Cake

For ease of transportation, the cupcakes and icing may be brought on board in separate containers.

The following cupcake recipe is adapted from a rich chocolate cake first served in the late 1890s at the Wellesley Tea Room, a genteel establishment catering to students at the well-know Massachusetts women's college. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Stout, in the sharper-flavored ale family of brews popular in Great Britain, gains its dark color from the roasted malt used in its brewing. The rich, malty flavor melds well with the molasses and aromatics in this moist cake, which is brightened with a lemon glaze.

This delicate cake can be prepared a day before serving. Try this easy orange sauce over ice cream, too.

In the forties and fifties, before the widespread popularity of fortune cookies, countless Chinese meals were brought to a close with traditional almond cakes like these. The customary all-lard base of this once very popular sweet is here lightened with vegetable shortening. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Cheesecake and Champagne are a great finale. Begin making the dessert a day ahead.

You can make this up to three days ahead; be sure to start at least one day in advance.

Many Moravians--a Germanic people from a region in what for most of the twentieth century has been known as Czechoslovakia-- settled in Ohio, southern Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois in the last century. The mashed potatoes give this coffee cake, which is good for breakfast or an afternoon break, a distinctive, moist texture.

It's unusual to butter and flour the pan when making a chiffon cake, but we liked the delicate crust that resulted. Because we did it this way, the cake must be cooled, inverted, on a rack, not on a bottle (the usual procedure for chiffons), or it will fall right out of the pan! Don't be tempted to substitute lemon juice for orange juice in the recipe, as the cake will not be as tender.

(Le Gâteau de Maïs) This is an old-fashioned dish, a simple meal that Marie-Rose Sol makes often for herself and her husband, Gabriel. Farmers who have raised everything from foie gras geese to vegetables, they are semi-retired now and living by themselves, though not far from their children. For Marie-Rose that means cooking for two, something that she’s never quite gotten used to. "When I make this, I still make almost as much as I did when the family was here, and we eat it all, with salad!" she says. This dish, which is like a crisp corn pancake, is wonderful in late winter when the weather's still cold but no longer biting. Marie-Rose makes it when she wants something delicious that takes little effort. "Besides, this is one of Gabriel's favorite things," she says. It's simple and somewhat unusual, like a dessert but treated as a vegetable. There is very little batter to cover the apples, so the result is light and crisp. Don’t be afraid to bake the cake until it is just this side of burned on the edges and golden in the center, Serve it immediately upon removing it from the oven. You'll see that it goes perfectly with a garlicky salad! Try a simple Bergerac with this.