15 Vegetarian Desserts

It opens the list because it is the shortest distance between a craving and a bowl: five ingredients, a food processor, nothing that has to be baked or watched. The avocado is not a health-food substitution here, it is the fat doing the work dairy cream normally does, which is why the recipe is fussy about buying Hass rather than the big smooth-skinned kind.

Watch for: Blend the avocado smooth on its own before anything else goes in. Everything at once leaves flecks of whole fruit behind, and each one is a bite of avocado rather than chocolate.

Second because it is the one thing on the list that is neither baked nor chilled nor chocolate, and because most versions served outside Thailand go wrong in the same place. There are two coconut sauces, a sweet one folded through the rice and a salted one poured over at the end, and collapsing them into a single sweet sauce is what turns this into coconut rice pudding.

Watch for: The rice is steamed, never boiled. Glutinous rice is almost pure amylopectin, so it gelatinizes on contact with water and goes to porridge before it ever cooks through.

The one to make when the occasion needs something that looks like an occasion. It earns a place on a vegetarian list specifically because carrot cake never needed the eggs in the first place: it descends from a boiled pudding rather than a sponge, and the applesauce covers what the eggs used to. The frosting is the only part that asks for real technique.

Watch for: Beat the frosting cold and stop earlier than feels right. Vegan cream cheese is held together by starch and gums rather than dairy protein, so it loosens as it warms and keeps loosening the longer the beater runs.

Here as the answer to feeding a table chocolate without turning the oven on. The filling is silken tofu and melted chocolate in a blender, and the chocolate is the only thing holding the set, so the percentage printed on the bar decides the texture as much as the flavor.

Watch for: Bring the tofu to room temperature first. Melted chocolate meeting anything cold seizes into thousands of grains on contact, and no amount of blending smooths them out afterward.

The fast one, and every list needs a fast one. No creaming, no chilling and nothing waiting to come to room temperature: the wet ingredients are whisked in one bowl, the dry in another, and they meet on the sheet.

Watch for: The dough has no egg and no creamed butter, so it barely spreads in the oven. Flatten each mound with the back of a spoon before it goes in, or they bake as domes.

Included because the flaky American crust people think of as the traditional one was built on shortening rather than butter, which makes this less a substitution than the older version of the pie. Most of the work is the apples sitting in sugar before they ever reach the dish, and that step is what stops the filling flooding the plate.

Watch for: Wait for the juices to bubble thickly through the vents. Cornstarch has to actually boil to set, and a pie pulled before that will not firm up however long it cools.

On the list because it is the dessert people assume cannot be made at home, and because the part that goes wrong is not the frying everyone is afraid of. It is the syrup: cooked to the one-string stage most English-language recipes ask for, it is too thick for the jamun to drink, and they come out of it the size they went in.

Watch for: Keep the fat low and slow. A jamun that browns in three minutes has set a crust while the middle is still raw dough, and nothing soaks through it afterward.

Here for the people who want dessert in glasses rather than slices, and because it is the entry that genuinely improves by being made ahead. The wafers are supposed to soften into something closer to cake, so building it early is the method rather than a shortcut.

Watch for: Cook the cornstarch base until it actually bubbles, not just until it looks thicker. Pulled early it tastes faintly starchy and never sets past a pourable custard.

Pecan pie in a tray, which solves the problem pecan pie has at a gathering: no plates, no forks, and a pan cuts into far more pieces than a round dish. It is the entry to reach for when the dessert has to travel.

Watch for: Cut them cold. The filling stays soft until it is properly chilled, and warm bars smear along the knife instead of slicing.

The hot-weather entry, and the only one that needs no heat at any stage. The set comes from soaked cashews and coconut oil firming in the fridge, which also means it softens again on a warm table, so it is a dessert to bring out just before it is eaten.

Watch for: Soak the cashews properly and blend well past the point it looks done. Cashew grit does not dissolve later, and chilling only makes it firmer.

On the list because most people searching for it are shown sweet potato pie instead, and the two are not variations on one another. A pie is a smooth custard set in a shell. This is sliced sweet potato held in a syrup thick enough to coat it, and the whole appeal is that you can still see and taste the separate slices.

Watch for: The buried crust comes out soft, and it is meant to. Pastry sitting in syrup swells into something nearer a dumpling, and that layer is the point of the dish rather than a sign it went wrong.

Two desserts stacked in one shell, for the occasion where the choice between chocolate and pecan has been declined rather than made. The brownie batter goes down first and the pecan layer sets over it in the oven.

Watch for: Read the label on the ready-made crust. Several widely sold American refrigerated crusts are still made with lard, which is the ingredient that most often catches vegetarians out.

Included because the dairy is the easy part to replace here and the coffee carries the dish regardless. Soaked cashews blended with chilled coconut cream stand in for the mascarpone, and the assembled layers still need a long spell in the fridge before they will hold a shape.

Watch for: Dip each ladyfinger and lift it straight back out. A second too long and it collapses into the cream instead of staying a distinct layer.

The one to make when berries are cheap and the effort budget is small. Frozen berries work in place of fresh, though they carry more water into the dish and the filling wants longer to thicken than the recipe's shorter end suggests.

Watch for: The cooling window on the card is a minimum, not a target. Cut it any warmer than that and the filling runs off the server.

It closes the list because it is the one people come looking for on a deadline, and the version here is built to be made the day before rather than the morning of. The filling sets on cornstarch rather than eggs, which is a tighter ratio than a dairy pumpkin pie and less forgiving of a heavy hand with the liquid.

Watch for: It has to leave the oven still wobbling. A cornstarch custard finishes setting as it cools, so a filling already firm in the oven is one that will crack across the middle on the way down.