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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This recipe has a bit of an identity crisis.

It has a graham cracker crust and a cheesecake filling, so calling it a cheesecake ultimately won. But this isn’t your standard no-bake cheesecake.

The filling is lighter and fluffier, with homemade blueberry filling and lemon curd tucked in between the layers.

And those layers are doing some serious work. You get creamy lemon filling, jammy blueberries, bright lemon curd, and a graham cracker crust all in the same bite.

There’s a pile of whipped cream and fresh blueberries on top, because we hadn’t quite reached the lemon blueberry limit yet.

Yes, there are several different components to make all these layers, but none of them are difficult. Make it ahead, give it plenty of time to chill, and you have a cold, creamy, seriously lemony blueberry cheesecake-ish dessert.

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Strawberry shortcake was basically made to become ice cream. You already have the sweet strawberries, plenty of cream, and buttery shortcake.

I wanted this version to taste like the actual dessert, not just strawberry ice cream with crumbs mixed in.

To achieve this, the strawberries get cooked down first for a stronger, more concentrated flavor.

Then the shortcake crumble gets layered in after churning. Some pieces stay a little crisp. Some soften into the ice cream.

You get more strawberry flavor, more shortcake in every scoop, and enough of both that you’re not digging through the container looking for the good parts.

And if homemade ice cream sounds like a project, this one is pretty straightforward. There’s no custard to cook and no eggs to temper. I’ll walk you through the parts that matter most, from getting the strawberry purée thick enough to layering everything.

And because frozen strawberries work just as well as fresh, you don’t even have to wait around for perfect summer berries.

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My Easy Traditional Tiramisu recipe is exactly what it should be: espresso, mascarpone, cocoa powder, no unnecessary reinvention.

This one is for blackberry season.

The ladyfingers get dipped in homemade blackberry syrup instead of coffee. Blackberry sauce is layered through the mascarpone cream.

The result still has the soft, sliceable texture that makes tiramisu so good, but the flavor is brighter, fruitier, and unexpectedly delicious.

It keeps everything I love about tiramisu — the soft layers, the creamy filling, and the fact that it’s made ahead of time — but gives the whole thing the perfect summer spin.

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Peach desserts can be so frustrating.

A perfectly ripe peach is one of the best parts of summer. But then you bake it into a cake, and somehow all that peach flavor disappears.

So rude.

These cupcakes solve that problem. The soft honey batter is filled with peaches, with a honey cream cheese swirl baked across the top.

Once they’re cool, add honey cream cheese frosting and a peach glaze made with even more fresh peaches. There’s absolutely no mistaking the flavor here.

They’re bright, creamy, very peachy, and exactly the kind of cupcake I want to make while peaches are still piled high at the market.

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