speculaas (dutch spice cookies)

December 11, 2023 by Sophie Barrows in baking, sophie

These cookies are meant to be pressed into a mold, but I don’t have one. I opt to roll and cut them out like sugar cookies (actually, I always make these with my kids the same day as those). These are a humble cookie, but if you love spice cookies like I do (I often laugh at how many variations of spice cookies I have in my yearly list), these will find a spot in your own holiday baking, not only for their warm, comforting flavor, but also for their being a cinch to make!

ricotta cookies

December 07, 2023 by Sophie Barrows in baking, dessert, sophie

A few years ago, I started baking several different cookies leading up to Christmas, freezing them as I went. The goal was to have a stockpile of beautiful cookies to pull out on Christmas, give to friends, bring to gatherings, and enjoy throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas. Each year, I try to rein in the near absurd amount of cookies I plan to make, but the list of keepers continues to grow…

Berry Oat Bars. revisited

December 04, 2023 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

A while back, I shared a recipe for Raspberry Oat Bars that were quickly becoming a favorite breakfast/snack bar in our home. In fact, they’re made so frequently that the recipe has become lazier — ahem! — modified over time into something far more streamlined, just as tasty and worthy to be shared.

Peanut Butter Cranberry Oat Bars

October 30, 2023 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

These easy-to-make bars come together quickly and are a favorite grab n’ go snack around here. There’s something about the simple combination of peanut butter, butter, honey and oats, studded with dried cranberries and topped with a drizzle of chocolate and a sprinkling of flaky sea salt that is just so satisfying.

Chocolate Cherry Almond Biscotti

October 09, 2023 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

These chocolate cherry almond biscotti were good enough to pull me out of sluggish apathy this morning and finally revive a blog wallowing in abandonment for over a year. Well, abandoned by us as bloggers, but not as bakers. We continue to reference this blog for our favorite shared recipes on a weekly, if not daily, basis. And it looks like many of you reading this do the same! We thank you all for continuing to follow along for the past year, even when new content was scarce. After a long break I think we’re ready to start posting regularly again…just in time for the holidays!

Rustic Ricotta Cheesecake

October 09, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

Backstory: In high school, we spent just over a month living in Trastevere for my dad’s work, and there was this bakery where we would get cakes. One of these cakes, I still fantasize about today. It was a mysterious creamy cake studded with chocolate chips.

Peanut Sandies

September 18, 2020 by Maria Almeida in baking, maria

As much as I love Ottolenghi’s savory recipes for their dynamic flavor profiles, so much do I love his sweet recipes for their subtlety and finesse. Just like his Oat Cranberry Almond Cookies, these Peanut Sandies have flavor without being in your face. They perfectly balance butter with peanut, sweet with salty, not one element outshining the other. The texture is delicate and crumbles away in your mouth. They are, in a word, a delight.

ricotta everyday cake

September 01, 2020 by Sophie Barrows in baking, sophie

For some reason, whenever we use ricotta around here, it always seems we have a little leftover. Rarely is the whole container is completely used up. But, happily, this phenomenon led me to this recipe which is so tasty, I buy ricotta now just to bake it up.

magic kiss middles

July 24, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

This is kind of a crossover between two cookie classics—Keebler’s Magic Middles and Hershey’s Secret Kiss cookies.

potato buttermilk sandwich bread

July 15, 2020 by Maria Almeida in baking, maria

Before you ask me, “Why another white sandwich bread recipe?”, let me ask you: do you ever have leftover mashed potatoes going bad in your fridge because no one wants to eat them? Or do you ever have that last bit of buttermilk that you can’t find a use for? And if you said no to both of those, then how about this: Why NOT another white sandwich bread recipe? Especially when it is a supremely soft, voluminous loaf, with a little more chew than your standard white and a bit more flavor profile from the buttermilk, This is a glorious loaf of bread. If you have enough restraint to let it cool completely before slicing, it makes for wonderful sandwiches and even better toast.

graham cookies + a wonderful baking tool

July 01, 2020 by Sophie Barrows in baking, sophie

I love these cookies. They are the perfect snack cookies that are sweet enough to satisfy a craving, but not sweet enough to make you think you’re over doing it on any regular old day. And they are so yummy! And satisfying! To be honest, I’m finding myself baking these up every other week or so.

almond raspberry "wedding" cake

May 27, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

A rich vanilla buttermilk layer cake glazed with an amaretto syrup, filled with raspberry jam and topped with a lightly almond-flavored swiss meringue buttercream.

