Have you ever made a crostata?  You might have been scared off because it requires making dough, but if you have a food processor, you can use my 60-second pie dough recipe, and that makes this a super quick and easy dessert to make.  You can use whatever fruit you like, but the blueberries are so great right now that I used those. 

One of the nice things about crostata is that it is free form - there is no crust to crimp or pan to line perfectly. You just roll out the dough, place the filling in the middle and fold the dough up around the filling.  Also, you can make this dessert earlier in the day and let it sit in the fridge until you're ready to bake it.  Love that!

Carnevale will be starting soon in Italy and these little delicious morsels called cenci are a traditional treat during that time.  They are very much like the elephant ears we have in this country - fried pieces of dough, dusted in powdered sugar.  There are many different recipes for them and different names.  I've made mine with the fresh taste of orange zest and a little rum.  

Do you get a little bit bored of making the same kind of layer cake by baking two eight inch cakes and layering them?  I started making layer cakes a different way and I like it so much I wanted to share it with you.

I bake the cake in a 15x10x1 sheet pan and cut it into thirds and then stack them. It makes a nice rectangular cake with three layers that are very pretty when you make your slices to serve.  You can use this technique with any regular cake recipe.  The only thing to keep in mind is that if you like a lot of frosting, you should make one and a half times the amount of frosting in a frosting recipe. Then you will have plenty.  I actually made just the regular amounts of frosting for the cakes you see in the photos.

Continuing on with my recipes inspired from our trip to Italy is this lemon cake. While we were on Capri, I had breakfast one morning that was just a simple piece of lemon cake, a fresh orange and a cappuccino.  It was just such a perfect breakfast in a place where there were either lemon groves or orange trees everywhere you looked. I bought a nice little ceramic lemon juicer on the island and knew right then and there that I would make a lemon cake for the blog when I got back. 

There is a reason this dessert is so popular in Italy.  You want to lick the glass it's served in, it's so good. I made these for dessert for our Valentine's dinner and my husband ate two.  

Zabaglione is a custard made with egg yolks, sugar and Marsala wine.  It's traditionally served warm but because I like make-ahead desserts, I'm serving mine cold and folding whipped cream into it to make it lighter. You can add your own touches to this recipe.  I added a little orange juice and also served the custard over fresh berries.

I like the idea of serving little individual desserts at get togethers and these little cheesecakes do the job. People can just pick one up and go - no slicing and serving required. I made lemon pound cake parfaits in taller jars but these little cheesecakes are in the smaller 4-ounce jelly jars. You can find them easily at your grocery store.  They are just about the perfect serving size for all those people who say, "Oh, I shouldn't eat dessert. Well, maybe just a few bites."  The toppings that you can use are endless.  I had to make a few of these with mini chocolate chips for my sweet guy, Nathan - he doesn't do raspberries. I was also thinking a nice layer of caramel sauce would be heavenly.

Before I get into the dessert I'm posting about today, I wanted to share with you a cake I made this weekend that was so pretty. I thought you might like links to the recipe and method I used. For the cake, I used Bakerella's Red Velvet Cake recipe with Cream Cheese Frosting. Tremendous cake.  It's really moist and the cream cheese frosting is incredible. I've made it before and just frosted it straight up, but this time I made one and a half times the frosting recipe and made these roses all over the cake:

This is a funny little recipe.  It only has four ingredients and requires no baking. I used to make this cake when my boys were little and it always amazed me.  I was looking through my recipes the other day for something and came upon this and had fond memories of it.  I can't even remember where I got this recipe from anymore, but it's a winner.

These just scream Christmas, don't they?  I wanted to show you this recipe to give you plenty of time to include this in your holiday entertaining.  I love cranberry desserts at the holidays - they are so pretty, with the cranberries looking like little jewels. These phyllo baskets are simply scrumptious and you can make the components of these ahead of time, making it a breeze to assemble right before you want them.

So, how many zucchini breads have you made lately?  Too many? If you don't know what to do with all that zucchini that's coming out of your garden right now, how about zucchini + chocolate?  Great combination, really.  This cake uses quite a bit of grated zucchini, which keeps it moist and absolutely delicious, but you can't really tell there is zucchini in the cake.  Ask my kids. 

