Recipe Sifter

Chewy ginger cookies made with prune butter instead of fat, loaded with warm spices and molasses. Low-fat but big on flavor with crispy edges and soft centers.

Crispy Sri Lankan beef pasties with a spiced filling of minced beef, potato, curry leaves, cardamom, and coconut milk tucked into flaky homemade pastry and deep-fried golden.

Applesauce oatmeal cookies are soft, cakey, and warmly spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, studded with raisins and oats. Applesauce keeps them moist and tender with only a little shortening.

Low-fat oatmeal raisin cookies built on applesauce instead of butter, with cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, and orange zest. Soft, chewy, and warmly spiced.

Dark molasses gingerbread cookies spiced with cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. Dough chills overnight to develop flavor, then rolls out easily for classic cutout shapes. Makes 80 cookies.

Fresh apple chiffon cake, light and airy with shredded McIntosh apples, warm cinnamon and nutmeg, and a caramel drizzle. Whipped egg whites give this oil-based tube cake its tall, tender, moist crumb.

This spicy harvest bread is full of plump raisins and tart apples, then topped with nuts for a delicious crunch.

A warmly spiced brown sugar cake with chopped prunes, walnuts, and buttermilk baked in a 9-inch square pan. Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves fill every moist, tender bite. Serve with sour cream or whipped cream.

Christmas memory fruitcake steams then bakes a bourbon-soaked, dense old-fashioned fruitcake loaded with Brazil nuts, raisins, candied fruit, figs, and warming spices. Heirloom holiday recipe.

Spiced cranberry hazelnut bread with cinnamon, cloves, and orange juice baked into mini loaves. Wrapped in brandy-soaked cheesecloth, this holiday quick bread deepens in flavor for weeks.

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.

Buttermilk Christmas pudding: a warmly spiced, molasses-dark steamed pudding studded with raisins and made tender by buttermilk and suet. The traditional British holiday dessert, served with brandy sauce or custard.

Tart Granny Smith apples simmered in apple juice with cinnamon and nutmeg, topped with buttery oat crumble and tart dried cranberries. Warm autumn dessert ready in under an hour.

Sugar and spice molasses cookies for Christmas. Soft, chewy, rolled in cinnamon sugar before baking. Cinnamon, cloves, and ginger for warm holiday flavor.

Applesauce, quick oats and raisins flavored with warm cinnamon and cloves.

A simple and delicious snack that is perfect for long adventures or a night out on the porch.