speculaas (dutch spice cookies)

December 11, 2023 by Sophie Barrows in baking, sophie

These cookies are meant to be pressed into a mold, but I don’t have one. I opt to roll and cut them out like sugar cookies (actually, I always make these with my kids the same day as those). These are a humble cookie, but if you love spice cookies like I do (I often laugh at how many variations of spice cookies I have in my yearly list), these will find a spot in your own holiday baking, not only for their warm, comforting flavor, but also for their being a cinch to make!

Rustic Ricotta Cheesecake

October 09, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

Backstory: In high school, we spent just over a month living in Trastevere for my dad’s work, and there was this bakery where we would get cakes. One of these cakes, I still fantasize about today. It was a mysterious creamy cake studded with chocolate chips.

magic kiss middles

July 24, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

This is kind of a crossover between two cookie classics—Keebler’s Magic Middles and Hershey’s Secret Kiss cookies.

graham cookies + a wonderful baking tool

July 01, 2020 by Sophie Barrows in baking, sophie

I love these cookies. They are the perfect snack cookies that are sweet enough to satisfy a craving, but not sweet enough to make you think you’re over doing it on any regular old day. And they are so yummy! And satisfying! To be honest, I’m finding myself baking these up every other week or so.

almond raspberry "wedding" cake

May 27, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

A rich vanilla buttermilk layer cake glazed with an amaretto syrup, filled with raspberry jam and topped with a lightly almond-flavored swiss meringue buttercream.

I love this cake, so much. It’s rich, and yet delicate. Sweet, but not too sweet. The flavors come together into a soft balance—just a touch of almond and a kiss of raspberry.

Banana Cobbler

May 11, 2020 by Sophie Barrows in baking, sophie

This recipe is great in so many ways. It uses up very ripe bananas (a nice switch up from banana bread), requires few ingredients that are almost always on hand, and is delicious.

Fudge frosted bakery-style big & soft peanut butter cookies

May 06, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

A bakery cookie can come as a revelation, or it can be a dud.

I once got a chocolate chip cookie at a local bakery that, when I went to split with my 3yo daughter, shattered into a hundred dry and crumbly pieces. That was a dud.

Two years ago I wrote about our quick 2-day trip down to the Florida Keys, where I had my first and only Matheessen’s cookie. It was the size of my outstretched hand, big and soft and full of peanut butter flavor, topped with a slather of dense and chewy chocolate fudge. The man behind the counter explained how they used to top their peanut butter cookies with chocolate frosting, which proved a bit of a mess. The cookies stacked for display would stick together and the frosting would smear. Then one day the owner was inspired to take their housemade fudge and slather a bit on top just before it set. The resulting cookie was a revelation.

Strawberries and Cream Chiffon Cake

May 04, 2020 by Maria Almeida in baking, maria

This cake is what dreams of springtime are made of. The cake is light and airy like angel food cake, but a bit sturdier, richer, and moister from the vegetable oil and egg yolks. Together with a light whipped cream frosting and sweet tart strawberries, each bite of this cake is a delight. It makes a really large cake that would be perfect for a gathering, but it also keeps really, which is how my family of six enjoyed it for a full three days. A cake like this is really adaptable: add zest to the cake to give it a citrus flavor, brush the cake with a flavored syrup or jam, use different fruits or no fruits at all! But in my opinion, nothing gets more classic than strawberries and cream and the textures suit the flavor profile perfectly.

raspberry oat bars

April 22, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

Linzertorte is a traditional Austrian dessert sandwiching fruit preserves (typically raspberry) between a nut-based pastry and a beautiful lattice top. These raspberry oat bars are the happy result of a search for a linzertorte-like dessert without so much of the hassle, and without the nuts.

Basil mint cake with pistachio chantilly cream

March 17, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Just over a year ago I came across a recipe for a parsley cake while visiting Maria and flipping through her copy of Food52’s Genius Desserts cookbook. It was love at first sight…a crazy vibrant green herb-loaded cake.

orange cornmeal cake with candied rosemary and orange bourbon soak

February 11, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

One of my favorite challenges in reworking or rethinking or creating a new recipe is to minimize waste. So, for instance, my preferred method of making macarons is to use a French buttercream as the base for the filling—which uses up all the egg yolks leftover from the macaron shell’s egg whites. (On that note, Sophie does have two great posts offering tips on using up leftover egg yolks and egg whites.)

