Recipes

Easy Banana Bread

My Easy Banana Bread is perfectly moist thanks to the greek yoghurt in the recipe, and has a crunchy turbinado sugar topping. It is the best way to use up over ripe, sad looking bananas.

Hi hi! I Hope you are well - I am just popping in to share this Easy Banana Bread Recipe. We are coming up to the one year anniversary of staying inside our homes and making banana bread, and so I thought what better time to add this recipe to the other 433,000,000 other hits that come up when you google banana bread!

My original recipe for Banana Bread actually comes from my friend's Dad, Barry (Hi Barry!). The blog post is one of the first things that I posted here so is super old, so I re-shot the recipe and tweaked it just a tiny bit - adding in some greek yoghurt and finishing it with some crunchy turbinado sugar. Rich can take down almost a whole loaf of this by himself in one day - it's super, super good.

Banana Bread made with Greek Yoghurt

I'm not going to give you a whole spiel on why this is the best banana bread you've ever made - because to be honest, it's just another banana bread recipe. I did loads of research into other people's recipes and they are all relatively similar, but use different ingredient ratios. However this is the recipe that I make all the time, and so thought I might as well share it here with you!

I added some greek yoghurt into the recipe because I love the moisture and super subtle tang that it adds to baking without making the batter too runny. It is my go to if I need something to help texture wise in baked goods, and I almost always have a container of it in the fridge, so popped some into this banana bread. The yoghurt will give the banana bread a nice soft crumb, and will help to keep it moist for a few days.

What are the best bananas to use for Banana Bread?

The best bananas for banana bread are ones which are SUPER ripe and squishy. Ideally you want to leave them until they are almost black all over, and super mushy. Using these bananas will give you the sweetest, moistest banana bread. However, I make this all the time with bananas that are just looking a bit tired and beaten up - just make sure that they are some form of over ripe!

Banana bread with Frozen Bananas.

I get asked this often - can you make banana bread with frozen bananas?

Sometimes If bananas look like they are going to go rotten on me, I will throw them into the freezer with the skins still on to use for baking at another time. These work just great in baking - I thaw them at room temperature on a plate and then once they are ready to use, proceed with the recipe as usual. If they have leaked any moisture onto the plate, then just discard that. The banana quantity in this recipe is done by weight so you don't have to worry about accounting for any moisture lost in the freezing process.

What pan should I use to bake this in?
I used a one pound loaf pan (8"x4"x2 ¾") to make this. Here is the exact pan that I used. There are generally two sizes of loaf pan and this is the smaller of the two. If you use a bigger pan that's totally fine too, your bread will just come out a little wider and flatter! Add image

Can this be frozen?
Yes! I make this and freeze it all the time. I like to slice it into thick slices and then freeze the whole thing tightly wrapped. That way when you want some you can defrost it by the slice. Rich does this often and actually does it in the toaster!

Do I have to use the Turbinado sugar on the top?
Nope! If you don't have it, that's totally fine! Just leave it off.

Do I have to use an electric mixer for banana bread?
I tested this both by hand and with a handheld electric mixer and both worked great. The electric mixer makes things quicker but making this by hand works perfectly too.

What can I use in the place of greek yoghurt?
Sour cream or cream fraiche should work great as a sub for greek yoghurt. I sub sour cream for greek yoghurt 1:1 all the time and it works perfectly.

How do I know when the banana bread is baked?
I like to use a paring knife or a skewer (I find cake testers are too thin) to insert into the middle of the cake. If it comes out with wet batter on it, it needs a little more time - it should come out clean or with a few crumbs. Add some foil to the top of the banana bread if it needs a little more time and you are worrieda bout it getting too dark.

Do I have to use the cinnamon?
The cinnamon is just there to add a tiny little bit of warmth. I really like it but if you don't like cinnamon, just leave it out! I live with a cinnamon hater (who eats cinnamon rolls, go figure), and he didn't even notice it in there!

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Easy Focaccia Bread (No Knead)

Homemade Focaccia is super easy. This no knead focaccia comes together quickly and and requires no special equipment. Homemade Focaccia Bread has a crisp outside and a soft inside. This easy Focaccia recipe super versatile, you can finish it however you like, or change up the schedule to suit - either a same day focaccia recipe, or an easy overnight focaccia.

Hi! Just popping in to share this recipe with you today for this easy focaccia bread recipe! I spent the last few weeks testing this focaccia bread recipe and all the different variations for you and I am so excited to share!

The focaccia dough comes together super quickly. It can be kept in the fridge for a long period of time to work with your schedule. I topped it with a simple garlic and rosemary topping, but you can finish this any way that you like. This is a great base no knead focaccia dough recipe and I can't wait to play around with it more to come up with more flavour and topping combinations. This easy focaccia is great for any occasion, but also makes a great sandwich bread or as an accompaniment to soups.

Sample Schedules for making no knead Focaccia Bread

I tested a bunch of different ways of making this focaccia dough, with cold and room temperature rises. The options you have after making the dough are:

Refrigerator first rise and room temperature second rise - This is my preferred method for making focaccia and the one that I have written in the recipe. Make the dough and then place it in the fridge for at least 12 hours, and up to two days. Then, transfer to the pan and do the second rise at room temperature. This will take anywhere from about 2 hours to up to 3 ½ to 4 hours. You need to watch the dough carefully. 3 hours seemed to be the sweet spot for me when testing.
Room temperature first rise and refrigerator second rise - This is a great option if you need the focaccia earlier the next day and don't have time to wait for it to take 3 hours to rise. Do the first rise at room temperature (about an hour and a half). Then, transfer the dough to the pan, cover with plastic wrap, and place into the fridge overnight. The next day, pull the dough out from the fridge and leave to stand on the counter while the oven preheats, just to warm the dough slightly before dimpling, topping, and baking.
Room temperature first rise and room temperature second rise - The first rise will take about an hour to an hour and a half. Then transfer the dough to the pan and do a second rise, which should take anywhere between 40 minutes to an hour. Preheat the oven soon after putting the dough into the pan to ensure that it is ready when you are ready to bake.

Baker's Percentage and Calculating Hydration in Recipes

This is a fairly high hydration dough - it is 89% hydration. Bread baking will sometimes use Baker's Percentages to determine things like hydration. Baker's Percentages are the weight of each ingredient, relative to the weight of flour. To calculate the percentage, you divide the weight of the ingredient by the weight of the flour.

Therefore, the hydration (amount of water) in a recipe is calculated by dividing the weight of the water (535g) by the weight of the flour (600g). So, the hydration of this bread is 89%.

Can I use sourdough starter in my focaccia?

