70 recipes. Page 2 of 3
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Chestnut paste folded with whipped cream is piped in thin strands over small butter cupcakes until each one looks like a tiny Mont Blanc. In Japan the Mont Blanc is closely tied to autumn, and the cupcake format makes it easy to serve one per person rather than cutting a whole cake.
Two Korean autumn staples go in, each with its own job. The sweet potato is mashed smooth and loosened with milk so it spreads through the whole batter, while the chestnuts are chopped coarsely and folded in last, leaving starchy, nutty pieces to bite into. The sweet potato's moisture keeps the muffins from drying out once cool.
A short bake in a very hot oven sets the sides and top like cake while the center stays as melted chocolate that runs out at the first spoonful. Since the cakes are turned out onto the plate, the ramekins are buttered and coated with cocoa with no gaps. The batter can wait in the ramekins in the fridge; baked straight from cold, it needs 1 or 2 minutes more.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Browned butter does most of the work: cooked until the foam settles and the solids turn hazelnut brown, it gives these little almond cakes a toasted, nutty smell that plain melted butter lacks. Only egg whites go into the batter, along with almond flour and a spoon of honey. The inside bakes up dense and moist while the edges turn dark and crisp.
Sliced almonds go into a caramel cooked from cream, sugar, honey and butter, and small spoonfuls of it bubble up again in the oven and spread into thin amber rounds studded with nuts. Once cool they set hard as glass, snapping cleanly before the caramel turns a little chewy. The backs get a thin coat of melted dark chocolate.
The ratio is what makes these fudgy: little flour against plenty of butter and dark chocolate gives squares that are dense and chewy rather than cakey. The center looks underdone when the pan comes out, then sinks and firms as it cools. Walnuts or pecans folded in add crunch.
Seventy percent dark chocolate and butter far outweigh the flour, so the cake bakes dense and close to a truffle rather than a sponge. Separating the eggs and folding in a meringue keeps it from being heavy, and it melts softly instead of sitting like fudge.
Kokuto, the Japanese unrefined cane sugar, goes into both the dough and the syrup, and ordinary light brown sugar will not give the same flavor. The baked slab is cut into triangles and dipped in warm syrup, and what clings to the surface slowly works its way into the cut edges. Unlike an iced biscuit, this Kagoshima sweet keeps its coating damp rather than drying it into a shell. The slab rises with baking soda, not baking powder.
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.
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.
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.
The rice cake is optional. Small pieces of it soften in the oven into chewy pockets, but even without them, the toasted soybean powder in the dough carries the injeolmi flavor all the way through, with a warm, nutty smell plain-flour scones lack.
Folded meringue lifts the batter, and a slow bake at 150°C in a hot water bath lets it cook gently. The cake dissolves almost weightlessly on the tongue. A slight sink after it leaves the oven is normal, and an overnight rest in the fridge spreads the moisture evenly for a silkier slice.
Two soft cocoa cake rounds, a layer of melted marshmallow, and a thin shell of dark chocolate rebuild Korea's convenience-store snack cake at home. Making it yourself means you pick the chocolate and decide how thick the marshmallow layer gets. The marshmallow, melted over a water bath, cushions the cake and stretches slightly when bitten. Chilled, the chocolate shell firms up with a light snap; at room temperature the whole pie turns softer.
Holes poked into a hot lemon loaf let a sharp lemon syrup soak right through, and as it cools a thin layer of sugar crystals sets on top with a slight crunch. In Britain it is a plain, undecorated afternoon tea staple.
Browning the butter until it foams and smells toasty gives these madeleines a hazelnut-like depth that plain melted butter cannot. The hump on the back comes from resting the batter in the fridge for at least 1 hour: cold batter meeting a hot mold sets at the edges first while the center surges up. The crisp edges go soft within a few hours.
The sheet is a chiffon batter with meringue folded in, light and springy, and the bitterness of matcha lingers after the sweetness of the cream has gone. How green it turns out depends on how briefly you fold once the flour and matcha go in.
White chocolate melted with butter, rather than dark chocolate or cocoa, makes up the base, and matcha turns the whole pan bright green. The cocoa butter in white chocolate is what gives these a dense, fudgy chew instead of a cakey crumb. Chips stirred into the batter only half melt, leaving small pockets of concentrated sweetness.