Dessert Recipes

A deeply rich chocolate layer cake made with unsweetened baking chocolate, brown sugar, and a cloud of beaten egg whites for lift. Topped with sliced oranges, nutmeats, and candied ginger for a vintage twist you won't find anywhere else.

Butterscotch dandy cake folds homemade hard-ball butterscotch syrup into a tender two-layer cake, then crowns it with a cooked brown sugar buttercream. A real-deal Southern butterscotch cake from scratch.

Spicy oatmeal cookies loaded with raisins, nuts, and a bold mix of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and allspice. Chewy, warmly spiced, and packed with brown sugar flavor.

Chocolate mayonnaise cake with a caramel-like brown sugar frosting. The mayo keeps this old-fashioned cake incredibly moist without eggs or butter in the batter. Frost immediately for the best texture.

Bailey's fudge cake is a dense, boozy single-layer chocolate cake spiked with Irish cream and chocolate syrup, finished with a sour cream Bailey's glaze and chocolate-dipped pecan halves. Showpiece dessert, low effort.

Fresh pear and apple pie with brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lime juice in a double-crust pastry. A fall fruit pie that blends the soft sweetness of pears with tart, firm apples.

Low-fat brown sugar apple pie made with fat-free margarine crust and Butter Buds in place of real butter. Granny Smith apples spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, and fresh lemon zest.

Lighter cranberry apple cookies made with egg whites and skim milk, loaded with fresh fruit, cinnamon, and orange zest. A guilt-free holiday cookie that yields 2 dozen.

Thanksgiving sweet potato pie with egg-white-only spiced filling in a flaky phyllo crust topped with chopped chestnuts. The lighter holiday pie that swaps butter pastry for crackly phyllo layers.

Mrs. Fields pumpkin spice cookies with dark brown sugar, plump raisins, and toasted walnuts. Soft, cakey, and packed with warm fall spice. A copycat worth making.

Cherry date skillet cookies skip the oven entirely. Buttery dates and brown sugar bubble together in a skillet, then bind with rice cereal, coconut, and maraschino cherries into chewy, no-bake bites rolled in coconut.

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.

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.

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.

Brown sugar sour cream cookies wrapped around walnut-stuffed dates, baked and topped with a vanilla sour cream icing. A unique, old-fashioned holiday cookie.