Baking

You can use only all-purpose flour for this scones recipe if you’d like, but going 50/50 with whole wheat produces a nice nuttiness that complements the cheese and walnuts.

The biscotti of shortbread: Cooking these impossibly tender cookies twice encourages the flour and butter to take on a toasty, nutty flavor. This recipe is from Baroo, one of the Hot 10, America's Best New Restaurants 2016.

Impressive doesn’t necessarily mean hard. The curd can be made at least a day ahead, as can the crust. Divide up the work, stay cool, and knock ‘em dead with the presentation. This recipe is from Buxton Hall, one of the Hot 10, America's Best New Restaurants 2016.

After testing with lots of other brands, these cookies are best when made with Cup4Cup gluten-free flour.

Can you buy pocketless pita instead? Sure. But nothing beats the drama of freshly made bread. Use these for our Lamb Gyros.

Combining the sugary filling with dried spice (in this case, juniper) infuses the buns with flavor and perfumes them from the inside. 

Take the butter to the edge of burning; the deep toasty, nutty flavors that develop are a needed counterpoint to the earthiness of the buckwheat. 

A unique and textured crisp with the flavors of corn muffins and blueberry jam smashed together.

If the dough starts to soften as you form these, pop it back in the fridge for ten minutes to firm back up.

These traditional almond cookies hail from Tuscany; their texture is chewy, similar to macaroons.

Blueberry pancakes, but make it pie. 

The nostalgic yellow cake flavor in cupcake form. If using a darker muffin tin, keep an eye on the edges—those pans encourage more browning, and you might end up removing these from the oven a few minutes earlier. Get the recipe for vanilla cream cheese frosting here. This is part of BA's Best, a collection of our essential recipes.

Cake flour gives these classic white cupcakes a very fine, tender crumb, and the high ratio of egg whites to yolks ensures a snowy hue. Get the recipe for vanilla cream cheese frosting here.

Non-Dutch-process cocoa powder is sometimes labeled “natural,” and since all of the chocolate flavor depends on what kind you use, quality matters for these devil's food cupcakes. Get the recipe for vanilla cream cheese frosting here.

Masa harina is a ground corn flour, commonly used to make corn tortillas, and is not the same thing as cornmeal. Maseca brand is fairly ubiquitous in grocery stores; other types can be found and ordered online.

You’re looking at the quintessential summer dessert, perfected by the BA Test Kitchen. 

Often pressed through a sieve and added to the batter for cakes or cookies, hard-boiled yolks prevent too much gluten from developing without weighing down the batter. The one-two punch of yolks and toasted flour makes for the most delicate, tender cookies you’ll ever taste.

This simple process works for practically any fruit; gauge how much sugar to use based on the fruit’s sweetness, and try cardamom or ginger in place of cinnamon.

The dough will seem fairly wet when shaping into rounds, but the high hydration is key to forming those trademark nooks and crannies. This is part of BA's Best, a collection of our essential recipes.

Re-create Hot Pie’s iconic farewell gift to Arya in honor of your favorite show, Game of Thrones. Be sure to print out the wolf template on an 11x17" sheet and see other GoT-inspired recipes!

Sansa Stark made these desserts one of the most recognizable in Game of Thrones. She deserves a sweet treat after all she’s endured, and so do you. For a Dark Sansa version, pour syrup over the cake, then top with black sesame seeds. And be sure to check out our other GoT-inspired recipes!

For a real taste of Joffrey’s gamey pigeon pie, use squab instead of chicken. Have a sword handy for slicing into it! Also check out our other GoT-inspired recipes.

One of those dreamy cookies that elicits a silent reverence in every chocolate lover who tastes it.

If using beans or rice as pie weights, use a lot.