Baking

These cookies, a twist on traditional snowballs, are just the thing to enjoy with a spot of tea.

A tisane is a tea-like aromatic infusion; this one is a lovely partner to the cheesecake.

This will disappear fast, so doubling the recipe might not be a bad idea.

Get the freshest ground star anise by making your own. It's as easy as grinding a few star anise pods in a spice mill or a coffee grinder.

As the batter bakes, it separates into two distinctive layers — cake on top and custard on the bottom.

Homey and old-fashioned, this comforting dish can be on the table in a flash, thanks to store-bought rotisserie chicken and biscuits made with self-rising flour.

For this lighter-than-air Austrian soufflé, we've added tart lingonberry sauce, but any preserves or jam will work.

This tart has a creamy, almost puddinglike center. We used bittersweet chocolate so the ganache filling wouldn't be too sweet. Choosing a quality brand results in more well-rounded flavor and even silkier texture.

Meyer lemons are so special — more naturally sweet and floral than regular lemons — and we think using them in a soufflé is a nice way to highlight their uniqueness. Getting a hot soufflé to the dining room is like walking a tightrope; you find yourself mumbling, "Don't fall, don't fall." Which is exactly what makes this the perfect dessert to serve in the kitchen — just bake it and get it on the table immediately for everyone to dig in.

Palmer wanders out behind the Dry Creek Kitchen to pick the apples for this tart. He generally goes for a combination of Macouns, Pippins, and/or Gravensteins, but we used easy-to-find Golden Delicious and were very pleased with the results. Palmer likes to serve this French classic warm, with a scoop of chestnut ice cream and crisp strips of candied bacon alongside. The three elements make for a textural symphony, but this caramelized beauty is also fantastic paired with a humble scoop of store-bought vanilla — or even by itself.

The spices in Indian chai tea flavor this creamy cheesecake.

This moist cake keeps beautifully for a day or two after you make it.

These individual desserts are a fun, modern version of the classic pineapple upside-down cake.

Spekkuk Bumbu Editor's note: This recipe is adapted from James Oseland's book Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. It was originally part of an article by Oseland on Indonesian cuisine. This butter-rich spice cake flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves is known as spekkoek (the Dutch spelling) or spekkuk. It's an inheritance from Holland's four-century rule in Indonesia. This recipe was given to me by Mami, my friend in Bandung, Indonesia, who's an expert in all things sweet. Because butter is a rare commodity in Indonesia, especially outside of big cities, many cooks often substitute margarine for it. Mami wouldn't dream of doing that. "Spekkuk is a special-occasion cake. It deserves a splurge," she says. She usually makes this cake when important guests come calling or for her berbuka puasa (literally, opening the fast) feasts during Ramadan. Essentially a pound cake baked in a tube, or bundt, pan, it has a golden, faintly crisp exterior and a shamelessly rich, velvety interior. There are few things more satisfying than eating a warm slice of spekkuk along with sweetened tea (the traditional accompaniment) or icy cold milk (my favorite accompaniment). If all of your ingredients are at room temperature, this cake is relatively easy to make—and immensely pleasurable, too. Once it starts baking, the spicy aroma will perfume not only your kitchen but also your entire home. Lapis legit (literally "layered stickiness") is a spekkuk constructed of up to 25 thin layers, each no thicker than an eighth of an inch—the more the layers, the more grand the cake. It is made by spreading thin successive layers of batter, one layer at a time, and baking each new layer until it is cooked through. A fresh layer is spread on top, and the process is repeated until all of the batter is used up. Each layer needs about five to ten minutes of baking time. Some cooks alternate plain, white, spice-less batter with the golden-brown batter containing spices for a variegated effect. Other cooks only make lapis legit with ten thicker layers, as opposed to 25. Whatever the case, though lapis legit is lovely to look at, it tastes no better than a single-layer spekkuk, as it's made with the very same batter.

Pastry chef Gale Gand found this family-favorite recipe in her Hungarian grandmother's recipe file.

This recipe was created by chefs Slade Rushing and Allison Vines-Rushing of the Longbranch in Abita Springs, Louisiana. It's part of a special menu they created for Epicurious's Wine.Dine.Donate program.