Dessert, Baked Good Recipes

A spiced sheet cake packed with grated carrots, mashed bananas, toasted coconut, and pecans. Warm cloves and mace set it apart from ordinary carrot cake. Cuts into 24 squares and freezes well.

Rich chocolate drop cookies loaded with flaked coconut, chopped pecans, and chocolate chips, each topped with a pecan half. Melted unsweetened chocolate in the batter gives them a deep, fudgy flavor that tastes like a German chocolate cake in cookie form.

Double chocolate biscotti with wine-plumped dried cherries, melted bittersweet chocolate, and cocoa powder. Crisp, dunkable cookies that stay fresh for a month.

Dense apricot bars sweetened with maple syrup and loaded with dried apricots, walnuts, and cashews. No eggs, no butter, finished with powdered sugar icing and optional chocolate drizzle.

Cinnamon snack cake with apple cider sauce: a sour cream coffee cake with crumb topping, served warm with vanilla ice cream and warm cider sauce. The fall dessert that smells like Sunday afternoon.

A show-stopping layered blueberry pie with a white chocolate-coated crust, cooked blueberry filling, a fluffy blueberry Bavarian cream layer, and whipped cream on top. Five layers of blueberry heaven for your most impressive dessert spread.

Snickers pie with a graham cracker crust, baked cream cheese layer with milk chocolate, chopped Snickers bars, and a double-chocolate fudge brownie topping. A candy bar in pie form.

Best lemon meringue pie cooks a clear cornstarch curd with fresh lemon juice and zest, then crowns with vanilla-scented French meringue spread peak-style across the warm filling. The reliable home version.

Hot fudge cake that bakes its own chocolate sauce underneath. A cocoa batter with a sugar-cocoa-water mixture poured on top creates a self-saucing pudding cake in 40 minutes.

Cardamom wedding cookies: buttery shortbread balls rolled in powdered sugar with cardamom, citrus zest, and ground almonds. A fragrant twist on traditional Mexican wedding cookies.

Praline ice cream cake bakes softened vanilla ice cream right into a graham-cracker crumb batter, then finishes with sour cream caramel topping and chopped pecans.

Lindy's-style New York cheesecake with a buttery shortbread crust, 40 ounces of cream cheese, lemon and orange zest, and a sour cream top. Classic three-temperature bake for silk-smooth texture.

Granny's icebox sugar cookies sliced from a chilled log, sprinkled with sugar and nutmeg, and baked into crisp-edged, soft-centered rounds. The make-ahead slice-and-bake recipe with old-fashioned charm.

Silky coconut custard filling topped with billowy meringue in this retro diner-style pie. The secret is scalded milk for ultra-smooth texture that sets perfectly after chilling.

A scrumptious low-fat cake that is perfect snack to have while enjoying a relaxing night on the couch.

A marbled vanilla cake layered with chocolate sauce and chopped walnuts, baked in a ring pan and served warm with a dusting of powdered sugar. Feeds 4 to 6 in under an hour.