Yes - if you wanted to use some sourdough discard in your focaccia bread (rather than using the sourdough to leaven the focaccia, it just provides flavour and is a great way to use up discard). To do this you replace some of the flour and water in the dough recipe with some sourdough starter.

For example, we want to add in 150g sourdough discard - we would leave out 75g of water and 75g flour, provided that your starter is at 100% hydration (equal parts flour and water).

The new quantites are for making sourdough discard focaccia:

300g bread flour
225g All-purpose flour
460g water
150g sourdough discard at 100% hydration.

All the other quantites are the same. Add the sourdough discard along with the water and olive oil.

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

How To Make Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

This post will teach you how to make perfect chocolate chip cookies from scratch. It is a detailed guide, full of tips and tricks to help you make amazing homemade chocolate chip cookies. This easy chocolate chip cookie recipe makes a great base, so you can customise your chocolate chip cookies as you like!

I am not claiming that these are 'the best chocolate chip cookies' ever, but to me, this easy chocolate chip cookie recipe has everything I look for in a chocolate chip cookie. As a baking blogger, I have made my fair share of homemade chocolate chip cookies, and this cookie recipe is my back pocket, everyday simple chocolate chip cookie recipe. It is the one I go back to time and time again, for so many reasons:

The dough comes together super quickly with no additional steps.
Three kinds of sugar gives you amazing texture and chew.
Huge chocolate puddles (which are optional), are my favorite.
Crispy outsides, and a chewy chocolate chip cookie middle
The dough freezes amazingly, so it is great to keep on hand.

To me, these are the perfect chocolate chip cookies. I have also stuffed this post full of tips and tricks for making the best chocolate chip cookies - a lot of these tips can be applied to any chocolate chip cookie recipe, I just wanted a place for them all to live!

If you love this simple chocolate chip cookie recipe, make sure to check out my brown butter chocolate chip cookie recipe! For a quick and easy cookie situation with no scooping and rolling needed, my chocolate chip cookie bars are the perfect thing.

How to make the best chocolate chip cookies
What is the best chocolate to use in chocolate chip cookies?
How to keep cookies fresh
The 'Cookie Scoot' - for perfectly round cookies every time.
Cookie troubleshooting
How to customise your chocolate chip cookies

cookies with chocolate puddles on sheet pan

How to make the best chocolate chip cookies

There are a few steps to make sure these perfect chocolate chip cookies work out as well as possible:

Make sure your butter and sugar are properly creamed.

This chocolate chip cookie recipe yields a slightly thicker cookie, and part of that comes from the beating of the butter and sugars. This aerates the mixture, providing both lift in the recipe and texture.

It is important to ensure that the mixture is light and fluffy before adding in the eggs. Using melted butter in a recipe such as in my M&M cookie recipe and my mini egg cookie recipe, or brown butter like I use in my small batch chocolate chip cookie recipe gives a slightly denser, chewier cookie.

Measure your ingredients properly.

I think we all know now how important baking with a scale is to ensure accuracy - this applies here too.

Portion with a scoop.

Having nice evenly sized cookies means that they are going to bake evenly. I like to use a spring loaded cookie scoop to scoop out my cookie dough, but if you do not have one, you can weigh the balls of dough - each one should weigh about 55g.

Chill the cookie dough.

This is an important step for this recipe - chilling the cookie dough allows the flavours in the cookie batter to develop, the flour to hydrate slightly, and the butter to chill down. Give the cookie dough at least an hour in the fridge, or up to overnight.

How to make gooey chocolate chip cookies - bake until just set.

The level of doneness on a chocolate chip cookie is obviously personal preference. I prefer mine only just baked. Removing the cookies from the oven when they are just done gives you a nice gooey inside and a slightly crispy edge - remember they will set up on the pan a little too.

How to make chewy chocolate chip cookies

The role of sugar in cookies is important - both the amount in terms of the ratio of sugar to other ingredients, and the ratio of brown to white sugar.

When I am testing, I will play around with the quantities of white and brown sugar in a recipe - if i want the cookie to be thicker, a little chewier, and spread less, I will use more brown sugar, whereas if I want slightly crispier edges and more spread, I will increase the ratio of brown to white sugar.

I often get asked if it is possible to reduce the quantity of sugar in a cookie without compromising the texture - the short answer to this is no. Sugar plays an important role in the structure of the cookie, as it contributes to the moisture level while also interacting with the fat to provide lift within the cookie.

If you want to make a cookie appear less sweet, you can make sure that the dough is properly salted, and use darker chocolate in the cookie to offset the sweetness.

This recipe has brown, white, and raw / turbinado sugar in it. The brown and white sugar provide texture, while the turbinado gives a little crunch that I love so much.

Adding an extra yolk to chocolate chip cookies can also help provide chew - I do this in my egg yolk chocolate chip cookie recipe.

What is the best chocolate to use in chocolate chip cookies?

I almost always use chopped chocolate in my chocolate chip cookies. There are a few reasons for this:

Sizing - Cutting up chocolate into chunks gives you a great range of size in your chocolate. This means you get a good distribution throughout
Melty Pockets of chocolate - Chocolate chips often have a stabiliser in them which means they don't melt. This makes them great for things like muffins, but I much prefer using chopped chocolate for cookies because the chocolate melts, and you get pockets of chocolate throughout.
Quality - if you use chopped chocolate, you can use whatever quality you like. It's also a great way to mix up the types of chocolate you use too - I like doing a mix of dark and then sometimes a fun flavour
Chocolate Dust - This is a name I made up, but the dust is what's left from chopping chocolate. It all goes into the bowl and you get tiny chocolate specks all throughout the cookies.
Melty Chocolate Puddles - Chopped chocolate means you can press extra chocolate onto the top of the cookies to get big chocolate puddles!
If you want to use chocolate chips instead of chopped chocolate, by all means go ahead?

How to get big puddles on chocolate chip cookies

I like to use a little trick to get those big puddles on the tops of my chocolate chip cookies. Just before the dough goes in the oven, I take each ball of dough, and flatten it slightly. I then press chunks of chopped chocolate onto the top. You can add some of the chocolate dust from chopping too. Then I squeeze it back into a ball, and place it on the baking sheet.

This means that when the cookie bakes, the chocolate will end up spread across the top of the cookie, and give you those big chocolate puddles on the tops. If you are freezing your cookie dough, do this step before they go into the freezer. You can't squish frozen dough!

How to keep cookies fresh

Store chocolate chip cookies in an airtight container at room temperature. To keep them fresh, you can place a marshmallow or a piece of bread in the container with them to help stop them from going stale.

However, I prefer to only bake of the amount of cookie dough that I need, and freeze the rest for another time.

How to freeze chocolate chip cookie dough

This dough freezes perfectly. Scoop it out, chill for an hour, and then bake off whatever you are wanting to bake off. Transfer the rest to a parchment lined baking sheet, and freeze until solid.

