The spring weather doesn’t lend itself to many fresh fruits in Minnesota, but I am always thinking about bright, fun colorful treats come March and April. I put together a list of spring desserts to satisfy that craving for all things light and bright after the long winter.
Looking for more spring-like desserts? Try my lemon dessert recipes, and start planning for your first spring garden harvest with rhubarb dessert recipes.
Plus, summer gatherings are right around the corner, start planning for parties with these recipes:
15 Spring Dessert Recipes
Three basic components (meringue pie crust, vanilla pastry cream and sour cherry sauce) make up this easy but impressive cherry angel pie!
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This bright and dreamy cake has layers of tartness from luxurious lemon curd, lemon zest, and pieces of baked lemon that nestle perfectly into the buttery rich batter. A light and easy drizzle of lemon syrup, made from baked lemon slices, makes a simple bite feel like the warm, sunny promise of a new day.
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This Strawberry Rhubarb Fool Cheesecake was a happy mistake. You know how they say you learn from your failures? Well, I was going for a tourteau fromage and it went wrong in a big way.
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Lemon meringue pie with it's gorgeous toasted top is a classic. A little lemon thyme amps up the flavor in this recipe.
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Crêpes make a great breakfast for a special occasion, and double as a wonderful dessert. For these, I folded lightly sweetened whipped cream into soft chèvre as the filling. I roasted strawberries in balsamic vinegar and quickly cooked the rhubarb in sugar and vanilla.
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This strawberry fool is made with strawberry coulis, homemade lemon curd, whipped cream, and a fresh strawberry garnish. What's not to love?
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This crepe cake is from Simply Citrus by Marie Asselin. I had a batch of my crepes on hand and it is a bit different from Marie's. They will both be awesome in the cake, so try both! Below is my crepe recipe and the full recipe for the cake and fillings can be found at completelydelicious.com.
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I adore carrot cake. It’s one of my favorite desserts. This carrot cupcakes recipe is delicate and less hippie than my go to, so it was fun to try Melissa’s sophisticated take on the classic from The Minimalist Kitchen.
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Key Lime Pie is what I would make if stuck on a desert island. It satisfies my craving for sweet, creamy and tart. The perfect dessert!
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This tart is the more sophisticated cousin to the Lemon Meringue Pie. It has all the tartness of lemon, but with lime, which I just find a touch more interesting. Don't get me wrong, I am in LOVE with the lemon version, but this one just sings to me. I used a lime curd as the base of my tart, then topped it with so much meringue that it touches the sky.
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This happy accident happened when I overwhipped heavy cream while making Chantilly cream for my Victoria Sponge cake. But not to worry, it turned out to be delicious, beautiful butter.
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This warm, super fudgy, chocolate cake recipe is from Chef Neal Fraser and I added a fresh strawberry salsa and lavender ice cream to it. All measurements are done by weight (even liquids), as is the way in a professional kitchen, because it makes it much easier to scale.
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This is one of those desserts that looks magical and stands so far above the rim of the vessel that it seems to defy reason and gravity. It's really only three elements blended together (passion fruit curd, meringue and whipped cream), then frozen into an elegant semifreddo in the shape of a baked soufflé. The texture is a cross between an airy mousse and ice cream.
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A semifreddo is a cross between ice cream and mousse, but doesn't require any special equipment to prepare. The texture is smooth and luxurious when allowed to sit at room temperature until it just on the verge of melting, but still partially cold, hence the name.
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For this recipe I used the vanilla cheesecake base from my Craftsy class. The lemon curd is a lovely addition to the creamy cheesecake and gives it a wonderful look. It is pretty enough to serve as is, but you could also add one of the fruit sauces we make in the class as well.
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The link for the Lemon Honey-Meringue Pie recipe is broken. It takes you to a 404 error – Page Not Found.
Thanks, Laura! That’s been fixed. Here is Zoë’s most recent lemon meringue pie recipe: https://www.zoebakes.com/2024/04/02/lemon-meringue-pie/