Party Dessert Recipes

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Our All-Time Favorite Pound Cake Recipes

Check out our collection of recipes -- from the classic vanilla to ones spiced with cinnamon, cardamom, flavored with berries, and yes we have several super chocolatey loaves here.

By Kelly Vaughan

12 Impressive Holiday Trifle Recipes

There's nothing trifling about these dramatic desserts, which make a showstopping entrance and are as easy as layering cake with fruit, custard, whipped cream, and other surprises.

Coconut Cloud Cake

This light, flavorful dessert, filled and topped with seven-minute frosting and coconut, is a little slice of heaven.

Creamy Lemon Squares

The creamy lemon squares of your dreams take just 15 minutes of prep: Stir together a mere three ingredients to create a sunny, puckery filling for the buttery shortbread crust in this dessert.

Coconut-Pineapple Loaf Cake

Toasted coconut balances the tart sweetness of pineapple and provides a crunchy topping for this buttery cake. Not too delicate, it's a treat just right for toting.

One-Bowl Chocolate Cake

Birthday? Anniversary? Going-away party? This super-easy, one-bowl layer cake is the perfect dessert for any gathering of chocolate buffs.

Vanilla Pound Cake

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How sweet it is—pound cake from scratch in three simple steps! We've added vanilla to our recipe for an extra hint of flavor!

Lemon Cake

This cheery lemon cake is perfect for festive occasions. Top it off with our Whipped Frosting that's the perfect light and fluffy complement to this moist cake.

Coconut-Sugar Hummingbird Cake

This classic southern cake can be over-the-top sweet. Enter coconut sugar, a sweetener from the sap of the coconut tree's flower buds. While it has no coconut flavor, it does bring a caramelized, almost savory complexity to baked goods. It's perfect in a cake that's plenty sweet (as well as moist), thanks to the fresh banana and pineapple. This recipe appears in our cookbook, "A New Way to Bake" (Clarkson Potter).

Tangy Lemon Squares

With their crisp, buttery crust and creamy lemon filling, these little squares taste of spring. Have some with a glass of milk or a cup of tea.

Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

Everyone needs a delicious coffee cake recipe in their repertoire, and this cinnamon streusel coffee cake recipe is the perfect option. Meaning "something strewn" in Old German, streusel is easy to throw together -- and then to throw on top of this sour-cream coffee cake. The sweet glaze in the recipe is the perfect coffee cake topping.

Classic Cream Puffs

The foundation of the perfect cream puff is light, airy pâte à choux, which is made with eggs, flour, and butter. Once the cream puffs are shaped and baked, they're filled with a rich homemade pastry cream.

Inspiration and Ideas

40 Crowd-Friendly Potluck Desserts for Warm Weather Parties

These party-ready desserts travel well and are simple to serve.

20 Celebratory Cake Recipes to Make for Your Graduate

30 Kid-Friendly Birthday Cake Recipes for Your Next Celebration

Baby Shower Cakes and Desserts Ideas

Birthday Cakes

Your Best Baby Shower Cupcakes

New York Crumb Cake

New York Crumb Cake is quite a popular dessert at Foster's Markets in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina. Owner Sara Foster estimates that her shops sell three to four pounds of crumb cake every day, mostly to transplanted New Yorkers.

All Party Dessert Recipes

Raspberry Cobbler

Berry fine, indeed: The jammy, intensely fruity base of this raspberry cobbler -- which packs in five whole cups of berries -- is balanced by a light, sweet biscuit topping.

Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie

Baking, simplified: One pan and two steps create this soft, gooey, giant cookie.

Coconut Custard Pie

We skipped the cream on top to let the tropical custard filling be the star.

Strawberry Cake

A buttery-vanilla batter is the base of a cake that brims with a pound of strawberries. We promise that you'll want to eat this berry dessert all summer long.

