423 recipes. Page 12 of 18
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Cheddar and mozzarella melt together between two slices of buttered bread browned slowly in a pan. High heat only burns the bread before the middle melts, so medium-low and patience win. A thin layer of Dijon on the inside adds bite without covering the cheese. Letting the sandwich sit for a minute before cutting keeps the cheese from gushing out all at once.
From the Limousin region of France, this dessert starts with a batter much thinner than pancake batter, poured over cherries and baked into something closer to soft custard than cake. The edges puff and brown while the fruit leaves pockets of juice around it. Made with plums, apricots, or blueberries instead of cherries, it goes by another name, flaugnarde.
Cut almost all the way through and roasted, these potatoes fan open in the oven: thin, chip-crisp edges outside, soft flesh in the center. Laying chopsticks on either side of each potato stops the knife before it slices through the base.
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.
Baguette, butter, and ham are almost the whole sandwich, so butter temperature and how the ham is layered show in every bite. Butter soft enough to dent with a finger spreads thinly without tearing the crumb. The baguette is split with the knife held low and opened by hand, never hollowed out. Thin, lightly salty ham suits it best; fold it loosely instead of pressing it into a slab, and tuck sliced cornichons between the folds and along the edges so each bite gets some acidity. If the sandwich has been chilled, give it 10 minutes at room temperature so the butter softens again.
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.
Short, irregular egg dumplings end up wrapped in stretchy melted Emmental, with slow-cooked onion on top to balance the salty cheese. The batter is dropped from a spoon straight into boiling water, and the rough, uneven shapes that result are part of the dish. Drain the dumplings thoroughly before they hit the pan: clinging water thins the cheese and kills the stretch.
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.
Lamb rather than beef sits under the mashed potato, and the filling is reduced with red wine, beef stock and Worcestershire until moist but no longer runny. A loose filling lets the mash sink, and the two layers blur together on the plate. The wine gets a minute or two of hard boiling first so its sharp alcohol edge is gone. Potatoes mashed while hot with butter and milk spread without dry lumps, and sealing them right to the edges of the dish keeps the sauce underneath as it bubbles in the oven. Fork ridges across the top give the heat raised peaks to brown.
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.
The skin should be dry and crisp, the center hot and fluffy, and everything else piled on top: cheddar, bacon, sour cream and chives. Potatoes of similar size finish together, and fork holes on every side let heat and steam move through evenly. Salted butter rubbed over the skin draws out moisture if the potato sits around, so it goes into the oven right away. A crisp shell also lets you fluff the flesh with a fork without tearing through the side. The cheddar comes first, straight onto the hot flesh, so the potato's own heat melts it before the rest is added.
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.
Cold, lightly dressed lobster goes into a warm bun just toasted in butter, and the contrast in temperature is the whole point. Mayonnaise and lemon juice should only film the chunks, while diced celery adds crunch. Chopping the meat too fine or stirring hard turns it into a paste and loses the visible grain of the lobster.
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.
Boiled lobster meat is folded into a Dijon cream sauce, spooned back into its own split shell, topped with Parmesan and given a brief blast in a hot oven. Since the meat is already cooked, the sauce and oven only need to warm it; every extra minute tightens it. Bite-size pieces hold up better than fine shreds, which dry out first.
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.
Dipped in egg and milk and fried in butter, this ham and Swiss sandwich lands somewhere between French toast and a grilled ham and cheese. Dijon mustard spread on the bread cuts through the richness of the egg coating. Slice it in half while still warm and the melted cheese stretches between the halves.
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.
Steamed mussels and fries share one plate in this Belgian pairing, but they run on very different clocks. The mussels open in 3 to 4 minutes under a lid, while the potatoes need a gentler first fry and a hotter second one to turn crisp. Getting the first fry done before the mussels hit the pot keeps the two from colliding at the stove. That first fry ends while the potatoes are tender but still pale. Soaking the cut sticks in cold water and drying every side matters, since wet potatoes splatter and stay limp. Discard any mussels that stay closed, and bring both to the table at once so the fries do not soften while the shellfish waits.
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.
Mussels release their own briny liquor as they open, and together with dry white wine that becomes the broth without any added stock. The butter is split in two for a reason: the first part softens the shallot and garlic, the second is stirred in at the end to give the broth some shine. The pot comes off the heat once most shells have opened, before the meat shrinks and toughens, and any that stay shut get thrown away. Ladle the leftover wine broth into the bowls too.
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.
Mussels steamed fast in white wine release their juices into the pot, and that liquid becomes the sauce once a spoonful of cream and chopped parsley are stirred through. Any mussels already open before cooking are left out. Shallot and garlic soften in butter without taking color, giving the wine a mild, sweet base. One shake of the covered pot halfway through helps the shells open at about the same time. The cream waits until they have all opened, and crusty bread takes care of the broth.
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.