:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/spice-roasted-apples-recipe-FT-BLOG1019-f1d30e7037444ddc844dde2d4d2e25b4.jpg "23 Apple Dessert Recipes to Make This Fall")
Apples are meant for so much more than pie — this fall, make the most of your orchard bounty by branching out to all the other delicious apple desserts at your disposal. There are fritters packed with chopped Honeycrisps; cakes layered with sliced Granny Smiths. You can bring apples into banana breads, ginger-spiced crisps, babkas, turnovers, and coffee cakes. We especially love them baked mostly intact, just as they are, ideally with lots of butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Of course, if you want to make an apple pie or two, we won’t blame you.
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Tarte Tatin
Morgan Hunt Glaze / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Prop Styling by Josh Hoggle
French chef Benoît Guichard shares a classic recipe for the favorite French dessert, complete with homemade pastry. The apples — a full five pounds of them — get soft and caramelized in the oven for an impressive and appetizing presentation.
Cardamom-Spiced Apple Fritters
Greg DuPree / Food Styling by Torie Cox / Prop Styling by Christine Keely
Apple fritters are delicious even with little adornment — but here, we ramp up the flavor with citrus, spices, and a sprinkling of dried rose and chopped pistachios. The cardamom-infused glaze is an elegant touch.
Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Christina Daley
If you want to skip the deep-fry, try these cakey donuts made not with fresh apples but with cider, which gives them a noticeable layer of fruit flavor. Cold-pressed cider — fresh from the farmers market or orchard stand — makes a big difference.
Apple Sharlotka
Food & Wine / Photo by Jason Donnelly / Food Styling by Holly Dreesman / Prop Styling by Addelyn Evans
This simple recipe for the traditional Russian apple cake comes from chef Matt Danko’s father, who packs four Granny Smith apples into the light batter. In fact, this dessert almost feels like it’s apple first, cake second — the perfect showcase for a fall bounty.
Spiced Brown-Butter Apples
Molly Stevens, author of All About Roasting and other cookbooks, douses apples in a butter–brown sugar mixture infused with nutmeg, cinnamon, and five-spice, then bakes until soft and lightly browned. With a scoop of vanilla ice cream, there’s nothing better.
Skillet Apple-Ginger Crisp
For this delicious crisp, cookbook author Susan Spungen uses both ground dry ginger (in the topping) and candied ginger (in the fruit filling) to bring some spicy warmth to every bite. A splash of Calvados mixed in with the apples amplifies the fruit flavor, too.
Cinnamon-Apple Babka
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Ali Ramee / Prop Styling by Christina Daley
This braided sweet bread brings together elements of an apple pie and a glazed cinnamon roll, twisting a spiced filling of sliced apples into a chewy, buttery yeasted dough. The babka is best served while still warm, soft, and gooey — but it makes for great leftovers, too.
Apple-Rum Spice Cake
Pastry chef Joanne Chang cooks apples down into an intense rum-spiked compote, using it as a filling to spread between layers of lightly spiced chiffon cake. The rich, flavorful frosting — made with cream cheese and fresh ginger — is almost the best part.
Apple Upside-Down Cake
Cara Cormack
This moist cake is both easy and impressive, making it perfect for a potluck or casual dinner party. It takes just 20 minutes of active time to put down a layer each of butter and brown sugar, thick wedges of apple, and a simple cake batter — after that just bake, flip, and glaze.
Miso Caramel-Apple Danish
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Torie Cox / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen
You’ll make your own buttery croissant pastry for these diamond vol-au-vent Danishes, which are filled with layers of thinly sliced apples brushed with a savory, sweet-salty caramel sauce. Sour whipped cream adds a delicious tang.
Apple Fritters
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Christina Daley
These intensely apple-y fritters have an apple cider dough dotted with finely chopped apples — but the real flavor secret is the glaze, which is made with apple cider vinegar and ground ginger for a tart, lightly spiced zing that brings out the fruit flavor.
