Although I’ve seen versions of Far breton made with raisins, I urge you to resist the urge to substitute another dried fruit. Prunes really make this dish. To pit prunes, use a paring knife to make a slit in each prune and slide out the pit. For those who really don’t want to use prunes, I’ve seen French recipes that use raisins, so those are entirely permissible. If you are avoiding alcohol, you could poach some prunes in tea and use those, drained. The batter is similar to crêpe batter, and like crêpe batter, it should rest for at least 4 hours in the refrigerator before using it. You can make it the day before you plan to use it. If you prefer a less-sweet dessert, you can reduce to sugar to 6 tablespoons (75g). Some recipes advise lining the baking dish with parchment paper, which I found wasn’t critical. And in fact, it got soggy during cooking (and tore easily) – so decided to stick with regular butter and flour, and didn’t have any problem getting pieces out of the baking dish.

(This recipe, particularly the beating technique, has roots in David Lebovitz's recipe in Ready for Dessert, where David credits Robert Steinberg for the technique)

These little cakes try to pretend they're muffins or simple treats - but they're not. They're deeply laced with dark muscovado and quality cocoa. Their hearts are soaked with spiced syrup, pushing them into the league of squishy brownies and chocolate fondants. They're topped with crunchy, slightly bitter cocoa nibs. Each bite needs the cradle of a spoon.

I found the recipe in Signe Johanson's fantastic book from last year, Scandilicious Baking. I've only tried two recipes so far but they've both been excellent. Signe notes that this is "the quintessential Scandi cake". In an inspired move, she adapts the tradition by adding salt to the topping. After my first test, I decided to toast the flaked almonds - I think the texture and flavour is better. Toscakaka is essentially a simple whisked sponge topped with a gooey caramel almond topping that seeps into the cake and hardens on top to a crunchy praline. The edges, in particular, are irresistible. It reminds me of the famous Chez Panisse Almond Tart - and that's a very good thing. The only difficult part is persuading yourself to leave the topping alone instead of picking bits off and then, ashamed by your uncouth behaviour, trying to make it look like you didn't.

This is a tricky recipe but really worth trying and although it was an ‘unauthorized’ substitution at Chez Panisse (I was the rebel…which is why I’m here instead of there nowadays…), I often would replace the almonds with chopped up macadamia nuts, which kept the tart slightly-softer due to the high oil content. And was utterly delicious. Other nuts can be substituted as well, although when all is said and done, this classic is best made with sliced almonds.

A few tips: You can use blanched or unblanched sliced almonds. Either will work fine. I toasted mine, which were a mix of the two, in the oven while I was putting together the cake batter. They'll take about 8 to 10 minutes 325ºF (160ºC), stirring them once or twice during baking so they toast evenly. After melting the butter for the cake batter, you can use the same pot again for making the caramel-almond topping. So no need to wash it in between. Yay for less dishes! In step #5, you could sift the dry ingredients over the whipped eggs when folding them in, to disperse the ingredients, to avoid lumps. I didn't have any issues, but that's extra-assurance, if you'd like to be more careful. The topping is quick to put together and should be done as the cake is baking. Ideally it should still be warm when you're ready to spread it over the cake and if it cools down, you can gently rewarm it before you spread. (The heat of the just-baked cake will help it spread, too.)

Adapted from The French Kitchen Cookbook by Patricia Wells For best results, you should use a strong, dark honey, such as buckwheat or chestnut. If you have only mild clover or orange blossom honey, the recipe will still work and be just fine, but the honey flavor will be less pronounced. If you can’t get almond powder, you can use blanched sliced almonds (measuring them by weight, not volume) in place of the powder; pulverize them in the food processor along with the other dry ingredients. For more information and tips about using almond powder, check out my post - Almond Flour FAQs.

Adapted from The Joys of Baking: Recipes and Stories for a Sweet Life by Samantha Seneviratne One tip: If you have low-fat milk on hand, you don't need to go out and buy whole milk just to make this cake. Since the topping only calls for 1/4 cup (60ml) of cream, you'll likely have some leftover cream if you've gone out and bought a carton or bottle. So you can mix some of that cream in 50:50 proportions with low-fat milk to approximate whole milk. Another tip from a reader, who used a silicone cake mold (which I don't own) and said the cake slipped out of the mold easily and the sides didn't get too dark.

