Crushed peppermint candy gives these Chocolate Peppermint and Chocolate Chip Cookies an extra festive look.
If you need a cookie recipe for Christmas gifts, make these chocolate and peppermint cookies. You'll get a yield of about 45 cookies, and they will last up to 10 days at room temperature and at least 30 days in the freezer.
This simple and easy chocolate cake is so moist and light, and is topped with an amazing chocolate and cream cheese frosting.
If you need to quickly whip up a wonderful chocolate cake, try this one. You only need one bowl for the cake.... and you don't need an electric mixer. In fact, everything, including the frosting, is mixed by hand.
This Zuppa Toscana, with Italian sausage, potatoes, and kale, paired with a salad and some bread, is all you need to fill you up (and warm you up) for lunch or dinner.
This Zuppa Toscana is a take on the popular soup from Olive Garden. While the name means Tuscan soup, it's not necessarily an authentic soup from Tuscany. Regardless, this soup is completely tasty in its own right.
These Swedish-style garlic, herb, and cheese buns are soft and enriched yeasted rolls shaped in the style of Swedish cardamom buns (kardemummabullar), but with a savory filling.
These buns, made with an enriched yeasted dough, are soft, fluffy, and absolutely wonderful fresh from the oven.
This Sugar Plum Cocktail with gin, grapefruit juice, and a pomegranate reduction is perfect for all of your upcoming holiday festivities.
With its gorgeous color and sweet/tart flavor, this cocktail goes perfectly with your favorite appetizer, such as a crostini with goat cheese, honey, and pomegranate arils.
These maple cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting are pretty spectacular.
These cupcakes are deeply flavored with maple syrup, both in the cake and in the frosting. These cupcakes are also filled with toasted pecans.
This Pan de Jamón, a Venezuelan Christmas bread, is a wonderful combination of sweet and savory flavors.
Pan de Jamón is often served on Christmas Eve in Venezuela on a single plate with a chicken salad called ensalada de gallina, roast pork, and hallacas (South American tamales with cracked corn) (source: Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America by Maricel E. Presilla, 2012).
These stir-fried eggs with velvet shrimp made the best "brinner" (breakfast/dinner).
These stir-fried eggs with velvet shrimp make a tasty breakfast or a dinner main course with rice. They are also fabulous as part of a mult-course Chinese style dinner.
BBQ glazed meatloaf with sweet potatoes and pearl onions - both dishes have a wonderful mustard-y barbecue sauce flavor, one with a sweet mustard barbecue sauce, and one with a Carolina red hot mustard sauce.
The sweet potatoes and onions have a subtle heat and the meatloaf is flavored of a variety of sauces, including a sweet mustard barbeque sauce.
These Christmas wreath no-bake treats are both fun to make and fun to eat.
You can use these wreaths both as a holiday dessert and/or a holiday decoration! You can even hang them from your tree, as long as you don't have any sneaky pets or children.
These peppermint stick cookies are fun to make, fun to eat, and so Christmasy.
These peppermint stick cookies begin with a vanilla butter cookie. It's drizzled with melted chocolate and then sprinkled with crushed peppermint candies.
This Japanese Milk Bread with Yudane is a soft and fluffy white bread often featured in Japanese bakeries. It's also known as shokupan.
This Japanese milk bread, also known as shokupan, is fluffy, soft, and extra moist. It begins with a yudane, which is a mixture of flour and boiling liquid (either water or milk).
These Swiss Lebkuchen are a take on an early version of the gingerbread cookie. They are made with hazelnut and almond meal, along with honey, sugar, and cinnamon, plus some citrus and candied fruit.
There are many variations of Lebkuchen, both Swiss and German. This one was adapted by Rose Levy Beranbaum in her newest book, The Cookie Bible from a bakery, Confiserie Eichenberger, in Bern, Switzerland.
These sourdough chocolate brownies are rich, fudgy, gooey, and completely chocolate-y.
If you are looking for recipes for using your sourdough starter, add these brownies to your list.
This apple cider pie is filled with sliced apples that are tossed with sugar, spices, and a boiled apple cider reduction. It's deeply flavored with the tart and sweet essence of apples.
This apple pie is made with easy-to-find ingredients and is just right for a holiday pie, or for whenever you are craving a slice of this all-American dessert.
These sourdough chocolate muffins, loaded with chocolate chips, are a tasty way to use your extra sourdough starter.
These sourdough chocolate muffins are deeply chocolate-y. The batter is loaded with cocoa along with semi-sweet chocolate chips. Double chocolate.
This classic French bread stuffing is my new favorite holiday side dish. Serve it with roast turkey, roast chicken, or even ham or roast beef.
What I love about this stuffing is that it is fluffy, light, and not dense at all, unlike many stuffing recipes I have tried.
