301 recipes. Page 5 of 13
Bread, cookie, and cake baking recipes
Boiling comes before baking, and that short dip sets a thin skin over each ring that holds the dough back in the oven, giving a shiny, firm crust around a dense, chewy center. Since the hole closes up during boiling, stretch it wider than looks right when shaping.
Split warm by hand, these scones have a crisp golden top and a soft interior that crumbles rather than chews, ready for clotted cream and strawberry jam. Cold butter rubbed into the flour is what keeps them light; the more the dough is handled, the firmer the centers turn.
Three letter folds around a slab of cold butter build the layers, and after baking they show as thin, rolled ridges outside and a continuous open grain inside. Two separate butters are used: a little softened butter in the dough itself and a larger block for lamination. The block and the dough need to feel equally firm while rolling, otherwise the butter cracks or pushes out the sides.
A buttery shortbread base, baked once on its own, goes back into the oven under a layer of lemon curd, so each bite has butter and sharp lemon together. The curd uses both juice and zest, and the oils in the zest give a stronger aroma than juice alone would. A dusting of powdered sugar stands out white against the yellow.
Each square of the grid becomes a small cup for syrup, melted butter, or fruit sauce, around a crisp edge and a soft, airy middle. The airiness comes from separating the eggs, whipping the whites to stiff peaks and folding them in over two additions.
Cut a slice and the layers read clearly: golden crust, cream-colored custard, white whipped cream, and a scatter of toasted coconut that adds crunch. Cooked from coconut milk and regular milk, the custard has a clear coconut flavor and, once chilled, holds firm on a fork.
There is no flour in these. Shredded coconut is held together with condensed milk and egg white, and the mixture is so sticky that the pan is lined right to its edges with parchment or a silicone mat. Once cool, the bottoms are sometimes dipped in melted dark chocolate.
Despite the name, there is no coffee in the batter, and the cake is simply meant to be eaten alongside a cup. Sour cream gives the crumb more moisture than a plain butter cake. Cinnamon streusel is added twice, once in the middle and once on top, so each slice shows two spiced stripes and a sandy, crunchy crust. Warm from the oven is when the cinnamon smells strongest.
With more cornmeal than flour, this American quick bread has a coarse, grainy crumb and just a little sweetness from the sugar. Baking powder does all the rising, with no proof, and the batter heads straight into the oven once mixed. That loose crumb breaks apart when hot, which is why it cools in the pan until the steam inside settles before slicing.
Beef, potato, rutabaga (swede), and onion are sealed into the pastry raw, so the juices they release while baking stay inside and act as the gravy. Cutting everything to about 1 cm lets the raw filling cook through. The hand pie grew out of a portable meal for miners in Cornwall, England, and the thick crimped edge served as a handle.
Strips of puff pastry wound around a cone mold bake into a hollow spiral horn, which is then piped full of whipped cream folded into cream cheese. The thawed pastry stays cold and is cut into strips without rolling or stretching it, which protects the flaky layers. Sugar pressed onto the surface bakes into a crisp coating, and each bite brings the open layers and the cold cream together.
Small custard-filled puffs, each dipped in hot caramel and stacked around a cone, make a tower served in France at weddings and baptisms in place of a wedding cake. The name means crunch in the mouth: hardened caramel cracks first, then the soft choux shell gives way to cold cream. Caramel pulled thin with a fork and wrapped around the finished tower adds fine golden threads. Guests pull the puffs off one at a time, starting from the top.
Cocoa powder darkens the dough and keeps it a little bitter, so the chocolate chips folded through it read as pockets of sweetness. They go in near the end, before the dough warms up, and only briefly; long kneading melts them and streaks the crumb.
Two flat discs of almond meringue sandwiching buttercream make a dacquoise, the kind Korean cafes sell bite-sized and individually wrapped. The thin outer shell dries enough to crackle under a finger, while the almond fat keeps the inside chewy. This filling is a plain buttercream of butter, milk, and vanilla, which makes it easy to swap in matcha or pistachio.
A shallow well of cold custard sits in the middle of each square while the unpressed edges rise into flaky, buttery layers. The dough is laminated much like croissant dough, with three folds around a cold butter slab, but the custard baked into the center sets it apart. Leaving the edges unpressed when shaping is what lets those layers climb.
In Korean bakeries, danpat-ppang means a soft yeast dough wrapped around thick, sweet red bean paste, so plain bread and rich filling arrive in the same bite. Both rises matter: the first fills the dough with air, and skipping the second leaves the crumb tight and heavy.
Instead of the long, thin baguette shape, this dough is rolled into short, plump loaves like sweet potatoes, which keeps more moisture in the crumb. Steam and a 220°C oven give a thin, firm crust, and the cocoa bitterness comes through ahead of the sugar.
A small spoonful of doenjang, Korean fermented soybean paste, goes into the brown sugar caramel spread under the apples, but the aim is for it to sit behind the sweetness as a faint salty, savory depth rather than taste like doenjang. Pea-sized bits of butter left in the dough make the crust bake up flaky, and the cinnamon apples soften in the oven.
Salted caramel works because salt lifts sugar, and these mini tarts take the idea further by stirring a little doenjang, Korean fermented soybean paste, into the caramel alongside the salt. Taken off the heat before it reaches a deep amber, the caramel stays merely sweet and the doenjang disappears. Toasted pecans are coated in it and piled into the shells, and the tarts set at room temperature into a firm top that cracks under a fork.
Thin batter poured into a blazing cast-iron pan puffs up the sides into a tall, browned bowl while the middle stays soft and custardy. Lemon juice and powdered sugar are the classic finish for this German-American pancake; berries or cream turn it into a brunch main. A pan that is not hot enough is the usual reason the edges stay low.
The Earl Grey leaves are ground until no coarse bits remain and stirred through the batter, so every slice is flecked with tea. Ripe bananas are mashed only until small pieces of fruit are left, and the top splits open as it bakes.
Two Earl Grey tea bags steep in warm cream that then goes into the cream cheese filling, so the cheesecake tastes like milk tea under the richness of the cheese. The cream is only warmed at the edges, never boiled, and the bags come out without squeezing. Baked in a water bath over a pressed digestive-biscuit base, the filling sets smooth and even.
Instead of grinding the leaves into the batter, this roll steeps Earl Grey in warm milk and strains it. The sponge carries bergamot aroma without visible tea specks. The chiffon sheet gets its lift from a folded meringue and stays soft enough to roll. Rolling it once while still warm, paper and all, sets the curve so it is less likely to crack when filled later. The whipped cream is only lightly sweetened, leaving the tea as the main flavor.
French pastry shops usually fill eclairs with vanilla custard; this version uses whipped cream and tops the long choux shells with melted dark chocolate. With a plain cream filling, the bitter chocolate and the crisp shell come through more clearly. The eggs are beaten in one at a time, stopping once the paste looks glossy and drops slowly from the spatula.