Though Southeast Asian desserts and flavors have been slowly infiltrating the American public (see: Starbucks’ “oob” latte), the idea of sweet beans, rice, or noodles in cold dessert soups is still rather foreign to most. The gateway drug to the delicious, perfectly balanced sphere of Southeast Asian not-too-sweets seems to be mango sticky rice, a staple on the menus of local Thai restaurants, and something just different enough that it’s not too intimidating.

It only felt right that one of the first recipes I wanted to share before this summer’s travels is inspired by that quintessential Southeast Asian dessert: mango sticky rice. This tart takes everything I love about the original—sweet ripe mango, creamy salty-sweet coconut, and that comforting richness of sticky rice—and transforms it into something buttery, bright, and perfect for summer baking. With a crisp white toasted coconut tart shell, an extra fun rainbow twist, and plenty of fresh mangoes, this tart bridges the 24-hour gap between Southeast Asia and my hometown on the East Coast. I’ll be sharing plenty more recipes inspired by my favorite flavors and desserts this summer, so stay tuned for travel updates and more!

Rainbow Mango Sticky Rice Tart

Ready in 2 hours. Serves 1 9” tart, plus some extra!

Read more

As with all accumulating tensions, my stressors needed a release. With no pots and pans or baking soda and salt in sight, I funneled my feelings through an old, unfrequented aperture: writing. I figured that if I absolutely must be sitting and pretend-pressing keys on my laptop, I may as well project my conscious outside, where my physical form would much rather be. And so The Baker’s Almanac was born, my little place to dream about baking and being outside while I sit and study.

Here I am a year later, writing (read: procrastinating) in the exact same spot I was this time last year. The same wooden chair, the same sound of papers shuffling, the same sun and lack of sun.

But I’m not really in the same spot that I was, am I?

I think if you were to flicker between the two still-lifes, superimposed, you would notice the little shifts: my shoulders are a bit higher, perhaps, a little bit more space taken up by my frame, face unfettered. The unbelievability of a life well-lived, the renaissance vase and the brimming bowl of fruit, the whole body spilling out across the table, replacing the image repeatedly with the relief of its overlay. The rain is still coming down outside, the clouds a blank sheet unfurling in every direction, the same chorus and reverb, ephemera under light like degraded film, and nothing has changed except for myself who has been moved against her will by none other than her will.

Say I never took that chance, put all my flimsy faith into believing—in myself, of all things, not particularly powerful nor reliable, and who has made no miracles happen—say I was still in exactly the same spot that I was a year ago, say I was still. Say it is not human nature to keep flailing toward the future, as self-destructive as we are, say we are not all predisposed to survival, say the choice was never really ours. You are here, you have been handed the lease on your life, and it comes unfurnished, it comes as-is, character and charm and creaky floorboards, and someone is holding a camera: by the time the shutter flashes, you will be smiling.

Looking more closely at the still-life: it seems the fruit is entirely different, too, the same greens and berries as before but more bountiful now. Last month had early-season strawberries and blueberries, but this month they’re joined by blackberries and raspberries, all-around more vibrant and plush. Richard Siken says: “Pink, orange, red, orange dreaming red,” and I think dreams do then come true, the way the sun circles the garden and throws shadows which exist only because there is light, or light which can only be bright relative to shadow, whichever perspective you prefer. Stone fruit is coming into season, starting small with cherries and apricots. I project myself out from my chair into another chair, a beach in the tropics somewhere, and suddenly the pineapple in my mouth is sweeter—perspective, again. The low hum in the library of collective dread. I love it here, and memory renders me a kid in a candy store, eager to pull as many books as I could carry—perspective.

Soon I will have a sweet, summer-ripened mango in hand, smooth ataulfo, and hot summer sun where the light comes before the shadow (perspective). In the interim, we can mimic the tropics here in perpetually-forty-degree-Ithaca with these piña colada lamingtons, blossoming with pineapple flowers. Perspective can project you there.

Piña Colada Lamingtons

Ready in 5-6 hours. Serves 9 lamingtons.

Read more

I have taken to drying all flowers I receive in this way, finding that in preventing a flower from aging in the slightest, its death is somehow more vivid, more lifelike: a petrified bouquet sits in an ever-empty vase, standing strong, and beside it, an arrangement jammed into dry floral foam begins to sharpen around the edges.

The cakes of the zeitgeist are in full bloom: flowers are en vogue, from maximalist floral fields on sheet cakes to delicate, budding mini cakes. But tulip- and lily-laden treats turn toxic, and these inedible blossoms are single-use and one-dimensional, offering no flavor or depth beyond beauty.

Flowers on cakes are often accessories, final touches meant to impress at first glance and then be removed (or politely avoided, picked around) before the first bite. In the same way, the leaves and buds of flowering fruits are often discarded and forgotten, but even these byproducts are bursting with flavor. Fig leaves, peach leaves, and citrus blossoms can be candied, shredded, or steeped in liquid to add unique flavors to bakes. Fig leaves lend a creamy, coconut-like vanilla scent when warmed in milk or cream. Peach leaves bring a subtle almond bitterness, reminiscent of amaretto. Even blossoms themselves, often admired only for their beauty, can be steeped into sugars, vinegars, or syrups that preserve their fleeting fragrance.

Beyond the store-bought edible flowers like rose and lavender, there are also some floral flavors you can forage in the springtime: magnolia trees are blossoming and bringing a blend of ginger and citrus; cherry blossoms, or sakura, carry the almond-y benzaldehyde; even bright yellow (weed-adjacent) dandelions have a honey-like hint. These, plus various other wildflowers including milkweed, lilacs, violets, elderflowers, and more can all be steeped and syrup-ed and sugared and stirred into baked goods for special spring flavors.

In Spring, there’s so much more in season than just fresh produce. I used dried hibiscus tea to give this cheesecake a shock of pink color and a very subtle floral flavor. It’s a creamy, crunchy, chewy dessert that feels as light and bright as the season itself, proof that flowers don’t have to be frozen in time on a shelf to last.

Preservation doesn’t always mean keeping something exactly as it was. The rose on my shelf is intact, untouched by time, but it’s also fixed there, unchanging, untasted, a memory I can only look at. In the kitchen, though, flowers shift and steep and dissolve, their flavors drawn out and carried into something new, keeping something by letting it become something else.

Hibiscus Mochi Basque Cheesecake

Ready in 1 hour, plus cooling time. Serves 1 6” cheesecake.

Read more

In the same way that corporations capitalize on the cheer and community that these holidays foster for some people, I have a tendency to find baking inspiration from them, too. It’s a little like seasonally inspired baking: you take what the world offers at a given moment and turn it into something of your own. (Chocolate mini eggs are in season. I have harvested them bountifully from the grocery store shelves, where they sit in neat little rows, a tidy plot of candy.)

Despite the story that red-40 Dr. Pepper-flavored Peeps and twenty-dollar Dubai chocolate Easter eggs may tell, holidays aren’t all corporate slop. At their core, they can be so endlessly endearing: across the world, thousands of people converge on the same cultural traditions, whether or not they know their origins—little chocolates in the hearts of pastel plastic eggs, cooking ham and midwestern mayo salads, congregating en masse at mass. There’s something tender in it, almost adorable, watching strangers in distant cities perform the same ritual choreography, as if by doing the same odd, earnest things on the same days, we might feel less like isolated subjects and more like points of impetus on the latticework of humanity.

Amidst the TikTok algorithm, I get a slideshow with #nostalgia, and somehow this other individual whom I have never met and do not know, along with the thousands of others in the comments, also grew up with Doodle Jump on their iPod touch and with grandparents that owned the same Corelle butterfly gold dinnerware set. Obviously, a lot of this just ties back to corporate slop and the way certain objects proliferate, how the aesthetics of an era are distributed and absorbed, how corporations seed our environments with identical artifacts until they become memories in themselves, etc. etc., but there is comfort and familiarity in the feelings and shared experiences that we come to associate with these items.

The loneliness epidemic, exacerbated by a loss of “third spaces” and a general rising sense of individualism, feels in many ways like a rupture in that shared rhythm—a thinning out of the informal, incidental ways we come into contact with one another. Understanding other cultures and thereby other perspectives is incredibly important amidst the current climate: it seems that humanity is forgetting that diversity and difference are not barriers to connection, but the very conditions that make it possible. Beneath the surface, we are far more alike than we imagine. No matter how unfamiliar the country, culture, custom—you can always find, somewhere, a shared memory. Nearly every cuisine, across geography and history, has somehow separately arrived at its own version of a dumpling: dough wrapped around filling, repeated endlessly in different forms.

