Pumpkin Spice and Apple: Healthy Fall Desserts Worth Making
Six apple and pumpkin desserts that taste like fall and sneak in a little real nutrition while they’re at it.
Whether you’re on a diet, looking to eat less sugar, or striving to make generally healthier choices, it’s okay to occasionally indulge in dessert. Many traditional desserts are calorie-dense, but they’re not always a mass of “empty” calories. Take these fall desserts, for example. They incorporate apples and pumpkin, two fruits that add flavor and nutrition to a dish. Pumpkin offers vitamin A, potassium, and fiber, while apples also contain fiber and antioxidants known as polyphenols. Now, we’re not suggesting you get your nutrition from dessert — wouldn’t that be nice — but these fruits do add value.
As for the calorie content: Look, dessert is meant to be a treat, and high-calorie ingredients like butter and sugar taste delicious. A single dessert won’t ruin your diet progress (if you’re on one). That said, we opted for recipes that incorporate nutritious ingredients without sacrificing the flavors you expect from your favorite fall desserts. Some are lighter takes on traditional recipes, while others simply offer a little more nutritional value with every bite.
Healthy Fall Desserts
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
Monique Volz of Ambitious Kitchen uses whole-wheat pastry flour, pumpkin purée, and maple syrup to add nutrition to these muffins while preserving their sweetness. It is still a dessert. Each muffin provides 3 grams of fiber and 195 calories, making them a convenient breakfast or afternoon snack. You can freeze them, too, so make a batch on Sunday to have breakfast or a snack on hand for the week. Chocolate not your thing? Swap chocolate for walnuts or pecans.
Total time: 35 minutes | Serves: 12 muffins | Calories: 195 per muffin
Pumpkin Cake Bars With Cream Cheese Frosting
It’s carrot cake. No, it’s pumpkin bread! Nope. King Arthur created a hybrid of pumpkin’s greatest hits to bring you light, textured, frosting-covered bars that have cake flavor with the structure of bread. You can make 48 squares to please the masses, or scale the recipe down by using a 9-by-13-inch baking pan. For a lighter touch, go easy on the cream cheese frosting — a thin layer still gives you the tang without doubling the sugar.
Total time: 1 hour, 40 minutes | Serves: 36-48 bars | Calories: Not provided
Classic Pumpkin Pie
Love it, hate it, feel nothing towards it. Pumpkin pie doesn’t care; it’ll be at your Thanksgiving table anyway, because much like Rick Astley, it’s a one-hit-wonder you just can’t shake. Monique Volz of Ambitious Kitchen combines pumpkin purée, maple syrup, coconut sugar, almond milk, and spices for a creamy dessert without sweetened condensed milk. Also, you can save time by using a store-bought crust, or, if you really want to drum up controversy, skip the crust altogether.
Total time: 1 hour, 30 minutes | Serves: 9 slices | Calories: 229 per slice, based on the original recipe
Healthy Apple Crisp
Without a crust, apple crisp is basically the easy-going cousin to apple pie’s classic rigidity and elegance. This recipe from EatingWell combines sliced apples, brown sugar, lemon juice, and apple pie spice beneath a crumbly oat-and-butter topping. The rolled oats add fiber, and each half-cup serving contains just 154 calories. Serve it warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of Greek yogurt for something a little lighter.
Total time: 50 minutes | Serves: 8 | Calories: 154 per serving
Apple Cinnamon Yogurt Cake
Yogurt as a butter/oil replacement sounds horrid, but it’s actually a decent swap that’ll save you a ton of calories, up the protein, and keep the cake moist. Yumna Jawad of Feel Good Foodie adds in Honeycrisp apples and a thin layer of apricot jam to give the finished cake a glossy appearance. Each slice contains 7 grams of protein, which is generous compared to most desserts. You can also put this recipe together in a single bowl to save time on cleaning up. For more crunch, Jawad suggests mixing chopped walnuts or pecans into the batter. Want to trim a little more sugar? Skip the apricot jam glaze — the cake is plenty moist without it.
Total time: 1 hour | Serves: 8 slices | Calories: 214 per slice
Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookies
Cookies aren’t as calorically dense as other desserts, so consider this traditional cookie recipe from Sally McKenney of Sally’s Baking your new fall go-to. They’ve got fibrous oatmeal, sweet apple chunks, and those classic fall spices. If you’re looking to shave some calories off, simply skip the icing.
Total time: 1 hour | Serves: 24 cookies | Calories: Not provided
The Takeaway
Dessert can and should be part of a well-rounded diet. Eating the occasional indulgent treat won’t undo your progress toward your health goals. You can also make simple, lower-calorie swaps to the recipes above if you’re looking to satisfy your sweet tooth more regularly. Healthy doesn’t mean boring — but it does take a little ingenuity.
Bottom Line
These fall desserts offer more than just empty calories. Thanks to ingredients like apples and pumpkin, they provide some fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Best of all, they don’t phone in the flavor.
Experts Who Contributed
- Andrew Gutman, NASM-CPT, BRM, wrote this article.
- Lauren Keary, NASM-CNC, reviewed this article for accuracy.
