Hazelnut

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

For the crispiest cookies, slice the dough no thicker than a half inch. The biscotti keep well and look great wrapped in tinted cellophane tied with a silk ribbon or raffia, or packed into pretty holiday bags.

Gianduia is a classic Italian combination of chocolate and hazelnuts. If you can't find foil candy cups, buy twice as many paper ones and use two (one inside the other) per candy. (Doubling the paper cups makes a sturdier form.) Arrange the confections in holiday tins, or place on decorative trays, wrap in cellophane and tie with gold ribbons.

Alice Waters, who opened Chez Panisse in 1971, took salads to new heights with unusual, farm-fresh greens; she also popularized the use of goat cheese, which was being made by Laura Chenel not far from the Berkeley restaurant. Those ingredients come together in this delicious salad.

This recipe gives everyone a mini cobbler.

A rich chocolate-raspberry truffle filling highlights this updated Linzertorte.

Chocolate ganache and hazelnut cream are encased in a tender nut cake.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. Though detested on lawns, dandelions are now cultivated commercially and are widely available at farmers markets and supermarkets. Great additions to this salad are red onion and shaved Parmesan.

(Panforte Di Siena) "Panforte" translates as "strong bread," reflecting the cake's dense, chewy texture.

Few cookies are easier to make or more sublime to eat. I created them for my beautiful Hungarian mom, who called them finum, or refined. Sometimes we eat them with a strong cup of coffee as we play Scrabble, or after dinner, with a slightly chilled glass of sweet Tokay wine.

Ellen Schwab, Bethesda, Md.
"I created this cookie, which combines my two favorite flavors — hazelnut and chocolate — just for this contest."

Chocolate lovers will be in heaven when they taste these ultra-moist treats. The marbled topping works on most bar cookies.

This dessert, prominent in the window of virtually every Paris pastry shop, is a true classic. The puff pastry rounds are usually filled with an almond mixture, but my version features hazelnuts and chocolate. Purchased pastry makes it approachable for the modern cook. Since it reheats nicely, the Pithiviers can be made ahead.