Recipes with vanilla extract

Cranberry swirl cheesecake on a vanilla wafer crust with sour cream topping and fresh cranberry orange compote. A stunning make-ahead holiday dessert.

Lemon chiffon pie with a lemon-zest shortbread crust, cloud-light gelatin-set citrus filling, and a topping of fresh whipped cream. Bright, fluffy, refreshing.

Napoleon's Hat cookies are Scandinavian butter cookies shaped like tricorn hats with a ground almond meringue filling peeking from the top. A traditional Swedish holiday cookie.

Chocolate buttercream icing made with melted bittersweet chocolate, butter, shortening, meringue powder, and powdered sugar. A stable, pipeable frosting for decorating cakes.

Sour cream Christmas cut-out cookies with a tender, slightly tangy dough, finished with a buttery coffee frosting. Makes 6 dozen cookies. Chill dough overnight for clean edges when cutting shapes.

Vanilla brownies (blondies) made with butter, brown sugar, and vanilla extract with optional chocolate chips. Chewy, buttery bars baked in a sheet pan for easy slicing.

Italian chocolate cookies with cocoa, cinnamon, cold coffee, and grape jelly in the dough. An old-world recipe with no eggs that makes a huge batch of soft, cakey cookies.

Apricot cupcakes sweetened entirely with apricot preserves and spiced with pumpkin pie spice. Oats and applesauce keep them moist with no refined sugar. Bakes as bars too.

Pineapple upside down cake: classic skillet cake with caramelized brown sugar pineapple and pecan topping. Single-pan dessert that flips into a showstopper.

These low-fat and delicious snacks are perfect for the kids lunches!

Soft maple walnut oatmeal cookies with brown sugar and cinnamon, topped with maple-flavored frosting and a walnut half. Chewy, sweet, and warmly spiced.

Cinnamon-apple cheesecake with a shortbread crust, creamy filling, overlapping apple slices on top, and a warm orange marmalade glaze. A fall cheesecake that's more fruit tart than dense New York style.

Buche de Marrons au Chocolat, a French chestnut and chocolate log (no-bake variation of buche de Noel) with Calvados, wrapped in whipped cream bark and garnished with candied violets. A show-stopping Christmas dessert.

If you're a fan of carrot cake you will love this low-fat rendition that is perfect for dessert.

Buttercream filled oatmeal sandwich cookies: chewy oat-and-corn-syrup rounds sandwiched around a silky cooked-yolk buttercream. Bakery-style sandwich cookies for tins and dessert trays.

Soft banana cookies with brown butter penuche frosting: mashed ripe bananas in a cake-like dough, topped with a boiled brown sugar icing that hardens into a shiny, fudgy shell.