Dessert
3848 recipes found
Berry Buttermilk Cake
Buttermilk makes this stir-together cake super tender, but you can use any milk you have in its place. Same goes for the fruit: Use your favorite frozen berries, or a combination, but frozen cherries, mango or peaches work as well. Just cut any big fruit pieces into bite-size pieces before folding into the batter. And if you do happen to have fresh summer fruit around, that’ll work, too.
Chocolate Shortbread Hearts
Fragile and supremely buttery, these cocoa-flavored shortbread cookies are dunked partway in melted chocolate and sprinkled with an optional topping of crushed freeze-dried raspberries. If you use them, the berries add verve both from their scarlet color and their bright acidity, which is nice against the richness of the chocolate. But other garnishes — flaky sea salt, chopped pistachios, crushed candy canes, toasted coconut — can be substituted. Be sure not to roll the dough thinner than 1/2 inch. Otherwise, the cookies are apt to break and crumble after baking. Their thickness helps keep them intact.
Flourless Beet Brownies
Despite being flourless, these beet brownies bridge the gap between fudgy and cakey, offering the best of both worlds. Raw beets make the brownies dense and moist, helping them stay luscious and soft long after they’ve finished baking. Though the beets bring their own natural sweetness, pulsing the chopped raw beets in a food processor with some additional granulated sugar breaks down the hard root into a vibrant red base. In fact, the food processor does most of the work in this recipe. Baked until just cooked through, the resulting brownies are rich, subtly sweet and deeply chocolatey. If you prefer your brownies a little sweeter, sub the bittersweet chocolate baking chips for semi-sweet baking chips. You can top them with a little flaky sea salt out of the oven. Serve them warm with ice cream for dessert or at room temperature with a cup of coffee in the morning.
Cherries Jubilee
Although this classic recipe was named in honor of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, the method of sautéing cherries with butter, sugar and a splash of Cognac or kirsch probably predates those festivities. Flambéing the mixture helps cook off some of the alcohol and singes the cherries, adding a gentle caramelized note. But you can skip that step and just add an extra 2 minutes to the simmering in Step 5 after adding the Cognac. Serve this warm over ice cream, pound cake or both.
Summer Pudding With Blackberries and Peaches
Constructed from layers of soft, spongy sliced bread and tons of juicy, just-cooked fruit, this British dessert gets an update with a layer of barely sweetened whipped cream. It is the best thing since, well, sliced bread. Think of it as somewhere between a layer cake (where you don’t have to bake any cake) and a tiramisù (where the coffee and chocolate is replaced by burst berries and juicy peaches). While the assembly should be a relaxed, messy affair, just be sure to adequately soak the bread so it reads as custardy, not dry.
Toasted Almond-Coconut Financiers
These simple, French-style cookie-cakes are usually baked in special rectangular molds to resemble little bars of gold. In her book “Paris Sweets” (Clarkson Potter, 2012), Dorie Greenspan makes the process easier by baking them in mini-muffin tins, and the method works beautifully. They bake up soft and chewy, into perfect two-bite-size treats. This recipe uses toasted almond flour, which deepens the flavor. A dip in melted bittersweet chocolate gives the financiers a polished look and balances out their sweetness. This recipe makes 12, but easily doubles for a crowd.
Plum Graham Cracker Crumble
As plums bake, their tartness mellows and their juices jelly — just a couple reasons why they do so well in pies, cobblers and this crumble, which is essentially an upside-down graham cracker-crusted pie. If you don’t have graham crackers on hand, vanilla wafers will work nicely too, but you’ll need to cook a little longer. Be sure to press the graham crackers into a single layer instead of scattering clumps of it over the plums; doing so creates a sturdy but delicate topping that won’t drown in a sea of plum juice. Keep this plum crumble simple, or add extra spices like ground ginger, cinnamon or nutmeg.
Summer Fruit Salad
In another era, this kind of chopped fruit salad was called a Macedonia. Use as many kinds of ripe fruits as you wish, including melon, stone fruit, grapes and berries. The simple combination of homemade jam dissolved with a splash of white wine or liqueur marries beautifully with the fruits’ natural juices. Leave the compote to macerate a bit and serve chilled for a completely refreshing dessert.
