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Fall is the season of cozy flavors, crisp air, and warm kitchens filled with the scents of cinnamon, apples, and pumpkin spice. These easy fall desserts bring all the flavors of the season. From classic pies and cobblers to quick no-bake treats and reader-favorite cakes, you'll find the perfect dessert to celebrate autumn's bounty.
What I Love About Fall Desserts
From pies to tarts, muffins, pumpkin bread, scones, cakes, and cookies, these are fall desserts I love to make every year.
When the leaves outside my windows are glowing in reds and russets, oranges, and yellows. The squirrels are scampering to capture the acorns falling from our oak trees, and crisp autumn breezes are swirling those leaves as they flutter to the ground. I can't wait to get in the kitchen for autumnal baking.
What You’ll Find in This Collection
This roundup highlights the best of fall's flavors, organized into easy categories so you can find just what you're craving:
🍎 Apple Desserts - crisps, cobblers, and breads that celebrate the season's favorite fruit.
🎃 Pumpkin and Spice Treats - warm, spiced recipes perfect for cozy evenings.
🍰 Cakes, Crisps & Cobblers - easy bakes that feed a crowd or make weeknights special.
🥧 No-Bake & Make-Ahead Desserts - simple sweets for busy fall days.
Table of Contents
Easy Fall Desserts
Here are 31-plus beautiful, delicious, and yet still easy fall baking ideas to make this season.
1
Baked Pumpkin Donuts Recipe
These soft and fluffy baked pumpkin donuts are filled with cozy fall spices and finished with cinnamon sugar. Quick, easy, and perfect for autumn mornings.
Warm, cozy, and effortless - this Crock Pot Apple Crisp (Slow Cooker Apple Crisp) is a fall favorite with tender apples, cinnamon spice, and a buttery oat topping. Perfect for autumn gatherings or a weeknight dessert.
"We updated the classic streusel coffee cake with fresh ripe figs and almonds. No need to distinguish between breakfast and dessert-it's an eat-it-anytime-you-crave-it cake."
Buckwheat Apple Galette with Maple Walnut Frangipane {gluten-free, refined sugar-free}
"This gluten-free buckwheat apple galette epitomizes fall baking with the warm flavors of maple syrup and maple sugar meeting tart apple slices and toasty buckwheat. Free of refined sugar."
This Easy Apple Strudel recipe, or Apfelstrudel, is a centuries-old classic made easy with store-bought pastry. Perfect for entertaining, bake sales, or simply inviting the neighbors over for tea... and strudel.
"Turn your bag of orchard-fresh apples into an adorable autumn treat using only five ingredients. Maple syrup, cider, and butter create the bubbly homemade glaze, while cinnamon sticks inserted into the tops turn these individual apple desserts into mini pumpkins."
Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting - soft, spiced pumpkin squares baked in a 9×13 pan and topped with rich cream cheese frosting. A fall favorite!
Cinnamon Brioche Bread pudding is a simple yet rich dessert with tantalizingly delicious comfort food flavors. It's deceptively easy to make, yet special and beautiful to serve. A dessert you'll want to come back to time and time again.
It's time to bake this favorite Pumpkin Bread recipe when the leaves begin their glorious transformation. Or even before, you will find me whipping up my all-time favorite pumpkin bread. It's like a rite of passage into an amazing season. This pumpkin bread is a liberally spiced, dense, cake-like bread we absolutely love.
These easy pumpkin scones are the first thing I bake when fall leaves begin to color. Filled with warm autumn spices, moist and tender, and drizzled with cinnamon icing. They're coffee shop perfect, especially with a morning latte. Or incredibly wonderful with afternoon tea.
Pumpkin Spice Cookies with Vanilla Butter Icing are a vintage-inspired, melt-in-your-mouth, light, and airy cookie, so delicious it will become a fall tradition.
Apple Cake with Brown Sugar Maple Glaze is a healthier apple cake recipe made with yogurt and grated apple. Warm spices permeate this delicious and easy cake and an unforgettable brown sugar maple glaze is drizzled just before serving.
German Peach Kuchen, a favorite late season, early September treat. Moist and dense with the warm flavors of spiced cinnamon and peaches, it's a cake you'll come back to again and again.
These Scottish Oat Maple Scones are crumbly and robust with that favorite maple flavor we all love. Perfect with a cup of tea and a dab of Irish butter.
These Baked Pears are EASY and delicious with 4 simple ingredients. Drizzled in honey, warmed with spiced cinnamon and crunchy with granola. A go-to desserts without the guilt!
