Food

Our 28 Best Chocolate Dessert Recipes To Satisfy Your Cocoa Cravings

For all the choco-holics

Updated: January 31, 2018

If you love chocolate, get your forks ready. For a special occasion dinner (okay, for any dinner), there's no better way to close the meal than with a rich, decadent chocolate dessert. Whether you're in the mood for a brownies or some homemade chocolate ice cream, these tried and true recipes will satisfy any sweet tooth. From gooey chocolate cakes to classic French chocolate mousse and a whole slew of delicious chocolate cookies, our best chocolate dessert recipes will have you craving sweets for breakfast, dinner and every snack in between.

The use of English digestives—mildly sweet whole-wheat cookies–gives the crust an appealing crumbly texture. Get the recipe for Florentine Chocolate Tart »Matt Taylor-Gross

Intensely chocolatey with a molten truffle chocolate center, these small cakes are based on chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten's signature dessert. Get the recipe for Molten Chocolate Cake »Laura Sant

Three velvety layers sandwiched with thick dark chocolate icing make a decadent, crowd-pleasing dessert. Get the recipe for Very Moist Chocolate Layer Cake »Todd Coleman

Heaven And Hell Cake — This rich, multilayered dessert of angel food and devil's food cake, peanut butter mousse, and milk chocolate ganache should be frozen before icing is added and refrigerated before it's sliced. Get the recipe for Heaven and Hell Cake »Matt Taylor-Gross

Rich yet airy, this decadent chocolate dessert also happens to be gluten-free. Get the recipe for Flourless Chocolate Soufflé »Helen Rosner

Chocolate Cake Recipe — Editorial assistant Zainab Shah adapted this moist chocolate cake with dense, fudgy icing from her mother's trusted recipe. Get the recipe for Chocolate Cake with Fudge Icing »Laura Sant

These cookies test the limit of exactly how much chocolate you can possibly pack into one cookie. Made with cocoa powder and more than one type of chocolate chip, this cookie's soft dough benefits from at least 4 hours of refrigeration, allowing the disks to stay thick and chewy when cooked. Plus, the dough will keep frozen for several months, so stash a few in the freezer to throw in the oven whenever you're hit with a craving for chocolate. Test Kitchen Director Farideh Sadeghin developed this recipe based off New York City's famous Levain Bakery. Get the recipe for Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies »Farideh Sadeghin

Softened goat cheese adds a delightful tang to these sweet chocolate cupcakes. Get the recipe for Chocolate Cupcakes with Goat Cheese Frosting »Jake Cohen

We like Valrhona's 85% cacao bar in this recipe; its slight bitterness is a perfect complement to lightly sweetened Grand Marnier whipped cream. Get the recipe for Bittersweet Chocolate Pudding Cakes »Signe Birck

Chef Scott Crawford of the forthcoming Nash Tavern in Raleigh updates the simple Southern custard pie by adding cacao nibs to the butter crust and sprinkling a nutty cornbread crumble on top. Get the recipe for Chocolate Chess Pie with Cornbread Crumble »Joseph De Leo

Simple yet sophisticated, airy yet intense, a classic chocolate mousse is the perfect dessert for any occasion. Get the recipe for Chocolate Mousse »Todd Coleman

A crunchy cookie crust contrasts with cool, pudding-like filling in a showstopper of a dessert that keeps well in the fridge. Get the recipe for Chocolate Cream Pie »Michael Kraus

The rich flavor of bittersweet chocolate takes center stage in this sorbet from pastry chef Tracy Obolsky of North End Grill. Because it is dairy-free, the chocolate flavor is much more intense than with an ice cream; keep it vegan, or serve it with a dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream. Get the recipe for Chocolate Sorbet »Matt Taylor-Gross

This impressive layer cake consists of 10 thin cake layers sandwiches with an old-fashioned chocolate fudge icing. Get the recipe for Classic Smith Island Cake »Ryan Liebe | Food Styling Mariana Velasquez

