Baking

This pie needs no introduction. It probably doesn't even need a recipe—everyone has a favorite way to make it. Here is mine.

A rich candy-bar-like dessert that can be made in stages, and even completed three days before a party. Fresh strawberries make a nice garnish.

Although fresh dark sweet cherries are available in June, we believe they're best eaten out of hand. This cobbler makes great use of frozen cherries. Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 1 1/4 hr

My mother learned to cook this bread during the Depression, when nothing was wasted — especially overripe bananas. We clamored for this treat so often that she frequently bought extra bananas and let them get almost black. I've discovered that overripe bananas can be peeled, mashed, and frozen, then defrosted whenever I want to bake up this memory.

Known as biscuits in the United Kingdom, these rich treats get their chewy-crunchy texture from Scottish pinhead (steel-cut) oats. For a more tender cookie, use old-fashioned oats.

Each recipe makes about three dozen cookies, depending on the size of the cookie cutters used. The gingerbread cookies are crisp and lightly spiced, while the sugar cookies have lively lemon and tangerine flavors. Both are perfect for a variety of imaginative decorations.

Made with reduced-fat cream cheese and light sour cream, this cheesecake is irresistible — just like its namesake cocktail.

We couldn't wait to get into our test kitchens to try Rosie’s baklava ice-cream cake. As inspired as the dessert was, it was also a big production, resulting in a giant cake with 2 layers of ice cream and 3 layers of baklava. With Rosie's permission, we downscaled the recipe and tweaked it a bit, for a dessert that’s still delicious but more manageable. When working with phyllo, be sure to have plenty of clear counter space and a chunk of uninterrupted time. Phyllo dries out in the blink of an eye, so it is imperative that you keep your stack of phyllo sheets well-covered and work only with 1 sheet at a time. Allow at least 20 minutes to chop the nuts by hand.

Depending on the size and shape of your waffle pan, the yield for this recipe will vary. Freeze extra waffles to enjoy later. Karen Barker makes her own chocolate sauce and chocolate chip ice cream with cherries.

This cake, thought to have first appeared in the 1920s, has had such names as pineapple glacé and pineapple skillet cake.

With the addition of a citrus custard as a filling and a sprinkling of coconut over the frosting, this would be known as a Robert E. Lee cake.

(TARTE ABRICOT VERLET) Verlet is a tiny tea and coffee shop that also serves good homemade pastries. Anyone who loves apricots will love this simple, homey pie. Be sure to use fresh, not canned, apricots.

This pie crust is light, flaky tender and very crisp. It has a glorious butter flavor and is an ideal container for any pie or tart recipe. I strongly recommend commercial or homemade pastry flour, as it will result in a more tender crust than one made with all-purpose flour.

The use of leavening in a cake is first recorded in a recipe for gingerbread from Amelia Simmons's American Cookery, published in Hartford in 1796; I guess you could say it is the original great American cake. Early-19th-century cookbooks included as many recipes for this as contemporary cookbooks do for chocolate cake. This recipe, from Claudia Fleming, pastry chef at New York City's Gramercy Tavern, is superlative—wonderfully moist and spicy.

A chocolate-caramel cake is perfect for a child's birthday party. Serve with scoops of vanilla ice cream.