46 Delicious Halloween Desserts and Treats That Will Have Everyone Howling for More

Imagine a giant warm chocolate chip cookie that’s crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside. Now add pumpkin flavor, toffee bits, and chopped chocolate. Have we described the cookie of your dreams? Luckily, if you make this recipe, it can become a (very photogenic) reality. Baked in a cast iron skillet (or cake pan if you don’t have one), this Halloween dessert turns caramelized and crispy around the edge while it’s baking. We suggest serving it straight from the skillet in big slices, or scooping it out and topping it with vanilla ice cream. Just make sure everyone has their own spoon.

If you’re harboring a secret obsession for pumpkin spiced foods, it’s time to come out of the closet. This dessert recipe teaches you how to make a homemade pumpkin spice mix (it’s really just a combination of cinnamon, ginger, and allspice) so you have nothing to be ashamed of. Mix it into a quick homemade batch of sugar cookie dough along with some pumpkin puree and you’ve got the makings of an intensely seasonal fall cookie. Roll the dough out flat, punch them out with a pumpkin cutter, and bake them for just about 10 minutes for tender and chewy results. One of our favorite parts: decorating them with royal icing is almost as fun as carving a real-life jack-o’-lantern.

Some Halloween desserts are so tricked out that they basically scream autumn. But these thin and crispy cookies are much more subtle—even sophisticated, if you will. In each sweet wafer you’ll detect hints of vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. Brilliantly, the recipe calls for you to mix 2 cups of cooked old-fashioned oatmeal into the batter instead of raw oats for a new take on the traditional oatmeal cookie. Once you’ve cooled the cookies completely, you can keep them for up to two weeks.

Your outing to the apple orchard, pumpkin patch, or fall festival deserves this special take on the classic new England cookie. There are recipes for Whoopie Pies, and then there’s this recipe for a delectably airy, pumpkin-infused dessert. Is it a pie? A cookie? A cake? We say that you should be the judge. When you’re whipping them up, just be careful to reach for pumpkin puree, not pumpkin-pie filling for pure pumpkin flavor that’s just sweet enough. The best news is that you can make a big batch of this Halloween dessert and keep them in the refrigerator in an airtight container for a day, or in the freezer for up to one month.

Make the tastiest (and spookiest) Halloween rice krispie treats ever with this simple recipe: We add small candies, candy corns, chocolate chips, and mini peanut butter cups to make these treats both tastier and more decorative. You can create any creature you like with these add-ons and others and a little creative treat-sculpting.

When cut into versatile rectangles, sugar cookies are easy to decorate in a variety of clever ways. To mark the occasion, whip up a batch of cookies along with a shiny confectioner’s sugar glaze. Then, follow the step-by-step instructions to create impressive Jack-O’-Lantern, tombstone, spider web, and ghost designs for the perfect Halloween cookies.

A velvety cream cheese frosting is sandwiched between two soft and chewy pumpkin cookies in this version of the classic chocolate and vanilla whoopie pie. Plan ahead and make the cookies up to three days in advance. Then, whip the filling and assemble sandwiches no more than two hours before serving.

Mango sorbet, vanilla ice cream, and crushed chocolate wafer cookies come together to create a striped ice cream cake with three layers of distinctly seasonal colors. To save time, you can cover and freeze the cake up to three days in advance. When this Halloween cake is ready to serve, dip a thin knife into hot water to easily cut it into servable slices.

These decadent chocolate cupcakes are topped with fluffy green marshmallow frosting and two distinct faces—Frankenstein’s monster and his bride—that are almost too cute to eat. Enlist the kids to help craft the faces, which are made from artfully arranged shoestring licorice, pretzel sticks, black sanding sugar, black sprinkles, and yellow candy dots.

Start with your favorite brownie recipe for this Halloween dessert. Lay a stencil on the surface of the brownie. (If you’re crafty, you can make your own stencils using thin cardboard and an X-Acto knife.) Add 2 tablespoons of confectioners sugar to a small mesh sifter. Holding the sifter about three inches above the brownie, gently and evenly sift out the sugar so that it covers the brownie and the stencil. Carefully remove the stencil.

We gave classic popcorn balls a burst of color by adding M&Ms to the equation. The entire recipe only requires five pantry ingredients: butter, marshmallows, salt, popcorn, and M&Ms. That makes it great for a last-minute Halloween treat for school, since you can whip it up the night before and still have a festive dessert all the kids are sure to love. The technique is similar to making Rice Krispies treats, except instead of cereal, you’ll be tossing popcorn into the buttery marshmallow mixture. Buttering your hands will keep the marshmallows from sticking, so don’t skip this step, even if you’re skeptical.

Start with any flavor of cake as your base and top with vanilla frosting to create a canvas for this Halloween cake. Then, make black frosting by combining black food coloring and vanilla frosting in a piping bag. With a steady hand, follow the step-by-step directions to draw a large spider web. Finish your spooky design with three spiders.

To make this party-worthy dessert, combine fresh orange juice and sugar in a baking dish and freeze until solid, approximately 2 to 3 hours. Scrape the frozen juice with a fork to create small flakes, and place in the shell of a navel orange that has been carefully carved to look like a jack-o’-lantern.

These pumpkin cupcakes are tender and moist, finished with a rich and creamy chocolate frosting. The marbling of the batters is so pretty, though, that we suggest leaving some bare to show off the swirl. A heaping tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice in the batter will make your kitchen smell incredible as they bake and gives them that quintessential pumpkin spice taste. But if you don’t have any pumpkin pie spice on hand, you can make it yourself: combine cinnamon, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, ground allspice, and ground cloves, then add to the batter and proceed as usual.

