These tender, shortbread-like dulce de leche--filled sandwich cookies are popular in South and Central America.
Associate food director Donna Bartolini knows that busy households will appreciate having ready-for-the-oven cookies in the freezer. These are chock-full of colourful fruit and crunchy toffee nuggets. Be sure to include the baking instructions on a card inside the box. Or bake the cookies and offer them ready-to-eat in a festive cookie tin.
This tall chocolate and orange multi-tiered cake will make a great impression on a couple's big day. The colours can be made to work with any palette; just be sure to go light and dark enough on either end to allow for a gradient of colour on the middle two tiers.
This portable sandwich fills the bill for fun picnic fare. A make-ahead filling rolled up in easy no-rise dough is sliced into pretty pinwheel servings to enjoy warm or cool.
These adorable bird’s nest cookies are delectable on their own, but topped with maple icing and chocolate eggs? Even better!
This is a currant and raspberry version of traubletorte, a classic German red currant torte. The meringue forms a smooth dome over the centre, leaving a small space between the meringue and cake. If you are a red currant fan, try the torte without the raspberries — either way, it's seed-crunchy — but it's only successful with fresh fruit. Serve mit schlag (with a healthy dollop of whipped cream).
Biting into cake that tastes like the classic sandwich combo is like hitting the cupcake jackpot. Cream cheese adds just enough tartness to the icing to offset the sweetness of the peanut butter. Omit the peanut butter for a nut-free, school-friendly treat.
Christmas colours add holiday flair to these giant cookies. For other celebrations, change up the shades to suit. Coating wafers are available in a variety of colours in bulk food stores.
