Vanilla

This showstopper has confetti cake layers, vanilla and strawberry ice cream, and rainbow sprinkles. Let’s party.

Vanilla ice cream, espresso-spiked fudge, and lots (and lots) of chocolate cookie crunchies.

Free yourself from individual ramekins for a large-format, party-friendly version. (It jiggles!)

A smidge of almond extract delivers a boost of flavor to our best vanilla cake recipe, and the cream cheese buttercream frosting takes it over the top.

The secret ingredient in this recipe for ultra-silky flan is cream cheese. It adds richness and stability to the custard dessert so that unmolding is a breeze.

Let us clear something up: Classic cream cheese frosting recipes like this one aren’t just for topping carrot cakes, cinnamon rolls, or red velvet cakes. Too often the frosting is pigeon-holed and we aim to change that here and now. In fact, homemade cream cheese frosting can be used to add a pleasantly sweet and tangy note to almost any cupcake or layer cake recipe that calls for buttercream frosting, including this Double Banana Cake. It’s so easy and versatile, it’ll soon become your new favo.…

This hassle-free version of delicate mille feuille comes together quickly thanks to store bought puff pastry and a quicker alternative to pastry cream.

Creamy pudding, fluffy whipped cream, crunchy wafers, and juicy summer berries. It’s the best of banana pudding, without the soggy brown bananas.

We did away with the worst part of roasting squash—the prep! Instead, we roast it whole until tender, tear it into big pieces, glaze it, and roast it again.

A French toast walks into a waffle iron and leaves crispier, custardy, and full of nooks and crannies perfect for catching an all too simple caramel sauce. 

Combine perfectly ripe, in-season stone fruit (like peaches, plums, or cherries!) with a rich sweet caramel for the perfect ice cream, pound cake, and yogurt topping.

Extremely plush, fine-crumbed, and dare-we-say moist, this is like the best wedding cake—and you mix it entirely by hand.

White conchas may look plain, but with a boost of high-quality vanilla, they’re unexpectedly flavorful.

Why have a chocolate- or vanilla-flavored concha when you can have both in this New York–inspired twist on the classic Mexican sweet bread?

It’s important to use refined coconut oil here; you don’t want any coconut-y flavors competing with the vanilla.

Vegan, yes. Low-fat? No. Ah, maybe that’s why it’s so good!

There’s no point in hiding the truth—each shake contains half a pint of ice cream. If that’s too rich for your taste, divide recipe between 4 glasses instead.

True, this concoction is slightly more complex than lemonade. But so are most relationships.

Store infused boozy fruit in a cool, dark place to slow oxidation, kinda like aging your own wine!

Is this caramel cream-puff skyscraper a showstopper? Yes. Is it a major-league project? Yes! Here’s the strategy: Make the puffs and the pastry cream a couple of days in advance, then tackle assembly on the morning of the day you plan to serve this.