Electric Mixer

This is my homage to what I consider to be one of the best candy bars on the planet: Fran’s Coconut Gold Bar created by Fran’s Chocolates in Seattle, Washington. The bar consists of bittersweet chocolate wrapped around a creamy coconut–white chocolate ganache center. It’s off-the-charts good! To achieve that contrast between the bitter dark chocolate and the sweet coconut ganache in a milkshake, I combine a double chocolate shake with a mousse-like coconut whipped cream and layer this shake like a parfait. All you need to do is dig in your straw and stir for a little bit of heaven.

Banana leaves gracefully cover cocoa beans in their fermenting bins where the beans develop their extraordinary flavor. Roadside farm stands in chocolate’s growing regions offer a jumble of bananas, cinnamon sticks, plantains, cacao pods, walnuts, vanilla beans, and coconuts, all from trees of the tropics. For that extra earth-friendly touch, use muffin or cupcake liners made with unbleached, eco-friendly paper.

Gina: Everybody loves fresh blueberry muffins, and this recipe is the best one we’ve tried. The sugar topping adds a sweet crunch.

Gina: Multilayered coconut cakes are the prom queens of Southern desserts—and we love them—but, like prom queens, those cakes take time to prepare. This buttery Bundt cake, made with coconut milk, coconut flakes, and fresh chopped pineapple swirled right into the batter, is easier to make and just as satisfying. A pineapple glaze adds a tart punch to the mix.

Gina: Oh boy. When I realized the importance of Strawberry Shortcut Cake to the Neely boys, I knew I had to get baking and learn this recipe! The first step was getting permission from Momma Neely to make the cake. Let’s just say baking the cake was the easy part! Momma Neely always brought this cake to our house on special occasions. Didn’t matter if the occasion was a birthday, a graduation, or a good report card. It got to the point where our girls would say, “I need to call Grandma Neely and tell her about my report card so she can bring me some shortcut cake.” I like to call it a shortcut cake because we use a boxed mix. But no one will ever be able to tell when you serve it.

Gina: Calling all ladies to the kitchen! This is my absolute fa-vo-rite!!! It’s a sour-cream pound cake, but, girl, here’s the surprise: After you bake it, you need to grill it. (That barbecue man got me crazy, huh?) Resist the temptation to use a box mix for this one, because a cake made from scratch will give you the best flavor. I’m all for mixes now and then, especially with everybody’s busy schedule, but, you know, sometimes we have to slow it down and enjoy the fruits (and warm fruit toppings) of our labor. So fire up that grill pan, slice that cake, and brush it with butter (no margarine!) on both sides. The cake, toasted, will take on those great grill marks and be ready to stand up to a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a generous drizzle of Warm Raspberry Syrup, and any other sundae-style toppings that grab you (pass the crumbled Oreos and M&M’s!). When you finally place that plate in front of your man, you can have anything you want afterward—anything! You can also dress this dessert in a fancy outfit by cubing the cake and layering it with ice cream and Warm Raspberry Syrup in a parfait glass.

Gina: These tart-sweet bar cookies are a variation on traditional lemon bars, and, girl, they are a vacation in a pan! The tender cookie base holds a puckery lime filling that gets a little extra kick from grated lime zest. You can use fresh limes or that bottled Key-lime juice you brought back from your last trip to the Gulf Coast. These bars need nothing more than a dusting of confectioners’ sugar, and they make an ideal dessert for barbecues, picnics, and slumber parties.

Pat: If you haven’t figured this out by now, in Memphis we find a way to barbecue everything. One day Tony and I turned our attention to flatbread and—surprise, surprise—we came up with a recipe for barbecue pizza! We make ours with a crispy grilled crust, sautéed onions and peppers, and barbecue sauce, and then top the whole thing with one of our favorite cooked meats. It’s a Neely game-time staple, because the dough and toppings can be made hours in advance, so the pizzas can be assembled in minutes and popped into the oven. Don’t be intimidated by the crust—our homemade dough is easy to make and a great project to work on with your kids. In our house, it’s not a pizza party until everyone is dusted with flour.

Gina: These crispy crackers—cheese, nuts, and a serious visit from the spice fairy—are my kind of snack. I like this recipe because it makes several logs of dough, giving me a few to bake off now and a few more to have in the freezer, for the next time guests stop by. These crisps are the perfect holiday appetizer, when folks are overloaded on sweets and craving a savory snack to have with their drinks.

If you don’t have a pastry bag, you can still enjoy these delicious and crunchy cookies in their traditional shape: Chill the cookie dough for about 1 hour, then divide it into fourths. Roll each piece out with the palms of your hands to a rope about 1/2 inch thick. Cut the rope into 4-inch lengths and lay them on the prepared baking sheets, shaping them into crescents and leaving about 3/4 inch between them. Lightly drag the tines of a fork over the crescents to create ridges. Bake and cool them as described below

If you don’t have a baking sheet large enough to hold the two loaves of dough side by side with a little room between them, use two sheets. Position the oven racks in the lower and upper thirds of the oven before preheating it, and rotate the pans from shelf to shelf and front to back about halfway through baking.