If nothing else, we all have in common the need to eat. Food thus becomes an accessible entry point into one another’s lives, a tangible and sensory means of truly understanding a culture or perspective that is not your own. When you taste my mother’s homemade bún riêu, you are taking a tiny bite from every bowl I have ever eaten in my lifetime, and every bowl that was ever eaten before. Do not hesitate when you lift the spoon to your mouth, and certainly do not fear sitting down at a table with people who may not immediately seem to have anything in common with you. Celebrate the holiday, eat the food, lean into the unfamiliarity of it all. The world is much bigger than just your plate.

And so, I find myself drawn to baking in the interstices of holidays I do not observe. It is my own participation in this lattice of living, a way of having a taste of the traditions of thousands of others. Do not fall prey to manufactured attempts at new traditions, thrust at you by brands (see: Pepsi’s attempt to make “pilk” the new Christmas drink); instead, try to bake, cook, fold, stir, season, and let the process and people be your transportation to the wider world.

Anyway, all of this to say that I made hot cross bun-inspired cookies on Easter even though I do not actually really celebrate Easter. But I love the warm spices of hot cross buns, the dried fruit and white chocolate of it all, and even though my first time ever having a hot cross bun was a mere few months ago, there was still something nostalgic in them: a fleeting taste of someone else’s memories.

Hot Cross Cookies

Ready in 1 hour. Serves 11 cookies.

Read more

Three tabs have half-finished applications to various internships and scholarships; an exam lurks on the horizon, a cruel two days after break; I have 1,668 unread text messages and triple that amount in emails. I could force myself down and find reasons to deprive myself, arbitrary self-flagellations to prove to the world that I am trying my best. Instead I will do exactly the bare minimum, respond to one single time-sensitive email and submit one paltry assignment for the sake of pretense, all while the water laps at my chin and threatens to rise. With no justification, I will take my break.

I am settling in to being happier.

In my mind, the trajectory of self-actualization is something like the square root of x; improvement happens fast and then levels out, not necessarily hitting a wall but never hitting the same stride that you started with. You get comfortable in your joy and then your set-point goes up, too, and suddenly you need more to feel particularly happy rather than just everyday-happy.

As things plateau, it can be hard to stop expecting the old intensity and not mistake stability for emptiness. But there’s an alternative way to read the curve: what if the goal isn’t to keep increasing the slope, but to deepen the experience of the plateau? What if self-actualization, at its later stages, is less about acceleration and more about texture? The richness of ordinary moments, the ability to sustain meaning without novelty.

You do not need to prove to anyone why you deserve contentment; in the wise words of Mary Oliver, you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting, and you certainly do not have to be good. I am happy and I am allowed to be so. It’s spring.

The idea that April is valuable only for what it can provide (May flowers) is reductive. Discomfort is justified through promises of future beauty. To dwell in the showers and ignore these sunny days is not going to make May any more satisfying. You can be happy now, and you can be happy in a month, too. There is no emotional compound yield on misery.

And maybe the most convincing rebuttal to this asceticism is not philosophical at all, but material—mundane, even—sitting in the produce aisle, indifferent to whatever narrative you’ve constructed about deferral and reward. Berries are coming back, beautiful and bejeweled, and the other day I bought a tall crowned pineapple and the most cheerful citrus, and as each blueberry bursts between my teeth, the question of whether or not I deserve it hardly crosses my mind. The cherries will be better later in the month, but they are also quite good now, here in the liminal category between false springs and rainstorms, and I can sometimes spend a little bit too much on two pounds of green grapes because they are so big and so crunchy and there is no moral weight to living.

I really hope you treat yourself well this spring and I am not saying that because I think you deserve it. I think I am a worse person than I am willing to admit and I think we all are and I think the wild geese are heading home again. Good thing none of us have to be good.

Subscribe now

(Would you deny your younger self lunch because they were “bad”? Didn’t think so. Feed your inner child a little nostalgia with these almond butter & jelly blondies!)

Almond Butter & Jelly Pretzel Blondies

Ready in 1 hour. Serves 9 blondies.

Read more

(The recipe—a highly requested one, no less—is at the very end, for those who would rather I keep it relevant.)

I’m Remi. I like baking (obviously) and writing (clearly), and I started The Baker’s Almanac as a way to hold onto both while I was away at college—far from my home kitchen, but not, as it turns out, from the urge to keep making things.

I’m currently a college student studying computer science, which means most of my days are spent thinking in terms of logic, structure, and systems. Baking, for me, fits into that world more naturally than you might expect. A recipe, at its best, isn’t so different from a well-written program—it’s clear, instructive, and just flexible enough to adapt when something inevitably goes slightly off.

I’m not professionally trained, and I don’t think of this as a polished, authoritative space. If anything, it’s more of a working notebook that happens to be shared. I care about getting things right, but I also care about making them approachable. You’ll find detailed notes, small adjustments, and the occasional aside about why ingredients behave the way they do or why processes are a certain way, because understanding the “why” makes the “how” a lot less intimidating.

Somewhere in all of that, there are a few other things about me that don’t quite fit neatly into baking but still end up getting worked into the dough. Outside of baking, I also like to cook, but am quite new to it all and tend to have a much more planned and measured approach contrary to a seasoned chef’s improvisation. I appreciate having both the modes of structure and spontaneity, though, and it’s quite fun to explore different cuisines and cultures through food.

I was a foodie long before I was a baker, having been raised in a multicultural Vietnamese-Filipino household with well-traveled and worldly parents. My tastebuds tend toward southeast Asia, accordingly, but I’ve also developed a deep appreciation for other cuisines; Ethiopian/Eritrean, Chinese, and Indian food also rank high among my favorites. My favorite flavors often seep into my baking like a banana’s volatile transfer: persimmon, pandan, even the homemade pâté chaud/bánh patê sô that I made five batches of during winter break alone.

As evidenced by my seasonally-inspired writing and baking, I tend to think about seasonality more than I probably need to given that I go to school in upstate New York, where the seasons swing from one extreme to the next with short transitions. Winter is my favorite, which I have to clarify carefully, because I sometimes write about it with an undercurrent resentment that suggests not much more than frozen sidewalks and slightly stubborn fingers, but I find it to be a beautiful and surprisingly bountiful season, if you know where to look. There’s something about winter at Cornell that feels clarifying.

In between textbooks, I’ve been reading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, which feels like an odd but not entirely incompatible pairing. It’s a reminder that kitchens, unlike equations, don’t always resolve cleanly—and that’s part of what makes them worth returning to. Another kitchen-centric recommended read that feels relevant is Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto. You’ve probably noticed my penchant for poetry, too, which appears quite often in the monthly editions of The Baker’s Almanac; my favorite poets include (but are far from limited to) Richard Siken, Mary Oliver, and Ada Limón.

I don’t watch much TV or movies, which is less of a stance and more of a habit that never quite formed. But I do have a soft spot for Studio Ghibli films, particularly Kiki’s Delivery Service—partly because it happens to involve a bakery in a way that feels both aspirational and strangely familiar. I find myself returning to it when I feel like I’m hitting a bit of a wall and need to remember what to do with my hands.

My musical taste leans toward artists like Ethel Cain, Phoebe Bridgers, Fiona Apple, and Mitski—which, on paper, might suggest a certain emotional register that I don’t think fully represents me. I’m not sure how to explain the gap between what I listen to and how I actually feel, except to say that I tend to enjoy art that feels to the absolute fullest. It turns out you can listen to something aching and hurting while still being, overall, quite happy. Those things are not mutually exclusive, even if they sometimes sound like they should be.

If there’s a throughline to all of this, it’s probably that I like making and feeling and learning, which is at its core what we’re all doing, and maybe that’s why my writing (hopefully) resonates with you. And if it doesn’t, if you’re just here for the recipes, I appreciate that a lot too—so here you go! Delicious, decadent, chewy-crispy cookies, best served warm.

Brown Butter Banana Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Read more

Hope, by contrast, is far less photogenic. If optimism is a kind of confidence about outcomes, hope is a commitment to meaning regardless of outcome.

I’m taking risks this spring, putting steady hope in my own decisions and coming out of hibernation in my own way. You are more capable than you know—and I’m mostly telling this to myself, as if enough confidence and steadiness of voice might make it true.

If hope is a discipline, then perhaps self-regard must be one too. Not the loud, performative kind that, like optimism, is crisp and laminated and shiny, prepackaged as “self-love,” but the practice of treating yourself with deliberate care: resting when you’re tired, choosing environments that don’t shrink you.

There is a strange, almost insurgent audacity in deciding you are worthy of small, tangible joys—not because you have curated the perfect life-spreadsheet or earned some invisible certification of competence, but because you are still here, still buttoning your coat against the March wind, still facing the early-morning fog.

