Torta di Mele della Nonna (Italian Grandmother's Apple Cake) A grandmother's apple cake is mostly apple. Just enough batter holds the wedges together, so each slice looks slightly precarious and tastes of fruit rather than sponge. Two pounds of apple meet seven ounces of flour, and that ratio is the whole recipe. It is made in one bowl, with a hand whisk and melted butter, and it is better on the second day than on the first. Yield: 8 servings from one 9 inch cake. Prep: 30 m

Torta Pasquale di Riso e Ricotta (Italian Easter Rice and Ricotta Pie) Torta pasquale di riso e ricotta is an Easter pie, not a cake. A thin sweet pasta frolla shell holds a ricotta custard carrying cooked rice, candied orange, rum soaked raisins and plenty of citrus zest. It bakes slowly, cools completely and is then left alone for hours before anyone cuts it. The rice is a texture suspended in the ricotta, never the body of the dish. The crust is the only dry, crisp, sweet

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