This is a flash freeze and should take 30 minutes to an hour. Then, transfer to a ziploc bag and label with the type of cookie dough you have. You can bake it directly from frozen - decrease the baking temperature to 325°f / 165°c and bake for the same amount of time - you may need to add an additional minute or so.

For all my tips and tricks on freezing cookie dough and baking from frozen, check out my post: how to freeze cookie dough

How long does cookie dough last in the fridge?

You can chill your cookie dough for a minimum of an hour before baking, or up to overnight. If you want to make it in advance, cookie dough can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-5 days, although if I know I will not be needing it for some time, I will freeze my cookie dough and bake from frozen.

If you want a no chill cookie recipe my olive oil chocolate chip cookies are great for this - they are also a dairy free variation of a chocolate chip cookie if you need that!

Side shot perfect chocolate chip cookies

The "Cookie Scoot" is my secret weapon to perfectly round cookies. It's a totally optional step, but one that I really love. All you do is take a round object slightly larger than the cookie.

As soon as the cookies come out of the oven, while they are still hot, put the cutter over the cookie and 'scoot' it into a perfectly round shape. The best. I do it basically every time now.

I use a cookie cutter slightly larger than the cookie. I have a set of all different sizes which is made by ateco - it is super handy to just grab the one that you need!

There are a couple of things that can go wrong with cookies - they will likely still taste delicious, but there are a few common issues?

Why are my cookies flat?

Your baking powder / baking soda is expired so it is not doing the job it is meant to.
You did not chill the cookie dough sufficiently before baking
The ingredients were too warm, so the cooling period was not enough to chill the dough enough for it to not spread.
Your oven is running hot - this is the most common issue. If your oven temperature is off, this will greatly affect the spread of your cookies. Make sure you are baking the recipe according to the oven directions (my recipes are all conventional bake), and make sure your oven is calibrated.
You didn't use a scale - time to get one! Baking in cups isn't accurate, and cookies need accuracy!
You used a silpat / silicone baking sheet - this causes cookies to spread a lot more than parchment paper due to how slippery they are.

Why did my cookies not spread?

This is a much less common issue, the main culprit is usually oven temperature. I bake my cookies straight from balls of dough - no need to flatten!

Your oven temperature is off. If your oven is running cold, it will slow the spread of the cookies.
You didn't use a scale - time to get one!

How to customise your chocolate chip cookies

I love to use this easy chocolate chip cookie recipe as a base, and mix things up when it comes to mix-ins.

Feel free to add in things such as candy, peanut butter cups, nuts, etc. I use this recipe as a base for my peanut butter cup cookies and my popcorn cookies, as well as my peanut butter stuffed chocolate chip cookies. I usually keep the weight of the mix-ins the same if I am swapping in things like candy or nuts, and replace some of the chocolate for whatever I am adding. You could also add things like salted caramel chunks like I did in my salted caramel cookies, or pieces of Nutella, piped out and frozen - I did this for my Nutella Cookies and it is amazing.

If you want to play around with the texture, ratio of sugars etc you are welcome to try, but please know I have not tested these so if you make changes, you are making your own recipe, not following mine. I am happy to help suggest other recipes if this one for my perfect chocolate chip cookies does not suit!

For more chocolate chip cookie recipes, check out:

close up chocolate chip cookies with puddles

❤️ Made this recipe and love it? ❤️

I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!

Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Funfetti Snack Cake

This Funfetti Snack Cake with Raspberry American Buttercream Frosting is the perfect small celebration cake. A fluffy Vanilla Snack Cake is filled with sprinkles and is topped with a Raspberry American Buttercream and Finished with Sprinkles. You can use any sprinkles or frosting you like for this recipe to make it suitable for any occasion!

Funfetti Snack Cake with Raspberry Buttercream

Hi hi! Hope you are well. Just popping in to share this recipe for Funfetti Snack Cake with Raspberry American Buttercream Frosting. This cake is super easy, and with Valentine's just around the corner, I mixed things up a bit and traded my regular rainbow funfetti sprinkles for a pink and red mix. This Funfetti Snack cake comes together quickly, and has a nice soft texture from the yoghurt and butter in the batter. It is filled with rainbow sprinkles, and then I topped it with a super easy one bowl Raspberry American Buttercream, which is a fun twist on traditional American Buttercream! I love this one - I hope you do too! x

side on shot of funfetti snack cake with sprinkles

funfetti snack cake on wire rack with frosting

What is a Snack Cake?

I had never heard of the term "Snack Cake" until I moved to the US, and now I want to use it all the time because it is the best way to describe a cake ever. A Snack Cake is generally a single layer cake, baked in a smaller pan, and finished with a simple powdered sugar, glaze or frosting situation. They are fun and easy to make, and are perfect for if you want cake but don't need a whole layer cake. I love making them because they are the perfect opportunity to swoop fluffy frosting around - of my favourite things.

The great thing about this funfetti snack cake is that it is super versatile. The base is just a vanilla snack cake recipe, which I adapted from Ovenly's book. I have been making their vanilla cake for years - it was the bottom tier of my wedding cake! I scaled the recipe back, and changed the ratio a bit, but the base recipe is all theirs and is so, so good.

You can leave the sprinkles out of this for a regular vanilla snack cake recipe, or you can change up the sprinkles you use to give it a seasonal finish, like I have done here with valentine's coloured sprinkles. Add whatever frosting you like - here I have done a Raspberry American Buttercream Frosting, or leave it naked and finish with some powdered sugar. You do you here, you can't really go wrong. (You can, but you get the idea).

frosted funfetti snack cake with sprinkles

How to make Funfetti Snack Cake

This recipe is super easy - all you have to do is make the cake, leave to cool, and then pop the frosting on and you are good to go. Sprinkles are optional but also not really, if you know what I mean. Here's how to make it:

Combine your wet ingredients. This cake has greek yoghurt and milk, which are combined with the vanilla.
Whisk together your dry ingredients and have them ready to go! Nothing fancy here - flour, baking powder, and some salt.
Cream together your butter and sugar until light and fluffy. You can use a stand mixer if you like. I just used an electric handheld mixer in a bowl to keep things easy.
Add the eggs and mix to combine. You can scrape things down here a little if you need.
Now for the ingredient sandwich - dry and wet ingredients go in. Dry goes in in three additions and the wet goes in in two. So it goes dry-wet-dry-wet-dry. This gives everything a chance to incorporate evenly. If you add all the wet, the mix would be too runny and get weird, if you add all the dry first, you're going to have a too thick batter which will lead to over mixing when you incorporate the dry. Alternating the ingredients reduces the chance of this happening!
Add your sprinkles! Fold in the sprinkles of your choice. You can read about what the best sprinkles are for funfetti cake a bit further down.
Bake! Add the mixture to your prepared pan and bake until done. Leave to cool.
Make your frosting. This comes together quickly in one bowl, then is plopped on top of the cake and swooped on. You can add sprinkles if you like here! I always do.

funfetti snack cake batter with funfetti sprinkles

funfetti snack cake in pan ready to bake

How to make Raspberry American Buttercream Frosting

I am not usually one for American Buttercream Frosting, but there is a time and a place for it - and that time and place is right here. American Buttercream is made with powdered sugar and butter, as opposed to its Swiss, Italian and German cousins which are meringue and pastry cream based. It is super quick and easy to make, and super nostalgic, so was a great choice for this easy Funfetti Snack Cake.

