Our 17 Best Super Bowl Desserts

By Maria Yagoda
Updated December 15, 2016
Super Bowl parties are all about salty snacks, sweet treats and plenty of beer. To make hosting a party as easy as possible, stick with big-batch desserts that everyone will love—we're thinking chocolaty trifles, easy cookies and no-bake treats. These desserts also travel well, so if you're not hosting this year's viewing party, bring one along as a gift.
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S'mores Brownies

Credit: © SARAH BOLLA
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These fudgy, gluten-free brownies are baked in a graham cracker crust, then topped with marshmallows and broiled. Whether you're tailgating, barbecuing, or watching the game from inside, get a taste of the campfire with these gooey brownies.

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Rosemary-Cornmeal Sugar Cookies

Credit: © Fredrika Stjärne
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Chef Tim Byres of Smoke in Dallas mixes fresh rosemary into cornmeal cookies, giving them a fabulous savory note. The recipe can be made two ways: as drop cookies or the slice-and-bake kind for a crisper texture.

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Manuka Honey Ice Cream

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"If there could ever be such a thing as healing ice cream, this would be it," says blogger Anya Kassof. Manuka honey is made exclusively by bees in New Zealand and Australia from the nectar of the native manuka tree. The honey has a very subtle taste, along with a beautiful color and texture. It's also known to be one of the most nutritious types of honey, especially when combined with bee pollen.

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Take 5 Carrot Cupcakes

Credit: © QUENTIN BACON
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Chef Bryan Vietmeier makes these terrifically moist and carroty cupcakes for Seattle's Take 5 Urban Market. He suggests freezing the cupcakes before frosting to firm them up, preventing crumbs.

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Bars

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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. The best part: dipping the bars into crushed chocolate toffee candy to form a supercrunchy shell.

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Pear-and-Cranberry Slab Pie

Credit: Con Poulos
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Instead of making a traditional two-crust pie in a pie plate, Food & Wine's Justin Chapple makes this free-form, fruit-filled, ginger-laced pie on a baking sheet.

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Dulce de Leche, Coconut and Chocolate Chip Magic Bars

Credit: © Fredrika Stjärne
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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.

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Icebox Chocolate Cheesecake

Credit: © CON POULOS
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Grace Parisi brilliantly layers chocolate cookies with a quick mix of cream cheese, chocolate syrup and a little water. The cookies soften as the cake chills overnight for a perfectly moist, chocolaty "cheater's" cheesecake.

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Apple Crisp with Sweet Ginger and Macadamia Nuts

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To make chopping macadamia nuts easy, Greg Patent suggests, put them in a resealable plastic bag and breaking them up with a rolling pin.

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Ganache-Stuffed Chocolate-Chip Cookies

Credit: © Con Poulos
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A stuffed cookie is like a sandwich cookie, only with more cream on the inside--it's fatter, fuller and (if you're the kind of person who twists apart the cookies to get to the cream) better. Jessica Sullivan, the pastry chef at Boulevard restaurant in San Francisco, makes hers with nutty chocolate-chip cookies and silky chocolate ganache.

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Chocolate-Cookie Crunch Trifle

Credit: © Christina Holmes
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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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Salty-Sweet Chocolate Pretzel Bars


Credit: © Marcus Nilsson
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There are only a handful of ingredients in these simple but outrageously decadent and fun dessert bars from Food & Wine's Justin Chapple. If hard pretzels aren't your thing, feel free to swap in thinner pretzels.

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Jumbo Brownies

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"Like all great desserts," says Anne Quatrano, "these brownies have only three pertinent flavors: chocolate, butter and walnuts."

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Chocolate-Chip-Pecan Cookie Bars

Credit: Con Poulos
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Feel free to swap walnuts or almonds for the pecans, or use half nuts and half dried cranberries for tart, chewy bars.

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Banana Snacking Cake

Credit: Jen Causey
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A snacking cake—a simple dessert meant to be eaten unadorned—may seem like an odd between-meals treat, but this version, perfectly balanced between sweet and savory, fits in just right.

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Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

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These made-from-scratch chocolate chip cookies take less than half an hour, start to finish.

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Matcha Mochi Ice Cream Sandwiches

Credit: John Kernick
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Pastry chef Jen Yee of Lafayette Grand Café & Bakery in Manhattan makes these fun and pretty sandwiches with a simple Japanese dough that combines sweet glutinous rice flour, sugar, water and the green-tea powder matcha.

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By Maria Yagoda