You don’t even need a toaster to make perfect toast. Crisping bread in a skillet — in melted butter, of course — gives it a tasty brown crunch and leaves you with a hot pan ready to scramble eggs. Be sure to swipe up all the butter and crumbs with the toasted bread when you take it out to keep the eggs nice and golden. Because more butter is added to the pan at the same time as the eggs, it melts slowly into the eggs while you stir them, leaving you with a creamy mix that ends up even creamier when cheese is melted in at the very end. Featured in: Learn to Cook (and Love It) in 10 Easy Dishes

A bacon-wrapped date is sweet, smoky, squidgy and crisp, all in one bite-size package. The trick is getting the bacon to cook before the date burns, and you can do that by starting in a cold oven so that the bacon slowly renders its fat and evenly crisps. While this appetizer was en vogue in the 1970s and 1980s, it has never gone out of style. In fact, it dates back to Victorian England, when bacon-wrapped oysters or prunes (also known as angels or devils on horseback) were eaten before or after a meal. (“Horseback” referred to their being served on toast.) Sometimes the prunes were soaked in tea or liqueur, and stuffed with chutney, cheese, or nuts. You can do the same if you like.

Bacon crisps up in the air fryer in a fraction of the time it would need on the stovetop or in the oven — and air-fryer bacon is ideal for a quick, solo breakfast, or when you need just a small batch. (If you’re cooking bacon for a crowd, we’ve still got you covered with our oven bacon recipe.) Cooking bacon in the air fryer results in extracrisp slices, since the excess bacon fat drains as the bacon cooks. The quantity of bacon here will depend on the size of your air fryer basket (or really, how hungry you are) and won’t affect the time or temperature called out below. To add to this recipe’s convenience, you can even start with frozen bacon without needing to adjust the cook time or temperature.

Cooking bacon in the oven gives you perfectly crispy slices without any flipping or fussing, and the cleanup is superspeedy. It’s also the best way to make bacon for a crowd. You can cook the bacon directly on aluminum foil-lined baking sheets or on a wire rack set on top of the baking sheets. The latter method will give you extra crispy bacon, but you'll have to wash that greasy rack. Your choice! (To make bacon in an air-fryer, try our air-fryer bacon recipe.)

Prepare a batch of oven-roasted breakfast potatoes, and you’ll reap the rewards over the next few days. Eat them right out of the oven as a snack, or as a side to scrambled eggs or roast chicken, then tuck leftovers into a breakfast burrito or pile on top of a salad. The recipe is simple and mostly hands off; the potatoes just need to be tossed every so often for even crisping. While russets can be used, Yukon Gold potatoes are soft and creamy, and the longer they roast, the crispier the outsides will become. (Just don’t overdo it, or they’ll dry out.)

All you need is a bowl, fork and baking sheet to make these scones, which end up crisp on the outside and tender within. The recipe doesn’t include the added step of cutting butter into flour, which yields the kind of sturdier, breadier scones found in bakeries and requires extra tools, skills and time. Instead, it’s a streamlined version of cream scones, where the dough is often rolled or patted flat then cut into rounds or wedges. Dropping the batter onto the baking sheet in mounds not only makes these easier to throw together, it also ensures the scones stay soft, as does a short rest in the refrigerator. Folding in berries make these lovely for breakfast or brunch, while stirring in currants gives them a classic tea time feel. They’re rich enough to enjoy on their own, but they also taste great slathered with jam and clotted cream or butter.

It doesn't get much more simple and nutritious than these Autumn Glory apple bites! They are vegan, full of fiber, and great for littles and adults. So easy to make along with your kiddos as well!

What better way to enjoy apple pie than with your own personal hand pie!? These tiny pockets of cozy flavor are perfect for snack-sized treats or a delightful picnic addition. The cinnamon and caramel notes of Autumn Glory make it the ideal apple to be paired with the ginger, cinnamon, and pumpkin spices found in this recipe.

