Summertime is Family Time

Summertime, and the living is care-free, slowed-down, and delicious. Summertime is a special season when folks adopt a more casual tone; where time spent with family and friends becomes a bit more celebratory when lived between those welcomed cool breezes amongst the waves of the heat.

During summer, the pace slows down and you exchange your hustle for a stroll, your stovetop cooking for the smokiness of the grill. And your dessert repertoire change, too. The bounty of summer gives way to so many different fruits to try, all plump and ripe for the picking. Summer time is the only time of year my family plays "farmer" as we head to the strawberry and blueberry fields to pick our own. There is something so grounded, so simplistically elegant in eating what your eyes have chosen and your hands have picked from the rich soil. In that brief moment we truly sense our belonging to Mother Earth and are all too happy to partake in her bounty.

For my family, summertime is an opportunity to treat ourselves to something special: daily dessert. Unless it's a special occasion, we typically forgo the dessert course during the other seasons. So why is summer different? Because, for us, summer allows us to enjoy each other more, without the busyness of school, sports, homework, and the early darkness daylight savings brings. With strict schedules shelved, along with longer days and cooler nights, dessert becomes part of my family's dinner plan. Dessert brings celebration to our ordinary day and food always brings people together in a special way. After ending a meal with dessert, my family calls it a good day, no matter what happened between sunup and sundown. If it's summer and there's dessert, it can't be anything but a good day!

Celebrate your family tonight with this simple dessert that takes advantage of summer's fresh fruit bounty of strawberries and blueberries and couples it with COOL WHIP Whipped Topping in a most special way.

COOL WHIP Pavlova with Berries

What You'll Need

Strawberries

Blueberries

COOL WHIP Whipped Topping

Glass bowls

 What You'll Do

This is my take on Pavlova, but using COOL WHIP Whipped Topping instead of egg whites and sugar, and baking in an oven. This is summer, remember? The desserts should be quick, easy, and delicious!

Take your glass bowl, even a glass cup will do, and scoop the COOL WHIP Whipped Topping into the bowl or cup. With the back of your spoon, make a well in the middle, spreading the COOL WHIP Whipped Topping to the sides.

Place the bowls or cups into your freezer for about 2 hours. Freezing COOL WHIP Whipped Topping yields tasty results. It never gets completely frozen to hardness but, instead, becomes firm. It creates the perfect bed for your strawberries and blueberries!

What You'll Need to Know to Finish

When your family is ready for dessert, just remove your bowls from the freezer and add cut-up strawberries and whole blueberries to the well. Enjoy!

If you have a bit more time or you need a dessert for a special occasion, give this Summer Strawberry Cake a try. The time commitment doesn't come from effort so much as it comes from waiting for the various layers to set in the refrigerator.

Summer Strawberry Cake

What You'll Need

3/4 of an Angel Food Cake

Strawberry JELL-O (larger package: 6-ounce)

Vanilla JELL-O Instant Pudding (larger package: 5.1-ounce)

1/2 cup Strawberries, cut-up

COOL WHIP Whipped Topping (smaller tub: 8-ounce)

3 cups Water (not shown)

2-1/2 cups Milk (not shown)

Glass Dish, rectangular

Pot to boil water (not shown)

What You'll Do

I purchased my angel food cake and cut away 1/4 of the cake to be used another day. Tear up the remaining 3/4 of the cake and place the torn pieces in the glass dish. Cut up the strawberries into bite-sized slices and scatter over the angel food cake.

Boil 2 cups of water and add the whole 2 cups to the Strawberry JELL-O mix. When dissolved, add 1 cup of cold water to the mix and pour over the angel food cake and strawberries. Place in the refrigerator for 2 hours to set.

After 2 hours, make the JELL-O instant pudding, but only use 2-1/2 cups of milk to make it thicker. Mix the milk with the JELL-O Instant Pudding Mix until thick. Pour over the cake, spread the pudding evenly over the cake and place back into the fridge to set for another 2 hours, or overnight.

What You'll Need to Know to Finish

To finish, just top your pudding with COOL WHIP Whipped Topping by evenly spreading the entire 8-ounce contents over the pudding. Place in the refrigerator for another half hour, at least. When ready, slice up and enjoy! Be sure to place this cake back into the fridge after slicing.

LOVD friends, I hope you share some of these recipes with your family and celebrate summer!

Do you have a special dessert you'd like to share? Enter COOL WHIP's Fan Dessert of the Month Contest for a chance to win $500! Simply make a COOL WHIP dessert, take a photo, and upload it here. Enter now!

 

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