Thanksgiving desserts- small group, not much time

How about Swiss Roll? Chocolate cake rolled up around ice cream with a holiday flavor!

As Mick Jagger once put it, you can't always get what you want. Pick the one you like best, and the others can have a "not my favorite" dessert, or just skip dessert entirely. For a small group, you shouldn't have to go crazy.

How about baking some puff pastry shells and offering a scoop of vanilla or pumpkin ice cream to fill it. Set out a variety of store-bought or homemade toppings: apple pie filling, candied pecans, hot fudge, caramel sauce, whipped cream, etc. Everyone makes their own festive dessert!

Go to Trader Joe’s and get a selection of their small desserts, like lava cake and lemon bars. Their macrons are delicious too. Arrange on a platter and let everyone choose their own.

How about something like vegan panna cotta that caters for most things. Here's one, but you can find nut free too https://food52.com/recipes/85545-vegan-macadamia-coconut-panna-cotta-recipe

How about have them bring dessert? 😎Or try this pumpkin cake that has chocolate marbling and ganache frosting. https://food52.com/recipes/39090-pumpkin-marbled-bundt-cake-with-spicy-ganache You could even top it with candied pecans. Then you’re only missing apple.

Since you only have time for one, make the dessert you are most skilled at and buy the others (from a reputable bakery or stand at your farmers market).

If you prefer not to finance the whole spread, encourage others to bring their favorites. Or buy a couple and hope your guests will be satisfied with a second choice.

Forget trying to make small quantities of pie fillings for different flavored tartelettes. That’s time consuming and you already stated that’s a concern.

No one can please everyone all the time and that’s not specific to cooking.

Best of luck.

Make one batch of pie dough, and bake them as snall tarts or galettes with half or quarter batches of pie fillings and maybe chocolate pudding.
Or small chocolate cakes.
Make them so small that people feel OK having two.

Hi Stephanie G! This new pie recipe from Erin McDowell is a great compromise between apple and pecan: https://food52.com/recipes/86749-best-apple-pecan-pie-recipe ("the best of both worlds," as she puts it!). You could serve with pumpkin ice cream to scoop on top, either store-bought or homemade: https://food52.com/recipes/78123-no-churn-pumpkin-ice-cream.