Recipe Sifter

Friendship starter applesauce cake spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves. A sourdough-style cake with deep apple flavor and optional nuts or raisins.

Gingerbread Skeleton cookies that kids can make with you together, it is full of fun to make, and it is worth the efforts!

Jefferson pie with brown sugar custard, dates, raisins, pecans, and warm spices in a flaky crust topped with meringue. A forgotten Southern heirloom dessert.

Pfeffernuesse (German pepper nut cookies) are tiny round spice cookies flavored with cinnamon, allspice, clove, nutmeg, and mace, finished with a drop of brandy before baking. A traditional Christmas cookie from Germany.

Classic shrimp creole with the holy trinity, stewed tomatoes, thyme, bay leaf, Worcestershire, and a dash of hot sauce over fluffy rice. A roux-thickened Louisiana staple that's on the table in 45 minutes.

Old-fashioned Pennsylvania steamed pudding with mashed carrots, suet, molasses, raisins, currants, and warm spices. Three hours of steaming yields a dense, spiced holiday treat.

Grandma Cottington's pumpkin pie is a heritage Thanksgiving classic: flaky butter-and-lard double crust, custardy pumpkin filling with cream, molasses, cinnamon, and allspice. Yields 2 pies.

Soft and scrumptious biscuits that can be served for breakfast, lunch or dinner!

Pumpkin cheesecake bars with a buttery pecan streusel crust, spiced with cinnamon and allspice. A fall baking favorite that's easier to make and share than a whole cheesecake.

Honey beer cake baked in a tube pan with apple butter, orange juice, walnuts, raisins, and warm spices. A dense, fragrant cake with five layers of sweetness and a beer-malt backbone.

Traditional English plum pudding, a steamed Christmas classic packed with raisins, currants, apples, walnuts, and beef suet. Spiced, dense, and deeply boozy-optional.

Spiced pumpkin cheesecake with a walnut graham crust and a buttery pecan praline topping. Thanksgiving-worthy dessert layered with cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and allspice.

Scotch mock apple pie: a Depression-era trick that uses soda crackers, lemon juice, and warm spices to taste exactly like apple pie. No apples required.

Carrot fruit cake loaded with raisins, candied fruit, and pecans in a spiced batter. No eggs needed. Soak with rum or brandy and store for up to 3 months.

Indian pot roast braises beef in rum or red wine with allspice, peppercorns, bay leaf, garlic, and horseradish, finished with carrots and steamed dumplings. A West Indies-influenced colonial-era recipe.

Traditional Panforte di Siena with toasted almonds, hazelnuts, candied orange peel, citron, cocoa, and honey syrup cooked to soft ball stage. A dense Italian Christmas confection.