Frozen Dessert

This treat requires very little work and is a great make-ahead dessert.

Vanilla ice cream is decked out for the holidays with orange liqueur and purchased almond lace cookies. Look for Florentine cookies at bakeries and some supermarkets.

Even if you're not an eggnog lover, you're going to love this custardy ice cream. Freshly grated nutmeg and the rounded complexity of dark rum lend it a rich flavor — plus a lovely aroma that will put you in the holiday spirit while you make dessert.

A perfect ending to any Asian meal.

It was summer when we received a letter from a reader requesting a recipe for fruit ice cream that was as lush and rich as Ruth Reichl's chocolate ice cream . The secret is to cook the fruit down to a jamlike consistency with sugar, which lowers the freezing point. We were working on our fall issues at the time, so we developed a seasonally appropriate cranberry ice cream ; we also couldn't resist taking advantage of the local peaches sitting on our countertop. Frozen peaches are a perfectly good stand-in for fresh in this case, and a scoop of peach ice cream on a slice of toasted pound cake can be a beautiful thing in the dead of winter. For the silkiest peach ice cream ever, work with the all-cream base for the cranberry ice cream .

Sweet and tart, this robust fruit ice cream is a perfect finish for any holiday feast.

Missy Johnson of Fairway, Kansas, writes: "My husband and i had a wonderful spiced banana ice cream at bluestem, in Kansas City, Missouri. Do you think the pastry chef would share the recipe?"

Even easier: The base for this ice cream — a warm orange custard — is equally delicious with the Apple-Raisin Crumble. Instead of turning it into ice cream, just spoon the warm custard over each serving.

IMPROV: No fresh figs? Dried ones work just fine, too. The only adjustment that you will need to make is the baking time — 45 minutes instead of 20.

Basil Tsiokos of Newburgh, New York, writes: "My best friend and I recently spent a week at Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain, a spa resort near Scottsdale, Arizona. Our goal was major exercise and minor calories, but on the last night we splurged at Elements with the richest dessert we could find — slices of chocolate-glazed frozen peanut butter mousse." Don't use natural-style peanut butter for this recipe; do start making it the day before serving.

This sophisticated dessert makes the most of contrasting textures. The subtle floral flavor of wildflower honey connects all of the components.

This super-easy and refreshing dessert is part Kir Royale, part peach parfait. For a very cool treat, layer the fruit and ice cream in frosty collins or pilsner glasses straight from the freezer. Serve with iced-tea spoons.

Use any combination of ripe melons that you can find. Charentais (or Cavaillon), delicious French melons with orange flesh, are at farmers' markets now, while Galia (sweet and aromatic, similar to honeydew) and Sharlyn (a white-fleshed variety that tastes like a combination of honeydew and cantaloupe) are increasingly available at supermarkets.

Bake and freeze the Triple-Chocolate Cookies a day before filling them with ice cream. For convenience, you can make the homemade ice cream up to three days in advance. Purchased strawberry ice cream (softened slightly at room temperature until spreadable) also works in these sandwiches.

A childhood favorite gets fancy: Root beer granita is topped with vanilla ice cream, then drizzled with root beer syrup. Try making this with a microbrew root beer.

Editor's note: This recipe is adapted from Gabrielle Carbone, coproprietor of The Bent Spoon ice cream parlor in Princeton, New Jersey. My husband Matt and I created this recipe long before we opened The Bent Spoon. We have such special memories of picking baskets full of strawberries and making them into this bright reddish-pink sorbet, which captures their fresh-picked essence. We now use it in the top layer in our red, white, and blue cake. Because it's such a simple recipe, it's important to get fresh, organic berries picked at the height of their flavor. At the shop, we don't strain them — we like to keep the fruit as close to its natural state as possible. But if you dislike bits of seeds in your sorbet, feel free to strain the base before chilling it. The quality of the water is important as well — if your water has a bad aftertaste, so will your sorbet — so we recommend using bottled. The optional egg white helps to stabilize, emulsify, and preserve the texture of the sorbet if you are going to keep it in your freezer for a few days.