I love this cake, so much. It’s rich, and yet delicate. Sweet, but not too sweet. The flavors come together into a soft balance—just a touch of almond and a kiss of raspberry.

overnight yukon gold cinnamon rolls with brown butter icing

May 13, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

“We are a cinnamon roll people.”

Out of the mouths of babes. That was the proclamation of my four-year-old daughter mid-morning after recently making, and consuming, a large number of these indulgent cinnamon rolls.

For some time I have been wondering about putting this recipe up on the blog, since we already have a recipe for buttermilk potato cinnamon rolls and another one for pumpkin cinnamon rolls. But if you’re part of a “cinnamon roll people,” clearly you can’t have too many.

Banana Cobbler

May 11, 2020 by Sophie Barrows in baking, sophie

This recipe is great in so many ways. It uses up very ripe bananas (a nice switch up from banana bread), requires few ingredients that are almost always on hand, and is delicious.

Fudge frosted bakery-style big & soft peanut butter cookies

May 06, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

A bakery cookie can come as a revelation, or it can be a dud.

I once got a chocolate chip cookie at a local bakery that, when I went to split with my 3yo daughter, shattered into a hundred dry and crumbly pieces. That was a dud.

Two years ago I wrote about our quick 2-day trip down to the Florida Keys, where I had my first and only Matheessen’s cookie. It was the size of my outstretched hand, big and soft and full of peanut butter flavor, topped with a slather of dense and chewy chocolate fudge. The man behind the counter explained how they used to top their peanut butter cookies with chocolate frosting, which proved a bit of a mess. The cookies stacked for display would stick together and the frosting would smear. Then one day the owner was inspired to take their housemade fudge and slather a bit on top just before it set. The resulting cookie was a revelation.

Strawberries and Cream Chiffon Cake

May 04, 2020 by Maria Almeida in baking, maria

This cake is what dreams of springtime are made of. The cake is light and airy like angel food cake, but a bit sturdier, richer, and moister from the vegetable oil and egg yolks. Together with a light whipped cream frosting and sweet tart strawberries, each bite of this cake is a delight. It makes a really large cake that would be perfect for a gathering, but it also keeps really, which is how my family of six enjoyed it for a full three days. A cake like this is really adaptable: add zest to the cake to give it a citrus flavor, brush the cake with a flavored syrup or jam, use different fruits or no fruits at all! But in my opinion, nothing gets more classic than strawberries and cream and the textures suit the flavor profile perfectly.

everything bagel bombs

April 29, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

If you’re into food novelties, these are for you.

Also, if you like convenient party food, these are for you.

Chocolate Peanut Butter

April 26, 2020 by Maria Almeida in baking, maria

This was a recipe I definitely did not mind testing. But though I tested (with LOTS of tasting), there’s still just a lot of wiggle room in the recipe. When you have a treat like chocolate peanut butter, it might as well be just to your taste. So please don’t be annoyed by my loosey-goosey ingredients list. Feel free to follow it to the letter the first time, but fiddle with it as you please! I really just want to empower you to just try making it, that’s all. And anyway, chocolate and peanuts? You can’t really mess it up.

raspberry oat bars

April 22, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

Linzertorte is a traditional Austrian dessert sandwiching fruit preserves (typically raspberry) between a nut-based pastry and a beautiful lattice top. These raspberry oat bars are the happy result of a search for a linzertorte-like dessert without so much of the hassle, and without the nuts.

Pita Bread

April 08, 2020 by Sophie Barrows in baking, sophie

Have you made pita bread? You should. It is wonderfully easy. Plus, it can be filled with a whole array of things to make a meal (falafel, veggies & rice, meat, bananas & peanut butter, fried eggs & quinoa, etc…). Or, simply have it on the side to enjoy! Toasted and smeared with butter — incredible.