Dessert Recipes

Just by dipping the top into melted chocolate makes these already delicious tails taste even better. Nothing can go wrong with the combination of butter and chocolate. They are wonderful Christmas cookies every year, and your family or friends will be asking you for these cookies every Christmas.

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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.

If you just want to make a basic cookie, try this delicious treat that goes well with a cup of tea for breakfast.

To use up an abundance of garden zucchini, try these wholesome soft-textured cookies. They are very flavorful and easy to make. I like to make cookies and put them in the freezer, they thaw quickly for unexpected guests.

Italian biscotti with Sambuca liqueur, toasted pine nuts, star anise, and lemon zest. Twice-baked for a crisp, crunchy cookie built for dunking in espresso.

Texas-style chocolate sheet cake with buttermilk, cocoa, and a hot fudge icing poured over the warm cake. A 30-minute one-bowl chocolate sheet cake that feeds a crowd at potlucks and church suppers.

Spiced cranberry hazelnut bread with cinnamon, cloves, and orange juice baked into mini loaves. Wrapped in brandy-soaked cheesecloth, this holiday quick bread deepens in flavor for weeks.

Classic French currant tart with a vanilla butter pastry shell, silky pastry cream, fresh red currants, and a kirsch-currant jelly glaze edged with toasted almonds.

Italian macaroons made from almond paste kneaded with egg whites and sugar, baked into chewy, fragrant amaretti-style cookies. A short rest before baking gives them their crackly top and tender center.

Southern Japanese fruitcake: a 4-layer cake alternating plain butter cake with spiced pecan-and-raisin layers, bound by a thick lemon-coconut filling. A vintage Christmas dessert from the American South with a name that has nothing to do with Japan.

Ultimate everything cookies: ground oatmeal, chocolate chips, grated chocolate bar, and chopped nuts in buttery dough baked to golden perfection in just six minutes.

This is the second recipe I'll post tonight--promised it to AH earlier tonight. My mother found this recipe 35 or so years ago in a magazine and it has become a family favorite. For years she only made it at Thanksgiving until I took over the baking reigns in the family; now she makes it more often especially when my brother, Lewis, is going to be in.

Flaky cream cheese pastry turnovers filled with homemade apricot filling, sealed like hand pies, and iced with powdered sugar.

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.

Crispy baked Cornflake Cookies with buttery pecans and vanilla. These crumbly drop cookies bake golden in 12-15 minutes for quick homemade treats.