Dessert Recipes

Pumpkin pie with ginger cookie crust trades pastry for crushed gingersnaps and lightens the filling with applesauce, maple syrup, and egg whites. A holiday pie with serious spice and a leaner profile.

Low-fat double chocolate brownies that don't taste like a compromise: unsweetened chocolate, cocoa, and chocolate chips with applesauce standing in for most of the butter. Rich, fudgy, and made with whole wheat flour.

Reduced fat brownies made with applesauce, cocoa powder, and melted unsweetened chocolate. Fudgy and rich with less oil, topped with toasted walnuts.

Lighter poke cake built on a yellow cake mix doctored with lemon gelatin, applesauce, and egg substitute, then drenched in a citrus glaze that soaks into every fork-pricked hole. Tangy, moist, easy.

Low-cal brownies: a quick blender batter that swaps applesauce for butter and a sugar substitute for sugar, baked into a light chocolate fix. A guilt-free brownie ready in about 30 minutes.

Chunky apple butter made overnight in a crockpot with Granny Smith apples, applesauce, brown sugar, and warm spices. Set it before bed and wake up to fall in a jar.

Maple-apple oatmeal cookies with real maple syrup, fresh apples, applesauce, currants, and a crunchy oat-brown sugar topping. Soft, cakey fall cookies baked low and slow.

Whole-wheat sourdough applesauce cake bakes up moist and tender in a tube pan, with cinnamon, allspice, and clove warming a tangy starter-and-applesauce batter. A bundt-shaped keeper for fall.

Applesauce snack cake starts with a box cake mix boosted with applesauce, warm spices, raisins, and nuts for a moist, spiced sheet cake. A semi-homemade shortcut that tastes fully from scratch.

Soft drop cookies packed with applesauce, plump raisins, and crunchy nuts, spiced with cinnamon and cloves for old-fashioned charm.

Spiced applesauce bars studded with raisins and walnuts, topped with decorative walnut halves before baking into soft squares.

Lightly spiced bars made with apricot nectar and dried apricots, finished with a tangy apricot glaze for double the fruit flavor.

Entertain your family this Christmas with this exotic cake that's so easy to make, you can use your crockpot!

Frosted applesauce cookies with molasses, bran flakes, raisins, and a boiled caramel frosting. Soft, spiced drop cookies with warm allspice and clove flavors topped with buttery brown sugar icing.

Low fat fudge brownie sundae cake is made with cocoa powder, low-fat milk and applesauce.

Iowa applesauce cake, a moist spiced sheet cake with raisins and walnuts, crowned with tangy cream cheese frosting and dusted through a paper doily. Heartland baking at its cozy best.