This spring, then, is a little rebellion: I will trust my own choices, grow upward alongside everything bright and living, and behave as if tending to my well-being is a responsibility rather than a reward. I will act as though the sun’s warm rays are reaching for me, as though I deserve the light as much as anyone else standing in it.

Hope, after all, is not just faith in the future; it’s believing you’re allowed to inhabit that future fully when it arrives.

There is hope young and lovely poking up through the soil: radishes and rhubarb and ramps, things that take root in dark places and push themselves up toward sun.

Every year I forget how quickly it happens. One evening it’s snowing, the ground locked, and by the next morning it’s gone, soft and yielding, with the purple heads of crocuses beginning to push through. It always feels a bit miraculous to me; to think that these little sprouts and seedlings know nothing of the sun and push through the darkness anyway. Treat early Spring’s produce gently; radishes raw with good butter and salt, the first fresh berries shining on a bed of fresh cream, handfuls of sweet peas folded into warm buttered rice.

And then, as if to remind us that sweetness can follow even the harshest cold, blueberries arrive—plump and dewy, their deep indigo skin catching the light like tiny gems. This Blueberry Almond Olive Oil Cake is what you make it: a one-layer snacking cake, easily elevated into something eye-catching and extravagant. Tender, fragrant, and just sweet enough, with the subtle nuttiness of almond flour and the silky richness of olive oil carrying the blueberries’ bright, tart, early-spring flavor.

In this cake, as in spring itself, there is patience and persistence, a reminder that small acts of care—whether for yourself or for the soil, the seeds, the fruit—matter. And when you bite into it, you taste more than almond and olive oil and blueberries: you taste hope rising, just as it always does, in tiny, miraculous shoots, ready to color the world again.

Blueberry Almond Olive Oil Marble Cake

Ready in 2 hours. Serves 1 8” cake.

Read more

More specifically: with butter creamed to submission, sugar beaten into pliancy, eggs incorporated one by one like a Victorian courtship ritual. I say it with six-inch rounds of sponge, leveled with the concentration of a neurosurgeon and the emotional volatility of someone who absolutely will cry if the crumb tears.

Designing custom layer cake flavors for the people I love is my love language. Not in the Pinterest-board, rustic-bunting way, nor in a blasé domestic performance—I mean it in the anthropological sense: I have studied you like an artifact, analyzed your habits, catalogued your cravings, and then built a cake that maps your psychic soft spots and exploits them in butter and sugar.

Some people keep spreadsheets of their friends’ and family’s birthdays. I keep tasting notes.

For my dad, who drinks coffee like a devotional act and measures mornings by maple syrup and a burst of blueberries, I made a dark chocolate layer cake with blueberry curd filling, maple Swiss meringue buttercream, dark chocolate espresso ganache, and a blueberry-Oreo crumble coating. Each element was chosen to translate him, o man of few words: the chocolate, comforting and dependable, at a stable and secure 75% or higher, always; the blueberries, bright but never aggressive; the maple, a subtle homage to his breakfast table, where sweetness is never gratuitous. I made this cake not merely to delight him, but to map him, to translate his classic, patient, dad-like essence into layers and fillings. Each bite is a catalogue of his tastes, habits, and rituals, assembled with forensic precision. I spoke I love you in chocolate, blueberry, and maple—the anthropological truth of my father, crystallized in cake.

For my sister, elegant and esoteric, a soft-spoken big-city girl, fast-walking and always a few steps ahead, who insists she doesn’t have a sweet tooth but can’t drive by HEYTEA without getting some sort of five-component coconut boom, I would make a soft and fluffy chiffon brushed with jasmine tea, layered with coconut Greek yogurt mousse, dotted with sago pearls and mango coulis, and finished with a delicate veil of jasmine gelée. What I mean is: I see your restraint, your curated austerity, your choreographed independence. I also know you want to be held.

For my mom, who will always pack what I forget, who can sense my bad day from a thousand miles away, I have a large chunk of my notes app dedicated solely to extravagant cake concepts: an almond croissant cake with a mille-feuille of frangipane and puff pastry, a tall tres leches number with a layer of silky sweet flan, a Vietnamese coffee tiramisu layer cake with a condensed milk cream cheese espresso mousse, a sticky sweet cardamom caramel carrot cake studded with crystallized ginger and her favorite pistachios—but at the end of the day, she always much prefers to keep it simple, and so: a clean, white, light angel food cake, adorned with fresh summer fruit and a straightforward barely-sweetened whipped cream frosting.

I could go on endlessly about each syrupy-sweet basma slice and every tangyuan-fiending friend and every flavor of love.

Layer cakes are, at their core, architectural arguments. They are edible theses on structure and excess. A single-layer sheet cake says: I care about you, but I have boundaries. A layer cake says: I dismantled gravity for you. I negotiated with thermodynamics. I thought of a filling and a frosting and a hundred different components and how they would all come together to capture you.

Here is the thing no one tells you about baking as an act of love: it is absurdly specific. You cannot mass-produce intimacy. You can try—and God knows the cupcake vending-machine industrial complex has—but real devotion is bespoke. It’s noticing that your mother always scrapes the frosting off of supermarket cake because it’s “too sweet,” and then developing a stabilized whipped frosting that tastes like lightly sweetened clouds and the faintest tang of cream cheese and smiling when not a smear is left behind. It’s remembering that your best friend orders grapefruit cocktails and therefore infusing the syrup with zest and a scandalous amount of juice, so that the crumb tastes like summer and mild regret.

I observe. I catalog. I translate personality into flavor.

If you tell me you hate coconut, I will not make you coconut. I will, however, interrogate that hatred. Is it textural? Is it a trauma from a macaroon incident in 2017? Or is it that coconut feels unserious, and you are afraid of being unserious? There are people for whom I will toast the coconut until it is nutty and restrained, folded into a lime curd that suggests adulthood. There are people for whom I will not risk it.

Flavor design, at this level, becomes a kind of emotional cartography. You map sweetness tolerance. You chart bitterness thresholds. You test the elasticity of nostalgia. A layer cake is a controlled experiment in vulnerability: how much can you give someone before it collapses? How much can they receive?

There is, of course, a gendered subtext here. The kitchen as stage. The cake as offering. The soft power of sugar. I am aware that historically, women have been expected to express affection through food, through labor disguised as instinct. I am aware that butter has been weaponized as proof of devotion. I would like to state for the record that my cakes are not compulsory. They are chosen. They are, if anything, a mildly unhinged hobby that requires more spreadsheets than any sane person would admit to.

Because here’s the secret: I enjoy the control.

In a world where texts go unanswered and feelings are ambiguously punctuated, a cake obeys. If you measure correctly, if you respect chemistry, if you preheat with intention, the batter will transform. It will rise. It will brown. It will become something more stable than the conversations we keep postponing.

When I stack layers—cake, soak, filling, frosting, repeat—I am building a narrative with a guaranteed arc. There will be a climax (usually in the form of a ganache drip). There will be resolution (a clean slice revealing symmetrical strata). There will be applause, or at least the small, involuntary silence that falls when someone takes the first bite and recalibrates.

And yes, there is ego involved. Do not be fooled by the powdered sugar humility. To present someone with a custom-designed layer cake is to say: I have theorized you. I have rendered you edible. It is intimacy with a thesis statement.

But it is also profoundly tender.

Because to bake for someone at this level is to believe they are worth the time it takes for butter to soften properly. It is to trust that they will taste the lemon zest you grated by hand, that they will notice the hint of cardamom blooming under heat, that they will understand the joke embedded in the choice of passionfruit for the friend who fell in love too quickly and too often.

It is saying: I have paid attention.

In the time of layer cakes—this era of algorithmic affection and curated vulnerability—I choose flour. I choose the slow alchemy of creaming and folding and waiting for the crumb to cool before I dare frost it. I choose to express devotion in tiers, in fillings, in the precarious optimism of stacking something soft and asking it to hold.

Love, as it turns out, is not a grand gesture. It is a recipe adjusted for altitude. It is knowing when to add salt. It is understanding that sweetness without structure collapses.

And if that isn’t romance, I don’t know what is.

Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Coffee Cake

Ready in 2 hours. Serves 1 8” cake.

Read more

And, like a suspension bridge, it’s rickety and somewhat precarious, stretched above the rushing river of everything we have already endured. It’s all loud and anxiety-inducing up here, what with the crashing waves of whatever winter did to us ringing in our ears, the simultaneous surge of hesitant hope as we begin to put the danger behind us and move towards steady ground, and the incessant fear of falling right back into deep water.

This winter has been uncommonly harsh, relentless in its cold and wind, each day a test of endurance. The world outside remains brittle and frostbitten: snow stacks stubbornly against fences, ice smothers sidewalks and streets, and the sky presses down with grey weight. Yet, even as the wind howls and the snow continues to pile, the month is already shortening beneath our feet, contracting. It’ll be over before we know it, this brief, compressed suspension, and we’ll find ourselves on the other side with the river still roaring below, but with steadier footing and maybe even a slight sense of satisfaction.

