Our 35 Best Chocolate Dessert Recipes

These large, crisp and chewy meringues are made with just enough espresso and bittersweet chocolate to keep them from being overly sweet.

In her update of the classic chocolate Hostess cupcake, Chicago pastry chef Mindy Segal uses mascarpone in the rich and creamy filling.

Any kind of cookie works as a layer in this decadent and super-chocolaty trifle from Washington, DC, pastry chef Tiffany MacIsaac.

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.

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.

This outrageously elegant tart is from Alain Ducasse's Manhattan restaurant Benoit.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

Marcia Kiesel uses chestnuts to add a sophisticated flavor to a luxe chocolate mousse.

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.

The Help's ending hinges on a secret involving Minny's famous chocolate pie. Newspaper columnist Lee Ann Flemming, one of the best bakers in Greenwood, made 53 chocolate pies during filming, including 12 vegan and gluten-free versions she prepared in just one day for actress Bryce Dallas Howard. Her fudgy version here is neither vegan nor gluten-free: It's as classic as it gets. You can make your own crust, but Flemming uses packaged.

These rich peppermint brownies topped with crushed candy canes are from London's renowned bakery Violet. No candy canes? Use striped peppermint candies.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Homemade chocolate cookies encase store-bought black cherry ice cream for the ultimate ice cream sandwiches.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ana Sortun's pastry chef, Maura Kilpatrick, adds cinnamon and cocoa nibs to the syrup that soaks her chocolate baklava.

These clusters are built with low-fat chocolate milk and silken tofu for texture. Roasted peanuts add terrific flavor and a little crunch.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.