There are two kinds of people in this world: those who love coconut in their chocolate and those who think coconut has no business being anywhere near dessert.

If you’re in the first camp, these Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes are going to be right up your alley.

Inspired by the classic Mounds candy bar, these cupcakes start with a rich, moist chocolate cake, followed by a thick layer of sweet, chewy coconut and a generous coating of chocolate ganache.

Unlike traditional cupcakes piled high with buttercream, these are all about the contrast between soft chocolate cake, slightly chewy coconut, and smooth chocolate.

While they look like something you’d find in a fancy bakery, there’s no piping bag or elaborate decorating involved. Just spoon on the coconut, pour over the ganache, and let the chocolate set.

And if you’re firmly in the anti-coconut camp? Well, there are plenty of other chocolate cupcakes around here. More of these for the rest of us!

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I firmly believe that coffee cake is one of those foods that can get away with being eaten at absolutely any time of day. Breakfast? Obviously. Afternoon snack with a cup of coffee? It’s right there in the name. Dessert? Well, there’s cake involved, so yes.

And when pumpkin season rolls around, I’m more than happy to find another excuse to eat cake for breakfast.

What I love about this pumpkin coffee cake is that the cinnamon streusel isn’t just scattered across the top. There’s a whole layer hiding in the middle, too, giving you little pockets of buttery cinnamon sugar in every slice.

And despite the three components (cake, streusel, and glaze), it’s surprisingly simple to put together. No mixer required, no complicated techniques, and everything bakes together in one square pan.

Make it for a fall brunch, bring it to a gathering, or keep it on the counter for a few days of very good breakfasts. I certainly won’t judge.

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Pumpkin butter is what you make when you want pumpkin pie flavor without making pumpkin pie.

Keep a jar in the fridge and add a spoonful to pancakes, waffles, oatmeal, yogurt, toast, muffins, or wherever you need a little more pumpkin flavor. (Or yes, eat it straight from the jar.)

And despite the name, there’s no butter involved. You also don’t need to roast a pumpkin, drag out the blender, or do anything more complicated than open a can of pumpkin puree.

Everything goes into one saucepan and cooks down on the stove. That’s it.

Thirty minutes later, you’ve got a jar of pumpkin butter ready to work its way through breakfast all week.

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If there’s ever a time for cookies that look a little weird, it’s Halloween.

These Halloween Monster Cookies start with a soft brown sugar cookie dough, but instead of scooping and baking it as-is, the dough gets divided into three colors and pressed back together. The result is a different orange, purple, and black pattern on every cookie.

Then comes the fun part. Add mismatched candy eyes, pipe on a few white chocolate stitches, or stick an Oreo on top and turn it into a spider. There’s no precision required here. In fact, the uneven eyes and crooked stitches are what make them look better.

And unlike decorated sugar cookies, there’s no rolling, cutting, flooding, or waiting around for layers of icing to dry. You get all the Halloween payoff with a fraction of the decorating work.

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Monster Pretzel Rods are exactly the kind of Halloween treat I love when I want something festive without turning it into a big project. Dip pretzel rods in colorful candy coating, add candy eyes and sprinkles, and suddenly you have a tray full of cute little monsters.

I apparently own an unreasonable number of candy eyes, so they’ve worked their way into quite a few Halloween recipes around here, including Halloween Boo Bark, Halloween Oreos, and Mummy Brownies. They’re especially fun on these pretzel rods because every monster can look completely different.

Crooked drizzles, mismatched eyes, too many sprinkles, one giant cyclops eye. All the things that would look messy on a carefully decorated dessert work perfectly here.

Use one candy coating color or several, keep the decorations simple or pile them on, and make each pretzel its own weird little monster. No oven, no precision decorating, and no two have to look the same.

Even better, you can make them several days ahead of time, which makes them especially handy for Halloween parties, classroom treats, or anything else you don’t want to assemble at the last minute.

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There are chocolate cupcakes, and then there are chocolate cupcakes with a gooey salted caramel center hiding inside.

And if we’re putting caramel inside a chocolate cupcake, we might as well go all in. There’s more chocolate in the whipped ganache on top, another drizzle of salted caramel, and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt.