It sometimes gets worse before it gets better.

Still, though, the only way out is through. It’s hard and it’s rough and it’s so brutally cold but you’re never really alone, even as the wind screams and the streets lie empty, and the cold seeps into your bones and your own breath writhes away from you into the gelid vastness. There are eclipsed suns, pockets of warmth peering through—a neighbor’s light spilling onto the snow, the distant hum of a car struggling through the frost. A river still rushing under its frozen shroud.

You, too, keep moving, forward across February, step by step, heartbeat by heartbeat. You’re warm with breath and blood, heat radiating from your hands and lightening the cold around you.

There are things behind things behind things, jeweled pomegranate arils and passionfruit pulp under tough skins, sunshine spilling out after the knife-cut, sunshine if you seek it out, sunshine staining your smile. It’s all wrapped up in rinds and roots, sealed in the soil. Deep purple beneath beets’ brown, yellow-green avocado flesh subsumed by mottled skin, red and pink and white radishes buried under the dirt. Forced rhubarb and all its poetry—grown in utter darkness and emerging all the sweeter for it.

February’s light is inward-facing, held at the heart. When the juice runs down your wrist, when your teeth meet something sharp and sweet and sunny, the cold has not won. Sunshine is still here, waiting for the knife, waiting for you to cross over to it, waiting at the end of the bridge.

In tune with the season, this recipe is a suspension bridge, requiring patience as much as effort: several careful steps, then a long, quiet chill. The first bite tells you why—silky, bitter shards of chocolate so small they melt into the warmth of your tongue on contact; the tart-sweet and smooth pomegranate mousse and curd; the bright pop of pomegranate arils. Every texture lands exactly where it should, each flavor sharpened by the cold.

Time spent melting and folding, time spent scraping bowls, time spent letting the refrigerator do its steady work. The chill is a final ingredient, tightening the crumb, clarifying the contrast, turning separate elements into something cohesive and elegant. By the time you cut the first clean slice, the waiting has already done its work, and outside, winter will continue to pass.

Turn on your oven and find the warmth within, but continue to embrace the cold and see what beauty it brings. It has been a long winter. The only way out is through.

Pomegranate Stracciatella Cake

Ready in 4 hours, not including 4+ hours chilling time. Serves 1 8” cake.

Read more

Different grains weren’t even the primary focus of this particular lesson—we didn’t get there until around three weeks in—but instead we were learning about maple, and the pancake experiments were merely vessels for the numerous types of syrups that we sampled, tapped straight from the Uihlein Maple Research Forest. We made three batches, identical in every respect except the flour: all-purpose, whole wheat, and finally buckwheat.

The first two behaved as expected. Familiar, cooperative, ultimately forgettable. The buckwheat batter, though, was instantly moodier, darker before it even hit the heat. It was also noticeably thinner, with much more spread and much less structure than the others. On the griddle, it released a nutty, almost mineral aroma, and the pancakes emerged a deep gray-black, strikingly unlike their pale, obliging whole-wheat and all-purpose counterparts.

There was also a batch of half buckwheat, half all-purpose pancakes, which had better structure and lift while still delivering that delicious buckwheat flavor. As a rule of thumb when substituting alternative flours in baking, your first test should rarely exceed a 25% substitution—that is, replacing no more than one quarter of the all-purpose flour with an alternative, so you can assess its flavor, structure, and hydration without overwhelming the recipe. Pancakes and waffles, however, are far more forgiving, since they rely less on gluten development, making a 50% substitution a comfortable place to start. Yeast breads are the least tolerant of change, so beginning with a 15% substitution helps preserve strength and rise while still introducing new flavors. Once you understand how a flour behaves, you can begin to push the boundaries.

The first two pancakes did their due diligence, acting as plain and unsurprising vessels for our little maple syrup flight. As sub-par pancakes tend to be, they were quite thick and slightly chewy, a little tough going down and erring on the side of overcooked. The syrup, to them, was a welcome and much-needed accompaniment, as indicated by the deep pools of it soaking through our flimsy paper plates.

My plastic fork cut through the buckwheat pancake differently, though: it had a softer give, with less of that rubbery resistance. From looks alone, these pancakes were similar in texture and thickness to the mochi pancakes from a Trader Joe’s mix my dad likes to make in a pinch (only when I’m not home to whip up a from-scratch batch, of course). However, they lacked the same bounciness as the mochi pancakes, which have a certain chew from the glutinous rice flour; instead, the buckwheat pancakes seemed to crumble slightly, yielding more easily to the plastic edge of the fork.

I later learned the similarity in appearance to the mochi pancakes (a runny batter that spread into near-perfect circles, and with little rise for a thin, a low-profile pancake) was because these 100% buckwheat pancakes were, like their mochi-pancake counterparts, naturally gluten-free, which meant there was no gluten network to tighten and toughen as the batter cooked. Instead of elasticity turning into resistance, the structure came from the grain itself, producing a pancake that was tender without being fragile, and cohesive without being chewy.

The first forkful surprised me. It was unlike any pancake I’d ever eaten, and yet, somehow, it felt familiar. By the second bite, I recognized where that familiarity came from: this nutty grain carried a flavor reminiscent of black sesame—nutty, toasty, and earthy, a flavor that had a subtle sweetness and that, to me, was a little addictive. Unlike the bland comfort of all-purpose or the timid warmth of whole wheat, buckwheat had a flavor of its own. The maple syrup didn’t mask it, instead conversing with it, highlighting the grain’s depth while softening its edges. Each bite felt strangely satisfying, like hearing a song you’ve always known played an entirely different and transformational way.

Later, I learned that buckwheat isn’t wheat at all, but a seed, more closely related to rhubarb than to any true grain. Somehow this made sense. It tasted like something that resisted easy categorization. In a class ostensibly about maple syrup, buckwheat had rewritten my sense of what flour’s purpose in baking could be.

That day, I went back to my dorm still thinking about those pancakes—not because they were indulgent or nostalgic (they were neither) but because they had opened my eyes to so many possibilities in recipes: the space that plain old all-purpose flour took now held infinite opportunities for flavor to be introduced.

Now, almost a year later, I’ll be a TA for that same cooking class I took freshman year—a pancake-shaped full-circle moment. As our first class on maple approaches, I once again have buckwheat flour on the mind.

Of course, I’ve baked with naturally gluten-free flours and grains before—the usual suspects and pantry staples like almond flour and cornmeal, as well as the more elusive coconut flour (read the deep-dive here), but before jumping straight into recipe development with buckwheat, I wanted to do a little trial run. I started with a banana bread recipe I’ve made countless times before, using it as a familiar baseline for comparison; I know its texture and flavor well enough to spot even subtle changes. And, because pure objectivity has its limits, I added a restrained hit of espresso powder alongside the usual semisweet chocolate chips, on the grounds that espresso and banana are, quite simply, a match made in heaven.

Rather than a full conversion, I opted for partial substitution, replacing a portion of the all-purpose flour with buckwheat. Buckwheat, after all, is assertive—aromatic, faintly bitter, and unmistakably itself—and I wanted to see how it behaved when sharing space rather than taking over.

The change was immediately legible in the batter. It felt thicker, slightly grainier, and noticeably less lofty; the usual loaf rises higher, often with a dome and a characteristic crack down the center, and while this version still rose, it did so more modestly, settling into a flatter profile. Once baked, the loaf emerged darker and more matte, its crumb tighter but not unpleasantly so. The buckwheat contributed a toasted, almost nutty depth that pulled the banana away from overt sweetness.

Structurally, the bread held together well, though it lost a bit of the springiness I associate with the original—less cake, more loaf. This wasn’t a flaw so much as a shift in genre. Slices felt sturdier, more inclined to be toasted, better suited to butter than to bare-handed snacking.

These changes made one thing clear: buckwheat is not a background player.

In these cookies, brown butter and black sesame enhance the buckwheat flour’s natural nuttiness, and a rainbow of white chocolate shards bring a balanced sweetness. The result is a delightfully chewy cookie that tastes both nostalgic and unexpected: proof that flour doesn’t have to be neutral to be versatile, and that sometimes the most interesting baking begins when you stop treating it that way.

Black Sesame Buckwheat Tutti Frutti Cookies

Ready in 2 hours. Serves 10 medium cookies.

Read more

The gift-giving games can be especially tough: draw a name from a hat, give them something without being able to ask what they want. I put down some easy, cheap baking gadgets on my wishlist; things I’d been wanting but that weren’t urgent enough to justify spending a few bucks on for myself, like a fluted removable-bottom tart pan (my springforms have been working just fine) and a cute little 5” frying pan that I’d really only have one use for. So, when I showed up to the Secret Santa, I expected one of those things, bought straight from the link provided, still in its shipping box.

