Bake from Scratch January/February 2023

HAPPY NEW YEAR, BAKERS! This issue is packed with all the cozy and comforting recipes perfect for ringing in 2023. First off, we’re bringing a touch of edible sunshine with a citrus recipe collection, from simple Sicilian Orange Cake to a mile-high Lemon Meringue Pie. On the decadent side of things, Britney Brown-Chamberlain of Britney Breaks Bread has created four of the most sensational chocolate recipes of the season, from a dreamy one-bowl chocolate cake to a cream cheese-swirled and chocolate chip-laden banana Bundt cake. Expect coffee cakes, cast iron wonders, and a revolutionary frozen fruit feature to round things out. I’m particularly in love with the Mini Cherry Pies (page 89). Using frozen cherries to create the delicious filling, these pies are a perfect ode to the double-crusted cherry pies…

RECIPE INDEX BARS AND COOKIES Best-Ever Chewy Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies 113 Caramel Apple Skillet Cookie 101 Cheesecake Black Cocoa Cookies 47 Lemon Crumb Bars 71 Old-Fashioned Blondies 107 Peach-Pecan Crumble Bars 90 Triple-Citrus Sheet Pan Shortbread 76 BREADS Cinnamon-Pecan Babka 33 Citrus Poppy Seed Twists 73 Goat Cheese-Harissa Babka 33 Honey & Rye’s Monkey Bread 30 Hot Dog Flower Buns 84 Jalapeño Popper Swirl Bread 99 Savory Scones 30 Skillet Focaccia 102 Triple-Chocolate Muffins 51 CAKES Apricot-Almond Streusel Kuchen 60 Browned Butter Banana Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Swirl and Chocolate Ganache 54 Chocolate Hazelnut Entremet 37 Cinnamon Blueberry Bundt Cake 92 Coffee and Cream Marbled Coffee Cake 59 Double-Streusel Coffee Cake 61 Grandmom’s Texas Sheet Cake 20 Melted Butter Pound Cake with Easiest-Ever Chocolate Glaze 111 One-Bowl Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream 50 Pau Pau’s Steamed Cupcakes (Fa Gao) 82 Peanut Butter-Banana Upside-Down Cake 101 Raspberry Olive Oil Cake 92 Sicilian Whole Orange Cake 70 Turtle Coffee Cake 61 FROSTINGS, FILLINGS, AND…

BAKERY SHOUTOUT Bandit Pâtisserie Everyone should have a local bakery haunt, and for our associate editor, Olivia Kavanagh, it’s Bandit Pâtisserie in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. A delicious collaboration between chefs Kristen Hall and Victor King, Bandit Pâtisserie offers sweet and savory pastries with an emphasis on seasonal ingredients. The laminated pastries, from croissants to kouign amann, are particularly beloved, but you shouldn’t sleep on their lemon meringue tarts and delicate macarons either. GO THERE: Bandit Pâtisserie 2212 1st Ave. N., Unit 201B Birmingham, Alabama banditbham.com SWEET OBSESSION Alléno & Rivoire Chocolate Vanilla Beans In this cocoa-rich optical illusion, three delicately curled vanilla beans are made of Tahitian vanilla-scented chocolate. They’re the creation of Parisian chocolatier Alléno & Rivoire. Our editor-in-chief, Brian Hart Hoffman, received these beauties as a gift while visiting Paris, France, last year and couldn’t wait to share…

Why do you enjoy baking? Mary Lou Maxwell: It’s a great therapy for me. I always knew that things like pastry and all those kinds of things that you see in the beautiful cases when you go to the bakery store, that they took a lot of time and they took a knowledge that I knew I did not have, but I figured I could learn. I’ve gotten better, and I’ve even actually surprised myself. How long have you been a reader of Bake from Scratch? MLM: Since 2016. I was going along in Sam’s Club, and I saw the magazine, so I snagged it, and I looked, and I said, “I can learn stuff in here. This isn’t just a magazine; this has lessons.” I bought it and then I had it…

Welcome to our new column, From the Test Kitchen! Here, we’ll share wonderful wisdom from our test kitchen, from technique tips to tool usage. This won’t be a look at just how we do it, but why we do it! This is the place to come when you’re looking to up your baking know-how. First, we’re examining arguably the most important baking tool: your oven. Humans have been using ovens since 29,000 BC, although these primitive roasting pits were originally used for cooking mammoth meat. By the 19th century, the home hearth was slowly being phased out in favor of coal and gas ovens, leading to the dawn of a new age of baking. As modern innovation led to streamlined design, the differences between the numerous ovens on the market began…

In one bite, this Texas sheet cake takes me back to being a little girl visiting my grandparents’ home in Lubbock, Texas. And when I was in my grandmom’s house, particularly sitting at her kitchen table, I knew that I would be taken care of. My grandmom’s recipes were simple, unassuming, and not necessarily aimed at impressing others. But rather, she cooked and baked with the intent of making sure the people she loved were taken care of. At the heart of my grandmom’s recipes is a kind of hospitality and selflessness that I hope inspires my own baking. She would make this Texas sheet cake simply because she loved the people she could share it with. And that’s what baking is all about if you ask me. Grandmom never made…