Candy

Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 30 min

Caramelized Fresh Fruit These crackly-coated fruits bring back childhood memories of candied apples. I've given the Roman recipe here; in Venice, where they're coated with a thicker layer of caramel, they are called golosezzi veneziani. Set aside about 1/2 hour for the caramelizing and finish the procedure no more than 1 1/2 hours before serving so that the fruit remains crisp.

Though the cranberries look gorgeous, you wouldn't want to eat them—they're extremely tart when raw. The mint leaves, however, are positively delicious. Fresh raw cranberries yielded the most attractive garnish; thawed frozen berries may collapse and shrivel. Feel free to increase the amounts we've provided here if you'd like to make your decoration more elaborate.

These truffles have a double dose of mint in the form of fresh mint leaves and Vandermint, a Dutch chocolate-mint liqueur.

Chewy, candy-like caramel cookies enhanced with orange and crystallized ginger. The leftover orange sugar syrup is a delicious sweetener for hot tea.

It's important to use an imported chocolate, such as Lindt or Callebaut, for this recipe. The high cocoa-butter content of the imported type produces chocolate eggs that are more flexible and easier to remove from the molds. You can make all the eggs out of white chocolate, all out of bitter-sweet chocolate or a few from each.

Alice Medrich, founder of the Berkeley chocolate shop Cocolat, started the craze for these intense little nuggets.

Pack the candy in decorative holiday tins (antique ones, if you can find them).

Unsweetened coconut can be found at natural foods stores.

For this recipe you will need a large marble slab or other heatproof work surface (about 20 by 20 inches) and a bench knife-a rectangular metal blade used for cutting and lifting doughs (do not use a plastic pastry scraper). Bench knives are available in cookware shops. The candies can be individually wrapped in wax paper or candy wrappers.