The whipped ganache is especially important here because it’s lighter and less sweet than chocolate buttercream, which is exactly what these caramel-filled cupcakes need.

For September’s Cupcake of the Month, I wanted to lean into fall flavors without pulling out the pumpkin just yet. Salted caramel felt like the perfect place to start, especially when it’s stuffed inside a chocolate cupcake and paired with even more chocolate on top.

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Once apple cider shows up for the season, I tend to find reasons to put it in everything. Sometimes that means an Apple Cider Donut Cake. Sometimes it means adding an entire bottle of wine.

Apple cider and Fireball was also my go-to fall drink for years, so apparently apple cider + alcohol is a theme I have been committed to for quite some time.

This Apple Cider Sangria is the fall version of my traditional Spanish sangria, swapping the red wine and summer fruit for crisp white wine, fresh apple cider, sliced apples, oranges, and cinnamon sticks.

It’s easy to make ahead, not overly sweet, and exactly the sort of pitcher drink that works well for fall gatherings. Mix everything together, chill it for a few hours, and add sparkling water just before serving.

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Pistachio feels like it’s everywhere lately, which is funny because I don’t remember it being nearly this popular when I was growing up. I’m not complaining, though!

Pistachio can be a surprisingly hard flavor to carry through an entire cake. A handful of chopped nuts adds texture, but not necessarily enough flavor to make the whole cake taste distinctly like pistachio.

This Pistachio Bundt Cake solves that problem by using pistachios three ways: ground roasted pistachios in the batter, pistachio paste for concentrated flavor, and chopped pistachios on top.

And yes, that’s a lot of pistachio. That’s the point.

Sour cream and almond flour keep the crumb soft and moist, while a little lemon zest adds just enough brightness to balance all those rich, nutty flavors.

Finish it with a thick glaze and even more chopped pistachios, and you have a cake that tastes unmistakably like pistachio from the first bite to the last.

Because if pistachio is in the name, you shouldn’t have to go looking for it.

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There’s a lot to like about a dessert built around a thick layer of dates and a pile of buttery crumble.

These Date Bars start with dried dates cooked down until soft, sticky, and almost jam-like.

Add pecans, a little cinnamon, and vanilla, then sandwich the whole thing between layers of oat and coconut crumble.

The filling is sweet and chewy, the crumble is buttery and crisp, and the pecans keep every bite from feeling too soft or too sweet. They also hold together beautifully once cooled, which makes them especially good for packing up, sharing, or making a day ahead.

If you’ve made my Homemade Fig Bars, the general idea will feel familiar. Those are one of my favorite ways to use fresh figs all summer long. These Date Bars have the same fruit-and-crumble appeal without waiting on a short fig season.

And because the crust and topping come from the same bowl, there is very little standing between you and a pan of warm, buttery date bars.

They have that old-school cookie-bar feel, but the dates, pecans, and coconut keep them from tasting too… dated. (I’ll see myself out.)

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Neapolitan desserts are built around a very simple idea: why pick one flavor when you can have all three?

I’ve already used the same chocolate-vanilla-strawberry trio in my Neapolitan Bundt Cake, and it works just as well in cupcake form.

These cupcakes start with chocolate cake on the bottom and vanilla cake on top, with chopped semisweet chocolate in between. The chocolate melts as the cupcakes bake, leaving little pockets of chocolate right where the two layers meet.

A big swirl of strawberry buttercream finishes them off, made with reduced strawberry purée for plenty of real strawberry flavor without making the frosting too soft.

And even with three flavors going on, the recipe stays pretty simple. You make one vanilla batter, turn part of it into chocolate, layer the two, and use the strawberry buttercream to finish the job.

What makes these especially fun to eat is that every bite is a little different. Sometimes you get more chocolate cake, sometimes more vanilla, and sometimes you hit one of those melted pieces of semisweet chocolate in the middle. The strawberry buttercream adds a fresh berry flavor on top, so by the time you get through the frosting and both cake layers, you have all three Neapolitan flavors in the same bite.

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