Baking

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 1 1/2 hr

Many of the cake's components can be made a head, and once the tiers are filled and decorated, they can be refrigerated up to two days or frozen up to two weeks before the wedding. The rich, lemony cake has a dense texture like that of a pound cake. To prevent discoloration of the filling, use a saucepan with a nonreactive interior, such as enamel or stainless steel. (The lemon juice acid will adversely affect the filling if it's made in an unlined iron or aluminum saucepan.)

Key limes are also known as Mexican or West Indian limes. If you can't find them in your area, substitute bottled Key lime juice. We've tried several different brands in our test kitchens, and prefer the taste of Manhattan.* This recipe is modified from the classic one found on many condensed milk and Key lime juice labels; we've added additional lime juice for more tartness.

(Ghotab) After trying several kinds, we concluded that Iranian and Turkish pistachios* have the best flavor. Active time: 1 1/4 hr Start to finish: 4 hr

If you can't find fresh Key limes in your area, you can substitute bottled Key lime juice. We've tried several different kinds in our test kitchen, and the only one we like so far is Manhattan brand*.

In winter Kay Simon sandwiches this cake with wine jelly, in summer substituting a simple purée of fresh raspberries. Wine for Cooking and to Drink Merlot is important in the Yakima Valley, and perfect for this cake.

For more information about making petits fours, see <epi:recipelink id="">Perfect Petits Fours</epi:recipelink>.

The best recipe I have for brownies comes from a friend who got it from a magazine article about Katharine Hepburn. It is, apparently, her family's.

Any size mini-muffin pan can be used to bake the tartlets, but the nonstick variety works best.

Turn-of-the-century cooks thought the original of this dense, chocolaty cake was so wickedly rich and sinfully delicious that it just had to be bad. So they named it after the devil himself. The first recipe for it appeared in 1905, and it's been around ever since. We've freshened up the devil with a little lift of mint.

This version of the Greek and Turkish dessert features dates instead of nuts. Date palms flourish in the hot climate of the Middle East.

Frieda Caplan, doyenne of the produce company Frieda's, introduced the U.S. to the kiwi in the sixties. It took a few years, but in the seventies, the green fruit with the fuzzy brown skin really took off.

Rugelach are classic cookies in the Jewish culinary repertoire. The surprise ingredient in this version--cottage cheese--makes for tender, rich cookies.

A standard at health food restaurants across the country, carrot cake was ubiquitous in the seventies. Grated carrots made it a nutritious choice, or so the thinking went. This ultra-moist version is updated with a maple icing.

This traditional spongecake is rippled with cinnamon-sprinkled apples.

"I have such special memories of my grandmother Mimi in the kitchen cooking and baking, all dressed up. My favorite cookies were her pecan crescents," says Barbara Hartwig of Sherwood, Wisconsin. "I am most fortunate to have her original recipe card. We still use it every year."