Baker Without Borders

In my latest food column for The Knockturnal, I shared my springtime twist on a classic focaccia recipe by the Food Network’s Anne Burrell. Chives and strawberries might seem like an unlikely pair, but these seasonal ingredients yield a flavorful bread that is at once oniony and tangy and sweet. To tie everything together, I…

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In Kentucky, where my husband spent part of his childhood, cornbread is traditionally baked in a cast-iron skillet. A couple years ago, I shared a handwritten buttermilk cornbread recipe from my husband’s former babysitter, Edith, a Kentucky native. She would bake and then broil her crisp, unsweetened cornbread in a bath of oil. With brown…

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These sweet and spicy shortbread cookies are infused with two kinds of ginger – freshly grated and ground – and coated with a tangy lime glaze. (For another delicious glazed shortbread, see my recipe for chocolate rosewater cookies.) For extra flavor, fans of chocolate can add a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder to the dough…

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Made with ghee, semolina, and besan (split brown chickpea) flour, these melt-in-your-mouth shortbread cookies, whose name refers to a Persian word for bread and an Afghan word for biscuit, are a popular teatime snack in India and Pakistan. I’ve tried a few recipes, and this simple one by Buttered Veg is my favorite. I used…

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These are a fun twist on classic chocolate chunk cookies, with a nice crunch from whole peanuts and crushed rice cakes. They are even (sort of) healthy, with olive oil in place of butter. For an even more wholesome cookie, try swapping out all-purpose flour for white whole wheat, which is milder and lighter than…

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Much of the sweetness in these delicious whole-grain muffins, adapted from a whole wheat muffin recipe by Mark Bittman, comes from dried Turkish apricots. I simmered the apricots in water, then coarsely mashed them with a fork. Some of the apricots dissolved into the muffin, lending moisture along with buttermilk and olive oil. Others appeared…

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These nontraditional biscotti have a spicy kick thanks to ginger in two forms: ground and crystalized. Like the classic Italian cookies, they are baked twice for added crunch, but the addition of butter makes them softer on the inside than typical biscotti. I got inspiration from a triple ginger biscotti recipe in Tish Boyle’s The…

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These little loaves are similar to cinnamon rolls, only with tropical flavors. Made with my favorite challah dough, they are filled with mashed banana, toasted coconut, and vanilla extract, twisted into spirals, and sprinkled with additional coconut for a delightful crunch. Like my cinnamon fig challah loaves, they were a big hit with my one-year-old…

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Shortbread cookies are easy to make, infinitely adaptable, and one of my go-to baking projects. I’ve infused the buttery, crumbly treats with lavender and lemon verbena, filled them with fennel and coconut, and baked them with pistachio and semolina. My latest variation is packed with toasted hazelnuts, flavored with vanilla extract, and absolutely delicious dipped…

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While making chocolate ganache to frost some cakes the other day, I decided to replace half the sugar in the original recipe with mashed banana, adding it to the heavy cream as it came to a boil. Banana ganache turned out to be a versatile invention. With one batch, I was able to frost a…

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