Berries + Coconut Cream Granola Parfaits — the easiest summer dessert, perfect for entertaining (and light enough for breakfast, too) featuring an easy homemade granola and whipped coconut cream. Gluten-free and vegan.

Hey friends! It’s finally feeling like summer here in the Bay Area (we had three consecutive days of sun in Half Moon Bay, which is just about unheard of in June!), so I figured it was high time I join the rest of the Western Hemisphere in making the most of the season. This fresh fruit dessert is one of my favorite things to serve after a meal on a warm day. It’s easy to make in advance, assembles in minutes and is unexpectedly delicious despite its simplicity. (If you haven’t gathered from these Garlicky White Beans or this Go-To Green Blender Juice, simple wins with me every time.)

Easiest Summer Dessert Recipe

Berries + Coconut Cream Granola Parfaits

That said, when something is this simple in concept, the execution of each element is kinda clutch. To start, there’s the fruit, duh. Fresh berries star here, but later in the summer, juicy stone fruit would be amazing, too.

Then there’s the coconut cream. If you’ve not made coconut cream before, 1) it’s easy as heck, so long as 2) you choose the right coconut milk. We’re going for canned coconut milk here — not the carton stuff that’s meant for cereal and coffee — and we want full fat. The light stuff won’t whip, and really, we’re disguising fruit as dessert, so let’s not cut any more corners than we have to. Look for coconut milk with three ingredients, max: coconut milk, water and guar gum. (I know gums can seem questionable, but honestly, you’ll experience a better consistency from coconut milk with guar gum.) Unfortunately, Trader Joe’s variety of canned coconut milk products have been waxy and just off in recent years, so I wouldn’t recommend them, but Thai Kitchen brand coconut milk is easy to come by and has worked well for me in this application. (If nothing else, it’s available on Prime Pantry — easy peasy.)