Ganache! Buttercream! Whipped Cream! Frostings are something that get me excited about cake, because they (along with a few sprinkles) turn any cake into a celebration. Whether you’re baking a chocolate Bundt cake, a chocolate pound cake, or, my personal favorite, chocolate sheet cake, here are 10 frostings that upgrade classic chocolate cake to something unique and special to celebrate anytime.
There really is nothing the slow cooker can’t do. This year it became my go-to for working even more meatless recipes into my meal plan — and many of our readers seemed to do the same. And that makes sense, because the slow cooker is a natural fit for beans and legumes, ultra-hearty vegetables, slow-simmered stews, veggie pot pie, and so much more. Here were our most popular vegetarian slow cooker recipes of the year.
If you made me choose a favorite cookie from Dorie Greenspan, I’d have to plead the Fifth. There are far too many delights to choose from — beginning with those classic, chocolatey World Peace Cookies to these Jammers. But if I had to pick a favorite Dorie Greenspan cookie story, this one would be it. Because these cookies — made with a vanilla sablé dough, topped with thick jam, surrounded by tender, crumbly streusel — came to Dorie in a dream. And I can’t think of anything more marvelous than that.
Named for their resemblance to the nuts from the Ohio buckeye tree, buckeyes are the impossibly delicious confection made with a ball of smooth peanut butter coated nearly all the way — save for a small area around the top — with a layer of chocolate. When choosing chocolate for this sweet holiday treat, the options are plenty, including chips, wafers, and chocolate bars.
But it’s important to remember that not all varieties of chocolate are created equal. For the very best result, this is the type of chocolate you’ll want to stick with every time you make buckeyes.
I have something really pretty and really festive for us today. I hope it doesn’t send you running for the hills. When recipe hybrids are good — think pretzel croissants, cronuts, donut-looking cakes, donut-tasting muffins, brownie cookies, and pretty much everything on one of my favorite wildly creative cooking blogs — it’s usually because the two desserts that are mashed up have more in common than just cleverness, elements in each that make each other better.
It was the honey syrup that convinced me that babka-meets-baklava could clear this hurdle. Syrupy finishes are common in desserts from across the Middle East and Levant. It’s the finishing soak in baklava’s crispy baked phyllo and chopped nuts layers, pulling them together. It’s the finishing, shiny soak in the kranz-style babkas popularized by Ottolenghi. And it’s what makes this buttery, nutty, braided sweet bread wreath sweet glossy perfection, and deeply baklava-like.
Everyone has a favorite holiday cookie from the cookie plate. Sugar cookies are nice, and yeah I can get down with some gingerbread, but I’m always secretly eyeing the peanut butter blossoms or the spritz cookies. What about you?
This year for the holidays, we asked Google to tell us the most-searched holiday cookies in every state. They looked at searches across the country during the beginning of December and compiled this very interesting list. I’m honestly a little surprised by their findings! You’ll see lots of chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin cookies, and no-bake finds. The Midwest is dominated by spritz cookies (no surprise there), and apparently there’s something called a “monster cookie” that I have yet to try.
Welcome to Snapshot Cooking, the home of Kitchn’s easiest recipes. These mini recipes are so simple you can practically cook from the before-and-after snapshot itself.
Searching for a last-minute holiday treat that everyone will love? Christmas bark to the rescue! It’s a salty-sweet classic that goes by many other names (like Christmas Crunch, Christmas Crackle, or Christmas Crack), but the baseline idea is usually the same: You pour a simple homemade caramel sauce over a layer of crackers, bake it, then cover it with chocolate to create a no-fail toffee that’s broken up like bark.
Below, you’ll find our tried-and-tested take on the traditional version — plus four new variations if you’re looking for something different (and equally delicious!) this holiday season. The best part? Each one only needs a handful of ingredients to make.
If you’ve never had a buckeye, then first and foremost you should know that these sweet confections — that most often appear around holiday time — are pure bliss. They’re made with a ball of smooth peanut butter coated nearly all the way, save for a small area around the top, with a firm, crisp layer of chocolate. They can have a reputation for being tricky and messy to pull off, but as long as you steer clear of these common mistakes, you’ll find that neither is true and they’re actually quite easy.
Here’s a sweet way to encourage cooking skills in any aspiring junior chefs you may know: Make an Instant Pot in which they pretend cook all their favorite recipes, both real and imagined! It’s like a play kitchen, but even better. The process of making these mini pots isn’t exactly simple, but it’s absolutely worth busting out your crafting skills for. And when it’s done you’ll be bringing a kid joy during the holidays. That’s reason enough to dust off the old glue gun right? Right. Here’s how you do it.
If there is one thing Ina Garten is known for, it’s her roast chicken. It’s her signature dish for Friday night supper with Jeffrey, and anyone and everyone who’s ever made it raves about it. (Five stars! 1,000+ reviews!)
Yet despite the accolades and fanfare, I’d never actually made her version before. My go-to roast chicken recipe is actually Jacques Pepin’s — I’ve stuck with it for years for it’s sheer simplicity. But lately I’ve been less enthusiastic about it because of problems with the skin sticking to the skillet and lack of crispiness. So I decided to give Ina’s a try and, perhaps unsurprisingly, I loved it.
Get the recipe: Ina Garten’s Perfect Roast Chicken