No-bake desserts are perfect for busy weekend entertaining or for random weekday sugar cravings. The best part is, you don’t need an oven to make drool-worthy desserts! Create desserts like homey and classic Filipino native delicacies or adventurous creamy cheesecakes with these five easy hacks.
1 Stock your pantry with no-bake grocery essentials.
No-bake pie and bar crusts will always need cookies, graham crackers, or wafers, while fillings will always need whipping cream, cream cheese, chocolate, or condensed milk. Jazz up your desserts with fresh fruit and dessert-friendly spices, too!
2 Gelatin will become your best friend.
Unlike baked sweets, no-bake desserts cannot rely on gluten to bind everything together. To stabilize creams and mousses, use gelatin to give structure to your creamy desserts! Remember to use the unflavored and unsweetened kind so that it doesn’t affect the taste and sweetness of your recipe.
3 Be careful with the amount of added sugar you put into your dessert.
The bulk of your ingredients will include store-bought and ready-to-use items like packaged cookies, crackers, and condensed milk. All of these ingredients have sugar in them already, which means you don’t have complete control over the amount of sugar content in your dessert. Remember to taste as you go along to make sure you don’t churn out an overly sweet dessert.
4 Use the freshest fruit available.
Whether you are going to make a sweet compote or simply top your dessert with fruit, a fresh batch will always add a touch of bright, lively, and refreshing flavors to your cheesecakes, parfaits, and ice creams. Tart fruits are also great in contrasting the often sweet flavors of no-bake dessert ingredients.
5 Celebrate local.
Filipino desserts and native delicacies (kakanin) are some of the best and easiest no-bake sweets you can make at home! What is better than munching on sweet puto, leche flan, or maja blanca after a hearty meal?
