Flour

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.

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!

This all-in-one brunch dish is both luxurious to eat and easy to make.

Trust: You want your polenta to be creamy, not sandy. Here's how it's done.

Ultrarich and almost custardy in the middle, this is the kind of appetizer you should serve before a dinner of celery sticks.

Beating the butter and sugar properly (read thoroughly) gives these mini cakes lift, but they will still be moist and marzipan-y in the center.

Did we mention it also happens to be gluten-free?

The little sprinkle of buckwheat delivers a much-needed crunch factor. If you don’t have any, add some chopped toasted almonds or homemade breadcrumbs.

Ras-el-hanout is a Moroccan spice blend that contains several warming spices (such as cinnamon and nutmeg) with a little ginger and chile for heat. If you can’t find it, use garam masala instead.

This bread has a nutty flavor and intense chew; it makes toast that’s a wholesome meal unto itself. 

Bob’s Red Mill makes a coarse cornmeal that’s perfect for these, but don’t stress if you can’t find it. A finer grind will just have less crunch.

Gluten-free but clearly not vegan, for whoever’s keeping track.

Biscuits and gravy meet loaded nachos.

This energy-sustaining bread makes beautiful toast.

Some of the seed mixture will inevitably fall off as you shape and bake the grissini; don’t stress it.

For the full effect, deliver a jar of the dry ingredients with a half dozen eggs, a quart of buttermilk, and a jug of syrup.

Use these to make amazing leftover turkey sandwiches.

If we had our way, we'd eat corn every at every meal. Oh, wait a second: With these 22 sweet and savory recipes with cornmeal, polenta, masa, and corn grits, we can—and will.

Oatmeal is so five minutes ago. Here's why we're cooking buckwheat porridge for breakfast.

To maximize the tangy flavor of the rye flour, use rye whiskey instead of bourbon.

As miraculous as all those "all-purpose gluten-free" flour blends are, they should really be called something like varied-and-useful-but-not-quite-all-purpose gluten-free flours. Here’s a cheat sheet for when you can sub out all-purpose, and when you should find a recipe that’s intentionally gluten-free.