Baker Without Borders

Buttery shortbread cookies are the perfect medium for dried tea leaves, herbs, and flowers; their high fat content easily absorbs flavors. Inspired by spring, with all its blooming flowers, and a friend, who had picked up some dried lavender and wasn’t sure what to bake with it, I took a recipe for earl grey shortbread … Continue reading Lavender Shortbread Cookies

With bursts of chocolate throughout the dough, this challah tastes a lot like a chocolate babka, only sweeter and more moist, thanks to mashed, extra-ripe bananas. Like many traditional challah loaves, this one is topped with seeds. I chose a combination of poppy and black sesame seeds, but feel free to use whatever you have … Continue reading Banana Chocolate Chip Challah

I first tried seeded banana bread at a popular brunch spot, and sought to replicate it at home using my favorite banana bread recipe, from Food.com, as a starting point. I replaced butter with olive oil and threw in some mini dark chocolate chips. Just before baking, I sprinkled the batter with a medley of … Continue reading Seeded Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Semolina and finely ground pistachios add a nice crunch to these buttery shortbread cookies, which are a variation on an almond cookie recipe I developed last year. I was inspired to add semolina, a course flour made from durum wheat, after preparing nankhatai, a cookie popular in India and Pakistan. The recipe I used called … Continue reading Pistachio Semolina Shortbread Cookies

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