Vanilla

I like to make this intensely flavored sugar and use it in all my baking. The flavor of vanilla always improves a cake, cookies or a tart, and can even add an alluring flavor to bread. This sugar is also delicious stirred into plain yogurt, sprinkled atop buttered toast and for dipping strawberries.

Caramelizing the top of this pudding adds an extra depth of flavor, but it's equally delicious without doing it. A blowtorch works best here; the broiler didn't give us the uniform browning we wanted.

The 1970s saw perhaps the biggest change in cooking in this century. That's when a group of talented young chefs in France came up with "nouvelle cuisine," emphasizing fresh ingredients, elegant presentation, and interesting and unusual combinations of foods and flavors. American chefs quickly imported it and made it into something uniquely their own. For our take on this landmark in contemporary cooking, we've shaped purchased puff pastry into individual tartlet, filled them with pistachio frangipane and sliced pears, and topped it all off with a sweet-wine glaze.

Honey, brandy and spices enhance purchased marmalade for an easy-to-make gift.

Serve any leftover sauce with fresh berries.

This is equally good served warm or cold. If you prefer it cold, begin preparing the dessert well ahead so that it has time to chill.

"As a fan of the television show 'Molto Mario,' " writes Melissa Raney Davidson of Upper Arlington, Ohio, "I was excited to have the opportunity to dine at one of chef Mario Batali's restaurants while I was in New York on business. The dinner I had at Pó in Greenwich Village was wonderful, and the panna cotta dessert was light and smooth — truly one of the best I've ever had." The restaurant is under new ownership now, but they still serve a similar dessert. Here is chef Mario Batali's recipe.

This ice cream is served with a hazelnut torte at Die Quadriga in the Hotel Brandenburger Hof.

A sophisticated dessert that is great on its own, mixed with sweet berries or used as a topping for ice cream or frozen yogurt.

Try over frozen yogurt, ice cream, pound cake, or serve with your favorite cookies.

Mango sauce enhanced with crystallized ginger complements this delicious low-fat cake.

This sauce hardens into a chewy candy when poured over ice cream. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

To give these cookies a pretty curved shape, drape them over a wooden dowel or the handle of a wooden spoon immediately after removing them from the cookie sheet.

A joint effort by Leigh McLean and Sweet Dreams Bakery in Memphis.