19 Must-Try Delicious Thanksgiving Dessert Recipes
Desserts are the exclamation point to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Here are 19 must-try Thanksgiving dessert recipes that will warm your heart and satisfy your love of holiday sweets. Best of all, many of them can be made ahead!
We love a great dessert, not just at the end of a meal, but also as an afternoon snack with a friend or even for breakfast!
I searched for recipes that look enticing, taste delicious, and are easy for bakers of any level to make. I know you’ll find several your family will swoon over and want to make again and again.
I have to admit that most fall baking recipes focus on pumpkin. Everyone in my family loves pumpkin flavor, but no one likes pumpkin pie except me! So this roundup goes beyond pumpkin, with pies, cakes, and trifles made with iconic fall flavors like pecan, apple, caramel, and sweet potato.
Yummy Sweets for Fall and Thanksgiving: Easy Recipes to Share with Friends and Family
I gathered these dessert recipe ideas from my Pinterest and online search. You can see more holiday ideas on these Pinterest Boards:
Fall Flavors You’ll Find in These Desserts
These recipes lean on the flavors we crave most this time of year:
- Apples: in pies, cakes, and baked apples
- Pecans: crunchy toppings, plus pies, brownies, and bread pudding
- Caramel and brown sugar: rich sweetness for cakes, frostings, and drizzles
- Maple and brown butter: deep, nutty flavor in pies and bars
- Warm spices: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves
- Sweet potatoes and cranberries: classic holiday flavors in a pie and an upside-down cake
- Cream cheese: the base for cheesecakes and frostings
- Chocolate: because even at Thanksgiving, we crave it
- Pears and apricots: a lighter change from the usual pies
Any of these desserts would be welcome at a fall gathering, not just on Thanksgiving Day.
Here are 19 recipes to bring your day of gratitude to a sweet close.
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Pecan Pie Brownies
These Pecan Pie Brownies from Kelly of The Blogette are fudgy chocolate brownies topped with a pecan pie filling for an irresistible treat. This is a Thanksgiving dessert favorite. These decadent brownies disappear quickly!
Apple Cinnamon Texas Sheet Cake
What’s a Texas girl’s dessert table without a Texas sheet cake? Joy the Baker, a fellow Texan, swaps the classic chocolate for a tender spiced cake with diced cinnamon apples and a buttery apple cider glaze. One half sheet pan serves 12 to 16, so it’s perfect for a crowd.
Almond Frangipane Pear Tart
Stephanie of 31 Daily, a certified private chef, based this elegant tart on a classic French dessert. Thinly sliced pears are pressed into a rich almond filling that puffs up around the fruit as it bakes. It looks like it came from a Paris bakery, but with a ready-made crust, it takes just 10 minutes to prep. You can bake it a day ahead, too.
Caramel Apple Pecan Layer Cake
Lindsay of Life Love and Sugar describes this dessert as having layers of moist apple spice cake sprinkled with pecans, caramel frosting, cinnamon apples and caramel sauce drizzled over top! It’s the perfect way to kick off apple season and an easy dessert idea for Thanksgiving!
Pecan Pie Trifle
This Pecan Pie Trifle Recipe is an easy and delicious dessert for holidays and dinner parties. It’s a great fusion of pie and a layered trifle! Chris of Celebrations at Home recommends using this beautiful trifle dish as a pretty centerpiece to your Thanksgiving menu.
Spiced Caramel Apple Poke Cake
Parrish of Life with the Crust Cut Off starts with a spice cake, pokes it full of holes, and fills them with butterscotch pudding. Then she tops it with warm cinnamon apples and a drizzle of caramel. It’s made in a 9×13 pan, travels well, and tastes even better the next day, so it’s perfect for making ahead.
Silky Sweet Potato Pie
With this sweet potato pie recipe, Monique of Divas Can Cook says you can say goodbye to bland, mushy, soggy sweet potato pie! This classic sweet potato pie is so velvety, smooth, creamy, and generously spiced.
Easy Baked Apples
Is an apple dessert your choice for Thanksgiving? These Easy Baked Apples are the perfect sweet treat for fall! Ashlyn of Belle of the Kitchen tops them off with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of caramel for a truly heavenly dessert!
No-Bake Mini Mason Jar Spiced Cheesecakes
These individual cheesecakes from the editors at PureWow layer a gingersnap crust, a cream cheese filling spiced with cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg, and a topping of red currant jelly and whipped cream. No oven required! They chill in about 30 minutes and keep in the refrigerator for up to two days.
