Baking

Almonds and matzo cake meal make a wonderfully textured crust for this refreshing, citrusy cheesecake. After Passover, instead of pulling out the graham crackers again, experiment with other cookie crusts such as one made with shortbread.

Olive oil is a perfect (and extra-flavorful) nondairy alternative to butter for these tuiles, which defy logic by being both gossamer (potato starch gives them a melt-in-your-mouth quality) and sublimely crisp.

Four ingredients and a few minutes are all it takes to put together this crisp, bubbly masterpiece. A quick drizzle of truffle oil adds a final flourish of decadence.

Gooey Nutella has long been a guilty pleasure, and we can't think of a better way to enjoy it than as a sweet, creamy sauce spooned over the tender middle and crisp edges of this baked pancake.

A zingy lemon tart gains an Italian accent with a crisp, almond-perfumed crust.

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.

In the States, we tend to be familiar only with the bready, crisp-topped version of focaccia­, but this Pugliese take on it—towering, savory, and so light it's almost cakelike—will surely become a new favorite. Food editor Gina Marie Miraglia Eriquez learned the secret to a springy, rich variety—a potato mashed into the dough—from her husband's cousin Lucia Erriquez (yes, with two r's) Castellana, who comes from Bari. A salty top and tangy tomatoes that go almost buttery on the crust will have everyone reaching for a second piece.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from A Baker's Odyssey by Greg Patent. I am indebted to Irish food expert and cookbook author Noreen Kinney, for sharing her family's Irish soda bread recipe. This bread is meant to be eaten plain with meals, or with cheese or with butter and jam, or used to sop up gravy. According to Noreen: Strictly speaking, there is no white Irish soda bread with raisins. Traditional Irish soda bread is brown, with a coarse texture and no fruit. It can also contain seeds and flax and bran, depending on the baker's desires. That is the reason I was shocked to see the white item passed off as Irish soda bread when I arrived in the States. However, in Ireland there is a famous old bread that was very popular with the poorer people in times past, and considered quite a treat for a special occasion or on Sundays. It is still popular today. Depending on which part of the country one is in, it is known as spotted dick or spotted dog. Basically it is derived from Irish soda bread, but it uses white flour in place of the traditional flours and other ingredients that go into the true Irish soda bread. To enrich the recipe, people added raisins when they became available, and they might add a full egg beaten into the milk, plus some white sugar. So it is the old Irish spotted dick that folks here call Irish Soda Bread. Everyone who makes Irish soda bread adds her or his own personal touches to the bread. To the mixture of whole wheat flour and white flour, Noreen, on any given day, might add wheat bran, oat bran, wheat germ, oats, sunflower seeds, flaxseeds, or poppy seeds. She varies proportions and grains depending on how she wants the bread to turn out. Think of the following proportions as guidelines, and feel free to vary the grain additions according to your tastes, adding from 4 to 5 ounces total by weight for each loaf. The bread's crust is coarse and firm, while the inside is rather dense but moist. A cross indented (not cut) on top of the bread allows the bread to be easily separated into quarters. Oddly, the sunflower seeds change color during baking, flecking the bread with an emerald green. The unexpected appearance of flecks of green in the bread the first time I made it surprised me. I could tell the color came from the sunflower seeds, but why did this happen? Food chemist Shirley Corriher, author of the classic Cookwise, had the answer. "Sunflower seeds are chock-full of good-for-you things," Shirley said, and by that she meant they're loaded with antioxidants. Among these are flavonoids, which turn yellow when they come into contact with an alkali (baking soda in the recipe). Other antioxidants, anthocyanins, react by turning blue. Put blue and yellow together, and you get green. Nifty.

Savor healthy sweets

This wholesome bread is tender and sweet enough to appeal to kids, while the toasty sesame flavor and mix of grain, nut, and legume flours will also appeal to adults. Using a small loaf pan gives the bread a better rise and a higher proportion of tasty crust. See our related story for more information and sources for gluten-free ingredients<\a>.

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.

Hot milk cake is an easy, old-fashioned dessert that has simple, modern appeal. The moist, delicate cake gets its name from the hot milk that is added to the batter just before baking. In this recipe, the individual cakes are split, then topped with berries and whipped cream.

These individual desserts get their bright flavor from lemon juice, lemon peel, and a lemon curd topping.

These gorgeous cupcakes have a sweet surprise inside: They're filled with a dollop of raspberry jam. Half of the cupcakes have a pale yellow lemon glaze; the rest are topped with a pink raspberry-lemon glaze.

A little bit of olive oil makes this cake especially moist.

Growing up in the Italian region of Istria (now a part of Croatia), Bastianich remembers making these dolls every Easter. "The pinza bread would be made for the adults, but for the children, the loaves would be formed into the pupi dolls," she recalls. Now living in New York City, she continues the tradition with her grandchildren.

This cake was inspired by Devil Dogs, the bone-shaped chocolate cakes with irresistible white goo sandwiched between their layers. You'll want to dive headfirst into this version, a tall layer of moist, dark devil's food with fluffy marshmallow frosting.

A new take on pineapple upside-down cake. Here, a sticky brown-sugar caramel drips down the sides of a super-moist banana cake.

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.