Take your favorite childhood pastry... but add bourbon! This warm, perfectly spiced pastry is filled with your favorite apple (Autumn Glory) and topped with the perfect bourbon and cinnamon glaze. Make these extra simple by using store-bought dough, or go all out with your favorite pie crust recipe!

These Vegan Apple Pie Bars combine the best of two worlds - cookie bars & apple pie! A thick shortbread pie-like dough is topped with cinnamon sugar apples and a vegan streusel for a melt-in-your-mouth cookie bar!

Made using a 7-inch tart pan, this apple tart is the perfect size to share with your sweetheart. The sweet and spiced flavors of Autumn Glory apple make this recipe extra delicious to enjoy this Valentine's Day!

When panko, Japanese bread crumbs, first appeared here, American cooks leaped to embrace their spiky crunch. (The first article about it appeared in 1998.) But how could breadcrumbs arrive from Japan, a land without bread? The answer is here, in the lofty, feathery white bread that is a staple at bakeries in Asia. (Panko is often made from the heels of the loaf, called the “ears” in Japanese.) Milk bread was developed in Japan in the 20th century, using tangzhong, a warm flour-and-water paste traditionally used in China to make buns with a soft, springy texture and tiny air bubbles. Milk bread with an incomparable crumb and buttery taste is a snap to make at home, using supermarket ingredients. Once the tanzhong is cooked and cooled — a matter of 10 minutes at the stove — you have an easy, rewarding dough. It can be shaped into coils or round rolls, like pull-aparts, instead of loaves, or you can paint it with cinnamon sugar, dulce de leche or strawberry jam when you roll it out.

This traditional Spanish snack couldn’t be easier to make. Aside from good toasted bread, it requires very few ingredients: a garlic clove, a ripe tomato, some olive oil and flaky sea salt. In fact, the ingredient list is actually the recipe in shorthand. If you want a slightly more elaborate toast, garnish with anchovy fillets, slices of avocado or grilled shrimp. But even in its simplest form, this rustic toast is always satisfying.

Yes, it is worth your while to make English muffins from scratch. Not only is the texture lighter and crisper, homemade muffins taste better, too — yeasty, wheaty, complex. You will need to sear these muffins on the stove top before baking. That’s what gives them their unique crunch on their bottoms. This recipe does not require muffin rings, but if you have them and would like to use them, go right ahead. Just add a few minutes onto the baking time to accommodate the muffins’ increased thickness. Then fork-split them, toast and serve with plenty of butter. After all, that’s what those crevices are made for.

The affinity of walnuts and whole wheat plays out well in this fairly simple loaf. I ramped up the walnut component by mixing in toasted pieces, including ground nuts along with the flour and even adding some walnut oil to the dough. Making this bread is straightforward enough for the home cook to master, and using a mere pinch of yeast will give the dough a nice rise. This dough would also welcome raisins, olives or pieces of figs along with the walnuts. I have found that the best way to introduce ingredients like these is to knead them in after the first rise.

Here is one of the most popular recipes The Times has ever published, courtesy of Jim Lahey, owner of Sullivan Street Bakery. It requires no kneading. It uses no special ingredients, equipment or techniques. And it takes very little effort — only time. You will need 24 hours to create the bread, but much of this is unattended waiting, a slow fermentation of the dough that results in a perfect loaf. (We've updated the recipe to reflect changes Mark Bittman made to the recipe in 2006 after publishing and receiving reader feedback. The original recipe called for 3 cups flour; we've adjusted it to call for 3⅓ cups/430 grams flour.) In 2021, J. Kenji López-Alt revisited the recipe and shared his own tweaked version. —Mark Bittman

This recipe, adapted from Samin Nosrat's "Salt Fat Acid Heat," is inspired by the Southern grandma method of marinating chicken overnight in buttermilk before frying it. You're roasting here, but the buttermilk and salt still work like a brine, tenderizing the meat on multiple levels to yield an unbelievably juicy chicken. As an added bonus, the sugars in the buttermilk will caramelize, contributing to an exquisitely browned skin. Be sure to leave 24 hours for marinating the chicken. While the beauty of roast chicken is that you can serve it anytime, anywhere, try serving it alongside panzanella, which plays the role of starch, salad and sauce.

