1,659 desert recipes

Baked pears in a buttery pineapple cream sauce with crystallized ginger and toasted almonds. An elegant warm fruit dessert with tropical, caramel-rich flavor.

No-cholesterol chocolate cake gets its tender crumb from a surprising swap: cholesterol-free mayonnaise stands in for eggs and butter. One bowl, no creaming, deep cocoa flavor with a moist tight crumb.

Custard-based port wine ice cream with grenadine, served under a rich hot chocolate sauce made from cocoa, brown sugar, butter, and heavy cream.

Orange-butterscotch cheesecake on an oat-and-brown-sugar crust, scented with orange zest and crowned with homemade butterscotch sauce. Bright citrus and deep caramel in one dramatic dessert.

Aunt Catherine's Italian Cookies: a heirloom cookie with almond extract, cinnamon, and chopped nuts, finished in pastel-colored powdered sugar icing. Stores for months in tins.

Chocolate mousse cake with a full pound of bittersweet chocolate, 10 egg yolks, and 12 egg whites split between a low-baked cake base and a real chocolate mousse topping.

A delicious dessert made with chocolate chips and peanut butter.

Classic French tarte Tatin with 5 pounds of Golden Delicious apples baked in caramel and topped with flaky puff pastry. A showstopping upside-down dessert worth the effort.

Fruit cake cookies loaded with candied cherries, candied pineapple, white raisins, and pecans with brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Holiday baking in cookie form.

Old-fashioned sour milk jumbles cut with a doughnut cutter and sprinkled with sugar straight from the oven. Buttermilk and nutmeg give these ring-shaped cookies a tender crumb and warm spice.

Fresh raspberries served with silky peach puree, raspberry vinegar, and creme fraiche. An elegant no-cook summer fruit dessert with just 5 ingredients.

Russian torte: a yeast-leavened pastry layered with cinnamon-walnut filling and apricot preserves, then crowned with meringue and sugared nuts. The Old World dessert that disappears at every gathering.

Triple berry compote made from frozen strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries with a thickened fruit juice glaze and fresh orange sections. A year-round dessert.

Pistachio torte with 2 cups of finely chopped pistachios and breadcrumbs standing in for flour, lifted with beaten egg whites, and topped with a cup of lemon curd. A proper European-style celebration cake.

Herman coffee cake bakes a 10-day fed sourdough-style starter into a tender cinnamon-raisin coffee cake. The classic friendship cake passed jar-by-jar between neighbors.

Pumpkin nut cake (a.k.a. pumpkin dump cake) layered with spiced pumpkin custard, dry yellow cake mix, chopped nuts and melted butter on top. Bakes into a gooey-bottom, crisp-top fall classic.