Baking

First brought to America by Eastern European immigrants, rugelach are popular on nearly every Jewish holiday table (except at Passover).The rich cream-cheese dough is filled with dried fruit, chocolate, or nuts—or a combination of all three.

You can garnish these cookies simply with sanding sugar or sprinkles before baking, or bake them first and then cover with Royal Icing.

These make ideal holiday cookies when festively decorated with icing, but they are also delicious without any adornment.

These classic drop cookies are large, soft, and chewy. Look for grade B maple syrup, which has a deeper flavor than grade A.

A New York specialty for more than half a century, these cookies taste best the day after they are made. Wrap in plastic and keep overnight at room temperature.

While still warm, these cookies are crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. As they cool, they become crisp all the way through.

Like brownies, these cookies are dense and fudgy beneath their crackly exteriors. Use your favorite nuts in place of the walnuts, or omit them altogether. The dough can be shaped into balls and refrigerated for up to two days or frozen for up to three weeks; freeze on a baking sheet until firm, then transfer to a resealable plastic bag.

Unlike in recipes for chewy cookies, we used more butter and less brown sugar to produce the ideal thin and crisp cookie.

We like the way this cake looks glazed with white chocolate, but you can substitute semisweet chocolate in the glaze recipe, if you prefer. Be careful not to over swirl the vanilla and chocolate batters when you are running a knife through the two; the marbling won’t look as beautiful if you overdo it.

If you are using the miniloaf pans, place them on a baking sheet, and bake cakes for about forty-five minutes.

Poppy seeds give these cakes an interesting texture and appearance, but you can certainly omit them if you prefer.

This recipe does not contain the traditional pound each of butter, eggs, flour, and sugar, but its proportions produce the most delicious results.

This is a slight twist on applesauce cake, relying instead on a homemade pear sauce. The cake can be made a day ahead. Keep it at room temperature, then glaze it and garnish it with pear chips just before serving

This foolproof cake is perfect for beginning bakers.

Sour cream gives this cake a particularly lovely tang. Tube pans are made with both regular and removable bottoms; either is fine for this recipe.

The addition of raisins, caraway seeds, and egg makes this version richer and even more delicious than traditional Irish soda bread.

Sautéed corn moistens this cornbread, but you can omit it if you are using the bread in a traditional stuffing. For a spicy variation, add two medium jalapeños, seeded and finely chopped, to the corn before sautéeing.

If you use miniloaf pans, reduce the baking time to forty-five minutes. Because this recipe calls for dried figs, it can be made year-round; the figs’ seeds give the bread a nice crunch.

If you use miniloaf pans, reduce the baking time to forty-five minutes. This bread is delightful as soon as it cools, but it’s even better the next day, when the flavors have had a chance to develop.

If you use miniloaf pans, reduce the baking time to forty-five minutes. The recipe comes from Deanna Caceres Cahn, a former brand manager in the Martha Stewart Signature furniture group.