Baking

A super-easy, no-mixer-needed cookie dough recipe that doesn’t dirty any bowls and leaves plenty of time for the fun stuff—baking, decorating, and eating dough scraps, of course.

These financiers are moist and nutty from the addition of brown butter and hazelnuts; in this recipe, resting the dough amplifies all of those flavors.

In this recipe, a few textured and vibrant toppings gussy up a tender, buttery, and ultrasimple shortbread.

This ambitious Mallomars-inspired recipe is a project: Make the (wheat-free!) cookie base and top with marshmallow on day one; enrobe in chocolate on day two.

We love the look of the homemade extra-long sprinkles on these whoopie-pie-type cookies, but they take a steady hand and a wealth of patience to shape. Use any store-bought sprinkle in their place.

Flouring the fruit in this Bundt cake recipe helps keep it suspended throughout the batter, and using a serrated knife guarantees you won’t squash or shred the slices.

Not feeling the squares in this phyllo bites recipe? Use a pizza cutter to cut crackers into any shape you like!

Make this traditional German Kranzkuchen for a festive sweet treat to serve on Christmas morning.

Roasting grapes is fun and unexpected, although very popular in the wine regions of Italy. I remember being surprised to find juicy grapes cooked into a dense olive oil cake in Tuscany years ago. Here the sweetness of the grapes balances the earthy truffle oil and rosemary, and the feta adds a salty kick. The flavors are just perfect, and this flatbread takes me right back to Tuscany every time.

Dulce de leche literally translates to “candy of milk.” In layman’s terms, it’s a caramel-like concoction made from boiling sweetened condensed milk until it becomes . . . well, pretty much an eighth deadly sin. What I love most about dulce de leche is that it has the beautiful color and deep flavor of caramel, but not the chewiness . . . so you don’t have to expend needless energy flexing your jaw muscles.

Two warnings about these cookies: Don’t give them to young children before bedtime and don’t leave them lying around, if you want any left for yourself. These cookies are crisp on the edges and have a chewy middle strewn with pockets of soft chocolate. The espresso powder, as Kelsey (The Naptime Chef) noted, amplifies the chocolate, but not the sweetness, making it a grown-up cookie. When making any cookies, make sure to cream the butter really well—this aerates the cookies and integrates the sugar—but be conservative with your mixing once the dry ingredients are added.