Dessert
3848 recipes found
Cinnamon Babka
This dairy-free babka, enriched with olive oil and flavored with a ribbon of almond flour, brown sugar and cinnamon, starts with a classic challah bread dough. In the oven, the oil and sugar mingle to create a chewy, caramelized coating. You can omit the almond flour to make this nut-free, but the cinnamon ribbon will not be as pronounced. Be sure to let the babkas proof fully before baking, which will ensure a light, supple texture. (Watch Claire make this recipe on YouTube.)
Mochi Brownies
The tender crumb and slight chew of this brownie sets it apart from others. Mochiko, or sweet rice flour, is made from a short-grain rice also known as “sticky” or “glutinous” rice, and gives baked goods a unique bounce and lightness. It works particularly well in this brownie, giving a fudgy texture that is delicate yet intensely rich. This brownie comes together effortlessly, requiring just one bowl and five ingredients. Best of all, it’s also naturally gluten free.
Chocolate Soufflé Cake
This super chocolaty cake is gorgeous. It rises high in the oven, only to slump back on itself, creating a light crisp top and fudgy center. The ingredient list is fairly straightforward, but the power of eggs helps make this cake special. Whipped egg yolks, along with a generous amount of butter and chocolate, give this cake richness, and pillowy meringue lightens the batter and helps the cake rise to a dramatic finish. Serve slices straight up, or with ice cream or a bit of lightly sweetened whipped cream spiked with vanilla or rum. For the richest chocolate flavor, use a chocolate that has around 70 percent cacao.
Christina Tosi’s Crockpot Cake
Christina Tosi, the pastry chef and an owner of Momofuku Milk Bar, sits near the beating heart of David Chang’s eclectic and innovative Momofuku restaurant empire. Off the clock, though, her cooking runs to inspired simplicity, as in this simple, tangy, slightly-caramelized at the edges slow-cooker cake, a version of which appears in her cookbook from Clarkson Potter, “Milk Bar Life.” Slow-cooker recipes invariably tell you to make something at night and enjoy them in the morning, or to make them in the morning and eat them after work. That only works if you don’t sleep much, or have a part-time job. This is a recipe for a weekend afternoon, or for cooking from the moment you get home until the very near end of a dinner party. It is a four-to-six hour affair.
Slow Cooker Sticky Toffee Pudding
Sticky toffee pudding isn't so much a pudding in the American sense, but an extremely moist baked or steamed British date cake topped with a glossy sauce of brown sugar and cream. Steamed cakes — a genre unto themselves in Britain — are easily made in the slow cooker. This adaptation uses espresso powder in the cake and sauce to balance the honeyed taste of the dates and brown sugar: Nevertheless, it is still quite sweet, as it should be. This recipe can also be made more quickly in the oven, and the resulting cake’s texture will be different than the steamed version — sliceable, like a moist quick bread.
Cream Cheese Pound Cake
Reminiscent of Sara Lee’s loaves in the freezer aisle, this tender, buttery treat is like a pound cake in sheet cake form. For a Barbie-pink dream house finish, prepare this with the optional toppings: raspberry preserves, gently salted whipped cream and a snowy, psychedelic blanket of freeze-dried raspberries. Any toppings should be added right before serving, but if it’s simplicity you’re after, then you can skip them and dust the cake with confectioners’ sugar or nothing at all. The cake, undressed, will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 to 4 days or well-wrapped in the freezer for up to a month.
Strawberry Baby Cakes
Created as a first birthday treat for a little girl, these are a sweet example of something that is simple but memorable. The look is adorable: a cake sized for a baby’s hand, covered in a soft white-chocolate glaze and finished with sprinkles. The taste is primarily vanilla — that’s the extract and white chocolate at play — and there’s a sly hint of rose, added as much for mystery as for bolstering the best qualities of the fresh strawberry that’s tucked into the cake’s middle. But it’s the cake’s texture that’s most confoundingly wonderful. It’s tender and chewy, with a compact crumb still light enough to bring you back for another serving. When it’s not a baby’s birthday, skip the candles and have the cakes with espresso — or even Champagne.
World’s Best Chocolate Cake
The recipe for this cake, adapted from "Sweet" by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh, first appeared in an article written about Ms. Goh when she ran her cafe, the Mortar & Pestle, in Melbourne, Australia. Rather intimidatingly for her, the headline for the article was "World’s Best Chocolate Cake." It could actually be called lots of things: “world’s easiest cake,” possibly, requiring nothing more than one large bowl to make it all in. Or “most versatile cake,” given that it can be served without icing and just a light dusting of cocoa powder, or dressed up to the nines, as it is here, with a thin layer of chocolate ganache and served with espresso cinnamon mascarpone cream. In the Ottolenghi shops in London, it is smaller and goes by the name Take-Home Chocolate Cake, designed to be shared by four people after a meal. This larger version is no less delicious, and keeps well for four to five days. As with any baking project, you should weigh your ingredients in grams for the best results.
