53 perfumed recipes

Classic spice cake made with hot applesauce, raisins, and chopped nuts. Warm spices like cinnamon and cloves perfume every slice. Triple-sifted cake flour creates an impossibly tender crumb.

Traditional Tuscan cavallucci spice cookies built from a hot sugar syrup kneaded with walnuts, candied orange peel, and warm spices like clove, anise, and cinnamon. Chewy, perfumed, and unmistakably medieval.

Saffron-infused chicken braised with bright lemon zest and briny olives, Moroccan style. Aromatic ginger and garlic perfume the silky sauce. Serve over fluffy couscous for a North African feast.

Whole chicken roasted French-style in a covered casserole with sherry, baby onions, and potatoes. The herb-stuffed cavity perfumes the bird while pan juices reduce into a thin gravy.

Rose petal jam from fragrant red cabbage roses, sugar syrup, and a squeeze of lemon. An old-world floral preserve with the perfume of a summer garden in every spoonful.

Goose with apples is the classic Danish Christmas roast, stuffed with apples, prunes, and onion to perfume the meat as it slowly renders. A 3-hour holiday centerpiece for 15.

Light-as-air angel food cake gets crowned with fluffy boiled icing in this classic dessert where vanilla and almond extracts perfume both the cake and the glossy meringue-style frosting.

Slow cooker hot cranberry punch with pineapple juice, brown sugar, and a cheesecloth bundle of whole cloves and cinnamon stick. A hands-off holiday drink that perfumes the kitchen all afternoon.

Pork chops and twice-baked yams share one pan, both perfumed with orange juice. A paprika-garlic rub on the chops, and yam shells stuffed with apple, onion and celery for a sweet-savory dinner.

Orange butter cakes are petite tartlet-tin cakes perfumed with Grand Marnier and candied orange peel, then dipped in orange liqueur glaze. Elegant 36-cake batch for gifts or a holiday tray.

Old-fashioned yeast-raised doughnuts perfumed with warm nutmeg, built on an overnight sponge for a light, pillowy crumb. Rolled, cut, and fried golden, just like the bakery doughnuts of years past.

Rich coconut pie made with creamed butter and sugar, eggs, and a generous two cups of finely grated coconut. Almond extract amplifies the coconut's natural perfume in this classic single-crust dessert pie.

Orange biscuits rolled jelly-roll style with butter, orange juice, and zest, then sliced into spirals and baked hot. The breakfast pinwheel that turns plain biscuit dough into citrus-perfumed swirls in 45 minutes.

Roasted eggplant and yogurt spread, garlic-studded and perfumed with thyme and oregano, blended creamy with olive oil and a squeeze of lemon. A tangy, herby Mediterranean dip for pita, crackers, or toasted bread.

Bizcochitos are the official state cookie of New Mexico: lard-based shortbread perfumed with anise and sweet wine, dusted in cinnamon sugar, and baked into delicate flaky rounds. The traditional Christmas and wedding cookie of the Southwest.

Steamed salmon in orange-tomato sauce poaches skinless salmon fillets over a bright reduction of orange juice, white wine, garlic, and plum tomatoes, perfumed with fresh basil. A light, low-fat 35-minute weeknight dinner.