American Buttercream is a crusting buttercream, meaning that it will form a crust when exposed to the air from the powdered sugar in the recipe. It is relatively stable and will set up once it goes on the cake, making it easy to transport and serve.

The trick to making a good American buttercream is to make sure that it is nice and fluffy - a few tablespoons of heavy cream added to the mix before whipping it helps a lot with this. It is also important to balance the flavour. American Buttercream is very sweet, so needs to be balanced. You can do this by making sure there is enough salt in the recipe. You can also add some vanilla to round out the flavour, or add in another flavour like freeze dried raspberry powder.

To make Raspberry American Buttercream, I just added a little freeze dried raspberry powder to the frosting. This is a quick and easy way to add both colour and flavour to the recipe. You can use any freeze dried fruit powder that you like here - I just grabbed mine online.

cut shot of funfetti snack cake with raspberry buttercream

Reverse Creaming vs Traditional Creaming in Cakes

There are a few different methods used when making cakes, specifically butter based cakes like this funfetti snack cake - the reverse cream and the 'traditional' creaming method (please note that I am just calling it the traditional method as a way to differentiate - it is not necessarily called that!)

Reverse Creaming is when the dry ingredients are combined and then room temperature butter is incorporated into the dry ingredients, then the wet ingredients are added. I use this method for my Funfetti Layer Cake and my Vanilla Layer Cake. Reverse creaming means that the butter coats the flour, which prevents gluten formation and gives a denser, tighter, but very tender crumb. It is a great method to use for layer cakes as it also bakes up fairly flat.

Traditional Creaming involves whipping the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy at the start of the cake making process. This whips air into the mixture, giving a lighter, more fluffy crumb. The cake will dome slightly more than a reverse crumb cake. You can trim this if you need, but this particular funfetti snack cake only domes a little so trimming is not required.

Both methods work great for cakes, but have their differences depending on what sort of crumb you are looking for. I originally tested this recipe with the reverse creaming method but discovered it was a little too dense for what I was looking for, so switched to a traditional creaming method instead. There are also oil based snack cakes, which are generally a stir together situation and have a looser batter which produce an even fluffier, softer crumb. Science!

What are the best sprinkles to use for Funfetti Cake?

Not all sprinkles will work for funfetti cakes. You want to go for something that isn't going to bleed too too much in the batter. The waxy rainbow sprinkles, aka Jimmies, work great. The 'confetti' style sprinkles also work well as they don't melt, and often come in fun shapes. Stay away from Non Pareils which will make your batter brown. Also steer clear of Silver Balls and Dragees, which lose their colouring and get hot and melt in your cake.

For this Valentine's themed Funfetti Cake, I used a mix from Sprinkle Pop Shop. It is filled with Jimmies and the confetti style sprinkles, so I knew they wouldn't bleed too badly in the cake. I also added in some heart shaped confetti sprinkles. You can really do your own thing here and make some blends of sprinkles if you like!

Frequently Asked Questions about Funfetti Snack Cake

Can this be made into a sheet cake?
Yes! I haven't tested it but the quantities will work fine - double it and bake in a 9"x13" pan. You may need to increase the time slightly.

Can this be made ahead?
Yes, you can make the cake a day ahead. I like to pop it back into the pan I baked it in and cover tightly with plastic wrap until ready to frost, or you can transfer to an airtight container.

Can I make this with regular Vanilla American Buttercream?
Yes! If you don't want to make the raspberry buttercream you can just follow the recipe as written but leave out the freeze dried raspberry powder. If you want to still make it pink, then you can add a little gel food colouring. You can also do any flavour frosting that you like - chocolate would be great here too!

How do I store Funfetti Snack Cake?
I store the cake in an airtight container. If it is super hot then pop it in the fridge, if not then it is fine at room temperature for a few days.

What can I use instead of greek yoghurt?
You can use sour cream in the place of greek yoghurt - I often use them interchangeably. Make sure you don't use regular yoghurt as it is much runnier and will affect the texture. Greek yoghurt has been strained so is a little thicker.

How do I transport Snack Cake?
The best way to transport cake, I have found, is by putting it back in the pan you baked it in. You can frost it in there if you like. Keeping it in the pan you used means it won't wiggle around too much - you can pop a piece of plastic wrap or foil (or a lid if your pan has one) over the frosting to protect it from any dust.

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I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!

Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Small Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies

Small Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies are super easy to make. Small Batch Cookies are made with brown butter and can be made by hand - no mixer required. This cookie recipe makes 12 homemade chocolate chip cookies, and can easily be doubled. This cookie dough freezes well, so that you can always have a stash of frozen cookie dough to bake as needed!

Hi hi! Just popping in to share this recipe for Small Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies. This recipe makes just 12 cookies, and comes together with just a whisk or an electric hand mixer - no stand mixer required! The dough is great to freeze and have on hand in the freezer for whenever you need a cookie!

I have a lot of homemade chocolate chip cookies on my site, and few brown butter chocolate chip cookie recipes - but wanted to make something that can be made by hand and doesn't make two dozen cookies.

These small batch cookies are great to whip up for a quick dessert, or to just have when you need a few cookies. Back when we used to have friends over, or if we were going somewhere for dinner, I would make cookie dough ahead of time and then pop it in the oven to bake after dinner.

Why this is (one of) my favourite recipes

There are a couple of things that make these cookies so, so good. I think I made them about 8 times while testing - playing around with flour quantities, sugar ratios, leavening, chilling time, and baking time. I finally landed on what I think is the best small batch cookie dough.

Small Batch - This recipe only makes 12 chocolate chip cookies, which is perfect if you are in a small household or have limited freezer space. You can easily double this recipe for a full 24 cookies if you need!
Brown Butter - I love adding brown butter to recipes. It adds a depth of flavour that isn't immediately obvious what it is, but adds a complexity to the cookie.
No Mixer Chocolate Chip Cookies - I made these using just a bowl, a whisk, and a spatula! You can use a handheld electric mixer if you like, but a whisk works just fine.
Easy to freeze - If you don't want to bake all of this small batch cookie dough off at once, you can freeze some of the dough. I'll add tips for that further down the post.

