Dessert Recipes

Therapeutic oatmeal cookies where you squeeze, smash, and beat the dough to release stress: brown sugar, margarine, oats, and flour become tender cookies through aggression.

This old-school chocolate jimmy cake is studded with chocolate sprinkles and lifted with beaten egg whites for a tender crumb. Topped with creamy vanilla frosting, it's a Northeast classic worth reviving.

Quite easy to make, and these cupcakes were very moist and delicious. I doubled the bunch, and froze them in the freezer. Now I have two week worth snacks :)

Easy chocolate brownie with nuts is baked in a pie plate.

Rich, fudgy brownies loaded with unsweetened baking chocolate that stay moist even after freezing. Toss in nuts or chocolate chips if you like, then cut, freeze, and serve straight from the freezer for a crowd.

Bisquick pound cake with cream cheese, soaked in orange liqueur syrup and finished with a glossy apricot glaze. A bakery-worthy tube cake from a baking-mix shortcut.

Italian nut ball cookies coated in chopped pistachios with a jelly-filled center. Almond extract and vanilla give these thumbprint cookies classic Italian bakery flavor.

Eggnog layer cake is a tender, nutmeg-scented two-layer cake made with dairy eggnog and topped with cooked-custard eggnog buttercream spiked with rum. A Christmas showpiece cake.

Nancy's ice cream kolacky: a three-ingredient Eastern European-style cookie where vanilla ice cream replaces liquid and eggs, creating a tender pastry dough filled with jam and dusted with powdered sugar. A Christmas cookie-tray favorite.

Microwave chocolate pecan clusters with marshmallows and semi-sweet chips. Five ingredients, no baking, and ready to eat in under an hour. Makes 20 clusters.

Three-layer carrot cake with crushed pineapple, walnuts, and a tangy cream cheese frosting topped with toasted coconut. A moist, towering carrot cake for birthdays, Easter, and holiday tables.

Lemon pecan pie skips corn syrup and uses lemon extract plus juice to brighten a buttery brown sugar custard packed with toasted pecans. The bright twist on Southern pecan pie.

I use a bit more flour, let the dough rest in the fridge for 1 hr., and shape these into logs instead, brushing with egg wash and sprinkling with a little granulated sugar. I then bake them for 17 minutes. After cooling in the sheet pan for 5 min., I cut them into squares.

Pineapple bread pudding with crushed pineapple, cinnamon, pecans, and cubed bread in a sweet egg-margarine batter baked until set. A tropical twist on classic bread pudding served with caramel fluff.

Lady Bird Johnson's famous lemon cake with 8 egg yolks, fresh lemon, and a tangy lemon icing. The First Lady's favorite recipe straight from the Texas White House.

Real butterscotch pie made the old-fashioned way with brown sugar and butter melted in a cast iron skillet, topped with golden meringue. No pudding mix, no shortcuts, just pure caramelized flavor in every slice.