The summer after my junior year of college, I worked as an au pair in Paris for a family with three energetic little boys. My host mother, Valérie, loved to cook and often enlisted my help in the kitchen once the kids were in bed. Her French apple cake recipe, with chunks of tart apples nestled in a tender, buttery rum cake, quickly became one of my all-time favorite fall desserts. Like many French classics—think clafoutis, madeleines, or crepes—it’s wonderfully simple yet incredibly satisfying. A slice is perfect with a cup of coffee in the afternoon or served as dessert with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. With tart apples baked into a buttery cake with just a hint of rum, this might be the best apple cake you’ll ever taste. It’s simple, yet so satisfying—perfect for dessert, a cozy afternoon snack, or even breakfast (yes, it’s that good!).

This wonderful recipe for potatoes au gratin involves layering thinly sliced potatoes with heavy cream and grated cheese in a baking dish, and then baking until the cream thickens and blankets the potatoes in a rich, creamy sauce. I’d say the dish is worthy of a special occasion — it is! — but the truth is that eating it is a special occasion unto itself. The only consideration to keep in mind is that the dish is best assembled right before baking. Once potatoes are peeled and sliced, they discolor quickly. Similarly, it cannot be baked ahead of time, as the cream tends to separate when reheated. I hope this doesn’t discourage you from trying the recipe, as it is truly delicious and worth the effort.

Spoon bread, also known as corn casserole or corn pudding, is a creamier version of cornbread that you eat with a spoon. The most well-known recipe is from Jiffy and is typically made from Jiffy corn muffin mix, butter, sour cream, eggs, canned corn, and canned creamed corn. This from-scratch version barely takes any longer to make, yet it’s so much more delicious. Making your own cornbread mix — with flour, sugar, cornmeal, salt, and baking powder — and using fresh corn makes all the difference. This is a wonderful summer dish to make when fresh corn is in season, but it also makes a delicious Thanksgiving side dish. (When fresh corn is not available, opt for frozen corn over canned.)

You may call it Spoonbread, Corn Bowl, Corn Casserole, Scalloped Corn or Corn Pudding. No matter what you call it one thing is for sure, Spoon Bread Casserole, made with “JIFFY” Corn Muffin Mix is an American tradition.

At its core, it’s a summer veggie combo starring corn and some form of beans (lima beans are traditional, but I prefer using edamame), jazzed up with other veggies like bell peppers, okra, or tomatoes for extra flavor and color. The wonderful thing about succotash is its flexibility; feel free to swap ingredients based on what you have on hand in your kitchen or garden. My version, inspired by Southern Living, gets a flavorful upgrade with some crispy bacon crumbled on top — because, well, most things taste better with bacon! Serve succotash as a side dish to BBQ chicken or grilled salmon, or let it shine center stage as a light main course.

Not the high-heat stir-fry you might expect, Grace Lee’s home-style fried-rice recipe uses a simple technique — make an easy, flavorful kimchi sauce, mellowed out with butter, and sauté leftover rice in it. It's perfect for a snack or a quick, simple meal. The Spam, though optional, reflects many Koreans’ love of foods introduced by the American military. —

This version of soy sauce noodles, an iconic Cantonese dish commonly enjoyed for breakfast or lunch at dim sum, is hearty enough for dinner, too. While the traditional dish features bean sprouts and often garlic chives, this recipe uses cabbage, which provides a lovely textural crunch, and plenty of scallions for an aromatic punch. The soy sauce seasoning is a simple mix of regular and dark soy sauce (or lăochōu in Cantonese). It gives the noodles its signature deep color. If you can’t find dark soy sauce, tamari works well, too. This dish is traditionally made with thin egg noodles, but in a pinch, any dried wheat noodles will do the job.

This recipe comes to The Times from the fertile mind of the chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Like all fried-rice dishes it begins with leftover rice (freshly cooked rice is too moist to fry well). It’s jasmine rice here, but white from Chinese takeout works nearly as well and is more convenient. Perhaps unsurprisingly — this is a chef’s recipe, after all — separate cooking processes are called for: ginger and garlic are crisped, leeks softened, rice and eggs fried. But no step takes more than a few minutes, and the results are absolutely worth the effort.