9 Strawberry Desserts to Put on Your Must-Make List

Here at Cook’s Country, we have plenty of recipes featuring these sweet, jewel-toned fruits—some baked, some no-cook, some chilled, and some warm—so there’s something for every strawberry-lover out there. Here are some of our favorite strawberry desserts.

Let’s start with our show-stopping Strawberry Galette, a gorgeous dessert featuring a buttery crust and warm, soft, sweet strawberries. To ensure the flakiest dough, we turned to a tried-and-true method called fraisage, which is just a way to make dough by smearing flour, butter, and water together on the counter using the heel of your hand. To avoid a leaky tart and intensify the strawberry flavor, we combined the strawberries with a little sugar. When the strawberries released their juices, we drained them off and stirred in strawberry jam and cornstarch to thicken any additional juices that leached out during baking. The final result is an irresistible warm galette packed with flavor.

Slightly easier to make than our galette but just as delicious is our humble Strawberry Cobbler. A simple filling of strawberries, sugar, cornstarch, and vanilla (plus an optional sprinkle of pepper for warmth) provides the base for a cobblestone-like patch of buttermilk biscuits. The whole dish bakes together, allowing the strawberry mixture to get thick and syrupy and the biscuits to rise and brown. One bite of this rustic dessert topped with vanilla ice cream just won’t be enough.

If you like the contrast of a supercrunchy topping and warm, soft, cooked fruit, look no further than our Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp. Sweet strawberries offset by tart rhubarb make up the balanced filling here, while a mixture of flour, brown sugar, butter, panko bread crumbs (they really push the crunch factor to the limit), cinnamon, and salt forms the crisp, crunchy, lightly spiced topping. Spoon some up and dig in.

As soon as I see the word chiffon, I know I’m in for something light and ethereal, which is just the case with our Strawberry Chiffon Pie. We start with a shortbread crust enhanced with toasted almonds for nutty flavor. And then we move on to the filling. To keep it superlight, we make a strawberry puree and thicken it with gelatin and egg whites that we’ve whipped into a meringue. Then we whip some cream and fold that into the strawberry mixture. (Like I said, ethereal.) Finally, for the best strawberry flavor and eating experience, we fold thinly sliced strawberries right in and pile it all into the buttery crust. After 3 hours of chilling, the chiffon pie is set and ready for devouring.

Our sweet, ruby-hued Strawberry Sorbet simply requires blending carefully calibrated amounts of strawberries, sugar, corn syrup, lemon juice, and salt; chilling the mixture; and churning it in an ice cream maker. It’s so refreshing on a warm, sunny day. (And bonus: This is a great option if you or your guests have dietary restrictions, such as dairy-free or gluten-free.)

I have sung the praises of our Strawberry Cheesecake Bars before, and I’m just going to keep on doing it. They’re that good. Do you love cheesecake? Do you love strawberries? Then watch the video below to learn the best way to put the two together for the ideal creamy texture and most intense strawberry flavor.

Usually made with individual-size cakes, or biscuits, and heaped with juicy berries and a mountain of whipped cream, strawberry shortcakes are easy to love. But while the original is supersatisfying, we elevated it just slightly with our Strawberry Cornmeal Shortcakes. Replacing some of the flour in the biscuits with cornmeal gave them nutty flavor and a delicate crunch that balanced the softened berries and whipped cream. Give them a try and see if you like the upgrade as much as we do.

One of the best partners for strawberries is chocolate; that’s why chocolate-covered strawberries are so popular. This combination inspired our Chocolate Strawberry Cake. It features rich, moody chocolate cake layers and light, bright strawberry buttercream, plus a glistening crown of jam-glazed strawberries. The dark (chocolate) side is calling.

Strawberry Dream Cake is a stalwart in the Cook’s Country arsenal. This cake has been pleasing home bakers for over a decade. And it’s not hard to see why: We figured out that we could infuse the cake with strawberry flavor by microwaving the strawberries briefly to release their juices. We added the juices to the cake batter and used the strawberry solids in the frosting. If you’re looking for strawberry on strawberry, this cake’s for you.

I don’t know about you, but all these ideas have me wanting to go strawberry picking. Bring on the strawberries!