Pastry Dessert Recipes

The foundation of the perfect cream puff is light, airy pâte à choux, which is made with eggs, flour, and butter. Once the cream puffs are shaped and baked, they're filled with a rich homemade pastry cream.

Make these delicious treats ahead of time and serve these sticky, sweet buns for breakfast or brunch.

There is very little white sugar in these not-just-for-breakfast buns -- but you won't miss it. Honey imparts its smooth, mellow sweetness to every component: the rich, buttery dough, the tangy creme fraiche filling, and the appealingly sticky topping.

Serve these bites directly from the baking dish, or unmold them and place the whole mound on a serving dish or in a basket. Recipe adapted with permission from "Williams-Sonoma Family Meals: Creating Traditions in the Kitchen," copyright 2009 by Maria Helm Sinskey and Williams-Sonoma, published by Weldon Owen, San Francisco.

Making this classic French pastry at home is easier than you think.

Busy times call for easy desserts that have a sweet simplicity, like these flaky apple-cinnamon pastries. For our streamlined strudel, we folded convenient store-bought puff pastry around a four-ingredient filling of sauteed fruit.

True to its Sicilian roots, our cannoli are filled with fresh ricotta, instead of the custard and cream that define American versions. Cinnamon-infused dough for the shells is rolled with a pasta maker (another nod to the old country) and then lightly fried and dipped in chocolate and pistachios. The result? A dessert that is delizioso.

Each of these pink-and-white petits fours has two layers of extra-moist almond cake filled with cherry preserves, a coating of tinted glaze gives them a hand-painted appearance, and faux cherry blossoms make them even more artful.

You'll need twelve cream-horn molds or four-inch wooden cake dowels to make these horns. For a delicious alternative, add almond extract, raspberry puree, or mini chocolate chips to the whipped cream.

Freshly brewed espresso amps up the rich pastry cream that's piped into these delicate puffs. Martha made this recipe on episode 611 of Martha Bakes.

A traditional Pennsylvania Dutch dessert, these apple pastries are spiced with cinnamon and studded with raisins. Martha made this recipe on episode 708 of Martha Bakes.

These simple but fun sugar buns taste best when they're still warm from the oven.

Known for their caramelized exterior and multitude of flaky layers within, these French treats call for just two ingredients: puff pastry and sugar.

French for "crunch in the mouth," croquembouche is a tower of cream puffs held together by hot caramel. Martha makes the dessert even more showstopping by turning the pastries pink and filling them with strawberry buttercream.

Sweet and tender Golden Delicious apples mingle with cinnamon, raisins, and walnuts in this traditional Austrian dessert. Martha and Nick Malgieri made this recipe on Martha Bakes episode 503.

The perfect picnic dessert, hand pies are simplified when made with puff pastry. These strawberry-jam-filled versions have a tangy glaze on top.

This delicious recipe for Easter babka comes from the "Martha Stewart Living" television show.

Recreating your favorite ethnic pastry at home is easy with this easy recipe -- you can even fill, shape, and freeze the turnovers for up to a month, then bake them from frozen.

Swan-shaped pastries filled with vanilla ice cream are perched on a pool of chocolate sauce in this most elegant dessert.

Crispy on the outside and light and airy on the inside—it's no surprise to us that churros are a beloved pastry in Mexico and Spain. While you can find them fried up by a street food vendor in Mexico City (dusted with cinnamon-sugar), or served up at the breakfast table in Madrid, we think they're perfect piled on a platter for your next tapas party. For this recipe, we garnished them the Spanish way: with a light dusting of confectioners' sugar and a rich and spicy chocolate dipping sauce.

Our simplified version of the classic layered pastry calls for store-bought phyllo dough.

These cream puffs have a surprise: a tiny topper of tart dough, which adds a contrast in texture and an additional layer of rich flavor.

Try these turnovers for breakfast or as a snack anytime; they're filled with fruit and jam and can be eat on the run, without a fork.