This homemade raspberry jam recipe has no lemon juice, pectin, or other add-ins, just the berries and sugar. Adding pectin “necessitates more sugar,” says Eleanor Topp, author of The Complete Book of Year-Round Small-Batch Preserving. And using more sugar “dilutes the natural flavor of the fruit.” She also notes that while not adding pectin requires … Read more
This recipe for strawberry preserves does not turn out run-of-the-mill store-bought strawberry jam. Here whole pieces of fruit float in a sweet, bright syrup that’s equally useful in the kitchen. To make it, you only need sugar, half a lemon, fresh strawberries, and sterile jars. Most of the prep time is hands-off: After you mix … Read more
From David Lebovitz’s 2010 cookbook, Ready for Dessert, comes this easy orange marmalade recipe with a genius juicing method. By squeezing cut oranges over a mesh strainer, Lebovitz preserves the valuable seeds. He wraps them in cheesecloth and adds to the mixture of boiling water, sugar, and citrus—pith and all—on the stovetop, then simmers and … Read more
Step 1 Mash 10 lb. peaches, sliced, and their pits in a large, nonreactive pot, using your hands, until no large pieces of fruit remain. For every quart of fruit pulp, add 1 cup water; bring to a boil over high heat. Decrease the heat to low, and simmer until very juicy, about 20 minutes. … Read more
You probably have everything needed to make this Dutch baby recipe on hand right now. A cross between a fluffy oversized pancake and an eggy crepe, the large-format breakfast favorite is believed to derive from the German pancake pfannkuchen. According to legend, an American restaurateur mistook the word “Deutsch” for “Dutch,” and a misleading moniker … Read more
If a coffee cake and a focaccia had a baby, it would look something like this. Sugar cake is a tradition of the Moravians, a group of Czech Protestants who landed in the same Pennsylvania region as the Amish and Mennonites, and later settled in North Carolina. In 1766, the Moravian church founded Salem, now … Read more
I once heard the Appalachian author and editor Ronni Lundy say, “There’s no such thing as a bad biscuit,” and the idea has stuck with me over the years as I’ve tried many times to prove her wrong: overworking, overcooking, and generally overthinking dozens of attempts. Even a botched biscuit has its charms when it’s … Read more
It’s tough to describe exactly what a caramel roll is, yet every Midwesterner seems to know. It’s not a sticky bun, and it’s not just a cinnamon roll either. A caramel roll is a large cinnamon bun that is soft, plush, buttery, cinnamon-y, drenched in caramel, and sometimes includes nuts. It’s distinctively pronounced car-mull (not … Read more
A kringle is a flaky, buttery pastry with deep Northern European roots. Danish immigrants brought the tradition for making the original pretzel-like specialty with them to their new homes in the small town of Racine, WI. After combining Danish and American baking techniques, the Wisconsin kringle was born: a shareable large oval pastry that gets … Read more
These pancakes are inspired by Hummingbird cake, a moist spice cake with bananas, pecans, and crushed pineapple that originated in Jamaica in the 1960s and went on to become a popular dessert in the American South. Instead of using canned crushed pineapple, I caramelize thin slices of fresh pineapple in maple syrup before piling them … Read more