Thanksgiving Cranberry Dessert Recipes

This custard filling is what takes this buttermilk pie recipe to the next level. It tastes like a panna cotta with a bit of attitude from the tang of the buttermilk and a generous sprinkling of cranberries on top.

This healthy chocolate thumbprint cookie recipe incorporates dried cranberries and toasted hazelnuts into the chocolate cookie dough before it's rolled into jam-filled cookies. Here the cookies are drizzled with chocolate icing, filled with raspberry jam and topped with a whole hazelnut. You can elaborate on this basic recipe and use any type of jam, icing or nut for a plate of mixed cookies.

Bran cereal, almonds, and dried cranberries make a quick but pretty topper for this crustless pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin puree and applesauce provide tenderness and moisture to this pumpkin Bundt cake, eliminating the need for butter or oil.

This buttermilk pie is a stunner—and perfect for the holidays—with its creamy, golden custard marbled with a crimson cranberry swirl.

This delicious cranberry pudding recipe is diabetic-friendly.

No other dessert turns heads like a trifle. Festive in every way, this trifle recipe glows from within with scarlet layers of juicy cranberries. The filling is made from an astounding 6 cups of antioxidant-packed cranberries! We made the custard “skinny” with a combination of low-fat milk and light coconut milk. From-scratch brown-butter sponge cake, made with whole-wheat pastry flour, stands in for store-bought ladyfingers.

This healthy chocolate cookie recipe makes thin, sugar-kissed cookies speckled with dried fruit and nuts and topped with slivered almonds and dried cranberries arranged in a flower pattern. These thin chocolate cookies are perfect for accompanying tea or coffee.

Dried pears and fresh cranberries star in this steamed pudding. English cooks stir their Christmas puddings clockwise for good luck. While our pudding's recipe is hardly traditional, it certainly could do no harm to stir in one direction only.

Expand your holiday desserts repertoire with this cranberry galette. Frangipane is a sweet pastry cream typically made with ground almonds; here we substitute ground sesame seeds in the form of tahini to give it a complex, earthy flavor. If you've made the Cranberry-Almond Thumbprint Cookies (see Associated Recipes), you can use some of the leftover jam in Step 9.

This healthy custard pie recipe combines the flavors of gingerbread and eggnog into a festive holiday dessert. An easy cranberry sauce balances the sweetness of the pie with a touch of tartness. To lighten the load of holiday baking, each element can be prepared up to 5 days ahead.

Cranberries and pear flavor this traditional French dessert.

Pureed canned pears keep this healthful coffee cake moist.

Packed with dried cranberries and low-fat granola, these firm bars are excellent travelers, full of complex carbohydrates, vitamins and trace minerals.

The filling for this apple pie is on the tart side--experiment with less lemon juice or sweeter apples for a balance that's right for you. Most pie crusts use butter, shortening or lard to get a flaky texture--this one uses heart-healthy canola oil. We found that when we simply substitute oil for butter the texture suffers. The trick is to freeze the oil and a bit of flour together before incorporating it into the dough. The result is a flaky crust without all the saturated fat.

Shortcakes are biscuit-like desserts that are typically served with fruit and whipped cream. While strawberry shortcake may first come to mind, this shortcake recipe is definitely worth a try. Cranberries and raspberries make a delightful combination, and the whipped dessert topping has less fat than regular whipped cream.

This healthy sugar cookie recipe makes delicate, thin cookies that are a great accompaniment to coffee or tea. You press the dough into cute wafers using the bottom of a glass and can sprinkle the cookie thins with dried cranberries and pistachios, as in this recipe, or use your favorite dried fruit and nut combination as decoration.

Kumquats, with their sweet, orange-flavored rind and tangy flesh, are a lively match for tart cranberries in this stunning holiday tart. Look for firm, unblemished kumquats in the produce section in late fall and winter.

All across Wisconsin, Scandinavian and German bakeries start firing up with the onset of crisp, cool autumn days; the lines soon grow long for fresh fall-fruit pastries. For most of us, rich strudel wouldn't be an everyday affair. But with walnut oil (instead of copious amounts of butter) and fresh pears, it can, nevertheless, become a decadence-free indulgence, perfect for your next dinner party. Serve it with frozen nonfat vanilla yogurt or vanilla crème anglaise.

A fruit crisp offers the luscious flavor of a fresh fruit pie without the fuss of making a crust. Celebrate the arrival of fall with this apple-cranberry crisp. The nut-studded topping works great with other fruit combinations too.

Rows of sweet apple slices are topped with tart cranberries in this pretty upside-down cake.

Too often pecan pie is overly sweet and laden with fat. Enjoy this better-for-you tart for your next feast.

Pungent and aromatic cinnamon perfumes this bread pudding and sweet-tart sauce. The sauce, made with cranberries and golden raisins, gets a toasty flavor from mustard seeds and a touch of heat from chile peppers.

Bright red cranberries and toasted green pistachios stud these tart-and-tangy bar cookies and make them a colorful addition to any cookie platter. They hold well in both the refrigerator and the freezer so they're an excellent make-ahead option.