Category Archives: Recipes (Sweet)

Cookies That Taste Like Marmalade Toast

These creative cookies get rolled in panko and filled with your favorite marmalade.
These creative cookies get rolled in panko and filled with your favorite marmalade.

Like bread popped up from the toaster, all crisp and golden, then immediately slathered with sweet butter and jam.

That’s exactly what these cookies taste like.

Since toast with jam is my go-to breakfast most mornings anyway, I just had to try these fun cookies called “Jam-on-Toast Thumbprints.” They are ingeniously rolled in panko before being filled with sticky marmalade.

This clever recipe is from the “Fabulous Modern Cookies” (The Countryman Press) by Chris Taylor and Paul Arguin.

If you don’t know married couple, Taylor and Arguin, they are a true dynamic duo who are both scientists and bakers. Taylor is an epidemiologist specializing in Alzheimer’s and aging, while Arguin is the retired head of the CDC’s domestic malaria unit. These over-achievers also have won hundreds of amateur baking contests.

Yes, the rest of us can now officially feel like total sloths.

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Dorie Greenspan’s Chunky Lemon Cornmeal Cake (With Sumac)

Sumac and fresh lemons used two ways give this loaf cake a wonderful citrusy lift.
Sumac and fresh lemons used two ways give this loaf cake a wonderful citrusy lift.

At first glance, you might think this lovely lemon loaf cake also has poppy seeds.

But those tiny dark red specs are actually ground sumac berries.

Yes, the Middle Eastern spice that’s typically used in savory preparations goes for a sweet spin here instead.

And to great effect.

“Chunky Lemon Cornmeal Cake” is from the one and only Dorie Greenspan, the James Beard Award-winning cookbook author and baker extraordinaire. It’s from her latest cookbook, “Baking with Dorie” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), of which I received a review copy.

Pick up a copy and no doubt you’ll be running to turn on the oven to bake temptations such as “Miso-Maple Loaf,” “Lemon Meringue Layer Cake,” “Lick-the-Pot Chocolate Pudding Pie,” and “Coffee Shortbread.”

With its tangy, floral, and citrusy notes, sumac is a natural for baking, so it’s a wonder that it’s not widely used that way already.

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A Yogurt Cake — That’s Almost All Yogurt

Would you believe there's only 3 tablespoons of flour in this yogurt cake?
Would you believe there’s only 3 tablespoons of flour in this yogurt cake?

I’ve made many a yogurt cake — but never one that was nearly all yogurt and only a smidge of flour.

This “Yogurt Cake” is so different.

Rather than yogurt being a mere supporting ingredient to give the cake extra moistness, it is the star here in abundance, creating a light, fluffy texture almost like an airy, crustless cheesecake.

The recipe is from “Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean” (Ten Speed Press, 2021), of which I received a review copy.

The incomparable cookbook writer, who was born in Egypt and now lives in the United Kingdom, has been chronicling Middle Eastern cuisines for decades, and educating all of our palates along the way.

Her latest cookbook showcases the classics she loves to prepare for friends and family, which are imbued with the flavors of Provence, Cairo, Sicily, Morocco and beyond.

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Biscuit Berry Nests — Two Treats In One

Holes get punched into a big round of biscuit dough, then filled with fresh berries, before being baked.
Holes get punched into a big round of biscuit dough, then filled with fresh berries, before being baked.

If you adore fruit baked into your biscuits or even biscuits slathered with fruity jam, then you will go bonkers for “Biscuit Berry Nests.”

Because a jumble of fresh berries is baked into an actual hole punched into each biscuit. Not only that, but those “holes” are also baked, creating regular biscuits, too.

It’s like donuts plus donut holes — but in biscuit form.

This fun little recipe is from “Hot Little Suppers” (Harper Horizon, 2021), of which I received a review copy.

It was written by Carrie Morey, founder of Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit, a South Carolina business based on her mom’s from-scratch biscuits that has now grown to encompass eateries, a food truck, and mail-order items.

Of course, you’ll find biscuit recipes galore inside, including “Cinnamon Biscuits” and “Whipping Cream Biscuits,” plus accompaniments such as “Savory Thyme Butter,” along with clever ways to use up leftover biscuits (does that ever happen?) in dishes such as “Toasted Maple Biscuit Casserole.” Since one can’t live on biscuits alone, there are also entree recipes such as “Lemony Crab Pasta” and “Salty Sticky Sweet Pot Roast.”

The "holes'' get baked, too, to create individual biscuits.
The “holes” get baked, too, to create individual biscuits.

When I saw the photo of these clever biscuit nests in the book, I knew I had to make them. They didn’t disappoint, though, I did have to tweak the recipe in a number of areas.

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Raspberry Amaretti Cookies With A Fun Surprise Center

Freeze-dried and fresh raspberries make these amaretti extra special.
Freeze-dried and fresh raspberries make these amaretti extra special.

Like the best Easter confections that tempt at this time of year, these cookies are adorable, colorful, and sport a surprise filling sure to delight.

What’s more, “Raspberry Amaretti Cookies” are also gluten-free.

Made with almond meal, egg whites, and sugar, its dough gets fruity tang and a smidge of pink from pulverized freeze-dried raspberries mixed in. And at the center of each cookie hides a single fresh raspberry that you don’t see until you take a bite.

This fun recipe is from “Nadiya Bakes” (Clarkson Potter, 2020), of which I received a review copy. It’s by Nadiya Hussain, the season 6 winner of “The Great British Baking Show.” The cookbook is a companion to her BBC and Netflix series of the same name.

The U.K.-based baker emphatically calls baking her true first love. This book includes both sweet and savory treats. Her recipes take influence from both her Bangladeshi heritage and her British upbringing in creations such as “Matcha and Kiwi Hurricane Roll,” “Scotch Creme Eggs,” “Rainbow Veg Pakora Picnic Pie,” and “Cherry Chelsea Buns.”

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