Dessert Recipes

Ginger cake uses three forms of ginger (fresh grated, candied, and ground) plus honey, buttermilk, cardamom, and lemon zest for layered, complex spice. Lower in butter and sugar than typical spice cakes.

Gingerbread drop cookies are soft, cake-like spice cookies sweetened with molasses and brown sugar, studded with raisins. A wholesome wheat germ-boosted twist on classic holiday cookies.

Glazed coconut tube cake soaked in hot coconut sugar syrup for 4 hours. Buttermilk batter with flaked coconut, chopped nuts, and a double dose of coconut flavoring.

Milky Way layer cake melts eight candy bars with butter into a chocolate-caramel-nougat batter for a moist Southern celebration cake. Tender crumb, rich frosting-friendly base, layered or sheet style.

Banana monkey bars: a one-bowl banana bread baked thin into chewy bars, studded with walnuts and finished with a chocolate sugar drizzle. Lunchbox sweet, ready in under an hour.

Moist banana cake made with ripe mashed bananas, buttermilk, and chopped walnuts, finished with buttercream frosting. The best use for those overripe bananas on your counter.

Chewy molasses ginger cookies spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves, then topped with a bright orange zest glaze. Buttermilk keeps them impossibly soft. Freezer-friendly!

Waldorf red cake is the original 1920s Waldorf-Astoria red velvet cake with cocoa, buttermilk, and vinegar, finished with the classic ermine (cooked flour) frosting that ages out a true red velvet from cream cheese cake.

Soft vanilla buttermilk cookies rolled in sparkly red and white sugar for a festive holiday crinkle cookie. Made with melted vanilla baking bar for a rich, melt-in-your-mouth texture.

Moist lemon blueberry cake with cornmeal, buttermilk, and fresh lemon zest. Bursting with 3 cups of blueberries, this from-scratch sheet cake has a golden crumb and bright citrus flavor in every slice.

English rocks cookies packed with candied cherries, candied pineapple, dates, and pecans in a spiced brown sugar-buttermilk batter. A dense, fruity holiday cookie baked low and slow.

Two-layer spice cake with cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and plumped raisins, frosted with Swiss meringue mocha buttercream. A showstopper dessert for serious bakers.

Chocolate fruitcake with cocoa, candied cherries, pecans, golden raisins, and mixed dried fruit, topped with a semisweet chocolate-almond glaze and toasted almonds.

Mom's yellow cake with butterscotch frosting is a three-layer buttermilk cake with folded egg whites for lightness, topped with a boiled brown sugar and butter frosting. A true from-scratch heirloom recipe.

Banana Coconut Bread with rum-soaked currants, warm cinnamon and fresh nutmeg, and sweetened coconut baked into the loaf and crisped on top. A deeply flavored tropical quick bread.

Coca-Cola marshmallow cake with hot nut icing: a Southern sheet cake made with cola in the batter, mini marshmallows folded through, and a warm fudge-pecan glaze poured over while still hot.