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While I love an indulgent pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, I love starting new traditions and making festive desserts that are perfect for the fall holiday. Flavors like cinnamon apples, pumpkin, caramel, and pecan are quintessential to this time of year. There are so many creative ways to use them.
If you’re like me and want to bake a Thanksgiving dessert that’s not pie, I’ve got the ultimate treat(s) for you. From pumpkin butter cake to caramel pecan brownies and apple pie bars — below are the best Thanksgiving desserts to add to your dinner menu this holiday season. Plus, I know they are ones your guests will enjoy too.
1. Pumpkin S’mores Bars
A pumpkin cookie, homemade marshmallow, dark chocolate, and graham crackers walked into a baking pan…and somehow it works. These Pumpkin S’mores Dessert Bars are the kind of dessert that will make you curious and will have you coming back for more. They’re soft, chewy, and slightly irresistible.
2. Salted Caramel Apple Cookies
This cookie recipe is completely fall-coded and so cozy for your next bake.
It starts with a basic cinnamon-spiced vanilla dough. But as soon as you start folding in the salted caramel chips and apple jam, the basic dough is turned into the most delicious, warm treat. The swirls of apple jam in each cookie add a sweet, slightly tart flavor, and the salted caramel chips add the right amount of salt to keep you reaching for another cookie.
3. Pumpkin Butter Cake
This fall snacking cake is warm, pumpkin-spiced, and baked in a big 9×13-inch pan, so there will be plenty to share and snack on!
The pumpkin cake is soft and fluffy and full of delicious, pumpkin flavor, but the real magic happens right after you take it out of the oven. Holes are poked into the cake before a rich pumpkin-spiced butter frosting is spread over the top. All thebuttery, sweet frosting seeps into the cake to make each bite even more moist and full of pumpkin spice.
4. Apple Pie Bars
These bars are layered with a homemade spiced apple pie filling and finished with a lattice cookie topping for those classic apple pie vibes. The best part about these bars is that they don’t have to be perfectly presented. They’re casual, comforting, and an easy everyday bake.
5. Sticky Toffee Pudding
Meet Spiced Sticky Toffee Pudding: She’s elegant and oh-so-easy!! This rich, moist sponge cake is infused with date paste, giving it a super caramel-like flavor. Sour cream is added for the most tender crumb. And a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves gives it a signature cozy flavor.
Once the cake is baked, it is drenched in a decadent toffee sauce that is sweet and buttery. Each bite will keep you coming back for more. To make it even better, serve with a scoop of ice cream or whipped cream.
6. Salted Caramel Pecan Cookies
Looking for a really good cookie to make that everyone will enjoy? These salted caramel pecan cookies are the kind of cookie that feels fancy enough to bring to Friendsgiving but easy enough to whip up on a random weeknight. Every bite is sweet, salty, nutty, and spiced—basically everything you want in a fall dessert!
7. Pumpkin Spice Loaf
Whether you’re sipping on a pumpkin spice latte, binge-watching Harry Potter, or just want to fill your house with the scents of fall, this pumpkin bread will fit the bill.
This spiced homemade pumpkin loaf may be better than your local coffee shop! We can’t get enough of it, and we know you won’t either!
8. Pumpkin Spice Latte Cookies
A pumpkin and chocolate espresso dough swirled together to make a cookie that tastes just like the cookie version of your favorite fall drink. These cookies are soft, chewy, and such a comforting treat on a cool fall day.
9. Fudgy Salted Caramel Pecan Brownies
We fear we’ve created something dangerous! These salted caramel pecan brownies are everything we didn’t know we needed in a brownie. Each thick, chewy homemade brownie is topped with a homemade caramel glaze, fresh pecans, and flaky sea salt.
10. Caramel Apple Dessert Bars
Caramel apples are always a fall favorite! But let’s be honest, they can also become quite a sticky mess to eat. So, we have reimagined the caramel apple and turned it into a dessert bar. Less mess, but with all the same flavors.
Each caramel apple shortbread bar has a shortbread crust, tart Granny Smith apple filling, spiced crumble topping, and is topped with a caramel drizzle.
11. Easy Pumpkin Tiramisu
We thought we couldn’t love tiramisu more, until we made this pumpkin tiramisu. If you love pumpkin and coffee, this dessert is for you!!
It’s pumpkin season, and we’re soaking up every second of it this year. It has three layers of espresso-soaked lady fingers, creamy pumpkin-spiced mascarpone filling, and is dusted with cocoa powder and pumpkin spice.
12. Pumpkin White Chocolate Pecan Cookies
We’ve been sharing these with our inner circle of friends and family for weeks, and everyone has begged for the recipe. So now we are sharing here with our online family. They have quickly become a favorite with everyone in our friends and family, and we know they’ll become a favorite in your home too!
These bakery-style pumpkin white chocolate pecan cookies are soft and chewy on the inside with a crisp outer crumb. Each larger than life cookies have a spiced pumpkin cookie dough with pecans and white chocolate chips swirled into the dough.
13. Salted Chocolate Pecan Dessert Bars
Think of pecan bars as the more casual version of a pecan pie. They taste just as good, if not better, and are simpler to make for a casual get-together.
The first layer is the most delicious, buttery shortbread and is topped with a layer of chocolate pecan filling and lastly sprinkled with flaky sea salt. They’re such a perfect dessert for Thanksgiving.
14. Fall Dot Cookies
The Dot Cakes seem to be everywhere right now! And it seems that everyone has their own take on them. So we thought: what if we put our own fall spin on these viral cakes and made them fall-coded?
We swapped cake for a cookie base and kept the iconic DOT Cake nonpareil sprinkle topping that is totally fall-coded. They are super simple to make but look like something that you would spot in the display case and immediately decide you need to order.
15. Texas Blonde Sheet Cakes
There’s nothing a Texas Blondie Sheet Cake can’t fix! We’re swapping the traditional chocolate Texas sheet cake for a vanilla and caramel-pecan cake. A light and fluffy vanilla cake topped with a caramel pecan icing.