For a perfect freezer stash - make these ahead!

If you want to make this chocolate chip cookie recipe super small batch, and have six cookies now and six later, you can freeze some of the dough. Chill all the dough down. Then, place however many balls of dough you are wanting to freeze on a parchment paper lined sheet pan. Cover lightly with plastic and then freeze until solid (also known as a flash freeze) - 30 minutes to an hour. Transfer the dough to an airtight container or ziploc bag, and store in the freezer for up to 3 months.

I like to label the dough with what it is and baking time - you will need to add 2-3 minutes onto the baking time when baking frozen dough. There is no need to defrost. You can bake it straight from frozen! Sometimes we will bake just two cookies off to have in the evening. I like to drop the temperature when baking to 325°f / 160°c and increase the bake time by a few minutes to account for frozen dough.

For all my best tips on freezing cookie dough and baking from frozen, check out my post: How to freeze cookie dough

pulled back shot of cookies on sheet pan

How to get perfect chocolate puddles

Moisture loss when browning butter - this is important!

Ranting aside, it is particularly important that you use a scale to bake with for small batch recipes, or recipes using brown butter. Small batch recipes rely on the ratio of ingredients being correct and there is much less room for error. And the best way to get this correct is to by using a scale. Different butters will have different moisture levels, which affects the yield of brown butter. American style butter have a higher water content, so will produce less brown butter when the water is cooked off. European or New Zealand style butter, which is higher in fat than American butter, will have less water that needs cooking off, so you will end up with a higher yield of brown butter.

The quantity of the butter in the recipe is important here, so the best way to measure it is by using a scale. You start with an initial quantity of butter - in this case 120g, and then cook it down. You then re-measure the weight of the brown butter, and use 95g of that in your cookie recipe. I have accounted for the moisture loss from the initial quantity of brown butter in the recipe.

close up of scooped small batch chocolate chip cookies

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Small Batch Dairy Free Brownies

Small Batch Dairy Free Brownies are super easy to make. They are made with cocoa powder and oil, so are the perfect chewy brownies, and can easily be made into gluten free brownies. They are made by hand in a bowl, no electric mixer required!

Small Batch Dairy Free Brownies

Hi! Just popping in to share this recipe for Small Batch Dairy Free Brownies with you! These are super easy to make, don't require a mixer, and are super rich and chewy. They can easily be made into gluten free dairy free brownies with just a quick sub of the flour. I have made them a whole bunch this week - they come together super quickly. They are made in a loaf pan, so yield 8 small brownies. I love these, and I hope you do too! There are a bunch more small batch baking recipes coming your way!

brownie in loaf pan ready to go in the oven.

small batch brownie on cooling rack, ready to be sliced

Why these are the best Small Batch Dairy Free Brownies

Small Batch - These are made in a 9"x5" loaf pan, so yield 8 perfect brownie squares!
Dairy Free - These Dairy Free Brownies are oil based rather than butter based and are made with cocoa rather than chocolate, so are super chewy, super rich, and dairy free.
Gluten Free if needed - I tested these brownies with a Gluten Free Cup4Cup flour blend, and we almost couldn't tell the difference between the brownies made with all-purpose flour and the Gluten Free Brownies!
No Mixer required - Because these are small batch, they can just be made in a bowl with a whisk or a handheld electric mixer. I used a whisk but either work!
Perfect Crinkly Top - These brownies have a perfect crinkly top which comes from whipping the sugar together with the egg before adding in the rest of the ingredients. I topped mine with some chopped chocolate, but you can also just leave them plain and finish with some flaky sea salt.
Super Chewy - These Small Batch Brownies are cocoa based, which makes them super chewy and delicious. I love both chewy and fudgy brownies, but these chewy ones are extra good!

Small Batch Dairy Free Brownie Sliced on tray

Small Batch Brownies with Oil

The ingredient list in these Small Batch Dairy Free Brownies is pretty straight forward - using things you probably already have in your cupboard!

Sugar - Brown sugar makes brownies fudgy, while white makes them chewy. I went for a 1:2 ratio of brown to white for these brownies.
Egg - Provides texture and chew. Whipping the egg with the sugar until light and thick also gives that perfect crinkly brownie top!
Dutch Cocoa Powder - I used Double Dutch cocoa powder, which is actually a mixture of Dutch cocoa powder and Black cocoa powder. You can use whatever you have on hand though because there's no leavening in the recipe! Read more about this in the FAQ section.
Flour - I tested these both with all-purpose flour and Gluten Free flour, and both works great, so you can make these Small Batch Brownies gluten free super easily!
Espresso Powder - I added just a little. It really helps bring through the flavour of the chocolate. You can leave it out, or use the super fine instant coffee too.
Salt - I used both Kosher salt in the brownies and finished the brownies with flaky sea salt. It really helps to cut through the chocolate. Always salt your brownies!
Vanilla Extract or Vanilla Bean Paste - Vanilla also helps make these super flavourful. You can use either Vanilla Bean Paste or Vanilla Extract.

How to make Small Batch Brownies

These Small Batch Dairy Free Brownies come together super quickly - in less time than it takes to preheat the oven. There are only a few steps to get these ready to go, which is why I love the recipe!

Whisk together the Egg and Sugar - This step is critical for getting that crinkly top on the brownies and really makes a difference to the final outcome. I used a whisk, but you can just as easily use a handheld electric mixer.
Add the olive oil and Vanilla -Oil and vanilla goes in, and then given a good mix to combine.
Combine the flour, cocoa, salt, and espresso powder -It is important to do this step in a separate bowl just to make sure that you don't have any lumps in the final mixture.
Transfer to the prepared pan - Spread the mixture into the bottom of the prepared loaf pan. It will look super thin and maybe feel like a loaf pan is a weird choice of pan. Don't worry - it puffs up and the baked brownie isn't super thick.
Top with Chocolate - If desired, sprinkle the top of the brownie with some chopped dairy free chocolate. This step is optional!
Bake until done - The brownie needs about 20 minutes in the oven. It will puff up a little, and you will know it is done when the edges are set and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out with a few moist crumbs. 20-22 minutes is about how long you will need.
Slice and Enjoy! Leave the brownie to cool, then remove from the loaf pan using the parchment paper sling. Slice into pieces and enjoy!

close up shot of dairy free brownie with salt

corner shot of small batch brownie with bite taken out

Cocoa Powder vs Chocolate Brownies

Brownies are typically either made with either cocoa powder or melted chocolate, or a mixture of both. Brownies made with melted chocolate tend to be more on the fudgy side, while cocoa brownies are generally chewier. Using cocoa powder in these Small Batch Brownies meant it was super easy to keep them dairy free, and also meant I was able to control the fat content in the brownies, which has a big impact on texture. I used ultra Dutch process cocoa to make these. You can use a Dutch process cocoa, or half black cocoa and dutch cocoa, or also just regular cocoa. You can read more about cocoa in the FAQ section. These brownies are dark, rich, and super chewy.

