I need a single dessert to fit a huge list of dietary restrictions. Suggestions?

Thank you all for the ideas!!! Our dessert was presented last weekend, and it went well! I thought you'd all love to hear what we decided to do. Due to the immense dietary list, we had to go simple. We went with *drumroll*....pavlovas with a berry sauce (cooked berries were fine with our client). It wasn't terribly creative, like I prefer, however, considering what we had to work with, it covered the bases and went over well. Thank you to "haredlikearmour"'s original suggestion, which many of you approved and voted as well, for the pavlova idea. They turned out beautifully! We did try the poached pears, but they weren't in great shape (out of season) when we worked with them and we deemed them unfit for service after we finished handling them. So berry sauce was classic, and we used my homemade raspberry jam as a base for the flavor.

I'm so glad that I have the Food52 community to bounce ideas off of, and that there are so many wonderful, professional (and humorous) answers when I need them.

Thank you again!
Amy

I feel ya-- I have a dinner I'm private chef for next month with 1 diary "avoidance" a vegan, a gluten free, a nut allergy and some thing else I'm forgetting-maybe paleo--oh yeah the vegan doesn't "do sugar" so isn't very interested in dessert--- for everyone but the vegan I'm making a flourless chocolate cake (with butter substitute) w roasted banana "ice cream" that the vegan can eat if she decides to loosen up a bit and get wild.

However for a different event I made a lovely lemon curd with olive oil instead of butter - you could pair that with a meringue -- grain like all grains ? any grains? because if buckwheat doesn't could as a grain you can make little buckwheat cookies to go with lemon curd & coconut whipped cream,

You could make any number of pastries with a fruit filling, a tarte tatin, or a variation on a lemon meringue pie. Sub gluten free pastry flour and earth balance for the butter in the pastry. Make in individual disposable tartlet pans to make it more upscale and easy to plate/serve. The tarte tatin can be premade then popped in the oven right before serving to warm and then just flipped onto plates - serve with vegan ice cream or non-dairy whip.

I support pavlovas, 110%!! Serving them with lemon (or any citrus) curd might be fun (subbing dairy with coconut oil and cream). Oftentimes, I do variations on the Indian rice pudding, Kheer with rosewater, saffron, cardamom, and toasted coconut flakes, subbing the rice with tapioca pearls.

If, at some point, you throw up yours hands and want to buy something, the non-dairy ice cream "Coconut Bliss" is pretty great. They've nailed a smooth, rich texture and I believe many of their flavors align with your restrictions. My midwestern Whole Foods and many local grocers carry it.

Good luck, Amy! I maintain a restrictive diet (G(rain)F-DF-NF, etc.,) and eggs, tapioca, and coconut milk are my besties for desserts!

a mango pudding. you can make it with coconut milk too. mango puree.

I was going to suggest Vietnamese dessert of che chuoi with roughly translates to Banana Coconut Soup/pudding. It is bananas cooked in coconut milk with tapioca pearls. There's also a soup pudding with green mung beans, http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-che-dau-xanh-vietnamese-89059

Both are sweet, creamy and easy. There's a bit of fiber with both the bananas and the beans but it's not like you'll be eating cups and cups of this stuff.

I would also suggest Vietnamese jelly desserts like this one, http://www.phamfatale.com/id_2403/title_Rau-Cau-Dua-Vietnamese-Coconut-Jello-Recipe/
which is totally vegan if you use organic sugar.

Thank you all!! Today, we are going to test Pavlovas and poached pears, but also meringue cookies and cooked fruit compote in a pretty display glass. Among other things, this is just one single dessert for the group. We have 2 days of cookies, bars, breads and desserts that we have to have. We should win an award for this one if we pull it off and no one goes hungry...lol

A vanilla, chia & coconut cream parfait with stewed fruit and toasted coconut to garnish? Dependent on whether the fibre in chia is too high for your needs. Also individual black rice and coconut puddings could be an option if the 'grain' restriction doesn't include rice (some 'grain free' diets allow rice). Good luck and yes, please let us know what you make!

Oh weird, when I just looked at this thread only two other answers appeared, then when I just posted my answer it showed up with fifteen other answers from hours ago! Among them I saw that poached fruit was already mentioned...ah well, make that another vote for poached fruit them!

How about poached pears? There's a nice-sounding recipe in this David Liebovitz article: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2009/11/how-to-make-poached-pears/

No suggestions, but I feel for you.

