Walnut Cake Recipes and Other Easy Walnut Recipes

A rich, flavorful syrup infuses this Mediterranean-inspired walnut coffee cake with the bright aroma of oranges and cloves. Heart-healthy olive oil and whole-grain barley flour add subtle complexity and texture to this nutty treat.

For this simple sautéed chard, flavored with rich-tasting pancetta and walnuts, we prefer the milder taste of green chard.

Pomegranates become available in late fall just in time to grace holiday tables--all too often as decorations. For this festive roast the fruit is used in three forms: as a thick, sweet molasses for the filling plus whole seeds and juice for the sauce. Slicing through the roast reveals a colorful pinwheel of crushed walnuts mixed with the pomegranate molasses.

Turn comforting tapioca pudding into a special dessert for two by spiking it with pure maple syrup and finishing it with a simple spiced maple-nut topping.

A richly flavored caramelized shallot-cider sauce turns baked butternut squash rounds into a beautiful starter or side dish for a fall party.

This colorful salad makes a fine prelude to a hearty dinner. Walnut oil's distinctive flavor delivers a rich hit to the dressing.

This melt-in-your-mouth custard is delicately flavored with vanilla bean and lightly sweetened with agave syrup. Crunchy caramelized walnuts are an addictively delicious topping. Adapted from Cooking with the Seasons at Rancho La Puerta: Recipes from the World-Famous Spa (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2008) by Deborah Szekely and Deborah M. Schneider with Chef Jesús González, Chef of La Cocina Que Canta.

Crisp, moist and chewy, this cookie created by Georgene Egri of Walnut Creek, California, has the essential ingredients for the holidays: citrus, nuts and cranberries. These cookies travel well for gift-giving and lunchboxes.

Rosemary contributes an ever-so-subtle fragrance to this luxurious cake. Whole-wheat flour blends in seamlessly because its nutty flavor complements the walnuts.

Tender-crisp green beans tossed with creamy blue cheese and topped with toasted walnuts pair well with grilled steak or chicken.

The classic combination of pears, walnuts and blue cheese isn't just for salad. Toss the same ingredients onto purchased whole-wheat pizza dough and make your own gourmet flatbread at home. Any type of ripe, firm pear will work--red pears look great.

Here we roast a variety of roots with a brown sugar-cider glaze. Make them instead of candied sweet potatoes at your Thanksgiving celebration. If you include red beets, the whole dish will take on a gorgeous ruby hue.

Chocolate wafer cookies and toasted walnuts are a delightful way to jazz up chocolate ice cream.

This unusual lasagna with portobello mushrooms, sweet onions, spinach and Gorgonzola cheese has a rich, complex flavor. It's also great with goat cheese instead of Gorgonzola, if you prefer.

For this tart a few tablespoons of maple syrup sweeten the blueberry topping and round out the flavor of the cream filling.

Fresh cranberries get crunch from walnuts and an infusion of sweetness from dried cherries in this take on a classic marmalade. Leftovers are great on a turkey sandwich.

Crisp and chewy, this bar is a good-for-you alternative to store-bought cereal bars. The secret ingredient, silken tofu, will give your day a protein-packed start. The recipe also works with other fruit-and-nut combinations.

Lisa Asuncion Feliciano of Manila, Philippines, shared this recipe in our Kitchen to Kitchen department. She recommends making extra loaves when zucchini is abundant because they freeze well.

The joy of stir-frying is that an interesting dish like this cooks in mere minutes. The only trick is to have all the ingredients prepped and ready to add. Once you start stir-frying you can't afford to lose time mincing and measuring.

If you can manage to save one, there's nothing like a cold baked apple for breakfast, topped with a dollop of vanilla yogurt or served in a pool of fresh cold milk. The best part is the nut-and-fruit mixture nestled in the apple's core. Don't be surprised if the apples split a little--or sometimes a lot--as they bake. To reduce the chance of splitting, use Golden Delicious apples. Another trick: score the apple along the circumference, as described below, to create a sort of fault line where it can expand, lessening the likelihood of a split elsewhere.