Stack of small batch dairy free brownies

Can Brownies be made Gluten Free?

Yes! These can be Small Batch, Dairy Free, Gluten Free Brownies! I tested the recipe with both All-purpose flour and a cup4cup Gluten Free Flour (I used Bob's Red Mill) and it worked perfectly. It worked so well we almost couldn't tell the difference between the ones made with Gluten Free Flour and the All-purpose flour. It worked great in this application because the brownies don't rely on the flour for structure - they are perfectly fudgy and chewy.

What is the best loaf pan to use for Small Batch recipes?
I use a 9"x5" (23cmx13cm) loaf pan. These are the 'larger' loaf pans (as opposed to the smaller 1lb capacity pans). I tested this in both a 1-¼ lb pan from USA pan, or also this enamel loaf pan is a similar size and works well. If you have a ⅛ size sheet pan, that would work great too.

What is the best way to line a loaf pan?
I like to spray my loaf pan with some nonstick cooking spray, then fit it with a parchment paper 'sling' which hangs over the edges. I then clip the parchment into place using binder clips so that it doesn't flap around when I'm spreading in the mixture. The parchment sling also makes it super easy to remove the baked brownies when done.

Can I use regular cocoa powder in this recipe?
If you can't find Dutch process cocoa powder or Black cocoa powder, you can use whatever you have on hand. Because this recipe doesn't have any leavening agent, the cocoa powder that you use doesn't make a difference to the final outcome. Dutch cocoa powder has gone through an alkalising process, whereas regular cocoa has not. In recipes with leavening agents, the cocoa powder used matters. Recipes using regular cocoa powder is slightly acidic so can react with baking soda, whereas dutch process is alkaline so needs baking powder to provide leavening. However this recipe doesn't have baking powder or soda, so you can use whatever cocoa you have!

Do I have to use chocolate on the top of the brownies?
You don't - it's totally optional. You can either sprinkle a little chocolate on the top, just before baking, or you can leave these plain. Make sure to check the ingredients list to ensure the chocolate is dairy free if you want to keep these strictly dairy free. I used chopped 72% chocolate.

Can I double the recipe?
Yes! If you wanted to make a larger batch of these, spread the batter into an 8" square pan. You may need to adjust the baking time a little too - start checking after 20 minutes.

Can I leave out the espresso powder?
Yep! There's just a wee bit in there to bring out the flavour of the chocolate. Either leave it out or use the finely ground instant coffee.

What is the best way to cleanly slice the brownies?
I use a super sharp knife. You can warm it under some hot water if you like and then dry it off, but as long as it is sharp you should be fine. I like to give the blade a wipe between cuts to keep it clean.

Can these be made egg free?
Yes! I haven't tested it, but people have had success using Bob's Red Mill Egg replacer in these. If you try another egg substitute I would love if you can leave a comment so I can recommend to others!

close up of sliced small batch dairy free brownies on tray with salt

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Apple Crumble

This Apple Crumble (Apple Crisp) recipe is the perfect cozy apple dessert. Made with sliced apples and an Oat Apple Crumble Topping, it comes together very easily, can be made ahead, and can also easily be scaled to whatever size you need - a small batch apple crumble or one which can feed a crowd.

Apple Crumble - The Perfect Apple Dessert

Hi hi! I hope you are well! I took a little time off over the holidays just to have some time off of baking, but I am excited to be back and sharing recipes with you. There are a whole bunch of new ones coming, but I also plan to give some old recipes on my site some love. When I first started this site I was still learning all about how to best write recipes and structure posts so that they can be as informative as possible, so I am excited to re-share some of my favourites with you with my new website format!

This Apple Crumble (or apple crisp if you are in the US, we call it crumble in NZ) Recipe has been making an appearance in our house for a while now so I decided it was finally time to publish it here! I actually have an apple crumble pie recipe here on the site that is SUPER similar to this recipe, so it made sense to make a separate post with a few wee tips and tricks here for you. Apple crumble is the perfect cozy apple dessert. It comes together super quickly and is great for making ahead, and leftovers are just as good as the freshly made dessert. We love this one so much, and I know you will too! xx

sliced apples in bowl with flour and sugar

How to make the best apple crumble

Apple Crumble is super, super simple, and comes together quickly. There are really only two components - the filling and the topping!

Make the Crumble Topping - To me, this recipe is the best topping for apple crumble. All you need to do is combine the dry ingredients - I like to add in ground almonds / almond flour for some flavour and texture, but have included a sub in the recipe if you don't have that on hand or are in a nut free house. Oats are then added, and then butter is rubbed into the mixture to create a clumpy, crumbly apple crumble topping.
Make the Apple Filling - This is super easy to make - you just combine sliced apples with some sugar, flour, vanilla bean paste and salt, then toss together. I use a mandolin for my apples but you can slice them thinly by hand if you like. They get packed into a pan of your choice.
Add the Apple Crumble Topping - The Apple Crumble topping goes onto the apples. It may seem thick but it will cook down in the oven.
Bake the Apple Crumble - The crumble cooks with foil on top for the first 20 minutes to prevent the topping from browning too much. Then the foil is removed and the crumble finishes cooking until the filling is cooked through and bubbly.

Large Batch or Small Batch Apple Crumble

The best part about this recipe is that it can be easily scaled. You can make a larger one for a group. Or, you can also make it in a loaf pan for a small batch apple crumble. To scale the recipe, you can use the guide below.

For a large Apple Crumble: double the recipe using the scale button in the recipe card, then assemble in a 9"x13" (23cm x 33cm) pan or something similar sized. Leave the foil on for the first 25 minutes then bake a further 40 to 45 minutes until topping is golden and filling is bubbling.
For small batch Apple Crumble: Halve the filling ingredients
- 550g apples
- 40g turbinado sugar
- 15g flour
- ½ teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- Pinch of salt
And then, do a ⅔ quantity of the Crumble Topping
- 65g almond meal
- 65g all-purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon cinnamon
- 30g turbinado sugar
- 65g brown sugar
- 50g old-fashioned oats
- Big pinch of kosher salt
- 80g unsalted butter
Assemble in a 9"x5" loaf pan. Bake for 20 min with foil on, then remove and bake for a further 30 to 35 minutes until the topping is golden brown and the filling is bubbling.

