Fruit Dessert

Here's a sophisticated combination of homemade blackberry gelatin layered with vanilla cream. Make the gelatin at least one day ahead so that it has time to set.

A berry dessert that's a great finish to the spiced chicken breast meal.

Perhaps the ultimate springtime dessert — classic strawberry shortcakes are spruced up with white chocolate mousse.

Cardamom and nutmeg are lovely notes of spice in these super sundaes. Caramel ice cream would be good here, too.

Look for whole cardamom pods in the spice section of your supermarket or in Indian markets (do not substitute ground cardamom). And if your store doesn’t carry blood oranges, use navel oranges instead.

For this dessert a dramatic shape can be achieved by using molds made from foil. The mousses are equally delicious, of course, when made in 3/4-cup ramekins — they just won't be as tall.

(Mele Cotogne in Giulebbe) Poached quinces in a clove-and-cinnamon-scented syrup are served at Rosh Hashanah and to break the fast at Yom Kippur. In this version, the quinces are left unpeeled for the preliminary cooking in water, and then peeled and cooked in syrup. In La cucina livornese, Pia Bedarida recommends peeling the quinces, letting them rest to take on a reddish brown color as they oxidize, and then cooking them in syrup. Other cooks peel the quinces and cook them immediately, but suggest saving the peels and seeds and cooking them along with the sliced quinces. Still another recipe uses wine instead of water.

Lemon curd, lemon-cornmeal shortcakes, blueberry sauce and fresh blueberries are teamed in a winning dessert.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.