Treat yourself, today, to this homemade Pumpkin Butter that is rich and creamy and incredibly delicious. Made on the stovetop with 7 simple pantry ingredients in 20 to 25 minutes. It's a simple way to celebrate the best of fall.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones are an incredible, tender, delicious fall scone perfect for breakfast or brunch, with coffee, or for tea. Simple to make in minutes, they are addictively yummy!
Chocolate Swirl Pumpkin Bread is a decadently delicious fall treat that's rather incredibly yummy with the pumpkin spice flavors and rich chocolate swirled and marbled into the bread. Making it a pumpkin bread you won't soon forget.
"Take comfort this chilly season with moist molasses-maple bars. Give them a little extra flair by spreading on our maple-cream icing, or use stencils to make powdered sugar leaves on the yummy fall dessert."
"This is your best excuse for having cake for breakfast. Browned butter adds depth to this unexpected twist on the classic Southern banana-pineapple confection. Pecan streusel is just, well, the icing on the coffee cake."
"Apple pie: American icon, most popular pie, and the ONE dessert everyone has to make for Thanksgiving. With its flaky, buttery crust; tart-sweet apples, and wonderful cinnamon-y aroma, a slice of warm apple pie is the perfect end to any repast, from casual lunch to elegant dinner. Add vanilla bean ice cream, and you've got a dessert for the ages."
This Apple Slab Pie recipe is a simple way to make an apple pie that feeds a crowd and is 100% delicious with warm spices of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Using ready-made crusts speeds up the process and delivers a fabulous pie everyone will love.
"What's more comforting than a warm, fresh-baked cookie? How about a warm, fresh-baked cookie made with only five ingredients, that can be pulled together in about 15 minutes?"
Irresistibly delicious Apple Cider Donuts. While these doughnuts are baked using 6-cavity doughnut pans, they can easily be made into doughnut holes by using a mini muffin pan. Or even baked into standard size muffin tins by adding a few more minutes of baking.
This Maple Banana Muffin recipe is soft and delicious, with an enticing hint of fall. Maple and cinnamon warm up this perennial favorite banana muffin.
Let's talk about donuts, specifically maple donuts. Are they on your top 10 list of favorite donuts? If not, they should be! These maple donuts, are a scrumptious cake-like baked donut with warm spices of the season and topped with a thick maple glaze and crunchy chopped pecans.
"You'll probably make at least one pumpkin pie this season, and you can either make a normal easy pumpkin pie or you can make a gorgeous easy pumpkin pie."
This Baked Apple Crumble with Vanilla Ice Cream recipe is a hallmark of fall. An easy, classic favorite that's incredibly delicious warm from the oven with a crumbly cinnamon-oat, buttery topping.
Nothing says fall quite like the first bite of a warm apple crisp or a slice of apple bread fresh from the oven. These apple desserts are timeless, cozy, and perfect for everything from weeknight dinners to Thanksgiving tables.
Pumpkin and spice are the heart of autumn baking. From muffins to pies and cakes, these recipes are rich with cinnamon, nutmeg, and all the cozy flavors that make fall desserts so beloved.
When you're craving a dessert that feels like a hug in every bite, these cakes, crisps, and cobblers are the answer. They're easy to make, crowd-pleasing, and full of fall fruits and flavors.
Sometimes fall gets busy, and you need a dessert you can prepare ahead of time or without turning on the oven. These no-bake and make-ahead recipes are just as festive and delicious, with less effort.
Yes! Many fall desserts-like crisps, cobblers, and no-bake treats-can be made a day ahead. Pies are best baked the day of, but can often be prepped in advance.
What desserts are best for fall gatherings or potlucks?
Sheet cakes, crisps, and cobblers travel well and serve a crowd. Muffins and bars are also great portable options.
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Join the Sunday Morning Tradition
If you enjoyed this post, you'll love The Sunday Edit No. 7. It’s my weekly "magazine-style" digest designed to help you reset, refine, and find beauty in the everyday. From intentional kitchen resets to curated seasonal menus, it's the 31 Daily you love, delivered with a bit more soul.
Stephanie Wilson is the founder of 31Daily.com, where she shares seasonal recipes, weekly meal plans, and teatime favorites to help readers gather around the table with joy. A certified private chef, cookbook author, and longtime event planner, she brings over 20 years of experience in catering, food writing, and media production—including network television work as a producer, director, and writer. Her work has been featured by Today.com, The Kitchn, Parade, and more.
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