Electric Mixer

At the café this dessert is accompanied by raspberry sauce and topped with whipped cream.

This moist Christmas cake takes its cues from the flavors and spices found in the classic Lebkuchen cookie. It's brushed with an orange-scented honey syrup, frosted with a creamy white chocolate icing and then surrounded by sliced almonds.

Enjoy this dessert at room temperature if you like a creamy texture similar to that of a soufflé, or serve the cake cold if you prefer a dense, fudgey texture.

This recipe was created to accompany Chocolate Strawberry Orance Wedding Cake .

Cake-making equipment and ingredients can be found at cake and candy supply stores. Be sure to use cake flour, not all purpose flour, and begin preparing the cake two days ahead. Buy one 1-ounce bottle of gel base color in the shade called Bakers Rose to tint both the frosting and the fondant a pale pink. Plastic drinking straws are used to support the middle and top tiers. Buy the straight—not bendable—kind.

Peanut butter cookies are an all-American classic, and the inclusion of honey, oats and chocolate chunks in this recipe makes for a terrific interpretation.

This old-fashioned dessert separates into two delicious layers while baking - a moist sponge cake and a light custard.

These cookies are absolutely delicious made with regular butter, but they become downright amazing with Plugrá or Land O Lakes Ultra Creamy.

Only half of the praline is used in the dessert; the rest will make a nice topping for ice cream, frozen yogurt or stewed fruit.

These apples are a perfect garnish for the spiced apple cake and caramelized apple crêpes. They're terrific as a topping for ice cream, too. Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 25 min

A celebration of midwestern cherries.

Cream cheese enhances the texture of the custard in this tart. To create the pretty wave pattern, use an icing comb, available in cookware stores. Begin making the dessert a day ahead.

Samali: One of the great sweets of Thessaloniki, made in pastry shops, at home, and hawked from small carts on the streets all around the Kapani market.

This classic chocolate cake gets its unlikely moniker from its color--the same as the deep, rich soil that lines Old Man River. It's usually made in a single-layer rectangular baking pan, but we dressed ours up and fashioned it into a layer cake.