For those who dare to break the holiday-dessert stranglehold, a new array of options to finish your feast with surprise endings that are frozen, Nutella-riddled, or prune-laced.
Surprisingly refreshing and subtly tangy goat's-milk ice cream is flavored with pumpkin and its attendant autumnal spices (allspice, mace, cinnamon), then packed into a gluten-free gingersnap-cookie crust.
31 Carmine St., nr. Bleecker St.; 212-206-7273; orders must be prepaid and require 24-to-48-hour advance notice.
New York's best chocolate babka turns into a chocolate-babka pie around the holidays.They make it by adding an extra layer of dough (not to mention more chocolate and Nutella), which crisps up and takes on a biscuity, cookielike texture when baked in a pie pan.
18 E. 16th St., nr. Union Sq. W.; 212-633-2253.
Ansel upends apple pie's customary selling points (soft-cooked fruit, homeyness) by constructing a meticulously whorled flower out of eight raw Honeycrisps sliced mille-feuille-thin and set in an apple-butter base. It's as much corsage as dessert.
137 Seventh Ave. S., nr. Charles St.; 212-242-5111; orders require 48-hour advance notice.
Available for preorder at amplehills.com, and pickup November 21 through 25 at Ample Hills locations in Gowanus and Prospect Heights.
Peter Endriss's cocoa-and-Kirschwasser-tinged fall version of the classic Austrian torte swaps walnuts for almonds and a prune filling for raspberry jam. The result is crumbly, not too sweet, perfect with coffee, and intended for grown-ups unafraid to call dried plums by their rightful name.
285 Third Ave., nr. Carroll St., Gowanus; 718-576-3360; orders require 48-hour advance notice.