Cinnamon

Without the ice cream and served warm, these make a great brunch dish.

Just the thing to warm up a cold February night. Lighten up: Use light whipping cream and omit the chocolate to cut calories and fat.

For a festive, interactive meal, serve our version of the Aloha State's take on curried chicken. Let your guests customize their plates with a choice of toppings — from toasted coconut to fresh pineapple. Some editors preferred it with the optional sugar, others did not. The choice is yours.

With these distinctly Middle Eastern kebabs, the minty coolness of the yogurt sauce offsets the allspice, pepper, and cinnamon in some of the most succulent and juicy meatballs you have ever tasted.

Pho Bo Vietnam's favorite convenience food is usually purchased at street stands, where the quality of his or her broth can make or break a cook's reputation. The secret ingredients in ours are meaty beef shanks, charred ginger, and onions.

Three gifts in one: a mini cheesecake, the pan it comes in, and a jar of homemade caramel sauce on the side. Keep in mind that the cakes need to chill overnight.

Holiday spices and molasses give these chocolate truffles seasonal charm.

Nils Noren, executive chef at restaurant Aquavit, in New York, pairs this smoky hot drink with venison, but it works well with almost any wintry game preparation. He uses Assam tea, a full-bodied brew from India. For a richer, molasseslike flavor, use muscovado sugar.

This recipe makes a lot of dough. If you don't need all of it, freeze the extra. For impromptu entertaining, you can slice the still-frozen dough into cookies and pop them in the oven for a quick dessert.

These tender individual treats are like a cross between a molten chocolate cake and a steamed pudding. The cinnamon gives them a warm, deep scent, which you can intensify by serving them with purchased cinnamon or ginger ice cream in place of the whipped cream.

If you normally take your coffee with milk, you'll find this particular recipe for black coffee a welcome change—the molasses and cinnamon give it a warm and slightly exotic depth that's simply irresistible. Be sure to use coffee that is not finely ground.

Nothing beats buttery sweet rolls fresh from the oven—and you get the pleasure of filling your house with their warm, yeasty scent as they bake.

A bite of this flan, fragrant with traditional pumpkin-pie spices, is very comforting despite the dessert's modern looks; a topping of pumpkin seeds, seasoned with cayenne, creates a play of sweet and heat.

When the pumpkin pie is gone, but you've only just begun to get your fill of pumpkin desserts, this bundt will fill the void quite nicely (and the somewhat more assertive spices will welcome the season ahead). Best of all, the flavors continue to develop and the cake tastes even better a few days after it's baked, so it's perfect to have on hand at this time of year, when guests tend to drop in unexpectedly.