Goose recipes

Buttery nut ball cookies rolled in powdered sugar, also called Russian tea cakes or Mexican wedding cookies. Six ingredients, no eggs, and they melt in your mouth.

Phyllis's avocado quick bread with mashed ripe avocado, sour milk, pecans, and a mix of unbleached and whole wheat pastry flour. Faintly green, tender, and a clever way to use up an over-ripe avocado.

All-purpose pie pastry combining vegetable shortening and butter for the best of both fats: shortening for tenderness, butter for flavor. Makes enough for two double-crust pies.

Glazed honey spice cookies with cinnamon, cloves, mace, and allspice, finished with a thin vanilla sugar glaze. Old-world cookies that bake up firm, keep beautifully, and taste better the day after baking.

Cherry pineapple dump cake: the legendary five-ingredient potluck dessert. Dump canned fruit and yellow cake mix in a pan, dot with butter, scatter nuts, and bake. No mixing bowl required.

Lite 'n easy crustless pumpkin pie sets pumpkin puree with skim evaporated milk, gelatin, and brown sugar substitute. No crust, no oven, no eggs. A 7-ingredient dessert friendly to weight watchers and diabetics.

Classic Toll House marble squares: a buttery blondie base swirled with melted chocolate chips and chopped nuts. The melt-and-marble trick gives every bite ribbons of chocolate without overpowering.

Classic anise pizzelles made with a full ounce of anise extract, butter, and a touch of lemon. Thin, crisp Italian wafer cookies pressed in a pizzelle iron in 30 seconds each.

These banana fritters stay crispy thanks to a flour-dusted coating under a light egg-and-milk batter. Deep-fried golden in minutes and served hot for a crunchy, sweet snack or dessert.

Rhubarb-apple bread with tart rhubarb and sweet apples in a spiced quick bread with cinnamon, cloves, and chopped nuts. Makes two loaves that keep for 10 days refrigerated.

Gery's cheesecake is a classic New York-style cream cheese filling baked in a deep-dish graham crust, finished with a tangy sour cream topping. The diner-counter cheesecake your grandmother kept in her recipe box.

Light currant bran muffins made with buttermilk, egg whites, molasses, and safflower oil. Drop-style batter chills 4 hours for a crispy edge and chewy center. Low-fat and fiber-rich.

Kentucky bourbon balls with pecans soaked in real bourbon, rolled in a buttery powdered-sugar fondant, then dipped in semi-sweet chocolate for that signature glossy shell. A classic Southern holiday confection worth the wait.

A traditional English fruit loaf where dried fruit soaks overnight in hot tea, then bakes low and slow with self-rising flour, mixed spice, nutmeg, and marmalade. No butter needed. Keeps brilliantly.

Mocha spice roll cake is a warmly spiced sponge rolled around billowy coffee-cocoa whipped cream, then frosted and fork-scored to look like a bark log. A holiday-ready bûche de Noël with cinnamon, clove, and allspice woven through.

Authentic springerle, the embossed German anise Christmas cookies. Egg dough pressed with carved molds, dried overnight, then baked low so the white design stays crisp. Aged to mellow the flavor.