Crisp

Juicy berries are marvelous nestled under a crispy top. This dessert is easy enough for a beginning baker to make and serve with pride.

The fragrant spices in this apple crisp are pure Christmas, and the cornmeal in the topping adds a rustic touch.

If you've never cooked with quince before, here's a great intro. It tastes like a cross between an apple and a pear.

This recipe was created by chef Lachlan Mackinnon Patterson of Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder, Colorado. It's part of a special menu he created for Epicurious's Wine.Dine.Donate program. Frico caldo are Italian cheese crisps. Chef Mackinnon Patterson's version includes potatoes and onions and makes for a slightly thicker crisp, similar to a potato pancake. Start making this recipe a day before you plan to serve it. The pickled shallots and cilantro vinaigrette are best if prepared 24 hours in advance.

The charm of this simple dessert is obvious: It takes sweet summer fruits and cooks them down so that everything good about them becomes even better.

Top with ice cream, lightly sweetened créme fraîche, or whipped cream.

Crisp toppings may vary as to how much sugar, butter, oats, nuts, and flour they contain, but one thing's for sure: All have a crumbly topping that crisps up during baking.

The buttery, cookielike topping in most crisp recipes is usually a calorie bomb. But chef Dean Rucker uses a whole-grain crumble of whole-wheat flour and rolled oats that's gently sweetened with honey, so you save calories and get almost 5 grams of fiber per serving. Feel free to swap in other fruit options to take advantage of the season's freshest picks.

"While my sister was visiting me, we had dinner at Asher Restaurant in nearby Roswell," writes Terry Taylor of Suwanee, Georgia. "She loved the meal — the rhubarb crisp with buttermilk ice cream in particular. I'd love to surprise her by making this dessert the next time she's in town."

A crisp is one of the easiest desserts that a nonbaker can make.

Ice cream at its easiest: crystallized ginger is mixed into softened vanilla ice cream.

Ruby Port in the juicy filling deepens the fruit flavors in this crisp. Top with vanilla ice cream or the ice cream from the Malted Milk Ice Cream Cake .