Recipe Sifter

German prune coffeecake with a soft yeasted dough rolled around cooked prunes, dotted with butter, sugar, and cinnamon. Makes two cakes for breakfast or brunch.

Cranberry lemon bread is a quick bread studded with fresh cranberries and pecans, brightened with lemon zest in the batter and a tart lemon-sugar glaze on top. Best served the day after baking.

Peanut butter snap cookies with brown sugar, butter, and vanilla, shaped into balls and baked until crisp. A big-batch recipe that yields 7 dozen crunchy peanut butter cookies.

Spiced fig drop cookies with stewed figs, raisins, walnuts, allspice, and cinnamon. An old-fashioned fruit-filled cookie that stores beautifully in a tin for weeks.

Soft apple oatmeal cookies with fresh chopped apple, applesauce, raisins, honey, cinnamon, cloves, and lemon zest. Baked low and slow for a chewy, cake-like texture.

Old-fashioned pound cake with a full pound of real butter, eight eggs, and no leavening. Baked low and slow for a dense, velvety crumb with deep buttery flavor.

Fudgy brownies with melted semi-sweet chocolate, sour cream, and chocolate chips folded in. Intentionally underbaked for a dense, gooey center that firms up as it cools.

Tender tube cake with walnuts and orange zest, soaked in amaretto-orange syrup while still hot. Moist, boozy, and bursting with citrus flavor.

Homemade Chinese baked pork buns (Cha Siu Bao) stuffed with savory barbecued pork in a sweet, glossy bread dough. Golden, pillowy, and packed with hoisin-ginger flavor in every bite.

A Southern sweet potato pone made with raw grated sweet potatoes, allspice, cinnamon, and a simple batter. Baked in a square pan until golden. Old-fashioned comfort at its finest.

Traditional Chinese almond cookies made with ground almonds, lard, and almond extract, each topped with a whole blanched almond. Crumbly, fragrant, and golden, just like the ones from your favorite bakery.

Fudgy chocolate yogurt cake baked in heart-shaped pans for Valentine's Day. Plain yogurt keeps the cocoa-rich crumb moist and tender with a subtle tang, ready to frost and decorate however you like. A sweetheart of a dessert.

Carrot cake loaded with crushed pineapple, coconut, and walnuts. Soaked with hot buttermilk glaze straight out of the oven and finished with orange cream cheese frosting.

Hershey's Kiss cookies: tender brown-sugar thumbprint cookies rolled in chopped nuts and crowned with a chocolate kiss the moment they exit the oven. A holiday cookie tray staple.

Finnish breakfast pancakes (pannukakku) baked in a sheet pan with golden custardy centers and crisp buttery edges. A traditional Nordic oven pancake that feeds a crowd with one batter and one pan.

Oatmeal raisin cookies with rolled oats, plump raisins, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Chewy in the middle, lightly crisp at the edges, gone in minutes.