Pecan Crunch Cream Cheese Poundcake
This is an exceptionally velvety and tender cake, reminiscent (in the best possible way) of the frozen pound cake you might buy at the supermarket. Perfected over many years by the expert baker Rose Levy Beranbaum (and published in her book “Rose’s Baking Basics’), its fine texture comes from cake flour and superfine sugar. A caramelized pecan and graham cracker coating lines the pan and provides delicious crunch, but it is optional.
Boozy Cherry Walnut Tart
Cherries in winter may sound counterintuitive, but like frozen peas and corn, frozen cherries are, well, pretty good. Baked on a bed of easy press-in crust, the boozy cherries sink into the almost-frangipane mixture which soaks up much of the juiciness cherries are known for. The trick to a nice, crunchy bottom tart shell is baking longer than you think, so make sure you give it the full time recommended.
Gingerbread Biscotti
Have a hot cup of coffee ready for dipping these spiced, crunchy biscotti. Like most Tuscan biscotti, these include no fat, which makes for an extra-dry cookie. That means it saturates quickly when dunked, turning it into something like silken cake while also sweetening your coffee. Pops of chewy candied ginger and a slick of dark chocolate make this biscotti a little more special. And while the ingredient list may be longer than some, each item builds upon the last, creating a symphony of warming flavors and smells. To help keep track of the many spices while assembling your ingredients, measure them into small piles on a dinner plate.
Coffee-Praline Crunch Ice Cream Cake
Inspired by butter-pecan ice cream, this cake combines crunchy praline with graham crackers, coffee ice cream and fudge sauce to make an impressive, but easy to assemble dessert. Store-bought pralines are perfect here, but if you can’t find them, you can make them from scratch with pantry staples. While they can be a little tricky, even a failed praline tastes great nestled in an ice cream cake, but toffee brickle or even just plain chopped nuts could stand in for the praline, too. While you could certainly buy fudge sauce, it’s the one component that is definitely better homemade, just sweet enough and deeply chocolatey. Make a double batch for future sundaes.
Cherry Coconut Ice Cream Sandwiches
Who doesn’t like ice cream sandwiches? These are miniature, just 3 inches in diameter. Bright pink fresh cherry ice cream (there’s a little coconut milk in the custard) is sandwiched between lemony butter cookies, with a dash of grated coconut. This is a bit of a project, but it only requires about 2 hours of active cooking time over the course of 2 days.
Olive Oil Bundt Cake With Beet Swirl
Sweet roasted beets and extra-virgin olive oil add earthiness to this delicate Bundt cake, a baking project that promises stunning results. Roasting the beets beforehand concentrates their sweetness, and stacking thick layers of batter — one flavored with olive oil, the other with beets — creates bold swoops of red within the baked cake. Allow the cake to cool completely before slicing to avoid blurring the lines. Because of its lightly sweet notes, this cake is equally at home at breakfast or brunch, as a snack or dessert. To dress it up further, serve with lightly sweetened whipped cream or crème fraîche.
Mocha Icebox Cake
Icebox cakes gained popularity in the 1920s along with the rise of refrigerators in American homes and the creation of Nabisco chocolate wafers, which featured an icebox cake recipe on their packaging. This nostalgic, no-bake treat makes use of a few simple ingredients to great effect: Billowy, lightly sweetened whipped cream is layered with chocolate wafer cookies and left to sit until cookies and cream become one; this recipe updates the classic with the addition of espresso powder and a bit of spice. Refrigeration is important for icebox cakes, as it allows the cookies time to absorb some of the moisture from the cream, which gives this dessert a soft, sliceable texture. A bit of time in the freezer makes the cake easier to cut into tidy slices, but it tastes just as good scooped straight out of the pan.