This Pavlova with port cranberries and rosemary is a wonderful wintery take on the summer dessert that hails from Oceania.
Both Australia and New Zealand take credit for the invention of this cloud-like dessert, created in the 1920s to honor the Russian ballerina of the same name. It starts with a delicate meringue-crusted base that is dreamy and marshmallow soft inside.
Brothless Ramen with XO Sauce is a highly flavorful noodle dish that is a mash up of Japanese Mezeman (mixed noodles) and a sauce created in Hong Kong that is a total umami bomb.
Take some cooked ramen noodles and toss them with a mixture of XO sauce, oil or rendered fat, rice vinegar, and soy sauce and you have a magical mixture of noodles and sauce that is tasty, filling, and will introduce you to the spicy seafood condiment that was developed in the 1980s in Hong Kong.
This Eton Mess with rasperries, blackberries, and raspberry jam is a tasty take on the famous parfait named after prestigious English boarding school. It's a tasty mash up of berries, whipped cream, and meringue.
Evidently, it is served at an annual cricket match!
These Cranberry Crumble Bars are an easy dessert to serve for Thanksgiving and Christmas... or anytime.
These cranberry crumble bars are reminiscent of the flavors of Linzer cookies, the jam-filled sandwich cookie made with both wheat and almond flours.
These cornmeal batty cakes are little savory pancakes made with just five ingredients. They are also known as Johnny cakes, hoe cakes, and several other names, such as Shawnee cakes and spider cornbread.
In the new cookbook, Baking in the American South by Anne Byrn, these little corn cakes are called Nina Cain's Batty cakes with lacey edges (I received a copy from the publisher for an honest review).
This no knead chiabatta bread, with its crunchy crust and soft and airy interior, is super tasty and so easy to make.
This bread is wonderful for sandwiches, croutons, and simply as a side for dipping in sauces, stews, and soups. It also makes amazing garlic bread.
This wonton soup, with pork and ginger, is a fun and delicious take on a classic Chinese take-out dish.
This soup, with its refreshing gingery chicken broth, pork and ginger filling, along with a crunchy addition of romaine, is a light and wonderful first course to a multi-course Chinese-style feast. I also love it for a light lunch.
This Christmas tree charcuterie board is a fun and tasty appetizer for holiday parties or small get-togethers.
This Christmas tree charcuterie board appetizer can be customized any way you like. While mine is fairly small and meant for four to six people, you can make it as big as you like, especially if you have a large serving board or tray.
These pumpkin dinner rolls are light, tender, moist, and are wonderful warm and fresh from the oven slathered in melty butter.
You'll love serving these rolls along with your holiday feast. They are sure to disappear.
These Honey Garlic Sweet Potatoes are slightly sweet, garlicky, and crispy.
These honey garlic sweet potatoes are swoon-worthy. The combination of the garlic and honey, plus a bit of cayenne, will have everyone going back for second helpings.
These stuffing muffins are cute little individual servings of Thanksgiving-style bread stuffing. They are moist on the inside and extra crispy on the outside. If you favor the crispy edges of baked holiday stuffing, you will love these.
One of my favorite courses for Thanksgiving dinner is the stuffing. I've baked it, made it in the slow cooker, incorporated it into dinner rolls, and used leftovers for pancakes.
These mocha oatmeal muffins are filled with walnuts and oats. That's a great excuse for having chocolate for breakfast, right?
These muffins are a wonderful grab-and-go breakfast for busy mornings. Along with a piece of fresh fruit, they are substantial enough to keep you going until lunchtime.
This shrimp risotto is creamy, cheesy, and pretty easy to make too!
Your guests will feel like you are serving them a "gourmet" dish that took lots of time and labor spent constantly stirring a pot by the stove, when, in reality, this risotto is pretty hands off.
These chocolate peppermint brownies are wonderful fudgy bites that will remind you of one of your favorite Girl Scout cookies, Thin Mints... only much fudgier.
These brownies are super fudgy and are glazed with a deep chocolate ganache that is decorated with a white chocolate drizzle.
This no churn Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream recipe is a wonderful way to capture iced Vietnamese coffee in an ice cream form!
Vietnamese coffee is brewed to be super strong, very dark, syrupy, and slightly bitter. It's then combined with sweetened condensed milk and served hot or over ice.
This sourdough discard cracker recipe is an easy and tasty way to use any sourdough discard you have. Just try to restrain yourself from grabbing and snacking on one or two each time you walk by. They're pretty irresistible.
These homemade sourdough crackers are made with your sourdough discard. There's no rolling pin required.
This dulce de leche pumpkin cheesecake is the perfect dessert to add to your Thanksgiving table.
This dulce de leche pumpkin cheesecake is a fabulous make-ahead dessert. In fact, it's better when it's prepared about 12 hours in advance and allowed to chill. Plus, you can make the dulce de leche topping in advance, refrigerate it, and bring it back to room temperature before pouring it over the cheesecake right before serving.
