Recipes

8 Quick And Light Summer Dessert Recipes

Emily Jacobs|

As we prepare to move into the summer season and dig out our swimsuits and skin-baring clothing, it's time to shift to lighter and healthier food options — specifically in the calorie-laden dessert category. With summer's bounty of fresh fruits and all the myriad ways to incorporate them into sweet desserts, there's no reason to not have your beach-bod-worthy cake and eat it too.

Click here to see the 8 Quick and Light Summer Dessert Recipes (Slideshow)

With so many recipes for easy and light summer desserts making the rounds this season, we decided it would be the ideal theme for this week's SWAT (Sharing With A Theme). We put the Culinary Content Network and our staff to the test to come up with quick and light summer dessert recipes, and here are some of the highlights:

  • Lori Yates of Foxes Love Lemons shared her recipe for chocolate-covered bananas. These are not only the simplest to prepare, but the tasty treats are even better with sprinkles and eaten on a stick.
  • Christina Lakey of Food Apparel made a fruit cake that's actually made entirely of fruit. Use a large round piece of watermelon as the base and decorate with your other favorite fruits.
  • The winner this week is Elizabeth Brunetti of The Bare Midriff Blog and her recipe for blueberry-peach cobbler that is made healthy with almond milk and granola. Not only will you be able to bare you midriff, but this sweet dish makes the most of summer's best fruits.

All of the recipes featured can be made at home for about $30 or less, excluding the cost of small amounts of basic ingredients such as butter, oil, flour, sugar, salt, pepper, and other dried herbs and spices.

Fresh Fruit Cake Recipe

This fresh fruit cake is far from the classic fruit cake and is made entirely of real fruit. Use a large round piece of watermelon as the base and decorate with your other favorite fruits.

Click here to see the Fresh Fruit Cake Recipe

Banana, Strawberry, and Chia Seed Pudding Recipe

This fruit and chia seed pudding is not only healthy, but nutty and will satisfy any sweet tooth on a hot summer day.

Click here to see the Banana, Strawberry, and Chia Seed Pudding Recipe

Click here to see more Quick and Light Summer Desserts

Emily Jacobs is the Recipe editor at The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @EmilyRecipes.

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