Articles
How to Soften Butter Quickly
Have you ever headed to the kitchen to get started baking and realize the recipe calls for softened butter? But your butter is still in the fridge and you don’t want to wait 1-2 hours for it to sit out to reach room temperature. Is it really that important? Is there a way to quickly soften the butter?
The Journey to Pavlova
Want to know what goes into recipe testing? Sometimes, it's 17 tries to get something just right! Here's the journey to pavlova – plus key tips and tricks to making the perfect pavlova every time.
Baking Soda vs. Baking Powder: What’s The Difference?
Have you ever had a baking disaster like an overflowing quick bread, or a cratered cake? It’s happened to experienced and amateur bakers alike, and the most likely culprit: mixing up the baking soda and baking powder. It’s easy to do, they’re both types of chemical leaveners They also look similar and have similar names. But that’s where the similarity ends. So, what is the difference between them?
All About Meringue: French vs. Swiss vs. Italian Meringue
While all meringues are featherweight and ethereal, they’re not all created equally. Originating from different European traditions, we’re exploring the similarities and differences of all three types — French, Swiss, and Italian meringues. Plus, we have tips and tricks to making perfect meringues every time.
How to Make Better Biscuits
Here in the Test Kitchen, I’m known as the go-to girl for biscuits. It’s because biscuits have always been one of my favorite comfort foods. Warm from the oven simply slathered with butter, or covered with sausage gravy, there’s no wrong way to eat a biscuit. Growing up, my Mom made Bisquick biscuits, and I’ve eaten my share of canned biscuits too, but once I learned how easy biscuits are to make, there was no going back. So welcome to Biscuits 101.
Baking With Kids: Rainbow Sprinkle Cookie Edition
If you’re like me and trying to find new ways to keep the kids busy, I have the perfect baking project for you - Rainbow Sprinkle Cookies. Even if you don’t have kids and just need a little pick me up while being cooped up at home, baking with sprinkles has a way to bring a smile to anyone’s face.
The Secrets to the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
Want to know the secrets to making the best chocolate chip cookies? We're spilling everything, from if you should use butter or shortening to which kind of chocolate chips to use. Plus, grab our recipe for the best chocolate chip cookies.
Step Up Your Baking Game by Weighing Your Ingredients
I hate to tell you, but you're probably adding too much flour to your recipe.
Tips
How to Cut Perfect Cheesecake Slices with Floss
Cutting cheesecake with a knife can leave a real mess behind—and can really butcher your cheesecake slices. Here's a simple tip to cut perfect cheesecake slices with a basic household item you're sure to have.
How to Fold Ingredients for Baking With a Whisk
The way you whip and fold egg whites or whipped cream into batters is crucial to the success of your baked goods. A rubber spatula is the most common tool used to fold ingredients, but there's one that does the job even better. See our tip for how to fold whipped ingredients into batters for baking success.
DIY Flour Shaker for Baking
Having a flour shaker handy when preparing doughs and baked goods is helpful to successful baking—it rations the flour you're using, allowing for a light dusting, and helps keep your hands out of your flour container.
Tips to Keep Cream Cold When Whipping
It's a well-known fact that cold cream whips better—but what do you do when you have a hot kitchen? Here's a few tips and tricks to ensure your heavy cream stays cold so you can make perfect whipped cream every time.
How to Tent Yeast Rolls When Proofing
Sometimes enriched yeast doughs can be sticky, making them tough to cover to rise/proof. Here's a simple trick to create a tent for your rolls and breads to prevent sticking.
How to Cut Perfect, Bakery-Quality Brownies and Cake Slices
Want those crisp, clean edges on your perfectly square brownies? Turn to your pizza wheel to make your brownies and cakes look like they came straight out of the bakery.
How to Make Frosting Shiny
Frosting can sometimes lose its luster after it's been applied to a cake and allowed to set. Here's how to revive it, bring it back to life and make it shiny again.
DIY Cold Slab for Pastry- and Candy-Making
If you have a hot kitchen and/or don't have a marble slab for pastry- and candy-making, here's a simple hack to keep your ingredients cold using a common kitchen item.
How to Make a Frosting Dam for a Filled Layer Cake
A frosting dam helps keep your filled layer cakes looking clean and professional. Here's the simple technique to make a frosting dam when assembling and decorating cakes.
An Easy Way to Stabilize a Layer Cake for Decorating
Assembling and decorating a layer cake can be challenging, especially if your cake is slipping and slidding around when you frost it! Here's a super-simple tip to keep your cake stabilized—plus it helps make cutting the cake easier.
How to Neatly Cut Through Meringue
Meringue can be a challenge—it sticks to your knife and tears, usually messing up your beautiful pie or cake. While it's still tasty, try this quick trick to cut through meringue cleanly every time, leaving perfect slices of pie or cake to serve.
