Map Shows America's Favorite Thanksgiving Desserts

There comes a time at every Thanksgiving dinner when a critical decision must be made: go back for seconds of your favorite sides, or make a beeline for the dessert table. Stacked with options, the latter can look a lot more tempting than the picked-over meat and potatoes. But where to begin?

While you might feel obligated to slice into a perfectly spiced pumpkin pie for tradition's sake, delivery data proves that not every sweet tooth sticks to the rules. From slept-on picks like sweet potato pie to all-time favorite chocolate cake, DoorDash analyzed its Thanksgiving orders across the country to reveal what sweetened up each state's holiday spread.

The Top 10 Desserts Dominating Doordash Thanksgiving Orders

The restaurant, grocery, and retail delivery service looked at store-bought pie and cake orders placed on November 26, 2025, and November 27, 2025 (Thanksgiving Eve and Day), to find out which desserts Americans reach for the most after Thanksgiving dinner. While the holiday is synonymous with pumpkin, the quintessential Thanksgiving slice landed below not one, but three staple sweets. Chocolate cake claimed the top spot as America's overall favorite Thanksgiving dessert, making its rich, decadent mark in five states where it ranked first, including Missouri, Wyoming, and Arkansas.

Chocolate cake rose to popularity in 19th-century America when bakers began adding cocoa powder to cake recipes. Soon, everyone wanted a slice of the dark dessert, which satisfies refined palates and picky eaters alike. That's part of its appeal both day-to-day and on the holiday, according to Cristen Milliner, Consumer Trends Expert at DoorDash.

“Pumpkin pie is polarizing—you either wait all year for it or you take the smallest slice on the table,” Milliner explains. "Chocolate cake is something nobody turns down, and when you're feeding a mix of adults, kids, and the one cousin who doesn't like pie, that matters more than tradition does."

Each State's Favorite Thanksgiving Dessert, Mapped

Thanksgiving pie purists can rest easy knowing classic American apple took second place nationwide. Often served à la mode with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, apple pie and creamy cheesecake (which landed in third) both stood in the way of pumpkin pie taking the top spot. But while pumpkin pie ranked fourth overall, it won the numbers game where it counts by sweeping 14 states—more than any other dessert in the running. Much of the West, from California to Washington—along with Hawaii and Alaska—proved that the fall pie is still the ultimate symbol of Thanksgiving across much of the map.

So, how did squash find its way out of the savory section anyway? Prior to pie crusts entering the picture, early American settlers simply hollowed out whole pumpkin shells, filled them with spiced milk and honey, and baked the entire gourd directly in hot ashes.

Filling out the top three is cheesecake, which was the top dessert in eight mainly Midwestern states, including Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa. While the decadent, dairy-based dessert is associated with New York, cheesecake actually traces back to around 2000 BCE, on the ancient Greek island of Samos. Ironically, it isn't the top Turkey Day treat in the Big Apple.

The state of the Thanksgiving dessert debate has many sides across the map—including major cravings for sweet potato pie, which saw a 210% surge in orders since last year. Yet among all the regional favorites, there was only one true outlier on the map: key lime pie in Georgia.

Here's the full list of each state's favorite Thanksgiving sweet treat:

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