Cake

Torta al vino is a traditional wine-country cake with white wine in the batter and seedless grapes (or any kind of berry) folded in. The acidity of the wine and the whole juicy fruits—baked grapes are luscious!—give this easy cake a delightful complexity of flavors and textures in each bite.

These are my favorite kind of cakes to make: mix a batter in a bowl; put it in a pan with fruit; set the cake in the oven; remove when done—and that’s it! They’re ready to enjoy, with no fancy finishing or decorating needed. Such cakes are perfect for afternoon tea or as a simple dessert after a big dinner. But you know when I most love these cakes? In the morning—I just cut a small piece from the pan and sit down with a cup of excellent coffee, a copy of the New York Times, and my torta. It’s a great way to start the day. Simple as they are, both of these cakes have interesting, and lovely, touches: the torta invertita is (as you may have guessed) an upside-down cake. You put sugared rhubarb in the bottom of the pan, spread the batter on top, and bake. The fruit cooks and caramelizes and moistens the cake on top; then, when the torta is partly cooled, you invert the pan so the fruit turns into a glossy topping. I love rhubarb, and in this recipe I’ve incorporated a great technique I learned from my editor, Judith, who grows rhubarb in Vermont. The cut-up fruit is tossed with sugar and sits overnight, to soften and release lots of its liquid. The drained pieces go right into the cake pan, and I cook down the juices to make rhubarb syrup (to drizzle on the cake). When rhubarb isn’t available, other fruits make a great torta invertita: ripe stone fruits like apricots, nectarines, peaches, or plums; ripe pears, figs, and pineapple are good, too.

This appetizer torta is made with chilled polenta, not soft polenta like a pasticciata. It’s as rich as any dessert cake but much simpler and faster. Make it in any size you want, but even this small cake will be enough to serve six uninhibited eaters.

Of all the wonderful ricotta torte and crostate I have made, this one is so moreunpretentious and delightful that I urge you to put it in your dessert repertoire. The cake is moist and sweet, with a hint of orange and the crunch of toasted almond slices in each bite. In Rome, this cake is made with sheep’s-milk ricotta, giving it an additional layer of complexity, and if you do have access, by all means use sheep’s-milk ricotta and follow the same procedures. Top with a dollop of whipped cream, or, to make it fresher, fold into the whipped cream an equal amount of sour cream. Top all with berries in season, or some halved ripe figs when available.

Sabbiosa means “sandy,” and that’s a good description of this delightful cake. At first bite it seems dry, but then it melts in your mouth, and you will love its golden hue as well. The cake can be enjoyed plain, simply dusted with confectioners’ sugar, or doused with amaretto or limoncello and a topping of cream and/or fruit and berries. Serve it warm right from the oven; freeze it to pull out when unexpected guests drop in—or (as I do) have a piece for breakfast with cappuccino. All in all, this is a recipe you need to try.

Fregola means “crumb,” and fregolotta means “one big crumb:” for this delightful treat, you make and bake lots of little crumbs into two round cookie crumbles. This is an ideal cake/cookie: it keeps for days in a tin, and is delightful after dinner with some ice cream or whipped cream. It is the quintessential cookie to have with your espresso to finish a true Italian meal.

Apples grow well in the Carnic mountains, in the northern part of Friuli, and are used in many desserts. This delicious double-crusted tart reflects the deep-rooted frugality of cooks in this tough mountainous terrain. The crust is made with bread crumbs taken from stale bread, probably because of the scarcity of white flour and the time it takes to make a refined pastry dough. But the results, in the Carnic spirit, are delicious.

Sacher torte is known around the world as a specialty of Vienna (at the Hotel Sacher) but is commonly found in pastry shops and in home kitchens of Trieste. It is sure to delight the chocolate lovers in your household. It will keep well for a few days in a cookie tin without refrigeration, but for longer storing time do refrigerate. You can also bake and freeze the cake layers in advance. Defrost and assemble and glaze the torte before serving.

I wanted to include a dessert where chocolate was the main ingredient because, well, because people love it. This recipe was previously published in Rosa’s New Mexican Table by Roberto Santibañez and is one of my proudest creations. The tomatillo sauce may seem unusual, but trust me, you will be pleasantly surprised, and the smokiness of the chipotles gives an incredible depth to this scrumptious dessert. Boca negra cake got its name because, once you dig in, your mouth will be covered in luxurious chocolate. Be sure to use high-quality chocolate because it will make all the difference in the world. Serve it as is or with a bit of lightly sweetened whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, or Natilla (page 163).

