Dessert
3852 recipes found
Red Coconut Rice Pudding With Mango
This dish is inspired by a classic Thai sweet made with sticky rice. The red Bhutanese rice has a very nice chewy texture, and the pudding has a light purple-red hue.
Mohntorte (Poppy Seed Cake)
Mrs. Lefferts's New Year's Cakes
Molten Chocolate Doughnut Holes
Reminiscent of churros and chocolate, these fluffy doughnut holes are best served warm because of the molten chocolate filling. You could, of course, use a stand mixer to prepare the dough, but it’s better done by hand since the mixer will have trouble blending such a small amount. Don’t worry when you first add the butter pieces and they smear around without incorporating. The butter will be evenly distributed by the time you finish kneading the dough. Chocolate fèves or discs make easy work of filling the doughnuts, but if you can’t find them, feel free to use your favorite chips or chopped chocolate.
Strawberry-Rhubarb Tart
Torta Turchesca (Venetian Rice-Pudding Tart)
Cardamom Butter Crescents
The egg whites in the batter keep these buttery shortbread-like cookies crumbly and light (and provide a place for all those spare egg whites you accumulate during holiday baking). The cardamom flavor is pronounced, so use the freshest cardamom you can find. These are also perfect for gift-giving, since they’ll keep practically forever, or at least 3 weeks stored airtight at room temperature.
Hamantaschen With Poppy Seed Filling
Purim, which celebrates the biblical story of the Jews’ deliverance from a plot to kill them by Haman, minister to the Persian king, is a special time when people drink, dance and play jokes. Gifts of food called shalah manot are distributed, which include fruit, cookies and, of course, hamantaschen.
Irish Oatmeal Brulee With Dried Fruit And Maple Cream
Cranberry Ice Cream
Easy Rhubarb Trifle
Boozy, soggy, creamy, sweet and tart, this simple cake is somewhat like a tiramisù, since it is layered with ladyfingers. (But let’s not call it a tiramisù, because it’s really not authentic or traditional.) It’s more like a simplified trifle, as it has no custard sauce or whipped cream, but it’s rich and delicious nonetheless. Mascarpone and crème fraîche are whisked together for the creamy filling, and Campari, orange liqueur and brandy punch up the cooked rhubarb’s syrup. Look for store-bought ladyfingers, available in Italian shops and many supermarkets, or substitute good-quality poundcake or sponge cake. The trifle can be assembled up to a day in advance.
Buttermilk Cake Doughnuts
Making doughnuts at home might seem like a dream, but it’s an attainable dream. Golden brown on the outside with a tender, cake-like crumb inside, these classic cake-style doughnuts rely on buttermilk and baking powder for their lift and rise. The dough is slightly sticky, but resist the urge to over-flour and over-knead. Like working with biscuits, the dough must be handled delicately or the doughnuts will have difficulty rising as they fry, becoming tough and dense. Be sure to use a thermometer to determine the temperature of oil – too hot and the doughnuts get too dark before cooking all the way through; not hot enough, they’ll be greasy without that signature rise. These versatile cake doughnuts can be glazed, dusted in powdered sugar or tossed to coat in cinnamon sugar, but are their absolute best soon after they’re fried.
Doughnuts
Homemade doughnuts are a bit of a project, but they’re less work than you might think, and the result is a truly great, hot, crisp doughnut. Once you’ve mastered this basic recipe for a fluffy, yeasted doughnut, you can do pretty much anything you like in terms of glazes, toppings and fillings.
Pistachio Biscotti
Biscotti are easy to make and keep for up to 2 weeks in an airtight tin. They taste even better a day or two after baking. They are perfect for dunking, in red wine, sweet wine, coffee or tea. Almonds or walnuts can replace the pistachios if desired.
Cowboy Cookies
This recipe came to The Times in 2000 during the Bush-Gore presidential campaign when Family Circle magazine ran cookie recipes from each of the candidates' wives and asked readers to vote. Laura Bush's cowboy cookies, a classic chocolate chip cookie that's been beefed up with oats, pecans, coconut and cinnamon, beat Tipper Gore's ginger snaps by a mile. Here is an adaptation of that winning recipe.
