Dessert, Holiday Recipes

A lattice-topped mincemeat tart for Christmas: spiced fruit mincemeat baked in a crisp butter-and-lard shortcrust under a delicate woven lattice, dusted with icing sugar. One big tart instead of fiddly individual pies.

Eggnog mousse with rum, brandy, nutmeg, and whipped cream set with gelatin. A light, airy holiday dessert topped with crushed peppermint candies that tastes like eggnog in cloud form.

Layered pumpkin walnut pie hides a buttery brown-sugar walnut praline beneath a creamy, cream-cheese-rich pumpkin custard in a shortbread crust, crowned with baked pastry leaves. A Thanksgiving showpiece.

These easy to make popcorn balls can be kept for a week, you can make them before Halloween comes, not only just kids love them!

I made these cookies and they came out perfectly. They did not stick to the pan or spread while baking. I did drop batter with a spoon to keep them on the small side.

Red and white peppermint pinwheel cookies with a buttery almond dough, rolled jelly-roll style and topped with crushed candy canes. A festive Christmas cookie classic.

Chocolate Halloween cupcakes with a hidden orange cream cheese center that oozes out when bitten. Spooky fun for the kids and a riff on the classic Black Bottom cupcake.

Halloween mini pumpkin cupcakes are tender pumpkin spice bites topped with cream cheese frosting tinted orange, black, and white. Decorate with candy and sugar crystals for spooky kid-friendly party treats.

Chocolate and cherries - always a great combo - are enhanced in this winning shaped-cookie recipe by a coating of cocoa and powdered sugar. It was submitted by Lois A. Hernandez of West Allis.

These delicious and melted in your mouth cookies don't last long.

Buttery crescent cookies with ground nuts, chilled overnight, then shaped into half moons and rolled hot in powdered sugar. A traditional Christmas cookie with crumbly shortbread texture.

What's for dessert at Christmas day? How about some homemade candy cane ice cream? It's made of low-fat milk, egg yolks and crushed candy cane. It's creamy and silky, crushed candy cane adds some crunch and minty sweetness. Don't have to pay high price for hagen daz, this is as good as hagen daz, and it's lower fat.

Cranberries and pears are a great pair. They make this deliciously fruity filling, and it tastes great with the buttery and flakey pastry. It's as delicious as an apple pie.

No-bake holiday apricot balls: ground dried apricots and shredded coconut bound with sweetened condensed milk, rolled into bites and coated in chopped nuts. Chewy, tangy-sweet, and ready with no oven.

Cherry and almond Christmas cake: maraschino cherries, apricots, ginger, and almonds macerated in amaretto and brandy, baked into a lighter apple-puree batter, then soaked in more amaretto. A boozy, fruit-packed festive cake that keeps for a month.

Viennese chocolate torte for Passover uses ground walnuts, cake meal, and potato starch in place of flour. A flourless-style torte split and filled with apricot-orange preserves and finished with a chocolate-orange glaze.