301 recipes. Page 7 of 13
Bread, cookie, and cake baking recipes
Molasses turns the dough deep brown and gives the sweetness a slightly bitter edge. With ground ginger and cinnamon worked in, it is cut into little figures, baked, and decorated with icing eyes and buttons once cool. The edges should be crisp and the middle faintly chewy, and kept airtight, the spice grows stronger over a day or two.
The fat is vegetable shortening rather than butter, chosen to push these ginger-and-molasses cookies toward crisp. The molasses is regular baking molasses, not blackstrap. Since the dough is dark from the start, color says little about doneness, and a cookie that still bends while warm snaps once it cools. A roll in cinnamon sugar leaves a fine crystalline surface without any glaze.
Rolled thickly in powdered sugar, the dark chocolate dough cracks open as it bakes, leaving white crackled tops over deep brown seams. A small amount of gochujang (Korean fermented chili paste) adds gentle heat and a savory, fermented note after the sweetness without announcing itself. The texture lands between a brownie and a cookie: a thin crisp shell around a soft, fudgy middle.
This St. Louis cake still wobbles in the middle when it leaves the oven, and the top stays soft and sticky long after it cools. A thin yeast-risen base is spread with a batter heavy on butter and sugar before baking.
Dried persimmon and cinnamon are already a familiar pair in Korea through sujeonggwa, a cinnamon punch traditionally served with dried persimmon. Here chopped gotgam (dried persimmon) is rolled up with cinnamon sugar, and it runs along the spiral of every slice and pulls apart chewy and jammy. The rolls come out as soon as the edges turn golden; any longer and the fruit dries out again.
Finely grated Gruyère folded into choux paste and piped small bakes into savory cheese puffs. The eggs go in until the paste drops slowly from the spatula in a V, not by count, so some beaten egg may be left over. Only trapped steam holds up the hollow centers, and opening the oven door before the shells set will collapse them.
The round shape and sweet red bean filling come from Gyeongju-ppang, a Korean bean pastry, but the wrapper here is a soft milk-and-butter yeast dough. It does not try to copy Hwangnam-ppang with its thin skin and stamped top; expect a bread bun instead. Ready-made red bean paste skips the bean cooking, though the filled buns still need a second rise, which puts the whole schedule at about three hours. In a cool kitchen the dough rises more slowly, and its volume is a better guide than the clock.
Gyeran-ppang, the egg bread sold at Korean street stalls, adapts neatly to a muffin tin: a lightly sweet batter fills each cup halfway, and a whole egg cracked on top bakes into it as the batter rises around it. Chopped ham and scallions add a salty, savory layer to the sweet bread.
Hallabong, a Jeju citrus bred from mandarin and orange, comes into season from winter into early spring. Its zest and juice go into a cream cheese filling along with sour cream, which is poured over a buttered cracker-crumb base and baked. The peel's aroma is at its clearest when the bars are cold.
Most lemon bars lean on lemon for their sourness, but here hallabong juice far outweighs the lemon, giving the curd a rounder, sweeter citrus flavor. Underneath sits a crumbly shortbread rubbed together from butter, flour, and powdered sugar, a crisp contrast to the smooth set curd.
The classic hump needs two things together: a 30-minute rest in the fridge and an oven that starts hot and is then turned down. Hallabong marmalade stirred into the batter leaves small bits of peel throughout, so a faintly bitter citrus note keeps cutting through the butter. A little honey and milk keep the crumb moist.
Made as small thank-you gifts, these butter cookies are piped from the center outward with a petal tip, building each red carnation one bloom at a time. Egg whites only, no yolks, keep the red bright after baking, and a little almond flour makes them short and nutty. Clean petal ridges depend on steady piping pressure, so most of the effort goes into the shape rather than the flavor.
Toasted black sesame powder goes into a dark chocolate brownie batter, adding a nutty, roasted-grain note to the bitterness of the chocolate. Because the powder is oily and clumps easily, it is sifted in with the flour and salt. Cut only once the pan is completely cold for clean edges.
Black sesame paste turns the crumb a dark gray and adds a roasted, nutty taste between the coarse grains of cornmeal. Only a little doenjang (Korean fermented soybean paste) is stirred in, not enough to taste of doenjang itself, just enough to leave a salty, savory base underneath.
Hobak-bokkeum, the stir-fried Korean zucchini usually served as a side dish, goes onto buttery pie dough with the edges folded up roughly around it. Pea-sized bits of cold butter left in the dough make that folded rim bake up flaky, while in the middle mozzarella melts over the zucchini and onion. Top it with a fried egg for brunch, or cut it thin to go with a glass of white wine.
Split one open and you get orange kabocha crumb with white ribbons of cream cheese running through it. The cream cheese goes on unsweetened and stays tangy against the sweet, cinnamon-spiced batter.
Whole wheat flour, honey and cinnamon go into a dough rolled to about 2 mm, so the crackers come out harder than a thick sugar cookie and snap rather than bend. They work plain or crushed for a pie crust. Fresh from the oven they still feel soft; the low bake and the drying time in the switched-off oven are what make them crisp; judge them only once fully cool.
These shell-shaped cakes are best eaten within 30 minutes of leaving the oven, while the edges are still crisp, with black tea or coffee alongside. A generous amount of melted butter browns those edges deep gold, and honey in place of part of the sugar gives a rounder, faintly floral sweetness that granulated sugar alone does not.
Milk and butter heated just to a boil go into a whipped whole-egg batter at the end, making a soft, plain cake served without icing. Unlike a chiffon, it leans on both the whole-egg foam and baking powder instead of separately whipped whites. Baked through, the crumb is soft and fine-grained, never wet or custardy in the middle.
Two dense, moist layers packed with mashed banana, drained pineapple and toasted pecans sit under cream cheese frosting. Self-rising flour already carries the leavening and salt; no baking powder goes in. Some of the pecans are saved for the top, where they stay visible on the frosting.
Pressed in a waffle iron, frozen croissant dough gets heat from both plates at once, and the outside turns far crisper than an oven-baked croissant while buttery layers stay inside. Honey and condensed milk go on in thin lines, and just before serving, roasted soybean powder (the nutty coating on injeolmi rice cakes) mixed with a pinch of salt is sifted over the top.
Sweet rice flour in a dense cheesecake batter gives it a faint mochi-like chew. Only part of the roasted soybean powder, the coating on injeolmi rice cakes, goes into the batter; the rest is rubbed with melted butter into a crumble that bakes crisp on top, putting the nutty flavor in two separate layers. After a full day in the fridge, the soybean aroma comes through more clearly.
Despite the name, there is no separate crumble mixture. The batter, heavy with roasted soybean powder, is left rough on top and dusted with more powder, and those craggy peaks bake up crisp. Inside, small mochi cubes, cut and separated before going in, give pockets of chew.
With glutinous rice flour in place of all the wheat flour, the fudgy density of a brownie comes with a mochi-like spring. Toasted soybean powder is scattered through the middle layer and over the top. Straight from the fridge the squares are firm; at room temperature they turn soft and stretchy.