Instead, I opened my box to see a bouquet; not of flowers, but of flours. Bags bundled together, tied with string, carefully arranged.

As I pulled them out one at a time, my mind immediately tossed together flavor pairings and ideas and baking concepts. Each bag weighed heavy in my hands, and genuinely I think Newton felt a similar way with the weight of the apple and then of the whole world all at once, a million ideas rushing forward and settling in the things in my hands. This particular bouquet would not wilt on a counter; it would be transformed, kneaded, and would blossom again into something better.

The first flour I tackled was coconut flour. This one was particularly intriguing to me—I love coconut desserts, but I hate the taste of coconut extract. It’s too artificial for me, too reminiscent of sunscreen.

Coconut flour, though, could have the potential to make desserts extra coconut-y, or so I hoped. It’s made from dried, defatted coconut meat, finely ground after the milk is pressed away. It smells faintly nutty, not perfumed, and when you dip a finger in, it clings to your fingertips; evidence of its thirst for any sort of moisture. Coconut flour is famously absorbent; it drinks liquid like sand on a sunny, tropical shoreline, thus requiring more eggs and more moisture in batters. It doesn’t behave anything like wheat flour and doesn’t pretend to.

My research for recipes with coconut flour came up largely keto, paleo, and gluten-free, with dense blog posts full of macros and substitutions. Everything was “surprisingly good,” which is never a phrase you want attached to cake. I wasn’t looking to make something acceptable or guilt-free, especially when guilt isn’t an ingredient, anyway; I wanted to use coconut flour because it’s delicious, not because it fits inside a nutritional loophole.

Then, I stumbled on a recipe by Serious Eats (Stella Parks strikes again!) that featured a blend of coconut flour and all-purpose flour, and boasted “all-natural flavor” with a notable lack of coconut extract in the ingredients list. It wasn’t even listed as “optional”. The recipe had rather few reviews, but a five-star rating, and Stella Parks is a very trustworthy source—I took a chance, bought some additional ingredients, and baked the cake.

I’m so glad I did.

Although I followed Serious Eats’ base cake recipe to the letter, measuring by weight as usual, I switched up the cake filling and frosting to fit my tastes, using my own trusty cream cheese whipped cream frosting but tweaking it to add coconut cream, and using toasted coconut flakes in the filling for a textural contrast. The cake itself was incredible—slightly dense from the lack of gluten in the coconut flour, but still so light. The coconut flavor was pure and clean, without a single trace of coconut extract’s artificial sunscreen aftertaste. Paired with all-purpose flour, the coconut flour could do what it does best: amplify flavor, add tenderness, and contribute gentle, unmistakably coconut flavor.

With the holidays in full swing, I started thinking about how this beautiful, snow-white coconut flour fit into my cookie boxes. That line of thought led me, almost inevitably, to Samoa cookies, a nostalgic cookie dating back to long before my older sister was a Girl Scout. With an ingenious, addictive blend of coconut, caramel, and chocolate, it was hard to think of any way to improve these other than to amp up the coconut flavor. A double-coconut version felt right—coconut flour and coconut oil in the shortbread dough, and coconut flakes and caramel on top for texture—and from there, the recipe practically wrote itself.

Double-Coconut Samoas

Ready in 2 hours. Serves 20 small cookies.

Read more

Is this new beginning hopeful for you? In every New Year before this, I played at being perfect: this would be it, this would be the year I would become the version of myself I always envisioned. And taking out the trash before the clock struck twelve and brushing my teeth for a full two minutes would do that. Wearing clean clothes. Avoiding eye contact in the mirror, thinking nothing badly of her. Somewhere in the machinations of a well-adjusted individual, the butterfly effect would kick in, and the straightening of my posture by a couple degrees on an otherwise meaningless day in mid-winter would beget a year of effortless success.

My trashcan would fill up again in a week. Was there any point in emptying it to begin with? And same with the rituals of laundry, of mealtimes, of making the bed. I am going on my fifth year of diligent, unwavering Invisalign habits. I am proud to say I have never missed more than two consecutive days, and that I always clean it thoroughly with toothpaste and a dedicated retainer toothbrush. My teeth-brushing routine is similarly rigorous. Despite this I have had cavities. Take from this what you will.

Time does not slip through my fingers, nor does the world keep gently turning: time rushes at me and the world accelerates while I drag off the end of its back bumper.

What, then, of resolutions? Do I set goals just to forget them until I’m breaking them, just to add that thin film of shame to my failure?

It’s January first, and the year ahead is slate-grey and un-disappointed. I have been clawing around in the dark for a reset button all year, rubbing stains out with hot water and soap when bleach is really what I need, trying to force the end of a phase and re-enter myself without the weight of everything I’d already done wrong. Mondays and new months and bright mornings—I always started with my chin held high, but expectations of perfection set unobtainable standards, and I, lemming to cliff, inevitably raise my own bar before walking right into it.

The truth is that nothing is ever really over. Time is not rushing at and through me, nor is it slipping through your fingers. It’s piling up, accumulating like the endless trash and endless laundry, endless endless and with no bleach. We can never undo what has been done and we can never walk backwards out of the room and un-touch and un-wind and back-track out of this mess we made of it all even if we tried, even if we forgot ourselves and phased through the drywall into the other room where we were born before any of this ever happened. The reset I need is to unclench my fist and let the past slide out. And this could happen mid-day, mid-thought, mid-mistake. Even though the screen has GAME OVER in big pixelated letters all in your face and there’s disappointed sound effects blaring at you and probably the evidence of your death still floating somewhere behind the words, there’s still that little button somewhere on the screen that says, “play again?” Click yes.

January first feels like a reset because everyone says so. But so can January third, if I let it. So does an ordinary Thursday afternoon when I stop spiraling long enough to drink a glass of water, answer one email, make one tolerable decision instead of a perfect one. The reset button was never missing, I was just a little too engrossed in the loss to see it in the periphery. The best I can do is stop insisting that the next beginning will fix me, and start allowing beginnings that just let me keep going, imperfectly, inconsistently, and without the fantasy that this time I’ll finally get it right.

I didn’t write down resolutions last year, or the year before, even though I had some in my head. There’s less accountability that way. I did make an ins-and-outs list, which I think is a lot more fun and a lot less pressure.

To review my year, based on my ins-and-outs list: I did slightly more savory baking, but not nearly as much as I’d like (nor as much as my savory-loving sister would like, either) and I never made a personal website or bought a new boatneck top. And self-destructive tendencies stayed, and locking in stayed, and one of those two was necessary to survive the year and I won’t say which.

I threw dinner parties, though, and I’ve clearly been blogging (if this Substack counts). I minimized my overconsumption and bought probably a grand total of three new shirts all year—thank goodness for hand-me-downs.

Holding myself to standards of perfection has effectively given me the opposite reality. There is no life that will ever be perfect—at least, not while the trash can exists, and not while the laundry exists; time will always erode away the illusion. The very best version of myself will still have scoliosis and one eye marginally bigger than the other. And she will still have bad days and will still forget things and will still be ever-aging. She will still have embarrassed herself singing on stage in front of the whole school in sixth grade, and she will still have worn those terrible hot pink glasses for too many years, and she will still probably not have it any other way.

We are all going forward/the time will pass anyway/etc. etc., so we may as well make something good out of it. Things will never be perfect, but you can reset at any time. You don’t need the new year for that; change will come whether we like it or not.

For me, one way to reset begins in the kitchen: rhythmic turning and folding and rolling of puff pastry, gentle folding of dry into wet, careful portioning and pressing and piping. When you are a stress-baker and a boredom-baker and a happy-baker and a baker-baker who generally just bakes any time her hands are too still for too long, which maxes out around fifteen minutes, there is hardly enough time to grocery shop before the oven starts preheating again. Luckily, January puts some wonderful produce within reach.

Citrus is at its peak now: lemons, oranges, grapefruit sharp enough to cut through butter and sugar, whose zest, when worked gently into sugar with the tips of your fingers, releases fragrant oils that add delicious fruity flavor. Some other under-appreciated citrus also shines this time of year, like kumquats and pomelo. There is also plenty of beautifully imperfect produce, things that look a little off-kilter and alien-like but have incredible culinary applications. Fennel, kohlrabi, celeriac, broccoli, cauliflower: these are otherworldly in appearance and can be baked in so many different ways, whether slow-roasted, tossed into a quiche, or even transformed into dessert. Fennel, in particular, pairs well with citrus or can even be baked into a cake alongside almond, honey, or chocolate. Experiment with the season’s many potatoes and squash, or shred a different vegetable such as parsnips and replace the carrot in a cake.

