Time is precious, particularly around the High Holidays, when you’re balancing cooking up a storm, spending time with loved ones and going to synagogue. Having a dessert recipe (or two! Or three!) up your sleeve that’s quick to whip up will save your sanity and your time. Here are 19 to choose from, from one-bowl cakes to apple pies on a stick, and beyond:
Cakes
Our readers are, quite frankly, obsessed with this recipe — and for good reason. It’s easy, requires only a handful of ingredients and feeds a crowd.
While poppy seeds are typically enjoyed on Purim, when mixed with applesauce and fresh apples, they make for a delicious Rosh Hashanah cake (best enjoyed with a cup of tea).
Dense in a good way, sweet in a good way — simply, a very good cake.
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Sesame seeds are eaten on Rosh Hashanah for increased abundance, as their size makes them too numerous to count. Symbolism aside, this classic flavor combination shines in this delicious cake.
If this fruit-forward apple crumb cake is good enough for a four times James Beard award-winning chef, it’s good enough for us.
A tender, rich and, dare we say it, quite sexy cake to kick off the new year.
Amp up this traditional Rosh Hashanah dessert with a sprinkle of symbolic scarlet pomegranate seeds or an extra drizzle of warm honey and scattering of toasty almonds.
Cure your apple fatigue with this seasonal, understated, subtly spiced cake.
Sweet noodle kugel meets apple crumb cake in this magical sweet treat.
This will fool even the most devout honey cake lover.
Cookies, Pies and Everything Else
Adorable bite-sized cookies with a flaky base and streusel topping. Accompanying teeny-tiny scoops of vanilla ice cream optional, but encouraged.
Store-bought phyllo pastry is the backbone of this easy-yet-impressive Greek-inspired crinkle cake flavored with tart apples and floral honey.
These nostalgic Ashkenazi dough balls soaked in honey syrup are too delicious to be consigned to history.
An easy, crowd-pleasing dessert that’s quick to throw together to take the pressure off this High Holiday season.
Make Rosh Hashanah even sweeter with this beloved British pud. Not only is STP infinitely more delicious than honey cake, one of its main ingredients, dates, is traditionally eaten on the holiday.
“Apples and honey are certainly not the only ways to ensure a sweet new year,” writes Jennifer Stempel. “Cuban families, like mine, have long practiced the tradition of eating grapes for good luck. At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, we enjoy 12 grapes.”
Flaky (store-bought) pastry, spiced apple filling and a sweet glaze are all we really want in any dessert, at the end of the day.
Tasty, toasty and totally stunning!
Everything tastes better on a stick, and these cute-as-pie treats are a cinch to whip up.
