No-Bake Strawberry Lemonade Bites are sweet little treats that taste just like summertime!
When I think back to the summers of my childhood, I remember hopping on my bike after breakfast, and not returning home ’til dinner. Tossing then collecting dive rings at the local pool for hours on end. Chasing crawfish out from underneath creek rocks, but being too afraid they’d pinch my fingertips to put my whole heart into catching them.
Bomb Pops.
Lightening Bugs.
MY OTHER RECIPESSidewalk chalk.
Ice-cold lemonade.
Every week during the summer, my Mom would let my brothers and me each pick out a packet of Kool-Aid from the dazzling display at the grocery store to sip on during the week. Although Purplesaurus Rex, Surfin’ Berry Punch, “blue”, and “red” were all very tempting, plain ‘ol Lemonade was usually my first choice. Tart, sweet, and totally thirst quenching, I always looked forward to a big cup of it after playing outside all day.
There’s still nothing as refreshing as a frosty glass of lemonade (perhaps with a shot of sweet tea vodka?) after a hot day in the sun, but these days I’m also enjoying the sweet, summertime flavor in dessert form with No-Bake Strawberry Lemonade Bites.
With a texture somewhere between a custard, pudding, and jello, No-Bake Strawberry Lemonade Bites are tart, sweet, creamy, and taste exactly like a glass of lemonade accented with the fresh taste of strawberries.
They’re perfect for a portion controlled sweet treat and, best of all, there’s no baking involved!
Start the No-Bake Strawberry Lemonade Bites by making the graham cracker crust for the bottom of the bites. Add 4 sheets graham crackers into the bowl of a food processor then process until they’re fine like sand.
Next add 2 Tablespoons melted butter, and 1 Tablespoon brown sugar to the crumbs.
Pulse until everything is combined.
Next, bust out some mini muffin tins. I use these babies all the time for everything from Mini Ham & Cheese Quinoa Cups, to Mini Corn Dog Muffins, and Mini Orange-Glazed Poppyseed Muffins. Everything just seems to taste better in mini form, me thinks. ;)
Spray the muffin tins with non-stick spray, then spoon 1 heaping teaspoon graham cracker mixture into each cup, pressing down firmly with a flat-bottomed shot glass to form the crust.
Pop the tins into the fridge while you make the lemonade-flavored filling for the bites!
Start the filling by creaming together 8oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese that’s SUPER soft, with 14oz fat-free sweetened condensed milk, and 1/4 cup egg beaters’ egg whites, until light and fluffy. Make sure your cream cheese is VERY SOFT before mixing, or risk a lumpy batter. Arg!
Next beat in 1 teaspoon lemon zest, and 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (about 4 lemons worth.) This is what makes the bites taste like lemonade!
Finally, dissolve 2 teaspoons powdered gelatin in 3 Tablespoons boiling water.
I heated a cup of water in the microwave for about a minute, then spooned it over the gelatin and whisked with a fork. Let the mixture cool for about 2 minutes, then beat it into the filling mixture.
Grab the mini muffin tins from the fridge and spoon a heaping Tablespoon of the filling into each cup, then pop them back in the fridge for at least 8 hours to firm up.
When you’re ready to devour, run a small sharp knife around the outside of the bites, pop them out of the tins, then top with half a strawberry each. No-Bake Strawberry Lemonade Bites are served! :D
No-Bake Strawberry Lemonade Bites
Description
No-Bake Strawberry Lemonade Bites taste just like summertime!
Ingredients
- For the crust:
- 4 graham cracker sheets (8 squares)
- 2 Tablespoons melted butter
- 1 Tablespoon brown sugar
- For the filling:
- 8oz-1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 14oz can fat-free sweetened condensed milk
- 1/4 cup egg beaters all whites, or regular egg beaters
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (about 4 lemons)
- 2 teaspoons powdered gelatin
- 3 Tablespoons boiling water
- 12 small strawberries, sliced in half
Directions
- Place graham crackers into a food processor and process until very fine. Add butter and brown sugar then process to combine. Spray 2 mini muffin tins well with non-stick spray, then spoon 1 heaping teaspoon graham cracker mixture into each cup. Press down firmly with a flat-bottomed shot glass to form the crust, then place muffin tins into the fridge.
- In a large bowl, beat together softened cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, and egg beaters until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add lemon zest and juice and beat until fully combined. In a small bowl whisk together powdered gelatin and boiling water until dissolved. Let cool for 2 minutes, then beat into the cream cheese mixture.