Apple Spice Cake
Instead of apple pie for Thanksgiving, try this delicious apple cake from Jennifer of Bake or Break. With tender bits of baked apples and a cozy blend of spices, this Apple Spice Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting is a delicious celebration of all things fall!
Pecan Pie Bread Pudding
This Pecan Pie Bread Pudding has been one of the most popular recipes on Something Swanky since it was published in 2012. Pecan pie filling poured over thick pieces of bread and baked to perfection! If you love pecan pie, you’re going to go wild for this amazing pecan pie bread pudding recipe!
Most Delicious Apple Pie
Homemade apple pie is always a favorite for Thanksgiving dessert. Lois of Walking on Sunshine shares how to use crisp apple slices tossed with cinnamon and sugar, then baked between two flaky, buttery pie crusts.
Brown Sugar Maple Pecan Cookie Pie
Tieghan of Half Baked Harvest combined her mom’s two Thanksgiving specialties, cookie pie and pecan pie, into one dessert. It has brown butter, maple-soaked pecans, and chunks of chocolate, and it bakes up puffed on to
Apple Chocolate Bundt Cake
The Apple Chocolate Bundt Cake from Daniela of Dani’s Cookings is fluffy, tasty, and easy to make! It is a wonderful recipe, combining two batters with wonderful flavors and textures. A really special dessert that surely will be appreciated by kids and adults!
Brown Butter Apricot Bars
These apricot bars from the Midwest Living Test Kitchen get a rich, nutty flavor from brown butter. Sweet and slightly tart, they’re a nice change from the usual pies, and bars are easy to cut and serve on a busy dessert table.
Delicious Caramel Cake
Sofi of Broma Bakery puts a fun spin on a classic Southern caramel cake. Layers of tender vanilla cake are filled with homemade salted caramel and frosted with vanilla buttercream swirled with more caramel. Sofi’s make-ahead plan is perfect for the holidays: make the caramel a few days early and bake the cake layers the night before, then assemble on the day to serve.
Cinnamon Roll Cheesecake
Mimi of Eats Delightful swirls layers of plain and cinnamon brown sugar cheesecake over a graham cracker crust. She tops it with cream cheese icing and mini cinnamon rolls. It needs to chill for at least six hours, so make it the day before Thanksgiving.
Cranberry Upside Down Cake
Kate of Nibble and Dine cooks fresh cranberries in a brown sugar syrup, then bakes a rich butter cake on top. When you flip it over, you get a beautiful ruby red cranberry topping. Kate’s tip is to line the pan with parchment so none of the cranberries stick.
Pilgrim Hat Cookies for Kids of All Ages
I had to include one dessert for the kiddos. These no-bake cookies from Oana of Adore Foods are the cutest treat on the dessert table! Fudge-striped cookies, mini peanut butter cups, and a candy “buckle” turn into little Pilgrim hats with just five ingredients. Kids love to help make them, and they keep for up to two weeks. Since they contain peanut butter, label them for guests with allergies.
MY BONUS: BEST PECAN RUM TART. This is my go-to pecan tart, and I’ve made it for Thanksgiving for several years. It’s tried-and-true and so good. Add it to your list of must-try Thanksgiving desserts.
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Dessert Questions? I Have Answers.
Many of them! Cheesecakes need to chill for several hours, so make them the day before. Pies and tarts, like the maple pecan cookie pie and the almond pear tart, can be baked a day ahead. The caramel apple poke cake tastes even better the next day, and the Pilgrim hat cookies keep for up to two weeks.
Plenty! Apple, pecan, caramel, and cranberry are all classic fall flavors. Try a cranberry upside-down cake, a caramel layer cake, or an apple cinnamon sheet cake. And if you love pecan pie, my Pecan Rum Tart is a showstopping twist on the classic.
For a gathering of 8 to 12 guests, two or three desserts are usually plenty. When I taught cooking classes, I always recommended variety: something fruity, something rich, and something to please the kids. A sheet cake or bars also go a long way for a crowd.
Yes! The no-bake mason jar cheesecakes chill in about 30 minutes, and the Pilgrim hat cookies don’t need any baking at all. They’re perfect when your oven is busy with the turkey and sides.
Can’t Get Enough Recipes for your Thanksgiving collection? Try these great ones.
- 25 Tasty and Easy Thanksgiving Appetizers
- 25 Thanksgiving Breakfast Recipes
- 17 Super Salad Recipes for Thanksgiving
I gathered these dessert ideas from my searches on Pinterest and around the web. For even more sweet inspiration, follow these boards:
Which of these desserts are you making this year? Tell me your favorites in the comments, and let me know what topics you’d like me to hunt down next. Be sure to pin this post so these ideas are easy to find later!
