Dessert Recipes

I wasn’t expecting cooking advice from the quiet man who fixes my neighbor’s plumbing, but there I was, standing in the hardware aisle at the … Read more

My sister-in-law, Clara, asked me why I couldn’t just skip the cream of tartar in my snickerdoodle recipe. She was helping me prep for a … Read more

My teenage daughter asked why I couldn’t just buy the donuts at the bakery instead of boiling down gallons of apple cider for this cake. … Read more

I was trying to make apple cider donuts. The classic kind, you know—the little cakey rings that smell like autumn in a paper bag. I … Read more

I was at the community garden last fall, elbow-deep in a bin of slightly blemished apples that the farmer had set aside for anyone who … Read more

My eight-year-old nephew asked me last week why I couldn’t just skip the butter and use applesauce instead. I was in the middle of explaining … Read more

My brother-in-law, Mark, had claimed to hate dessert for as long as I had known him. It wasn’t a dramatic, food-pilled stance; he just shrugged … Read more

My sister swore she hated pumpkin. For years. Like, a solid decade of turning her nose up at anything that even hinted at the orange … Read more

My neighbor across the hall, a retired baker named Margot who always smells faintly of vanilla and flour, watched me wrestle with a box of … Read more

The neighborhood block party was in four hours and I had completely forgotten. Everyone else would be bringing elaborate, multi-day preparations like their famous layered … Read more