Recipe Sifter

The perfect muffins for when you don't have time to sit down and enjoy a hearty breakfast.

Lebkuchen (German honey cakes) blend honey, brown sugar, lemon, almonds, citron, and warm spices into a chewy spice cookie cut into fancy holiday shapes. Traditional Christmas cookie from Nuremberg.

Italian almond-ricotta cake with lemon zest and juice throughout. Moist, tender cake with light crumb from folded egg whites, baked at low temperature.

Elegant layered chocolate mousse cake with praline rocher, rum syrup, and a glossy chocolate glaze. A showstopper French dessert.

Chewy almond paste macaroons with crackled tops and tender centers, baked from a homemade four-day-aged paste of blanched almonds and egg whites. The classic Italian-style cookie before the French sandwich version took over.

Paris-Brest style cream puff pastry: piped pâte à choux rings baked with slivered almonds, split and filled with pastry cream, dusted with powdered sugar. A French patisserie classic at home.

Italian frangipane custard with ground almonds, cooked like pastry cream then cut into squares. Traditional holiday treat similar to Turkish delight in texture.

Traditional poppy seed kolache with a buttery almond dough and homemade filling of poppy seeds, honey, dates, and nuts. A Czech-style pastry that makes 60 pieces.

Kushli are deep-fried Indian half-moon pastries stuffed with toasted coconut, almonds, semolina, sugar, cardamom, and raisins. Crisp, fragrant sweets for festivals and tea-time treats.

Classic German Lebkuchen: spiced honey bars with almonds and candied citrus peel, glazed with lemon icing and dotted with cherries. Centuries-old Nuremberg Christmas tradition.

Low-calorie applesauce raisin squares with whole wheat flour, natural bran, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg, topped with sliced almonds. Just 61 calories per square.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Santacafe recipe

Soft cherry muffins with maraschino cherries, almond extract, and a crunchy sugar-almond topping. Buttermilk keeps them tender while cherry juice adds a rosy sweetness.

Twice-baked Italian almond cookies studded with bright maraschino cherries, spiked with kirsch and Grand Marnier. Perfect holiday gift.

Napoleon's Hat cookies are Scandinavian butter cookies shaped like tricorn hats with a ground almond meringue filling peeking from the top. A traditional Swedish holiday cookie.

Cucidati, the traditional Sicilian Christmas fig cookies, with a rich filling of figs, raisins, nuts, chocolate and rum wrapped in tender pastry, shaped into slashed horseshoes and dusted with sugar.