Chocolate is on our minds—not to mention in our mugs, our batters and in our breads. It’s versatile, pairing well with other winter ingredients like mint, dried fruits and warm spices. It’s also decidedly decadent. We’ve curated a list of chocolate-centered recipes that we look forward to making every winter.

Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

Olive oil brings fruity, peppery notes that you never knew your chocolate cake needed. An unusual ingredient, a little lemon juice, might seem like a strange addition, but it contributes a brightness that balances the richness. Don’t be alarmed when the center deflates upon cooling, that’s expected and creates an attractive, albeit rustic, presentation. Serve this cake with a dollop of lightly-sweetened whipped cream.

Double Chocolate Loaf Cake

Even for a casual-style loaf cake, this velvety chocolate treat is a real stunner with its dramatic color and crackled surface. It comes to us from Claire Ptak, of Violet Cakes in East London. Ptak achieves complexity from bittersweet chocolate and unsweetened cocoa powder, making for a richness that’s perfectly paired with tangy, creamy crème fraîche. A slice of this cake is as excellent for breakfast as it is after dinner.

Chocolate and Tahini Babka

We set out to make a babka that’s rich and soft with a well-balanced sweetness. This babka features dark chocolate and nutty tahini. It’s a great option for any chocolate fan, including chocolate-likers—those that prefer chocolate as an accent rather than the main event. This ribboned loaf is topped off with a thin coating of espresso syrup, adding sophisticated flavor and shine. Serve this babka at room temperature or slightly warm.

Bête Noire

It’s hard to find a dessert more luxurious than our Bête Noire, a silky-smooth, flourless chocolate cake. To complement the chocolate’s richness, we’ve added a touch of an Old Fashioned—spiking the batter with bourbon, bitters, and orange juice. This balance of sweetness and spice, not to mention elegance, is exactly what we crave around the holidays.

Yelapa-style Chocolate Pie

This decadent, cocoa-rich pie might come from the warm beaches of Yelapa, Mexico, but it suits your snow-covered December holidays equally well. This adaptation, from food writer Paola Briseño-González, provides the ultimate chocolate fix, with a sandy, cookie-like crust that slices cleanly.

Orange-Cranberry Soda Bread with White Chocolate Chunks

White chocolate counts as chocolate! Fruited soda breads straddle the line between breakfast bread and sweet treat. This one in particular is uncommonly fragrant, soft, and studded with pops of red and white. The crumb is tender from buttermilk, and scented with orange zest, while the cranberries add texture and sweetness that play well with the white chocolate chunks. Once sliced, the exposed cranberries and chocolate showcase a festive holiday appearance.

Chocolate Biscotti with Pistachios, Almonds and Dried Cherries

These crunchy, chocolatey biscotti—adapted from a recipe in “Maida Heatter’s Best Dessert Book Ever”—have the kind of richness that pairs perfectly with coffee or dessert wine. Each slice gets pops of subtle sweetness from the chocolate and dried cherries, while the nuts provide plenty of texture. They’re the perfect make-ahead treat for holiday guests.

Chocolate-Orange Tart

For this holiday-worthy dessert, we use ricotta to create a different kind of cheesecake. Adapted from Rose Carrarini’s recipe in “Breakfast, Lunch, Tea,” the ricotta makes the tart deliciously creamy, yet surprisingly light, which is an excellent combination after a holiday meal. The soft filling features orange and chocolate flavors, a classic complimentary combination, and the sandy-crisp almond crust creates welcome contrast. And as a holiday gift from us to you, both filling and dough come together quickly and easily in the food processor.

Chocolate, Prune and Rum Cake

We were smitten with Claire Ptak’s chocolate, prune and whiskey cake from her East London bakery, Violet. Our adaptation strived for ease while keeping the texture and flavor. This cake is gooey in the center, loaded with chocolate, and complexly flavored with the fruit, dark rum and molasses. We find that this cake is best eaten warm, which makes it an excellent partner to cozy up with on a winter night.

Swedish “Sticky” Chocolate Cake

Kladdkaka, a popular sweet in Sweden, is a gooey-centered chocolate cake which translates as “sticky cake.” With only seven ingredients and an easy dump-and-stir mixing method, what’s not to love? It tastes great on its own, and even better when topped with tangy whipped cream or sweetened Greek yogurt.

Chocolate Meringue Cookies

We didn’t forget chocolate cookies this holiday season. As the sole drop cookie representative on this list, we chose a cookie that was so chocolatey it crept close fudge-status. These flourless chocolate cookies, which are crispy, chewy and airy, are a combination of two chocolate desserts we love: Claudia Fleming’s uniquely light brownies and François Payard’s light, flourless cookie. It’s a textural combination so good, we think you’ll come back to it even after the holidays are over.

Chocolate-Hazelnut Cream Cake

Closing out this list with a bang is our towering Chocolate-Hazelnut Cream Cake. This show-stopping cake is easier to make than you might think. Modified from two recipes in famed chef Dominque Ansel’s book “Everyone Can Bake,” this chocolate cake is layered with whipped white chocolate ganache and a billowing chocolate-hazelnut filling. It’s the perfect option for a big holiday bash or a decadent birthday celebration.

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Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Allie Chantorn Reinmann is a Digital Staff Writer for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street. She’s a Thai-American chef who earned her diploma for Pastry and Baking Arts at The Institute of Culinary Education and worked professionally for over a decade honing her craft in New York City at places like Balthazar, Bien Cuit, The Chocolate Room, Billy’s Bakery and Whole Foods. Allie took her know-how from the kitchen to the internet, writing about food full-time at Lifehacker for three years and starting her own YouTube channel, ThaiNYbites. You can find her whipping up baked goods for cafés around Brooklyn, building wedding cakes and trying her hand (feet?) at marathon running. She’s working on her debut cookbook and lives in Brooklyn, NY.