Thanksgiving Dessert Recipes That Will Sweeten Your Holiday Table
Without some roasted turkey, some stuffing, and some mashed potatoes, Thanksgiving will be, well, just another day. But what makes Thanksgiving exceedingly sensational is not the roasted turkey or mashed potatoes, not really. They’re a wonderful aspect of the celebration, no doubt, but the most fun part of every Thanksgiving celebration is the desserts. That’s the part everyone’s always expecting.
Be it the typical pumpkin pie or the contemporary mini banoffee cobblers; the Thanksgiving holiday isn’t complete without a dessert. So, what better way is there than to end this fall’s holiday with a homemade baked treat?
For this post, we thought we’d share with you some of the fantastic dessert recipes for everyone that would make your Thanksgiving holiday a memorable event.
1. Easy Cranberry-Pecan Sandwich Cookies
Ingredients
For the cookies, you’d need the following:
- Pecans – 6 ounces or 170g
- Unsalted butter stored at room temperature – 2 sticks or 227g
- Granulated sugar – 1 cup
- Pure vanilla extract – 1½ teaspoons
- All-purpose flour – 1½ cups or 181g
- Sea salt – ¾ teaspoon
- Confectioners’ sugar – as needed
For the filling, you’d need the following:
- Thawed cranberries – 10 ounces or 283g
- Granulated sugar – ½ cup or 99g
- Light brown sugar – ½ cup or 99g
- 1 orange zest and juice
- Ground cinnamon – 1 teaspoon
- Ground ginger – ¾ teaspoon
- A pinch of ground cloves and fine sea salt
How To Prepare
Cookies:
- Begin by grinding the pecans into powder with the help of a food processor.
- Then cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla until they become light and fluffy.
- Inside the pecan mixture, add flour, salt, and mix until it all equals out.
- Then pour the mixture into a plastic wrap creating a 1-inch-thick-disk. Refrigerate for 1½ hrs or overnight.
- Next up, you’d need to spread out the refrigerated dough.
- Begin by lining two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Scatter some flour on the surface you intend to use for rolling out the refrigerated dough. Spread it out until it’s ¼ inch thick.
- Then cut out 24 circles from the rolled-out dough using a 2-inch thick round cutter.
- Transfer the cookies to the baking sheets and leave it there for 15 minutes.
- After the allocated time is up, proceed with baking the cookies until their edges become slightly brown. This process should take 15 to 17 minutes.
- Make sure your oven is preheated to 325 degrees before baking.
- When you’re done baking, dust 12 of the cookies with confectioners’ sugar while it’s still hot.
Filling:
- Use a medium-sized pot to stir all the ingredients for the filling.
- After, boil the mixture for 8 to 10 minutes until the berries begin to open up.
- You can use a blender or food processor to the mixture into a coarse puree.
- Continue cooking for 5 to 7 minutes until it becomes slightly thick.
- As it cooks, ensure you stir it intermittently.
- Add a tablespoon of filling on top of the un-sugared cookies, sandwich each with a sugared cookie and lightly press them together.
2. Cinnamon Sheet Cake With Cider Frosting
Ingredients
For the cinnamon sheet cake, you’d need the following:
- Vegetable or Natural Oil – ½ cup or 110g
- Granulated sugar – 1 cup or 198g
- Light brown sugar – ½ cup or 106g
- Melted unsalted butter – 4 tablespoons or 57g
- Eggs – 3 large or 170g
- Pure vanilla extract – 1 tablespoon
- All-purpose flour – 2½ cups or 301g
- Ground cinnamon – 1 tablespoon
- Baking powder – 1 teaspoon
- Baking soda – ½ teaspoon
- Salt – ½ teaspoon
- Buttermilk – ½ cup or 120g
For the cider frosting, you’d need the following:
- Unsalted butter – 1½ sticks or 170g
- Confectioners’ sugar – 3 cups or 340g
- Pure vanilla extract – 1 teaspoon
- Pinch of ground cinnamon and fine sea salt
- Boiled cider – ¼ cup
How To Prepare
Before you begin at all, make sure you preheat your oven to 350 degrees and add grease to a 9-inch by a 13-inch baking pan.
Cinnamon Cake:
- Start by whisking the oil, sugar, brown sugar, and melted butter in a big bowl until they blend.
- As you do this, add the eggs one at a time and whisk thoroughly. Add the vanilla to this mixture.
- In a separate medium-sized bowl, whisk the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Pour this mixture into the one made earlier and stir with a rubber spatula.
- Add the buttermilk and scrape the side of the bowl to ensure the batter has no dry spots.
- When you’re done, pour the batter into the pan and spread it, so it’s evened out.
- Bake it for 30 to 35 minutes.
- To know if it’s ready, insert a toothpick into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean, it means it’s ready.
