Dessert, Baked Good Recipes

Old-fashioned chess-style custard pie with butter, eggs, evaporated milk and vanilla baked into a single crust. Sweet, silky filling that sets to a glossy finish. A Depression-era Southern classic.

Heritage apple pie with a butter-and-lard crust, tart Northern Spy apples, brown sugar, and a teaspoon of bread crumbs lining the bottom shell to keep it crisp. A three-stage bake delivers an evenly browned crust.

Homemade King Cake with a rich sour cream yeast dough rolled with cinnamon sugar and shaped into an oval ring. Decorated with purple, green, and gold frosting and colored sugars for Mardi Gras.

Chocolate cherry pie with a rum-spiked chocolate custard filling, quartered maraschino cherries, and whipped cream folded in. Topped with sweetened cream and grated chocolate.

Jam shortbread bars sandwich a layer of cherry or raspberry preserves between two almond-rich shortbread layers. A buttery, almond-scented sliced bar for tea trays and holiday tins.

No-bake chocolate cheesecake pie with whipped topping, caramel drizzle, and toasted pecans. Turtle-style dessert that comes together in 15 minutes.

Lower-fat banana cake with pureed prunes replacing most of the butter, nonfat vanilla yogurt, and egg whites. A moist sheet cake that cuts the fat without losing flavor.

Crisp cocoa-almond cookies filled with white chocolate ganache. Slice-and-bake dough makes shaping simple, and the thin, snappy wafers pair beautifully with the creamy filling.

Cat-shaped chocolate chip cookies with pecan ears, pretzel whiskers, and candy eyes. A fun baking project kids will love decorating and eating.

Classic French silk pie with a deep chocolate filling whipped to silky-smooth texture, poured into a chocolate crumb crust, and chilled until set. The original 1950s diner-style chocolate pie.

Gingerbread is my all-time favorite. This is one of my most-loved recipes for making gingerbread. The spices add just enough hint, and it's delicious.

Mediterranean almond cookies made with ground almonds, egg whites, and candied cherries. Low-temperature baked treats dusted with powdered sugar and optional rosewater.

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.

City school red devil's food cake made with cocoa, hot coffee, buttermilk, cake flour, and a touch of red food coloring. The nostalgic cafeteria chocolate cake from scratch.

Old-fashioned lemon chiffon pie with a gelatin-set lemon-egg-yolk custard lightened with whipped egg whites in a crumb crust, topped with sweetened whipped cream. A cloud-light no-bake classic.

Turtles cheesecake with chopped caramel-pecan chocolates folded into a brown sugar cream cheese filling on a buttery pecan crust. Rich, indulgent, and topped with whole Turtles.