37 Special Occasion Dessert Recipes
I have gathered 37 dessert recipes for special occasions including holidays. No bake desserts and luscious sweet treats included.
A collection of the best dessert recipes for every season, holiday and special occasion.
Types of Dessert Recipes included
At the risk of sound like Bubba Gump, you will find;
Valentine’s Desserts,
Easter Desserts,
Patriotic Desserts,
Summer No Bake Desserts,
Dinner party desserts,
Fall Desserts,
Thanksgiving Desserts,
Christmas Desserts and all of the special occasions in between like Mother’s Day dessert, Father’s Day dessert, chocolate lover desserts and you name it desserts.
A great way to decide which dessert recipe to make is by a process of elimination
Are you looking for easy desserts,
Classic recipe?
Elegant desserts?
An American classic dessert?
A family favorite type dessert?
Dessert Recipes for All Occasions
This collection of dessert recipes includes cookies, candy, cakes, pies, no bake desserts and fun pretty dessert ideas for holidays.
Triple Nut Diamond Bar Cookies
A delicious bar cookie featuring three kinds of nuts on a light crust with a sweet filling.
Valentines Hot Chocolate Bombs
These hot chocolate bombs would make wonderful sweet treat gift plus they are homemade.
Creamy Chocolate Mousse Easy Recipe
Baked Strawberry Doughnuts With Strawberry Glaze
Baked doughnuts are so much easier than frying doughnuts. Plus, this recipe doesn’t call for yeast so there’s no rising time. It’s a quick and easy recipe that’s delicious and showcases my favorite berry.
Traditional Figolli Cookies from Malta for Easter
These traditional Maltese Figolli Cookies are a tasty pastry filled delight with almond paste.
The Easter Bunny Cake Tradition
How to make an Easter Bunny cake using round cake pans. It's really an easy way to decorate a fun cake for your Easter celebration.
Individual Italian Easter Bread Rings...Easy Step by Step Directions
Individual Italian Easter Bread Rings are baked around an egg and decorated with icing and sprinkles. Not only are they really easy to make, but taste absolutely fantastic.
Stacy's Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Butter Cream Frosting
The most requested dessert ever in our family and on the blog. Shared thousands of times on social media. This cake and the frosting uses strawberries in the batter.
Cherpumple Cake
The Cherpumple Cake is a three-layer cake made around a stack of cherry, pumpkin and apple pies.
Coconut Bird’s Nests
To celebrate everything spring, why not try making a homemade coconut bird’s nest? It’s so simple! These nests are similar to the prepackaged chocolate and coconut bird’s nests that you had as a kid, but you can try customizing them a bit!
King Cake Bars
The perfect way to celebrate Mardi Gras at home is with food of course! These King Cake Bars are the ideal way to have a happy treat on Fat Tuesday.
Easy Mardi Gras King Cake Recipe With Cinnamon Rolls
Mint Chocolate Trifle
A chocolate mint trifle is always a great option for a party, so if you’re looking for St. Patrick’s Day desserts, green desserts or just something delicious and minty to serve, this is a fun one!
Key Lime Cake with Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting
This Key Lime cake recipe is a tricks with cake mix easy recipe. The Key Lime frosting is made from scratch. Serve this cake for St. Patrick's or anytime you're in the mood for key lime flavor.
Fourth of July Chocolate Covered Strawberries Dessert
We went completely festive…Red, White, and Blue Strawberries for a cool summer treat.
No Bake Triple Berry Cheesecake Parfait
One of those delightful parfait recipes which can be served as breakfast or dessert any time of the year and even goes well on a brunch menu. Did you notice it also shows it’s patriotism all decked out in red white and blue.
Strawberry Yogurt Popsicles
No Churn Fresh Peach Frozen Yogurt a Healthy Treat
How about a nice simple and healthy frozen treat for summer time? How does no churn, low fat, reduced sugar Peach Frozen Yogurt sound?
Apple Pie Tacos Recipe
Apple Pie Tacos are a fun twist on the classic apple pie recipe. A cinnamon sugared shell filled with an easy homemade apple filling and a drizzle of caramel sauce over the top.
Easy Summer Beach Themed Lemon Cupcakes
You’ll love these Easy Summer Beach Themed Cupcakes for your summer parties. Easy to make lemon cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting topped with fun edible decorations. Great for kids to make!
Vanilla Milkshake with Sprinkles Best Ever Summer Dessert
The quintessential summer dessert is hands down, ice cream in any form. The whirl and hum of Ice Cream Churns has been heard for ions. Thankfully they are electric now and come in all sizes and shapes.
You might say we cranked it up a notch by adding melted milk chocolate filled candy sprinkles to the rim of our milkshake glasses! It wouldn’t be right if they weren’t topped with gobs of whipped cream with a cherry on top!
Cream Cheese Stuffed Pumpkin Spice Sweet Rolls Easy Recipe
These Pumpkin Spice Sweet Rolls are just the perfect amount of pumpkin flavor. No real pumpkins are harmed to make this delicious treat because we only use Pumpkin spice.
Baked Pumpkin Donut Recipe an Easy Fall Treat
These baked pumpkin donuts are made with pureed pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling. Although they have too many carbs to be considered healthy, they are baked and not fried and don’t have any silly food colourings or processed ingredients.
S’mores Dip Recipe
S’mores Dip Recipe includes loads of melted chocolate and toasted marshmallows, plus a drizzle of caramel and toasted pecans for crunch. You’re going to love this oven smores dip!
