24 Easy Graduation Party Desserts that aren’t too fussy
These easy graduation party desserts are here to save you time in the kitchen and money you’d spend with a specialty bakery order. If you have a grad in your house you might be scrambling to put together a party that’ll make your child feel special. Still, when you scroll for ideas, the cutesy cupcakes and cakes you find can look like they’ll take forever to make or that their bakery equivalents will cost a mint.
Thankfully, I always always believe that the best desserts feed the most people and the decoration is done BEFORE baking. Since I live this philosophy, I know that it will save you time, money, and kicks stress. Nobody likes to host while driving around to a million places to pick up supplies or working right up to the last minute to put things together.
All of these desserts are meant to help you make desserts like sheet cakes, creative but actually easy cookies and no-bake treats with big flavor that all use your time in the kitchen as efficiently as possible. You’ll get to enjoy the party more, and we should always be looking for ways to do that as hosts!
Fruit Pizza Sugar Cookies are the colorful Summer dessert you crave
With a soft sugar cookie base topped with easy cream cheese icing and berries of your choice, these fruit pizza cookies will be a cheerful, colorful end to any summer get-together.
Potato Chip Cookies: a little trashy, all good
Loaded with caramel filled chocolate bars, toasty pecans, potato chip pieces then topped off with thick chocolate ganache and another potato chip half, these alluring sweet and salty cookies will have you wondering why you haven’t put potato chips in your cookies before now. Everyone loves chips at a party, and putting them on your chips is something every grad can get behind.
Chocolate Cookie dough bark is crazy easy to make
Make cookie bark when you want to bake but you’re too tired to think. Cookie bark is one of the best party recipes out there with its happy sprinkles and ultra quick baking time. Set out the bark in a tin or a pie plate, and your guests will be nibbling the whole party.
The less sugar Moravian Sugar Cake that’ll make the world brighter
Fluffy yeasted cake with a craggy cinnamon sugar butter top. This cake feeds a crowd without a whole lot of work on your part and gives you a lot of the same feels of a cinnamon roll.
Pretzel cookies are chocolate chip cookies but better
These loaded chocolate chip caramel pretzel cookies are an intriguing mix of salty and sweet, crunchy and soft all in a gorgeous, caramel swizzled pretzel topped cookie that’ll catch anyone’s eye.
Lemon Blueberry cookies are beautiful and taste like pure sunshine
With big bold swathes of color in a pale soft lemon cookie, these cookies are lookers guaranteed to be a party favorite.
Palmiers are stupid easy to make and maybe the best thing from puff pastry
Palmiers are almost instant party food. With just 3 ingredients you can have enough of these flaky crispy crunchy pastries ready to feed a whole crew. This is a great recipe to add to others for some variety for your party guests because they’re so quick to make.
Monster Cookies are the ultimate candy stuffed cookie
Big mostly oatmeal peanut butter cookies loaded with ALL THE CHOCOLATE. If you love candy loaded cookies, you’d be hard pressed to find a better recipe. These are the kind of big generous cookies that are always welcome at parties.
The best lemon meringue bars are the dreamiest ever
Dreamy creamy lemon meringue bars with cloud-like meringue topping, and an impossibly smooth lemon filling on top a lemon spiked vanilla cookie crust. Since graduation falls right when the weather starts warming up, cool, refreshing desserts like these bars are a great choice for a graduation party.
Nutella palmiers are the best of all possible pastry worlds
What’s better than a palmier with it’s crispy crunchy sugary edges that feeds so many people? Level up your palmiers with a slick of nutella. There will be only shards of pastry leftover on the tray of these you set out at your party!
The most tender German crumb cake for better coffee
A light fluffy yeast dough cake covered with crunchy streusel and your favorite fruit. Using whatever fruit that looks good, this versatile cheap to make cake involves no fancy time-intensive decoration, plus it feeds a near army of guests.
Confetti Sugar Cookies: sprinkles make cookies better
The perfect soft sugar cookies get the sprinkles treatment for big soft confetti cookies. Sprinkles always say celebration, and these cookies are worth tossing your hat in the air for!
Cinnamon Sugar Baked Donuts that will make you smile
Donuts are always welcome at a party. These easy to bake cinnamon sugar donuts are a fun addition to a graduation dessert table or a dessert charcuterie board. Make them in mini sizes or cut them up to feed more people.
Lucky Charms Cookies
Everyone wants to wish your grad good luck, so why not do so with a Lucky Charms cookie? These easy cookies combine a family favorite soft sugar cookie with the festive marshmallows.
Pillow soft chocolate sandwich cookies for a happy fridge
Similar to whoopie pies, these tender soft chocolatey cookies are the perfect base for filling with whipped cream or ice cream. These are perfect for making ahead and storing in the fridge or freezer until party time.
Powdered Sugar Cake Donuts: like the package but better
Bake up soft cakey powdered sugar donuts with this easy buttermilk donut batter. Make them in mini sizes to feed more guests for your graduation party. They’re like the box ones without the trash and with so much more flavor.
Banana Pudding Pie: easy generous sheet pan dessert
Classic banana pudding gets a revamp in this sheet pan pie made with a homey peanut butter cookie crust. It has all the big generous charm of old school BBQ desserts you’d get at proper gas station barbecue joint in Texas or at a Midwest cafeteria. What ever happened to those places?!
Ultimate High Altitude Chocolate Chip Cookies: no more flat cookies
A good chocolate chip cookie will always be a party favorite, and these ones made specifically to not collapse at high altitudes will be the first dessert to go.
Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats are your favorite but better
These are rice krispie bars for peanut butter lovers chock full of extra peanuts from trail mix. Best thing is that these bars can be made in about 10 minutes flat. If you love a fluffernutter sandwich, you will LOVE these bars.
Lemon Blueberry Donuts are the more fun blueberry muffin
If your graduation day is early, these muffin-like donuts are a great more brunch-like party food, plus they add a little bit more color to your party spread.
Lemon Crinkle Cookies are a bake sale favorite with surprising softness
Super soft sugar cookies are made even softer with the addition of lemon juice. These cookies will stay soft for days and have a pleasing bright citrus flavor that’s welcome any time of year.
Twix cookies are amazing and totally over the top
Loaded with Twix soft chocolate sugar cookies topped with glossy caramel and swizzles of chocolate stripes and of course, more Twix for a decadent bakery style cookie everyone will love.
Easy vanilla sheet cake is the easy birthday cake you can make in no time
A simple mix and bake cake you can bake in a 13×9 pan, as cupcakes, or really any pan you have. The tender vanilla crumb and cream cheese icing are good almost anywhere. This is the kind of rich flavorful cake everyone goes for.
Chocolate Rice Krispie treats are the last minute potluck’s savior
Make these no-bake bars when you have a last minute potluck to go to and you want something chocolatey but no patience to bake more. These bars are a great place to mix in extras like coconut or chocolate trail mix.
Graduation Party Desserts when you’re short on time
Make the day special for your graduate feeding a crowd of friends and family without
