No Bake Cheesecake Patriotic Flag Dessert

Happy 4th of July! I can’t believe summer is already here! Seems like just yesterday I was pulling long sleeved shirts out of my closet and in a flash – shorts and summer dresses are replacing bulky sweaters.I hope you all are having a wonderful beginning of summer. as for our family, we have taken a couple beach vacations so far, one with friends to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina which was such a hoot! Wow, we have never vacationed with friends and their children…it’s a whole new experience and such a fun way to enjoy a vacation. Our other vacation was to Bethany Beach. My brother has a fabulous beach home and we so enjoy spending family time laughing along with drinks on the boat. Such great memories for both vacays. You may have followed along on Instagram stories HERE as I was posting quite often.

We are back home and ready to party for the 4th! We are headed to our friends home with an all day rager! Ok, not sure how raging it will get with kids there, but we will try our best 😉 I am bringing along a dessert I recently found that doesn’t involve any baking and is so appropriate for the 4th of July. What better dessert to share with friends that an American flag cheesecake. This patriotic recipe is great for Veteran’s Day, July 4th, Memorial Day or any summer day you would like a delicious refreshing and colorful dessert! To make this dish you will need the following:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups finely crushed graham cracker crumbs
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 6 tablespoons butter, melted
• 2 tsp grated lemon zest
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups cold heavy whipping cream
• 20 large fresh strawberries, hulled and halved lengthwise, or as needed
• 24 large fresh blueberries, or as needed

Filling

• 1 cup cream cheese at room temperature
• 1 cup mascarpone cheese at room temperature

To make the graham cracker crumbs, I crushed the crackers in the individual package it came in.

Then I transferred it to a bowl and used a muddle to crush the larger pieces into smaller crumbs.

Combine graham cracker crumbs, 1/4 cup sugar, cocoa powder, and melted butter in a bowl until mixture is thoroughly combined and crumbly.

Transfer crust mixture to a 9×11-inch baking dish. Press crust into bottom of dish until smooth and even. Cover dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate until set, about 30 minutes.

Mix cream cheese and mascarpone cheese in a bowl until thoroughly combined. Make sure it is properly softened so it will mix smoothly.

Stir in lemon zest, lemon juice, and PURE vanilla extract into mixture. Pure extract will work much better in this recipe than imitation extract!

Whisk 1/3 cup sugar into whipping cream in a separate metal or glass bowl until the cream is fluffy and forms soft peaks.

Add whipped cream to the cream cheese mixture and gently whisk until filling is soft, fluffy, and well combined.

Spoon filling on top of the graham cracker crust, spreading and smoothing the top. Cover pan tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled and set, at least 3 hours.

Starting at the bottom long edge of the cake, arrange strawberry halves in a horizontal line with the pointed bottoms of the strawberry halves pointing to the right. Start a second stripe of strawberry halves at the top right of the cake, arranging strawberries with the bottoms pointing right in a line stretching about 2/3 of the length of the cake.

Continue to make strawberry stripes, starting about 3/4 inch up from the bottom stripe and laying down 3 more stripes stretching the full length of the cake. Make 1 more line of strawberries beneath the short stripe to leave a square space for the blue field of stars. I tried to use similar sized strawberries if possible.

Lay a line of blueberries with the blossom ends pointing up in the upper left square space. Continue to lay down blueberries in lines, berries touching the previous line, until the square is filled with blueberries.

Cut cake into squares to serve.

Enjoy your patriotic dessert and your holiday!!

Pin IT!

Denise

XO

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