Dessert Recipes

Chocolate chunk cookies with semi-sweet chocolate, brown sugar, and a full cup of butter. Thick, chewy, and loaded with big chocolate pieces in every bite.

Old-fashioned unleavened seed cake with caraway seeds, candied orange peel, mace, and chopped nuts. No baking powder needed, whipped egg whites provide the lift.

Upside-down apple gingerbread with sliced apples in brown sugar on the bottom, topped with a spiced molasses cake made with hot tea. A warm fall dessert inverted onto a plate.

Van's Faves are crisp lace-thin oat cookies scented with orange zest and finished with a chocolate drizzle. Eight ingredients, big crunch, and an old-fashioned tin-cookie feel.

Vanilla pecan slice-and-bake cookies from a make-ahead dough that chills into logs and freezes for up to 3 months. Crisp, buttery icebox cookies baked from frozen in 12 minutes.

Classic vanilla spritz cookies with rich buttery flavor from whole eggs. Press into festive shapes for Christmas cookie exchanges or year-round celebrations.

Hand-shaped vanilla almond cookies baked low and slow for a tender, shortbread-like crumb. Simple butter cookie dough with finely chopped almonds throughout.

Vegetarian mincemeat made with fresh pears, dried fruit, candied cherries, almonds, and a splash of whiskey. No suet needed. Spiced with allspice, nutmeg, and ginger for traditional Christmas mince pies.

Vegetarian mincemeat with fresh pears, mixed dried fruit, candied peel, glace cherries, dates, almonds, citrus zest, and whiskey. A meat-free version of the British holiday classic.

Velvet cake is a flourless-style chocolate showpiece pooled over white chocolate and raspberry sauces. Dense, fudgy, and made with just six ingredients in the cake itself, it slices like a torte and tastes like ganache.

Warm spices meet shredded coconut and molasses in this richly layered cake, topped with a tangy cream cheese orange frosting and a candied orange rose garnish that steals the show.

Versoffene Jungfern: a German dessert sauce of spiced red wine reduced with cinnamon, clove, and lemon zest, poured hot over fresh dumplings. Simple, warming, and ready in 40 minutes.

A creamy water-bath cheesecake with a walnut graham cracker crust, lemony cream cheese and cottage cheese filling, topped with fresh berries and double strawberry sauce.

No-bake strawberry cheesecake with cream cheese, whipped cream, and frozen strawberries set with gelatin on a graham cracker crust. Light, creamy, and smooth.

Bakery-style chocolate chip cookies with chocolate chunks and ground toasted almonds in the dough. Low-temperature bake for thick, chewy centers with crisp golden edges.

Flaky, buttery pastry triangles filled with jam and kissed with orange zest. A classic Austrian cookie that uses hard-cooked egg yolks for an impossibly tender dough.