Dessert recipes

Old-fashioned honey drop cookies with cinnamon, cloves, and raisins. No refined sugar at all. Soft, chewy, and warmly spiced with a caramel-like sweetness.

Dairy-free fruitcake with stewed raisins, cinnamon, and nutmeg, made without eggs, butter, or milk. A dense, spiced raisin cake where the stewing liquid adds moisture and natural sweetness.

Eggless cake made with brown sugar, raisins, and warm spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. No eggs, no butter, no dairy needed for this old-fashioned spice cake.

Graham cracker pie with a cinnamon crumb crust, creamy vanilla custard filling, and golden meringue topping. An old-fashioned custard pie with crumbs on top and bottom.

Sunshine orange cake made with fresh orange juice, raisins, and a hint of cinnamon. A lighter one-bowl cake with less sugar that's bright, citrusy, and needs no frosting.

Celebrate the Kentucky Derby with this famous apple pie.

Ossi di Morti (Bones of the Dead) Italian cookies flavored with cinnamon and clove oil, baked hard and meant to be dunked in coffee or tea. A traditional Italian All Souls Day treat.

Bizcochos are traditional New Mexican holiday cookies creamed with lard, scented with orange zest, baked golden, then rolled in cinnamon sugar. The state cookie of New Mexico for Christmas and weddings.

Mocha crumb cake built on a boxed cake mix spiked with cold coffee and warm spices, finished with a broiled brown sugar granola topping. A quick-to-mix sheet cake with bakery-style crunch.

Panforte is the dense, chewy Sienese Christmas cake packed with toasted hazelnuts and almonds, dates, cherries, cocoa, and warm spices, bound by hot honey caramel. A traditional Italian holiday confection.

Judith Olney's chocolate buttermilk cake is a tender triple-layer cake built on tangy buttermilk, a generous hit of cocoa, a whisper of cinnamon, and a splash of coffee that sharpens the chocolate into something deep and grown-up.

Zimtsterne are German cinnamon star cookies: a chewy ground-almond and cinnamon dough crowned with a crisp white meringue glaze. Naturally gluten-free and a staple of the German Christmas cookie tin.

Soft, cakey persimmon cookies made with ripe persimmon pulp, warm cinnamon, plump raisins and crunchy nuts. An old-fashioned drop cookie and a great way to use up overripe persimmons in autumn.

Mocha spice roll cake is a warmly spiced sponge rolled around billowy coffee-cocoa whipped cream, then frosted and fork-scored to look like a bark log. A holiday-ready bûche de Noël with cinnamon, clove, and allspice woven through.

Cinnamon sugar butter cookies rolled in spiced sugar and baked low for a soft, chewy center. Brown sugar dough gives these drop cookies deep caramel notes with a crackly cinnamon coating.

Pepparkakor, the thin and snappy Swedish spice cookies layered with ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg over deep molasses. Sliced from chilled logs and baked crisp. A classic Scandinavian Christmas treat.