16 Decadent Mardi Gras Desserts to Celebrate Fat Tuesday From king cake and beignets to bananas Foster and bread pudding, these New Orleans–inspired desserts are made for a festive finale to Carnival season. By Jodie Kautzmann Jodie Kautzmann Jodie Kautzmann is an editor, baker, and confectioner with more than 15 years of experience in content creation, recipe development, and pastry production. She's obsessed with the fine details and ingredients that take dishes from tasty to outright otherworldly. Food & Wine's Editorial Guidelines Published on February 10, 2026 Add Us On Close Credit: Alex Lau / FOOD STYLING by MARGARET MONROE DICKEY / PROP STYLING by CLAIRE SPOLLEN New Orleans is a city steeped in tradition, even down to its dessert menu. If you're celebrating the last hurrah that is Mardi Gras this year, you'll definitely want to add some of the city's sweetest indulgences into the equation. Our collection of Mardi Gras desserts includes spectacular versions of the two quintessential favorites, king cake and beignets. But we've got plenty of other ideas for your festivities too, like an incredible bananas Foster cheesecake and a super-luxe white chocolate bread pudding. Get out your beads and read on for the sweetest ways to celebrate this Fat Tuesday. Keep all of your recipes at your fingertips. With the MyRecipes app you can easily save and organize your favorites from anywhere, including Instagram and TikTok, in one convenient place. Get the free app. 01 of 16 Beignets Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Prop Styling by Julia Bayless Beignets are a signature New Orleans sweet, and you don't have to be in the Crescent City to enjoy them. These puffy fried treats require just 40 minutes of active work time. Get the Recipe Save 02 of 16 Bananas Foster Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Torie Cox / Prop Styling by Josh Hoggle Created in New Orleans in 1951, bananas Foster is as simple as it is iconic. The orange zest in this recipe brings fragrant depth to the buttered rum sauce and the glazed pecans. Bake off the nuts in advance and you'll be mere minutes away from a heavenly dessert. Get the Recipe Save 03 of 16 King Cake Alex Lau / FOOD STYLING by MARGARET MONROE DICKEY / PROP STYLING by CLAIRE SPOLLEN No dessert is more emblematic of Mardi Gras than the traditional king cake: A tender, yeasted, ring-shaped pastry swirled with cinnamon sugar and topped with fan-favorite cream cheese icing — not to mention the festive green, purple, and gold sanding sugars. Feel free to tuck a tiny toy baby in the dough to bring good luck to its recipient. Get the Recipe Save 04 of 16 Rie’s Pecan Pralines Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Dickey / Prop Styling by Jillian Knox Pralines are fundamentally made with sugar, pecans, and butter; Ester "Rie" Ardoin's melt-in-your-mouth take on the candies contains butterscotch morsels and almond extract for a little something extra. Get the Recipe 05 of 16 Pączki Doughnuts Photo by Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Ruth Blackburn / Prop Styling by Christina Daley Enriched with eggs and butter, these jam-filled Polish doughnuts are traditionally made and eaten on Fat Tuesday, since sweets are often given up as a Lenten sacrifice. Get the Recipe Save 06 of 16 White Chocolate Bread Pudding Food & Wine / Photo by Morgan Hunt Glaze / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Josh Hoggle You'll need nearly a pound and a half of high-quality white chocolate to make this incredibly decadent bread pudding from New Orleans' beloved, now-shuttered Palace Café — some for the pudding and some for the accompanying sauce. Get the Recipe Save 07 of 16 Bourbon Balls Food & Wine / Photo by Morgan Hunt Glaze / Food Styling by Julian Hensaring / Prop Styling by Julia Bayless Combine chocolate, bourbon, and pecans in 40 minutes without an oven for this easy treat that's popular throughout the South. Get the Recipe Save 08 of 16 Banana Pudding Pie Photo by Will Dickey / Prop Styling by Christina Daley / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey Banana pudding is a Southern staple in all its forms. Recipe tester and developer Anna Theoktisto brings us this creamy, dreamy banana pudding pie with a from-scratch vanilla pudding and two layers of banana. Get the Recipe Save 09 of 16 Sweet Potato Pie Photo by Adam Friedlander / Food Styling by Pearl Jones New Orleans chef Susan Spicer tops her sweet potato pie with bourbon-spiked praline sauce to accent its Southern roots. Get the Recipe Save 10 of 16 Chantilly Cream Cake Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Prop Styling by Julia Bayless Light, tender, and not too sweet, chantilly cake is a New Orleans original, created in the early 2000s by baker Chaya Conrad. Our version is filled with berry-tinged whipped cream; the chantilly frosting is made extra-creamy with the addition of tangy mascarpone cheese. Get the Recipe Save 11 of 16 Hummingbird Cream Puffs Farrah Skeiky Hummingbird cake originated in Jamaica and has been an integral part of the Southern dessert canon since the 1970s. Here, 2021 F&W Best New Chef Paola Velez riffs on the cake's flavors by filling choux pastry with naturally sweet banana whipped cream, coconut, and pineapple for a tropical treat topped with buttery cookies. Get the Recipe Save 12 of 16 Boozy Bourbon-Pecan Tassies Alison Miksch "These diminutive pecan pie poppers, with a higher crust-to-filling ratio, offer the perfect bite," says cookbook author Andrea Slonecker. "I spike them with bourbon to both cut through and complement the sweetness." Get the Recipe Save 13 of 16 Bananas Foster Cheesecake Bananas Foster Cheesecake. Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Ali Ramee / Prop Styling by Christina Daley Turn up the decadence of bananas Foster by transforming it into a sliceable, make-ahead dessert in the form of this brilliant cheesecake. Get the Recipe Save 14 of 16 Praline Brownies John Kernick Brownies get a dose of Southern charm with this recipe from New Orleans pastry chef Kelly Fields. Here, fudgy brownies are bolstered with brown sugar and studded with crunchy bites of nutty pecan praline. Get the Recipe Save 15 of 16 New Orleans–Style Chicory Beignets © Cedric Angeles For a fun variation on the NOLA classic, David Kinch infuses milk with another regional favorite — chicory coffee — to make the dough for his inventive beignets. Get the Recipe Save 16 of 16 Rainbow Cake Abby Hocking / Food & Wine This cake is reminiscent of New Orleans' doberge cake, which is traditionally made with six or more thin layers of cake stacked together with pudding. Our cake uses lemon buttercream throughout; if you'd like, stick to purple, green, and gold food coloring to keep it Mardi Gras–themed. Get the Recipe Save Explore more: Food Holidays & Occasions Mardi Gras Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit