Recipes for Thanksgiving Cakes & Thanksgiving Cupcakes

From carrot cake to ginger cake, delicious Thanksgiving cake recipes and cupcake recipes for Thanksgiving.Download a FREE Cookbook with Healthy Cupcake Recipes!Watch Video
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Cranberry Bundt Cake

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In this healthy cranberry-walnut Bundt cake recipe, Greek yogurt and shredded apple or pear keep the cake moist and are a healthy substitute for extra butter. If you want to use something other than allspice, try pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon in the filling. For a nut-free variation, omit the walnuts in the cake or use chopped dried cranberries in their place.

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Sticky Toffee Pudding with Maple Sauce

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This is a healthier version of the gooey-rich sticky toffee pudding recipe served in the winter at Joanne Chang's Asian restaurant Myers+Chang in Boston. Lightly sweetened with maple syrup, the cake is chock-full of rich, naturally sweet dates. Adapted from Baking with Less Sugar by Joanne Chang (Chronicle Books, 2015).

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Apple Cupcakes with Cinnamon-Marshmallow Frosting

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Shredded apple replaces some of the oil and keeps the cake moist in these cinnamon-spiked cupcakes. There is a generous amount of fluffy marshmallow frosting to mound or pipe on top for a festive look. Be sure to frost them right after you make the frosting--it stiffens as it stands and becomes more difficult to spread.

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Lemon Poppy Seed Chiffon Cake

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Beating the egg whites separately and then folding them into the batter gives this chiffon cake recipe great height, while the egg yolks make this healthy cake recipe rich and tender. Be sure to use a completely clean bowl and whisk when beating the whites-if the whites come in contact with any fat they won't whip up airy and light.

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Sweet Potato Pudding Cake

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This cake was inspired by the one of the most popular Jamaican desserts, sweet potato pudding. Traditionally, raw shredded sweet potatoes are used, but we found that sweet potatoes sold in the U.S. don't provide the same texture as those in Jamaica. Instead, we mix mashed sweet potato with eggs and flour to get a slightly different, but equally delicious, cheesecake-like result.

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Chocolate-Cherry Cupcakes

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The chopped cherries blend into the ultra-rich chocolate cake, giving these cupcakes a slight cherry flavor while keeping it super-moist with little added oil. The combination of reduced-fat cream cheese and sour cream gives the frosting cheesecake-like flavor with about 40 calories and 3 grams saturated fat less than a traditional cream cheese frosting.

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Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

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These vanilla-infused cupcakes are made with applesauce as a fat-replacer for butter that's traditionally part of vanilla cake batter. Thickened evaporated milk works as a great base for the rich and creamy chocolate frosting. Dark chocolate lovers, be sure to use bittersweet chocolate.

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Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

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This rich, chocolaty Southern favorite has its own culinary mythology: a couple at the Waldorf-Astoria, a shared slice of bright red chocolate cake, a request for the recipe, and the surprise of later finding a $100 charge on their room bill. Maybe all desserts this good deserve a legend.

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Citrus Ginger Cake with Spiced Orange Compote

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The flavor of this spiced orange compote improves with time so make it a day ahead or the morning of your party. Serve chilled in a clear bowl so the colors show through.

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Cranberry-Apple Coffee Cake

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This coffee cake calls for a tart apple, such as a Granny Smith or a Pippin, combined with cranberries and spices to make a beautiful topping for a delicious treat festive enough for any brunch. Recipe by Nancy Baggett for EatingWell.

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Carrot Cake

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Carrots give carrot cake a health-halo effect--people think it's health food, but it's usually very high in fat and calories. But our version has about 40 percent less calories and 50 percent less fat than most. First, we use less oil in our batter. Then we skip the butter in the frosting (don't worry, it's still light and smooth). To ensure the cake is moist, we add nonfat buttermilk and crushed pineapple.

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Coffee-Streusel Bundt Cake

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Can you really have too much of a good thing when it comes to the combination of coffee and cake? Here, we've created a lighter but still moist and rich Bundt cake, added a ribbon of hazelnut-coffee streusel inside and a drizzle of coffee glaze on top. To say it tastes great with a good cup of coffee is an understatement. Recipe by Joyce Hendley for EatingWell.

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