Strawberry Delight Dessert – Easy No-Bake Recipe

Strawberry Delight Dessert is an easy (and delicious!) no-bake layered dessert with crushed graham crackers on the bottom, followed by a creamy layer of fluff and homemade strawberry topping. It’s the perfect dessert for a wide variety of different occasions!

Easy Mennonite-style No Bake Strawberry Delight Dessert 

MMM, this one’s a classic. And super simple to make, too. 

And another cool thing about this dessert, you can customize the flavor! (See the Customize section.) 

I love strawberry season. Fresh strawberries are the best! When I was younger, picking strawberries in the large strawberry patch in the garden was a chore; not gonna lie, I didn’t really enjoy it then. 

However, after the strawberries are picked, there are so many great dessert recipes you can make with them! Fresh homemade strawberry pie is definitely at the top of my list, but you can make a simple 4-ingredient homemade strawberry dessert and eat it just like it is, or with Grandma’s Famous Homemade Chocolate Cake, or use it as a topping for a dessert like Mini Cheesecakes, or this strawberry delight. 

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Supplies + Tools

• 9×13 pan – we use a glass 9×13 pan for this dessert usually; something about having a pretty dessert in a clear glass pan just takes it to another level!
  
• Food processor – a food processor makes short work of crushing the graham crackers, though you can totally just put them in a ziploc bag, remove the air and seal the bag, and use a rolling pin to crush them, like we did today.
  
• Measuring cups and spoons
  
• Spatulas
  
• Saucepan and whisk – to make the homemade strawberry topping.
  
• Several mixing bowls – one to mix up the graham cracker base layer,
  and another to whip up the creamy white layer.

Ingredients 

For the graham cracker crust:

• Graham cracker crumbs – from original graham crackers. If you like the cinnamon flavor you can use the cinnamon graham crackers for a little extra flavor!
  
• Sugar – regular white granulated sugar. If you’re wanting to cut out some sugar in this recipe, here’s a great place to do so! Just omit the extra sugar in the crust.
  
• Butter – salted butter

For the creamy middle layer:

• Cream cheese – don’t forget to get this out of the fridge a while before starting, so it has a chance to soften! Soft cream cheese is so much easier to whip smooth.
  
• Sugar – more granulated white sugar
  
• Whipped Topping – such as Cool Whip or you can make your own whipped cream topping if you wish.

For the homemade strawberry dessert sauce:

• Water – from the tap’s fine.
  
• Perma-flo – you might not be able to find this in the grocery store (we buy it at a local bulk food store). You can purchase therm-flo on Amazon, which works great also. Cornstarch is another option, though it tends to “weep” and make the graham cracker crust soggy.
  
• Sugar – still more granulated white sugar.
  
• Jello – strawberry gelatin
  
• Sliced strawberries – fresh or frozen. Today we’re using frozen ones!

Find the full recipe on the handy little printable recipe card at the bottom of this post!

How to make Strawberry Delight Dessert

First, make the topping. No, I’m not crazy, this is just the most efficient way I’ve found to make this dessert! This stuff has to chill before adding to the dessert, so it works great to get it made first so it can get a head start on chilling in the fridge!

In a saucepan, whisk together the cold water, perma-flo, and sugar together. Bring to a boil and simmer, whisking frequently, until the mixture thickens and looks translucent. Add the jello, whisk, and remove the strawberry mixture from the burner. (If you’re using frozen strawberries, you can add them now but if you’re using fresh, wait until the mixture has cooled.) Place the strawberry mixture in the fridge to chill for an hour or more.

Next, make the graham cracker crust. Crush the graham crackers into crumbs, then mix thoroughly with the melted butter and sugar. Grease the pan with a butter wrapper, (or skip greasing altogether!) then press the graham crumb mixture into the bottom of a 9×13 pan.

Now make the fluffy middle layer. This just might be my favorite part of this dessert! In a large mixing bowl, use an electric hand mixer to beat the cream cheese and sugar together until it’s smooth. Slowly mix in the milk on low speed, then fold in the whipped topping. Don’t forget to scrape the sides of the bowl! Spread the cream cheese mixture in an even layer on top of the graham cracker crust.

Once the strawberry topping has cooled, spread it on top of the cream cheese layer. 

Serve and enjoy!💛

How do I store Strawberry Delight Dessert?

Store the strawberry dessert, covered, in the fridge for up to five days.

Customize your dessert!

Did I mention you can use whichever fruit you choose? Doesn’t have to be strawberry delight, like we did. You can make peach delight dessert by using peach jello and fresh or frozen peaches in the topping, or cherry jello with cherries, and so on.

You could even do a mixed berry topping, by adding a variety of berries, in addition to strawberries!

Notes

We like to use perma-flo in the homemade strawberry topping, but it’s rather hard to find if you don’t have a local bulk food store. Instead, you can use therm-flo (available on Amazon) or cornstarch. If you use cornstarch, I’d recommend eating the dessert the same day it’s made, since it tends to seep a little bit of water and the graham crust may get soggy!

It’s rather important to whisk the perma-flo/cornstarch with cool water. If you try to add it when the water’s already getting close to boiling, it will make little hard lumps instead of whisking smooth!

You can use fresh or frozen strawberries in this recipe, no problem. However, frozen strawberries add a little bit more liquid to the mixture, resulting in a thinner strawberry sauce topping. So if you use fresh, the topping may be a little thick. No worries, you can always thin it just a little by whisking in a little bit of water!

This dessert is best on the day it’s made! I wouldn’t recommend making it until the day you’re ready to eat it.

If you really want to take a shortcut, use a can of strawberry pie filling from the store for the top layer! And of course, if strawberry flavor isn’t your thing, you can use any canned pie filling.

More fun dessert recipes to try next:

• Eclair Pudding Dessert
  
• Homemade Mini Cheesecakes 
  
• Thickened Fruit Salad Dessert

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’til next time, we love you and we’ll be praying for you,

-Julie