Raisin

This spaghetti with fennel and sardines turns a few simple pantry ingredients into a rustic seafood feast.

Just a few simple ingredients like basmati rice, milk, ghee, and a handful of aromatics merge in a pot to make this Bangladeshi pulao.

Our favorite carrot cake is moist, full of shredded carrot and fragrant spices, and topped with an extra-tangy cream cheese frosting.

Make somlói galuska in advance: the chocolate-cream “dumplings" require at least eight hours to soak up the golden rum syrup.

Our best panettone recipe, adapted from baker Jim Lahey, employs a long rise for a festive and flavorful holiday bread without much work.

This classic Jewish American rugelach recipe uses a very cold cream cheese–based dough to make tender, flavorful rolled cookies full of sweet jam and cinnamon.

This fruitcake-like dessert is finished with generous dose of dark rum.

A classic Southern cake, after winning first prize at the county fair in Columbus, Georgia, Lane Cake also earned the name “Prize Cake.” 

Sheer korma is a traditional dessert of milk, nuts, and vermicelli that’s served on the morning of Eid in many Indian households.

This easy Egyptian bread pudding (called Om Ali or Umm Ali) is made with puff pastry, perfumed with rose water, and topped with an assortment of toasted nuts.

Capirotada is a classic Mexican bread pudding, usually served during Lent. This version combines raisins, nuts, coconut, and bananas in a sweet custard with torn bolillo rolls.

Mince pies, basically rich tarts filled with dried fruits and spices soaked in alcohol, were once a status symbol because only the rich could afford these delicacies. The combination of fruits and spices is often diverse, but raisins, currants, and candied lemon, citron, and/or orange peel are standard. Some old recipes also contain prunes, dates, figs, or candied ginger. Spices are usually cinnamon, cloves, mace, and nutmeg. There is always grated apple or pear and sometimes also lemon or orang.…

You can store this all-purpose sweet-and-spicy vinegar in clean mason jars, but it is easier to keep it in repurposed glass bottles. Note that this recipe can be adjusted as you like—try using different chiles or other spices like bay leaf.

Serve these raisin-studded griddle cakes hot or cold, with butter, jam or ice cream, as a mid-morning snack, or as a stand-alone dessert.

June Edelmuth has become known all over Sydney for this legendary bread. The deliciously dense cinnamon and sugar-swirled babke honors the memory of June's Russian grandmother, Minka.

In essence, this is a sweetened cake made from cheese. I sometimes equate this dessert to the Indian version of Mexican flan because of its caramelized topping.

This super-flavorful dish spins the flavors of shish barak—lamb and pine nut dumplings from the Levant—in a pasta direction.

Bound together with honey and nut butter, these just-sweet-enough bars are sturdy enough to throw in a beach bag and substantial enough to power you through til sunset.

While brandy is the traditional partner for fruit cake, you could also try using a dessert sherry such as Pedro Ximénez. It’s an intensely sweet, dark sherry made from the Spanish grape variety of the same name. Perfect in festive cakes, puddings and custards, you can find it in liquor stores.

There is little more nourishing than milk and rice together—easy to eat and cleansing in the best possible sense of the word. Make a double batch and reheat it with a little extra milk on the following days.

This recipe looks more daunting than it actually is. You basically make a bread dough with a bit of butter and egg in it, knead it for a while, the leave it alone to do its thing.

Ravishing, like a fairy in a vast taffeta ball gown. The pastry will shatter, which is rather lovely, offering wisps of crispness with the soft, creamy cheesecake. This is lighter and less rich than most.

Figs soak up a Marsala wine caramel sauce as this tarte Tatin–inspired dessert bakes in the oven.

My older daughter can put away some of these oatmeal cookie bites like it’s her job. Gymnastics helps her keep active, which means she’s often super hungry, and I love to have these on hand for when she needs a snack.