Chewy Brownies

What's gooey on the inside, crackly on top, and supremely delicious all over?Our fresh take on this crowd-pleasing dessert. Unsweetened chocolate and brown sugar impart a rich, well-rounded flavor, while adding a bit of oil to the batter results in the addictively chewy texture that makes this version an instant classic.

Blueberry Crisp

This blueberry crisp has a loose and juicy filling. If you would prefer a thicker filling, add an extra teaspoon of cornstarch.

Basic French Macarons

Want to learn how to make macarons? We've taken the guesswork out of making these patisserie beauties, so you can prepare them at home. Our foolproof macarons recipe calls for making your own almond flour (it's so much easier than it seems), then adding just four other ingredients: powdered sugar, egg whites, white sugar, and any filling you please.

Healthy Oatmeal Cookies

Pull a fast one on the kids: In just 10 minutes, whip up the dough for these sweet, crunchy treats made with whole-wheat flour. Many recipes for baked goods can be tweaked to use equal parts whole-wheat and all-purpose flours, without losing flavor or texture.

Pate a Choux

Use this pate a choux recipe to make mouthwatering pastries such as profiteroles, cream puffs, and eclairs.

Caramel-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's hard to improve upon a giant -- and downright delicious -- chocolate chip cookie, but we've found a way: Stuff it with caramel! The secret to this recipe is freezing the balls of dough for just 15 minutes before baking. That way, the center cooks more slowly, and you achieve that blissful balance of melted, gooey interiors and crispy edges.

Lemony Angel Food Cake

Remember Mom's heavenly angel food cake? Ours has the same ethereal texture (due to egg whites) but with a bright burst of lemon flavor, thanks to fresh juice and zest. Fluffy citrus cream frosting and pretty candied lemon "daffodils" make it an even more memorable dessert.

Gluten-Free Oatmeal Cookies

Chock-full of chocolate and raisins, these oatmeal cookies won't disappoint. And by using oats in place of wheat flour, everyone can get in on the fun.

Cakey Chocolate Chip Cookies

Fast Raspberry Scones

Serve these raspberry scones at breakfast or with tea for an afternoon snack.

Peanut Brittle

A picture of salty-sweet perfection, brittle is surprisingly easy to make. Serve it alongside coffee or tea for dessert, and save any leftovers for snacking. Peanuts make a classic brittle, but you can substitute cashews or almonds instead.

Candied Lemon Slices

These tart treats go perfectly with Lemon Crepes and make beautiful garnishes for our Meyer-Lemon and Coconut Layer Cake.

Chocolate-Coconut Bars

These decadent bars are inspired by Hello Dollies, a popular Southern dessert.

Strawberry-Banana Sherbet

Sherbet is lighter than ice cream and richer than sorbet. It's made from a frozen mix of sweetened fruit juice and water that's often fortified with milk, cream, egg whites, syrup, or gelatin to impart a smooth, soft consistency.

Almond-Berry Coffee Cake

Fresh raspberries and tart blackberry jam fill lemon-zest-flecked cake;the cinnamon-spiced almond streusel on top is crumbly and nutty.

Classic Strawberry Shortcake

Buttery biscuits and freshly whipped cream are a delicious way to showcase summer strawberries. Martha made this recipe on "Martha Bakes" episode 709.

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are crispy at the edges, chewy in the center, and loaded with 2 kinds of chocolate. Feel free to add 2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans to the dough.

Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Vanilla Buttercream Filling

Buttermilk gives the chocolate cookies a subtle tanginess that offsets the rich buttercream filling beautifully. Martha made this recipe on episode 708 of Martha Bakes.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Coffee Cake

The batter for this coffee cake recipe is much like that for a biscuit; chilled butter is cut in rather than creamed, which produces an uber-tender crumb. This recipe was developed by Emily Donahue for Rosey's Coffee and Tea in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Rhubarb Crumb Bars

Rhubarb and strawberries are a great match. You can substitute half the rhubarb with an equal weight of quartered berries.

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