Dessert Recipes

Coconut pecan upside-down cake with chocolate chips, dark brown sugar, and a tender vanilla butter cake. Like a German chocolate cake meets a skillet dessert.

Old-fashioned honey drop cookies with cinnamon, cloves, and raisins. No refined sugar at all. Soft, chewy, and warmly spiced with a caramel-like sweetness.

Grizzlenuckles are no-fuss cookie bars made with sweetened condensed milk, graham cracker crumbs, coconut, and chocolate chips. Mix, bake, dust with powdered sugar, done.

Apple-nut cinnamon streusel cake is a sour cream coffee cake folded with chopped apples and toasted sunflower seeds, finished with a cinnamon brown sugar streusel topping. Brunch and breakfast worthy.

Italian gocci di cioccolata, chocolate drop cookies spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, baked soft and finished with a glaze. Old-world Italian drop cookie with warm holiday flavor.

Fresh raspberries nestled in a toasted walnut crust and covered with silky white chocolate ganache. This elegant make-ahead tart chills overnight and serves beautifully for any special occasion.

Chocolate mocha mousse: a French-style chocolate mousse with strong coffee, butter, egg yolks, and clouds of whipped cream and stiff egg white. The classic dinner-party finale, made the proper way.

It's light, fast, and a perfect complement to pies, puddings, and fruit compotes.

Rhubarb upside down cake with a cinnamon-butter base, light muscovado sugar, and an almond shortcake topping. Serve warm with fromage frais for a British-style spring dessert.

Two-layered Thai steamed coconut cups with a dark brown sugar coconut base and a creamy white coconut cream topping. A traditional vegetarian Thai dessert made with rice flour, naturally gluten-free.

Flaky pastry squares layered with spiced apple filling and crumbly streusel topping, drizzled with vanilla glaze. These hand-held treats bake up golden and taste like portable apple pie.

Sour cream blueberry cake with a buttery shortbread-style base, fresh blueberries, and a rich sour cream custard topping. A European-style fruit cake baked in a springform pan.

Zuleika cake is a flourless almond cake with a tender, macaroon-like base crowned with a rich cooked egg yolk cream and toasted almonds. Naturally gluten-free and best made a day ahead.

Golden Apple custard pie with thinly sliced apples in a silky vanilla-cream custard, baked in a water bath until just set. Bistro-style French dessert with a golden top and fragrant nutmeg.

Chocolate truffle cake à la Café de Paris: layered chocolate cake split and filled with a glossy chocolate-fondant-cream ganache, chilled overnight for clean truffle slices.

hese are perfect for serving with coffee and dessert, and I include them in boxes of home-made assorted cookies for gift giving