How to reheat Apple Crumble

The best part about apple crumble is how well it reheats! I often make a big one and then we will eat it throughout the week. Apple Crumble also makes a great breakfast. Either you can microwave it, which is our usual method, or you can cover with foil and reheat at 350°f / 180°c in the oven until warmed through. Usually we tend to just warm up individual servings as needed though in the microwave. Apple crumble is also amazing cold!

The best apples to use for Apple Crumble

I like to choose a mixture of apples when I am making an apple dessert. For this apple crumble I grabbed a few Granny Smith apples, then some fuji and honeycrisp. This recipe is also great for using up any fruit that might be slightly tired - you can cut off any really bruised bits.

Can I add other Fruit to this crumble?

Absolutely. The great thing about this apple crumble recipe is that it is super versatile. You can add in a handful of berries, some chopped rhubarb, or some stone fruit. If it's super sloppy you may need to adjust the starch in the filling a little bit but this dessert is VERY FORGIVING so add all the things!

How to prepare Apple Crumble ahead of time

There are a few ways that you can make Apple Crumble ahead of time. If you are making it on the same day as you are planning to serve, I like to just assemble the whole thing, then cover with foil and place into the fridge until I am ready to bake it. You may need to add on 5 or so minutes with the foil on (so increase to 25 min) to account for the cold fruit, but this works perfectly and I have done it loads of times.

To get a head start on making this a day or more before you plan to serve it, you can make the crumble topping and store it in the fridge in an airtight container up to 2-3 days ahead of time. Because the apples will start to oxidise once sliced and go a little brown, I prefer to slice them the day that I am making this.

Frequently Asked Questions for Apple Crumble

Can I leave out the Almond Meal?
Yes, if you need to, you can replace it with more All-purpose flour, or you could use a flour such as rye or spelt to give it some flavour. Just watch how it comes out though - if it seems super dry and isn't holding together when you squeeze it, you can add in a little more butter.

What can I use in the place of the turbinado sugar?
If you don't have turbinado (also called demerara or raw sugar), you can use brown sugar in it's place.

Can you make Apple Crumble without Oats?
Yes! You will need to add a little more flour or almond meal if you are using it - about 40-50g in the place of the oats. I used Old Fashioned oats (rolled oats) here, but you can use the lightly shredded ones too if you like! Again, make sure you check the consistency of your crumble and add a little more butter in if it is seeming too dry without the oats.

Can this be made Gluten Free?
I personally haven't tried it, but I am sure that it would be easy to make a Gluten Free Apple Crumble. You would just need to switch the flour in the filling for either corn or tapioca starch (I have seen a recipe using custard powder too). Remember corn starch and flour are not a direct sub so you will have to search the conversion. You can replace the All-purpose flour in the crumble with a cup4Cup type Gluten Free flour and it should work great! Again, you may need to adjust the butter quantity - the crumble topping should hold together when you squeeze it.

Do I need to peel the apples?
You don't have to peel the apples if you don't want to. I usually do, but if you can't be bothered and don't mind some apple skin in your apple crumble, you can leave the apples unpeeled!

Can I use a different sized pan?
You can use whatever size pan you like. An oval baking dish will work great here too. I used an 8" (20cm) square cake pan.

For more apple recipes, check out:

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Answers to your baking questions

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I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

How to Make Funfetti Sugar Cookies

Described by a lovely Cloudy Kitchen reader as "the perfect sugar cookie", this quick and easy recipe for funfetti vanilla sugar cookies is soft, chewy, and filled with rainbow sprinkles! Recipe makes 24 tasty sprinkle cookies, the dough requires no chill time in the refrigerator, and can be baked right away!

stacked up funfetti sugar cookies on wire rack with sprinkles in background

Hi! I hope you are doing well. Just popping in here to share this Funfetti Cookie Recipe! These soft and chewy sprinkle cookies are super fun to make and don't require any chill time, making them the perfect quick and easy homemade funfetti cookie.

Funfetti sugar cookies have a soft and chewy vanilla cookie base, filled with rainbow sprinkles. I love making sprinkle cookies, or anything birthday cake or funfetti flavoured, such as my funfetti cake, but was yet to put it into cookies. These homemade funfetti cookies are a vanilla version of my chocolate sugar cookies with sprinkles, but with the funfetti sprinkles in the batter rather than rolled on the outside. I also have a recipe for red velvet sugar cookies which are rolled in sprinkles!

Seeing as we didn’t grow up with funfetti, I’m not sure if I’m violating some sort of law by not using jimmies (I didn’t grow up with those either!). I must confess that I have a slight problem when it comes to the internet and sprinkles, in that I seem to purchase excessive amounts of them. I will go to buy one type, and suddenly when I get to the checkout my online cart is mysteriously full. It’s super weird, but it’s certainly not a bad problem to have.

The result of this sprinkle purchasing is that I have two bins of absolute happiness tucked away under my couch. I had been meaning to share a recipe for sprinkle sugarcookies for a while, and somehow ended up shooting two yesterday, so the next one will be coming at you next week!

If you are looking for a classic cut-out sugar cookie, check out my post on how to make sugar cookies. My post on how to make sugar cookie dough also includes instructions on adding sprinkles! For a super soft and chewy bar cookie version of this recipe, see my sugar cookie bar recipe!

angle shot of stacked cookies on a wire rack

How to Make Funfetti Cookies

This Funfetti Cookie Recipe is basically sugar cookies with sprinkles - a wee spin on my favourite classic vanilla cookies. It is super simple, comes together really fast and with no rest time, and the sprinkle version is incredibly cute! I had to tweak a bit to account for the added volume from the sprinkles, but I basically just dumped a whole load of sprinkles into the dough and away we went!

The funfetti cookie dough is soft and lovely to work with and the cookies are soft and chewy, and filled with all the magic that comes from overloading anything with sprinkles.

The process of making these funfetti sugar cookies is super easy - you cream together some butter and sugar, then add an egg and your dry ingredients, then dump in the sprinkles. After that, the dough is portioned out with a cookie scoop, and rolled in sugar. The cookies are then baked until soft and puffy. These Soft and chewy Funfetti Cookies require no rest time and are a great project to make with kids.

balls of funfetti sugar cookie dough ready to bake

What are the best Sprinkles to use for Funfetti Cookies?

I used confetti sprinkles to make my funfetti cookies. I just ordered the big bag and I want to put them in everything. They taste really good too. Alternatively, jimmies would work great too.

