Dessert/4 recipes

Rich chocolate drop cookies with a sour cream batter and glossy chocolate-coffee icing drizzled on top. Old-fashioned bakery-style cookies that melt on your tongue.

Crisp Italian pizzelle cookies with cocoa and cinnamon pressed into lacy, wafer-thin rounds. A chocolate twist on the classic holiday wafer cookie.

Scottish Empire cookies: buttery shortbread rounds sandwiched with raspberry jam, topped with a thin sugar glaze and colored sprinkles. A classic tea-time biscuit.

Prune Armagnac gingerbread is a deeply spiced holiday cake loaded with brandy-soaked prunes, three forms of ginger, molasses, and a coffee kick. Served with crème fraîche.

A Southern-style gooey butter cake with a yellow cake mix crust and a rich cream cheese, egg, and powdered sugar filling. Cut into bars for the ultimate sweet treat.

Tart apples baked with butter, plumped raisins, and lemon, then crowned with a golden meringue and served warm. An elegant, simple dessert that looks far harder than it is.

Classic Canadian Nanaimo bars with a chocolate-coconut-nut base, creamy custard powder buttercream middle, and a glossy semi-sweet chocolate top. No-bake and freezer-ready.

Waffle iron drop cookies: a chocolate cocoa cookie dough baked in 2 to 3 minutes in a waffle iron instead of an oven. Crisp, patterned, and ready faster than preheating.

Impossible cheesecake made in a blender with Bisquick, cream cheese, eggs, and milk. No crust to prepare separately. It forms its own base as it bakes, topped with sour cream.

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.

Peanut butter and chocolate sandwich cookies built from one clever dough split two ways, baked, then sandwiched around a soft marshmallow. A fun two-tone treat with the classic chocolate-PB combo.

A frozen no-bake pie with crushed malted milk balls folded into vanilla yogurt and whipped cream on a graham cracker crust. Nostalgic malt shop vibes in every creamy, crunchy slice.

Marbled pumpkin cheesecake swirls chocolate-pumpkin batter over plain pumpkin filling on a graham crust scattered with chocolate morsels. A Thanksgiving showstopper that earns its place at the dessert table.

This crumb cake is like a coffee cake, not too sweet, which fits my taste. I often eat it with a cup of coffee or tea in the afternoon. I do substitute raspberries or blackberries for blueberries depending on what berries I have on hand when I want to make it. No surprise, it comes out great every single time.

Old-fashioned date and nut drop cookies spiced with cinnamon and cloves, made with egg yolks and buttermilk. A chewy, fruit-studded holiday cookie with a nostalgic name.

Favourite lemon sponge pie is a heritage 8-ingredient dessert that bakes into two layers from a single filling. Tangy custard at the bottom, fluffy lemon sponge on top, all from one whole lemon.