Apple Flambé Pie
Victor Protasio / Food Stylist Torie Cox / Prop Stylist Claire Spollen
Another dessert that incorporates apple products in multiple ways, this pie is filled with both cooked apples and dried apples rehydrated in apple cider, with fresh apple slices layered over the surface. Flambé with apple brandy just before serving for a dramatic finish.
Mémé’s Apple Tart
Food & Wine / Photo by Fred Hardy II / Food Styling by Jennifer Wendorf / Prop Styling by Hannah Greenwod
Jacques Pépin and his daughter Claudine share a version of the tart that the chef’s mother, Jeannette, would make daily at her Lyon restaurant Le Pélican. The filling is simple and delicious, but it’s the light, tender pastry shell that makes it special.
Apple Cider Snacking Cake with Maple–Cream Cheese Frosting
Greg Dupree / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Thom Driver
This recipe begins with a mix of maple syrup and fresh apple cider, which you’ll reduce down until thick and concentrated. It’s mixed into the cake batter, beaten into the tangy frosting, and drizzled over the finished cake for maximum fall flavor.
Apple Dumplings
Food & Wine / Photo by Jen Causey / Food Styling by Rishon Hanners / Prop Styling by Phoebe Hauser
This simple, comforting dessert was a childhood favorite for Great American Baking Show winner Martin Sorge. Whole cored apples — filled with chopped nuts and spiced brown sugar — are wrapped in a buttery pastry and baked until they’re soft and gooey inside.
Apple Butter Crumble
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen
2023 F&W Best New Chef Hannah Ziskin uses both Pink Ladies and Honeycrisps for this comforting crumble, mixing them with store-bought apple butter for a jammier texture and more pronounced flavor. Ground ginger and a bit of black pepper bring the warm spice.
Old-Fashioned Apple Pie
Food & Wine / Photo by Jason Donnelly / Food Styling by Holly Dreesman / Prop Styling by Gabe Greco
For this super-classic pie, baker AJ Perry keeps things simple — after all, why mess with perfection? Three pounds of apples are spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg and piled inside a tender double crust for a fall dessert you’ll want to make an annual tradition.
Mom’s Banana-Apple Bread
Food & Wine / Photo by Brie Goldman / Food Styling by Lauren McAnelly / Prop Styling by Breanna Ghazali
Baker Melissa Murphy Rafano harnesses the power of tart, firm Granny Smiths to add a twist to an otherwise traditional banana bread. Before folding into the batter, the apples are cooked and caramelized in a mix of butter and brown sugar with a sprinkle of cinnamon.
Dutch Apple Pie
Food & Wine / Photo by Kelsey Hansen / Food Styling by Kelsey Moylan / Prop Styling by Addelyn Evans
How can you improve on a classic apple pie, you ask? Try making it Dutch: Instead of a lattice or double-crust, top your pie with crunchy streusel. In this recipe, the crumb topping is made with brown sugar and chopped walnuts for added crunch.
Dried Apple Hand Pies
Rather than use fresh apples and risk a leaky filling and soggy crust, pastry chef Lisa Donovan makes these turnovers with dried apples, which are rehydrated with apple cider and spiced with black pepper, cardamom, and clove.
Apple Cheddar Rye Pie
Baker and cookbook author Lisa Ludwinski takes the old-school combination of apple pie and cheddar cheese and turns it into a cohesive dessert, incorporating aged white cheddar into the nutty rye-flour dough for the crust.
Caramelized Apple Bread with Candied Ginger and Almond
Caitlin Bensel / Prop Styling by Christina Daley / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall
This dessert from cookbook author Samantha Seneviratne is part sweet bread, part tart Tatin, and 100% delicious. Almond paste (in the filling) and candied ginger (in the topping) add even more chewy, gooey texture to the soft caramel apples.
Grill-Baked Apple Galette
This rustic apple tart is cooked in cast iron over charcoal, lending the fruit filling a lightly smoky, charred flavor. Cookbook author Paula Disbrowe adds a unique floral warmth by mixing freshly ground pink peppercorns into the pastry.
