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Recipe last updated 5/4/16. The new version is for a 9×13″ pan and has several tweaks.
Here in balmy (sticky, muggy, hot) South Carolina, we are into strawberry season full swing. I posted a strawberry shortcake recipe earlier this week, and here’s a strawberry delight recipe to go with it. Both desserts are Thomas family favorites that I can thankfully enjoy in a healthy manner.
I’m assuming everyone is familiar with the concept of a fruit delight. If not, I will gladly describe one for you. First, you have a crust of some sort. Often fairly neutral in flavor…sometimes baked, sometimes not…often made with graham cracker crumbs. Well, the graham cracker crumbs were out, obviously, so I decided to go with sort of a shortbread-type crust. Prebake the crust and let it cool, then top it with a cream cheese layer. The cream cheese layer is then topped with a fruity filling – in this case, strawberries (although any berry could work). To save yourself an extra step, you could just use sliced strawberries by themselves, but I like to add a little glaze to them. Just because that’s traditionally how it’s done…and because I can.
I hope you all enjoy this – we sure did! My partners in crime (my mom and sister) were very impressed with this dessert, and it’ll definitely be one to make again. I think it would go over well at a summer picnic or potluck.
Trim Healthy Mamas (you can visit this page to see my quick synopsis of the plan), this yummy dessert is an S if made with berries. Use another fruit like fresh peaches and you’d have a yummy crossover.
Check out my picture dessert index for more inspiration! Need summery desserts? Check out my ice cream index!
You can find this recipe in my cookbook, Necessary Food.
- 10 T salted butter, melted
- 1 egg
- 1 T THM Super Sweet Blend
- ½ cup coconut flour
- ½ cup oat fiber (gluten free if necessary)
- 8 oz. reduced fat cream cheese
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp. THM Pure Stevia Extract Powder
- 1 tsp. Knox gelatin (if using beef gelatin such as Great Lakes brand or THM Just Gelatin, add an extra ¼ tsp.)
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 cup strawberry puree (strawberries blended in a blender until smooth)
- 1 cup water
- ¼ tsp. THM Pure Stevia Extract Powder
- ¼ tsp. salt
- ¾ tsp. glucomannan
- 1 tsp. Knox gelatin (if using beef gelatin such as Great Lakes brand or THM Just Gelatin, add an extra ¼ tsp.)
- 5 cups sliced fresh strawberries
- For the crust: whisk the melted butter, egg, and sweetener together. Add the coconut flour and oat fiber and mix well. Press into a greased 9x13" pan and prebake at 350 degrees F for 12 minutes. Cool completely.
- For the cream cheese filling: beat the cream cheese, vanilla, and stevia together until smooth. Add the gelatin while beating. Add the whipping cream slowly while beating. Beat until thick and fluffy. Spread over the cooled crust.
- For the strawberry layer: whisk the strawberry puree, water, stevia, and salt together in a nonstick saucepan. Add the glucomannan and gelatin while whisking so they don't clump. Bring the mixture to a boil, then take it off the heat and let it cool to room temperature. Stir in the fresh strawberries, then spread on top of the cream cheese layer and refrigerate the delight for several hours until firm. This delight is best the day it is made.
- Yields 15 servings
Suggested products:
- Coconut flour
- Oat Fiber
- Knox gelatin
- Glucomannan
- A gluten free oat fiber, THM Pure Stevia Extract Power, and Sweet Blend can be purchased from the Trim Healthy Mama online store.
This also makes a great breakfast. So YUMMY!!
I made this for our 4th of July party! Thanks for making the recipe, Briana! It turned out delicious.
I don’t tolerate nut flours (even coconut) well, so for the crust I used 1 cup oat fiber and 1/2 cup ground flaxmeal. I also dissolved the gelatin in warm water before I added to the cream cheese layer.
Then, to make it red, white, and blue I put both strawberries and blueberries in the glazed topping. It set up nicely and looked great! I honestly didn’t have time to get a picture of it! The whole pan was gone in a flash! I’ll be making this one again! 🙂
Yay! I’m so glad it turned out well for you!
This Strawberry Delight was SO delicious!! I will be making this again and again. Thanks so much for the recipe!!
