23 Church Potluck Dessert Recipes
Inside: a collection of classic-yet-impressive desserts you’ll be proud to bring.
It takes a lot for a dessert to earn its spot at a church potluck. It can’t be weird, it can’t need a freezer, it can’t be fussy to serve, and it has to be good. You will be judged by it! And that is why the right choice is a big deal. Here are all my favorites that you’ll be proud to serve.
Mandarin Orange Cake with Pineapple Frosting
The one Southern church ladies have been bringing for fifty years! Mandarin oranges in the batter, crushed pineapple folded into the Cool Whip frosting. It actually gets better sitting on the table for an hour, which is exactly what you need it to do.
Caramel Bundt Cake
This is the bundt to be known for — deep caramel flavor, poured caramel glaze, the kind of cake an older lady at the table will ask about. Holds at room temp on a cake stand for the whole meal.
Cream Cheese Pound Cake
This is a recipe you’ll want to save because its perfect when you feel like you don’t have the ingredients for anything else. There’s something irresistible about it sliced on the table.
Lemon Bars
Our very favorite version, tart enough to relaly taste like lemon. These are portable and easy to grab.
Blackberry Cheesecake Bars
Cheesecake bars swirled with real blackberry, cut into clean squares right out of the 9×13.
Texas Sheet Cake
Super moist cake with a chocolate icing that pours right on top. Also a favorite with kids.
Peach Cobbler
Cinnamon and brown sugar, deeply soft fruit, a tender top. Good warm, good at room temperature, no ice cream required.
Strawberry Pretzel Salad
If you’ve had it, you know it’s delicious. My aunt always made this as a side dish (haha) but I think it is truly a dessert.
Coconut Cake
This moist coconut layer cake consists of homemade yellow cake layers with coconut filling, and coconut cream cheese frosting.
Lemon Sheet Cake
Lemon cake under a thick layer of lemon buttercream that stays put on the table for the full meal. It’s the one to bring when half the desserts on the table are chocolate.
Piña Colada Sheet Cake
All the pineapple-and-coconut flavor of a piña colada baked into one 9×13 so there’s nothing to scoop or layer at the last minute.
Creamy Lemon Pie
Creamy, lemony, set firm enough to slice and sit out through dinner without anybody worrying about it.
Strawberry Texas Sheet Cake
A pink version of the Texas sheet cake everyone already loves, with real strawberry running through the cake and the warm poured frosting. Thin enough to set fast on the counter at home and travel covered in the same pan you baked it in.
Old-Fashioned Red Velvet Cake
Real red velvet — the cocoa kind, not the food-coloring kind — under a proper cream cheese frosting. If you’re the one bringing red velvet to coffee hour, this is the recipe to be known for.
Aunt Jean’s Heath Bar Blondies
Loaded with Heath bar and cut into neat squares straight from the pan. Easy to pass down the table, easy to grab one-handed while you’re holding a cup of coffee and somebody’s baby.
Key Lime Cheesecake Bars
Graham crust, tangy filling, sliced into squares that hold their shape on a paper plate. Bright and a little different in a sea of chocolate and apple.
Caramelitas
Caramelitas are the gooey oat-and-caramel bar you’ll soon love, and for good reason. They cut into squares and they travel in the pan.
Lemon Meringue Pie
Lemon meringue is one of those pies people stop and point at on the dessert table. Slice it at home, cover it loosely, and it sits pretty through the whole meal.
Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Only right for fall, but so right for fall. It holds beautifully on a long table and tastes like the pumpkin bars half the older ladies in the room grew up on.
Key Lime Pie With Meringue Topping
Key lime with a real meringue top instead of whipped cream, so it holds up on a long table without weeping. Slices clean and goes fast. Bring two if you can.
Bread Pudding
Bread pudding belongs at a church supper — it bakes in a 9×13, sits on the table at room temperature, and feeds a long line of people from one pan. Vanilla and cinnamon, soft custard, crisp top.
Spice Cake with Praline Frosting
Old-fashioned spice cake under a praline frosting that sets just enough to slice cleanly. Grandma-food in the best sense, and the kind of dessert the older men in the room will go back for seconds on.
