Dessert
3848 recipes found
Citrusy Cheesecake
The nice thing about this cheesecake is that it doesn’t require a water bath or any sort of special baking pan: More shallow than a traditional version, it gets baked right in a pie plate (or tart pan, if you’ve got that). While there are zest and juice inside the cream cheese filling, it’s the fresh sliced citrus on top that makes this cake Creamsicle-like, so don’t skip it. The ultimate do-ahead dessert, this cheesecake can be baked three or so days in advance, just make sure to wrap it tightly as cream cheese tends to easily pick up on that “fridge” scent.
Japanese Cheesecake
Japanese cheesecakes, sometimes called soufflé or cotton cheesecakes, have a melt-in-the-mouth texture that’s like a classic cheesecake crossed with an ethereal sponge cake. This one, adapted from Joanne Chang of Boston’s Flour Bakery, has bright lemon tanginess and crème fraîche richness as well. It’s best made the day before you plan to serve it, and will keep for up to 4 days in the refrigerator. Serve it plain and minimalist, with a sprinkle of confectioners’ sugar on top, or with fresh berries for added color and juiciness.
Strawberry Soufflé
This very light soufflé recipe, adapted from Julia Child, uses a base of syrupy fruit to flavor the egg whites, without the addition of fats or starches. And a combination of raspberries and strawberries makes it marvelously pink. This recipe is part of The New Essentials of French Cooking, a guide to definitive dishes every modern cook should master.
Lemon Soufflé
This soufflé, adapted from Mark Bittman's famous tome, "How to Cook Everything," is rich, fluffy and very easy. You can also make orange or Grand Marnier variations. If you want to make individual soufflés, use a little more butter and grease four 1 1/2- to 2-cup ramekins.
Zucchini Cake With Ginger and Hazelnuts
This extraordinary cake is a sophisticated riff on the ubiquitous zucchini bread. It's more delicate and tender than the classic loaf, fresh ginger and orange zest add a dash of vibrancy, and hazelnuts add crunch. It's also blissfully simple to make. Just two bowls, a wooden spoon and a tube (or bundt) pan and you're on your way.
Sweet Potato Bebinca
Adapted from Nik Sharma’s first cookbook, “Season,” this lightly sweet pudding cake is an ideal fall dessert — a far less stressful alternative to a more labored pie. Here Mr. Sharma riffs on a traditional dessert from the Indian state of Goa, using a base of coconut milk, eggs and sweet potatoes that are roasted and then puréed, perfumed with nutmeg. Though he sweetens the bebinca with jaggery or muscovado sugar, alternatives like panela or dark brown sugar work too; the addition of maple syrup is a distinctly American touch. (Mr. Sharma likes to make this for Thanksgiving.) Be sure to leave time for the bebinca to cool and set — at least 6 hours in the refrigerator, but preferably overnight.
Jamaican Sweet Potato Pudding
There are two secrets to this silky, not-too-sweet pudding, a Jamaican holiday staple from Hazel Craig, the mother of the pastry chef Jessica Craig: Freshly grated nutmeg provides the warm, toasty flavor and batatas (white-fleshed sweet potatoes) give the dish its dense, starchy texture. The combination of sweet potato and coconut is decadent, but not overly so — like a poundcake merged with a cheesecake.
Warm Sweet Potato-Apple Pone
Sweet potato pone is a baked custard pudding-like dish that’s something like a crustless sweet potato pie. This version is made with whole shreds of sweet potato, which is how it’s often served during the holidays throughout the Caribbean and parts of the American South. It’s a versatile dessert that can be made with other warming spices like ginger, nutmeg or clove, a little orange zest, or even rum-soaked raisins. This is a simplified version that replaces half of the sweet potatoes with shredded apple, which adds natural sweetness and a bit of creaminess as it cooks down. Choose from baking varieties like Honeycrisp, Fuji or Gala. Serve the pone warm from the oven with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Paul Prudhomme's Sweet Potato Pecan Pie
This recipe came to The Times in 1983 from the renowned Louisiana chef Paul Prudhomme. Like its traditional pecan cousin, this pie is very sweet, so serve it with a little Chantilly cream on top.
Sweet Potato Meringue Pie
Everything about this sweet potato pie is surprisingly light and creamy, from the soft custard filling to the swoopy toasted meringue. Piping that meringue dresses it up even more. Instead of focusing on making uniform shapes and sizes with the piping tips, give into spontaneity — use two tips with different shapes and use them to make different effects within a designated portion of the pie. The untopped pie can be made up to 1 day ahead, but it’s best to make and apply the meringue within 2 hours of serving.
Galatoire’s Sweet Potato Cheesecake
This recipe is adapted from a popular dessert served at Galatoire's, a famed New Orleans restaurant founded on Bourbon Street, in 1905. A simple graham cracker crust is filled with cinnamon-spiced sweet potato cheesecake then topped with a lightly-sweetened layer of sour cream. It is to die for.
Sweet Potato Hummingbird Cake
This magnificent version of the popular banana-pineapple-pecan cake developed by Southern Living magazine in 1978 is adapted from the chef Ashley Christensen's cookbook, "Poole's: Recipes from a Modern Diner." It is a Thanksgiving-worthy dessert for the pie averse: a supremely moist, dense cake crowded with sweet potato, roasted bananas, pineapple, currants and green peanuts (if you live north of the Mason-Dixon line, the plain, roasted variety work just fine). A lightly sweet, butter-cream cheese frosting finishes it off. Set aside a solid afternoon for this project cake, as you have to roast the bananas and grate the sweet potato, and the assembly takes some patience and agility — but it is well worth the toil. This recipe is for a towering three-layer version (get out your biggest mixing bowls), but you could just make a more modest, but still generously sized, two-layer cake instead. To do so, cut all of the ingredients in half (use just 2 eggs); divide the batter between two 8-inch round cake pans; and bake at the same time and temperature.
Sweet Potato Tea Cake With Meringue
This beautiful tea cake from the San Francisco chef Elisabeth Prueitt has all the fall flavors of pumpkin spice channeled into a moist, spicy loaf with a base of sweet potato purée. It also has a delicious unusual addition: meringue, baked right into the top of the cake. Ms. Prueitt’s head of pastry at Tartine Manufactory, Michelle Lee, came up with the idea of swirling it over the top of the cake before baking. Use a spoon or toothpick to reach down into the cake batter and pull it up, creating beautiful peaks of batter-streaked meringue that bake up golden brown and crisp on the edges.
Eggnog Sweet Potato Pie
Eggnog’s swirl of cream, eggs, nutmeg and dark liquor imbues this sweet potato pie with the warmth of the holidays, and a sugar-sparkled crust makes it extra joyful. Spiked with two shots of rum, the roasted sweet potato custard filling becomes more complex in its earthy natural sweetness and almost like mousse in its lightness. You can dress up this pie without any expertise in crimping dough, you simply roll and cut dough scraps, then coat them with sugar and stick them to the edge of the pie crust.
Mini Sweet Potato Pies
Coconut milk gives the spiced sweet potato filling in these small pies a delicate custard texture, and coconut flakes on top deliver a toasted nuttiness. This recipe calls for pressing two dozen tiny crusts into a mini-muffin tin, which may seem tedious, but is easy with the help of a wine or champagne cork, which is the ideal size for tamping down the graham cracker crumbs. These two-bite (OK, one-bite) pies need to be chilled, so they’re ideal for making ahead and can be refrigerated for up to three days.
Vegan Chocolate Pudding With Cinnamon and Chile
This winner of a pudding, made with silken tofu, takes about as much time to make as hot chocolate. And in fact the combination of cinnamon, chile and chocolate recalls Mexican hot chocolate. Use the highest quality chocolate — semisweet or bittersweet, please — you can lay your hands on. After all, it's the flavor of the chocolate, not the flavor of the tofu, that will dominate. The texture is almost unbelievably good.
