If you’ve never had the mixture of meringue and mousse before, give these a try. When meringues rest overnight surrounded by mousse, they soften and become slightly chewy. The combination of the smooth creamy mousse and the light chewiness of the meringue give these rich little gems an amazing texture. There are two overnight steps to create these, one to dry the meringues and one to soften them. Get as creative as you want with the piping for the tops. You can make something as simple as a kiss, or make a masterpiece. There’s enough extra meringue and mousse to play with, and to allow for sampling! You can also make this into three 8” rounds, plus the top design, if you want one large dessert (increase baking time at 275 to about an hour). I used to make this for a restaurant called the Old Mill Inn.

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King Cake is a Mardi Gras tradition! It’s not really a cake, but after a few mint juleps, do you really care? It’s actually a large cinnamon coffeecake with colored sugar in Mardi Gras colors, gold, green and purple. To make it a true King Cake, there needs to be a plastic baby hidden inside. There are different versions of what getting the baby means, anywhere from making you buy the next round to moving the party to your house. Of course, if you make it, you know where you hid the baby….Enjoy this cake, and celebrate New Orleans and Mardi Gras!

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This one is just for fun! A local Mexican restaurant serves deep fried cheesecake, and the combo of that dessert plus the tostadas they serve kind of popped this into my head. They are anything but authentic, but they still taste good! Although you really should fry the tortillas just before serving, it takes almost no time to assemble these with the apple filling made ahead of time. This would be fun to do for Cinco de Mayo.

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