Many Indonesian/SE Asian dessert fits that requirements, especially the dessert soup sections:
- Kolak (Indonesian coconut milk-based dessert soup, with filling permutation of: banana/plantain, taro, sweet potato jackfruit, cassava, etc) http://dailycookingquest.com/by-cuisine/indonesian/kolak-plantain-cassava-and-sweet-potato-in-coconut-milk, http://alittleyum.com/2012/05/19/indonesian-kolak-pisang-bananas-with-coconut-milk-pandan-and-palm-sugar/ , http://www.indochinekitchen.com/recipes/banana-compote-with-coconut-milk-kolak-pisang/. You can use just one filling or as many as you like. Banana and jackfruit will give pleasant tang to the soup.
- Steamed taro, eaten with fresh grated coconut (give bit of salt and steamed) and sprinkled with demerara sugar/brown sugar. I like demerara because it gives crunchy texture. Something like: http://bunda-inong.blogspot.com/2015/02/talas-atau-keladi-rebus-kelapa-parut.html

Vanilla poached fruit (perhaps rhubarb) with a chia seed coconut milk pudding topped with black sesame toffee wafer & turkish fairy floss.

I see you've included fiber in the list. What do you mean by that? You can try a crumble with a coconut/ seed topping. Seeds are allowed right ? And serve it with a coconut milk ice cream or sauce. You could also make a fruit tart instead of the crumble and use a combination of coconut flakes and powder and flaxseed or sunflower seeds. If you can use eggs then it will bind well.

Thank you all for the great...and wonderfully humorous...answers!! Tequila will be for the bakers :)

Another possibility is a selection of pate de fruit of various flavors. Or how about floating island, where you can make crème anglaise with coconut milk, you can also top it with caramel, or add caramel to snow eggs.

How about a coconut milk panna cotta? You could easily set it with gelatin and add a lemon or lime syrup with candied lemon/lime peel, some toasted coconut and a bit of mint?

Many Indonesian/SE Asian dessert fits that requirements, especially the dessert soup sections:
- Kolak (Indonesian coconut milk-based dessert soup, with filling permutation of: banana/plantain, taro, sweet potato jackfruit, cassava, etc) http://dailycookingquest.com/by-cuisine/indonesian/kolak-plantain-cassava-and-sweet-potato-in-coconut-milk, http://alittleyum.com/2012/05/19/indonesian-kolak-pisang-bananas-with-coconut-milk-pandan-and-palm-sugar/ , http://www.indochinekitchen.com/recipes/banana-compote-with-coconut-milk-kolak-pisang/. You can use just one filling or as many as you like. Banana and jackfruit will give pleasant tang to the soup.
- Steamed taro, eaten with fresh grated coconut (give bit of salt and steamed) and sprinkled with demerara sugar/brown sugar. I like demerara because it gives crunchy texture. Something like: http://bunda-inong.blogspot.com/2015/02/talas-atau-keladi-rebus-kelapa-parut.html
- Kolak Biji Salak, see description on wiki https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kolak_biji_salak.jpg. Recipe: https://cookpad.com/id/resep/259140-kolak-biji-salak
- Es lilin (Ice pop) with mung beans flavor http://buletinresep.blogspot.com/2015/06/resep-es-lilin-kacang-hijau.html
- Getuk Lindri (sweet cassava brownie/nugget). You can omit the coconut sprinkles, http://resep4.blogspot.com/2013/04/resep-getuk-lindri-singkong.html

* The recipes are mostly in Indonesian (I can't find English version) and I just posted here for you to check out the pictures and the ingredients w/Google Translate. PM me if you are interested and want translation of the recipes.

I was going to suggest a shot of tequila, but then I realized alcohol was on the list too. Wow. I think you're left with the poached fruit or meringues as other have suggested. Maybe just serve a huge amount of heavy food for dinner and hope that everyone is too full to want dessert....

Air? A dessert trio of steam, ice, and water?

Jokes aside, I immediately thought of poached fruit. Thinking that would address the need to cook it and it would be a bit fancier. You could also serve with a quenelle of sorbet. Add spices and aromatics (ginger, orange, star anise) to both the poaching liquid and sorbet for a little more pizzazz.

My mom used to make a big meringue bowl every year for Passover. She filled it with scoops of multicolored fruit sorbets. It was a real stunner, and something the whole family looked forward to every year.

Aside from hardlikearmour's smart pavlova suggestion, all I can think of is a chicken leg dusted with sugar. You've pretty well been left with nothing but meringue, sorbet and sympathy.

Pavlovas with berry coulis or roasted fruit or both and whipped coconut cream.