Use a Tea Infusion Spoon as a Flour or Sugar Shaker
A tea infusion spoon/ball may seem like just another unitasker in the kitchen, but with this quick baking tip, you can use it for more tasks.
How-To's
How To Assemble a Layer Cake with Frosting
Follow these simple steps for a cake that’s both impressive and stable.
How To Make Perfect Flaky Pie Crust
Making Perfect Flaky Pie Crust really is as easy as pie. Armed with just a few tips in this simple, step-by-step guide, you’ll be an expert in how to make flaky, tender, and crisp pie crust in no time — you'll wonder why you ever bothered with purchased pie dough in the first place.
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Recipes
Sweet Potato Streusel Scone
Wonderfully tender, dusted with streusel and drizzled with a subtly spiced glaze, these Sweet Potato Scones are perfect for sharing with friends to inspire sweet conversation.
Homemade Bagels
True New York bagels are a thing of beauty. Boiled then baked, they’re dense but not too dense, with glossy, crackly crusts and soft insides. But NYC isn’t the only place to get decent bagels — they’re one of the simplest breads to make at home.
Smoked salmon and cream cheese or a smoked salmon cream cheese spread makes a great choice for full-flavored Everything bagels. Asiago bagels just beg for a slice of ham or prosciutto and maybe an egg. A sprinkling of rosemary adds a lovely he…
Sour Cream Old-Fashioned Doughnuts
Old-fashioned doughnuts are a rare treat, and once you take a bite into one of these fresh ones, you may never be able to eat store-bought doughnuts again. And because old-fashioned doughnuts are fried at a lower temperature than regular cake doughnuts, or their fluffy yeast cousins, their tops crack, resulting in doughnuts with crunchy outsides and soft, cakey insides. Because this dough can chill overnight, all you have to do in the morning is roll it out, cut the doughnuts, fry, and glaze…
Toasted Pecan Sticky Rolls
If we had to pick a favorite sweet roll in the Test Kitchen, this pecan sticky rolls would be it. The caramel sauce makes these rolls too sticky and gooey to resist. And have patience when turning these babies out of the pan — they need to rest 5 minutes before serving them.
Chocolate Monkey Bread
How do you make monkey bread even better? Stuff it with chocolate! The hardest part is waiting for it to cool down enough to eat.
Frosted Cinnamon Rolls with Sticky Syrup
Buttery flaky rolls, filled with cinnamon sugar, a gooey syrup bottom, and frosting on top, this homemade cinnamon roll recipe will have you saying “oh my goodness”!
Pâte à Choux
Pâte à choux [paht-uh-SHOO], in cooking terms, is a thick and sticky French pastry dough that’s baked to make several types of desserts. The dough is typically made from just four ingredients — flour, butter, eggs, and water — and resembles a paste. Looser than other pastry doughs, it can’t be rolled out. Instead, the dough is piped into shapes and baked. Once it’s piped and baked, depending on the shape, it takes on a new name and identity, such as éclairs and cream puffs.
Choux past…
Peanut Butter Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips
For all the banana bread lovers out there, these peanut butter banana quick breads are for you. Adding crunchy peanut butter and chocolate chips makes them incredibly moist and delicious. Plus they’re easy — a food processor does most of the work. For the most intense banana flavor, the bananas must be really ripe — you should be able to smell their sweet fragrance.
Panettone
Panettone is an Italian sweet bread served at Christmastime. The brioche-like dough is infused with lemon and vanilla and studded with dried fruits and nuts. This recipe makes three loaves, perfect for gifting and serving to guests. You can use leftover panettone in French toast and bread puddings for a delicious twist on the classics.
This recipe is reprinted from
A favorite from Down Under, Anzac biscuits have been connected to Australia and New Zealand since
their first iteration during World War I. You might notice eggs are missing from the recipe — this traces back to their scarcity during the war. Omitting eggs in these biscuits gives them a longer shelf life, making them perfect for sending to a friend or loved one. And since the base of this cookie is so basic and quick, raise the bar and add a couple extra mix-ins. Golden raisins or cranberrie…
Anzac Biscuits with dried cranberries
Chai-Spiced Italian Buttercream
While cream cheese frosting might be the norm for pumpkin bars, go ahead and ditch it for this Pumpkin Cake in favor of this spicier, more elegant Chai-Spiced Italian Buttercream. It’s not only sophisticated but well-suited to be the centerpiece of your holiday table.
Pumpkin Cake
When it comes to desserts this time of year, anything with pumpkin is always a hit, and this cake hits the mark...especially when iced with this Chai-Spiced Italian Buttercream.