Recipe Sifter

Sopaipillas are puffy fried bread pillows made from a simple dough of flour, baking powder, shortening, and milk. Light, hollow, and golden, perfect drizzled with honey.

Hearty double-crusted spinach quiche packed with feta, melted cheese, scallions, and five boxes of spinach between layers of homemade shortening crust. A Greek-inspired savory pie that feeds a crowd.

Quick apple scones with chopped apple, sweet raisins, and warm cinnamon. Built like a pie crust with vegetable shortening and apple juice, no dairy required, ready in 30 minutes.

Maine apple bread studded with red apple chunks and walnuts, made with sour milk for a tender crumb. A classic New England quick bread baked in one loaf pan.

Molasses cookies with a surprising hit of mint extract, warm cinnamon, ginger, and clove. Crackly sugar-rolled tops and chewy spiced centers.

Old-fashioned cake doughnuts made with cooked winter squash, cinnamon, and nutmeg, fried golden brown. These tender, spiced doughnuts taste like autumn and make about 2 1/2 dozen from a single batch.

Maple ginger snap cookies rolled in cinnamon sugar with real maple syrup, ground ginger, cloves, and cinnamon. Crispy, spiced, and coated in a sparkly sugar crust.

Chocolate pecan cookie slices shaped into logs, baked, then cut on the diagonal and drizzled with white chocolate. A slice-and-bake method that yields 40 elegant cookies.

Mexican flag cookies bake a coconut-extract sheet cookie cut into 3x4 rectangles, then decorate with green, white, and red icing stripes plus a chocolate eagle. Cinco de Mayo party favorite.

Whole-wheat sourdough applesauce cake bakes up moist and tender in a tube pan, with cinnamon, allspice, and clove warming a tangy starter-and-applesauce batter. A bundt-shaped keeper for fall.

Mandelbreit is a Jewish almond bread sliced twice-baked style with three fillings: cocoa, walnuts, and candied fruit. Aging the rolls in foil for a week deepens the flavor.

Homemade fig newtons sandwich a soft fig filling between tender vanilla cookie dough layers. The classic boxed-cookie remade from scratch with just nine pantry ingredients.

Blackberry cream nut tart with a flaky shortening crust, white chocolate cream cheese filling, boysenberry-glazed blackberries, and a walnut lattice topping.

Quick raisin bread made with buttermilk, cereal flakes, and no yeast. A simple batter loaf with plump raisins throughout that bakes in one hour with zero rise time.

Basic berry dumpling wraps cinnamon-spiced blueberries in a tender shortening pastry, baked into a rustic single-pan dessert. A folded-corner cobbler-meets-pie that's ready in an hour.

These muffins are moist and very tasty. You can use either fresh or frozen strawberries. The sugared almonds give them a nice crunchy topping. They are great for a mid-morning snack with a friend.