Dessert Recipes

Layered ice cream loaf with chocolate and vanilla ice cream, crushed Oreos, chopped peanut butter cups, and banana slices, frozen and drizzled with hard shell chocolate.

Crisp, light date macaroons made with just four ingredients: egg whites, dates, nuts, and powdered sugar. Naturally flour-free and baked to a golden brown.

Salzburger Nockerln: Austrian meringue souffle baked into three fluffy peaks over a pool of butter and jelly. A centuries-old Salzburg dessert meant to be eaten the moment it leaves the oven.

Pretzel and peanut butter truffles roll crunchy peanut butter and chopped salted pretzels into bites, freeze them firm, and dip in melted milk chocolate. Three ingredients and no baking required.

Fig Star Cookies feature a maple-scented shortening dough wrapped around a homemade dried fig filling with lemon and nuts. A vintage holiday cookie worth the effort.

Cinnamon apple bundt cake made with whole wheat flour, fresh apple slices, walnuts, and apple juice. A lighter oil-based cake dusted with powdered sugar, best served warm.

Reduced-sugar oatmeal cake with rolled oats, raisins, molasses, and warming cinnamon and nutmeg. Egg whites and a sugar substitute keep things lean. The lighter take on a Southern church-supper classic.

Blended cherries and peaches with fresh orange juice, poured into custard glasses and topped with an orange wedge and whole cherry. A 10-minute Valentine's Day fruit dessert.

Cookie ice cream sandwiches made with slice-and-bake chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream. A two-ingredient frozen treat kids can help assemble in 20 minutes.

Creamy maple syrup pie with chopped walnuts in a silky custard filling. A Quebec-style tarte au sirop d’érable cooked in a double boiler for pure, unburnt maple flavor.

Big-batch melon and citrus fruit salad with honeydew, cantaloupe, oranges, grapefruit, pineapple, bananas, and cherries in fresh orange juice. Feeds 20 and keeps a week.

Georgia peach cream pie with a stovetop vanilla custard layered between fresh peach slices in a baked shell, finished with sweetened whipped cream. Old-fashioned summer pie that lets ripe peaches do the talking.

Mock apple pie made entirely from Ritz crackers, sugar syrup, and cinnamon. The Depression-era classic that fooled families when apples were scarce or expensive, still uncannily convincing today.

Three-ingredient chilled coffee caramel pudding with caramelized sweetened condensed milk, hot coffee, and chopped pecans. A retro dulce de leche dessert served in sherbet glasses.

Cranberry ice with raspberry wine or liqueur, churned in an ice cream maker for a tart, refreshing low-fat frozen dessert. Garnished with fresh mint and sugared cranberries.

Three-ingredient chocolate almond filling for cakes, pastries, and tortes: melted chocolate, butter, and toasted almonds blended into a spreadable ganache-like filling.