17 church recipes

Classic no-bake church windows with chocolate chips, colored marshmallows, shredded coconut, and chopped nuts. Chill overnight, slice into colorful rounds. Makes 3 dozen.

Cola sheet cake with cola and marshmallows in the batter for a moist chocolate crumb, topped with hot fudge cola icing and chopped nuts. The classic Southern church-supper sheet cake.

Meatloaf for 120: a scaled-up classic ground beef, oats, and tomato juice meatloaf with tangy ketchup-mustard glaze. 16 loaves for church suppers, reunions, and crowd feeding.

No-bake cereal bars with peanut butter, chocolate, and butterscotch chip topping. Church potluck favorite ready in 35 minutes, feeds a crowd sweetly.

Old-fashioned lime pickles (pickling lime, not citrus) with cucumbers soaked in calcium hydroxide for crunch, then sweet-pickled with celery seed and cloves. The Southern church-supper classic.

Milk chocolate bar bundt cake with melted Milky Way bars folded into the batter, plus buttermilk, pecans, and vanilla. A Southern church-cookbook classic with serious richness.

Yum yum cake is a sour-cream chocolate layer cake with cocoa powder batter and melted chocolate chip frosting. Old-fashioned church-cookbook favorite with lunchbox simplicity.

German chocolate pies: two pies at once, gooey cocoa-pecan-coconut filling in flaky shells. One to eat now, one to freeze. A Southern dessert for holidays and church suppers.

A thin, fudgy chocolate sheet cake baked right on a cookie sheet and iced while still hot. Feeds a crowd in 30 minutes flat. The ultimate potluck and church supper cake.

Peanut butter dreams are no-bake chocolate-dipped peanut butter balls with crisp rice cereal for crunch. Vintage church-cookbook candy that yields 48 freezer-friendly bites and disappears at every bake sale.

Reduced-sugar oatmeal cake with rolled oats, raisins, molasses, and warming cinnamon and nutmeg. Egg whites and a sugar substitute keep things lean. The lighter take on a Southern church-supper classic.

Old-fashioned chocolate cake with crushed peppermint stick candy folded right into the batter. A tender cocoa layer cake with a cool, pepperminty crunch. Straight out of a mid-century church cookbook.

Terry's turtle cake layers chocolate cake with melted caramel, chocolate chips, and pecans, then tops with more batter for a gooey caramel center. A church potluck classic on a doctored cake mix base.

Chocolate sheet cake (Texas sheet cake) with hot cocoa-buttermilk batter and a poured cocoa-buttermilk icing finished while the cake is still hot. The Southern church-supper crowd-feeder cut into 24 squares.

Hummingbird cake stacks three layers of banana-pineapple-pecan cake under tangy cream cheese frosting. Southern church-supper royalty, no mixer required, just stir and pour. The crumb stays moist for days thanks to fruit and oil.

Honey nugget cookies are chewy, oat-packed drop cookies sweetened with honey and brown sugar, spiced with cinnamon. A vintage church-cookbook recipe that bakes up tender on the inside, lightly crisp at the edges.