Georgia
Would this recipe still work if I leave out the glucomannon?
The glucomannan serves as a thickener, so if you leave it out, the strawberry layer will be runny. If you have xanthan gum, you can substitute that for the glucomannan. 🙂
I’m only trying to be helpful, but the word “was” needs to be were in this sentence.
My partners in crime (my mom and sister) was very impressed
And, I will be making this dessert. Thanks for sharing it.
Eeek! Thank you so much for catching that! I hate grammar mistakes, and I LOVE when people point them out so I can fix them!
Thank you so much for this! I grew up in Western PA and strawberry pretzel salad is a picnic must! This recipe looks similar enough to get my fix while staying on plan! 🙂
You are very welcome! I hope you enjoy it!
This looks way too amazing! Pinning!
Briana,
Thank you for all your creative goodies!
Pre THM days, I had a ‘traditional’ recipe similar to this in which the crust was made with pretzels, giving it a saltier – crispy thing going on with the sweet of the cream cheese filling and berry stuff on top. Any ideas about how the crust could be more like the pretzel crust? Thanks again for sharing your creations!
Maybe try crushing some Wasa crackers and using that in place of some of the flour?
Hi Briana! I made this a couple nights ago and it is yummy!!! much better after it sits for awhile.
I was curious if i could use almond flour instead of coconut flour? I’m just not a coconut flour fan due to the texture.
What do you think???
Hi LeeAnn! If you want to use an almond flour crust, I recommend finding a recipe for one that fits in an 9×13 pan and use that instead of just substituting almond flour for the coconut flour in this one. Coconut flour is much drier than almond flour, so the amounts needed will be different. You could try a double batch of the crust from the No Bake Cheesecake recipe in my cookbook.
Could I use THM baking blend instead of coconut flour and oat fiber?
Hi Amy! I’ve never done that, but you can try if you like! You’ll probably need more baking blend than the coconut flour and oat fiber called for since both of those are pretty dry flours.
Many of us are diabetics, and crucial to know the carb count, healthy eating aside….while all of this seems OK for LC eating, can’t be sure. Inviting us to figure it out is rather a cop-out, I think. To see if a recipe is going to be added to my box, I look at carbs 1st, and then move on if they are not there ?. Looked good too!
Briana puts a lot of time into these recipes. I don’t think it’s too much to ask or a cop-out to ask those that need the nutrition information to plug it in to one of several places that this information can be retrieved. Spark People (sparkpeople.com) is where I would plug in a lot of recipes when I needed to know the nutrition information. I didn’t really like taking the time to do it, but wanted the information. I hope this doesn’t sound rude, that is not my intention. I appreciate her recipes so much. Judging from the recipes I have tried, I don’t think you would be disappointed if you took the time to figure the carbs to see if they would work for you……I hope you will.
I am not sure if you changed the recipe because I used to do this delight from your blog all the time until a few months back and always loved it. Today I tried it again and I think something is not right. For the cream cheese filling, are you sure the gelatin does not need to be first dissolved in some warm water before it’s added to the cream cheese? I just followed the recipe exactly and it turned out very gritty and the heavy cream didn’t even got fluffy like it supposed to. I have the THM gelatin, not expired, and I am quite certain that my products and measurements are fine. Plus in all my baking/cooking experience I’ve never had a recipe adding the gelatin directly in the heavy cream/cream cheese without dissolving it first. I was hesitant, but I thought I should give it a try, perhaps I learn something new. Nope, all I have is a waste of ingredients.
I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you! In this recipe, I have always added the gelatin right into the cream cheese mixture and it’s always worked well for me. I don’t remember hearing any comments for anyone else about it not working. Make sure you’re sprinkling the gelatin in while beating the mixture so it doesn’t clump. If this doesn’t work for you, by all means dissolve it in a little hot water next time.
WOW, this is so good! I’m trying to find things my husband will enjoy on this journey too, and this was a winner. I halved the recipe and put it in a 8×8 pan since it’s just the 2 of us. It wasn’t as pretty the next day because of the fresh strawberries, but it tasted just as good. Thank you for the great recipe!
I’m so glad you both enjoyed it!
