Easter Desserts to Make Your Celebration Even Sweeter

You can make the custard sauce for this delicious cake up to 1 day ahead or while the frosted cake chills. The cake cuts best when refrigerated at least 2 hours.

The filling in these pies is on the tart side, so they’re especially good with vanilla ice cream. Semolina flour in the dough is optional but adds complexity and crunch.

Serve these adorable cakes at a special holiday gathering and watch everyone’s surprise when they discover the lemon curd “yolk” in the center. Making them is simple enough that family or friends can help. These could be both a pre-Easter activity and a holiday dessert.

This citrus pie features a gorgeous colorful crust that will look so cheerful on your Easter table.

There’s nothing more delicious than a cake topped with fresh berries and whipped cream.

To create this single-serving update on the retro Baked Alaska, scoop strawberry ice cream onto cupcakes, cover them generously with meringue, and toast the meringue using a culinary torch.

Emily Rosenberg, a pastry sous chef at the Four Seasons Maui at Wailea, adds toasted fennel seeds to give the tart a subtle crunch. It’s delicious with ice cream or spooned into biscuits or onto pancakes, and lasts a month in the fridge.

This galette recipe from Alice Waters can be made with other fruits, like plums, peaches, pears, or apricots.

Use goat cheese as a gourmet substitution for cream cheese in a carrot cake frosting. The sweetened cheese adds depth of flavor and complements the richness of the cake.

If you or your guests are gluten-free, make it GF-friendly by using tapioca flour.

At Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, spring desserts are often served with a seasonal flourish: a sprinkling of sugared rose petals. Chopped into colorful confetti or served whole on a cake or candy tray, the petals have a delicate crunch, inviting flavor, and subtle fragrance. Sprinkle the sugared petals onto any dessert or plate at your Easter party to add a bit of extra flowery flavor and beautiful display.

Subtle and ethereal meringue is an ideal way to feature seasonal fresh fruit. Chef Saehee Cho tops hers with lemon curd, edible flowers, and the first straw­berries of the season, but any ripe seasonal fruit will do.

“This pie is famous in our household,” gushes Queen Street Raw Bar & Grill chef Ari Kolender. “My grandmother used to airmail it to me when I first moved to California, and has been making it so long, she couldn’t (or wouldn’t) tell you where she got the recipe. I’m led to believe that she invented it!“

The guests of our Sunset Secret House Party in Palm Springs loved these little tarts from Melvyn’s at Ingleside Inn. Perfect for large gatherings, mini key lime tarts offer easy serving alongside a delicious taste, especially from limes that have recently been harvested at the start of their season.

This easy-peasy fruit dessert from Valerie Gordon of Valerie Confections in Los Angeles comes together in minutes. Use your favorite granola for the topping alongside the berries of your choice. Bonus: It’s also incredible for breakfast.

We created this elegant, elongated version of strawberry shortcake by stacking cake layers with berries and whipped cream. With strawberries at the height of their growing season, we use them in both their natural and jam form. This creates a light dessert.

This fragrant shortbread cookie from San Francisco-based cook and blogger Kristina Cho gets its flavor from finely chopped jasmine leaves, which turns each bite into a one-of-a-kind speckled treat. Top with Meyer Lemon Sugar Glaze for a cookie version of a cup of tea with fresh lemon.

Combining raspberries and pistachio creates an amazing merge of sweet and salty flavors, and the white and light green coloring of the cake will match flawlessly with your Easter decor. “Baking and icing a cake from scratch can be daunting. But you don’t have to do it all in one day,” says Rosie Daykin, owner of Butter Baked Goods in Vancouver.

Our butter cake meets classic lemon meringue pie. We used a loaf pan to change the shape of the cake—a simple twist that dramatically alters the presentation. A light and airy dessert, this cake feels perfect for a springtime Easter day.

This delicate, cloud-like cake from Kristen Murray, pastry chef and owner of Maurice restaurant in Portland, is an adaptation of one from her great-aunt Crys. Rice flour replaces regular flour so the cake is gluten-free, with a little crunch.