Dessert Recipes

Grandma's jam cake, a Southern Appalachian heirloom spice cake folded with fruit jam, raisins, nuts, and warm cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Old-time celebration cake for caramel icing.

Hobo bread is an old-fashioned raisin quick bread that starts with an overnight soak of raisins in baking soda and boiling water. Dense, moist, and easily turned into a fruitcake.

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.

Mimi's bread pudding made with French bread soaked in evaporated milk, bananas, raisins, and a full ounce of vanilla. Served with a buttery whiskey sauce.

Soft yeast-leavened cookies sweetened with honey and cinnamon, made with multi-blend flour and raisins. Egg-free, dairy-free, and naturally sweetened with a bread-like chew.

This is a rich, interesting cookie, made with nuts, raisins, cinnamon, and jam rolled into a tender cream-cheese pastry.

Old fashioned fruit cake with blackberry jam, fig preserves, watermelon rind preserves, candied cherries, pecans, and cocoa. Baked low and slow in a cast iron skillet.

Old-fashioned hermit cookies with molasses, raisins, chopped nuts, and a warm spice blend of cloves, cinnamon, and ginger. A chewy New England classic rolled and cut from thick dough.

Crispy oatmeal cookies that spread thin with lacy, caramelized edges that shatter when you bite. A high butter-to-flour ratio and quick oats deliver crunch, not chew. Optional nuts and raisins.

Soft, spiced rhubarb drop cookies with warm cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove, plus walnuts, raisins, and a kick of crystallized ginger. A clever way to use up springtime rhubarb stalks.

This bread pudding is moist and incredibly flavorful with a crunchy top. I make it every Christmas, or whenever a baguette is left out for too long, not that that ever happens in our house.

Sweet! Super-Circle is made with honey, not refined sugar! Dense and intense, this 10-pounder is a scrumptious medley of flavors and textures. Can you say hearty, moist, chewy, crunchy, zesty and rich? The tangy frosting makes it sing!

Chewy peanut butter oatmeal cookies packed with chocolate chips and raisins. A one-bowl, drop cookie recipe that makes 3 dozen grab-and-go treats in just 30 minutes.

Whole wheat fruitcake packed with figs, dates, prunes, walnuts, and warm spices. No refined flour, naturally sweet from dried fruit for healthier holiday baking.

Whole-wheat oatmeal raisin cookies with walnuts, brown sugar, and quick oats. Chewy fiber-rich version of the classic, baked from a quick one-bowl batter.

Winter pie cooks raisins, finely chopped carrot, and apple with cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg in a spiced syrup, baked between two crusts. Thrifty old-fashioned mincemeat-style pie without the meat.