12 Easy Thanksgiving Desserts That Aren’t Pie: Cookies, Cakes and Make-Ahead Treats

Pumpkin Pie Cookies with Custard Filling

Every part of a slice of pumpkin pie is here: the spiced custard, the swirl of whipped cream and the pinch of spice on top. It all sits on a wide, spiced brown sugar cookie, so there’s no dough to roll out or crimp.

Make these for the pie loyalists – the ones who insist it isn’t Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie.

A batch makes 15 to 18 big cookies, and the filling can be mixed a day ahead.

Pumpkin Snowballs (Vegan Snowball Cookies)

Toasted pecans and pumpkin spice are worked into these little round cookies, and a roll in powdered sugar while they’re warm gives them their snowy coat. They’re bite-size and easy to graze on with coffee or cocoa once the plates are cleared. Coconut oil stands in for butter, so they’re vegan as written, and the dough comes together by hand with no chilling.

Soft Pumpkin Cookies with Chocolate Chips

These bake up tall and soft, closer to a muffin top than a crisp cookie, with melted semi-sweet chocolate running all through them. The pumpkin and spice stay gentle, which makes them the safe bet for the guest who says they don’t really like pumpkin. They stay soft for days instead of going brittle, so you can bake all 24 ahead and bring them along.

Pumpkin Coffee Cake Cookies with Vanilla Glaze

Each of these is big enough to hold their own on a dessert table beside the pies, and one per person is plenty, so a batch of 18 goes further than it sounds.

For Thanksgiving, the glaze works even better with maple extract in place of the vanilla. Plan it as a weekend bake, and give the glaze about an hour to set before you stack them in a tin.

They’re properly chewy, with a brown sugar streusel lid pressed into the top and glaze drizzled over in ribbons.

Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Thick and studded with dark chocolate that melts into pools across the tops. The cookie itself is restrained on sugar, so the chocolate does the talking and the pumpkin spice stays warm rather than loud. Bake a batch when a plant-based guest is coming and you’d rather everyone ate the same cookie. They travel well, and the dough wants 30 minutes in the fridge before baking. Use dairy-free chocolate chips to keep them vegan.

Fall Bundt Cake with Carrots and Cream Cheese Frosting

If someone at your table would rather have cake than pie, this is their slice, and one cake gives you twelve of them.

Cream cheese frosting runs down every ridge of this bundt, over a crumb with grated carrot, chopped pecans and a full tablespoon of cinnamon all the way through.

It’s still soft the day after baking, so make it on Wednesday and frost it on Thursday. A bundt rides on its own plate with no box needed, which makes it an easy cake to carry to someone else’s house.

5-Ingredient Cherry Dump Cake

It’s for the host who’s already cooking everything else and needs dessert to take almost no thought.

Warm, tangy cherry filling bubbles up under a buttery golden top, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream melts right into it.

There’s no batter to mix: the cake mix goes on dry, you pour melted butter over it, and five ingredients are all it takes.

Easy Coconut Cake with Coconut Milk

Soft, fluffy coconut cake made with coconut milk, shredded coconut through the crumb, and a creamy coconut frosting on top. On a dessert table full of pumpkin and spice, this is the one that tastes like something else entirely. It bakes in an 11×7 pan, which makes it easy to carry and cut into squares, and it keeps covered at room temperature for up to three days.

Easy Banana Pudding with Vanilla Wafers

It’s the classic nobody has to be talked into, which makes it a safe bet for a potluck. Spoon it into a clear glass dish so everyone can see what’s inside. Allow ten minutes with a whisk and two hours in the fridge, and eat it within a day for the best texture. The recipe serves six, so double it for a bigger table.

Easy Make-Ahead Tiramisu

Espresso-dipped ladyfingers layered with mascarpone cream, with a dusting of cocoa over the top. It gets better after a night in the fridge, so making it a day early is the plan, not a compromise. Save it for the grown-ups who’ll want coffee with dessert anyway. It needs at least four hours to chill and is at its best made 12 to 24 hours ahead, and one 9×9 dish serves eight.

Viral Biscoff Yogurt That Tastes Like Cheesecake

Greek yogurt and Biscoff cookies sit together overnight and turn into something that tastes like cheesecake, with the cookies gone soft and spoonable. Made in single-serve cups, it’s a small, tangy treat for the end of the meal when nobody has room for much else. It’s two ingredients and about two minutes of work, then at least four hours in the fridge, though overnight is better.

Pumpkin Pie Spice Milkshake with Vanilla Ice Cream

Here’s the dessert to make right when people want it, since it takes about five minutes in the blender and goes straight into tall glasses under whipped cream and a drizzle of caramel. It’s frothy and spiced like pumpkin pie, for the guest who’d rather drink theirs. One batch fills four glasses and is best served the moment it’s poured. Chill the pumpkin puree along with the milk so it blends up thick and frosty, and scatter crushed gingersnaps or graham crackers over the cream if you’d like some crunch.

One Last Bite

Next to whatever pie shows up, a plate of cookies and one make-ahead dessert from the fridge is usually plenty. Most of these can be finished before Thanksgiving morning. Bake what travels, chill what doesn’t, and save the whipped cream for the last minute.

For the rest of the menu, the 14 best Thanksgiving drinks run from apple cider mimosas to a pumpkin pie spice milkshake. The easy holiday turkey with garlic, lemon and rosemary handles the main event. And if you’re baking all season, my easy fall dessert recipes for potlucks, parties and cozy nights in have plenty more.

Pin this to your Thanksgiving board so it’s ready the moment someone asks what they can bring.