905 tender recipes

Upside-down apple coffee cake with a sticky brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecan base under a tender sour cream batter. Flip it onto a plate and watch breakfast become the best part of everyone's morning.

Phyllis's avocado quick bread with mashed ripe avocado, sour milk, pecans, and a mix of unbleached and whole wheat pastry flour. Faintly green, tender, and a clever way to use up an over-ripe avocado.

Roll-and-cut almond cookies with toasted sliced almonds folded into a buttery dough and finished with a dusting of powdered sugar. Crisp edges, tender centers, and a double hit of vanilla and almond extract.

Buttermilk coffee cake with a streusel-style cinnamon-clove crumb topping made from the same dough. A tangy, tender 9x13 cake that doubles as breakfast or afternoon coffee snack. Stir in raisins or nuts. Freezes beautifully.

Old-fashioned sugar cookies made with butter and oil for a tender, melt-in-your-mouth crumb. Rolled in sugar and pressed flat, these bake up with soft centers and lightly crisp edges. Makes 3 dozen.

Outrageously oatmeal bread is a soft, lightly sweet bread machine loaf with rolled oats, a spoon of applesauce, and a drizzle of honey. Dump everything in, press start, and wake up to a tender sandwich loaf.

Kartoffelsuppe is the German farmhouse potato soup: sliced potatoes, onion, and celery sauteed then simmered until tender, mashed back into their own broth and finished with milk and butter. Rustic, ribbon-thick, comfort in a bowl.

Hearty tomato soup with cooked rice, tender carrot, celery, and a base of canned tomatoes thickened with whole wheat flour and finished with milk. A creamy 30-minute one-pot soup that fills a bowl properly.

Moist, herb-seasoned turkey meatloaf with mushrooms, thyme, and Worcestershire sauce, baked in a water bath for extra tenderness. A leaner take on classic meatloaf that slices clean and pairs with tomato sauce or mushroom gravy.

Hearty chicken soup simmered with white wine, tomato sauce, potatoes, carrots, and green pepper. A whole chicken boiled tender and chunked back into a rich, veggie-loaded broth. Serve with garlic bread for a full meal.

Polynesian chicken tosses tender chicken with pineapple, snow peas, water chestnuts, and carrots in a sweet-and-sour sauce built from the pineapple juice. A light, colorful, takeout-style dinner over rice in about 30 minutes.

Plain basic chili, a Texas-style chili con carne made with cubed beef, not ground, simmered low in chili powder, beef broth, and crushed tomatoes until fork-tender. No beans, no filler, just rich, beefy chili.

Praline brownies layer a buttery brown sugar-pecan topping in the bottom of the pan, then bake right under a tender vanilla brown-sugar batter. Flip the pan and the praline crown sits on top, glossy and crackling.

A moist chocolate date cake baked in an 8-inch square pan with chocolate chips in the batter and a crunchy chip-nut-sugar topping. Dates softened in boiling water keep it impossibly tender. The kind of no-fuss cake you carry straight to the picnic in the pan.

Slice-and-bake Swedish coconut cookies with golden edges and a buttery, tender crumb. Shape the dough into logs, chill, slice thin, and bake. Makes a whopping 8 dozen from one batch. Ideal for holiday cookie swaps.

Deep-dish peach pie with a tangy cream cheese pastry top draped over six cups of fresh peaches, brown sugar, and nutmeg. The cream cheese makes the crust shatteringly tender and golden under the egg wash and sugar.