Baked goods recipes

Ultra-tender shortbread cookies with a full pound of unsalted butter, sweetened condensed milk, and cornstarch for a melt-on-your-tongue crumble. Baked low and slow until barely golden.

Thick, fudgy peppermint pattie brownies with a whole layer of York-style mint candies sandwiched between cocoa batter. Makes 36 squares for parties and bake sales.

Buttery Italian-style shortbread cookies made with powdered sugar, vanilla, and three-quarters of a pound of real butter. Chill the dough, roll it out, cut your favorite shapes, and bake until golden.

Light chocolate layer cake filled with whipped citrus cream and mandarin orange segments. Made with egg substitute and skim milk, this stunning low-fat dessert tastes far more indulgent than it is.

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.

Steakhouse-style garlic cheese bread loaded with Asiago, Monterey Jack, mayo, green onions, and pureed garlic on French bread. Baked then broiled until bubbly and golden. A Black Angus copycat.

Lady Baltimore cake is a tall white layer cake filled with fruit and nuts, then covered in fluffy boiled icing. The genteel Charleston dessert that's been a Southern wedding cake for over a century.

The easiest brownie pie you'll ever make: boxed brownie mix poured into frozen pie shells with chopped nuts and baked slightly underdone for a fudgy center. Makes 2 pies. Serve with mocha ice cream.

Easy 3-ingredient shortbread with a tender, sandy crumb. Just flour, fruit sugar, and butter rubbed together, then baked low and slow until the edges turn pale gold. Classic Scottish simplicity, no mixer needed.

Old-fashioned slice-and-bake butterscotch cookies loaded with brown sugar and chopped nuts. Chill the dough in a log, slice into rounds, and bake in just 10 minutes.

Filled devil dogs are homemade chocolate sandwich cookies with a fluffy cooked-flour cream filling. A nostalgic copycat of the classic Drake's snack cake, soft, cocoa-rich, and bakery-fresh.

Maple glazed pumpkin ring cake with brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, and real maple syrup in both the batter and the sour cream glaze.

Peppermint pinwheel cookies with mint extract, rolled into red and white (or green) spirals and sliced. A festive holiday cookie that's all about the swirl.

Fruit pockets are tender biscuit-style pastries folded around a spiced filling of raisins, currants, citron, and nuts. A vintage British-style hand pie with warm cinnamon and clove.

Easy Bake Oven chocolate cake made from scratch with just six pantry ingredients. A simple homemade mix replacement so kids can bake without the store-bought packets.

Homemade fortune cookies with cake flour, egg whites, and vanilla, folded warm around personal messages. A crisp Chinese-American treat that turns dessert into a paper-tucked surprise.