Dessert/8 recipes

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.

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.

Southern chocolate chess pie: a one-bowl classic with butter, cocoa, sugar, eggs, and a touch of cornmeal in an unbaked pie shell. Crackly sugar top, fudgy interior.

Raspberry angel food cake with fresh berries folded directly into the whipped egg white batter. Light, fat-free, and bursting with pockets of fruit.

Old-fashioned date cake with chopped nuts and a warm date-sugar topping poured over straight from the oven. Serve with whipped cream for a rich, sticky finish.

Downeast blueberry bread pudding bakes wild Maine blueberries with stale white bread cubes and evaporated skim milk for a low-fat, low-sugar New England dessert.

Browned butter cookies with a nutty, toasted flavor baked into every bite. Simple thumbprint-style cookies made with just five ingredients and ready in under an hour.

No-bake layered dessert with sliced angel food cake, almond-scented pudding cream, and cherry pie filling stacked in a 9x13 pan. Chill, slice, and serve.

Whoopie pies sandwich two soft chocolate cake-cookies around a fluffy vanilla cream filling. Maine and Pennsylvania Dutch dessert with a cult following.

Eggless chocolate cake using vinegar and skim milk for tender, moist layers. A wartime-style two-layer cake with a light chocolate whipped frosting. Sixteen servings of nostalgia.

Crisp, lacy brandy wafers spiced with ginger and rolled into elegant tubes while still warm. Golden syrup gives them a buttery toffee crunch that shatters with every bite.

Texan fried pies stuffed with spiced dried apricot filling in a flaky, vinegar-laced pastry. Hand-held, golden-fried, and dusted with sugar. A classic Southern dessert from scratch.

Malted milk cookies stir malt powder into classic chocolate chip cookie dough for chewy results with the toasty, malty flavor of an old-fashioned milkshake.

Lemon meringue kisses baked low and slow until crisp and dry. Light-as-air cookies with lemon zest and vanilla from just five ingredients.

Crisp butter wafers pressed paper-thin and baked until barely golden. A simple six-ingredient cookie with a delicate snap and pure butter flavor.

Marshmallow cream chocolate cake whips egg whites with marshmallow fluff and folds in cocoa for a virtually fat-free chocolate cake with a soft, almost angel-food crumb.