Recipe Sifter

Old-fashioned Banana Spicecake with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves baked into two 8-inch layers. Triple-sifted flour and the alternating technique give this layer cake an exceptionally light, tender crumb.

Beaten biscuits, a historic Southern recipe made by beating dough with a rolling pin until it snaps. Crisp, tender, and shelf-stable for weeks. Makes about 100 small biscuits.

Classic beef bourguignonne braised in Burgundy wine with mushrooms, onions, thyme, and marjoram. Stewing beef simmers low for 2 hours until fork-tender in a rich wine sauce.

Jamaican beef patties with a flaky shortening crust and a spiced ground beef filling with thyme, scallion, paprika, and hot pepper. Baked golden in hand-held half-moons.

Pressure cooker beef stew with stewing beef, potatoes, peas, carrots, and stewed tomatoes, ready in about 30 minutes start to finish. The slow-Sunday classic in weeknight time.

Pressure cooker beef stew with potatoes, carrots, peas, and stewed tomatoes. Tender stewing beef in 10-12 minutes under pressure with a simple homemade spice blend.

Berkshire apple pie with a dump-and-bake cake batter topping over cinnamon apples. No rolling pin needed for this rustic New England-style dessert.

Besan burfi, a traditional Indian fudge of chickpea flour slow-toasted in ghee with cardamom and sugar. A four-ingredient festival sweet cut into diamond pieces.

Best homemade harvest apple pie: a tender egg-and-vinegar crust filled with cinnamon-spiced Granny Smith apples and a brown sugar crumb, splashed with cider and finished with pastry apple cutouts.

Old-fashioned cake doughnuts made from scratch with nutmeg and vanilla, deep-fried and dusted with sugar. No yeast, no rising time, no fuss.

Bewitching cookies with orange zest, orange juice, buttermilk, and chocolate chips in a soft brown sugar drop cookie. A citrus-chocolate combination that's hard to resist.

Birds nests are thumbprint cookies rolled in egg white and crushed walnuts, then filled with a jewel of fruit jam. A classic holiday tea cookie that bakes in 10 minutes.

Black and white chunk cookies loaded with semi-sweet and white chocolate chunks plus walnuts or pecans in a brown sugar butter dough. Makes 3 dozen.

These are very delicious cookies, we always cook them. Everytime they go very well.

Classic double-crust blackberry pie with a flaky shortening crust and simple sugar-flour filling. No frills, just four cups of berries baked golden in a homemade shell.

Blender chocolate chip cupcakes mix the entire batter in a blender for one-bowl convenience. Tender vanilla cupcakes studded with semisweet chocolate chips. Mix, pour, bake. Done in 45 minutes.