Vanilla

Serve with: Toast (especially when cheddar omelets are on the menu), potato pancakes, waffles, pancakes, or French toast. Combine with: Crusty bread and blue cheese. Use as: A dessert topping for pound cake (serve with vanilla ice cream).

This cookie launched a thousand memories—and a literary masterpiece—for Marcel Proust. The group enjoys madeleines with tea, just as the narrator did in Swann's Way.

"I have never been a bread-pudding fan," writes Marie Hernandez of Chicago. "But after trying the pumpkin bread pudding at Wildfire restaurant in Oak Brook, Illinois, I think I've changed my mind. Had I know that this dessert could be so good, I would have started eating it long ago." Do as the restaurant does, and serve this with sweetened whipped cream.

This dessert combines two confections that are popular in Chile: caramel and the small cream puffs called profiteroles.

Strawberries marinated in a vanilla-orange syrup add a new twist to these sponge-cake shortcakes. Active time: 1 hr Start to finish : 2 1/2 hr

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 4 hr

One buttercream base makes two frosting flavors. Vanilla tops the orange cupcakes , and almond tops the devil's food . Be sure to use unsprayed (nontoxic) roses for decoration.

This is a variant on lemon surprise pudding, in which the mixture divides on cooking to produce a sponge above the thick lemony sauce which forms below. Indeed, it is known in my house as Lemon Surprise Pudding, the surprise being that it's chocolate. Although I didn't actually eat this as a child, it is heady with reminders of childhood foods: the hazelnuts in the sponge bring back memories of Nutella, the thick, dark, fudgy sauce of chocolate spread. The proportions below are geared towards 6, but easily feed 8. It's heavenly with fridge-cold heavy cream poured over it. It is also child's play to make. Choose good cocoa and good chocolate and stick carefully to the exact measurements. (You can, though, use 1 2/3 cups flour in place of the 1 1/4 cups flour and 1/2 cup ground nuts, if you prefer increasing the amount of baking powder needed to 1 1/2 teaspoons.) Use one of those standard white soufflé dishes 8 inches in diameter, or a shallow square 12-inch pan. If you've got only a single oven, it makes sense to use the shallow dish: it will take less time to cook.

This recipe originally accompanied epi:recipeLink="101888"Plum Pine-Nut Tart</epi:recipeLink>.

This recipe is an accompaniment for Pear Clafoutis with Phyllo Crisps, Cider Sauce, and Quince Sorbet .

The name, literally translated as "cats' tongues," refers to the shape of these cookies.

(CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH NUTS AND RAISINS) Here is a chocolate cake that will delight your palate. Use the best bittersweet chocolate you can find!

Parisians love chocolate, and cooks in Paris might make this with Valrhona, one of the best French brands. Begin preparing the dessert a day ahead.

From Charleston Grill, Charleston, South Carolina.