Bake from Scratch

Few breads are better-suited to sourdough than English muffins. These were a test kitchen favorite! Bread flour develops a strong gluten network that creates the signature nooks and crannies you know and love. If you prefer to make ahead, you can refrigerate the dough overnight after shaping to develop deeper flavor and make breakfast the next morning a breeze. Don’t skip the semolina dusting. It’s the secret to easy release and golden bottoms.

By Laura Crandall With a little math and a lot of patience, almost any yeasted recipe becomes yours to reinvent. One of the questions we hear most often in our test kitchen goes something like this: “I love this recipe, but it calls for dry yeast. Can I make it with my sourdough starter instead?” It’s a great question, and the honest answer is a little complicated, so let’s take our time and break it down. Commercial dried yeast is wonderfully dependable—that’s exactly why we reach for it so often.

These cinnamon rolls are gooey, rich, and slathered with a cream cheese icing for an ultra-decadent finish. Heavy whipping cream poured over the rolls before baking helps generate steam and soaks into the rolls as they bake, resulting in a pillowy-soft crumb to sink your teeth into. Though the overnight chill isn’t required, it gives the dough time to develop more flavor and makes these rolls a great make-ahead option. You can prep the dough before bed, then wake up and bake.

It’s the Bake from Scratch Bread Issue—and there’s one thing we know for sure: The right ingredients, innovative tools, and a little know-how can make all the difference. These essentials help you create consistently delicious loaves from start to finish. The best bread begins with better grain. Sunrise Flour Mill is bringing heritage grains back to the table.

Peanut butter? Yes. Oats? Yes. Candy? Yes. Chocolate? Two kinds. All of it in one festive monster of a cookie. The defining move is the smash—pull the cookies out of the oven and then very quickly smash each with the bottom of a glass to flatten it. This gives you a crackled top, a chewy middle, and a wide, glamorous footprint. Press red and blue candies and white chocolate on top while everything’s still warm for a final patriotic flourish, or choose your own color combo for festive cookies year-round.

Recipe by Martha Gilreath and Nolita Bakery.

We swapped the classic cinnamon found in oatmeal cookies for our Chai Spice Blend to create the ultimate cozy treat. Spiced and chewy with plenty of pecan-packed nuttiness, these cookies make you feel like you’re sipping a hot chai latte by the fire. To take these cookies over the top, we sandwiched them with a decadent Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting infused with just a whisper of chai spice, adding a bold zing that perfectly cuts through the richness of the frosting.

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Summer’s best cookie is here, and few desserts capture sunny, playful elegance quite like a sandwich cookie. Nutty pistachios and creamy white chocolate are baked into golden cookiessandwiched with a tart-sweet Raspberry Buttercream filling. Made with Plugrà® Premium European Style Butter, each bite delivers a rich, balanced finish that makes these fun, fancy cookies perfect for picnics, Sunday suppers, and everything in between.

Mostly associated with the Florida Keys after commercial introduction in the 1890s, Key limes are the smaller predecessors of the classic Persian lime you usually see in stores, and they boast a more aromatic, tart, and delicately sweet flavor. Persian limes are milder and juicier, but both make great choices for Key lime pie (or, simply, “lime pie”). The classic combination of lime and sweetened condensed milk in the pie now finds its way into the velvety Lime Filling of these cookies.