Author: Baker Without Borders
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Bourekas with Dandelion Greens, Goat Cheese, and Caramelized Onions
Bourekas, savory pastries popular in the Middle East, have a long and interesting history, as described by food writer and photographer Tori Avey. They originated as deep-fried dumplings in Central Asia and made their way to Turkey, transforming into flaky, filled pies called bureks. The pies reminded Turkey’s Sephardic Jewish community, who settled in the…
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Butterscotch Pie with Apricot Oat Crust
In Undertale, a retro video game popular with the kids in my after school cooking class, butterscotch pie has the power to heal the protagonist, a small child lost in an underground world filled with monsters. After coming across the pie in the video game, several students asked if I could teach them how to…
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Southern-Style Buttermilk Cornbread
When my husband was around 8 years old, he and his family moved from New York City to a small town in rural Kentucky. His babysitter, Edith, a Kentucky native, would bake unsweetened buttermilk cornbread, a staple of Southern cooking. This is my variation on Edith’s hand-written recipe, made with coarsely ground cornmeal rather than…
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Chocolate-Dipped Hazelnut Macaroons
Coconut macaroons (not to be confused with French macarons) are a classic spring holiday dessert with origins in 18th century Italy. The flourless cookies are served at Passover seders and also shaped into “nests” to fill with Easter candy. I am not a fan of the store-bought variety, which is often sticky and overly sweet.…
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Tahini Almond Blondies
In my latest post for The Knockturnal, I shared my recipe for chocolate-chunk-filled tahini almond squares. There is no flour or butter in these blondies, just finely ground almonds and tahini, a sesame paste used in Middle Eastern cooking. The flavors of almond and sesame may seem like a strange combination, but they work extremely…
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Coconut Cumin Cookies
This one-bowl recipe is my vegan twist on jeera biscuits, a South Asian cookie studded with toasted, fragrant cumin seeds. Typically made with butter, the salty-sweet biscuits have a similar texture to shortbread and are often eaten as a teatime snack in India and Pakistan. I swapped coconut oil for butter, yielding a soft,…
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Peanut Butter Banana Crumb Cake
Peanut butter and banana are the main ingredients in this moist, dairy-free cake, but the crumb topping is the real star of the show. Made with roasted peanuts, brown sugar, and olive oil instead of butter, the topping is light, salty, crunchy, sweet, and addictive. Both batter and crumb have relatively few ingredients, and are…
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Chocolate Strawberry Hamantaschen
Hamantaschen are triangular, jam-filled cookies served on the Jewish holiday of Purim. Variations on the fillings are endless – I’ve even come across savory ones, like the New York Times’ caramelized onion and poppy seed hamantaschen (read more about the recipe, and the history of Purim, here) – but I had yet to encounter hamantaschen…
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Chocolate Pecan Banana Bread
After sharing a batch of banana brownies with coworkers, a debate broke out over which dessert I should bring to the office next: more brownies or a classic banana bread. I split the difference and came up with this rich, chocolatey loaf, which straddles the line between banana bread and chocolate cake with its frosting-like…
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Banana Brownies
Mashed banana makes a great addition to blondies and brownies. A few years ago, I developed a recipe for banana, hazelnut, and chocolate chunk blondies. This time around, I incorporated banana into pastry chef Nick Malgieri’s “Supernatural Brownies,” so named after he attempted to double a fudge brownie recipe but forgot to increase the flour,…
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