Colorful desserts and a crazy cake

Grazie, Anna Gass for your Affogato mug cake recipe and to the writers helping make this 4th of July red, white and berry-blue

Hello! Hello!

And here we are — it’s almost July 4th. Almost time for the parades down Main Streets across America — my small town in Connecticut has one and yes, politicians kiss babies. It’s the time when local corn turns up at the farmstand. And it’s the time for red-white-and-blue desserts, which means berries.

For the past week or so, I’ve gotten mail from Substackers with terrific berry recipes meant for the holiday weekend — not that you need a holiday to make them. And so I thought that I’d point you to a couple of my favorite authors and their recipes and then make a radical suggestion for a weekend dessert: Tazza di Torta, Mug Cake Affogato (!!!), a deliciously imaginative recipe from the deliciously smart cookbook, Italian Snacking by Anna Francese Gass.

First Up, Berries!

My friend Zoë François, she who has a fabulous cookie book coming out this fall, writes the

ZoëBakes Newsletter

and it’s a beauty. Zoë’s recipes are always excellent, but I love that they’re rounded out with gorgeous images, go…