Bon Appétit

Pistou—France's pesto—gives these simply poached eggs tons of flavor.

The best flavors of fruitcake baked into a tart that’s a balance of sweet, tangy, and buttery.

A cross between fudge and pecan praline, this soft, nutty, and somewhat crumbly southern delight is the ideal holiday treat.

Rich and crunchy, these almonds are prepared like Spain’s Marcona variety: cooked in oil and generously salted.

This deep, rich cake gets extra flavor from bittersweet chocolate, coffee, and crystallized ginger.

This simple salad, with its lemony dressing and bitter greens, is a nice match for the fried latkes.

You’ll need a 7 3/4-inch-diameter trifle dish that is at least 4 3/4 inches deep. The recipe makes an extra gingerbread cake; have it for breakfast the next morning. If you prefer to make 12 individual trifles, use all three gingerbread cakes and cut each in half horizontally. Using a pretty glass as a guide, cut out 4 cake rounds from each cut cake layer. Alternate 2 cake rounds with 2 to 3 layers of the mascarpone cream, a few candied kumquats, and some poached cranberries in each glass.

Speck, lightly smoked pork that is cured and air-dried, adds a richness to this dish. Look for Speck at Italian markets, specialty foods stores, or online at igourmet.com.

Every year, I make homemade fruitcakes for friends and family. I bake the dense pound cakes studded with dried fruits months in advance, then wrap them in muslin. These cookies are similar to my fruitcakes—only they’ll take you a lot less time. For a fun presentation, the cookies are baked in bonbon-size baking cups.

When I was growing up, everyone put out bowls of toasted pecans during the holidays. To this day, the heady perfume of toasting pecans brings me back to my childhood. To capture that memory in cookie form, I made a buttery-rich, highly addictive shortbread, then decorated it with toasted pecans.

The tiniest latkes on the menu, these are flavored with creamy cauliflower and spicy Aleppo pepper (a Syrian seasoning). Serve them with the aioli or just sprinkle them with za'atar.

A vegetarian spin on rillettes, the rich, creamy pàté traditionally made with duck or pork.

Chalupa is the Spanish word for "boat" and refers to the shape of the fried tortilla dough that serves as the base for these appetizers. In this version, the dough is baked in mini muffin cups and filled with chorizo, avocado, and salsa.

Serve this elegant Euro-style treat with a sweet late-harvest Sauvignon Blanc.

These come out extra-crispy when you use a pizza stone. If you don’t have one, a heavy-duty rimmed baking sheet works well; invert it so that you can remove the pizza easily.

Brown butter makes broccolini almost decadent.

A great homemade gift. Panforte (an Italian fruit-and-nut confection) is the topping for these bittersweet chocolates.

This simple dish has a quiche-like filling and baguette slices for a crust.