Our 39 Best Chocolate Dessert Recipes
This collection of chocolate dessert recipes will fulfill your cocoa cravings. Whether you're looking to perfect a simple chocolate cake or take a risk with decadent chocolate and citrus cassata, you've come to the right place. Add-ins make these desserts even more appetizing, including pairing chocolate with cooling peppermint, crunchy almonds, and smooth peanut butter, just to name a few. This roundup is dedicated to some of our greatest chocolaty hits — think brownies, chocolate chip cookie ice cream bars, chocolate covered pretzels, and more.
Chocolate French Crullers with Dried Raspberries and Fudge Glaze
Made with a classic choux dough, her French crullers are likewise full of personality, featuring a crunchy crust, an airy center, and a colorful topping of dried raspberries and fudge.
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Air Fryer Brownies
With the help of an air fryer, these gooey, fudgy brownies—baked in ramekins and reminiscent of a molten chocolate cake—are less than an hour away.
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Double-Chocolate Rye Cookies
A mix of unsweetened cocoa and bittersweet chocolate bars gives these fudgy cookies a deep chocolate flavor. Dark rye flour adds a lightly savory note that balances the sweet intensity of dark chocolate well and plays off the crunchy sea salt garnish. The addition of light brown sugar makes these cookies extra chewy and helps to extend their shelf life.
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Chocolate-Buttermilk Snack Cakes
In her update of the classic chocolate Hostess cupcake, Chicago pastry chef Mindy Segal uses mascarpone in the rich and creamy filling.
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Mom's Chocolate Cake
This is a real old-fashioned American chocolate layer cake. It's very moist, very chocolatey, a snap to make and best baked the day before serving. Marcia Kiesel acquired the recipe from her friend Joyce Cole, who got it from her mother.
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Chocolate-Cookie Crunch Trifle
Any kind of cookie works as a layer in this decadent and super-chocolaty trifle from Washington, DC, pastry chef Tiffany MacIsaac.
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Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Bars
Break-and-bake cookies, which come packaged in eight-inch squares, are the secret to these incredible ice cream sandwich bars. Simply roll out all the dough to create one giant cookie, then bake, slice and layer it with store-bought ice cream and hot fudge sauce.
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Bittersweet-Chocolate Tart
This outrageously elegant tart is from Alain Ducasse's Manhattan restaurant Benoit.
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Chocolate Panna Cotta with Spiced Pepita Brittle
This light, silky panna cotta tastes a lot like hot cocoa in custard form. The brittle is easy to make; heat sugar and water on the stove, swirl in butter and spiced pepitas (shelled pumpkin seeds), then let cool.
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Chocolate Pretzels with Sea Salt
These are not your ordinary chocolate-covered pretzels. The super fun, delicious, and gluten-free treats from chef Daniel Humm are made from ground pretzels and white chocolate that gets piped into a pretzel shape and chilled, then dipped in dark chocolate before serving.
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Chocolate and Fig Cake
You've got options: The large range of figs called for in this cake recipe leaves the decoration and texture of this dense and fudgy chocolate dessert up to you. Four ounces of figs creates two small rings around the cake, while the full 12 ounces of fruit will cover the entire top with a jammy layer.
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Chocolate Chip Espresso Meringues
These large, crisp and chewy meringues are made with just enough espresso and bittersweet chocolate to keep them from being overly sweet.
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Chocolate Cardamom Cream Tart with Pistachio-Sesame Brittle
This recipe adds creaminess from milk chocolate and plenty of richness from heavy cream. A touch of cardamom in the custard and the whipped-cream topping, plus the contrasting crunch of homemade nut brittle, elevate this dessert.
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Spiced Chocolate Fondue
Caroline Yeh sells extraordinary candies from small European and American producers. She's also an excellent home cook and baker with a passion for chocolate. Fragrant with cinnamon, clove, cardamom and ginger, her fondue holds up remarkably well at room temperature, which makes it good for parties—especially when it's served with gingerbread, apples or shortbread for dunking.
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Chocolate Cream Squares
This super-rich dessert contains chocolate whipped cream between layers of bittersweet chocolate cake topped with a fudgy chocolate glaze. It's best made one day ahead and refrigerated overnight.
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Quadruple Chocolate Brownies
By swirling chunks of white, milk and bittersweet chocolate into a batter made with unsweetened chocolate, then melting and drizzling more all over the top, Michael Recchiuti says this sweet has "all the chocolates I like in one brownie."
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Chestnut-Chocolate Mousse
Marcia Kiesel uses chestnuts to add a sophisticated flavor to a luxe chocolate mousse.
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Chocolate Party Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache and Homemade Sprinkles
Rich, chocolaty, and so very festive, this chocolate cake with ganache frosting is worthy of a party on its own. Ganache has many applications in pastry, and here Chef Paola Velez uses it to make the silky-smooth frosting to top her chocolate cake.
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Chocolate-Peppermint Brownies
These rich peppermint brownies topped with crushed candy canes are from London's renowned bakery Violet. No candy canes? Use striped peppermint candies.
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Crunchy Milk Chocolate-Peanut Butter Layer Cake
The genius of this layer cake is its extraordinarily crunchy filling, made with almonds, salted peanuts, creamy peanut butter, chocolate and Rice Krispies. The silky milk-chocolate ganache frosting almost pushes the recipe over the top.