Chocolate Cheesecake With Graham Cracker Crunch
It’s worth tasting a few brands of graham crackers to find one you particularly like — preferably one with whole-wheat flour and a good dash of salt and honey or molasses. Try a health-food store or Whole Foods for organic and low-sugar brands. (Graham flour was devised in the 19th century as a healthful alternative to white flour.) Fresh, fluffy cream cheese with a minimum of fillers and stabilizers is also worth seeking out for this recipe. This recipe works fine with supermarket cream cheese and graham cracker crumbs (or dark chocolate cookie crumbs) in the crust, but the filling must be made with top-quality chocolate to get the full effect: milky cream cheese, tangy sour cream and the slight bitterness of chocolate playing against the sweet crunch of the crust. That’s how it’s been made since 1984 at the Saltry restaurant in Halibut Cove, off the southern Alaska coast. All of the ingredients (as well as the equipment, furniture, staff and customers) arrive by boat — except for the magnificent salmon, oysters, halibut, cod and mussels that are caught or harvested nearby.
Magnolia Bakery’s Cupcakes
You don't have to wait in line. You can make the famous West Village bakery's cupcakes at home. Don't forget the icing!
Red Velvet Cupcakes
This bright and beautiful Southern staple has a hint of chocolate flavor that’s paired with a cream cheese frosting, keeping it from being too sweet. Part of red velvet cake’s allure is how moist it is, owing to the vegetable oil in the batter. (Oil-based cakes are often more tender than butter-based counterparts.) You can make these into even smaller cupcakes — this recipe yields twice as many mini cupcakes — just reduce the cooking time accordingly. And if you want your cake even lighter in texture, sift the flour before you mix it in.
Maple Milk Bread
Inspired by the fluffy loaves at White Windmill, a bakery and cafe in Atlanta, this milk bread — a type of soft, bouncy white bread made with, yes, milk — is an homage to the Korean American community along the city’s Buford Highway and beyond. Milk bread exists across many cultures, but its distinguishing feature is the tangzhong — a cooked paste of flour and milk — that helps keep the bread from drying out. Maple syrup and a sturdier crumb distinguish this loaf from milk breads found at Asian bakeries. This one, which appears in “Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home,” by Eric Kim (Clarkson Potter, 2022), has a deeply savory, pancake-sweet flavor and tastes fabulous plain, fresh out of the oven, or toasted, buttered and adorned with jam; honey and flaky sea salt are equally welcome as toppings. (Watch the video of Eric Kim making maple milk bread here.)
Cream Soda and Raspberry Cupcakes
These happy-looking cupcakes, with swirls of pink in the frosting, are only improved by a generous sprinkling of fun — in the form of popping candy, of course. The cream soda flavoring gives these cupcakes an ice cream shop vibe and can be ordered online, but vanilla will work just as well. Feel free to bake the cupcakes a day ahead and keep them in an airtight container. Top them with the mascarpone cream a couple of hours before you intend to serve them. For maximum effect, be sure to sprinkle on the popping candy only right before serving.
Chocolate-Chip Oatmeal Cookies With Ras el Hanout
Everyone loves a good oatmeal cookie — and this one will take you straight to Morocco. Ras el hanout is a common Moroccan spice blend and translates to “top of the shop” in Moroccan Arabic, which suggests that the spices selected were the finest available in the merchant's shop at the moment. The fragrant and warming spices of ras el hanout pair beautifully with the sweetness of the oatmeal cookie and the sharpness of the dark chocolate. Because of the spice mixture, these cookies won't appear to brown much, so be careful not to overbake. You can use your favorite store-bought ras el hanout for your cookies or make your own blend (see tip).
Chocolate Cupcakes
This simple recipe, modestly entitled “Chocolate Cupcakes” from the 1974 book “Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts,” produces cakes with a rich, moist crumb that relies on cocoa powder for a deep chocolatey flavor. But it’s the topping of semi-sweet chocolate ganache that separates these cupcakes from the crowd.
Chocolate-Chocolate Birthday Cake
This is the birthday cake I’ve made for my son since he was about 11. After boxed cakes, ice-cream cakes, a cake in a Darth Vader mold (that year, the party’s theme was “May the Fours Be With You), this cake hit the spot and remains a favorite. It’s a double-layer devil’s-food cake made with cocoa and bittersweet chocolate, the same pair that makes the frosting so luscious. You can make the layers ahead of time, wrap them and freeze them for up to a month. As for the frosting, it’s best spread between the layers and over the cake when it’s just made. Once assembled, the cake can be refrigerated overnight. It cuts most easily when it’s cold but tastes best when it’s at room temperature, which is about what it will be once the candles are blown out and the slices put on plates. Ice cream alongside is unnecessary but nice. Hey, it’s a birthday!
