Baking

If a fudgy brownie and chewy chocolate chip cookie had a baby, it would be this decadent creation.

Beating the butter and sugar until light and fluffy is essential to this pound cake’s moist, tender crumb and the Grand-Marnier Poached Apricots add a boozy yet sweet kick.

This hazelnut butter cake is covered in a decadent sea salt caramel that will fit in a small saucepan, but make sure you use something larger—the molten sauce bubbles up quite a lot.

If you have aged provolone, which can be quite salty, reduce the kosher salt in this herby scone recipe to 1 teaspoon.

Though always delicious in its simple, unadulterated state, shortbread is also ripe for innovation, like this slightly savory version with rosemary and toasted-caraway.

This dough freezes well for make-ahead slice-and-bake convenience.

The great thing about these roasted-almond thumbprint cookies? They can be any shape or size, and the fillings are customizable.

Poach the figs in Calvados until just softened: Overcooking or intense boiling will render them a tough instead of lush addition to this chocolate torte.

A simple, straightforward cornbread that we’d happily serve alongside a bowl of chili on any other day of the year.

Yeasted doughs might seem daunting to novice bakers, but these rolls are very simple to make.

A little cider vinegar in the filling keeps this apple pie from being too sweet.

We make lots of things from scratch on Thanksgiving, but pumpkin purée isn’t one of them. Libby’s is our favorite brand.

Adding sour cream to the dough imparts richness and a bit of tang, and doesn’t thin it out too much.

Barley malt syrup offers a rounder, less-sweet note in this take on pecan pie.

This thin, crisp Turkish flatbread is typically rolled into a cone before eating.

Mayonnaise in the batter isn’t as weird as it sounds—it’s just eggs and oil, after all. It’s also why this cake is so moist.

We recommend using a finely ground cornmeal for these; it will give them the ideal texture.

This pie is seasonless: Bake it in fall with fresh cranberries and frozen raspberries and blueberries. Come summer, use the reverse.

Curry crust? Trust us: This lightly spiced crumb will win Best in Show. If you want to take it even further, add a teaspoon of toasted crushed cumin seeds, too.

This chocolate-pumpkin mashup is surprising, yet delicious. It’s so good in fact, that you don’t even have to brûlée the top—though that helps give it its showstopper effect.

We tried all kinds of gingersnaps to make this easy crust. Our favorite? Anna’s Ginger Thins.

If you don’t have (or can’t spare) a cast-iron skillet, this can also be finished off in an 8x8” glass dish for baking.

Pastry chef Kierin Baldwin’s pie dough method is special in a couple of ways. First, she uses a combination of butter, which lends rich flavor, and shortening, which makes the flakiest crusts. The best of both worlds. Her technique of repeatedly flattening and stacking the dough coats the flour with fat, which helps make the crust tender in this pear pie recipe.

Layers of buttered and sugared phyllo pastry are molded in muffin tins to form the crisp crusts for these mini apple croustades.