Recipe Sifter

Fresh apple and pecan cake packed with 4 cups of sliced apples and a full cup of nuts. Cinnamon-spiced, oil-based for a moist crumb that stays tender for days. Bakes in a 9x13 pan.

Pumpkin empanadas fold brandy-tender pastry around cinnamon-spiced pumpkin filling, bake golden, and get dusted with cinnamon sugar. Mexican Thanksgiving and fall dessert hand pie.

Homemade mincemeat with suet, currants, raisins, grated apples, candied citron, and warm spices. A meatless filling for pies and tarts that freezes beautifully or cans for long-term storage.

Just 4 ingredients: devil's food cake mix, melted butter, peanut butter, and marshmallow creme layered into gooey, fudgy bars. Makes 3 dozen in 40 minutes with zero mixer required.

Lincolnshire plum bread, a traditional English yeasted fruit loaf with prunes, currants, golden raisins, cinnamon, and allspice. A buttery, spiced bread that slices beautifully for tea.

Pico de gallo, the classic Mexican rooster's beak salsa, made with diced tomato, white onion, cilantro, serrano chiles, lime, and salt. Crisp, fresh, never mushy. The 10-minute taqueria staple.

No-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies with coconut, cocoa, and margarine boiled for 2 minutes then dropped onto wax paper. A classic fridge cookie ready in under an hour.

Fresh apple bundt cake packed with three cups of chopped apples and pecans in a thick, oil-based batter. More fruit than cake, with a dense, moist crumb that stays soft for days.

Vegetarian lentil pie in a whole wheat double crust with celery, Brazil nuts, soy sauce, and warming spices of cinnamon and cloves. A hearty meatless main with savory-sweet depth.

Holiday fruit cake bakes candied pineapple, red and green cherries, golden and dark raisins, pecans, and oats into a nutmeg-mace spiced loaf. Wraps and keeps for weeks.

Kentucky pecan cake with applesauce, cinnamon, and a full cup of chopped pecans, lightened with whipped egg whites and baked in a tube pan. A dense, spiced Southern cake dusted with powdered sugar.

Finikia are Greek torpedo-shaped semolina cookies scented with orange and cinnamon, baked golden then dipped in a honey-cinnamon syrup and rolled in sesame or walnuts. Traditional Christmas melomakarona.

Lemon semolina cookies with fresh zest, fresh juice, and a sandy crunch from durum flour. Italian-style slice-and-bake cookies with a chewy center and crystalline sugar top.

Chocolate-coconut cookies inspired by Almond Joy candy bars with sweetened condensed milk and whole almond garnish. No-fuss drop cookies ready in 12 minutes.

Moist cinnamon apple quick bread loaded with fresh chopped apples and nuts. Makes 2 loaves in just over an hour.

Classic Italian biscotti studded with toasted walnuts and star anise, double-baked until crisp for perfect dunking in coffee or wine.