Baking

Avocados add creamy, nutrient-dense richness, taking the place of butter in these baked sweets.

This traditional Greek yeast bread is flavored with bright orange zest, floral anise, and pine-like mastic.

This is a dessert you'll make over and over in the fall when interesting apples fill the farmers’ market; but the Calvados sauce ensures it even makes out-of-season apples sing.

A kitchen torch makes easy work of melting sugar into the crackly topping for classic crème brûlée. And once you have one, you’ll come up with all kinds or ways to use it (like coffee crème brûlée, and coconut crème brûlée, and pistachio crème brûlée…).

An overnight freeze solidifies classic brownie batter into something entirely different—a scoopable cookie dough that holds its shape when rolled and then transforms into soft, fudgy, cream cheese-filled cookies in the oven.

Gloss the tops of these egg- and dairy-free almond cookies with an earthy-sweet green tea frosting.

The secret to this super-flaky pastry is to grate frozen butter into the flour before incorporating it into the dough. Serve these hand pies warm, either as an appetizer or as dinner with a big green salad on the side.

Baking a single large-format tamal in a foil-covered pan set in a roasting pan of hot water produces a similarly tender texture to the corn husk–wrapped variety. The result is a moist, barely sweet cake with pudding vibes.

The combination of almond flour and self-rising flour gives this cake a tender, nutty crumb, while a drizzle of amaretto syrup keeps it irresistibly moist.

Glaze citrusy, baked doughnuts with a nutty brown butter icing and sprinkle with large crunchy granules of coffee-infused sugar for a sweet bite that hits all the marks.

This nutrient-dense, gluten-free quick bread keeps for days and is a great vehicle for nut butters, dips, and spreads. Snacktime, solved.

The zucchini makes the cake super moist but doesn’t affect the overall chocolaty goodness.

Store-bought puff pastry and a meat-and-potatoes filling come together as your New Year’s Eve dinner centerpiece.

Melt tahini with chocolate in whatever shade you please for a glossy bittersweet filling that will sandwich together rich cocoa shortbreads.