Dessert
3852 recipes found
Matzo Brei with Caramelized Apples
This recipe is adapted from the restaurant Jane in downtown New York. There, the chef Glenn Harris offers a matzo brei that is an expanded version of his mother's. Mr. Harris's mother, in Brooklyn, made sweet matzo brei with honey or jelly, or matzo meal pancakes the size of silver dollars sprinkled with sugar. His version is much more elaborate, with cubes of caramelized apples, a vanilla-honey sauce and mascarpone.
Salt-Baked Pears
The salt crust encasing these pears — a method most often used with whole fish and some poultry — does what salt always does: It amplifies. In this instance, the sweet, juicy peary-ness of the pear. Ideally, these should be slipped into the oven after pulling out another dish in order to minimize time in the kitchen. As a dinner party dessert, it’s a perfect punctuation mark.
Chocolate Chestnut Cake
This wheat-free chocolate cake with the earthy flavor of chestnuts is surprisingly light. The recipe is a slight adaptation from one in Alice Medrich’s baking book "Flavor Flours." The cake may be baked a day or two in advance of serving.
Almond-Chocolate Squares
Blueberry Pecan Crunch Cake
Topped with coarse Demerara sugar and chopped pecans, this might just be the crunchiest coffee cake you’ve ever made. It’s also one of the easiest, as it’s quickly whisked together in just one bowl. Soft, juicy blueberries dot the cinnamon-scented batter, making jammy pockets in the tender crumb. It will keep at room temperature for up to three days, though the topping does lose a little texture the longer it sits. But this cake is so good, its keeping qualities may be beside the point.
Chocolate Snacking Cake With Tangerine Glaze
This moist, darkly bittersweet snacking cake is easily mixed with a whisk. Using a neutral oil rather than butter allows the chocolate flavor to shine, and gives the crumb an especially velvety texture under a sweet-tart glaze. You can use any kind of orange for the topping. Tangerines and mandarins (including clementines) are bright and spicy, but regular navel or juice oranges work just as well. Or if you can find blood oranges, the glaze will take on a pinkish hue and a sweeter, richer flavor.
Raspberry-Mochi Butter Cake With Matcha Glaze
This cake elicits awe on sight, and it’s a delightfully easy stir-and-bake dessert created by Margarita Manzke, the pastry chef and an owner at République, a restaurant and bakery in Los Angeles. Dense and chewy, mochi is a popular Japanese confection made from glutinous, sticky rice. It’s typically formed into pocket-size balls or squares but can also be made into cakes. As the rice flour batter comes together, it may seem gritty, but it will soak up the coconut milk and evaporated milk and soften as it bakes. Unlike many cakes baked with traditional flour, this gluten-free cake is so rich and moist that it’s hard to overbake. For the glaze, matcha powder is combined with confectioners’ sugar and coconut milk, which gives the cake an earthy tone, but you could easily swap in freeze-dried raspberry or strawberry powder.
Lora A. Brody's Chocolate Mousse Cake
Maple-Pecan Galette With Fresh Ginger
Like a cross between a giant Danish and a frangipane-filled tart, this not-too-sweet galette is perfect for the holidays and beyond. Maple sugar gives it a warm and toasty note, and fresh ginger and allspice, a delicately spicy nuance. You can substitute other nuts for pecans, and walnuts or slivered almonds would work particularly well. And both the dough and filling can be made a few days ahead. Serve this with whipped cream or ice cream for a sophisticated dessert, then save the leftovers for breakfast the next day. An unadorned slice is fantastic with coffee.
Spritz Cookies
A basic cookie dough recipe is at the heart of this treat, great for any occasion. A cookie press (think of a caulking machine, but with cookie dough) offers lots of versatility, whether you're looking for wreaths for the holidays or hearts for Valentine's Day. Just beat together the ingredients, and place the dough in the press just after mixing. Push the dough through onto parchment paper, decorate with colored sugars and bake. They'll add a bit of color and joy to any cookie platter.
Italian Flourless Chocolate Cake
Just east of Bologna, Italy, the walled city of Ferrara is known for la torta tenerina, a kind of chocolate cake with an almost creamy interior and a thin, crisp crust. It’s a simple confection, and even still, it’s said that every baker and home cook has his or her own recipe. This version comes from Eleonora Masiero and Ennio Occhiali at Cusina e Butega, a combination bakery and restaurant.