Cider Frosting:
- Cream the butter and confectioners’ sugar until they become light and fluffy using a beater.
- After this, add the vanilla, cinnamon, and salt into the mixture.
- Slowly and carefully add the boiled cider and ensure it blends well with the rest.
- You can then spread the frosting on top of the cooled cake.
- You can either serve it immediately or wait for up to one day while you store it at room temperature.
- If you wish to make your cider syrup, use ½ cup apple cider.
- Whisk 3 tablespoons of sugar and continue cooking while stirring occasionally till the mixture reduces to ¼ cup. Make sure it cools for 10 minutes before you use it.
3. Ginger Cherry Pie
Ingredients
For an all-buttah pie crust, you’ll need the following:
- All-purpose flour – 2½ cups
- Fine sea salt – ½ teaspoon
- Unsalted butter – 1 cup
- Ice water – at least ½ cup
For a gingerbread all-buttah pie crust, you’ll need the following:
- All-purpose flour – 1¼ cups
- Ground cinnamon – 1 teaspoon
- Ground ginger – ¾ teaspoon
- Ground allspice – ⅓ teaspoon
- Ground cloves – ¼ teaspoon
- Fine sea salt – ¼ teaspoon
- Cold unsalted butter – ½ cup
- Ice water – at least ¼ cup
For the cherry filling, you’ll need:
- Unfrozen sour pitted cherries – 1¾ pounds
- Brown sugar – ¼ cup
- Granulated sugar – ½ cup
- Cornstarch – 3 tablespoons
- Ground ginger – 1½ teaspoons
- Sea salt – ½ teaspoon
- Piece of 1-inch fresh peeled and minced ginger – 1
- Pure vanilla extract – 2 teaspoons
- Crystallized ginger – ½ cup
- Egg wash and Turbinado sugar
How To Prepare
All-Buttah Pie Crust:
- Whisk salt and flour in a medium-sized bowl.
- Add your butter cubes into the mixture but only a few pieces at a time. To crush them, press pieces of the butter cubes between your thumbs.
- Then whisk until it’s all well coated.
- Next, create space in the middle of the mixture where you can add water.
- As you add water, simply toss the mix instead of stirring so it will moisten uniformly.
- Once the dough comes together, knead and fold thoroughly until it smoothes out.
- Watch out for stickiness, wetness, dryness, and crumbs falling from the dough as these are all bad traits.
- When all is set, create two disks from the dough and put them in plastic wraps.
- Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Gingerbread All-Buttah Pie Crust:
- Add all the ingredients except butter and water in a medium bowl and whisk.
- Now add the butter and follow the descriptions for the All-Buttah Pie Crust.
Cherry Filling:
- Mix brown sugar and cherries in a medium-sized pot.
- Boil over medium heat until the cherries become softened and their liquid begins to come out.
- As you heat the mixture, do not forget to stir occasionally.
- Put your granulated sugar, ground ginger, cornstarch, and salt into a small bowl and whisk together.
- Add this new mixture into the cooking cherries and let it boil until it becomes thick. This process should take no longer than 8 minutes.
- When this is done, take the mixture off the heat, add crystallized ginger and vanilla, and let it cool off.
After, prepare a smooth surface and sprinkle some flour over it. Place your All-Buttah Pie Crust on the surface and roll out one disk of it. Mold this into a 9-inch pie flat and leave out one inch of dough around the rim. Pour the cherry filling and even it out around the dough. Next, work on the top crust.
Next, roll the remaining All-Buttah Pie Crust to ¼ inch thickness on another floured surface. Ensure the edges are well-trimmed, then cut about 10 strips, each ½ inch wide. Use a parchment-lined baking sheet to keep them until you’re ready to use them.
When you’re done with that, spread the gingerbread pie crust to ¼ inch thick on another floured surface and trim its edges. Then cut out 20 strips, each ½ inch wide.
Place one strip of plain dough in between two strips of gingerbread dough to create the top crust. Press the strands together so they can stick and repeat this process to create other sets of strips. Ensure you weave the two sets of strands carefully by placing one set over the other. Also, make sure each strand is kept flat as you work. Keep doing this until you have 5 wide twists.
Next, fold the dough over the twists to seal the edge. You can crease the edge to taste and then refrigerate for half an hour.
Before you bake:
- Ensure you preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
- Place a baking sheet with aluminum foil and put your pie, which you must have brushed with egg wash sprinkled with Turbinado sugar, on top of it.
- Let it bake until the crust turns golden brown, with the filling bubbling up. This process should take at least 55 minutes.
- When this is done, let it cool for about 45minutes before you serve it.
On average, it’d take between 1hr 30mins to 2hrs 30mins to make each of these delicious desserts. For a memorable and fun-filled Thanksgiving holiday, that much time is a little price to pay. Besides, these desserts are highly nutritious and healthy at the same time.
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