- Fill each mini muffin tin cup to the top with the filling, then place in the refrigerator to firm up for at least 8 hours, or overnight. Run a small knife around the outside of each cup to pop it out of the mini muffin tin then top with half a strawberry. Store in the refrigerator.
Notes
Adapted from Ellie Krieger
This recipe is courtesy of Iowa Girl Eats, http://iowagirleats.com.
Seriously love the cooling flavor of these mini bites!
The strawberry on top totally makes ’em, and I just love the tartness from the fresh lemon juice and zest. Great for kids, and kids at heart!
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What were your favorite parts about summer as a kid?
Oh, wow…these look super refreshing & tasty! I LIVED at the swimming pool when I was a kid. I liked sleeping in so I’d attend noon swim team practice & then stay right at the pool until 5:00 practice started. After practice, I’d bike home, eat dinner & go back to the pool until closing time. Of course there were some days when the pool just didn’t appeal to me so you could find me jumping on the trampoline with the neighbor kids, making money at my lemonade stand, or playing on the slip ‘n slide. Bomb Pops were an essential part of my summers too & I kinda want to go get a box right now!
I was always a lemonade fan myself! These look like bite sized bits of heaven :)
I love your recipes! They’re always so fun, refreshing and delicious looking! I bookmarked this recipe for (near) future use :) Thanks for sharing!!
These look beautiful, not to mention they sound delicious! The only kind of desserts I love more than chocolate ones would have to be lemony desserts! So perfect for summer.
Those are so freakin’ cute. Absolutely perfect for summer.
These look so delicious and totally right up my alley! I can’t believe they are so easy! I absolutely love anything lemon flavored.
OMG- what a perfect summertime desert… I love that!
I too remember picking out packets of Kool-aid at the store!! These look amazing! and Just an FYI, you should ask Nikon for some commission. I am Purchasing a D3100 to enhance the photos on my blog! Thanks for all the great recipes!
These look beautiful and delicious. What do you suppose would happen if I left out the egg whites completely? Are they used to help set the filling and therefore it wouldn’t set up properly? Just curious…have everything else on hand but egg white ingredient would require trip to store.
Man oh man those look awesome! I just love lemon desserts!
Lightning Bugs!!! I could spend hours catching them to put in a mason jar. We don’t have them here where I live and I feel bad that my son has never experienced them.
I want to eat those… they look amazing!
Your food photography is looking sooooo splendid lately! Nice work! :)
We have a family reunion at the beginning of august… last summer, i took your strawberry stuffed with cheesecake bites… I was just starting to look for recipes to try & top those… You came thru in plenty of time! They look so yummy!!
Ooh these look delicious! They look so light and refreshing, perfect for this time of year!
We would ride our bikes 2 miles out to our cousin’s farm & just roam & explore all day long. So much fun for a city kid!
Love those forks, btw!
summer time in florida was the bomb! we rode bikes all day, had tree forts, played kickball and rollerbladed, swam in our pool and acted like aerial from little mermaid. when we were old enough we would ride our bikes to universal studios 2 miles away and get in with our annual passes. Sometimes we just stayed for an hour after we rode our favorite coaster. HA…good ol stinkin days of summer! We also spent many summer days in JErsey with grandma…aahhh the boardwalk and lightning bugs =)
Ahhh this recipe is my childhood! My mom made these as “bars” all the time when I was a kid. Love it :)
This is one of my favorite soft cheesecake recipes. You can make It without the egg whites and it will be just fine. The old recipe used eggs but when people started worrying about the raw eggs the Eagle Brand recipes started showing up without it.
I love how petite they are!
My favorite parts of summer has a child was going to visit my Oma and Opa. I would spend all summer on their ranch. It was so much fun. The treats look amazing. My family will love them. I love your forks. They are so cute. :)
After breakfast, when my mom would shoo us outside, point to the sky straight above her, and say, “Come home for lunch when the sun is right above your head,” and my brother and our friends would go play in the fields and mountains surrounding our neighborhood, or ride bikes, or go to the pool, or play video games. Man, being a kid was awesome.
Hi Kristin,
I have enjoyed your blog for 2yrs now and am a proud Iowa lover (my family has a farm near Decorah). Even though I don’t eat beef or pork my family HIGHLY recommends Polasheks products (www.polashekslocker.com). Their T-shirts for “Got Jaternice” are cute too. “Czech” them out and spread the word.
