Baked Good Recipes

Crunchy bran muffins with a brown-sugar streusel topping over a moist, tender crumb. The bran cereal soaks in hot milk first, so these high-fiber breakfast muffins never turn out dry or gritty.

Homemade boiled and baked bagels with a chewy crust and dense crumb. Shaped by hand, simmered in sugar water, and finished with sesame, poppy, or caraway seeds.

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.

Italian macaroons made from almond paste kneaded with egg whites and sugar, baked into chewy, fragrant amaretti-style cookies. A short rest before baking gives them their crackly top and tender center.

Southern Japanese fruitcake: a 4-layer cake alternating plain butter cake with spiced pecan-and-raisin layers, bound by a thick lemon-coconut filling. A vintage Christmas dessert from the American South with a name that has nothing to do with Japan.

Ultimate everything cookies: ground oatmeal, chocolate chips, grated chocolate bar, and chopped nuts in buttery dough baked to golden perfection in just six minutes.

This is the second recipe I'll post tonight--promised it to AH earlier tonight. My mother found this recipe 35 or so years ago in a magazine and it has become a family favorite. For years she only made it at Thanksgiving until I took over the baking reigns in the family; now she makes it more often especially when my brother, Lewis, is going to be in.

Flaky cream cheese pastry turnovers filled with homemade apricot filling, sealed like hand pies, and iced with powdered sugar.

Loaf leavened with yeast. Requires a bread machine. Here's one of my favorite breads to make. The trick here is to use stone ground cornmeal, not the powdered/bleached variety. It gives the bread a great flavor, and a really nice coarse texture. The combination of ingredients give it a very different flavor than standard banana/nut or pan-baked corn bread.

Rich chocolate bundt cake packed with chocolate chips, pecans, and sour cream, soaked in butterscotch cream and topped with whipped cream and crushed Heath bar. Triple-threat decadence.

Real butterscotch pie made the old-fashioned way with brown sugar and butter melted in a cast iron skillet, topped with golden meringue. No pudding mix, no shortcuts, just pure caramelized flavor in every slice.

No-bake bourbon balls rolled in powdered sugar with crushed vanilla wafers, cocoa, and chopped nuts. A boozy Southern holiday treat ready in 20 minutes flat.

Rich flourless bittersweet chocolate cakes molded in heart shapes, served on a silky pistachio custard sauce. An elegant make-ahead French-inspired dessert that chills for 24 hours before its grand reveal.

Crispy baked Cornflake Cookies with buttery pecans and vanilla. These crumbly drop cookies bake golden in 12-15 minutes for quick homemade treats.

Crushed Heath bars stud creamy vanilla pudding layered over a buttery graham cracker crust, all topped with billowy whipped cream and a drizzle of caramel. This no-bake stunner comes together in minutes but tastes like you fussed for hours.

Healthy and delicious muffins are great for breakfast to start the day!