Electric Mixer

This pull-out-all-stops dessert layers a white chocolate pistachio cake with strawberries and a do-ahead pistachio butter-cream. For the finishing touches, whipped cream is piped up the sides, and a marzipan top is crowned with fresh strawberries.

The mincemeat adds great flavor and texture to an ever-popular dessert.

In this pretty dessert, a buttermilk-based lemon custard fills the spiral of a light sponge cake roll.

Rather than being crisp, these heirloom cookies are tender and cake-like.

There are many varieties of mango grown on the African continent — comparatively, the selection of fresh mangoes here in the United States is limited. For this recipe, we recommend using canned slices of Alphonso mango, an Indian cultivar renowned for its bright orange flesh and very intense flavor.

Inspired by the famous Austrian Linzertorte.

Tuscan sweets tend to be simple and rustic, like this deliciously buttery, moist cake, similar in texture to marzipan. What to drink: Tuscany's famous Vin Santo, a dessert wine made from raisined grapes.

Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 45 min

Active time: 30 min Start to finish: 6 1/4 hr (includes cooling and chilling)

For this recipe, the darker and richer the coffee, the better. We made cone-filtered coffee, but it's equally delicious with perked or plunged coffee. If you only have an electric drip coffeemaker, don't use it for this recipe — too much yield is lost to evaporation. Curry powder may seem like a strange addition to the whipped cream topping, but it's absolutely delicious. You won't perceive any curry flavor per se — when combined with the brown sugar it simply lends fullness and depth.

"I was 11 years old when I started receiving Gourmet magazine," says Kristi Tursi of Essex Junction, Vermont. "I am now 15, and I’m happy to say that I've tried at least one recipe from each issue. I love to experiment with new combinations of unusual foods. Maybe that is because I enjoy science and chemistry, or perhaps I just love eating delicious yummies! But this year, on my mom's birthday, I tried something cool: cherry chocolate chippers. These cookies are not as dramatic as my chicken mango tango, but they're quite a treat. Everyone at the party liked them so much that I spent part of the evening jotting down the recipe. So I decided to share it with everyone ... by way of Gourmet."