Author: Baker Without Borders
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Homemade Nutella Challah
Meet my newest baking obsession: challah filled with homemade nutella! Using my favorite challah recipe, I’ve made rolls, traditional braids, and babka-style loaves, all featuring a chocolate-hazelnut paste that’s easy to throw together in a blender or mini food processor. The directions below are for a round braided loaf, which is especially gorgeous and show-stopping.…
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Rajma Quesadilla: Indian-Mexican Fusion Comfort Food
This savory dish is a mashup of two comfort foods from very different parts of the world: quesadillas, a Mexican classic, and rajma curry, a bean and tomato dish popular in northern India. Interestingly, the two cuisines have a connection. Red kidney beans (rajma in Hindi) are native to Mexico, but centuries ago they made…
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Healthy Dried Cherry Granola
I make homemade granola at least once a week, and was curious about the origins of this classic (yet endlessly adaptable) American breakfast cereal. After doing some digging on Wikipedia and The Nibble, a website that documents the history of nearly a thousand popular foods, I learned that granola was invented in 1863 at a…
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Baked Moong Dal Chilla (Cheela) – Indian Lentil Pancake
When my mother-in-law, Anjum, was growing up in Karachi, Pakistan, she would pick leaves off drumstick (moringa) trees that grew in her yard. Her aunt would combine the leaves with lentil flour, water, onions, and cilantro to make chilla, an unleavened pancake popular in India and Pakistan. Made with dal (ground lentils) or besan (chickpea…
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Chocolate Kubaneh (Yemeni Bread)
When my friend’s grandmother left her village outside Sanaa, Yemen, for Israel in 1948, she brought along one of her prized possessions: a special tin for baking kubaneh, a buttery pull-apart bread served for Shabbat brunch. Ya’arah’s grandmother traveled the whole distance by foot and on the back of a donkey. With stops along the…
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Coconut Chocolate Babka
What do you do if you are craving chocolate babka but don’t have eight ounces of bittersweet chocolate in your pantry? Make your own “chocolate” with coconut oil, cocoa powder, and sugar. Then add some traditional ingredients: cinnamon and chopped walnuts.
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Tibetan Bread: Amdo Bhaley
I wasn’t aware of Tibet’s rich bread-baking history until Jolma Ren, owner of Amza Superfoods and writer of Beyond Her Kitchen, pointed it out in a comment here on my blog. I first tried Tibetan food while living in Queens, a New York City borough recognized as the most ethnically diverse urban area…
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Chinese Five Spice Sable Cookies
I first tried these fragrant treats at a farmer’s market stall by Little Tart, a popular bakeshop in Atlanta, GA, and set out to create my own version at home. Like many American culinary experiments, these cookies blend elements from two very different cuisines: French baking and Chinese savory cooking. I started with an easy,…
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Chocolate Caramelized Hazelnut Cupcakes
These fluffy chocolate cupcakes with salty, hazelnut-and-caramel-infused frosting are inspired by two classic European desserts: gianduja, Italian chocolate hazelnut bars dating back to the Napoleon era, and dacquoise, French hazelnut meringues layered with chocolate mousse or ganache. I prepared my all-time favorite chocolate cupcake recipe – a vegan variety made with almond milk, olive oil,…
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Macadamia Praline Cookies
A few weeks ago, I baked Whisk & Whiskers’ hazelnut praline shortbread cookies, and fell so in love with the candied-hazelnut-studded dough that I had to make another batch, this time with rich, buttery macadamia nuts. Praline, the French term for nuts mixed into caramel, is traditionally made with a combination of hazelnuts and almonds.…
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