Dessert Recipes

No-bake peppermint cheesecake with crushed candy canes, milk chocolate chunks, and whipped cream on a chocolate wafer crust. Set with gelatin, no oven needed for the filling.

Slice-and-bake coffee cookies with brown sugar, rum extract, and nutmeg. Roll the logs in chocolate sprinkles or dip baked cookies in melted chocolate. Makes about 60.

Mom's apple cookies are soft, cake-like drop cookies with grated fresh apple, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and walnuts. Old-fashioned spiced bakery flavor from a lunchbox-friendly batch of three dozen.

Lighter cranberry apple cookies made with egg whites and skim milk, loaded with fresh fruit, cinnamon, and orange zest. A guilt-free holiday cookie that yields 2 dozen.

Old-fashioned blueberry cake topped with hard sauce and a hot lemon-blueberry compote that melts the butter into the warm cake. A classic New England dessert with bright berry flavor.

Rich chocolate bundt cake studded with nuts and crowned with a velvety mocha cream cheese frosting. Inspired by the legendary Waldorf Astoria, this showstopper is pure old-school elegance.

Crisp, lacy Italian pizzelle cookies flavored with anise and lemon, pressed golden on a traditional pizzelle iron. These thin wafer cookies are an Italian-American holiday staple your nonna would approve of.

Italian biscotti loaded with almonds, hazelnuts, and pine nuts, scented with orange zest and Godiva chocolate liqueur. Twice-baked for the classic dunkable crunch.

Buttery caramel macadamia shortbread made with brown sugar, rice flour, and cornstarch for a melt-in-your-mouth crumble. Bakes in one pan and cuts into 25 bars.

Three-layer banana cake with bourbon, pecans, and a buttermilk-tender crumb. A Southern-style celebration cake that fills three 9-inch rounds with deep banana flavor.

Biscotti nocciole cioccolato, Italian hazelnut chocolate biscotti twice-baked with Frangelico liqueur. Crisp, dippable, coffee-shop style cookies that keep for weeks.

A traditional Irish oatmeal cream dessert from County Donegal. Pinhead oats soaked in milk, folded with whipped cream, orange zest, and a whisper of lemon. Silky, set, and topped with fruit sauce.

Instead of pumpkin pie, try this coconut pumpkin tart.

Key lime pie from the Pierhouse in the Florida Keys, a custardy filling of sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks and tart key lime juice in a graham cracker crust. Finished with a reduced lime syrup glaze.

Greek kadaifi pastry with shredded dough layered around a cinnamon-almond filling, baked golden and soaked in honey-lemon syrup. A baklava cousin.

Pumpkin cookies with caramel frosting, they're so good it's hard to eat just one. Great to make in a advance and freeze.