Baking

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This cake is light and moist-perfect for dessert or an indulgent afternoon tea. For a pretty decoration, place stencil or doily on the cake and sift powdered sugar over. Even easier, just sift powdered sugar over the entire cake.

Crumbles are traditional family desserts that can be prepared with almost any fruit. This sophisticated rendition includes toasted almonds in the topping for extra crunch.

Corn kernels, cornmeal and sour cream combine in this very easy recipe, resulting in tender muffins with great corn flavor. These are extra good with the Apricot-glazed Turkey with Gravy and the New England Sausage, Apple and Dried Cranberry Stuffing

Festive pipe cookies spread with minted white chocolate and coated with dark chocolate. Great for after dinner.

This recipe yields 2 regular-size loaves or 5 mini-loaves. When we tested the smaller loaves (which innkeeper Debby Hayden prefers), we used disposable 6- x 3- x 2-inch loaf pans—sometimes called baby loaf pans—and baked the bread for about 45 minutes instead of 1 hour.

The roulade is particularly stunning when accompanied by a glistening array of the Glacéed Fruits .

Brown sugar, almonds and oats combine for a crunchy topping in this lovely dessert. A touch of kirsch, a clear cherry brandy, enhances the fruit.

Only 1/3 cup of flour is used in this recipe, so the cake has a deliciously dense texture.

If you think novelists do research only in libraries, think again. Culinary mystery writer Diane Mott Davidson has a different approach: She caters. Far-fetched? Not when your perennial protagonist is one Goldy Schulz, a caterer who has cooked her way through such delicious mysteries as Dying for Chocolate and Killer Pancake, stories that include the author's own enticing recipes and mentions of cranberry and orange, both significant flavors in her comfort-dessert memory file. "My husband was in the Navy and was often away at sea, so there was little opportunity to cook," she says. "One day I was with some Navy wives, and somebody set out a cranberry-orange bread. I raved about it. Not long after that, I drove to Norfolk to meet my husband's ship, and stayed with the woman who had baked the bread. While I was there, she slipped another loaf of it into my suitcase. It was the nicest thing anybody could have done." Prepare the cranberry glaze for this lovely orange layer cake a day ahead to allow it to firm up and chill. And consider presenting the finished cake as a gift; you're sure to make someone's day.