Cocoa

Mint chip ice cream (or the flavor of your choice) is the filling between tender chocolate cookies that have been dipped halfway into white chocolate.

For a fancifully tall cake, we used 3 (7-inch) round pans. It can also be baked in 3 (8-inch) pans, though the cake will be slightly lower. We tested this recipe with several different brands of chocolate, and found Lindt and Ghirardelli had the best flavor for this particular cake. Ours is garnished with unsprayed, organically grown rose petals, but be as creative as you'd like with yours.

Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 45 min

Inspired by Dionne Lucas's recipe for roulade léontine, this easy flourless chocolate roll cake will delight your guests with its airy texture and intense chocolate flavor.

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.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Instead of using a pastry bag to pipe the meringue for the baskets, just snip a corner off a resealable plastic bag. Begin preparing this one day ahead.

By using a microwave to melt the chocolate, you can whip up a batch of these sophisticated truffles in no time. The ground espresso beans add great coffee flavor. Serve the truffles directly from the refrigerator because they soften quickly at room temperature.

Active time: 45 minutes Start to finish: 5 hours

So quick, so easy and so good.

The good news here is that there will be leftover ice cream to enjoy at another time.

This dessert comes from Boulevard restaurant in San Francisco, California. The pastry chef, Karen Shaw, created the treat.

The beauty of this cake is that the frosting is baked in the same pan with the batter. When the cake is inverted onto a cake plate a few minutes after baking, it is bathed, miraculously, with frosting. Although this cake is best served warm, it is also delicious at room temperature.

Newly opened this year, the upscale but unfussy Maestro is a modern Italian restaurant at The Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner outside Washington, D.C. The open kitchen is the focal point of the room, but it doesn't have to be the center of attention — the cooks talk to one another through headsets, keeping the noise level down. The dining room's large windows offer a view of the nearby capital. An elegant rendition of tiramisù is the restaurant's signature dessert. Gelatin helps the creamy mascarpone filling set, making this classic dessert easy to cut and beautiful to serve. We've simplified the restaurant's recipe for home cooks.