Our Best Easter Dessert Recipes (2024)

Doughnut Bundt

Nutmeg is the secret ingredient that makes this playful Bundt taste just like a cake doughnut. (Be sure to use freshly grated nutmeg—you'll really notice the difference in flavor.) It's the perfect ending for an Easter brunch or dinner.

Raspberry-Lemon Cakelets

This dessert, tender from cake flour and bright with citrus, pairs beautifully with tea or a glass of bubbly. Decorate it with edible flowers for a special Easter touch.

Vanilla Crepe Cake

This cake by chef Gavin Kaysen of Bellecour Bakery in the Twin Cities will wow guests with its many layers, luscious creaminess and subtle vanilla flavor.

Carrot-Spice Cake with Coconut-Pecan Filling

This recipe kicks carrot cake to elegant new heights. Tender layers of carrot-tinted spice cake are sandwiched with a luscious coconut-pecan filling—and it's all covered in swirls of classic cream cheese frosting. It's an event to make (plan for some dish-washing), but well worth the effort. To spread the work over two days, make the carrot puree and start the Coconut-Pecan Fluff Filling on Day 1 and let them chill overnight. Then finish it all off on Day 2.

Pound cake

St. Louis pastry chef Nathaniel Reid gives pound cake a chic, patisserie-style makeover. Your trusty loaf pan never had it so good. Here are a few crowd-pleasing pound cake flavors to try:

• Double Chocolate Pound Cake
• Candied Lemon Pound Cake
• Earl Grey and Raspberry Pound Cake
• Yogurt Pound Cake with Apricots and Coconut
• Hazelnut and Milk Chocolate Pound Cake

Lemon Sugar Cookies

The light lemon flavor gives these sparkling sugar cookies a little special twist. Judy Kiburz Harrison's recipe won best-in-class at the Iowa State Fair—and they'll sparkle on your Easter table, too.

Double-Malted Easter Snack Mix

Malted milk powder and chopped malted Easter egg candies give this festive sweet-and-salty springtime snack mix a double hit of malt-shop flavor.

Seven-or-So Layer Cake

Impress Easter guests with this layer cake made from almond cake and rich mocha glaze. Our sheet pan technique makes prep extra simple.

Strawberry Charlotte

This old-fashioned cake holds up to slicing after 6 hours, but the cookies soften more with a longer rest, making it a make-ahead dream.

Sunny-Side Up Pavlovas

Perfect farm-fresh eggs are the inspiration for these crisp, mini meringues topped with cream and lemon curd. Serve au naturel or scatter them with fresh mint leaves, if you like.

Carrot and Honey Upside-Down Minis

Sweetly vying for a spot on your Easter brunch table, these cinnamony whole-wheat cakes bake over nests of glazed carrots. Serve warm with extra honey for drizzling.

Pear Tarte Tatin

Just seven ingredients go into this beautiful upside-down French tart. And one of them is très-easy purchased puff pastry. (Choose an all-butter pastry, such as Dufour or the Trader Joe's house brand, for the best flavor.)

Lemon Curd Tart

"The lemon curd is one of our favorite workhorses," says Patrick Groth of Incredibly Delicious in Springfield, Illinois.

Cutie-Pie Carrot Cake

Cream cheese frosting is always the answer, especially when it's on a 6-inch cake that's perfectly sized for life's celebrations.

Choose-a-Fruit Fool

Craving a light and airy dessert? Our goof-proof fools call for just four simple ingredients: your favorite fruit, granulated sugar, whipping cream and vanilla.

Raspberry Cream Tart

Fresh berries work best in this elegant dessert (frozen berries get too watery). Keep fruit refrigerated and dry and use within a couple of days of purchase.

Apricot-Rosemary Streusel Bars

A rich, fruity filling bakes in a rosemary-infused crust, then gets drizzled with a powdered sugar icing.

Peach Cordial Mini Bundt Cakes

The memory of a childhood orchard trip inspired Melinsa Murphey of Olathe, Kansas, to create this peach dessert recipe. The cakes are moist and sweet and quite generously proportioned, so you may want to serve a half-cake to each person (or bake them in muffin cups instead).

Pistachio Pavlova with Fresh Berries

Mildly nutty meringue cradles fresh berries in this classic dessert named for a ballerina. Use your favorite nut to flavor the meringue. Our Test Kitchen recommends pistachios, almonds or pecans. Any fruit works: blueberries, kiwi, bananas.

Baby Citrus Cheesecakes

These cupcake-size treats are a fantastically simple alternative to a full-size cheesecake. You could also garnish them with fresh raspberries or blueberries.

Tres Leches Cake

A Mexican standard and guaranteed backyard crowd-pleaser, our brown-sugar sheet cake is soaked in milky syrup, chilled, then topped with whipped cream and berries.

Peach Cake Roll

Based on a recipe from Michigan Peach Sponsors, this cake roll is a flavor chameleon. Swirl in any ice cream you like, and top the cake with any complementary fruit.

Key Lime Coconut Cake with Marshmallow Frosting

Billowy Meringue Frosting tops a moist and buttery lime-flecked cake whose subtle coconut flavor comes from canned cream of coconut.

Raspberry Cheesecake Bars

Layers of cheesecake, raspberry filling, almonds and coconut form dessert bars perfect for an Easter buffet.

Coconut Cake

This three-layer wonder stays extra moist thanks to butter and buttermilk. The blue-ribbon recipe is from Teresa Reese of Osceola, Nebraska.

Lemon-Cream Cheese Pie

This longtime reader-favorite recipe makes two pies; if you like, freeze one. To thaw, let the frozen pie stand in the fridge overnight.