Sweet Salute: 13 Desserts for Your Memorial Day Celebration

By Jennifer A. • May 07, 2024

Have a sweet tooth? Get ready to indulge! These 13 Delicious Desserts for Memorial Day will have everyone wanting dessert first. The dessert table is a cornerstone of great American picnics and potlucks, and these recipes won't disappoint! From decadent chocolate to refreshing fruit — there's a recipe for any sweet tooth craving.

1. Texas Sheet Cake

While this sheet cake is Texan in name, it actually derives from a German. Well, not a resident or native of the European country, but an American named Sam German who invented the type of baking chocolate used in the original Texas Sheet Cake recipe. Once the recipe was published in the Dallas Morning News in 1957, it swept the country with its rich, buttery taste and impressive size — this cake alone feeds 32! And with a baking time of 30 minutes, you can whip it up in a flash. Texas Sheet Cake is a chocolatey, creamy potluck favorite... just make sure you save a slice for yourself.

2. Dessert Fruit Salad

The beauty of this Dessert Fruit Salad is that it's basically a fruit plate in a bowl, allowing you to indulge in the tropical sweetness by the spoonful! Tangy pineapple, floral peaches, creamy bananas, and crisp apples, all stirred up with a delightfully sweet and silky fruit sauce! Dessert Fruit Salad is relaxing, refreshing, simple, and oh-so-delightful. This one-bowl-wonder is perfect for picnics, potlucks, and cookouts. Who ever said fruit wasn't a good dessert? They clearly had never tried this!

3. Strawberry Pretzel Salad

It's called a salad, but it tastes like no salad you've ever tried before. Strawberry Pretzel Salad is a perpetual party favorite, with a sweet and salty pretzel crust and a creamy filling that's fruity, sweet, and light. Fluffy and topped with fresh strawberries, Strawberry Pretzel Salad is a refreshing side to go with your holiday spread or your next potluck!

4. Church Potluck Bars

It's that time again! Time for the seasonal church potluck. Last time, you brought something savory, so now it's your turn to whip up something sweet. And you know what that means... you've gotta make some Church Potluck Bars! Everyone will cheer as you make your way into the big shebang with a dish full of these bites of blueberry dream! They're basically like little, perfect, personal-sized pies, and they're the best treat after that wholesome feast. So, get your Church Potluck Bars ready! It's time for some sweet fun and enjoyable fellowship!

5. Pecan Bites

We feel that if you looked at a vintage photo from a 1960s Southern church social, these little jewels would be placed front and center on the dessert table. Bring back that treasured treat again with Pecan Bites. Essentially like mini pecan pies, with their flaky crusts and pecan-packed centers, these bite-sized wonders will make you famous at your next potluck. It's black and white to us; Pecan Bites are the flashbulb of flavor that every dessert table needs. Can't you just picture these little sweetie pies? Better yet, taste them and see. Grandma would be so proud!

6. Peanut Butter Fudge Brownies

Sometimes when two worlds collide, it becomes a sweet success! Don't avoid this collision, because Peanut Butter Fudge Brownies are the best in the whole world! When two layers of moist, delicious, fudgy brownies snuggle up between a creamy peanut butter fudge filling, well, you have just consolidated two world-renowned tastes into one spectacular bite! Your regular old brownies have nothing on Peanut Butter Fudge Brownies. These two greats will always taste greater together!

7. Blue Magic Cookie Bars

Sapphire sweetness in bar form! You can't feel blue when snacking on these Blue Magic Cookie Bars! The cookie base is crumbly and sweet with a lovely perfume of maple, while the topping is tart and boisterous and filled with berry flavor! It even has a sprinkling of chocolate chips to ensure the cobalt confection is as wonderful as it possibly can be. Let Blue Magic Cookie Bars enchant you when dessert comes around, and indulge in some ultramarine goodness.

8. Grand Prize Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

And the blue ribbon goes to the odds-on favorite, the Grand Prize Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies! Yes, it's no surprise, but neither is how good they taste! The cookies have the tender texture, the richness, and the smoky sweetness of butter and brown sugar, with loads and loads of melty chocolate chips and crunchy nuts. Even the oats contribute to this delectable dessert by adding heartiness and more surface area for the sweetness to grab onto as it makes its way to your tastebuds! Place Grand Prize Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies next to a prize hog at the county fair and watch as people go hog-wild for them!

9. Ambrosia Salad

A cornerstone of picnics, cookouts, and potlucks, Ambrosia Salad is an easy, breezy, and speedy dessert. It's creamy, smooth, and positively packed with fresh fruit flavors, with a little crunch from pecans and bursts of sugar from marshmallows. Wherever you bring a bowl of Ambrosia Salad, you bring nostalgia and delight in dessert form!!

10. Strawberry Lemonade Bars

Strawberry Lemonade Bars take a refreshing tall glass of your favorite summer drink and turn it into a delightful dessert! These sweet and tart bars are infused with the sunny tastes of strawberry, lemon, and sugar, and surrounded by a crunchy, buttery homemade crust. Strawberry Lemonade Bars are the ultimate dessert for sunny days out on the patio or picnics in the park! You can even serve them chilled for an even more refreshing experience!

11. Georgia's Finest Peanut Butter Sheet Cake

Hi, y'all! We might be known for lots of things, especially peaches, but Georgia's Finest Peanut Butter Sheet Cake might just top the list of our most important accomplishments. Momma didn't raise no fool: this moist, fork-happy, irreplaceable cake with a creamy, velvety, puddin'-like icing, infused with an abundance of smooth-talkin', slow-movin' peanut butter will have you hollerin' for the south's best dessert. Naturally, you don't have to be from The Peach State to know that Georgia's Finest Peanut Butter Sheet Cake is the ultimate picnic-goin', church-meetin', country-music-singin', toe-tappin great cake we all know and love!

12. Summer Day Sheet Cake

There isn't a cake out there as sunny and inviting as the Summer Day Sheet Cake. It's just as bright and sparkling as the name suggests; the infusion of vibrant lemon flavors into the tender cake itself ensures an electrifying and deliciously sweet tang that really puts the zing back into summer. A luscious, fluffy cream cheese frosting helps to balance out the lemon flavors and adds its own tanginess, ensuring every bite feels like a beam of sunshine on your tastebuds. Garden parties, cookouts, and other summer favorites just became a lot more exciting with this Summer Day Sheet Cake!

13. Gooey Butter Bars

Listen to that sweet tooth... you deserve a treat! Can't decide what to choose? Might we suggest these Gooey Butter Bars? They taste just the way they sound. Each bite is filled with some caramel-y, buttery goodness in a savory yet sweet crust. In the mood for some fruit, too? Well, these Gooey Butter Bars taste the best with some juicy strawberries sprinkled over the top. You know you need this delightful experience, right?! Just do it; give in and treat yourself!