Dessert Recipes

Pots de creme pie with a pound of dark Belgian chocolate, heavy cream, half-and-half, and ten egg yolks set into a graham cracker crust. Decadent French chocolate pie for serious chocolate lovers.

Enhanced prune filling for hamantaschen with chopped raisins, nuts, lemon juice, and nutmeg. A quick upgrade to jarred filling that takes 5 minutes.

Pure fruit cookies sweetened only with mashed bananas and dried fruit. No added sugar, made with oats, nuts, and chopped apricots, raisins, or dates.

Homemade whipped cream beats heavy cream with powdered sugar and vanilla into pillowy soft peaks. Three ingredients, ready in 5 minutes, no canned topping required.

Scotcheroos: classic no-bake peanut butter rice crispy bars topped with melted chocolate and butterscotch chips. The chewy Midwest church-basement bar that disappears in minutes.

Classic short pastry crust with cold butter and shortening cut into flour. The flaky, buttery, all-purpose pie shell that works for sweet pies, quiches, and tarts alike.

Slice and bake gingersnap cookies with molasses, ginger, and cinnamon. Make the dough, freeze in logs, and bake fresh cookies anytime for up to six months.

Soft molasses cookies use sour cream and a generous pour of molasses for the pillow-soft texture grandmas swore by. Spiced with ginger and nutmeg, rolled and cut from a chilled dough.

Old-fashioned Southern cream cookies made with sour cream, walnuts, and pressed flat with a cinnamon-sugar glass. Soft, cakey drop cookies that yield six dozen from one batch.

Thumbprint snowball cookies with walnuts, cinnamon, and lemon zest in the dough, filled with raspberry jam and dusted with powdered sugar. A festive holiday cookie.

Velvet devil's food layer cake with coffee and cocoa for deep chocolate flavor, plus a silky coffee buttercream frosting. A bakery-style two-layer showstopper (Part 1).

Microwave brownies a la mode bake fudgy chocolate squares in just 6 minutes, served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. A no-oven dessert for hot nights or college kitchens.

Eggy little chocolate pancakes that double as breakfast or sandwich cookies. Quick to mix, fast to cook, and finished with chocolate sauce or sandwiched with buttercream once chilled.

Very, very good. I used 1/2 semi sweet and 1/2 bittersweet - more of a sophisticated flavor. It was yummy. Stick to the milk chocolate or semi-sweet for the kids though. Besides a variety of fruit, I bought those little creme puffs in the freezer section - they were delicious dipped in the chocolate!

Old-fashioned chocolate nut brownies built on melted unsweetened chocolate, butter, and a single bowl. Dense, fudgy bars dusted with powdered sugar, no cocoa powder shortcuts.

Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies loaded with chopped pecans and semisweet chocolate. Butter and shortening create a crisp edge with a soft, nutty center.