Simplest Strawberry Tart
This gorgeous tart is adapted from "Sweeter Off the Vine," by Yossy Arefi, a cookbook of fruit desserts for every season. It's an ideal vehicle for the ripest strawberries at the height of the season, a dessert that makes more of a splash than just serving berries and cream but still has that simple charm. The only tricky part is the crust, which could crack as you transfer it to a serving board. But if that happens, don't despair. It's meant to be effortlessly loose and casual, and you can cover the damage with swirls of mascarpone and a blanket of berries.
Kentucky Butter Cake
If you think you don’t need another Bundt cake recipe, this one exists to prove you wrong. Adapted from Nell Lewis of Platte City, Mo., who entered the Pillsbury Bake-Off contest in 1963, it is a favorite of food bloggers and Pinterest lovers alike. On the surface, it’s not that different from your typical pound cake, but what makes it special is a vanilla-scented, buttery sugar glaze that’s poured over the still-warm cake. Left to sit for several hours before unmolding, the glaze soaks into the cake, making it incredibly tender and rich while leaving behind a delightful sugary crust. There are a lot of variations out there — some with bourbon in place of the vanilla, others with sherry — so feel free to play around.
Pumpkin Cheesecake
This dessert delivers all the warm spices of pumpkin pie along with the tangy creaminess of cheesecake. To help the filling come together easily, make sure your ingredients are at room temperature, and refrain from mixing on high, which will incorporate too much air, causing the cheesecake to rise, then fall. The cake is finished in the oven with the heat turned off; that gentle reduction in heat eliminates the need for a water bath and reduces the likelihood of cracks or a grainy texture.
Pear and Apple Soufflé
Fruit soufflés are dramatic and impressive yet so easy to make. This one will impress everyone at your table. Make the fruit puree well in advance, and beat the egg whites before you sit down to dinner. Then, when you’re too full to eat anything more, fold the two together and put the soufflés in the oven. Just when you’re beginning to think you could eat a little dessert, they’ll be ready.
Chocolate-Cherry Cake
Topped with a pompadour of airy whipped cream frosting — which tastes comfortingly of hot cocoa — this cake is reminiscent of Black Forest gâteau but with more chocolaty depth. The cake’s dark chocolate flavor is enhanced by Dutch-processed cocoa powder, which produces a much deeper, Oreo-like chocolaty taste than natural unsweetened cocoa powder. A glossy, cherry-red layer of preserves keeps the crumb moist and tender, and a splash of almond extract evokes the aromatic bittersweetness of kirsch or maraschino cherries (cherries are, after all, in the same family as almonds). Don’t forget the actual cherries on top; they’ll make you happy.
Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies
These wildly popular cookies were developed by Alison Roman for her cookbook, “Dining In: Highly Cookable Recipes.” “I’ve always found chocolate chip cookies to be deeply flawed (to know this about me explains a lot),” she writes. “Too sweet, too soft, or with too much chocolate, there’s a lot of room for improvement, if you ask me. But no one asked me, and rather than do a complete overhaul on the most iconic cookie known to man, I took all my favorite parts and invented something else entirely. Made with lots of salted butter (it has a slightly different flavor and a deeper saltiness than using just salt — I prefer unsalted butter everywhere else but here), the dough has just enough flour to hold it together and the right amount of light brown sugar to suggest a chocolate chip cookie.”
Vegan Devil’s Food Cupcakes
“Punk taught me to question everything,” the vegan chef Isa Chandra Moskowitz told Julia Moskin in 2007. “Of course, in my case that means questioning how to make a Hostess cupcake without eggs, butter or cream.” Ms. Moskowitz's vegan cupcake calls for cider vinegar instead of buttermilk. Nonhydrogenated margarine and shortening and soy milk are used in place of eggs and butter.
Grand Marnier Soufflé
This version of the classic French dessert is an adaptation of one attributed to Jean-Jacques Rachou, a former owner and chef of La Côte Basque, a restaurant The Times once called "the high-society temple of classic French cuisine." These acclaimed soufflés were a specialty at the restaurant, which closed its doors in 2004, after 45 years of serving guests like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Babe Paley and Frank Sinatra. Done right, they are airy, perfectly textured and deftly sweetened. The key is the density of the egg whites; they must be whipped until the peaks are firm but not too full of air.