Dessert recipes

Rich chocolate cherry bundt cake made moist with a whole can of cherry pie filling, studded with melty chocolate chips and crunchy nuts. A cinnamon-kissed, Black Forest-style cake finished with chocolate icing.

Crustless pumpkin pie spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and allspice, lightened with egg whites and evaporated milk. All the creamy custard you love while skipping the heavy crust. A lighter holiday favorite.

Classic cheesecake supreme with a cinnamon-walnut graham cracker crust and a creamy lemon-vanilla filling, plus four variations: low-fat berry marble, sour cream, chocolate, and chocolate swirl.

State fair zucchini cake: a spiced sheet cake with shredded zucchini, walnuts, and golden raisins, topped with a lemon cream cheese frosting. Blue-ribbon classic.

Overnight coffee cake built from frozen bread dough, butterscotch pudding, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Assembled at bedtime, baked fresh in the morning, and pulled apart by hand.

Peanut butter oatmeal chippers fold quick oats, peanut butter chips, and chopped pecans into a cinnamon-nutmeg cookie dough. A spice-warmed twist on the classic oatmeal cookie.

Microwave brownies made with real unsweetened chocolate, butter, and chopped pecans in just 20 minutes total. Fudgy, rich, and no oven required.

Pajas are flourless coconut cookies loaded with butter-toasted pecans, dried apricots, and chopped chocolate, bound with sweetened condensed milk. No eggs, no flour, all flavor.

Spicy applesauce cookies with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, rolled thin, cut out, and topped with a glossy homemade gelatin icing and colored sugar.

Chocolate pecan pie with melted semisweet chocolate and butter swirled into a classic corn syrup filling. Rich, fudgy, and loaded with pecan halves in a flaky pastry shell.

Mississippi mud bars layer fudgy pecan-studded brownies under a glossy chocolate frosting and another shower of toasted pecans. Cut into small bars, they yield over four dozen from one 9x13 pan. Southern bake-sale royalty.

County fair banana pie with a chocolate chip layer on the bottom, rum-spiked banana cream filling, and whipped cream with chopped pecans. A blue-ribbon worthy layered banana cream pie.

Hot fudge pie: a crustless chocolate brownie-pie hybrid baked until the center stays gooey and molten. Five minutes of prep, served warm with ice cream.

Triple threat cookies from one dough split three ways: peanut butter cup, M&M with pecans, and classic chocolate chip. Three cookie varieties from a single batch of butter dough.

Classic fruitcake loaded with dates, pecans, walnuts, and golden raisins. Moist tender crumb with vanilla and lemon extract, baked in a tube pan for beautiful slices.

Chocolate diamond cookies with unsweetened chocolate, pecans, and vanilla. A fudgy, brownie-like holiday cookie baked in one pan and cut into festive diamond shapes.