Chocolate Oatmeal Lace Cookies (GF & Milk Free)

February 06, 2020 by Sophie Barrows in dessert, baking, sophie

I’ve loved these cookies for years. Though only five ingredients (six with the chocolate), they are interesting and addictive. They just happen to be gluten and milk free. I sometimes add spices like cinnamon to them to vary them up. They are thin, crisp, and almost melt-in-your-mouth.

Lemon Tea Cookies, 3 Ways

January 16, 2020 by Sophie Barrows in baking, sophie

I found this recipe many years ago. A friend came over after school, and we paged through my family’s cookbooks for baking inspiration. We hit upon this one, and it has remained a beloved recipe ever since.

Apple Pandowdy

October 10, 2019 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

Apple Pandowdy may very well be better than apple pie…and I’m someone who really likes apple pie.

It’s not an elegant dessert—I think the name speaks clearly to that. But it’s the name, “Pandowdy,” that first got me hooked, and the baked dessert lives up to it every inch.

Salted Caramel Sauce

October 04, 2019 by Maria Almeida in baking, maria

It’s the season for apples, cinnamon, pumpkin and all things autumn, and there’s really no better accompaniment for all those good things than a salted caramel sauce. It’s so versatile and adds another dimension to dessert with its more complex sweetness and buttery smoothness. Drizzle it over cheesecake or pie, swirl it into brownies, sandwich it between cake layers - there’s so much you can do!

Dutch Cocoa Cream Cake

July 12, 2019 by Maria Almeida in baking, maria, projects

I had my doubts about this cake. The ingredients and method both seemed unusual to me, and I expected it to be maybe one dimensional and unremarkable. I know the recipe promises the cake will be “light, delicate, and delicious … like a milk chocolate bar”, but I was skeptical. But I’ve been working through my vintage recipe project and the occasion of my 1 year old’s birthday was pretty low stakes, so I gave it try. And I am so glad I did! This cake came out of nowhere and totally won me over. It is so so delicious. It’s not fancy, it’s nothing gourmet or complicated, but it is light as a dream with a delicate texture and chocolate flavor. The cake layers and the whipped cream together are airy and not too sweet - in fact, the cake is almost salty in the way that the most delicious milk chocolate has the sweet/salty element that keeps you going back for more. The frosting is very sweet, but it pulls it all together and balances the cake and cream. I’ve made a lot of cakes and watched a lot of kids eat those cakes and most of the time they don’t finish, or they eat the frosting and leave the cake or pick out the cake and leave the frosting. Not this time. They inhaled it., each one of them, both days it was served. So did the adults… I mean, when a cake is this light, it goes down real easy.

great British Bake Off Challenge July: Eton Mess

July 07, 2019 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

When I started thinking about what GBBO bake we should do for July, I immediately thought something light, fresh, easy and perfect for summer. Eton Mess is all of that and more.

lemon blueberry cheesecake bites

July 01, 2019 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

Graham cracker crust topped with a cheesecake filling, bursting blueberries and a hint of lemon…these fresh and pretty bites practically scream “take me to a summer bbq!”

rice flour snickerdoodles [gluten-free]

June 24, 2019 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

We aren’t gluten-free in my home, but I have enough family and friends who are that it helps to have a few stellar gluten-free recipes on hand to pull out for parties and get-togethers, or just because! And I have to admit, I’m prejudiced against recipes that tout themselves as “gluten-free” and then simply call for a gluten-free flour mix in the ingredients list, or worse for me, some home-concocted mixture of 100 different flours and powders that I simply don’t have on hand and probably never will invest in.

French Snacklettes & Dorie's Cookies Review

June 21, 2019 by Sophie Barrows in baking, sophie

Ever since I tasted Dorie Greenspan’s World Peace Cookies, I have had an eye on her cookbook Dorie’s Cookies. One bite of the World Peace Cookie, and I was crazy over the play between crumbly and chewy, the deep chocolate flavor, the ease of baking, and the adorable little puddle-circle shapes. The recipe struck me as genius, and I wanted more.