The 4th of July is right around the corner, and Walmart asked me to create a patriotic treat to share. I had big plans for a patriotic cheesecake–I bought graham crackers to make homemade crumbs and 4 bars of cream cheese. . . and then life, well life started happening. The kids had to have summer clothes shopping done before camp and vacation, we had to finish clearing out my dad’s house before his lease was up now that he’s at an assisted living, I had to pack and plan for vacation. You get the idea. Time got away from me.
I just didn’t have the time or inclination to mess around with a homemade cheesecake, as lovely as they are. Instead I needed to whip up something easy before the due date for this post!
I felt a bit guilty about it.
Then I realized–Jenn, it’s ok. Because you know what? There are lots of folks out there who want to make a special dessert, something with a bit of fun factor, but who run up against the same kind of restrains on their time and their energy. A quick, easy treat option is exactly what most people need!
Enter the hero of our patriotic dessert:
The Jello No Bake Cherry Cheesecake Dessert Kit. Yup, just pop into your local Walmart and pick up one of these for under $3. While you are there grab a 9″ pie plate and some gel food coloring (in blue and red-preferably no taste red) if you don’t have them.
All you’ll need to whip up the kit is a couple tablespoons of sugar, a little more than half a stick of butter and some milk. The directions are on the back of the box and dead simple–you melt the butter and mix it with the package of crumbs and some sugar. Press it into your pie plate. Next use a stand mixer and mix the filling package with milk.
When the cheesecake filling is done I separated out the filling into three bowls. I left 1/3 plain, then colored 1/3 red and 1/3 blue. The most difficult part of the whole process was washing my mixer bowl and beater in between each color so that I didn’t wind up with purple cheesecake.
To fill the crust I just “plopped” the different colors in. I did fairly big scoops–I think next time I’ll take a bit longer and do smaller spoonfuls so that each finished slice has more colors showing.
I didn’t want to leave the top all lumpy, so I spread it out gently with a knife to fill in all the cracks. This did lead to a purplish marbled layer, but I think it still looked fine.
After an hour in the fridge the Patriotic Jello No Bake Cheesecake was done. I pulled out some heavy cream, whipped it up in my stand mixer (which had been washed for about the 3rd time) and added a bit of powdered sugar 1/2 way through for a fresh whipped cream. Plopped that on top with a cherry and this easy patriotic dessert was done!
Can’t get much easier then that!
Want some more great ideas for the 4th of July?
Modern Mami made some Patriotic Sandwich Cookies
Mommy Brain Reports created Red White and Blue Mini Fruit Pizzas
Lynnae McCoy whipped up some 4th of July Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes
Mommy’s Kitchen has a gorgeous 4th of July Fruit Pizza
****This is a sponsored post****
Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, I’ve received product samples and compensation for my time and efforts in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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