Dessert
3901 recipes found
Spicy Ginger Applesauce Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
This simple sheet cake is packed with three kinds of spicy ginger: fresh, ground and crystallized. The cake is delicious on its own, but cream cheese frosting and a sprinkle of crystallized ginger push it closer to dessert. The cake can be made a day in advance, covered and refrigerated and brought to room temperature before serving. The crystallized ginger should be sprinkled on just before serving as it will weep in the fridge.
Caramelized Banana Pudding
This crowd-pleasing Southern dessert created by layering vanilla pudding, vanilla wafers and bananas is adapted from Millie Peartree, the owner of Millie Peartree Fish Fry & Soul Food restaurant in the Bronx. Her version takes it over the top by caramelizing the bananas with a little melted butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and vanilla before layering. This extra step adds complex flavor to the unapologetically sweet dessert. Serve piles of it in bowls with extra wafers crumbled over the top, a sprinkle of cinnamon and unsweetened whipped cream, if desired.
Rocky Road Ice Cream Bars
This recipe takes the classic American ice cream and turns it into simple, festive bars. They start with a no-bake chocolate cookie crust that gets topped with chocolate ice cream, salty toasted nuts and, of course, mini marshmallows, making this a treat everyone will love. Using a rich, dense ice cream is key to these bars, so buy a premium ice cream for this recipe if you can, since some supermarket versions may have a lot of air incorporated. Serve the bars straight from the freezer (with napkins!) or on dessert plates with a drizzle of hot fudge sauce, and watch them disappear.
No-Bake Chocolate Mousse Bars
Ethereal and ready to melt in your mouth, chocolate mousse bars are easy to make and even easier to eat. With so few ingredients, it’s important to use a chocolate you would be perfectly happy to snack out of hand. The instant espresso powder is optional but adds depth to this simple dessert. To cut beautiful, neat slices, use a long sharp knife warmed in hot water and wiped clean before each cut.
Seis Leches Cake
This recipe for a tres leches cake (a traditional syrup-soaked confection from Latin America) takes a good thing — namely the combination of milks that saturate its crumb — and doubles it. Instead of just the usual three milks (sweetened condensed, evaporated and heavy cream), it calls for six, adding coconut milk, condensed coconut milk and dulce de leche. Like the original version, it’s a dense, puddinglike cake flavored with cinnamon and rum. But here, notes of coconut and caramel lend complexity and even more richness. Serve this in small squares, preferably with a bitter espresso or some tea to sip between syrupy bites.
No-Bake Cheesecake Bars
No-bake cheesecake is an excellent dessert for cooks with a lot of friends and not a lot of time. Unlike a traditional cheesecake, the no-bake variety is eggless, making it smooth, light, and all about the dairy. This version includes tangy Greek yogurt and a bit of whipped cream for added loft. Serve big squares with in-season fresh fruit or a dollop of fresh jam.
Vegan Brownies With Tahini and Halvah
It was said that the recipient of the very first batch of these brownies polished them off, alone, in one sitting. There is no proof of this. What we do know is that they are vegan, deeply dark and fudgy. The recipe, which is based on one in Amy Chaplin's cookbook, “At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen,” uses everyday ingredients to reach that fudginess: olive oil (a proven amplifier of chocolate’s complexity) and dates (to round out the bitterness of the cocoa powder, and to act as a binder). But tahini and halvah are the two surprise players here, taking the recipe in a rich direction. The tahini disappears into the brownies, making them shockingly moist, while the halvah lends something familiar and unexpected. Regular almonds are fine; Marconas are better. You could replace the spelt flour with all-purpose for a less savory, more traditional effect.
Yellow Sheet Cake With Chocolate Frosting
This is the kind of dessert worth dreaming about: a buttery yellow cake topped with a chocolate-sour cream frosting, made doubly rich with cocoa powder and melted chocolate. The batter may seem thin when you spread it in the pan, but, once baked, it rises to perfection. It’s not a towering, lofty cake — it’s not meant to be — but when it’s covered with a generous layer of frosting, it makes for the ideal cake-to-icing ratio. For a perfect cake, make sure designated “room temperature” ingredients truly are; this helps ensure that the batter is fully incorporated so the cake bakes evenly.