Easy No Bake Sweet & Salty Halloween Dessert Bars
This quick and easy no bake Halloween dessert is ready in no time. It's the perfect combination of sweet and salty.
Halloween Dirt Cake
This Halloween dessert is a little spooky, a little silly, and a lot delicious! Add a cookie graveyard to your Dirt Pudding Cake and invite the ghouls and ghosts out to party!
Halloween Brownie Parfaits
Bake some brownies and get out your cute little short glasses. We're making friendly ghosts into a sweet Halloween dessert for all ages.
Easy Halloween Sugar Cookies - Fun Halloween Party Food Idea!
These easy Halloween Sugar Cookies are perfect for celebrating! Made with my soft, cut out sugar cookie recipe and decorated with colored vanilla buttercream. Skip the pre-made dough and try this quick sugar cookie recipe!
Old Fashioned Tea Cake Christmas Cookies
Homemade sugar cookies using an old fashioned recipe. These can be decorated for any season.
Winter Rice Krispie Snowman Treats
There is nothing like a good old-fashioned Rice Krispie square! With only a couple of extra steps, you can have these adorable winter treats in no time.
Cookie Dough Truffles - Perfect For A Party
The inside of the truffle is soft and gooey, filled with mini chocolate chips and chopped walnuts, and tastes just like cookie dough.
Brownie Cheesecake No Bake
I can guarantee anyone that likes brownies and a creamy cheesecake will flip over these
Rustic Gingerbread Glass Cookies
You know that “rustic” is an odd word to use for cookies, but these sort of gave me that impression because they aren’t your typical stamped out cookie cutter glass cookies. You know, those pretty white colored glass cookies that are cut out with cookie cutters and are absolutely perfect. Well, these cookies are far from perfect and have a more handmade look, but they taste good and are a lot of fun to do with kids.
Homemade Payday Copycat Peanut Square Recipe
These peanut butter squares taste almost the same as the candy bar, with a soft gooey center and of course lots of crunchy peanuts.
Easy Festive Christmas Bark
Red Velvet Cake Roll with Chocolate & Peppermint Butter Cream Frosting
Red Velvet Cake Roll, features a buttercream frosting infused with white chocolate and peppermint, garnished with a crown of candy cane bits making this a festive holiday dessert that is fit for a king, a queen, or just about anyone lucky enough to make Santa’s nice list.
Peanut Butter Bars
Do you remember the Peanut Butter Bars from the lunch room lady in school. This recipe is just like those she made. We added peanuts to the mix, completely optional.
Special occasion desserts are the perfect ending to a special meal. The best part of the party is always the dessert.
We hope you have found a few dessert recipes to save and try for your special occasions or celebration. All of these recipes are from talented food bloggers. Visit the link for the complete recipe and save them to your Pinterest.
No Bake Dessert Recipes
- Chocolate Covered Strawberries. Includes tips for melting chocolate.
- Easy Homemade Hot Fudge, use it for ice cream topping or drizzle on a Bundt cake or top any dessert with it.
- No-Churn Ice Cream Chocolate Toffee Flavor. You won’t believe how easy this is to whip up.
- No Bake Triple Berry Cheesecake Parfait. Don’t you love a fruity dessert too?
- Homemade Vanilla Milkshake, a nice treat on a hot day.
- Sweet & Salty Chocolate Caramel Nut Clusters. Make this candy for your sweetheart or for special occasion parties like the holidays.
- Classic Watergate Salad is nice to serve for Mother’s Day, brunches, Thanksgiving or summer or anytime.
Cake Recipes
Four Flavor Rainbow Layer Cake, perfect for Spring or Easter.
Citrus Cake with Lemon Lime Cream Cheese Frosting, the frosting makes this cake perfect for lemon lovers.
Can you believe a cake with only 2 ingredients! Here it is, Pineapple Angel Food Cake. I love tricks with cake mix!
Chocolate Pound Cake drizzled with homemade hot fudge sauce. Make this one at Thanksgiving for a real crowd pleaser.
Easy Pineapple Upside Down Cake recipe made in the Iron skillet. This one disappears quickly.
Caramel Cake with Homemade Cooked Caramel Icing. One of my most requested cakes for Thanksgiving.
Old Fashioned Sour Cream Pound Cake recipe. The one that goes into a cold oven then you turn the oven on. You know this cake if crazy good.
this post has been updated from it’s original version of a now defunct blog party with a giveaway which ended in 2014
Love this party! Its lime neverending with someyhing new to do, you have to keep coming back! I am doing the rafflecopter, too! Not to win but to follow everyone? Woo
What a great idea to Follow everyone on the Rafflecopte. I have been clicking the blog links under the Hosts names to follow along and Retweet the party. So glad you are Co-Hosting with us! I love all of your goodies!
Wow! Looks so yummy. Sadly, I have no cookie recipes, I am a cake baker but I am intrigued and following. xx
Glad you stopped by the party! Now you will have some cookie recipes because we have plenty for you to try!
64 links, 1833 entries in less than 24 hours! Wohoo!!!
It is a fun party already and just getting better! What a fabulous giveaway, wish I could enter!
I’m excited to be co-hosting your virtual cookie party giveaway! Let the fun begin!
Alli, we are so glad you joined the party with us as a Co-Host! There are already so many luscious looking recipes! I can’t wait to start reading them!