Dessert Recipes

This very rich cake from the West Indies is ideal for those who prefer not to ice their Christmas cakes.

A traditional English fruit loaf where dried fruit soaks overnight in hot tea, then bakes low and slow with self-rising flour, mixed spice, nutmeg, and marmalade. No butter needed. Keeps brilliantly.

Punchbowl Cake layers crumbled yellow cake, vanilla pudding, cherry pie filling, crushed pineapple, bananas, coconut, and pecans in a stunning no-bake party dessert. A Southern crowd-pleaser that feeds a crowd.

Chewy date and nut cookie balls rolled in powdered sugar. Baked in a sheet pan, cut into squares while hot, then shaped by hand into bite-sized treats with almond extract and corn syrup.

Chewy ginger cookies made with prune butter instead of fat, loaded with warm spices and molasses. Low-fat but big on flavor with crispy edges and soft centers.

Classic Southern sweet potato pie with boiled sweet potatoes whipped smooth with butter, sugar, cinnamon, evaporated milk, eggs, and vanilla. This recipe makes two pies, because one is never enough.

Seedless blackberry ice cream made by straining the berries through cheesecloth, simmering the juice into syrup, and folding into heavy cream. Smooth, intensely fruity, and free of seedy texture.

Oatmeal cookies with dried cranberries and three warm spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom. The chewy holiday-leaning take on the classic. Four dozen per batch.

Nut horns are Eastern European cream cheese pastries filled with a sweet walnut meringue filling. The dough chills overnight for a flaky, tender bite that melts in your mouth.

A rich, fudgy chocolate sheet cake with sour cream baked in a jelly roll pan and slathered with a creamy peanut butter chip frosting. Feeds a crowd and travels like a dream.

Three-layer carrot cake with crushed pineapple, walnuts, and a tangy cream cheese frosting topped with toasted coconut. A moist, towering carrot cake for birthdays, Easter, and holiday tables.

Christmas memory fruitcake steams then bakes a bourbon-soaked, dense old-fashioned fruitcake loaded with Brazil nuts, raisins, candied fruit, figs, and warming spices. Heirloom holiday recipe.

Rolled baklava: walnut, sugar, and cinnamon spiraled inside crisp phyllo, sliced into bite-size pinwheels, baked, and soaked in honey syrup. An easier take on classic baklava, finished with sesame and an apricot glaze.

Prize-winning cherry pie with a glossy filling thickened on the stovetop with grenadine syrup, almond extract, and butter, then baked in a flaky double crust until golden.

No-bake graham cracker fruitcake with maraschino cherries, raisins, chopped nuts, and a marshmallow-butter binder. A retro holiday icebox cake with no oven required.

George Washington cake is a moist, cinnamon-spiced apple cake baked over a layer of sliced apples, then crowned with tangy cream cheese frosting and a fan of fresh apple slices. A festive Christmas dessert.