Maida Heatter was born on Sept. 7, 1916, in Baldwin, N.Y., on Long Island, to Gabriel and Saidie (Hermalin) Heatter. Her father was a well-known radio broadcaster. Her mother instilled in her a love of cooking. She was, Ms. Heatter told Mr. Claiborne, “a most unusual woman who could do anything in the world, but cooking was her No. 1 love.”

Ms. Heatter studied fashion and design at Pratt Institute in New York, and saw a connection between that area of interest and cooking. “I definitely consider it an art,” she told L.A. Weekly in 2011. “There are many similarities.”

The switch from designing to baking came in 1966, soon after she had married Ralph Daniels, her third husband.

“Just after we were married, Ralph retired and decided to open a restaurant in Miami Beach, where we were living,” she told The Times in 1995. “I volunteered to make the desserts, which turned out to be a wild success.”

Image “Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts,” published in 1974, was the first of a string of cookbooks Ms. Heatter wrote. Her books were full of tips as well as recipes.

She was not a culinary professional, which she thought worked to her advantage. “I had no training, so I wasn’t bound by any rules,” she said. “But I did think that every problem had a solution.”

The catalyst for her cookbook-writing career may have not been a dessert but an omelet. In 1968, the Republican National Convention was held in Miami Beach, and Ms. Heatter had the idea of offering an elephant omelet (with actual elephant meat) as a promotional stunt. That seems to have been what drew Mr. Claiborne to her restaurant. His 1968 article started out talking about the omelet, but by its end he was focusing on her bittersweet chocolate mousse and her signature Queen Mother Cake.