I didn’t read this closely enough and picked up oat flour at the store. Could I use all coconut flour instead? Or do maybe 1/2 cup coconut and 1/4 cup oat flour? I’ll be ordering some oat fiber, but I plan to make this tomorrow for a family gathering so I won’t have it in time.
I’m sorry I didn’t get to this until now; I was gone last week at music camp. Different flours have different properties, so if you replace them with other flours, you’ll likely have to do some other tweaking as well. Coconut flour is a very dry flour that can get gritty if too much is used, so I wouldn’t recommend using it on its own in this crust. The oat flour isn’t ideal because it’s an E fuel in an S setting, but it may work. You may need a little more than the oat fiber called for since oat fiber is drier than oat flour.
Thank you for getting back to me! I didn’t end up making it today because we got busy outside of the house so I will try later this week once I get the oat fiber in. I can’t wait to try it. Thank you!
To substitute Knox gelatine with THM gelatine I would need to increase the amount?
Yes, you would. I’m not sure what the exact ratios are, but in the next couple of weeks I’m going to be doing some experimenting with 3 different gelatin brands to find out some exact numbers.
Hi Brianna! I’m planning to make this dessert tomorrow for a party. I have Pyure sweetener and most times it’s equal to super sweet. Do you happen to know how much to use for the Stevia?
Thanks!
Lynn
Hi Lynn…sorry I didn’t get to this earlier! I usually try to take it easy on the weekends. 😛 In the future, you can use this sweetener conversion chart to help you figure out sweetener substitutions: http://www.trimhealthymama.com/main-home/sweetener-conversion-chart/ If you find that Pyure is usually equal to Super Sweet, just use the Super Sweet column for your Pyure measurement to find how much you’d use for a stevia measurement. 🙂
Made this for Mother’s Day. I didn’t have fresh strawberries, so used frozen ones instead. It didn’t gel and set up pretty, but I think that is probably from the berries thawing, so changing the texture. It was still very yummy though!
I had the pre-tweaked version printed out from earlier when I had seen it, so that is the version I made. I did add extra sweetener.
Yes, fresh strawberries are much better in this delight. I’m glad you still liked it though!
This is amazing! Just made your strawberry delight so as not to fall off the THM wagon and it is SOOO good! Creamy, crumbly, fruity awesomeness! Now, I just have to limit myself to one serving!!! Thank you for posting this!!!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Can I make the crust and cream cheese filling the night before and then make the strawberry part in the morning of the day we will eat and still be good?
I think that would work!
What could be used instead of oat fiber?
You could try substituting with another low carb flour, but it won’t measure the same. Oat fiber is a very dry flour, so take that into consideration.
Do you whip the heavy cream before combining it for the creamy layer? or do you just pour in the liquid to mix with the cream cheese, etc?
You just beat all the ingredients together until well-mixed and fluffy. There’s no need to whip the cream beforehand. 🙂
This sounds wonderful! We went and picked strawberries the other day as a homeschool field trip. They were super sweet, and I was trying to figure out what to do with them all before they went bad! Next time, I will know. 🙂 Thank you for sharing.
OMG!!! I love you!
I am curious why you usually use imitation vanilla instead of pure extract? I love your recipes, thank you!
Because my mom buys the groceries, and that’s what she gets. 🙂 You can always use the pure stuff, just don’t use as much because it’s stronger.
I will be making this soon!
We enjoyed the strawberry short cake you posted recently..I served it with a splash of cream and almond/ coconut milk I’m so happy to find a good recipe that I honestly enjoy! 🙂
Thanks for all the hard work up put into these recipes, I enjoy them very much!:-)
I’m so glad you liked it!
what about the sugar in the strawberries what is the nurtrion carbs sugar in this . it does look good
I’m not quite sure what you’re asking, Donna. The healthy eating lifestyle I follow focuses on using the right ingredients instead of counting, so I embrace that freedom and don’t usually calculate the nutritional info for recipes. 🙂 You’re welcome to calculate it using MyFitnessPal or a similar site, but keep in mind that such sites often don’t take sugar alcohols into account. You can find out more about Trim Healthy Mama here: https://www.briana-thomas.com/starting-trim-healthy-mama/
If you figured out the carbs etc in this, would you care to share, please?
🙂