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Dark-Chocolate Bark with Walnuts and Dried Cherries
Not only is dark chocolate full of antioxidants, it is mood enhancing in its own right. This recipe gets an extra boost from walnuts (an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids) and dried cherries (high in fiber and minerals).
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Warm Chocolate Cakes with Mascarpone Cream
In his riff on Black Forest cake, a favorite dessert of his father's, Hosea Rosenberg tops individual cakes with mascarpone cream instead of whipped cream and luscious brandied cherries instead of jarred.
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Gianduja Mousse
As if the chocolate-hazelnut spread gianduja isn't delicious enough straight off the spoon, Grace Parisi has folded in whipped cream and crème fraîche to create a truly decadent (and ridiculously easy) mousse. For a supereasy ice cream sandwich, spoon the mousse between chocolate wafers and freeze overnight.
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Black Cherry–Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwiches
Homemade chocolate cookies encase store-bought black cherry ice cream for the ultimate ice cream sandwiches.
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Miso Chocolate Tart with Black Sesame–Chocolate Graham Cracker Crust
This dessert is savory-sweet. The nutty, crunchy crust lays the foundation for a velvety-smooth filling and the addition of miso mixed with melted dark chocolate adds depth and umami, an almost buttery quality, and saltiness to balance the sweetness in the truffle-like ganache.
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Chocolate Wafers with Ginger, Fennel and Sea Salt
For this ingenious snack, Grace Parisi coats wafer-thin crispbreads in dark chocolate so that they seem like candy bars studded with flaky Maldon sea salt, chewy crystallized ginger and candied fennel seeds.
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Peanut Butter–Chocolate Pie
With the smooth, nutty peanut butter filling, glistening ganache, and salty roasted peanuts on top, this pie evokes all the sweetness of a childhood memory, delivered in the form of an elegant, nuanced dessert that adults will want to savor.
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Chewy Black Licorice Chocolate Brownies
These deeply dark-chocolaty brownies are irresistibly chewy and not too sweet. A touch of salt, notes of molasses, and anise from black licorice bring this recipe full circle.
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Bûche de Noël with Mascarpone Cream and Dark Chocolate Ganache
Butter and corn syrup in the ganache keep it smooth and glossy. Stirring slivered toasted almonds into the ganache frosting gives it a "tree bark" look and adds contrasting texture to the silky filling and tender cake.
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Milk Chocolate–Peanut Custards
These clusters are built with low-fat chocolate milk and silken tofu for texture. Roasted peanuts add terrific flavor and a little crunch.
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Black and Ruby Cookies
Paola Velez adds her own spin to the iconic New York City treat of her youth: the Black and White cookie. She starts by going all-chocolate with the topping: one side gets piped with dark chocolate ganache and the other with ruby chocolate, a fruity chocolate with a pink hue.
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Chocolate-and-Citrus Cassata
This spectacular holiday dessert comes from chef Rebecca Wilcomb's New Orleans restaurant Gianna. To decorate it, use an offset spatula, a bench scraper, and a cake turntable for the smoothest cake with straight sides. Prevent air bubbles from forming in the dark chocolate ganache glaze by using a spatula to stir the melting chocolate.
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Chocolate Chunk Mandel Bread
Softer and less crunchy than a classic biscotti-style cookie, mandel bread gets its texture from pockets of melted coarsely chopped chocolate studded throughout the slices. To slice, use a long serrated knife; wipe off the knife between slices to prevent chocolate from smearing.
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Lee Lee's Double Chocolate Chunk Brownies
Pastry chef Lee Lee Reid is a self-proclaimed brownie aficionado. "I'm always looking for that perfect chew," she says. Needless to say, the chocolate chunk brownie recipe she developed, which customers can find at her husband's bakeshop, Nathaniel Reid Bakery in St. Louis, is the ideal balance of cakey and fudgy—falling in line with Nathaniel's own baking philosophy.
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Floating Islands with Dark Chocolate Crème Anglaise and Toasted Pistachios
The rich, deep chocolate flavor contrasts with the incredibly light and airy texture of this classic French dessert. Use your favorite high-quality dark chocolate for the best results.
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Giant Chocolate Cookie with Cacao Nibs and Flaky Salt
The only thing better than a dark cocoa cookie with a hint of chewiness and a generous sprinkle of flaky salt is this impressively oversized one that's designed to feed a crowd. Cut into wedges, the cookies resemble chocolate shortbread, but these treats — studded with chopped bittersweet chocolate and cacao nibs — are far more indulgent.
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Cocoa Cola Bundt Cake
In her modern-day version of the Coca-Cola cake, cookbook author Vallery Lomas flips tradition on its head by making a cola-flavored cake with cola-flavored icing.
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Salted Tahini Chocolate Shortbread
These buttery, nutty, salty shortbread cookies have enough structure to hold together when you pick them up, but when you take a bite, they are meltingly tender.
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Chocolate Puddings with Miso Caramel
Miso-enriched caramel intensifies the deep, chocolaty flavor of these silky puddings from pastry chef Clarice Lam. A touch of cornstarch in the custard base helps thicken the puddings and keeps them from curdling or breaking. Be sure to bring the leftover caramel to the table; its savory, bitter, and sweet flavor will have guests reaching for more.