Krystina Castella

There is nothing quite like this Scandinavian-style cake tower. For Christmas, the Kransekake is decorated to look like a Christmas tree.

At sunset throughout Palestine during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan you will find vendors with hot plates lining the streets preparing these flat cakes. They are made in many different ways; this version is filled with cheese and nuts and then fried. Instead of the syrup, you can also top the cakes with cinnamon sugar.

Jalebis are small, bright yellow, web-shaped cakes similar to funnel cakes. They are popular celebration and street cakes in Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and India. Soaking them in saffron syrup and then drying them gives the cakes a crispy outer shell. They are made with maida flour (a finely milled wheat flour) and Bengal gram flour (a flour milled from chickpeas), both of which can be found at Indian groceries. If you can't find them, use cake or pastry flour. If you can find fresh yeast, use it instead of the dry yeast; that is the traditional method and it adds to the flavor.

This yeast sweet bread, traditionally prepared for the Mexican Day of the Dead, is usually designed to look like crossbones and skulls. It's given as an offering to a family's ancestors, but it's labor-intensive to make, and it's delicious, so I would recommend that you make two batches: one for your ancestors to enjoy, and one for your family to eat.

Best served at a big family breakfast, this coffee cake rings in the first morning of the new year in Greece. You can easily recognize the cake by its tiered shape, with a small round cake set on top of a large round cake. It is usually flavored with anise seed or mahlab (the ground pit of a Mediterranean wild cherry). The Greek tradition is to serve the cake to the youngest first, then the next to youngest, and so on, working up in age, and the person who finds the hidden coin or trinkets will have good luck for the year.

In Morocco every meal is a special occasion, and almond-paste sweets are always part of the menu. M'hanncha (snake) is made from rolled phyllo pastry coiled to look like a serpent. The orange-flower water and cinnamon flavorings are very North African, revealing the Persian influences in the region.