Lemon-Ginger Tart
Somewhere between a lemon bar and a lemon pie lies this ultra tangy tart. "Tart" makes it sound difficult, but it's easier than you think: The rich filling requires zero cooking, and the crust is a simple shortbread that you just press into place. The already vibrant yellow filling gets an assist from a bit of ground turmeric. It's an ingredient that you won’t taste as much as you’ll see, but it just so happens to pair perfectly with the freshly grated ginger. It's an extra step, but don't skip straining the filling. It will get rid of any lumps that the whisk couldn’t tackle and will prevent those unsightly air bubbles that can rise to the top after baking. The lemon slices, while optional, are not frivolous: They add a bit of texture and welcome bitterness to the tart.
Ricotta Tart With Lemon Poppy Crust
This simple, not-too-sweet tart is reminiscent of a cheesecake but with a higher crust-to-filling ratio. If you’ve got excellent, ripe fruit, feel free to lay it on top — berries, figs, poached rhubarb or pears, pineapple, plums — anything sweet and juicy will contrast nicely with the milky ricotta filling. Or just drizzle the tart with good flavorful honey and serve it plain. It’s an elegant way to end a meal. If you aren’t a poppy seed fan, just leave them out of the crust. Or substitute sesame seeds instead for a similar crunch, if different flavor.
Aromatic Rice Pudding From India
Baked Banana With Poppy-Seed-Honey Ice Cream and Chocolate Tuiles
Beignets
The French might have been the first to deep-fry choux pastry, but it’s in New Orleans that beignets became a true mainstay in bakeries and cafes. This version is relatively easy to make at home: The yeast-leavened dough comes together quickly, is very forgiving to work with and fries up light and airy. The yeast must be fresh and active: Once stirred with warm water and sugar, let the mixture stand for 10 minutes. If the yeast is fresh, it will create a foamy, bubbly layer on top. (If this doesn’t happen, you’ll need to start over with new yeast.) You can cook the beignets in a Dutch oven or deep skillet, no deep-fryer necessary. To obtain the perfect puffs, fry the fritters in batches so they have plenty of room to cook evenly on all sides. Beignets are best eaten hot, buried in a blanket of powdered sugar.
Boston Cream Doughnuts
This is a recipe for a popular riff on the classic Boston Cream Pie, with a crisp, flaky doughnut as the vessel for silky pastry cream. The only specialty tool you’ll need is a pastry bag. But you can also poke a funnel into the side of the doughnut and spoon the cream into the center of the pastry.
Allergy-Friendly Cookies
For a family with a child with allergies to milk, eggs and nuts, having a go-to recipe for a safe treat is especially important. These cookies allow the writer Curtis Sittenfeld and her family to feel a sense of control over what they eat together. And they look like regular chocolate chip cookies – an advantage for kids frustrated by needing to have special foods.
Spicy Dried Fruit Dessert Sauce
One of Julia Child’s holiday tips to the readers of Parade, where she wrote a recipe column from 1982 to 1985, was to “spiffy up” store-bought mincemeat with grated apple and liquor, then heat it in a saucepan to make a rich, fragrant sauce. This is a fine idea, but almost as easy is mixing up a batch of mincemeat (minus the meat) at home. The cook can control the balance of sugar, citrus and spice and also use up all the half-empty containers of dried fruit that seem to end up lurking in kitchen cabinets. This “recipe” is entirely flexible; feel free to add orange zest, walnuts, apricots or whatever you like. The sauce will be equally good on pumpkin or sweet potato pie, ice cream or baked apples.
Choco-Hoto-Pots
I can make no dietary defense for the choco-hoto-pots: they're just good. Think ponds of molten chocolate sauce enclosed in chewy-topped, dense chocolate sponge. By popular request, I paint the lily here by adding a sprinkle of white chocolate morsels.