Graham crackers, pound cake and loaf cake, phyllo or wontonscan be used as the base, filled with bananas, berries, chocolate chips and other favorites.

Here’s all you have to do:

1. DECIDE on your base. You can bake your own shortbread or sugar cookies in an oblong shape (think of double graham crackers, before you break them at the perforation); or bake rectangles of pie or tart crust.

2. CHOOSE your filling: custard, pudding, sweetened ricotta and whipped cream are delicious, but yogurt does just fine. Check out the Méditérranée line from Liberté yogurt in wonderful fruit flavors. It tastes like cannoli filling to us. You can also mix preserves into plain or vanilla yogurt.

3. SELECT one or more fruits: berries, sliced bananas, kiwi, mandarin segments, etc. You can sauté the bananas in unsalted butter and brown sugar, for a Bananas Foster effect. Keep aside a berry or other piece of fruit to garnish the top.

4. PICK an optional second ingredient, like chocolate chips or coconut flakes, to add to the layers.

5. ASSEMBLE three layers of base and two layers of filling—right before serving, so the base doesn’t get soggy. You can serve orderly layers, like a Napoleon, or make them askew, as in the photo above. Garnish with an optional dusting of confectioners sugar and a piece of fruit. Option: sprinkle with confectioners sugar.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Line a large baking sheet with foil; lightly coat with cooking spray.

2. LAY wontons on the baking sheet; lightly coat with additional cooking spray.

3. SPRINKLE lightly with sugar. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes or until golden brown and crisp. Remove from oven; cool.

FOOD 101: THINGS FOOD LOVERS SHOULD KNOW

Lasagne Vs. Lasagna

The correct spelling is lasagne, the plural of the word. There are multiple lasagne (sheets of noodles) in the dish. Lasagna refers to a single sheet of noodles. In another American misuse of Italian, salame is the singular form; salami is plural.
 
Mille-Feuille/Millefoglie Vs. Napoleon

Pronounced meal-FWEE in French and MEE-lay FOAL-yay in Italian, meaning “a thousand leaves,” this pastry is made as three rectangular sheets of puff pastry (pâte feuilletée) spread with Bavarian cream, pastry cream, whipped cream, custard, jam or fruit purée, often dusted with confectioners sugar and cut into individual rectangular portions. When filled with custard and iced with chocolate, the pastry is called a Napoleon.

The Napoleon was not named after France’s famous general and emperor, however. It is believed to be a corruption of the word “napolitain,” referring to a pastry made in the tradition of Naples, Italy (napolitano).
 
FIND MORE OF OUR FAVORITE COOKIE, CAKE & PASTRY RECIPES.

Some people are purists; but when we enjoy a chocolate bar, we have a better time when it’s combined with another flavor. Ghirardelli has an armload of options in dark, milk and white chocolate: plump melt-in-your-mouth squares variously filled with caramel, mint, orange, raspberry and other favorites.

The company recently added two new flavors to the line: Mint Cookie and Toffee Crunch.

As a lover of all things mint, our favorite has got to be Mint Cookie. Milk chocolate with crunchy mint cookie filling, this chocolate bar is a major improvement on the iconic Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookie, with so much more (and better) chocolate.

You can reward yourself with a small piece or two each day: The bars are scored for portion control. If you don’t trust yourself to break off just a piece, several of the flavors are available in bags of pre-wrapped squares.

The 3.45-ounce bars have a suggested retail price of $2.79, and are available at retailers nationwide. If you buy them at Ghirardelli’s online store, you get five bars for the price of four.

If your principal enjoyment of avocado is in the form of guacamole, allow us to suggest an avocado “boat”—a stuffed avocado half.

When our grandmother held her weekly card parties with “the ladies,” their choice of luncheon was Avocado Boat With Crab Salad. Not surprisingly, that fancy recipe became a favorite first course when, in our first apartment, we staged dinner parties. Today it seems retro, but still delicious.

You can stuff anything into an avocado half, starting with scrambled eggs or tofu at breakfast, your favorite salad (egg, shrimp, tuna) at lunch, or anything as a first course at dinner (we’ve long since replaced the crab salad with ceviche, a contemporary take, as well as barley/quinoa/rice salad).

Large avocados are recommended for this recipe (a large avocado averages about eight ounces). If using smaller or larger fruits, adjust the other ingredients accordingly.

SOUTHWESTERN SALAD IN AN AVOCADO BOAT

Ingredients For 4 Servings

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE beans, corn, carrots, cilantro, salsa, green onion and red pepper sauce in a bowl.

2. SPOON into avocado boats. Garnish and serve.

TIP: Cut a thin lengthwise slice off of the bottom of the avocado halves to make them stable on the plates.

Find more avocado recipes at AvocadoCentral.com.

For family fun or to bring to a party, how about a bacon cake?

While some people can put bacon fat into the batter and/or the frosting, we prefer a standard yellow cake, cream cheese frosting and a topping of candied bacon.

A sheet or loaf cake format is easier than a layer cake—and puts you closer to the bacon (a higher bacon:cake ratio).
BACON CAKE RECIPE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. BAKE your favorite yellow cake mix or recipe. Add optional corn kernels to batter.

2. MAKE cream cheese frosting.

3. MAKE candied maple bacon (recipe below).

CANDIED BACON RECIPE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT oven to 400°F. Arrange bacon slices in single layer on foil-lined 15x10x1-inch baking pan. Bake in oven 15 minutes or until bacon edges begin to curl.

2. REMOVE pan from oven. Carefully drain drippings and set aside for other use.

3. MICROWAVE honey/maple syrup for 30 seconds, stirring after 15 seconds. Use a pastry brush to coat bacon. Bake 10 minutes longer or until bacon is browned and crisp.

4. COOL bacon on wire rack. Break into bite-size pieces. If you have more candied bacon than you need to top the cake, well, that’s not really a problem, is it? Snack away!
  

Looking for a garnish for your dessert? Grab that jar of peanut butter.

Add sweetener to taste (agave, honey, maple syrup, sugar or noncaloric sweetener). Consider a pinch of cinnamon.

Then pipe the peanut butter from a pastry bag. You can use a plastic food storage bag by cutting off a small piece of one corner.

Then pipe away, onto angel food cake, brownies, cookies, cupcakes, ice cream, pie, pound cake or pudding.

If you’d like a traditional sauce, you simply need a few more ingredients.

Turn peanut butter into a pourable dessert sauce with this easy recipe:
Ingredients For 1 Cup

 
*You can use plain peanuts, salted, candied or spiced, including hot seasonings like chipotle. Here are recipes for candied nuts and spiced nuts.

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE all ingredients except alcohol in a small saucepan.

2. HEAT on low, stirring, until sugar is dissolved and sauce is smooth. Stir in optional alcohol. Serve warm.

 
HOW MANY DESSERT SAUCES HAVE YOU TRIED?

Check out the different types of dessert sauces in our tasty glossary.