Celebrate the end of Summer with this No Bake Peaches and Cream Dessert:

It’s still peach season, and we have to celebrate peach season, because fresh peaches are the best! This dessert is very similar to our first favorite Peach Dessert, although rather than vanilla wafers and golden Oreos, the crust is a simple graham cracker crust, and rather than Cool Whip it uses whipped heavy cream. So similar, yet different and both are delicious because fresh peaches are involved!

Ingredients:

3 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup butter, melted
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
8 ounces cream cheese (1 package), room temperature
2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract
2 cups cold heavy whipping cream
5-6 medium fresh peaches, peeled, pitted and sliced

How to make this No Bake Peaches and Cream Dessert:

To start, turn the graham crackers into graham cracker crumbs. You can use a food processor or a gallon sized plastic bag with a rolling pin to make graham cracker crumbs.
In a medium bowl, stir together the graham cracker crumbs with the granulated sugar. Stir in the melted butter until the graham cracker crumbs are all coated in the butter. Reserve 1/4 cup of the graham cracker crumbs for the topping.
Press the graham cracker crumb mixture into the bottom of a 9X13inch dish. Move the dish into the fridge to chill while working on the rest of the dessert.
Using your stand mixer with the paddle attachment (or in a large bowl with a hand held mixer), cream together the cream cheese with the powdered sugar until the mixture lightens, about 1-2 minutes. Add in the vanilla and mix a little more.
Add in the cold heavy cream and mix on low speed to keep it from splashing. Mix until it all starts to come together. Now increase the speed to medium-high and continue mixing until it thickens.
Spread a little less than half of the cream filling over the chilled graham cracker crust.
Layer the sliced peaches over the top of the bottom cream layer.
Add spoonfuls of the remaining cream mixture over the top of the peaches and spread the cream layer carefully to the edges of the pan to cover the peaches completely.
Sprinkle the reserved graham cracker mixture over the top. Cover with plastic cling wrap and move pan to chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours or up to 12 hours before serving. Serve cold.

No Bake Cheesecake Batter:

Many of you are familiar with no bake cheesecakes, essentially that is what this cream mixture is. We use a similar cheesecake filling in these sugar cookie fresh fruit tarts and our favorite eclair squares dessert. It really is a fantastic way to get the creamy flavors of a vanilla cheesecake without the long bake time of an actual cheesecake.

How many graham crackers in a cup?

There’s about 16 graham crackers in one cup. One regular package of graham crackers will be enough to make this recipe.

Tips and Tricks for this recipe:

Be sure to trap the peaches between both cream layers. Peeled and sliced peaches will turn brown when exposed to air for too long.
This dessert needs to chill for a minimum of two hours up to 12 hours max. It’s best consumed between 2 to 12 hours of chill time.
Use a food processor to make more fine graham cracker crumbs. We like to use the food processor to evenly combine all the ingredients for the crust of this dessert.
Make sure your cream cheese has come to room temp so that it has time to soften.
Use full fat cream cheese and heavy cream for this dessert for the best flavor.
This dessert can be made with fresh peaches or canned peaches. We think this dessert with fresh peaches. If using canned peaches make sure to drain off most of the liquid.

Peel Peaches for a No Bake Dessert:

Usually we love to add peaches to boiling hot water for 3-5 minutes and then into an ice water bath to keep the peaches from continuing to cook for an easy way to peel peaches. For this recipe, we are using really ripe peaches. When peaches are really ripe, they peel easily with a vegetable peeler. Because this recipe is a no bake dessert, we like to just peel the peaches without using the boiling water method.

Recipe Variations:

Try adding ground almonds or ground pecans to the graham cracker crust.
Add 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon to the crust.
Add Frozen whipped topping (aka Cool Whip) to the cheesecake mixture rather than whipped heavy cream
Add sweetened condensed milk to the creamy cheesecake mixture rather than powdered sugar.
Add 1 teaspoon cinnamon to the peaches
Use regular vanilla rather than clear vanilla – use what you got!

Why clear vanilla?

We love to use clear vanilla for recipes like this that have a creamy white mixture, or to a white frosting. The clear vanilla adds the flavor without adding any color. It helps to keep the creamy cheesecake filling for this recipe really white.