Cheesecake is one of my favorite desserts, and I love the kind that is a little bit sour. This one is made with a little crema and a hazelnut crust. I like to serve it with quince, a natural pairing with cheese. I also gave it a little heat from arbol chiles to showcase the wonderful combination of sweet, sour, and spicy that is popular in modern Mexico.

I developed this recipe several years ago. My training was mostly French, and I wanted to take one of the classic French desserts and give it a Mexican flavor. The different layers of textures and flavors come together beautifully and show off the cake’s sophistication when it is cut into beautiful rectangles. It takes quite a bit of time to make because there are many steps, but it can all be prepared in advance and will come together very nicely. It is well worth the effort. Note that you will need 4 baking sheets of the same size.

I love plantains! I love them fried, steamed, and even raw (although if I eat too many this way, I get a stomach ache). Whenever I see some black ripe ones, I buy many and figure I’ll eat them one way or another. I went crazy one day last year in Mexico and ate them every way I could think of. Then I had my aha moment! I thought that whatever desserts are tasty with bananas must also be good with plantains, so I played around a bit and decided that the upside-down cake was the best way to go. I think it’s great on its own, but you can serve it with a little crema as well.

This is another cake that I developed when I worked at Rosa Mexicano, and it quickly became one of the most popular desserts. We used to serve it with caramelized bananas, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce, all on the side. I have since tweaked the recipe a bit, by adding some chocolate to the tres leches mixture itself, instead of having a separate sauce, and by layering the cake with whipped cream.

I absolutely love passion fruit, and the trees in southeastern Mexico, particularly one in my childhood friend Fernando’s backyard in Bacalar Quintana Roo, inspired this creation. Think of this dessert like a tropical layered cake filled with the exquisite tartness of passion fruit and topped with a silky, sugary meringue. Avoid using mezcal with a worm in the bottle because they are, for the most part, not the best quality. You will need a blowtorch to caramelize the meringue topping, or you can use a broiler or simply sprinkle with some crunchy meringue instead (page 160).

Niño envuelto means “wrapped baby,” and it is basically a sponge cake filled with some kind of jam, cream, cajeta, or mousse, rolled up tightly, and covered with confectioner’s sugar, cream, coconut, almonds, chocolate, or meringue. It is served as a dessert, but you can also find it in panaderías sold in slices. Although I have always loved sweets, cake has never been my favorite dessert, and I think it’s because I really like crunchy things. The one exception to this rule is pastel de fresas con crema (vanilla cake filled and covered with whipped cream and strawberries). When I think about this cake, my mouth waters and I remember the Gran Via bakery, which has been making one of the best versions of this cake since the late 1960s. When the bakery first started, they sold only two things: this strawberry layered cake and huge meringues filled with whipped cream. So, when deciding what kind of niño envuelto to make, it seemed only natural to blend all of these flavors and textures into one. It is important that the eggs be at room temperature to ensure a spongy cake, so separate the eggs, cover them, and allow to come to room temperature for 30 minutes before whipping.

This dessert, also called chocoflan, gets its name from a magical thing that occurs in the oven. You cover the mold with some cajeta, pour in the chocolate cake batter, pour a layer of flan on top, and cover it lightly. It goes into the oven in a bigger dish with some hot water, and when you check whether it’s done a little while later, you find that the flan is hidden somewhere and all you see is chocolate cake! You wait for it to cool, unmold it, and there is the flan! This is a sticky, rich, sweet dessert that is not for the faint of heart. Although you can make it in individual ramekins, there is something quite exciting about slicing a full-size one. It never ceases to amaze me.

Antes are very old desserts that were prepared in many convents. They are similar to a layer cake and are made with marquesote or mamón (similar to a pound or génoise cake) that is soaked in syrup or liqueur, then filled with a fruit jam and colorfully adorned with fresh, dried, or crystallized fruit and often meringue and nuts. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, certain sweets were eaten before a meal, which is where the name of this dessert comes from: antes de means “prior to.” This particular ante was inspired by a recipe found in a manuscript from Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. She used mamey, which I’ve replaced with mango because it is much more readily available and is a wonderful combination with the ground almonds and because it still represents the cultural blend apparent in the original recipe.