These severed hand pies are a fun and easy to make Halloween dessert. Fill them with a red-colored fruit (cherry, raspberry, strawberry, or cactus pear) pie filling for a creepy and delicious treat.
All you need to make these little severed hand pies is ready-made pie dough, cherry pie filling, and an egg wash. You can garnish the hand pies with some of the juices in your pie filling or with some raspberry or strawberry dessert topping.
These mini pizza skulls are tasty little treats to serve at your next Halloween party.
These pizza bites are so easy to make. You can use your favorite pre-made pizza dough, such as Pillsbury, or you can use your own favorite pizza dough recipe and then stuff them with everything you love on a pizza.
This white wheat and spelt bread has a crispy chewy crust and a moist and airy crumb.
This white and spelt bread begins with an attempt to make yeast water as a leavener. Years ago, I tried making yeast water, but failed. This time, our Bread Baking Babes (an every-other-month group of bread baking enthusiasts) host Judy of Judy's Gross Eats challenged us to make a loaf of bread, any bread, using a yeast water starter.
These spiced skull cakelets are cute little tasty bites flavored with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, and cayenne. They are a sweet dessert with a bit of a kick!
These little cake bites are such a fun and tasty treat to make for Halloween. The cakes are moist and spicy, and so reminiscent of the fall season.
This bread is made with a delicious mix of different grains, including wheat, corn meal, oats, bran, and brown rice.
This multigrain bread, called "struan," was created by my favorite bread baking author and teacher, Peter Reinhart.
These stir-fried udon noodles with chicken and vegetables is so easy to prepare and is ready in less than 20 minutes.
Yaki udon is a Japanese stir-fry that includes udon noodles, a protein, veggies, and a simple sauce made with soy sauce (either light or dark depending on the region), plus mirin or sake.
This pull-apart brioch bread is soft, light, flaky, buttery, and rich, all at the same time.
Brioche bread is made with an enriched dough that is high in butter and and eggs. It can be sweet or savory, or somewhere in between. It's a tricky bread to make, and can either turn out light and delicate, or heavy and dense.
These twice-baked potato pirogies are wonderful little filled dumplings - potatoes, cheese, bacon - pure comfort food.
These pierogies are a take on the Polish pierogi, which is typically filled with potatoes, cheese, cabbage, meat, or sweet fillings. As someone who loves anything potato and cheese, I had to try these, with a twist!
These molasses bran muffins are super wholesome, moist, and packed with flavor.
You can make (and serve) these delicious and nutritious all whole grain muffins in about 30 to 45 minutes. They are loaded with fiber, which makes them a super filling (and tasty) way to start your day.
This tomato, kidney bean, and roast beef chili soup is perfect for using leftover roast beef or brisket.
The first time I made this Tomato, Kidney Bean, and Roast Beef Chili Soup because I had some leftover roast beef, and I wanted something to go with these wonderful savory corn muffins.
These chicken taquitos are stuffed with a mixture of shredded rotisserie chicken, ricotta cheese, cheddar cheese, and green chilis and then baked until crispy and ready for dipping.
I have always loved taquitos, but I've never made them at home because they typically require deep frying.
This chicken teriyaki rice bowl dish is an easy, simple, and flavorful dinner that comes together in less than an hour.
This chicken teriyaki rice dish is made with a "from scratch" glaze of sake, soy sauce, mirin, sugar, and ginger. It's very light, and not syrupy at all.
This slow cooker beef and potato stew is about as easy and tasty as it gets.
You don't have to brown the meat. You don't have to chop or peel the potatoes, and you don't have to chop any onions. The secret ingredient is condensed French onion soup, which melds with the juices of the meat as it slow cooks to produce an amazing gravy.
This apple sour cream cake includes fresh apples tossed in sugar and spices and baked into a moist cake flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and apple cider.
The cake is topped with an apple glaze, although it is moist enough on its own, making it a lovely breakfast cake.
Chocolate brigadeiros are the unofficial national candies of Brazil. They combine the elegance of truffles with the chewiness of chocolate fudge. Evidently, in Brazil, you can't have a birthday party or a wedding with out serving brigadeiros.
In Brazil, they are sold both in fancy candy stores and also as a street food. Typically, they are rolled in chocolate sprinkles after shaping, but you can coat them in colorful sprinkles, finely chopped nuts, or even cocoa powder like truffles.
This cold sesame noodle recipe is a tasty version of the Chinese-American restaurant cold sesame noodles sold in New York City's Chinatown starting in the 1960s.
These sweet and savory cold noodles will call your name late at night from the refrigerator when the hunger pangs strike. If you make these, you may find yourself grabbing a few noodles from the bowl and dropping them into your mouth when no one is looking.