Lemon Sheet Cake With Raspberry Whipped Cream
This lovely cake was inspired by the colors and flavors of pink lemonade. Don’t be tempted to skip the first step of this recipe, which asks you to rub lemon zest into granulated sugar: The sugar granules help release the essential oils in the zest, making for a brighter lemon flavor and fragrance. (If you’re really short on time, you can skip using your hands and just mix with the paddle attachment inside the mixer bowl on low speed for 1 minute.) Slather this sunny cake with swoopy, easy-to-make raspberry whipped cream then serve as is, or dressed up with lemon zest or sprinkles.
Chess Pie Squares
These heavenly little bars, adapted from the Southern cookbook author Julia Reed, are a modern-day, perfect-for-a-picnic version of a traditional custard pie made from flour, cornmeal, sugar, eggs, butter and buttermilk. They are like lemon bars without the lip-puckering citrus: a blanket of egg-rich custard generously laced with vanilla atop a lightly salted, crumbly shortbread crust. (If you don't have buttermilk, you can make an easy substitute by combining one tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice with a cup of milk. Let stand for 5 minutes, then measure out 3/4 cup.)
Denver Chocolate Sheet Cake
Since the 1950s, when the Junior League first started publishing cookbooks to raise money for charity, it has sold hundred of millions of copies. This recipe came to The New York Times in 2003 from the Denver chapter: a basic chocolate sheet-cake of tremendous moistness that's very easy to make. It is meant to have a very mild, milk chocolate flavor, but if you prefer a bit more depth, double or even triple the cocoa in the cake and frosting.
Buttermilk Banana Pudding With Salted Peanuts
Banana pudding typically sits on the sweeter side of the dessert spectrum. Despite layers of instant pudding, vanilla cookies, sliced bananas and meringue or whipped cream, the sweet snack can feel a little one-note. But with a few simple tweaks and some new ingredients, it can feel fresh. The addition of buttermilk gives the custard a tangy zip of acidity, and tossing the Nilla Wafers with salted brown butter imparts a nutty, caramel-like flavor. Sour cream is incorporated into the whipped-cream topping, which helps the heavy cream stay firm while refrigerated and turning this into a fail-proof make-ahead dish. Garnishing the top with some more crushed cookies and chopped salted peanuts provides the pudding with crunch.
Bittersweet Brownie Shortbread
These chewy bar cookies combine two all-time favorites: crumbly, buttery shortbread and bittersweet brownies. Nut lovers can mix almonds, pecans or walnuts into the brownie batter, which gives the bars a delightful crunch. But those who prefer savoring the smooth, gooey centers of their brownies can easily leave them out. In any case, be sure not to overbake the brownies. As soon as the top sets, they’re done.
Apple Sheet Cake With Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
This lightly spiced apple cake comes together in no time at all, and a few swoops of fluffy cinnamon cream cheese frosting dress it up for dessert. As written, this recipe yields a modest amount of frosting, so frosting lovers may want to double the recipe. Make sure to use fresh cinnamon for this recipe (and all of your fall baking) to get the best results.
Cranberry Lemon Bars
Cranberries that are quick-cooked into jam add a striking magenta color and complex tartness to these two-toned lemon bars. A thin layer of the classic lemon filling coats the cranberry mix like icing, and lemon zest boiled with the berries echoes the citrus taste of the lemony top. (Its pectin also thickens the jam.) To achieve a sturdy crust that isn’t tough, melted butter is stirred into a flour blend and simply patted into the pan. That vanilla cookie base, generously salted to balance the tangy sweetness on top, comes out crisp and holds up well even as the bars keep in the refrigerator for up to five days.
Cherry Yum-Yum
If its name is any indication, this retro Southern no-bake dessert maximizes flavor — and it does so while minimizing time, effort and ingredients. Layers of graham cracker crust, tangy cream cheese and canned cherry pie filling create a dessert that straddles a no-bake cheesecake and a classic trifle. The graham cracker crust sets as it chills, lending both texture and a toasty flavor that balances the rich dairy and the sweet pie filling. Almond extract, though optional, complements the cherries perfectly. Yum-yum is the perfect blank canvas party dessert — you can amend it with different cookie bases (Oreos or gingersnaps); flavorings in the cream (Kirsch or almond liqueur); and pie fillings (apple or berry) to suit all seasons and tastes.
