Halloween Desserts

These spice cakes look like tiny pumpkins when they're covered with orange glaze and topped with a piece of dark licorice, twisted to look like a stem.

Although a skull is the traditional Day of the Dead motif, you can stamp these cookies into any festive shape, from pumpkins and witches to cats and ghosts.

These icky-cute mice feature three kinds of chocolate: semisweet in the creamy, cakey center and white and bittersweet in the crisp chocolate shell.

Grace Parisi's cake pops are easy to make: Crumble store-bought pound cake; mix with lemon, sugar and butter; then shape into mounds. When they're covered with white chocolate, the cakes look like ghosts. Make their faces with an edible decorating pen or dots of black frosting.

These web-topped, chocolate-frosted red velvet wonders are filled with a spooky surprise—a sweet and creamy filling loaded with chewy tapioca

These charming sweet-and-savory rice cereal treats are spicy enough to serve with drinks and sweet enough to satisfy a candy craving.

The baked cheesecake can be refrigerated in the springform pan for up to 4 days.

Tender chocolate cake with a luscious creamy filling is great in any form, but it's most fun of all in a whoopie pie. These little cakes are dressed in their Halloween finest with orange sashes made by rolling the creamy edges in bright orange nonpareils.

These soft, lightly spiced cake-like cookies are studded with minced candied ginger and topped with a buttery sugar glaze.

Christina Tosi, sugar genius at NYC's Momofuku and author of The Momofuku Milk Bar Cookbook, transforms her trick-or-treat haul into these irresistible Halloween treats.

This is Grace Parisi's sophisticated version of magic bars, that chocolate-coconut bake-sale favorite. Browning the butter gives the crust a nutty flavor; cooking it in a metal baking dish makes it extra crisp. In a touch inspired by pastry chefs' favorite new ingredient, Grace adds bacon to the filling.

Pastry chef Jane Tseng worked with Nate Appleman (an F&W Best New Chef 2009), to create dishes like this awesome dessert. She uses the tangy, pungent, soft-ripened Italian cheese Robiolina and house-made gingersnaps; the version here calls for cream cheese and boxed cookies.

Grace Parisi experiments with ever-versatile caramel to make these chewy candies.

Carrie Dove's young son, Jeremy, says these are one of his favorite sweets. The family makes them at Halloween and gives them out to trick-or-treaters. The pumpkin pie filling is terrific smothered in the buttery, nutty praline topping.

These single-serving cheesecakes are perfect for a party, their gelée toppings reminiscent of Halloween candies.

Christina Tosi, sugar genius at NYC's Momofuku and author of The Momofuku Milk Bar Cookbook, transforms her Halloween haul into a candy milkshake.

Grace Parisi's crumbly, ultra-peanutty cookies require only four ingredients: puffed-corn cereal, peanut butter cups, peanut butter and chocolate sprinkles. The powdery texture of the ground cereal prevents the cookies from feeling sticky.

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.

To make this ultradecadent bark, you boil orange peels in water, simmer them in sugar syrup and coat them in sugar. They're then tossed with pistachios and spread over chocolate for a divine bark.

In his salute to dime-store sweets, pastry chef James Foran of Arterra in San Diego tops a silky butterscotch crème brûlée with his homemade Cracker Jack.

Food & Wine's Justin Chapple uses tart pomegranate juice to add a pretty rose color and additional flavor to his simple and adorable Candied Lady Apples.

Cayenne-spiked cashew brittle is delicious alongside crunchy chocolate bark.

Dipped in white chocolate, these red-velvet cake balls are perfect for turning into eyeballs on Halloween. With a steady hand and food coloring, David Burtka paints detailed irises and pupils on each one; for the less artistically inclined, an M&M pressed into the white chocolate before it sets makes for a quick-and-easy creepy alternative.

F&W's Justin Chapple layers superspeedy pumpkin mousse with whipped mascarpone cream and crushed chocolate wafer cookies for his gorgeous, delicious parfaits.