Custard

Baker's sugar, a favorite of pastry chefs, is also called superfine sugar. It measures the same as regular but dissolves more quickly. It's available at some supermarkets. You can also make your own by whizzing granulated sugar in a food processor until powdery.

Maple syrup and maple sugar infuse a simple vanilla custard with a rich caramelized flavor.

Condensed milk is the secret ingredient that gives this popular Spanish dessert its silky texture.

A bite of this flan, fragrant with traditional pumpkin-pie spices, is very comforting despite the dessert's modern looks; a topping of pumpkin seeds, seasoned with cayenne, creates a play of sweet and heat.

The compote is a mixture of spiced fresh and dried fruits that are cooked in white grape juice and white wine. Any leftovers are great over ice cream or with plain yogurt for breakfast. Prepare the compote and flans at least one day before you plan to serve them.

If you don't have peach brandy on hand, use additional white wine instead.

Alexis Watson of Irvine, California, writes: "You could say I'm a bit obsessive when it comes to cooking. Often I'll take a particular recipe and spend months perfecting it, as I've done with the crème brûlée."

Sformato di Cavolfiore e Broccolo con Balsamella di Spinaci In typical trattoria fashion, this dish serves as the meal's antipasto, which is followed by the pasta course. What to drink: A light, dry red from Carmignano, a Tuscan wine district known for its blends of Sangiovese with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. Try: Capezzana Barco Reale di Carmignano.

Eli Gorelick of West Orange, New Jersey, writes: "As a kid growing up in Cuba, I worked alongside my mother every day in the kitchen, learning how to make specialties like picadillo and fried bananas. I still think Havana has the best Cuban food in the world, and I continue to love the recipes I learned during my childhood." Look for canned coconut milk in the Asian foods section of the supermarket.

This custard isn't meant to be eaten on its own. Food editor Melissa Roberts-Matar wanted the cake layers in the Pistachio Rhubarb Trifle to soak up the custard, so this one has a much looser consistency than most puddings.

Don't be tempted to use a dark dry Sherry for the syrup or topping — it will muddy the beautiful green-gold color of the cake and tint the cream topping brown.

Îles flottantes, puffy clouds of softly poached meringue floating on a vanilla custard sauce, may look ethereal on the plate, but this is really a homey French farmhouse dessert. It was probably devised to make ingenious use of fresh farm eggs and milk, plus a little sugar.

"As a kid, I'd accompany my mother to her job at the racetrack, where she would lead the horses out to the starting gate," writes Michael Hunter of Studio City, California. "Eventually I was helping out in the stalls, and when I got older, I became a jockey. My mother was also the person who, in a roundabout way, inspired my other passion: cooking. I'd come home from school, and she would have prepared something from a box or can. I didn't always like what was on the dinner table, so one day I asked her to buy me a cookbook. Pretty soon I was making dinner for us almost every night. Now, after seventeen years of racing horses and cooking for family and friends, I'm making the jump to professional cooking."