Berry

This pull-out-all-stops dessert layers a white chocolate pistachio cake with strawberries and a do-ahead pistachio butter-cream. For the finishing touches, whipped cream is piped up the sides, and a marzipan top is crowned with fresh strawberries.

This is a cross between two English classics. The Bakewell tart, named after the town in Derbyshire where it was supposedly invented by accident in the nineteenth century, is a layered jam, custard and almond treat. Burnt cream is the English cousin and forerunner of the French crème brûée. It's also known as Trinity cream, since it is thought to have originated at Cambridge's Trinity College in the eighteenth century.

Here's a low-fat, no-egg version of panna cotta, a smooth custard from the Piedmont region of Italy. It's soothing and luscious, and requires no baking time.

A delicious low-calorie fat-free dessert.

This refreshing seasonal sorbet is a wonderful mid-meal palate cleanser.

Purchased Mexican wedding cookies or any buttery nut cookie would be good with this dessert.

Crumbled amaretti add great crunch and nice almond flavor to this layered dessert.

Strawberry sorbet dresses up this terrific, uncomplicated dessert.

When ripe, fresh apricots have a velvety-soft deep golden skin with a faint blush and the most delicate flavor. When picked before maturity, the flavor is less than exciting but baking surprisingly intensifies the flavor even of the pallid ones, bringing them more toward the piquancy of dried apricots. Since baked aprictos are so vivid, I always bake them entirely open-faced in a pie. Glazing them with strained apricot preserves adds extra flavor and makes them glisten.

Refreshing and absolutely delicious. Mix up this treat in the morning, and it will be frozen in time to help beat the heat by the early afternoon.

These are also nice for breakfast. Just top them with nonfat vanilla yogurt instead of the frozen yogurt suggested in the recipe.

An easy substitute for the mascarpone, a soft Italian cream cheese, is 12 ounces cream cheese blended with six tablespoons whipping cream and 1/4 cup sour cream.

In this show-stopping dessert, moist chocolate cake is layered with a luxurious combination of rich chocolate glaze and raspberry whipped cream.

A traditional French cake, the financier is usually made from ground almonds blended with butter and egg whites. Individual rectangular financiers are popular in France's pastry shop.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.