Dessert/5 recipes

Crisp cocoa-almond cookies filled with white chocolate ganache. Slice-and-bake dough makes shaping simple, and the thin, snappy wafers pair beautifully with the creamy filling.

Soft drop cookies packed with applesauce, plump raisins, and crunchy nuts, spiced with cinnamon and cloves for old-fashioned charm.

The laziest, most crowd-pleasing dessert you'll ever make. Cherry pie filling, crushed pineapple, yellow cake mix, melted butter, coconut, and pecans. Just layer, dump, and bake.

Pecan praline cookie pizza with a buttery brown sugar shortbread crust, sour cream topping, and toasted pecans. A festive dessert that slices into wedges like a pie.

Maple-apple oatmeal cookies with real maple syrup, fresh apples, applesauce, currants, and a crunchy oat-brown sugar topping. Soft, cakey fall cookies baked low and slow.

Macerated strawberries spooned into sherbet dishes and draped with a brandy-kissed yogurt cream, then scattered with sliced almonds and chocolate shavings. An Italian no-cook dessert ready in 30 minutes.

Maria's Ischli cookies are Austrian sandwich cookies with ground hazelnuts or almonds, filled with raspberry jam and topped with chocolate icing. A classic European holiday cookie.

Chocolate-almond sandwich cookies with ground almond cocoa wafers and whipped white chocolate ganache filling. An elegant, slice-and-bake cookie that keeps for a week.

Golden color and rich flavor is achieved by the caramelization of the sugar, and the addition of orange rind.

Fresh blueberry pie with a sour cream custard filling, vanilla, and a pecan streusel topping. Creamy, fruity, and crunchy in every slice.

Homemade oatmeal citrus face scrub with dried lemon and orange peels, oats, and blanched almonds ground into a fine exfoliating powder. All-natural, 3 ingredients, stores for months.

British-style ripe banana loaf with sultanas, cherries, almonds, honey, and mixed spice. A fruited tea loaf that slices thin, spreads with butter, and improves over days.

Caramel pecan apple pie with a double crust, drizzled with caramel ice cream topping and sprinkled with chopped pecans right out of the oven. A simple twist on classic apple pie.

Pecan thumbprint cookies, the classic shortbread-style holiday cookie. Buttery, melt-in-your-mouth dough rolled in finely chopped pecans with a thumbprint well ready for jam, chocolate, or icing.

Strawberry lemon trifle with homemade genoise cake, lemon curd cream filling, kirsch-strawberry syrup, toasted almonds, and piped whipped cream. A showpiece French-style layered dessert.

Giant almond Florentines bake whole 8-inch caramel-almond rounds in foil pie pans, then finish with a chocolate-coated bottom. Crisp, lacy, and dramatic. The classic European cookie scaled up to plate-size.