Magic Cookie Bars
Coconut dream bars. Magic cookie bars. Hello Dolly bars. You’ve seen these classic treats at bake sales, holiday parties and potlucks over the years. But they tend to crumble when cut, thanks to a thin graham cracker crust. And, topped with gobs of super-sweet shredded coconut, sweetened condensed milk and semisweet chocolate, they have a cloying bite that may be too much for even the sweetest tooth. This version starts with a thicker graham cracker cookie base. It's baked with an egg, a bit of brown sugar and some leavener, which makes it pleasantly dense and chewy and means that it cuts nicely and stands up well to the decadent toppings. Next, unsweetened flaked coconut and dark chocolate are layered with plenty of chopped pecans and condensed milk. The slightly bitter chocolate and toasty coconut tame the sweetness of the condensed milk, which caramelizes as it cooks, making the whole package well-balanced and full of flavor.
Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars
A simple cheesecake recipe that requires no water bath or springform pan and tastes like a creamy pumpkin pie. Baked in a 9-by-13-inch pan, these are sliced into bars that are easy to serve and eat. If you want to make them a bit fancier, you can reserve some of the plain cheesecake batter to swirl into the pumpkin batter just before baking.
Sugar Cookie Bars
These sugar cookie bars, which are adapted from “American Girl Cookies,” are happiness in a 9-by-13 pan. The addition of cream cheese in the batter makes them very tender and slightly tangy, a perfect counterpoint to the sweet buttercream frosting. You can, and should, experiment with frosting colors and use sprinkles with abandon. Whatever you do, do not overbake these beauties. When testing for doneness, you want a few moist crumbs to cling to the toothpick.
Atlantic Beach Pie
Like a dreamy mash-up between a key lime and lemon meringue pie, this surprisingly fast and easy dessert is adapted from Bill Smith, who retired in 2019 after 25 years as the chef at Crook’s Corner, a Chapel Hill, N.C. restaurant that closed in June 2021. He was inspired by the lemon pies he ate at seafood restaurants in Atlantic Beach, N.C., while vacationing there as a child. While a food processor makes quick work of the saltine cracker crust, you don’t really need any special equipment — you can just as easily make it with your hands. Top it with whipped cream just before serving, and if you’re feeling flush, sprinkle it with flaky sea salt as they did at Crook's Corner, and citrus zest as we do: a lazy summer’s day in pie form.
Blueberry Pie Bars
At first glance, these bars may look like every other fruit crumble bar you’ve had, but they have a secret. Between the jammy fruit and buttery shortbread is a bonus layer of sweetened cream cheese you never knew you needed until now. Wild blueberries are less watery than conventional blueberries and have a more concentrated blueberry flavor that works beautifully in this recipe. They are available frozen and need not be thawed before using, but you can use whichever variety you find. These bars will be delicious no matter what.
Dolester Miles’ Coconut Pecan Cake
This is a rich, special-occasion cake that takes the traditional Southern coconut cake to another level, with ground toasted pecans in the batter and an easy-to-make Chantilly cream for frosting. It has become the signature dessert for Dolester Miles, who serves slices over a little puddle of crème anglaise at Chez Fonfon and Bottega, and sometimes at the Highlands Bar & Grill, the Birmingham, Ala., restaurants owned by Frank and Pardis Stitt. Assembly can be a challenge, so she suggests building the cake by stacking the delicate slabs of cake with filling in between each layer into a deep, round cake pan, then slipping it into the refrigerator for about an hour. The filling acts like a delicious glue. When the cake is inverted and unmolded, the edges have an even, professional appearance.
Gingery Mixed Berry Pie
Mixed berry pie is the ultimate summertime treat: Handfuls of the season’s finest blueberries, blackberries and raspberries are tucked into a crisp, buttery crust that’s just begging to be served with a scoop of ice cream. Fresh ginger lends unexpected warmth and spice to this well-loved classic, but for a little punch, add up to 1 tablespoon of very finely minced candied ginger. If you find yourself short on one type of berry, make up the difference with another — just make sure the berries are the best you can find. For a crisp bottom crust, bake the pie in the lower third of your oven until it is deeply golden and the fruit juices are bubbling, and don’t skip the lattice top. It’s not just for looks: The vents help steam escape and the berry juices to concentrate.
Peanut Butter Pie
Dead simple to make, this pie hits all the right notes. Sweet, nutty peanut butter mellows next to the tang of rich cream cheese and gets a lift from a little whipped cream. But if that doesn’t convince you, the chocolate cookie crust may. This version relies on five ingredients, instead of pre-made cookies, with the cocoa giving it a deep chocolate flavor. The crust is pressed into a well-buttered pie plate, baked, then cooled, ready to be filled and chilled. When it's time to serve, you have options: Finish it with a decorative chocolate topping or a puff of lightly sweetened whipped cream and a sprinkling of cocoa powder.