Dessert, Egg Recipes

Four-layer spiced chocolate torte filled with apricot jam and frosted with a cocoa-espresso ricotta cream. Warm cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg give this butterless cake a complex, grown-up flavor.

Thin, delicate cookies rolled into calla lily shapes while still warm, then filled with fresh whipped cream and a candied orange peel stamen. Edible art for special occasions.

Cornmeal cookies blend stone-ground cornmeal with flour for a sandy, slightly crunchy crumb. Studded with dried cherries or raisins and warmed with nutmeg. An Italian-American Christmas tin staple.

A professional-grade chocolate Bundt cake enriched with coffee and bourbon, served with rosewater whipped cream. Baked low and slow for an intensely fudgy crumb.

Key lime roll cake filled with lime-spiked lemon pie filling and frosted with whipped topping. A light, tangy jelly roll dessert tinted pale green and garnished with lime slices.

Mandel rolls (mandelbrot) made with cake meal, matzo meal, potato starch, and chopped nuts. Twice-baked Jewish biscotti that are crisp, cinnamon-spiced, and Passover-friendly.

Chocolate mayonnaise cake is an old-fashioned secret for incredibly moist chocolate cake. A full cup of mayo replaces butter and adds richness without any greasy taste.

No-crust Easter pie made with ricotta and cream cheese, eggs, sour cream, and vanilla. An Italian-American crustless ricotta cheesecake baked in a springform pan.

Old-fashioned sandwich cookies with a choice of two homemade fillings: raisin with lemon, or chopped date with orange zest and nutmeg. Three dozen per batch.

Palm Beach pineapple squares: a chocolate walnut cake base topped with a lemon-scented pineapple layer, baked together into one tropical dessert bar.

Pawpaw chiffon pie or parfait with North America's native tropical fruit folded into a gelatin-set egg white mousse. A taste of the Eastern woodlands in cool, custard form.

Cherry pie with a tangy sour cream custard and a hint of almond, finished with a golden lattice crust. Use fresh black or red cherries for the brightest flavor. Ready in one hour.

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.

Coconut angel food cake folds shredded coconut into a fat-free egg-white batter, then frosts the cooled tube cake in seven-minute orange frosting and toasted coconut.

Coconut cream cake: white cake mix doctored with cream of coconut and sour cream, baked and topped with cream cheese frosting and flaked coconut. A boxed-cake hack that tastes scratch-made.

Chocolate Twinkie cake with a fluffy homemade cream filling sandwiched between layers of chocolate pudding cake. Uses a box mix for easy baking but the from-scratch filling is where the magic happens.