Dessert/4 recipes

British-style honey lemon cheesecake with curd cheese, sultanas, and a lattice pastry top baked in a shortcrust flan case. A light, European cheesecake with no refined sugar.

Light-as-air meringue cookies studded with mini chocolate chips. Just five ingredients, virtually fat-free, and they melt on your tongue. Makes 36 cookies.

A no-bake strawberry pie elevated with port wine and a silky cream cheese layer. Frozen strawberries and gelatin set into a ruby jewel of a filling that's as elegant as it is effortless.

Use this recipe with peaches, sour cherries or pineapple with equally good results.

Mock cherry pie made from halved cranberries and raisins simmered with sugar, vanilla, and butter. The Depression-era trick gives you a tart-sweet ruby filling that fools nearly anyone hunting for the real thing.

Flourless chocolate goo cake made with three-quarters of a pound of butter, semi-sweet chocolate, milk, and seven egg yolks. An intensely fudgy, barely-baked chocolate dessert served cold with whipped cream.

Classic Southern sweet potato pie with a spiced, custard-like filling made from fresh sweet potatoes, brown sugar, nutmeg, and vanilla in a flaky crust. A holiday staple.

No-bake cranberry eggnog cheesecake with a coconut cookie crust, swirled cranberry sauce layers, and a fluffy gelatin-set cream cheese filling. A showstopping Christmas dessert.

Chocolate almond zucchini bread: a moist, deeply chocolate quick bread that hides grated zucchini for tenderness and toasted almonds for crunch. Two loaves from one batch.

A four-layer Snickers pie: graham cracker crust, fudgy chocolate brownie layer studded with Snickers chunks, creamy cheesecake, and drizzled milk chocolate ganache on top. Decadent dessert overload.

Three layers of genoise sponge brushed with espresso-rum syrup, filled and frosted with silky mascarpone cream, dusted with cocoa, and wrapped in chocolate shavings.

Scotch shortbread with just five ingredients: butter, flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. A classic, buttery, sandy-textured cookie that melts on the tongue.

Vanilla pecan slice-and-bake cookies from a make-ahead dough that chills into logs and freezes for up to 3 months. Crisp, buttery icebox cookies baked from frozen in 12 minutes.

Pan di Spagna, the classic Italian sponge cake with eggs whipped to a ribbon, cake flour and cornstarch folded gently to preserve air. The foundation for tiramisu, zuppa inglese, and fruit-layered tortes.

Cold water chocolate cake with melted unsweetened chocolate, butter, and a splash of cold water for an exceptionally tender, light crumb. A heritage two-layer cake recipe.

Amaretto cookies fold flaked coconut, chopped almonds, and amaretto liqueur into a stiff egg white meringue base. Crisp-outside, chewy-inside macaroon-style drops with a grown-up almond-liqueur backbone.