Dessert Recipes

New Zealand rock cakes with butter, raisins, and orange marmalade, baked rough and craggy on purpose. A rustic teatime scone that comes together in 30 minutes with no special equipment.

Chocolate mayonnaise cake is an old-fashioned secret for incredibly moist chocolate cake. A full cup of mayo replaces butter and adds richness without any greasy taste.

Banana ginger cake with 2 teaspoons of ground ginger baked in a 9-inch square pan, topped with spiced whipped cream. A lighter snack cake using margarine and skim milk.

Authentic biscotti di Prato from Tuscany. Twice-baked Italian almond cookies with toasted almonds, a pinch of saffron, and the traditional pasta-board well method. Crisp, dunkable, and built to keep.

Ricotta pudding baked in individual cups until puffed and golden, made with part-skim ricotta, lemon zest, and a folded egg white for souffle-like lift. A light Italian-style dessert.

Palm Beach pineapple squares: a chocolate walnut cake base topped with a lemon-scented pineapple layer, baked together into one tropical dessert bar.

Traditional New Mexican biscochitos with anise seed and cinnamon-sugar topping. These shortening-based cookies are crisp, fragrant, and cut into festive shapes.

Mom's apple cookies are soft, cake-like drop cookies with grated fresh apple, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and walnuts. Old-fashioned spiced bakery flavor from a lunchbox-friendly batch of three dozen.

Key lime roll cake filled with lime-spiked lemon pie filling and frosted with whipped topping. A light, tangy jelly roll dessert tinted pale green and garnished with lime slices.

Cherry oat dessert squares layer cinnamon-spiced cherry pie filling between a buttery oat-walnut crust and crumb topping. A potluck classic that slices into 16 squares.

Chocolate red beet cake: deep cocoa cake with mashed beets baked into a moist, tender crumb you'd never guess was hiding a vegetable. An old-school secret-ingredient cake.

Deluxe chocolate chunk walnut cookies with semi-sweet chunks and milk chocolate morsels in a chewy brown sugar dough. Bakery-style thick cookies with two kinds of chocolate.

Toll House chocolate oat bars made in the microwave in under 10 minutes. Oats, brown sugar, walnuts, and chocolate chips with a melted chocolate top layer.

Cornmeal cookies blend stone-ground cornmeal with flour for a sandy, slightly crunchy crumb. Studded with dried cherries or raisins and warmed with nutmeg. An Italian-American Christmas tin staple.

Irish Porter Cake is a dense, dark fruit cake made with Guinness, currants, raisins, mixed peel, and warm spices. Bakes for up to 3 hours, then rests a full week before cutting.

Rhubarb apple crisp baked in individual ramekins: tart rhubarb and sweet apple thickened with tapioca under a buttery oat, pecan, and maple crumble. A bubbling, crunchy-topped spring dessert.