Lemon Drizzle Cake
This light and moist lemon poundcake has a crunchy sugar glaze that crystallizes on top, giving a contrasting texture to the soft crumb underneath. It’s an easy-to-make, crowd-pleasing cake that’s excellent on its own but takes well to embellishments. A scoop of ice cream or sorbet, fruit compote and-or lemon curd are all wonderful alongside.
Praline Baskets With Frozen Almond Zabaglione
Goat Cheese Ice Cream With Fennel, Lemon and Honey
Very popular a few years ago, goat cheese ice cream deserves bringing back to the fore. The goat cheese supplies a tang similar to the flavor of cheesecake. Layer the honey into the ice cream mixture after it has churned. Blueberries make a nice accompaniment. For peace of mind, make the ice cream one day before serving.
Chocolate-Walnut Mousse Cake
Double-Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies
Deeply chocolaty like devil’s food cake, speckled with sugar on the outsides and filled with soft chocolate or jam in the centers, these cookies are a double pleasure: delightful to eat and fun to make. While “thumbprints” is an adorable name, it’s a misnomer: You use every part of your hands to form these. The cookies need to be pinched, patted, rolled around and poked before they’re sent into the oven. It’s a great project to do with kids — small thumbs are perfect for forming little dimples in the dough. What you fill the centers with is up to you. Chocolate with chocolate is great — naturally pink ruby chocolate is particularly pretty — and jam is delicious, too.
Sufganiyot (Orange-Scented Jelly Doughnuts)
Some Jewish foods take a lifetime to love. It can take years of practice to truly enjoy the baby food flavor and clammy texture of gefilte fish. And as festive desserts go, the dry honey cakes baked for the Jewish New Year are hardly alluring. This may explain why American Jews have enthusiastically embraced a Hanukkah treat popular in Israel, sufganiyot, or, as we know them, jelly doughnuts. Fragrant with sugar and jam, sufganiyot (the plural of sufganiya) have become a sweeter symbol of the holiday, especially for children.
Praline Baskets With Pumpkin Puree
Extra-Lemony Meringue Pie
Made with a buttery lemon curd and topped with swirls of lemon zest-infused meringue, this pie is tangier and creamier than many others of its kind. It features a soft, spoonable curd that’s softer than other lemon meringue pie fillings. You can make it with regular or Meyer lemons: The regular ones will be sharper and brighter; the Meyers, a little softer and fruitier. This pie is best served the day it’s baked, though you can make the dough and filling up to five days in advance. The meringue, however, needs to be whipped up just before the pie is baked. Store leftovers in a sealed container at room temperature. (Watch the video of Melissa Clark making extra-lemony meringue pie here.)
Red Wine-Pear Cardamom Cake
This fragrant, fruity cake is a riff on Marian Burros’s original plum torte, one of The New York Times’ most popular recipes. But instead of plums, this buttery, moist cake (here, spiked with a little cardamom and citrus zest) is topped with pears that have been sautéed in red wine and butter. Like the original, it’s good served both plain, or with whipped cream or sour cream on the side.
Baba au Rhum
A classic French dessert, baba au rhum is a syrup-soaked, soggy, boozy delight. The dough here is intentionally soft and sticky, for a light, tender result. Be sparing in adding flour, incorporating just enough to make it manageable, or refrigerate the dough, then work with it. (Chilled dough is easier to handle.) This recipe yields a dozen babas, but you can bake them all and soak only as many as you intend to serve. You can freeze any baked, unsoaked babas for up to 2 months, then prepare them a day in advance and keep them in an airtight container at room temperature. Any leftover syrup keeps indefinitely in the fridge.
Apple Gingersnap Crumble
Easier and homier than an apple pie, this gently spiced crumble feeds a crowd. If you don't want to make the bourbon cream, serve this with ice cream instead: Vanilla is classic, but ginger, green tea or salted caramel would also be terrific.
Gluten Free Candied Cranberry-Rosemary Walnut Crumble
When Brooklyn mom Silvana Nardone's son was diagnosed with gluten intolerance at the age of 10, the food editor and bakery owner didn't want to cook foods that were just similar to his favorite dishes. "He knew what everything should look and taste like,'' says Ms. Nardone, author of "Cooking for Isaiah: Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free Recipes for Easy Delicious Meals." "I wanted everything to look and taste the same as the original.'' Your holiday guests won't miss the gluten when they try this fruity walnut crumble. "There is something about kids and their brutal honesty that has made my gluten-free cooking and baking taste better,'' Ms. Nardone says.
