A Dirt Road Life Cookbook: Volume II: persnickety baking Paperback – September 23, 2025

When you are making chocolate chip cookies when you are around six years old and learning how to fold flour with an over- and under- motion into cake batter when you’re maybe eight, it’s no wonder that, many years later, a dessert cookbook would be written. If it’s sweet, it’s in here. That means cakes, candy, cookies, pies, and assorted sweets. For cakes..almost 25 to choose from…you’ll find old favorites like Japanese fruit cake and devil’s food cake, and also a little homily on how to keep peace in the family. Check out the candy section, and you’ll find dried fruit balls…an almost 100 year old treat my grandmother made…orange pecans, divinity, and an admission of a cook’s character flaw.Cookies include toasted biscotti straight from a first-generation Italian, therapy cookies, Granny’s Arizona cookies, plus around 35 more.If you want an old-fashioned pie, try out the blackberry pie with lattice strips on top. Feeling more urbane? Razzleberry galette is a toothsome delight!If it didn’t fit anywhere else, it ended up in the sweets section, with around 30 of all sorts of sweets to choose from. The cheesecake is the best, The fried peach puffs are the best, The fruit sherbet is the best. And the secret unnamed recipe is the very, very best…and the reason it’s a secret is that I love my family much, much more than I do any sweets recipe I could ever make. Read more