Dessert/9 recipes

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.

Raspberry meringue cookies piped into rosettes and baked low and slow until crisp. Light as air with real raspberry preserves folded into the meringue.

Mom's red velvet cake with old-fashioned ermine frosting (the original red velvet topping). Buttermilk, cocoa, and vinegar give the cake its signature tang and tender crumb.

Nut gingerbread with molasses, brown sugar, and ground ginger topped with chopped nuts and a brown sugar crust. A warmly spiced, old-fashioned cake that fills the kitchen with aroma.

Classic 4-ingredient butter shortbread with a sandy, melt-in-your-mouth crumb. Just butter, sugar, flour, and salt baked to pale gold. The quintessential teatime cookie from Bon Appetit, ready in 30 minutes.

Irish Porter Cake is a dense, dark fruit cake made with Guinness, currants, raisins, mixed peel, and warm spices. Bakes for up to 3 hours, then rests a full week before cutting.

Maryanne's cheesecake: a low-and-slow New York-style cheesecake with cream cheese, sour cream, butter, and lemon zest on a buttery graham cracker crust. Baked gently for an ultra-silky texture.

Butter-rich nutmeg sugar cookies made with a blend of all-purpose and cake flour, rolled thin, and topped with a sparkling sugar crust. Crisp, fragrant, and deeply buttery.

Shamrock cookies for St. Patrick's Day, a tender mint-scented shortbread tinted green, shaped from three little dough balls plus a stem and dusted with green sugar. A fun holiday baking project.

Fresh strawberries macerated with thin orange slices, orange juice, and sweet vermouth for a boozy, citrus-kissed fruit dessert. Diabetic-friendly with optional sweetener.

Sweet noodle kugel layered with cottage cheese, sour cream, raisins, and vanilla, then rested overnight and baked into a golden cinnamon-sugar-topped Jewish holiday classic.

German chocolate pretzel cookies (Schokoladenpretzel) hand-shaped from cocoa dough and topped with cocoa frosting. A fun baking project that makes about 2 dozen pretzel-shaped cookies.

Jam-filled spice cookies with cinnamon, ginger, and cloves sandwiched with apricot or raspberry preserves. Buttery shortbread-style cutout cookies with a stained-glass window center.

Soft, chewy drop cookies packed with chopped figs, molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger with hints of lemon and vanilla. An old-fashioned spiced fig cookie recipe that makes 2 dozen.

Peach nutmeg frappe blended with vanilla ice cream, skim milk, and a pinch of nutmeg. A creamy frozen peach milkshake ready in 10 minutes with fresh or frozen peaches.

Classic butter cookies with a hint of orange juice and vanilla, rolled and cut into shapes, then topped with a creamy buttercream frosting. A versatile holiday cookie perfect for decorating.