10,000 bitter recipes

Buttery cookies with a chocolate Kiss hidden inside and mini chocolate chips throughout the dough. Each one cracks open to reveal a melted chocolate center.

Babe's Surprise Apple Pie skips the top crust and crowns thinly sliced apples with a buttery brown sugar crumble topping instead. Cinnamon, lemon juice, and a hot oven do the rest.

Holderschmarren is an Austrian fruit dish with elderberries, pears, and plums sauteed in butter with rye bread, milk, and cinnamon. A rustic, comforting dessert ready in 20 minutes.

Finnish rye bread made in the bread machine with dark rye flour and beer for an earthy, malty loaf. Dense, hearty, and deeply flavored, perfect for open-faced sandwiches, sharp cheeses, or cured fish.

This is creamy, hot and perfect to serve with noodles or grilled meats.

Grilled garden sandwiches: a loaded grilled cheese stacked with sauteed mushrooms and red onion, fresh tomato, and two melting cheeses, griddled in butter until golden and crisp. A hearty meatless lunch.

Old fashioned checkerboard cookies stack vanilla and chocolate dough cylinders into striped logs, then slice and bake for crisp shortbread cookies with a stunning chess-pattern face. A vintage tea cookie.

Buttermilk pecan fruitcake made with dried pears and toasted pecans instead of the usual neon candied fruit. Buttermilk keeps the crumb tender, beaten egg whites give it lift. A gift-worthy Christmas loaf.

Semi-homemade chocolate cake with a gooey caramel, roasted peanut, and milk chocolate chip layer baked right into the center. Starts with a box mix and six ingredients. Tastes like a giant chocolate turtle bar in cake form.

Chocolate popcorn fudge: classic stovetop chocolate fudge cooked to soft-ball stage with chopped popped corn folded in for surprise crunch in every creamy square.

This cake won me First Prize at the county fair last year. It is very chocolaty.

Rustic herb and barley stew with rabbit, leeks, garlic, and sage simmered until fall-off-the-bone tender. Pearl barley thickens the broth into a hearty, one-pot meal.

Almond crescent cookies with rolled oats and finely chopped almonds, dusted with powdered sugar while still warm. A heartier, oat-packed twist on classic holiday shortbread crescents.

Bring the seafood restaurant to your home and enjoy this succulent dish that has hints of fresh lemon.

Pasta flora is a Greek lattice tart with cognac-spiked butter pastry filled with apricot marmalade and finished with a crisscross dough top. Sliced into bakery-style squares.

Mock apple pie (cracker pie) made famous on the back of the Ritz box during the Depression. Ritz crackers, sugar syrup, cream of tartar, and apple spices fool the tongue into thinking it's eating real apple pie.