Thanksgiving is all about excess, and that is why you need at least two or three pies. And yes, it needs to be pie; it’s an icon of the holiday table. (If you really want cake, ice cream or cookies, serve them alongside.) Here we offer a trio of updated classics: a tangy apple-cranberry with ginger and rum; a fudgy chocolate pecan spiked with bourbon; and a particularly creamy brandied pumpkin. Choose two, or go ahead and make all three.

A slab pie is nothing more than a regular pie writ large. Baked in a 9-x-13-inch pan, this pie feeds 24 but is easier to make (and to carry) than 3 separate pies. The filling was inspired by an e-mail from Pete Wells, our restaurant critic, who mused about his ideal Thanksgiving dessert; the brown sugar, ginger and rum give it a complex and more autumnal flavor than most apple pies. Serve with whipped crème fraiche and small glasses of good, aged rum.

If you can’t live without chocolate, this is the pie for your table. I used a combination of chocolate and cocoa powder, both to temper the usual cloying pecan pie sweetness, and to up the bittersweet factor. You can substitute walnuts, almonds or even cashews for the pecans, or use a combination.

How to Make Your Pie Ahead, in Stages Unless you’re only making pie to bring to someone else’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, chances are you’re going to need to make it in stages in advance. Here’s what you can do ahead, and when.Make the dough up to five days ahead and refrigerate, or up to one month ahead and freeze. (If frozen, thaw it in the refrigerator overnight.) You can make the pumpkin pie and pecan pie fillings up to five days ahead (but don’t mix in the pecans until just before baking). Store in the fridge.You can roll out the crust and line your pie plate a day before baking it. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate. You can also bake your crust a day ahead, before filling and baking it again. Just leave it on the counter and cover it with a clean dish towel once it has cooled. (I like to bake the crusts and make the fillings the day before, then finish and bake the pies before the turkey goes into the oven on Thanksgiving morning.)You can fully bake any of these pies the day before. Store them at room temperature, not in the fridge.

Skip the Pumpkin in Favor of Squash Last fall, I set out to discover which variety of winter squash is best to use in pumpkin pie. I already knew that the beach-ball-size jack-o’-lantern types were too watery and bland. And I’d played around with cheese pumpkins, sugar pumpkins and acorn and butternut squashes, but I hadn’t been very methodical about it.After carefully testing nine varieties, I now swear by butternut squash. Not only is it the easiest to handle (just slip the skin off with a vegetable peeler), but it also has the most velvety, honeyed flesh. Save any extra purée to use for pumpkin bread — or butternut squash bread, that is.