Torta al Mascarpone e Nutella (Italian Mascarpone and Nutella Cake) This is the cold cake Italian families build when there is no time to bake and no appetite for failure: a pressed biscuit base, a mascarpone cream ribboned with Nutella, a night in the refrigerator and a glaze poured over the top. What can go wrong is the cream, and above all the meeting of two creams of different weight. This recipe is built around that meeting, so the first slice shows clean dark veins thro

Crostata alla Nutella e Nocciole del Piemonte (Italian Piedmont Hazelnut Nutella Crostata) This is the hazelnut tart of the Langhe hills: a short, sandy pasta frolla enriched with hazelnut flour, filled with hazelnut and cocoa spreadable cream loosened into a pipeable custard, and closed with a lattice. It is easy to make badly. The filling is nearly half fat, and that fat is the whole technical problem of the recipe. Yield: one 9 inch (23 cm) tart, 10 slices. Prep: 35 minute

Tiramisù Rivisitato alla Nutella (Italian Nutella Tiramisu) This tiramisu is built around hazelnut chocolate spread, and the whole difficulty of it sits in one place: that spread is far too thick to be layered. Everything else exists to solve that single problem. The cream is lightened until it flows off a spoon, the coffee soak stays restrained, and the dessert rests long enough for the layers to knit into something that cuts cleanly. Yield: 8 servings in a 9 by 9 inch (23 b