209 holiday dessert recipes

Elegant shortbread-style cookies with ground toasted pecans and a splash of dry sherry. Pressed with decorative designs and ripened overnight for the best texture. Makes 90 cookies.

Chocolate, orange and cream create this delicious and moist bread pudding that has been popular all year round at our place!

A poke a hole in the cake cake that features red, white and blue. Strawberries, blueberries and whipped cream, how can you go wrong?

A comforting dessert that fits perfectly alongside pumpkin pie. Homemade dumplings perched in rich and thick maple syrup.

Buttery shortbread bars topped with pecans, dried cherries, mini chocolate chips, and orange marmalade. A two-step bake that turns simple cookies into festive holiday treats in about an hour.

Cream cheese snowflake cookies with lemon zest, topped with powdered sugar icing and edible glitter. Delicate, buttery Christmas cutout cookies that sparkle.

Celebration rugelach stacks three tiers of cream cheese pastry filled with walnuts, golden raisins, cinnamon, and raspberry preserves into a stunning Hanukkah or holiday centerpiece.

Holiday master butter cookie dough combines flour, cornstarch, and creamed butter into a tender, rollable base for cut-outs, Linzers, thumbprints, and pinwheels. Chills up to 3 days or freezes up to 6 months.

Pumpkin flan: a silky honey-sweetened pumpkin custard baked in a water bath with a brown sugar bottom and a splash of brandy. A fall twist on classic Spanish flan, chilled and ready in 5 hours.

Chocolate Halloween cupcakes with a hidden orange cream cheese center that oozes out when bitten. Spooky fun for the kids and a riff on the classic Black Bottom cupcake.

Baked fig and raisin pudding with crumbled waffle cookies, cocoa, walnuts, and warm spices, cooked in a water bath. A rich, old-fashioned holiday dessert served warm with hard sauce.

Raisin orange polenta cookies fold Cointreau-soaked raisins, bright orange zest, and a scoop of cornmeal into a buttery Italian-style drop cookie. Golden, subtly crunchy, and citrus-bright.

Layered pumpkin walnut pie hides a buttery brown-sugar walnut praline beneath a creamy, cream-cheese-rich pumpkin custard in a shortbread crust, crowned with baked pastry leaves. A Thanksgiving showpiece.

Chocolate butter cookie dough adds melted unsweetened and semi-sweet chocolate to a master holiday butter cookie recipe. Roll, cut, and shape it into pinwheels, classic cut-outs, Linzer sandwiches, or sugar-coated crescents.

Spiced cranberry hazelnut bread with cinnamon, cloves, and orange juice baked into mini loaves. Wrapped in brandy-soaked cheesecloth, this holiday quick bread deepens in flavor for weeks.

Cranberry sauce for holiday meringues: a glossy, ruby-red dessert sauce made from cranberry juice, sugar, lemon, and a touch of cornstarch. Perfect spooned over crisp meringues, ice cream, or pavlova.