Dessert recipes

Choux pastry puffs studded with chocolate chips and dusted with powdered sugar create elegant French-inspired cookies that look harder to make than they are.

Chocolate truffle pie with a chocolate wafer crust and a no-bake filling of unsweetened chocolate, sweetened condensed milk, gelatin, and whipped topping. Dense, silky, and make-ahead friendly.

Classic Italian aniseed cookies (anisbroetli or anise drops) made with whipped eggs, powdered sugar, and ground anise, dried overnight before baking for the signature crisp shell and soft middle.

Chocolate malt shoppe pie is a frozen dessert with a chocolate cookie crust, vanilla ice cream layer studded with crushed Whoppers, and a fluffy malted whipped cream topping. Tastes like a chocolate malt in pie form. No baking required.

Berlin Doughnuts (Bismarks) are classic German jam-filled yeasted doughnuts with rum extract and orange juice in the dough, deep-fried and sugared. Makes 12 pillowy doughnuts.

Warm pudding cake studded with chopped apples, served with homemade cinnamon butter sauce. The cake bakes up tender with brown sugar and spices. Drizzle the hot sauce over each slice.

A flourless-style chocolate cake with ground almonds, rum-soaked currants, and pine nuts on top. Bittersweet chocolate and whipped egg whites create an intensely fudgy, gluten-light torte.

Crumb-nut cheesecake crust made with finely ground pecans, vanilla wafer crumbs, powdered sugar, and melted butter. A rich, nutty base for any cheesecake.

Maple chiffon pie sets a light, mousse-like maple custard into a baked pie shell using gelatin, beaten egg whites, and whipped cream. The flavor is pure Vermont sugar shack in cloud form.

Butter cream banded fudge cake with a hidden cream cheese ribbon swirled through dark chocolate batter, topped with chocolate fudge frosting. A three-layer 13x9 sheet cake with a surprise inside.

Semi-homemade marble cake with swirls of cinnamon and melted chocolate, drizzled with a glossy cinnamon-chocolate glaze. Starts with a pound cake mix for easy baking.

Red velvet pound cake baked low and slow in a tube pan with cocoa, shortening, and seven eggs for a dense, velvety crumb. Topped with cream cheese icing.

Whisky fudge cake with melted chocolate, 16 eggs, and a generous pour of whisky baked into a dense, rich sponge. Served with clotted cream for a showstopping British-style dessert.

Baked peaches from the Piedmont filled with crushed amaretti cookies, peach puree, sugar, and egg yolk. A classic Northern Italian summer dessert that's elegant and simple.

Peace Pie layers mincemeat and spiced pumpkin custard in a single pie shell for a holiday mashup that combines two Thanksgiving favorites in every slice.

Light-as-air sourdough chiffon cake with a subtle tang from sourdough starter, brightened by lemon juice and vanilla. Baked in a tube pan for sky-high lift and a cloud-soft crumb.