Three recipes that get their sweetness more from fruit than added sugar: a flaky-crusted apple pie, a buttery bourbon apple slab tart, and a date and pecan pie

During the holidays, Thanksgiving included, many people crave familiar flavours, not cutting-edge cuisine. The recipes that follow do have a twist – they get most of their sweetness from fruit – but this apparent novelty is arguably rooted in tradition. The idea of looking beyond cane sugar, honey and maple syrup to sweeten desserts may sound newfangled, but, as Michael Pollan explained in his 2002 book The Botany of Desire, fruit is what often satisfied the sweet tooth before the broad accessibility of purer sugars. In addition to fruits in fresh, dried and pureed forms, the pastries below are suffused with unexpected sweetness from miso paste, bourbon, pecans, and spices.

You can also view these recipes and many more in the new Feast app, which has a cups calculator for US users