Cake

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 9 hr

Dark rum moistens the cake layers and adds another festive flavor to this beautiful and delicious holiday dessert. The cake can be made and chilled two days ahead.

Active time: 1 hr Start to finish: 5 hr If you decide to use fresh pumpkin purée for this cake, be sure you drain it for the full eight hours we recommend in the procedure.

A decadent, impressive dessert that appeals to everyone's inner Boy Scout or Girl Scout. Begin preparing this a day ahead.

Susan Murphy of Kansas City, Missouri, writes: "My daughter and I love to spruce up boxed cake mixes with spices, nuts, or fruit. One afternoon we decided to experiment with banana muffin mix instead. We made a very moist cake, filled it with fresh banana slices, then topped it with creamy homemade frosting. It's one of our favorite creations to date."

"A few weeks before my best friend’s wedding in San Francisco, I flew into town for her bridal shower," writes Constance Stevenson of Portland, Oregon. "The luncheon was catered by Thymes Two Catering. For dessert, they served an elegant blueberry and lemon layer cake with a tangy lemon frosting."

Pillsbury test kitchen home economists have heard it all. When they told me some people were adding melted ice cream to a cake mix, I couldn't believe it. Well, that's precisely what I did with this fun recipe. Choose your flavor and let the ice cream melt. The only trick is that you must have 2 cups of melted ice cream. For super-premium ice creams with little overrun, that's 1 pint frozen. But for less expensive brands with a lot of air piped in, you'll need to begin with more than a pint. I made this cake with several flavors of ice cream and our favorite was a super-premium from Ben & Jerry's — Cherry Garcia. With cherry and chocolate pieces and the cream and the eggs in the ice cream, you need little else. Your liquid, your fat, and your flavorings are all in the melted ice cream. This recipe works well, too, in a 13- by 9-inch pan.

Blackberries turn a familiar spice cake into a sophisticated finale.

This bread is slightly sweet, like some corn breads, and works well as an accompaniment for the island pork tenderloin salad . It also makes a nice island-style tea bread when served in the afternoon with lime marmalade and hibiscus tea.

Connie Capani of Binghamton, New York, writes:"I am 100 percent Italian, so perhaps it's no surprise that I love food: To Italians, it's like a security blanket. I learned how to make spaghetti and other Abruzzi favorites from my mother. Looking at food magazines is what got me interested in venturing out into American culinary territory. I wanted to know how to make a "gravy" that didn't include tomatoes. These days, I work only part-time as a substitute teacher, but I still don't want to be in the kitchen the whole time when my husband and I entertain. " Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.

Begin making this one day before serving.

"My mother and I spent a recent afternoon shopping in Gruene, a small town not far from Austin," writes Martha Witebsky of Austin, Texas. "We loved the tender, fruity cake we had at the River House Tea Room. Would chef Carol Hill share the recipe for what she calls Hummingbird Cake?"

Strawberries marinated in a vanilla-orange syrup add a new twist to these sponge-cake shortcakes. Active time: 1 hr Start to finish : 2 1/2 hr

What to drink: Offer robust French roast coffee, but also a vintage or ruby Port.

If Original Sin were a cake, this would be it.