These spooky edible eyeballs are ideal for kids who are more into the trick than the treat. Though they look like they’ve been decorated by a professional, they’re actually quite easy to make at home. All you need is white chocolate, heavy cream, salt, chocolate chips, and red food coloring. Our favorite part about them is the chocolate chip trick: the pupil of the eye is simply an upside down chocolate chip that’s been pressed, pointed-side down, into the top of each ball of ganache. To create creepy looking red veins, dip the tip of a toothpick in food coloring and draw them on.

These tasty drop cookies feature a fairly unconventional (but delicious) pairing—chocolate and pumpkin. Before baking, sprinkle with coarse turbinado sugar to give the cookies added crunch and a hint of sweetness.

This tiered popsicle, which features layers of coconut, pineapple, and mango juices, looks just like its super-sweet inspiration—candy corn. If you can’t find mango juice, you can substitute blood orange juice instead and leave out the red food coloring. Keep frozen for up to three days.

Apple cider donuts covered in cinnamon-sugar are the quintessential fall treat, and they’re even better when made from scratch. Using a deep fry or candy thermometer takes all the stress out of frying: You’ll know exactly when to add the donuts to the oil. If you don’t want to give away all these Halloween treats to school, save the donuts for yourself and send the kids with the donut holes. If you don’t have a donut cutter, use a drinking glass to cut out the donuts and a bottle cap to cut out the hole. No one will ever know!

Use a round cookie cutter to slice a brownie into a circle. Break small pretzel twists into six to eight curved pieces and gently press them into the edges of the brownie to form legs. (Be gentle: If you press too hard, the brownie will crumble.) To make eyes, pipe two small dots of white frosting near the top of the circle and top with red hot candies.

This cake’s graham cracker crust provides a crunchy contrast to the velvety cream cheese filling, which is spiked with pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice for a double dose of autumnal flavor. In a pinch, you can prepare the pie and refrigerate, loosely covered with plastic wrap, up to two days in advance.

Use your stash of Halloween candy—specifically those coveted peanut butter cups—to craft these decadent and chewy chocolate peanut butter cookies. If you’re hoping to get a head start, a batch can be baked and stored at room temperature in an airtight container up to three days in advance.

Layer a rich dulce de leche with homemade whipped cream, crumbled graham crackers, roasted pumpkin seeds, and a sprinkling of coarse sea salt for a decadent dessert that can be assembled in mere minutes. If serving at a dinner party, showcase the ingredients in pretty glass jars to really wow.

For a fun upgrade to this old-time classic, prepare marshmallow treats the traditional way and add a hefty spoonful of peanut butter. Then spread the surface with a mixture of melted semisweet chocolate and more creamy peanut butter, before sprinkling the decadent treat with chopped miniature peanut butter cups. They only take 15 minutes to whip up, so you might as well make more than one batch. We guarantee they’re going to be the most popular treat at any Halloween party. If you want to switch it up, try topping the bars with mini Twix, Snickers, or other chocolate candies.

Amp up boxed cake mix with pumpkin pie spice and pumpkin puree for an easy shortcut Halloween dessert that’s tastier than most store-bought pumpkin spiced treats. The results are moist and sweet but not cloyingly so. In other words, if there are any leftovers, you can get away with enjoying them for breakfast the next morning. Making them ahead of time? Garnish them with candy corn right before serving, because the longer they sit the more likely they are to bleed a tiny bit of orange and yellow into the white icing.

Slice cooled brownies (we recommend using your favorite recipe) into wedges. (If you plan to make multiples in this style, it’s easiest to bake the whole batch of brownies in a round cake pan.) Frost a brownie with a thin layer of chocolate frosting. Starting at the widest end of the wedge, lay a tightly packed row of brown Reese’s Pieces atop the frosting. Then, using orange Reese’s Pieces, continue making rows across the wedge, working from the widest part of the wedge to the narrowest, until you have covered two-thirds of the brownie. Overlap each candy just slightly with the one before so that the entire surface is covered. Finish covering the brownie with two small rows of yellow Reese’s Pieces.

Celebrate the season with a no-fuss frozen Halloween dessert. If you’re in a rush, you can save on prep time by purchasing a rich chocolate ice cream and sugar-coated ginger or molasses cookies. Then, craft the slightly spicy treat by sandwiching a serving of ice cream between two cookies. If you’re excited about making a from-scratch cookie, we've got a great recipe for that, too. The turbinado sugar is what gives the cookies their signature crunchy sugar coating. To achieve the look, roll the dough balls in the sugar before baking. Then, pull the cookies before they look done. They'll firm up as they cool.

Ice a brownie with a thin layer of chocolate frosting or Nutella. Break a Milano cookie in half and, using frosting or a food safe pen, decorate it with the letters RIP. Stand the cookie tombstone up on on the brownie, pressing down gently to adhere it to the frosting. Break a chocolate cookie, such as an Oreo, into small crumbs and scatter them around the tombstone to create the appearance of dirt.

Top moist pumpkin-spice cupcakes with a smooth and creamy frosting spiked with maple syrup for an extra boost of seasonal flavor. If you prefer an even bolder taste, use Grade B maple syrup, which has a stronger and more intense flavor than Grade A. The cupcakes themselves get their quintessential pumpkin spice flavor from a homemade blend of cinnamon, ginger, and allspice. A full can of pumpkin puree is also added to the mix, which keeps the cupcakes moist and bursting with pumpkin flavor. Because you can make the frosting while the cupcakes are in the oven, the entire project takes less than one hour.