Before I get on with the cake, I wanted to thank Saveur for the nice surprise this past week in being featured on Saveur's "Best of the Web".  They featured my post on Marcella Hazan's Roman Style Artichokes.  If you are not a regular reader of the magazine, check out their web site.  It's very good and has all kinds of great content.  

What?  You haven't got that ice cream maker out yet?  Seriously?  You think it's a hassle to make fresh ice cream, right?  Well, think about this - you make a mixture on the stove in the morning, chill it in the fridge all day and when you want ice cream after dinner, you simply pour it into your machine and 30 minutes later you have the freshest, creamiest, most delicious ice cream you've ever tasted.  So don't be a wimp - make some fresh ice cream and impress your family!   There's no fillers, no additives - just the best ice cream you'll ever eat.

We all love cheesecake, right?  But it does take time and effort.  You have to make the crust and bake it, then make the filling and, if you do it right, bake the cheesecake in a water bath.  Well, I'm going to show you how to make cheesecake without any baking at all.  It's a deconstructed cheesecake and you layer it in parfait glasses. The cheesecake filling doesn't have any eggs - that's why you don't have to bake it.  These are so easy and you can even make them up ahead of time and refrigerate them.

Once you know how to make this easy Pâte à Choux dough, you can use it to make a number of different things. Pâte à Choux is cream puff pastry and is used to make cream puffs, gougeres, and even beignets.  I love it because it is simple, fast and I can make it ahead of time.  You can make these beautiful cream puffs and fill them as a dessert with ice cream or whipped cream.  You can make them and fill them for lunch with crab or chicken salad.  You can add cheese to the dough and make savory little gougeres for appetizers, which I will make for a future post.  You can make the cream puffs ahead of time and then simply fill them right before serving - I love recipes that can be made ahead of time, and this one is one of the best and most versatile.  Once you have this basic technique in your cooking arsenal, you will be ready to make all kinds of goodies.

I love this cake because you can have it after dinner as a dessert or you can have it in the morning with coffee and it's great either way.  The traditional way to make this cake is very simple which is just mixing up the batter and pouring it into your pan.  But thanks to Andrew Carmellini of Locanda Verde in New York City, I use a different method.  He's a master at taking classic dishes and giving them a new twist and that is what he did with this cake.  In his terrific book, Urban Italian, he makes the usual batter but then he whips up a meringue and folds that into the batter. It makes for a wonderfully light cake.  He also adds lemon zest and juice to the cake, making it even more special.   He likes to slice this cake and makes an ice cream sandwich out of it, with chocolate ice cream!  Now there's an idea.  

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Being part of a group like The Daring Bakers certainly makes you stretch. The monthly challenges make you bake things you never would have otherwise.  That's certainly true of this month's challenge.  Although French macarons are wildly popular right now and are so pretty, I probably never would have put them on my "to do" list.  Beside, they are famous for being difficult to master and unpredictable.  And they sure did not disappoint.   

Macarons are little almond cookies that are made with egg whites and have a filling that you sandwich between two of the cookies.  If you want to see what the perfect macaron looks like, the famous Beverly Hills bake shop, Paulette's Macarons, is the place to go.  They make perfect macarons in a rainbow of colors, incredible flavors and snazzy packaging.  And they ship.  

Last year at this time, when plums were in season, I posted a recipe for Chez Panisse's Plum Tart that people still e-mail me about. This year, for plum season, I wanted to share a recipe for an incredibly easy dessert that you can enjoy the next morning with your coffee. It's like a plum cake that takes only a few minutes to assemble and then bake. Since it only uses egg whites, I save my egg yolks and the next day I either make fresh pasta with them or some kind of delicious chocolate dessert that requires egg yolks.

I made 225 biscotti yesterday for Christmas.   Yes, it took a long time, but it was so very worth it.   These Mosaic Biscotti are so beautiful and just look like Christmas to me.  They contain hazelnuts, chocolate, pistachios and cranberries (my addition).   These come from the Queen of Desserts,   Gina DePalma, the pastry chef at Babbo.   There is a reason Mario Batali hired Gina.    She's brilliant.    And if you aren't familiar with her, check out her book on desserts, Dolce Italiano.   This book is such a must have if you like baking.