Baking

These dessert packages are fun to make and a clever way to serve strudel. Try either tart dried cherries or the sweeter dried Bing - both available at specialty foods stores and most supermarkets.

This corn bread is on the dry side — ideal for our dressing (see Pork Chops with Pecan Corn Bread Dressing and Cider Gravy) but not for eating on its own. Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 30 min

This recipe was created to accompany Spinach and Endive Salad with Lemon-Ginger Dressing and Crisp Won Ton Strips. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

For a more delicate cookie, chop the raisins instead of adding them whole (most easily done with an oiled knife).

This recipe gives everyone a mini cobbler.

A celebration of midwestern cherries.

Cream cheese enhances the texture of the custard in this tart. To create the pretty wave pattern, use an icing comb, available in cookware stores. Begin making the dessert a day ahead.

Samali: One of the great sweets of Thessaloniki, made in pastry shops, at home, and hawked from small carts on the streets all around the Kapani market.

This classic chocolate cake gets its unlikely moniker from its color--the same as the deep, rich soil that lines Old Man River. It's usually made in a single-layer rectangular baking pan, but we dressed ours up and fashioned it into a layer cake.

Kevin Prothal of Albany, New York, writes: "While we in upstate New York don't usually get a lot of press about our restaurants, we are still very well fed. I think the best place for any meal is McCarthy's Restaurant in Canton. The service is friendly, and the chocolate chip pie is, by itself, worth a trip up from New York City." This dessert is amazingly easy to prepare.

The French dessert that's known as clafouti is a pancake crossed with a fruit-filled custard. It's best served warm, right from the skillet. If you don't have a cast-iron skillet, any ovenproof variety is fine. Serve with vanilla ice cream.