Baker Without Borders

This moist, rich breakfast cake is similar to carrot cake or banana bread, but with a tangy kick from sour cream and pureed Turkish apricots. My original intention was to coat the cake with cream cheese frosting. Then, I remebered I had a mixture of sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom leftover from baking my new … Continue reading Apricot Spice Cake

This pizza has the elements of one of my favorite pasta dishes: butternut squash ravioli with sage leaves and freshly grated Parmesan. The idea emerged from a conversation with a friend, who suggested I bake a seasonal pizza pie with sage, brown butter, and winter squash. I incorporated sage, the leaves of an evergreen shrub … Continue reading Sage Pesto Pizza

These fragrant, fluffy donuts were a hit at a Hanukkah baking class I taught for preschoolers and kindergartners. Traditionally, sufganiyot are filled with jelly or custard. Like other Hanukkah staples, including latkes, they are fried in oil to symbolize the ancient legend that a small amount of oil, meant to last only one night, kept … Continue reading Baked Vanilla Nutmeg Donuts

Frangipane, a cream made from almonds, eggs, and butter, is one of my favorite tart fillings. I’ve experimented with a walnut variation in a concord grape pie, and a pecan one in a summery strawberry galette. Here, I replaced almonds with hazelnuts in my take on a classic French winter tart. To complement the hazelnuts, … Continue reading Pear Hazelnut Tart

Perfect for breakfast or a snack, this cake is a healthier version of an apple butter bread recipe I created last autumn. Whole wheat flour complements the pecans, amplifying their nutty flavor and subtle crunch, and olive oil replaces butter. I was worried the cake would turn out dense because of the whole wheat flour, … Continue reading Apple Butter, Pecan, and Olive Oil Cake

These whole wheat scones, adapted from a maple cream scone recipe on the excellent baking blog Tutti Dolci, combine two classic autumn flavors: maple and apple cider. I replaced some of the heavy cream in the original recipe with milk and cider, and swapped all-purpose flour for whole wheat. I also skipped the maple extract, … Continue reading Whole Wheat Maple Glazed Scones

Layered with a creamy maple syrup custard and crunchy oat, apple, pecan, and cinnamon granola, this parfait is a nice alternative to classic autumn pies, cakes, and other baked goods. It’s served cold (perfect for those occasional autumn heatwaves) and the oven is only involved to bake the granola. I borrowed elements from two different … Continue reading Maple Custard Parfait with Apple Pecan Granola

I’ve been baking Evelyn Raab’s hazelnut truffle squares for years. The gooey, gluten-free brownies, which have finely ground hazelnuts in place of all-purpose flour, are perfect as is, but over time I’ve tried mixing things up, swapping neutral oils for butter and pecans for hazelnuts. This is my favorite variation yet. The combination of toasted … Continue reading Olive Oil and Pecan Brownies

This is an excellent recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh’s dessert cookbook, Sweet. I made only one change to the original recipe, which happened entirely by accident. Some friends and I had planned to double the recipe to feed a large group of people. We chopped up twice the amount of apples, but forgot to … Continue reading Apple Olive Oil Cake – With Extra Apples

I first read about peach focaccia, a sweet-savory twist on the classic Italian bread, in the New York Times.  I shared the recipe with a friend, and she mentioned that all summer long, she’d been eating sliced peaches sprinkled with goat cheese and basil honey. The combination sounded delicious. So when I adapted the New York … Continue reading Peach, Basil, Honey, and Goat Cheese Focaccia