Vegan Chocolate Pudding Pie
This vegan pie pairs a thick, creamy, chile- and cinnamon-laced pudding from Mark Bittman with a graham cracker crust adapted from the cookbook "Vegan Pie in the Sky." The pudding, whose flavors recall Mexican hot chocolate, can also stand alone. It's made with silken tofu, and it comes together in 10 minutes in the blender, which whips in air for a mousse-like texture. The chocolate is of the utmost importance here; its flavor will be the one that dominates, so be sure to buy the highest quality you can. Top with shaved chocolate if you'd like.
Vegan Arroz con Leche
Rice is a grain enjoyed around the world, and it’s typically eaten in savory forms. In this recipe, sweetened grains are cooked until creamy with almond milk, raisins, star anise, vanilla and flaky Ceylon cinnamon, which is commonly used in Mexican cooking. (Ceylon cinnamon is preferred to the other varieties for it’s sweet, delicate flavor.) This warm and comforting dessert is easily pulled together with ingredients likely already in your pantry.
Crisp Quinoa Cakes With Pine Nuts and Raisins
Gluten-Free Apple, Pear and Cranberry Pecan Crumble
This has moved to the top of my favorite crumbles list. I have made apple crumbles before, but I hadn’t cooked the apples first in my other recipes. It makes a huge difference in the sweetness and comfort level of the dish. The pear also contributes to the overall sweetness of the dessert and I love the tangy flavor of the dried cranberries. I have used a gluten-free mix of certified oats (produced in a gluten-free facility) and millet flour, which makes a crumble topping that is truly crumbly. Both tender apples like McIntosh, Gala, Macoun and Cortland, as well as firmer apples like Braeburns and Fujis work well in this dish
Peanut Butter-Miso Cookies
These cookies were the result of a happy accident. (The best things always are, aren’t they?) When the peanut butter ran out, similarly creamy white miso stepped in. The other ingredients were tweaked to offset the miso’s savory character, and what came out of the oven was salty and sweet, crunchy and chewy. A brief stint in the fridge helps mellow the miso’s bracing brackishness, and a roll in Demerara sugar adds a subtle crunch that pairs well with the tender cookie.
Sweet Cherry Upside-Down Cake
There’s a little black pepper in this cake, which provides just enough heat to enhance the sweetness of the cherries. If you’re worried about the pepper, cut back on the amount called for, but if you’re excited about it, you may want to double it. This is a sweet, rustic and rich upside-down cake that’s sturdy enough to hold up to its juicy fruit topping. Once the finished cake gets inverted onto a platter, the extra cherry juice soaks back into the cake as it cools, which means it gets better as it sits. Serve the cake with lemon whipped cream made by beating cold heavy cream with the leftover lemon juice and some sugar until stiff. It’s helpful for covering up any imperfections in the cake, too!
Salted Maple Pie
Sort of a Yankee riff on the South’s chess pie, this buttery and rich custard pie is adapted from “Sister Pie: The Recipes and Stories of a Big-Hearted Bakery in Detroit” by Lisa Ludwinski. Use the best dark maple syrup you can find, and don’t forget the flaky sea salt. It takes the pie from simply sweet to sophisticated. Keep an eye on the crust while it's baking: If it’s browning too much for your taste, lightly cover the entire pie with a sheet of aluminum foil for the remaining time.
Caramel Pear Crisp
The caramel in this comforting seasonal dessert is made with butter and sugar and is a bit easier to make than a water and sugar caramel. That said, it is important to use ripe fruit that will let off juice so that the caramel isn’t too stiff. The cream cheese adds body and tang, and highlights the delicate flavor of the pears, but in a pinch, you could swap the cream cheese for ¼ cup of heavy cream. Either way, a drizzle of cold heavy cream for serving would offset the sweetness nicely.