Healthy Picnic Dessert Recipes

Easy buttermilk biscuits top this healthy peach cobbler recipe made with a glug of bourbon. If you prefer to leave out the liquor, try swapping apple juice or cider for the bourbon.

This simple zucchini bread recipe is a great way to use up your summer bumper crop of zucchini. Try it with toasted walnuts or raisins, or add chocolate chips for a more dessertlike bread. Freeze 2-cup portions of shredded zucchini so you can make zucchini bread all year long.

A fruit crisp offers the luscious flavor of a fresh fruit pie without the fuss of making a crust. Celebrate the arrival of late-summer peaches with this rich-tasting crisp. The nut-studded topping works great with other fruit combinations too.

People likely won't even notice that these delicately nutty, just a little chocolaty, blondies are gluten-free. They use quinoa flour, which you can find in well-stocked supermarkets and natural-foods stores, in place of all-purpose flour. To make your own quinoa flour, grind raw quinoa into a powder in a clean coffee grinder. (Adapted from Quinoa Revolution by Patricia Green and Carolyn Hemming.)

This rice pudding is dairy-free, but the bananas and rice milk make it so creamy and rich-tasting, no one will know the difference.

This wonderful rich, sweet lemon pound cake is downright zingy and the candied lemon slices are a beautiful bittersweet topping that's better than frosting. The best part, though: when you taste it you won't miss all the butter we cut out compared with a traditional pound cake recipe.

Though this stunning red, white and blue American flag cake screams “Fourth of July Cake,” it's such a good dessert you'll want to make it for Memorial Day and other summer holidays too. We made this flag cake recipe healthy, with less saturated fat and calories than traditional versions, by replacing some butter in the yellow sheet cake with oil. Plus, for the cream cheese frosting, we replaced some of the cream cheese and butter with low-fat Greek yogurt.

Say hello to decadence. These richly-flavored, diabetic-friendly Cherry-Almond Cheesecake Bars use reduced-fat cream cheese and whipped topping to minimize both calorie and total fat content per serving.

Your favorite drink gets turned into dessert with this festive creamy lime pie spiked with tequila. Instead of a salted rim, our margarita pie gets a kick of saltiness from a pretzel crust. This refreshing pie is easy to make and freezes well, too. Cheers!

A summer pudding is a British warm-weather wonder--not steamed like a sticky pudding but an easy dish that sets up thanks to the pectin in the berries. Be sure to use firm, bakery-quality bread.

The hallmark of a cobbler is a biscuit topping baked right on top of the fruit. Here blueberries (or blackberries) and corn make a fun match. The sunny cornmeal batter comes together quickly and looks gorgeous on top of the deep-dark fruit filling. We like the rustic texture of medium- or coarse-ground cornmeal, but any type works.

Make a batch of these easy homemade dried-fruit bars to tuck into your kid's lunchbox all week.

These easy apple-cinnamon fruit bars make a big batch--perfect for fall potlucks and parties.

This makeover recipe was one of the favorites chosen for our 30th anniversary issue. Tahini gives this cookie a subtle sesame flavor.

Patti Anderson, a professional quilter, had never entered a cooking contest before she took our challenge. This quick, no-fuss, chewy chocolate cookie is made on your waffle iron. No need to haul out the big mixer, you can mix the batter with a small hand mixer or even by hand. Kids love these!

Bite into one of these cookies and you'll discover the subtle flavor of spice kissed with a hint of citrus. And the best part? Just 9 calories each!

Rhubarb and strawberries go hand in hand, and what better way to honor the combination than in this classic summer pie. The lattice top looks fancy but the technique is super-easy to master.

This healthy yellow cake recipe is perfect for making a sheet cake for a birthday, holiday or any celebration and the easy cream cheese frosting recipe is ready in just five minutes. Use fresh berries to decorate the cake with flower designs or get creative and make your own pattern. We made this yellow cake healthier by replacing some butter in the cake with oil, using reduced-fat cream cheese and low-fat Greek yogurt for the frosting instead of full-fat cream cheese and butter, and using fruit instead of colored frosting for decoration.

Every panaderia (bakery) in Puerto Rico has many flavors of flan, from vanilla to guava. Reduced-fat cream cheese gives this version a rich, comforting texture.

Cynthia Farr-Weinfeld, a hypnotherapist and writer, started improving the nutritional profile of a friend's mother's ginger cookie recipe by substituting whole-wheat pastry flour for all-purpose flour and canola oil for shortening. “Experiment with these cookies,” she advises, “as they taste great either slightly underdone or crispy.” She calls them “the quickest cookies you'll ever bake.”

Fresh strawberries top a lightly sweet cream cheese filling in this lightened-up pie recipe. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream for a delicious and photo-worthy finish.

These adorable strawberry shortcakes are made with mini angel food cakes. These single-serve desserts are perfect for a picnic or party on a warm summer day.

Inspired by the old-school, ultra-rich, mousselike chocolate cake that usually called for a whole pound of chocolate, half a dozen eggs and lots of butter, this enlightened rendition has deep bittersweet chocolate flavor and dense melt-in-your-mouth texture. No one will guess it's healthier. The secret is excellent natural cocoa powder and good-quality bittersweet chocolate, preferably with 70% cacao. Although the cake can be eaten once it's completely cool, it comes out of the pan much easier and even tastes better if it has been chilled at least overnight.

You can make these bars ahead of time and freeze them, tightly wrapped in foil, for up to 3 months.