16 Mardi Gras Desserts Inspired by New Orleans
New Orleans is a city steeped in tradition, even down to its dessert menu. If you're celebrating the last hurrah that is Mardi Gras this year, you'll definitely want to add some of the city's sweetest indulgences into the equation. Our collection of Mardi Gras desserts includes spectacular versions of the two quintessential favorites, king cake and beignets. But we've got plenty of other ideas for your festivities, too, like an incredible bananas foster cheesecake and a super-luxe white chocolate bread pudding. Get out your beads and read on for the sweetest ways to celebrate this Fat Tuesday.
Beignets
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Prop Styling by Julia Bayless
Beignets are a signature New Orleans sweet, and you don't have to be in the Crescent City to enjoy them. These puffy fried treats require just 40 minutes of active work time.
Bananas Foster
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Torie Cox / Prop Styling by Josh Hoggle
Created in New Orleans in 1951, bananas foster is as simple as it is iconic. The orange zest in this recipe brings fragrant depth to the buttered rum sauce and the glazed pecans. Bake off the nuts in advance and you'll be mere minutes away from a heavenly dessert.
King Cake
Alex Lau / FOOD STYLING by MARGARET MONROE DICKEY / PROP STYLING by CLAIRE SPOLLEN
No dessert is more emblematic of Mardi Gras than the traditional king cake: A tender, yeasted, ring-shaped pastry swirled with cinnamon sugar and topped with fan-favorite cream cheese icing — not to mention the festive green, purple, and gold sanding sugars. Feel free to tuck a tiny toy baby in the dough to bring good luck to its recipient.
Rie’s Pecan Pralines
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Dickey / Prop Styling by Jillian Knox
Made fundamentally with sugar, pecans, and butter, these melt-in-your-mouth candies contain butterscotch morsels and almond extract for a little something extra.
Pączki Doughnuts
Enriched with eggs and butter, these jam-filled Polish doughnuts are traditionally made and eaten on Fat Tuesday, since sweets are often given up as a Lenten sacrifice.
White Chocolate Bread Pudding
Food & Wine / Photo by Morgan Hunt Glaze / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Josh Hoggle
You'll need nearly a pound and a half of high-quality white chocolate to make this incredibly decadent bread pudding from New Orleans' Palace Café — some for the pudding and some for the accompanying sauce.
Bourbon Balls
Food & Wine / Photo by Morgan Hunt Glaze / Food Styling by Julian Hensaring / Prop Styling by Julia Bayless
Combine chocolate, bourbon, and pecans in 40 minutes without an oven for this easy treat that's popular throughout the South.
Banana Pudding Pie
Banana pudding is a Southern staple in all its forms. Recipe tester and developer Anna Theoktisto brings us this creamy, dreamy banana pudding pie with a from-scratch vanilla pudding and two layers of banana.
Sweet Potato Pie
New Orleans chef Susan Spicer tops her sweet potato pie with bourbon-spiked praline sauce to accent its Southern roots.
Chantilly Cream Cake
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Prop Styling by Julia Bayless
Light, tender, and not too sweet, chantilly cake is a New Orleans original, created in the early '00s by baker Chaya Conrad. Our version is filled with berry-tinged whipped cream; the chantilly frosting is made extra creamy with the addition of mascarpone cheese.
Hummingbird Cream Puffs
Hummingbird cake originated in Jamaica and has been an integral part of the Southern dessert canon since the 1970s. Here, 2021 F&W Best New Chef Paola Velez riffs on the cake's flavors by filling choux pastry with naturally sweet banana whipped cream, coconut, and pineapple for a tropical treat topped with buttery cookies.
Boozy Bourbon-Pecan Tassies
“These diminutive pecan pie poppers, with a higher crust-to-filling ratio, offer the perfect bite,” says cookbook author Andrea Slonecker. “I spike them with bourbon to both cut through and complement the sweetness.”
Bananas Foster Cheesecake
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Ali Ramee / Prop Styling by Christina Daley
Turn up the decadence of bananas foster by transforming it into a sliceable, make-ahead dessert in the form of this brilliant cheesecake.
Praline Brownies
Brownies get a dose of Southern charm with this recipe from New Orleans pastry chef Kelly Fields. Here, fudgy brownies are bolstered with brown sugar and studded with crunchy bites of nutty pecan praline.
New Orleans-Style Chicory Beignets
For a fun variation on the NOLA classic, David Kinch infuses milk with chicory coffee to make the dough for his inventive beignets.
Rainbow Cake
This cake is reminiscent of New Orleans' doberge cake, which is traditionally made with six or more thin layers of cake stacked together with pudding. Our cake uses lemon buttercream throughout; the rainbow of colors keeps things festive for your Mardi Gras celebration.
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