January produce is not resolutions so much as they are raw materials: things to work with, not rules to follow.

If you are wondering where to begin, try starting with a needlessly elaborate breakfast, just for the fun of it. You can’t really have a bad day after a four-inch slice of caramelized french toast with chai-spiced cream cheese whip and maple syrup (and even if you do, there’s always that second slice).

Thick-Cut Caramelized French Toast

Ready in 20 minutes. Serves two 4” slices, or three 3” slices.

Read more

Still, even in their simplicity, those tins were full of love and care and holiday spirit. My love for baking was in its early stages—a situationship of sorts. I called myself committed but the reality was that every so often I’d whip up an apple pie with store-bought pie crust or a throw some whipped cream and sliced fruit on a single-layer chocolate cake and call it a day. At the time, I thought cookie boxes were mostly about optics: abundance, color, a cute container. Flavor, technique, and creativity were nice-to-haves, not requirements.

The following year, I had a full year of baking under my belt, which is to say: just enough experience to feel brave. I swapped out the simple sweets and store-bought shortcuts for an entirely from-scratch lineup. I put much more thought into the recipes that made the cut, too: something spiced, something chocolatey, something fruity. I paid attention to contrast: shapes, colors, textures, the way one cookie might want to be eaten after another. I was still figuring things out in real time, but that year marked a shift. I wasn’t just filling a box anymore. I was making choices. I was, for the first time, designing the box.

The 2024 box felt, to me, like proof of concept. Sugarplum pesche dolci, Mexican hot chocolate cookies, gingerbread dulce de leche linzers, strawberry thumbprints, apple cider blondies, malted peppermint brownie biscotti. Two spiced, two chocolatey, two fruity. Two crisp, two chewy, two crumbly. There was grammar and syntax in the way that those rules are meant to be broken, but only by a little bit: push it too far and the meaning collapses. A whisper of cayenne in the chocolate cookie did exactly that: a deviation, but a legible one. The thumbprint was steadfast in its pleasant predictability, and its very boringness all but guaranteed at least one sure hit. Each cookie justified its presence not only through flavor, but through contrast: how it sharpened or softened what came before, how it asked to be followed by something different. Nothing was redundant, nothing felt like filler.

Still, though, my box was relatively basic. Not basic in a pejorative sense—the classics are classics for a reason. Thumbprints, biscotti, linzers. I nudged each one slightly off-center, gave them my own small inflections, but I was still speaking the universal holiday cookie box language. I was refining rather than reinventing, learning how to honor tradition before attempting to speak over it.

This year, every recipe was a Café Remi original, adapted from various recipes and twisted and turned until I developed a cookie I was proud of. This box feels the most like mine. And after three years of cookie boxes, that might be the biggest upgrade of all.

I allowed myself to be creative this year and tried to think outside of the proverbial cookie box. I layered textures and stratified flavors and wasn’t afraid to let a cookie be a little unconventional if it meant it was more interesting. Are madeleines a cookie? Is matcha too polarizing a flavor? I leaned into the idea that a cookie could be a little strange if that strangeness made it more compelling. I mashed up some traditional holiday desserts, brutalized them a little. Don’t tell Italy what I did to its panettone. And somewhere between Britain’s sticky toffee pudding and millionaire’s shortbread, a slightly unorthodox offspring appeared in the box, equal parts inheritance and insubordination.

There are really no rules to cookie-box-making. The point isn’t technical perfection or even cohesion in the strictest sense; it’s deciding what you want the box to say, and then letting each cookie contribute a sentence. Some declarative, others meandering, a few strange or unresolved. I think that there’s plenty of “how-to” guides on building a cookie box, but they can’t teach what only comes from curiosity and care. A cookie box works not because it follows rules, but because someone thought deliberately about each choice, and trusted their own taste to hold the whole story together.

Which brings us, inevitably, to the cookie that began as a bit of rebellion and ended up as something entirely its own: sticky toffee millionaire’s shortbread. Rich, buttery, toffee-studded shortbread at the base, a soft and chewy caramel with dates blended in, and a glossy, caramelized white chocolate ganache on top. And, fair warning: this is not a casual bake. You’ll make a batch of toffee, whip up the shortbread, simmer the date puree, craft the caramel, caramelize the white chocolate, and finish with a decadent ganache. Each step is a commitment, each layer a reward, and the result is a cookie that is at once familiar, strange, and entirely worth the effort.

Sticky Toffee Millionaire’s Shortbread

Ready in 2 days. Serves one 9x13” tray.

Read more

A hundred little reflections: in the last year, I have done nothing notable. I saved no lives and had a terrible propensity for blowing small problems out of proportion. I did not meet my reading goals. I felt onerous to the people who love me and I rejected help at every turn. But I held all the doors that I could, and I always thanked the bus driver, always stopped to pet the dogs, always baked with love. And I managed to be slightly less self-destructive than the year before which took a hundred thousand tiny unnoticeable but entirely intentional and conscious difficult decisions to turn away from what is easy in exchange for what is good.

In other words, I have done nothing notable, and yet I, like you, have done an entire year’s worth of things (however small, however insignificant) since last year—and that in itself is something worth noting. There are assignments with my name on them, memories made with me in them, evidence of me in all the ordinary places. Quietly, and somewhat stubbornly, and a little beautifully, this is all worth noting.

There’s a bone-deep chill to the cold these days, each daily average temperature dropping lower below freezing, and I find myself needing to toughen up a bit to endure the winter. I’m not the only one—even the produce this season seems tougher, firmer: the thick, bitter piths of citrus fruits, greens that grow thick-stemmed and hearty, and squash that feel almost impenetrable in my hands, taking upwards of an hour in a ripping hot oven to soften up. The world itself seems to be holding itself together more tightly, bracing against the same cold that seeps into my bones. And maybe that’s the lesson of this time of year: actions don’t have to be loud or heroic to be notable, to be worth something. Sometimes just showing up, staying present, and letting yourself harden in the right ways so you don’t shatter completely is all you really need.

As if mother nature were apologizing, giving us a little bit of grace for these wretchedly early sunsets and dark wintry mornings, the produce is bright and zingy. It’s as though (knowing we’re trudging through the year’s dreariest stretch) she’s conspired to tuck small suns into our grocery bags. There’s the whole sun cycle in their colors: a warm orange sunrise bursting from beneath an orange peel; the muted, pale, cold shine of the sun shining on a snowy winter’s day in each lemon; and the hot, blood red glow of sunset in the centers of blood oranges and grapefruits. From the fragrant zest to the bejeweled segments of fruit to even blending them whole, right into a cake, there’s a million ways to brighten up your bakes with these lovely fruits.

I admit I have a bias towards dark and stormy when it comes to winter baking flavors: the darkest chocolate, the stickiest and spiciest cakes, anything beige and buttery. I work in the season’s chestnuts, pair the pears with deep chocolate, lean in to the naturally cinnamon-y and sweet persimmon flavor, and am heavy-handed when adding spice to squash. I’ll set a goal and a challenge for me to make some citrus-y bakes this season that I actually enjoy (and potentially even prefer) what with my tendency to wallow with the season’s gloom as my only excuse.

As difficult as it is to pry yourself out of a warm bed and brave the cold, a good breakfast can serve as some incentive. These muffins, packed with whole grains, winter produce (carrots, apples, cranberries, figs, orange), and even some nuts and spices, have a whole lot of nutrients and are a lovely, sparkly, sweet way to start a slow winter’s day. Plus, they feature the aforementioned citrus season by including fresh orange flavor in both the batter and the glistening orange sugar topping. I couldn’t help but incorporate some of the comforting wintry spices, though, and so I included a little molasses and ginger that couples with the nuttiness of the whole grain flours for a gingerbread-esque feel. The best of both worlds, in my opinion.

Winter Morning Glory Muffins

Ready in 1 hour. Serves 12-15 muffins.

Read more

As if there weren’t enough controversial takes with a side of snide arguments being heaped onto your dinner plate, I’ll throw my own unwarranted opinion into the mix: most Thanksgiving dishes only make it to the table every year because of tradition, not taste. There’s a reason we only eat this meal once a year. Though I won’t bore you with my spiel on each side dish, just know that for the past few years, my family has been roasting a chicken, not a turkey. We’re food people and we won’t stand (or sit) for a mediocre meal.

But still, hidden inside every so-so side is a flavor worth saving. This year, I pulled some of those flavors out and let them shine in two new recipes, because although some of those casseroles might go untouched, I still have yet to meet someone who doesn’t like a good baked good.

