Cake Flour

Walnuts add crunch to these breakfast treats served at the Mirror Lake Inn in Lake Placid.

An Italian twist on an English favorite.

This dessert can be made one day ahead and stored in the freezer, making it ideal for entertaining. You can create the decorative meringue swirls and peaks with a rubber spatula, table knife, or spoon, but an offset spatula works best.

Some of the tenderest pasta is made with Italian "00" soft wheat flour. Since this flour can be hard to find, we used a combination of cake flour and all-purpose flour with good results.

This recipe is an accompaniment for Mushroom Tortellini in Mushroom Broth . Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 1 1/4 hr

Begin making the lime-ginger curd one day before baking the cake. The assembled dessert can be chilled overnight before serving.

Taller, heavier-weight paper molds — typically used for individual panettone, the Italian holiday bread — are used instead of regular muffin papers to create a more elegant look. Vanilla and Almond Frosting is an accompaniment for this recipe.

The milk chocolate frosting provides a subtle and delicious contrast to the dark chocolate cake. Either imported or domestic milk chocolate works well.

Sometimes seen with a lemon filling, this is one of the oldest "fancy" layer cakes and a great southern tradition. The fresh coconut makes you realize why this cake has always been special.

This cake, bursting with berries, is perfect for a picnic. Dress it up for company with unsweetened whipped cream and a simple vanilla custard sauce.

(Brutti-boni) Brutti ma buoni (which means "ugly but pretty") are cookies found in many regions of Italy, usually made from finely ground almonds in a meringue base. But the Mattei bakery, in Prato, makes them in typical Tuscan style, which is quite different. The egg whites are only beaten lightly, and the nuts are coarsely ground. They are known in the Tuscan dialect as brutti-boni.

An old-fashioned cake gets a new treatment: Some of the trimmed cake crumbs are mixed with chocolate-cookie crumbs and pressed onto the frosting. Fresh raspberries are the colorful crowning touch.

Tortelli di Zucca con Mandorle Don't be fooled by the broth — this is not a soup recipe. Only a very small amount of broth is poured over the tortelli before serving. To grate the cheese, use the ragged-edged holes of a box grater (not the teardrop-shaped holes we recommend in our Recipe Tips). That way, you'll have the correct texture for the filling. Active time: 2 hr Start to finish: 6 1/4 hr (includes making stock)

For a shiny finish, brush the warm tart with melted apricot preserves.