Keep on with the good blog-M3
Oh do these look good! Best memories of a kid is in SD and my brother, sister and me would play with all the neighbor kids past dark – – oh to be a kid again! :)
Considering it’s been 100+ degrees here in KC – these look like a great way to cool down! Yum :)
Ummm…I’m really not sure how you can pass up Purplesaurus Rex. It was the BOMB! (And here I thought my sister and I were the only ones who remembered it!)
My favorite part of summer was…SUMMER! Taking off on my bike first thing in the morning and heading up to Lions Park for Urbandale Park & Rec, then riding my bike to either my house or my friend Kathy’s house for lunch (close to 2 miles between houses), then back up to the park. Then maybe home at 3:00 to watch Scooby Doo and Eight is Enough in the air conditioning. :)
Boy how times have changed…no parent would ever allow their child to put the miles on their bike that I did as a kid! I rode that thing ALL.OVER.TOWN. And since there were no cell phones, Mom had to take her best guess at where I might be.
Another BEAUTIFUL post. Your blog is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Pinned this gorgeous recipe. :)
I made these last night, omitting the egg and changing up the lemon with lime – absolutely delish! I grew up in Iowa and miss a lot about living there. Summers for me were about riding bikes on gravel country roads, listening to red wing blackbirds on the barbwire fence, picking wild plums to take home for my mother to make into jam, and eating fresh tomatoes and corn from the garden.
Thanks to those who answered the egg white question for me…I can leave them out, Yahoo! Thanks!
This looks scrumptious! But I’m even more in love with those pretty jeweled forks! I want some:)
I love these! Perfect for summer!
These are beautiful and look so simple to make. I also love that they are the perfect sized dessert portion!
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I so want to make these..they look and sound so wonderful! However, I’m new to using egg beaters. Are they safe to eat raw? I don’t want to serve them to my young kids if there’s a chance they could get sick. Thank you!
Egg Beaters go through double pasteurization so they are safe to eat raw! (#17 here: http://www.eggbeaters.com/healthy-eating-habits-about-us/compare-egg-nutrition)
Not only do these strawberry lemonade bites sound like some tasty eats, you’ve made them look like they should be on display! I’ll have to give them a try. :)
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I have made these twice now and they are delicious! The batch I have right now has half with strawberries and hald with raspberries :)
You helped me win the bake off at my husband’s office with these! They were awesome and ironic, since, technically, there was no baking involved. I did forget to add my zest to the filling, so I diced my strawberries and added it in to make a garnish and it was great!
Ahh – that is so awesome!!
[…] see, I first spotted a recipe for these No-Bake Strawberry Lemonade Bites on one of my favorite food blogs, Iowa Girl Eats. (Seriously, my fave. If you haven’t visited […]
Just wondering how long these will last in the refrigerator? I made a batch (tasted great) a week ago and have a few leftover.
I’ve kept them around for 4-5 days, then frozen the leftovers!
I’m going to make these for an office holiday party. Instead of me using 4 graham cracker sheets to make the crust, I bought the graham cracker crumbs. I’m not sure how many cups processing 4 sheets of graham crackers will make. How many cups would I need using the graham cracker crumbs?
I’m not 100% sure, but if I had to guess I’d say a little less than 3/4 cup. If it appears to crumbly, just add a bit more melted butter!
Thanks for giving the 3/4 cup measure for the crumbs…I’m going to use chocolate crumbs! Mmm…
I made some of these for our office staff Christmas lunch yesterday and they were a hit! Very delicious!! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
Hi,
I live in Australia and we dont have graham crackers. can you plese explain a liitle about them so I can find something similar here in OZ.
Thank you. Lynda
[…] Read all the details about the recipe on: iowagirleats.com […]
Would there be a way of adding alcohol to this recipe? I have a girls night bbq coming up. In the past we would go crazy with jello shots, but now that we are getting a bit older, something like these might be more suitable. Any suggestions?
Hmmm, I’m not sure – maybe a little lemon vodka would be good in place of the water? Or half of the water? Let me know if you give it a try!
Could I use whole egg in place of egg whites? Otherwise they sound delicious
The pasteurized egg whites are used since these bites aren’t baked. I’d stick with them to be on the safe side!
Made these for a company picnic today. HUGE HIT!!!! Thank you! They were fun to make, too! Not too difficult (I like that!)
I will definitely be making these again!
P.S. I ended up having a bunch of leftover ‘filling’, so I layered it with graham crackers and put it in the freezer. Cut them up and tasted like the BEST ice cream sandwiches! LOVE!
Sounds good but with egg whites don’t think they’re a no bake treat.
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