Pastries

All-butter puff pastry is available at some specialty foods stores.

These quick, flavorful biscuits with a touch of cornmeal are perfect for Thanksgiving.

Not a fin in sight here—just a light, sweet finish to a healthy meal.

The trees of Hansel and Gretel's forest surely had bark like this, sparkling with sugar crystals and tasting of sylvan honey. Though the biscuits pair wonderfully with blueberries in gin syrup, they also make an excellent accompaniment to a cheese course—particularly with a nice triple-crème.

They look like sticky buns, but these sweet, gooey treats are actually made from biscuit batter. They're great with brunch.

An absolutely delicious (and patriotic) treat. The white chocolate cream is so good, you can eat it on its own with fresh berries.

These wine-infused, ring-shaped biscuits, called taralli, are on every Pugliese table during the antipasto course, but good ones can be hard to find in the U.S. This homemade version replicates their crisp, crumbly texture, with occasional hits of black pepper.

This crowd-pleasing recipe was developed by Susan Baldassano, Director of Education at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts in New York City. For moist, tender muffins, use finely ground yellow cornmeal, such as that made by Arrowhead Mills. You can replace the blueberries with an equal amount of cranberries and increase the sugar to 2 tablespoons, or replace the blueberries with 3/4 cup of raspberries.These muffins are delicious on their own, or try them warm with butter and jam. Cooled muffins can be wrapped in plastic and stored at room temperature for up to three days or frozen for up to three weeks. Thaw and reheat muffins in 350°F oven or microwave (unlike those made with wheat, gluten-free baked goods won't get tough in the microwave). See our related story for more information and sources for gluten-free ingredients.

Leave it to the French to come up with the classiest way of doing an ice cream sundae. Hide the grown-up coffee ice cream inside a crisp puff of pastry (the same dough that cream puffs are made from), then drizzle it with full-bodied chocolate sauce.

A roly-poly is a traditional British dessert similar to an American jelly roll. In this version, the scone-like pastry is spread with tangysweet raspberry and rhubarb jam, then baked.

"I'm on a mission to get people over their biscuit anxiety," says Chef Peacock. His advice? Knead the dough briefly just until it comes together, but don't work it too much. Also, don't twist the biscuit cutter. The twisting motion seals the edge of the dough, which can prevent the biscuit from rising completely.

Brandy and apricots amp up the flavor of these fritters. The finishing touch? A dark-chocolate sauce.

Just to clarify—there are no tangerines in this recipe and it doesn't look like a pie. But it's still delicious. In Singapore, these turnovers, also known as kuey taht, are a highly prized gift for Chinese New Year. Traditionally, people give away fresh tangerines (tangerine is a homonym for "gold" in Chinese). When Western-style baked goods were introduced, this round turnover was created to resemble the real thing: thus its crackly orange egg yolk wash and clever little clove on top. CHEF'S TIP: Don't eat the cloves. They are only a decorative touch, and biting into one will definitely be a shock to your palate.

Spring rolls are the quintessential Asian appetizer, but I have adapted the concept to dessert. When cooked, these rolls are like cylindrical molten cakes with warm chocolate oozing out of an impossibly thin and crisp "pastry" shell. The kumquats not only cut through the richness with their distinct citrus tartness, but also are a symbol of good fortune, as kum is a homonym for "gold" in Chinese. CHEF'S TIP: Make sure you use thin spring roll wrappers, which can be found in Asian markets, not egg roll wrappers.

Each of these incredibly tender golden puffs is like a warm little gift—break one open and be rewarded with the aroma of oranges and rose water. They're typically a yeast-leavened street food; Zadi's use of a choux paste "is a special touch, more for home cooking," he says. "And almond sugar belongs in the Algerian pastry lexicon."

Perfectly textured inside and out, these scones truly are the real deal. Just a touch of butter or your favorite jam is all the embellishment they need.

These are best served warm.

These muffins truly give the flavor of corn its due. They're not sweetened like corn bread (meaning like "Yankee" corn bread, says Peacock), and they have a very fine, almost custardy texture, from the extra-fine grind of the cornmeal (which makes them reminiscent of spoon bread). "Honey and soft butter play to the creamy, tangy flavor of the muffins particularly well," says Peacock.