Delightful Fruit

I made two delicious fruit desserts in the past week. The first, Strawberry Summer Cake from Smitten Kitchen, I made in honor of the first day of summer. My photo does not look nearly as mouth-watering as Deb's from Smitten Kitchen, but the cake was absolutely amazing. For one thing, the smell of the cake fresh out of the oven would probably make the list of the Top Five Best Things I Have Ever Smelled. And, just like the recipe promised, the strawberried got all soft and jammy and amazing-tasting.


The second fruity dessert I made is called Cherry Delight. It brings back memories of summers spent with my relatives in Indiana because my grandma made it often. I haven't served it in a while (I've been into cake-baking lately), but I needed a quick and easy no-bake dessert for a get-together my husband was hosting for some of his co-workers and his boss (and he had the oven tied up with his five racks of ribs). As I was throwing it together, I started thinking about all the variations Cherry Delight lends itself to. You could replace the graham cracker crust with chocolate cookies, attempt a real cherry filling instead of canned pie filling or even experiment with other fruits, and you could easily use blueberries to create an American flag effect.


Cherry Delight

-This recipe makes one batch, which fits well in a 2-quart casserole dish. For my husband's dinner, I doubled the recipe and put it in a 9x13 casserole dish.

Ingredients:
8-10 graham crackers (depending on how much crust you like), smashed until fine (I do this by placing the crackers in a gallon ZipLoc bag and crushing them with a rolling pin)
1 Tbsp. melted butter or margarine
1 packet of Dream Whip
8 oz. cream cheese, softened (I use the 1/3-less-fat kind)
1 can cherry pie filling

Mix crushed graham crackers with melted butter in your casserole dish. Use a fork or your fingers to form crust on bottom of dish. Prepare Dream Whip as directed (you'll need milk and vanilla), then beat in softened cream cheese until mixture is fairly smooth. Spread over crust and refrigerate to set. Spread canned cherry pie filling over the cream cheese mixture and refrigerate until ready to serve. Enjoy!