Dessert/9 recipes

Toasted coconut cookies with oats, walnuts, and flaked coconut baked until golden brown. A chewy drop cookie with nutty, tropical flavor from toasted coconut and toasted walnuts in every bite.

Prune cake is an old-fashioned Southern holiday spice cake with chopped prunes, pecans, buttermilk, and warm spices, soaked with a buttermilk-butter sauce. Three-day rest deepens flavor.

Classic German chocolate cake: three light layers of sweet chocolate cake with whipped egg whites folded in, stacked with a cooked coconut-pecan frosting made from evaporated milk and egg yolks. The real, from-scratch version.

Chocolaty double cruncher cookies with rolled oats, crushed corn flakes, coconut, and a chocolate filling. A crunchy sandwich cookie with triple texture.

Peanut butter chippies: chewy peanut butter cookies loaded with chocolate chips and chopped peanuts. Three ways to love peanut butter in every bite.

Pennsylvania Dutch cake-and-custard pie: a soft cake batter and a spiced applesauce-molasses custard poured into one crust bake into two distinct layers, finished with a coffee glaze. A clever heritage dessert.

Chocolate peppermint cake: three-layer brown sugar cocoa cake with melting chocolate mint wafers pressed between layers and fluffy seven-minute peppermint frosting on top.

Mini chocolate chip cheesecakes: fudgy chocolate cupcake batter topped with a creamy cream cheese dollop and studded with mini chips. Pop-in-your-mouth sized, bake-sale ready, impossible to eat just one.

Black Forest chocolate fudge cake bakes the cherry-and-chocolate classic into a moist bundt, with dark sweet cherries and toasted walnuts running through a deep cocoa crumb. Prune puree keeps it fudgy and light.

Spiced apple cake loaded with chopped dates, walnuts, and tart apples, made moist with cold coffee. Bake in a bundt or sheet pan and finish with caramel glaze.

Raw apple bundt cake stays incredibly moist thanks to three cups of fresh chopped apples, plus flaked coconut, sweet dates, and toasted pecans. A dense, spiced fall cake that needs no frosting.

Whole wheat biscotti with toasted walnuts and hazelnuts twice-bake into crisp, lemon-zest-scented cookies for dunking. Lower-sugar Italian cookie shaped into ropes, sliced, then re-baked.

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.

Iowa applesauce cake, a moist spiced sheet cake with raisins and walnuts, crowned with tangy cream cheese frosting and dusted through a paper doily. Heartland baking at its cozy best.

Giant oatmeal chocolate candy cookies with chocolate candies, salted peanuts, and quick oats in a chewy brown sugar dough. Scooped by the quarter-cup for bakery-sized cookies.

Vegan peanut butter oatmeal cookies with semi-sweet chocolate chips, made with soy milk and canola oil. Chewy, pressed flat, and loaded with crunch and chocolate.