Cookies have always had a monopoly on holiday desserts, which is great if you’re into cookies. But in my opinion, tiny, delicate, ornamental desserts are a touch anticlimactic at the end of a holiday meal.
For cocktail parties and giftable tins, of course, roll and bake to your heart’s content. But after a giant ham, I’m looking for something that shouts “celebratory abundance!” Something that encourages a mix of intimacy and bacchanalian behavior. Something tall and dramatic to be sliced and shared and eaten without forks or plates, a giant bowl of something rich and creamy eaten with several spoons at once. (We’re all friends here, right?)
Here are four holiday desserts that capture that vibe without trying too hard. (There are no bûches de Noël.) Equal parts festive and fuss-free, they’ll leave you with plenty of time to focus on that ham.
If there is something more fun than eating a comically large bowl of chocolate pudding layered with whipped cream and crushed cookies with a very small spoon, I don’t want to know about it.
While you can absolutely make and serve chocolate pudding in individual cups, there is something delightfully communal about sharing one giant vessel, and to me that’s part of what makes it holiday-spectacle worthy. The vessel can be nearly anything you want, be it trifle bowl or baking dish, but I will say this pudding is best when whatever you choose is tall and deep so you can build as many layers as possible.
Imagine for a second that gingerbread was not dense or decorative, but light, fluffy and impossibly delicious. Imagine that instead of being a structurally sound cookie, it was a cake the color of sunshine, with a crisp, crunchy exterior and a perfectly crumbed inside, spiced with cinnamon and freshly grated ginger. That’s this cake, which has the flavors of gingerbread (yes, there is molasses) and the texture of what I can only describe as a very good cake doughnut. My original plan was to frost it, but after eating a slice, I understood that its true destiny was to be served with a pint of vanilla ice cream.
Cherries might not be the obvious choice for holiday baking, but as with frozen peas and corn, frozen cherries are, well, pretty good. Plus, they’re available 365 days a year, so I say ’tis the season. Here, they’re boozed up with bourbon and baked on top of a layer of lightly sweetened walnut paste — use store-bought almond paste if you don’t want to get out the food processor — to help soak up the juices, of which there are a lot. The maroon cherries, glistening with juices and dusted with an extra helping of sugar, remind me of a large brooch made of rubies, something your fabulous great-aunt would wear to the annual holiday party. How festive!
I don’t know why I associate cheesecake with the holidays, but I do. Maybe it’s because the most enjoyable thing I can think of is an entire dessert made of sweetened cream cheese. (I love cheese, what can I say?) The nice thing about this one is that it doesn’t require a water bath or any sort of special baking pan; shallower than a traditional cheesecake, it’s baked right in a pie plate (or tart pan, if you’ve got that). While there are zest and juice inside the cream cheese filling, it’s the fresh sliced citrus on top that makes this cake reminiscent of a Creamsicle, which is the only thing I like more than straight-up cheese.
Recipes: Salted Chocolate Pudding With Whipped Sour Cream | Boozy Cherry Walnut Tart | Golden Ginger Cake | Citrusy Cheesecake