First on the chopping block: sweet potato casserole. This dish takes on many forms, but the one I’m familiar with is a bed of fluffy mashed sweet potatoes topped with a layer of marshmallows that’s baked in the oven or torched until the marshmallows get a caramel-y golden brown. Other variations include crisp, buttery crumble toppings or candied pecans. In theory, this dish has incredible potential, but it all goes out the window the moment you put it on your plate. Sweet and savory blends can do great things, but not in this case; marshmallow should never be near gravy or green beans.

To fix this heinous holiday mismatch, I removed sweet potato casserole from the dinner lineup entirely and reassigned it to where it should’ve been all along: on the dessert roster. In cookie form (chewy, toasty, and marshmallow-studded) these flavors finally get the redemption arc they’ve been begging for. After the first taste, these sweet potato casserole cookies will become a new tradition at your table.

Next up: stuffing. A dish that is somehow both beloved and loathed, depending entirely on whose grandmother made it, or which brand of boxed mix you buy. It can be herb-packed, comforting, and addictively savory, or it can be a soggy brick of bread cubes that looks like it really did come out of the wrong end of the turkey. Even the best versions tend to suffer from the same fatal flaw: stuffing is incredible in theory, but in practice, it’s a textural gamble every single year.

Despite its toss-up texture, the flavors of stuffing are iconic, and Thanksgiving would be incomplete without them. I liberated those flavors—the thyme, butter, and those warm, savory aromatics—and built them into something everyone enjoys: biscuits. These flaky, fluffy, buttery, golden-edged Thanksgiving stuffing biscuits have the perfect texture and deliver pure stuffing essence without any of the casserole chaos.

So, never fear: these two incredible recipes are here to save your Thanksgiving table! Each one comes together quickly with common pantry ingredients, so even though this post is published on Thanksgiving day, you still have plenty of time to throw them together before dinner and dessert.

Sweet Potato Casserole Cookies

Ready in 2 hours. Serves 15 cookies.

Read more

November sits right between autumn’s last blaze and winter’s first hush. For some, holiday decorations are already up, and I’ve been thinking about my Thanksgiving break baking for at least a week, now. This goes far beyond pies, of course: there’s plenty of room at the table for cornbreads, biscuits, cakes, and breads.

The chill of winter seems to quite literally freeze time itself. Doughs take their time to rise and butter softens reluctantly. As “room temperature” drops, yeasted breads grow sluggish, their rise stunted by the cold. Coax them gently: proof them in a slightly warmed oven with the light on, or use your oven’s “proof” setting if it has one. Even a covered bowl set near the stove while something else bakes can make all the difference.

The fruits and vegetables of late fall benefit from the same kind of patience. Apples, pears, squash, and roots give the best textures and sweetness through slow heat, roasted until their edges caramelize and their centers turn soft enough to mash with the back of a spoon. Fold them into quick breads or rustic tarts, or purée them into fillings rich with nutmeg and brown butter.

By November, the markets have quieted. The riot of summer color has faded into a palette of russets, ambers, and deep greens. Grocery go-tos are usually the aforementioned apples, pears, pumpkins, squash, and potatoes, but I love this time of year for the persimmons, pomegranate, and leafy greens, too. Though late fall is often associated with muted oranges, yellows, and assorted shades of beige, there’s a whole rainbow of color in the produce. There’s the fiery red of pomegranates, their jeweled seeds bursting with tart sweetness; the deep orange glow of persimmons, soft and honeyed when perfectly ripe; and the dark, almost blue-green leaves of kale and collards, sturdy enough to stand up to the chill. Even beets and radicchio bring a painter’s vibrancy to the table, their magentas and crimsons shining through the season’s gray light. In the kitchen, these shades translate into vibrant and nuanced flavors. The greens add a balanced bitterness in a quickbread or savory pie; roasted beets lend moisture and a hint of earthiness to chocolate cakes; a drizzle of pomegranate molasses cuts through buttery pastries with a spark of acid.

I can hear the wind howling at my window, the rain falling in torrents. The world outside feels blurred and restless, but keep your kitchen warm and welcoming from the heat of the oven, and maybe swap an evening walk for a leisurely bake now that the sun sets so soon. The weather is turning violent, mean, harsh, but that does not mean we also must be.

The days may be getting darker, but leave a light on. Not everything in the world has gone dark; it’s only a filter, only a veil, a greyscale. Even in November, there are bright colors everywhere for those with eyes to see.

Thanks for reading The Baker’s Almanac! Consider becoming a paid subscriber or making a donation on ko-fi to contribute to my flour fund, and follow my Instagram to see when new baked goods are fresh out of the oven.

Subscribe now

What’s the difference between gourds, squash, and pumpkin? Botanically, nothing. They’re all members of the Cucurbitaceae family, which is a sprawling clan that includes everything from zucchini to butternut squash to ornamental gourds. The distinctions we make between them are mostly cultural and culinary rather than scientific. “Gourd” tends to refer to the hard-shelled varieties we use for decoration or vessels (think birdhouses and centerpieces), while “squash” usually means the tender-fleshed types we eat. “Pumpkin,” meanwhile, is just a marketing term for certain round, orange winter squashes (though in reality, many “pumpkins” are closer cousins to butternut or kabocha than to the giant carving types we scoop out every October).

In the kitchen, though, what matters is texture and flavor. Some gourds (like decorative warted ones) are too fibrous to eat, but others, such as sweet dumpling, delicata, or red kuri squash, have rich, sweet flesh that purées beautifully or roasts into caramelized perfection. When you’re planning your fall baking, don’t limit yourself to pumpkin purée from a can: try substituting roasted kabocha for a deeper, chestnut-like sweetness, or delicata for a lighter, honeyed flavor that doesn’t need peeling. Even acorn squash, often overlooked, makes a tender, nutty base for pies, breads, and muffins.

Of course, gourds aren’t the only thing you can replace plain old pumpkin pie with.

When the air turns crisp and the pumpkins start piling up on porches, there’s one dessert that can carry you all the way from Halloween parties to Thanksgiving dinner: a colorful twist on sweet potato pie! With its rich autumn hues, a touch of spice, and silky-smooth filling, this pie bridges the best of both holidays. Sliced and served beside a bowl of candy or after a turkey feast, this spooky swirly sweet potato pie is guaranteed to bring a little magic (and a lot of flavor) to your table.

Sweet Potato Swirl Pie

Ready in 2 hours. Serves 1 9” pie.

Read more

Pumpkin bread is a perfect baking canvas. It’s moist, naturally sweet, warmly spiced, incredibly forgiving, and endlessly riff-able. My base recipe comes together with minimal dishes, uses up an entire can of pumpkin, and yields two big loaves. You can throw in nuts, dried fruit, chocolate, swirls, and glazes, or keep it classic and let the pumpkin shine.

I’ve tested out several variations to help you find your one true loaf. At the end, I’ll share the full recipe for my perfect pumpkin loaf, plus how to make my favorite variation: a pumpkin spice latte loaf.

Let’s mix some remixes!

1. The Classic

A no-frills, deeply spiced, super-moist pumpkin loaf that lets the natural sweetness of pumpkin and warm spices do all the talking. This is the one to make when you’re craving that cozy, nostalgic slice, which is perfect with a mug of tea or coffee. Pan-fry it, slather it with butter or frosting, give it the French toast treatment with a dip in custard, or just eat it cold from the fridge; no matter how you slice it, it’s just that good.

2. Cream Cheese Swirl

Cream cheese frosting is the no-brainer choice for any spiced cake, and pumpkin cakes are no exception. Rather than putting the cream cheese on top, baking a delightful cream cheese swirl right into your loaf makes for the perfect tangy mix-in that easily elevates your loaf.

3. Chocolate Chip

A forever favorite; I’m convinced that chocolate chips can fit into just about any bake. Fold a generous amount of dark or semisweet chocolate chips into the batter for melty pockets of richness in every bite, and top with extra chocolate chips for a lovely chocolate-studded, color-contrasting cake. Pumpkin and chocolate are a perfect match: the earthy warmth of the pumpkin mellows out the richness of the chocolate, while the spices bring everything together into one deeply cozy, crowd-pleasing bite.

Tip: toss the chips in a little flour before folding them into the batter to keep them from sinking to the bottom of your loaf!

4. The Halloween-y One

Topping the classic pumpkin loaf with a black sesame streusel makes for a gorgeous, Halloween-themed color contrast that also tastes incredible. The nuttiness of the black sesame pairs perfectly with the lightly sweet cake, and the crunch of the streusel adds an incredible crunch to contrast the softness of the loaf. This pairing is unexpectedly perfect, and the dramatic contrasts make for an unforgettable presentation.

5. Sticky Toffee Pumpkin Loaf

Stir pitted and chopped Medjool dates directly into the batter, then cover in a sweet and rich toffee sauce after baking. This version is indulgent, gooey, and just over-the-top enough to count as dessert. The dates melt into the loaf, adding extra moisture and natural sweetness, while the sauce soaks in to make each bite downright sticky and addictive. Sprinkle the top with fancy flaky salt or serve with cold unsweetened whipped cream to cut through some of the richness and amplify the caramelized notes.

