1,659 desert recipes

Pumpkin pie squares with a crumbly oat-and-brown-sugar shortbread crust and a fully spiced pumpkin custard. Bakes in one pan, cuts into 16 squares, and travels better than a round pie.

Carrot cake with lemon cream cheese frosting, made ultra-moist with pureed carrots, crushed pineapple, and toasted walnuts. The bright citrus frosting cuts the sweetness on this towering three-layer cake.

Banana carrot cake combines mashed ripe bananas, shredded carrots, rolled oats, cinnamon, and cloves in a one-bowl snack cake. Moist, lunchbox-friendly twist on classic carrot cake.

Christmas spice cookies: rolled-and-cut holiday cookies with ginger, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and molasses. Soft or crunchy depending on bake time. Makes four dozen.

Drunken apple-pumpkin pie blends pumpkin and applesauce in one custard, finished with a dramatic flame of warmed rum poured tableside. Topped with pecan halves and warm baking spices. A holiday showstopper for Thanksgiving and Christmas tables.

Oatmeal cookies with dried cranberries and three warm spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom. The chewy holiday-leaning take on the classic. Four dozen per batch.

Apricot ice cream with low-fat yogurt and fromage frais instead of cream. A lighter frozen dessert built on dried apricot puree, perfect for hot afternoons without the heaviness of dairy ice cream.

Chocolate spice bundt cake folds ground cardamom into a sour cream chocolate batter, then drips with warm ganache glaze. Aromatic showstopper bundt cake for special occasions.

Chocolate fudge pound cake is a low-fat bundt cake using egg whites, nonfat yogurt, and cocoa powder for deep chocolate flavor without yolks or butter. Dense, fudgy, and naturally lower in saturated fat.

Baklava with shatter-crisp phyllo, ground walnuts and almonds, and honey syrup steeped with lemon and orange slices. The classic Greek pastry done properly, in shimmering diamond-cut squares.

Classic oatmeal raisin cookies with cinnamon, nutmeg, and chopped pecans. Three full cups of quick oats for a chewy, hearty texture in every bite.

Crescent cookies are buttery shortbread crescents rolled in cinnamon powdered sugar while warm. A six-ingredient holiday classic also called Mexican wedding cookies or kifli.

Summer blueberry tart, a French-style dessert with a buttery pate brisee crust and a filling that's half cooked blueberry glaze, half fresh berries, for vivid flavor and a clean slice. Lovely with creme fraiche.

Grandma Cottington's pumpkin pie is a heritage Thanksgiving classic: flaky butter-and-lard double crust, custardy pumpkin filling with cream, molasses, cinnamon, and allspice. Yields 2 pies.

A vegan pumpkin pie with a silky tofu-set custard, spiced with cinnamon, ginger and mace and sweetened with molasses, in a flaky from-scratch crust. An egg- and dairy-free holiday classic.

Chocolate whoopie pies sandwiched with a fluffy peanut butter filling made the classic cooked-flour-and-milk way, for that bakery-style, marshmallow-soft texture.