Almond

It’s important to shape the dough properly; be sure the ends are not too thin, or they will brown too quickly before the cookies are baked through.

Make the most of fresh cherry season by baking the little stone fruits right into charming tea cakes. The cakes, made with ground almonds, brown butter, and egg whites, are similar to financiers, which are small, springy brick-shaped cakes named for their resemblance to gold bullion. These cakes are baked with the pits left inside the cherries (be sure to warn guests before serving). Or, if you prefer, remove the pits before baking, leaving the stems intact.

Be prepared for guests to buzz with delight at the sight of miniature marzipan bees alighting atop piped buttercream dahlias. Honey (of course!) flavors the cakes. Serve them at a garden reception, shower, or child’s birthday party, on their own or with the sunflower cupcakes on page 273.

You might want to throw a woodland-themed celebration just to have an excuse to make cupcakes topped with chocolate faux-bois rounds. Faux bois, or imitation woodgrain, is a favorite Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia motif; it can be applied to chocolate using a wood-graining rocker, found at paint-supply stores (see Sources, page 342, for the tool and for acetate sheets). Made with ground almonds and hazelnuts and covered with dark chocolate frosting, the cupcakes are also worth serving on their own, without any other embellishments.

Cupcakes disguised as baby chicks are equally appropriate for a birthday party or an Easter celebration. To decorate them, the cupcakes are first inverted, then coated with generous layers of frosting and toasted coconut; features made of candy and almonds complete the disguise. Frosting anchors each cupcake onto a shallow dish to make it easier to keep the dessert in place while you finish it. If you don’t have vanilla beans, increase the amount of pure vanilla extract by one tablespoon.

These tropical cupcakes, scaled-down versions of the most well-known upside-down cake, have a retro appeal thanks to the flambéed fruit filling.

Treat Dad to something special on Father’s Day: an over-the-top, unforgettable chocolate dessert. Just like the fudge and the ice-cream variety of the same name, our Rocky Road Tart is jam-packed with mini marshmallows, salted almonds, and chocolate chunks, all in an easy graham-cracker crust. It’s sure to become an annual tradition.

In Austria, where this handsome dessert originated, linzertorte is enjoyed all year long, but its festive red-and-gold palette makes it especially popular at holiday celebrations. The cookielike crust, rich with ground almonds, is layered with raspberry jam and crisscrossed into a windowpane pattern.

For this Scandinavian-inspired dessert, bittersweet-chocolate-enriched dough is pressed into the pan, and more is rolled into long ropes and pressed to form a herringbone pattern on top. Lingonberry jam is available at specialty stores or Scandinavian markets.

Martha originally created this recipe for a boating picnic in Maine. The tartlets are filled with blueberries, both fresh and preserved. Almond flavors the sturdy crust and the cakelike batter for the filling. Use wild blueberries if you can find them; otherwise, cultivated berries will do—the smaller, the better.

Chocolate and caramel are enhanced with port wine, Spanish Marcona almonds, and fleur de sel, a delicate sea salt, for ultra-rich miniature tarts that are wonderfully unctuous, like fine truffles. The large yield of this recipe makes it perfect for parties; just don’t expect to have any left over. These tartlets have a tendency to disappear rather quickly.

Chocolate marries well with many different types of fruit, but pears and chocolate make an extra-special pair. Here, a ring of sliced fruit sits atop a deep, dark chocolate filling, which puffs up as it bakes. Arrange the slices so the curved edges all face the same way, with the narrow ends pointing toward the tart’s center.

A citrusy dessert can feel like a burst of sunshine on a wintry day. For this easy tart, a ground-almond crust is quickly pulsed in a food processor, then pressed in the pan and baked until golden brown. The no-bake filling, essentially yogurt thickened with gelatin, takes mere minutes to assemble before it is poured into the shell, chilled, and topped with thinly sliced oranges.

Pear and almond tart is one of the best known—and most revered—desserts of classic French pastry; it’s also one of Martha’s favorites. Almonds are sprinkled over the top and flavor both the press-in crust and the frangipane filling. Halved pears, poached in white wine and vanilla, are nestled in neat rows, leaving just enough room in between for the filling to rise during baking and turn a splendid shade of golden brown.

This stunning dessert may be a showstopper, but its crust is remarkably simple; it’s an easy-to-make oversize almond macaroon. The strawberries are macerated in sugar and liqueur before arranging on the tart; if allowed to rest for a couple of hours, the airy base will begin to soak up some of the deliciously boozy syrup. Since it’s flourless, the galette is an excellent choice for Passover.

Take all the layers of classic cheesecake—crumbly graham-cracker crust, rich, creamy filling, and fresh fruit topping—and combine them in a modern tart. Sour cream ups the tanginess factor of the filling; almonds round out the cookie crust; and sugar sweetens the plums, which are cooked into a jam. Save some of the cooking syrup for tossing with the blueberries before scattering them over the top.

Cornmeal and blackberries appear together in many baked goods and desserts, as their late-summer flavors complement each other beautifully. This recipe calls for you to prepare your own jam, for which you will be rewarded with a few extra jars. Otherwise, seek out a top-quality store-bought jam to use in its place; spike it with two tablespoons kirsch.

A homemade dessert does not have to be complicated. This tart involves little more than assembling a few staples from the freezer and the pantry. Think of it as a deconstructed chocolate-almond croissant—one meant for the end of a meal, rather than the start of the day.

Cherries and almonds go hand in hand in many traditional baked goods. To produce this flat tart, lightly sweetened and spiced Bing cherries and ground almonds are heaped onto a rough oval of pâte sucrée; the edges of the pastry are then folded over and pleated to form a border, then the whole thing is baked to a gloriously glossy sheen.

Marsala wine, traditionally used in zabaglione and sometimes served as an apéritif, flavors these Italian goodies. Look for candied orange peel in specialty foods stores; do not substitute supermarket candied-fruit mixes.