150 recipes. Page 4 of 7
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Beets blended with milk turn these Austrian bread dumplings a vivid red. Stale bread cubes soak up the beet milk, eggs, and Parmesan for 15 minutes so the mixture binds; flour then firms it enough to hold a round shape. Served warm, they take well to melted butter and more grated Parmesan.
Black sesame paste is stirred into a dark chocolate batter for these dense, fudgy brownies, and its nutty flavor stays on well after the chocolate. The paste goes in only once the eggs are fully mixed, so it spreads through the batter instead of clumping in one spot.
Sesame oil is rubbed into the flour first and the dough is folded and rolled twice, so a fried yakgwa breaks open in layers. It fries low until cooked through, then the oil goes up to crisp the outside, and the pastries sit in honey and cinnamon syrup for two hours or more. Ginger juice in the dough leaves a slight bite after the sweetness.
Cooked pork and cornmeal are simmered into a thick mush, chilled in a shallow tin, then sliced and browned; unlike meatloaf, which sets from raw meat and egg in the oven, scrapple holds together because cooked grain firms as it cools. That is why the hot mixture falls apart if sliced and fried right away, and the 4-hour chill cannot be cut short.
Take the chocolate out of a brownie and build the flavor on browned butter and brown sugar instead. The butter is cooked until it turns deep gold and smells nutty, then pulled off the heat at once, and brown sugar melted into it gives a toffee-like sweetness.
Hand-stretched wheat dough becomes long, flat ribbons that are boiled and rolled generously in kinako and sugar. Furuno in Yufu, Oita, is regarded as its birthplace, and it is still offered during Obon and Tanabata. Each ribbon is thinnest in the middle and slightly thicker at the ends, and one piece chews differently from end to end. The dough rests twice, once as a ball and again as short sticks, and that is what lets it stretch past 20cm without tearing.
Slice it and the blueberries are still whole, dotted through a crumb that stays banana-bread colored instead of turning purple. It is really just banana bread with one more fruit, so the ingredient list is short, and baking soda does the rising with no proving time.
Wheat flour, shiratamako, and warm cooked rice are worked together with boiling water, and the rice is what keeps these flat dumplings soft after they cool. In Saga, where farmers often grew wheat after the rice harvest, both flours were on hand, and yudedago served as a fieldwork snack or a supplement when a meal ran short. The name is a local shortening of yude dango, and some call it hiradago. Brown sugar never enters the dough but is showered on with kinako while the dumplings are hot, leaving a melting sweet surface over a plain center.
The lemon zest goes into the cream and egg rather than the flour, which carries its scent evenly through the whole dough. Leave the butter in pea-sized pieces as you rub it into the flour, and the baked scones crack crisply at the edges and crumble softly inside.
The dough is meant to stay shaggy, with damp patches and visible flecks of butter, and that rough texture is what lets the baked scone split into tender layers. Plain yogurt brings moisture and a gentle tang, with vanilla layered over it.
Brownie batter goes down first, then lumps of brown sugar cookie dough are dotted over it and swirled just enough to marble the two. Cocoa and dark chocolate chips make the bottom layer bitter and intensely chocolatey, while the brown sugar gives the cookie patches a caramel note. Where the two meet they blur together, and one square ends up with both a chewy cookie bite and a fudgy brownie bite.
Browning the butter until the milk solids turn golden gives these cookies a toasty smell of hazelnut and toffee that plain melted butter lacks. The one real risk is the pan of butter itself: the brown specks at the bottom go from golden to burnt quickly, so stay with it once it starts foaming.
Cold butter cubes turn to steam in a very hot oven and push the dough apart, so the sides split into visible flaky layers. In the United States they are split while fresh for butter and jam, or served the Southern way alongside fried chicken and gravy.
Portuguese missionaries brought this sponge to Nagasaki in the 16th century, and Japan turned it into a cake of its own. There is no baking powder: the rise comes entirely from eggs whipped for a long time, which gives a fine, even crumb that springs back slowly when pressed.
Added in a lump, chestnut paste leaves dense streaks through the crumb, so it is loosened with a little milk first and then mixed evenly through the batter. Any bite of the moist center tastes of chestnut and honey. The batter is chilled before baking, and when it meets a hot oven the middle shoots up into the signature hump.
Measured in cups the American home-baking way, this dough uses equal amounts of white and brown sugar, landing between crisp and chewy. Shift the balance toward brown sugar and the cookies turn softer and chewier, since it holds moisture; more white sugar makes them spread wider and bake crisper.
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.
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.
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.
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 browned mince, this Tucumán-style filling starts with a whole piece of matambre, a thin beef flank cut, simmered about two hours and then diced by knife, and its broth is split between filling and dough so both carry the beef flavor. The filling is spread out and chilled before shaping, as beef fat in the pastry softens quickly against anything warm.
Egg white, sugar, flour and butter spread into paper-thin circles, which must be folded the moment they leave the oven. Only two bake at a time, since they set quickly as they cool. A thick center stays chewy even after folding. Printed paper or ballpoint ink should not go inside, and any message belongs on the wrapping instead.
Cherries or plums are laid in a single layer, and a thin batter of eggs, milk, sugar and a little flour is poured over just until the tops of the fruit peek through. Straight from the oven the edges are puffed and golden; after a few minutes they sink and the custard settles. Spooned out warm, each serving gets soft fruit, a moist middle and some of the browned edge.