Dessert Recipes

My sister-in-law, Claire, had avoided red velvet cake for over a decade. She claimed the flavor was nothing but artificial dye and overly sweet cream … Read more

A friend asked me why I couldn’t just skip the butter and use coconut oil in the crumble topping. I started to explain why that … Read more

There used to be a tiny, drafty bakery on Hawthorne Boulevard in Portland called The Velvet Crumb that made a peppermint bark cheesecake with Oreo … Read more

I had this long-standing position about pumpkin desserts. For years, I claimed to hate them. Not in a polite, “oh, no thank you” way either. … Read more

The woman at the next stall in the community garden watched me staring at a pile of sugar pumpkins. I wasn’t buying them—I was just … Read more

Arthur wasn’t trying to impress anyone. I’d stopped by to return a borrowed pot of lentil soup and the smell of spiced cream cheese hit … Read more

The neighborhood fall block party was in three hours and I’d completely forgotten. Everyone else would be bringing their signature complicated desserts—the kind with homemade … Read more

I was at my neighbor Carol’s house last October, dropping off a key for her cat sitter. She wasn’t trying to impress me—she was in … Read more

My mother-in-law, Linda, had claimed to hate Halloween cookies for three decades. She called them “sugar bombs” and “unnecessary calories.” Then I brought these over … Read more

There used to be a tiny bakery tucked between a laundromat and a vintage shop on the corner of Elm Street that made a pumpkin … Read more