmed.
• 1 container of cherry icing

How To Make It:

1. Prepare the sugar cookies as you normally would. Let the cookies cool.
2. Top with cherry icing, and then top with 1-2 strawberries.
3. When you eat a cookie whole, it'll taste more like strawberry shortcake than it will a cookie.

Orange Cream Floats

Whoever came up with these inventive ice cream desserts must have really had an imagination. The idea of milk products with soda just sounds vile...until you try it, that is. Now, because they're so refreshing, these easy summer desserts are a must for anyone that wants a drinkable sweet.

This is my personal favorite recipe for an ice cream float. I'm particular about floats, so make sure to get the right brands if you want it to taste incredible.

Ingredients:

• 1 small scoop Ben and Jerry's vanilla ice cream (Note: You can also get a vegan version of this if you are a non-dairy dessert lover.)
• 1 bottle Stewart's Orange and Cream Soda, chilled

How To Make It:

1. Pour the soda into a glass.
2. Top with the ice cream, serve while listening to Dion's "Runaround Sue."