Dessert
3842 recipes found

Vanilla Crème Brûlée
Five simple ingredients – cream, vanilla, salt, eggs and sugar – make for an exquisitely rich and elegant dessert. Most crème brûlée recipes require the use of a small propane torch to achieve the crackly sugar top, but this version offers a simpler (and safer) solution: your oven's broiler. One thing to note: Be sure to let the custard set for several hours in the refrigerator before brûléeing the top, otherwise you'll end up with soupy custard.

Apple or Pear Crisp
I don't know why anyone would make a pie instead of a crisp. A crisp, most often made with apples but accommodating of almost any fruit, is better textured, better flavored and easier to make. If you choose to use pears instead of apples, be aware that unripe pears are unlikely to become tender in the time it takes the topping to brown. You must begin with pears that have started to soften, or their texture will remain unpleasantly firm.

Espresso Chocolate Cake

Hibiscus Gelée

Apricot Mousse

Sour Cream Cheesecake With Vanilla Bean
This elegant cheesecake is based on Amanda Hesser's mother's simple recipe. The crust is made of Nabisco chocolate wafers and butter. The bottom layer is a fluffy pool of cream cheese, eggs and sugar. The top is a thin layer of sour cream and sugar. Her recipe called for vanilla extract, but this one uses the seeds of one whole vanilla bean, which has a way of elevating all the other subtle flavors – cinnamon, chocolate and the tang of the sour cream and cream cheese – in a magical way.

Easy Apple Tart With Apricot Marmalade
Hana says: This tart is not kosher for Passover, so wait until after the holiday to make it. Gitta Friedenson, an old friend, passed along the recipe. Use a glass dish so you can check how brown the bottom gets. And don't serve it too hot, because it falls apart.

Sweet Potato Pie
This mildly-sweet version of the classic Southern pie has a crisp crust and a filling that's surprisingly light. It's rich with egg and boldly spiced with nutmeg, but as fluffy as chiffon (a quality owed to the baking powder in the filling). This means you'll probably have room for two (or three) pieces. (Don't let making your own pie crust intimidate you: our pie guide has everything you need to know.)

Simplest Sticky Toffee Pudding

Chocolate Baked Alaska
Baked alaska was once a restaurant show stopper. A layering of spongecake, ice cream and meringue, it was presented on a tray and flambeed at the table to heat the covering of meringue so you had both warm and cold sensations as you ate it. But some restaurants serve it in individual portions, relying on a blowtorch back in the kitchen to caramelize the meringue. When Amanda Hesser brought this recipe to The Times in 1998, the pastry chef Stacie Pierce of the Union Square Cafe used espresso caramel ice cream instead of vanilla or chocolate and served a big ball of it on top of a tender chocolate souffle cake, rather than the traditional spongecake. The warm and cold effect is the same, and the flavors, sharper and distinct, come across as more mature.

Lima Bee Ice Cream

Easy Apple Tarte Tatin

Chocolate Crumb Crust

Darden Sisters' Sweet Potato Pie

Wolfgang Puck's Flourless Chocolate Cake

Shortcut Sweet Potato Pie

Best Peach Cobbler
Everyone has a different idea about what a cobbler should be. Biscuit-topped? Double-crusted? Cakelike? We’re not here to cast a vote, merely to present a simple Southern cake-style cobbler that makes the most of ripe summer peaches (or the frozen ones languishing in the back of your freezer). All you really need is a bowl, a saucepan, a baking pan and a spoon. This recipe is all about showcasing the fruit, so when you transfer the batter to the pan, it will not completely cover the bottom, nor will it cover the top of the peaches. As it bakes, the batter will rise up along the sides of the pan and through the peaches, developing a crisp exterior and tender interior. If you'd like a taller cobbler with a higher cake-to-fruit ratio, do as many readers do, and double the batter.

Eating Well's Chocolate Cake

Apricot Gratin with Almonds and Kirsch

Plum Tart With Red-Currant Glaze

Blueberry Crumble

Strawberry-Rhubarb Cobbler

Chocolate Walnut Torte
