Baking

Rick Martinez’s take on the popular Mexican pig-shaped cookie goes all out with a ginger-spiced dough and tons of sprinkles.

These grown-up moon pies are made with shortbread cookies loaded with blitzed-up pretzels and salty potato chips—the perfect contrast to the sticky-sweet marshmallows and bitter dark chocolate.

A light, delicate, and barely sweet Persian rice flour cookie with finely ground pistachios and freeze-dried raspberries for color.

Blanching the citrus peel in several changes of boiling water removes bitterness while still leaving plenty of bright flavor behind.

This cloudlike version of pumpkin pie uses tahini for extra nutty flavor.

When a recipe calls for sopping up sauce, these breadsticks are your sopper-uppers of choice. Topped with Kalamata olives, garlic, red onion, and Calabrian chiles, they’re also just as good on their own—serve them straight from the oven and let everyone rip them off with their hands. This recipe comes from Bryan Ford and is based on his Master Bread Dough. Feel free to customize them with whatever finely chopped toppings you desire; just be sure to press them into the dough so that they stick.

This cheesecake has a vanilla pound cake base, because why the hell not? You bake the cheesecake first, then the pound cake on top, and flip the whole thing over before decorating and serving. Room temperature eggs, cream cheese, and butter are vital to an evenly mixed cheesecake and fluffy pound cake. If you’re in a hurry, place the eggs in a bowl of hot tap water and zap the butter and cream cheese in the microwave in 10-second increments to quickly warm them up.

A creamy custard pie with an extra-milky flavored meringue.

Tart and sweet individual cranberry pies from Amanda Mack of Crust by Mack in Baltimore.

These melt-in-your-mouth dinner rolls from Claire Saffitz are even more tender and pillowy than the classic Parker House rolls.

Flaky, nutty, buttery paratha you can prep ahead.

Make these sesame buns today, then question why it took you so long to make your own buns for burgers, egg sandwiches, fried chicken, and fillets o’ fish. This recipe from bread master Bryan Ford is based on his Master Dough recipe; simply portion it out, roll into tight balls, then dip in sesame seeds (or any small seeds and seasonings of your choice—poppy, flax, dried onion…). Ford bakes his buns in muffin rings, which gives them dramatic height—but free-form works just as well.

This is the cake you bake on the weekend and then eat a slice of every evening (or morning) throughout the week. It’s called meal prep.

If you’re looking for a simple recipe for a tender sandwich bread—the kind of loaf that’d be great turned into a grilled cheese or crunchy croutons—this is it. This recipe from Bryan Ford is his Master Bread Dough, rolled into a tight log and baked until golden brown. We recommend slicing it and then freezing in a resealable plastic bag or airtight container for instant toast.

The secret behind many great breads is something called a preferment, a portion of the dough that ferments separately from (and for more time than) the rest of the ingredients. A preferment increases the strength of your dough (improving its final crumb structure) and contributes to aroma and flavor. In baker Bryan Ford’s cookbook New World Sourdough, the preferment is a sourdough starter; in this recipe, however, his preferment is the lower-maintenance poolish—a mixture of flour, water, and active dry yeast that grows overnight. Mix the poolish with more flour, water, and yeast as well as a touch of olive oil, sugar, and salt, and you get a resilient, flavorful dough that can be used in a nearly infinite number of ways. This is an instance when you really do need a kitchen scale—Ford encourages all bakers, especially beginners, to use one. The master dough can also be scaled up or down as desired.

If making bread has long intimidated you, start here. Parathas come in many shapes, textures, and flavors across Asia—they are perfect for dipping into dals and stews or eating alongside assorted condiments. This take, which Priya Krishna learned from her aunt Rachna, is really simple: a basic wheat-based dough stuffed with silky spiced potatoes.

Salvadoran quesadilla is a sweet-salty cheesecake that’s often eaten for breakfast with coffee, but Popoca chef Anthony Salguero serves it as dessert.

Use the silky shreds of this flaky Trinidadian flatbread to scoop up everything else you’re eating.

Sfenj, hand-pulled, no-knead doughnuts dripping in honey, are best eaten immediately—and with a lot of napkins.

This cake is the kind of baked good that you can whip together without a whole lot of planning or special equipment.

Cucumbers are transformed into candy-like bites in this unexpected dessert inspired by Eton mess, a British summer classic typically featuring layers of strawberries, broken meringue, and whipped cream. 

A member of the larger umbrella group of easy fruit desserts, a buckle features tons of fruit barely held together by tender cake. We're talking so much fruit that the cake buckles around it, hence the name. There are many regional buckle variations, and not all have a streusel topping. This particular recipe, however, has got lots of big crumbs—and we think you’ll be glad that’s the case. 

Think of your favorite granola packed full of nuts and surrounding a layer of sweet-tart rhubarb jam and you’ve got these bars. 

These cookies are inspired by the most trusted human energy source: trail mix. They’re crammed with toasted nuts, dried fruit, hearty oats, and chocolate.