Dessert/6 recipes

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.

Chewy pecan date squares with brown sugar and vanilla, baked low and slow then dusted with powdered sugar. No butter needed, the dates keep them moist.