Ozark Sour Chocolate Cake — This cinnamony chocolate cake was a staple at the now-closed Half-a-Hill Tavern in Greene County, Missouri, in the heart of the Ozark Mountains. It gets a pleasing tang from vinegar, and a moist, light crumb thanks to shortening in the batter. Get the recipe for Sour Chocolate Cake »Penny De Los Santos

Replacing standard all-purpose flour with whole grain rye makes a dense, fudgy cookie with an intense and complex chocolate flavor. Get the recipe for Salted Chocolate Rye Cookies »Helen Rosner

This dessert—a fudgy, frozen or semifrozen chocolate mousse that's sometimes coated in ganache, then sliced—likely came from the 17th or 18th century, when royal pastry chefs lived large. I like to crumble in Speculoos cookies, like Biscoff brand, before freezing, to add crunch and pretty golden flecks, but anything that works with chocolate—from candied ginger to rum-soaked raisins—is fair game. It's at its best when semifrozen or thawed but still chilly. Get the recipe for Frozen Chocolate Mousse (Marquise au Chocolat) »Christina Holmes

These drops were born of fiddling with my favorite brownie recipe. A little more flour and chocolate, and a different way of baking, and presto chango, cookies. The orange and ginger are holiday add-ins. Adapted from Dorie's Cookies. Get the recipe for Orange and Ginger Brownie Cookies »Christina Holmes

Chocolate Ganache Tart with Sea Salt Espresso Beans — A touch of egg is the simple, secret ingredient in this luscious tart's filling. Just a little gives the combination of chocolate and cream a sliceable, fudgy consistency. The crumbly cocoa-laced crust can be pressed right into a fluted pan, no rolling pin required. Swap out espresso beans for toasted nuts, chopped brittle, granola, or crushed peppermint candy. Just don't eliminate the sea salt; it adds a bright, irreplaceable contrast to the decadent filling. Get the recipe for Chocolate Ganache Tart with Sea Salt and Espresso Beans »Ryan Liebe

There are chopped salted cashews in the mix; winey, sweet-tart dried cherries; chopped milk chocolate; and both chopped and melted bitter-sweet chocolate. You need a lot of chocolate—more than a pound!—and every penny that you put into buying great chocolate for these will come back to you in oohs, aahs and culinary contentment. There's no question that Chunkers are one of the world's great cookies. Get the recipe for Dorie Greenspan's Chocolate Chunker Cookies »Davide Luciano

When it comes to eclairs, homemade is always better. Bakeries have to chill their filled eclairs, which makes for soggy centers and mushy crusts; you can freshly fill yours at home and eat them right away. This recipe is adapted from pastry chef Scott Cioe from Park Hyatt New York. Get the recipe for Classic Eclairs »Farideh Sadeghin

Olive oil subtly enhances this grown-up, not-too-sweet sundae topping from Portland's Salt & Straw. Get the recipe for Olive Oil Hot Fudge »Matt Taylor-Gross

In these minty ice cream sandwiches, the chocolate mousse "ice cream" and cake are both sweetened with bittersweet chocolate, letting the chocolate's richness—brightened by fresh spearmint—be the main flavor. Get the recipe for Mint Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwiches »Farideh Sadeghin

With a dense chocolate coating and a soft, cakelike cookie base, we think these homemade mallomars are even better than the original. Get the recipe for Homemade Mallomars »Matt Taylor-Gross

Classic babka gets an update with a double dose of raspberry: A few spoonfuls of jam add a tart edge to the cocoa filling, while a simple syrup infused with fresh berries adds a pink-tinged, lacquered shine to the final loaf. Get the recipe for Chocolate-Raspberry Babka »Sang An

Though this recipe takes some advanced planning (you need to allow around 2 weeks for the bananas to ferment), it's well worth the wait. The fermented, sweet tang of bananas blends with bitter chocolate for a tropical spin on the classic pudding. It's easier, too, as the pudding is set with gelatin rather than egg yolks, which also lets the banana flavor shine through. Get the recipe for Fermented Banana Chocolate Pudding »Matt Taylor-Gross

Note: If you want to ferment and puree more bananas than this recipe needs, the three bananas called for in this recipe should yield 1 1/4 cups of puree. Combine that with your half-and-half and reserve the rest for another day.