6. My Favorite Loaf

Drumroll, please: a pumpkin spice latte loaf! This one tastes exactly like your favorite fall drink in cake form. It starts with the classic pumpkin base, but gets a double shot of espresso with both an espresso-cinnamon sugar swirl and a buttery coffee-flavored crumb topping. It’s cozy, it’s caffeinated, and it’s perfect alongside a hot homemade pumpkin spice latte.

Pumpkin Loaf (plus, recipes for the PSL and Halloween variations)

Ready in 1-2 hours. Serves 2 large 9x5” loaves.

Read more

This season marks my second autumn in upstate New York, and everything is all the more cozy the second time around, now that the haze of unfamiliarity has lifted. There’s a rhythm to fall here. Mornings are quiet and fog-soft. By afternoon, the hills are lit with maples and fire, and the sky looks impossibly blue. Evenings arrive early, with golden light and long shadows. The kitchen becomes a gathering place again, and the oven’s warmth is more than welcome, especially when coupled with the scent of spices.

If New York City is the Big Apple, then upstate New York is all the little apples: there’s thousands of locally-grown apples as far as the eye can see. This past weekend was Apple Fest in Ithaca, complete with live music, crafts, and, of course, fresh orchard produce in every form imaginable. Local vendors brought fresh-pressed apple cider, warm apple cider donuts and pies, and, of course, bushels upon bushels of apples in every variety you could think of.

But with quite literally thousands of apple varieties, picking the one that’s perfect for your bake can be daunting.

Granny Smith

In my experience, most American recipes that feature apples call for the tart green Granny Smith apple. They supposedly hold their shape well and are said to be well-balanced and tart—but, to me, these are the absolute worst baking apples. The few times I’ve baked with these apples, I’ve found them to have a sharp sour flavor and break down into near-mush. I never like to add too much sugar when I’m baking, but most recipes featuring Granny Smith rely on a whole lot of sugar to offset the tartness. I’ll never forget the one time I strayed from my usual apple of choice and was in for a sour shock when I bit into what should’ve been a spiced, comforting apple pie.

Pink Lady

Pink Lady apples (also sold under the name Cripps Pink) are a solid middle-ground option for baking. They’re firm and crisp with a balanced sweet-tart flavor that holds up well in heat, making them a reliable choice for tarts, galettes, or baked apple slices. They don’t break down as quickly as Granny Smiths, but they can still soften considerably if overbaked. I like them paired with something nutty, like almonds or hazelnuts, and they’re especially good in rustic, open-faced bakes where their slightly floral flavor can shine without being overshadowed by too much spice.

Honeycrisp

Beloved for a reason, Honeycrisps are sweet, juicy, and perfectly crisp. While they’re best known for fresh eating, they can also perform surprisingly well in baked goods, especially those that don’t require long cook times, like muffins or hand pies. That said, they can get a little watery when baked whole or in deep-dish pies, so consider mixing them with a firmer variety (like Fuji or Pink Lady) if you’re going that route.

Red Delicious

As tempting as it may be to reach for an apple with the word ‘delicious’ in the name, these are best eaten raw. When baked, Red Delicious apples become mushy and mealy, and their mild flavor disappears easily, leading to a potentially bland bake with only a hint of apple that relies too heavily on spices for flavor. They also have thicker skin that leaves a tough and unpleasant texture in your bake.

Fuji

Finally, the Fuji: my baking apple of choice! These hold their shape well, leading to a pleasant bite when baked or cooked. They also have a lovely natural sweetness, which means you can save some of your sugar for another sweet treat. Whether cooked down in a compote or baked into a pie, these apples stay sweet and hold their shape while becoming silky soft.

Apples aren’t the only produce in season, though: fall also features a variety of potatoes, gourds, berries, and more. Though most people reach for apples and pumpkins when it comes to fall baking, farmers markets also feature fresh figs and even quince, which I have yet to try (but hope to, this fall season). Play around with spice pairings, too, rather than using the pre-mixed pumpkin pie or apple pie blends. No spice is strictly savory or sweet, in my opinion; bay leaves or sage would be lovely alongside berries or to bring out the nuttiness of brown butter, and cloves or nutmeg have delicious applications in any savory soup or roasted vegetable dish, lending warmth and depth that go far beyond dessert.

You’ll have to forgive my lack of photos of this recipe: the bake sale simply sold out of them so quickly that by the time I walked there from a lecture, my friend had already sold all but six of them. Use your imagination for these: they’re thick, chewy, and have a sparkly chai-spiced sugar topping. The perfect pairing for a cold scoop of ice cream on a crisp fall night.

Brown Butter Chai Spiced Blondies

Ready in 2 hours, not including cooling. Serves 1 9x13” pan.

Read more

But it’s not just the work weighing on me—if anything, I’m incredibly grateful that I have the opportunity to learn, and I love where I am, despite it all. There’s just something sitting heavy behind the deadlines and obligations: a pressure not to fall behind in the much murkier business of becoming a person.

I am nineteen going on twenty and in light of a recent Series of Unfortunate Years, I have sat in on various life lessons, the meanings of which I am constantly realizing that I probably slightly misconstrued. Nearly two decades to learn myself and I am still learning: as with all present- or future-facing research with the intent of progress, I am studying a moving target. My specimen of the self won’t quit jumping the petri dish.

One such lesson: I always need to be busy.

The veracity of this is still under scrutiny.

Trial One proved that being alone and aimless for extended periods of time makes me desolate. Boredom sets in quickly when I have no purpose: I end up either giving myself arbitrary projects and assignments, or I cave in on myself until I feel entirely inside-out and interior.

Trial Two is currently underway: my schedule (as seen in figure one) gives me barely enough breathing room to stay on top of my class assignments. Any and all gaps seen are, in reality, spent once again in the book stacks, cramming another reading or trying to force an essay outline in thirty minutes. I want to believe that this is what’s best for me. It’s a thrill and pressure similar to what I feel when I’m baking, only this is more dragged-out and with much less payout; the digital confetti of submitting an assignment, barely halfway down the screen before I shut the tab to focus on the next, provides hardly a fraction of the dopamine that a beautiful, sumptuous slice of cake gives.

I think back on anecdotes of nightmarish kitchens akin to battlefields, the cigarettes-and-other-drugs associated with overworked line cooks, the fail rates in the restaurant industry—and I feel safer in my place at a university and with the stability I am eternally grateful to have. But safety can drive you crazy, and eternity anywhere could kill you. Lately, I’ve been wondering if my brain is simply not wired for a corporate life. Moreso than any high-level computer science course or any chaotic exam season, the most difficult part about college is finding your place in the vast, shifting landscape of adulthood.

My parents are reading this issue from thousands of miles away the same way that they do every week. Over the last few days, I have texted my parents on multiple occasions that I am very tired. Which is to say that I miss them. Which is to say that I am very, very lonely, although I am surrounded by people constantly. Not inherently a bad thing. Every night when I walk back to my dorm from the book stacks, which is where I always end my night because it’s open until past midnight, I always have to cross a field where there is no light pollution and I always tilt my head all the way back to see the stars and I almost always nearly bump into someone but I always do it regardless, eyes fixed upwards the entire way down the field. All of this to say that there is nothing to be worried about (though I know you will worry regardless) because as tired (read: lonely) as I am, I every night ends looking up.

Just last week, I lost my favorite shirt, which was originally my older sister’s; I was terribly sick and feverish last Friday and have been much too busy to get fully better and so the congestion remains even now, a week later; I have everything I have ever wanted and nothing to complain about and yet I find myself run down and forgetting to look up. Bad things have happened, but they are never terminal or incurable. No one, my mother assures me, when I am hearing my tiny shoe-box world crashing around my pinched perspective, is on the operating table. At night I curl around the same stuffed bear that I have grown around since birth and I feel the chemical imbalance in my bones. As much as my twin-sized dormitory bed is plasticky and covered in white sheets, it is not an operating table.

There are stars everywhere if you look for them: a few hours after this article is published, I’ll be selling baked goods for a Collegetown Magazine bake sale. Even in the eye of the storm, it’s good to take a few hours to do something you love, to shut your brain off and forget about the deadlines for a little bit. For me, that’s baking—so, despite the essays and assignments hanging over my head, I’m setting aside a few hours this week for a little self-care (and you should probably do the same).

Thanks for reading The Baker’s Almanac! Consider becoming a paid subscriber or making a donation on ko-fi to contribute to my flour fund, and follow my Instagram to see when new baked goods are fresh out of the oven.

Subscribe now