Earl Grey Tea Cake With Dark Chocolate and Orange Zest
Loose Earl Grey tea stirred into buttery cake batter adds a sweet, floral essence that’s subtle but lovely. A little dark chocolate and orange zest makes this cake extra special. While you could use chocolate chips, using chocolate chopped from a bar produces the best result: The varying sizes of chopped chocolate blend in nicely without overpowering the delicate tea flavor.
Roasted Grapes With Caramelized Wine and Yogurt Ice Cream
In this recipe, grapes take on a floral, caramelized flavor from fresh thyme and honey. If your thyme is woody, discard the stems and just use the leaves. If you don’t have an ice cream machine, the ice cream mixture can be placed directly in the freezer without churning. It won’t be quite as creamy and smooth, but quite good enough. You will get more ice cream than you need for serving with the grapes, but eating the leftovers is no hardship.
Yogurt and Jam Pops
Reminiscent of breakfast but masquerading as dessert, these pops are made with Greek yogurt or Icelandic skyr, which are thicker and creamier than regular plain yogurt. Pick whichever you enjoy the most, but make sure it’s plain and unsweetened.
Berry Upside-Down Cake
You can use any kind of berries — fresh or frozen — for this jammy twist on the classic pineapple upside-down cake. Just note that adding all or mostly blueberries and strawberries will create a sweeter topping than mixing in more acidic blackberries and raspberries. Caramelizing the brown sugar in a skillet before adding the fruit gives you a particularly deep, complex flavor. Because of the moisture in the topping, you’ll need to bake this cake a little longer than other, similar butter cakes. You want the surface to be well browned all over, with dark brown edges that yield a slight crunch. Underbaked cake will be soggy, and apt to fall apart.
Shrikhand (Sweet Strained Yogurt)
Shrikhand is a creamy yogurt-based dessert from western India made simply by straining yogurt and sweetening it. The yogurt is traditionally strained by pressing it between newspaper (to soak up extra whey), but if you can find thick, full-fat Greek yogurt at the grocery store, then the process is even simpler: Hang it in a mesh strainer over a bowl for a day, and let the excess whey drip out. You can substitute slivered almonds for pistachios, if that's more your speed, or even skip the nuts altogether for a smooth shrikhand flavored only with sugar, cardamom and a celebratory sprinkle of saffron threads.
Peanut-Butter Fudge
Traditionally, fudge is made by boiling sugar and flavorings to a specific temperature, then cooling it, and finally beating it for just the right amount of time. It’s not hard to do, but if the conditions are not just right, the texture of the finished fudge can be too soft, too hard or even unpleasantly grainy. This peanut butter fudge may not be traditional, but it’s much simpler to make properly and results in the creamiest confection imaginable. For a delicious textural contrast, don’t skip the toppings!
Salted-Caramel Rice Pudding
Rice pudding is pure dessert magic. Simple ingredients like jasmine rice, whole milk and sugar cook together to make a luscious treat, and the bittersweet salted caramel swirled throughout makes it even more irresistible. This pudding is flavored with vanilla, but a little orange zest, some instant espresso powder or a few smashed green cardamom pods would take it in another delicious direction.
Blueberry Yogurt Parfait
The beneficial phytonutrients in blueberries are anthocyanins, a type found in other fruits and vegetables with red, blue and purple pigments. Scientists use a test called the O.R.A.C. (short for oxygen radical absorbance capacity) to rate the antioxidant capacity in foods, and by this measure blueberries always come out on top. So if red wine is off limits and beets just aren’t your thing, try adding a half cup of blueberries to your cereal or yogurt in the morning, throw a half cup of frozen blueberries into your smoothie — or try any of this week’s recipes. This beautiful parfait tastes so much richer than it is. You can serve it for breakfast or for dessert. Look for organic yogurt that has no thickeners or gums added to it.
Cranberry Curd Tart
If you are a fan of lemon curd or the classic French tarte au citron, you will love this cranberry version. To minimize kitchen time, make it in stages, preparing the crust and curd a day or two in advance. The finished tart keeps well for a couple of days too. The wheat-free hazelnut crust is adapted from a cookie recipe from the pastry chef and writer David Lebovitz’s popular website.