From some research I did I saw that you can use imitation vanilla extract in funfetti cookies if you like. Because the sprinkle blend I used already had a strong vanilla taste, I just doubled down and used a little vanilla bean paste in the dough. I think the final taste will depend a lot on the type of sprinkles that you use. If they aren't vanilla flavoured you can increase the quantity of vanilla a little. However, I would avoid using nonpareils because they tend to lose their colour when they get wet (I dropped some then stood on them with wet feet and the soles of my feet still have rainbow spots), so either jimmies or a confetti sprinkle work great.

A note on Jimmies - Because they are not as substantial as the confetti sprinkles that I used, the final cookie comes out a little thinner. If you are using Jimmy Sprinkles, increase the flour quantity to 330g.

If you like, you can use whatever colour sprinkles that you have - use some seasonal ones for Christmas Funfetti Sugar Cookies, or pink and red for Valentine's Funfetti Sugar Cookies!

How to get perfectly round cookies

Here are a few tricks that I use when I am making cookies in order to get perfectly round cookies.

Use a cookie scoop - I use a cookie scoop when portioning dough for cookies. You can weigh the balls if you like, but I find that using a cookie scoop is quick and easy.
Scoot your cookies! Using a cookie cutter slightly larger than the cookie itself, scoot the cookies into a round shape when they are hot from the oven. This helps them to be perfectly round.

funfetti cookies with dish of sprinkles next to it

How to store cookies

Funfetti Cookies are best stored in an airtight container at room temperature. Then, if you want to, you can freeze them once baked in a ziploc bag and defrost at room temperature before eating. Sometimes I like to warm the cookies up in the microwave for 10 to 15 seconds before eating for a bit of a warm cookie situation.

For all my tips and tricks on freezing cookie dough and baking it from frozen, check out my post: How to freeze cookie dough

A few wee tips for Funfetti Cookies:

When I initally tested these I did some this size and some a wee bit bigger. However, if you would like to make them bigger, do 3 tablespoon scoops instead of 2, and give them an extra 2 minutes in the oven.
Another note on sprinkles - it seems as if jimmies in the mixture rather than confetti sprinkles bake up a little thinner because confetti sprinkles are quite substantial, so I think they help keep the cookie a little thicker. Feel free to increase the amount of flour to 330g for a slightly thicker cookie.

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

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Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts

Soft and Fluffy yeasted cinnamon doughnuts. This doughnut dough is quick and easy to make, and fries up into light doughnuts which are tossed in cinnamon sugar. This recipe only makes eight doughnuts so is perfect for a smaller crowd.

Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts

Hi hi! Popping in to share the recipe for these Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts with you today! This is a small batch ish recipe - it makes a couple less than my regular doughnut recipe, and the process is a bit more chill. The doughnuts are super light and fluffy - this is an oil based dough rather than a butter based, so the doughnuts are a bit lighter in flavour, making them the perfect vessel for a delicious spicy cinnamon sugar coating. I love them, and I know that you will too.

How to make Cinnamon Sugar Donuts

These Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts are pretty simple - there aren't too many steps! The dough can be made ahead of time so that it's just hanging out in the fridge ready for you!

Make the dough - Yeast is bloomed in lukewarm milk with a little sugar, then everything else is dumped in. Flour, salt, vanilla bean paste, an egg, and some neutral oli or light olive oil. Then the dough is left to mix until smooth and elastic.
Do the first rise - The dough for these doughnuts is slightly on the wetter side (read: super soft fluffy doughnuts), so it is easier to work with when chilled. I do the first rise in the fridge. It needs a minimum of 2 ½ to 3 hours, but overnight is great too if you like to prepare ahead.
Roll out the dough and cut out the doughnuts - The dough is rolled out on a lightly floured surface, and then the doughnuts are cut out. I don't have a doughnut cutter, but I just use a round cutter and then a slightly smaller one to make doughnut shapes. I went for a 3 ¾" round with a 1" circle cut out of the middle, but you can make these smaller if you like!
Fry the doughnuts - The doughnuts are fried until perfectly golden brown. I love deep frying things and pretending I have my own wee doughnut shop.
Toss in cinnamon sugar - Once the doughnuts are done in the fryer and have had a wee second to drain, they are tossed in a cinnamon sugar mixture. You should probably wait for them to cool but I really can't go past a hot, fresh, cinnamon sugar covered doughnut.

Community Review

“I never made donuts before. I wanted to make them because I recently made honeysuckle jelly from flowers in my yard and thought it would be fantastic inside a donut. I used your recipe and OMG these were the best donuts I ever had. We rolled them in cinnamon sugar and never even got to the jelly. Thank you! Thank you!!! I’ll definitely make them again.”
—Tracy

What is the best oil to use for frying?

For this cinnamon sugar doughnut recipe (and for all my fried doughnut recipes), I use a neutral oil or a light olive oil. It has a high smoke point (410°f-446°f), so is perfect for frying in. It doesn't stink up the house.

I used the oil to fry the doughnuts in, but also within the dough, which provided moisture and fat and kept things light and chill. I do love a brioche doughnut but the lightness and fluffiness of these oil-based doughnuts is just something special. Not to mention the dough comes together super fast - you just dump it all in the mixer and it does its thing, without the need to incorporate the butter!

Because of this, this recipe lends itself better to be made without a mixer, if you want to make it by hand. Just pop everything into a bowl and bring it together, and then turn out onto a surface and knead until smooth and elastic. It may take a little to come together, but try not to add more flour if you can. You may need to use a bench scraper to help you move the dough around while you get it going.

top down shot of doughnuts on a wire rack

Tips for frying yeasted doughnuts

I used to be pretty intimidated by frying doughnuts. However, once I worked out how to do it, it wasn't too bad at all. There are a few key things to take note of that will make your life much easier.

Choose the right sort of vessel. I use a small deep fryer (I have this one and it is great). A cast iron dutch oven works super well too. Cast iron is great to fry in because it retains heat. This means it doesn't fluctuate too much in temperature and helps keep the oil at the right temperature.
Do a tester. I always do one test fry of a doughnut. I usually use the one which has been cut out of the scraps, so is always a bit wonky. Doing a tester helps to make sure that your oil is the right temperature, the doughnuts are correctly proofed, the frying time is correct, and the coating sugar tastes good. Fry one off and then toss it in the sugar and give it a wee taste. Then adjust things as needed.
Use a thermometer. If you don't have a deep fryer, a thermometer is a crucial piece of equipment to have when frying. You want your oil to stay at 350°f / 180°c and so it is important to keep checking. Check it between frying each batch of doughnuts.
Don't overcrowd your fryer. When you add the doughnuts, the temperature of the oil drops. If you add too many at a time, then the oil is going to drop in temperature too much and the doughnuts are going to soak up the oil, giving you soggy doughnuts. And that's not fun. Two at a time works great for me.
Have a timer nearby to use. A timer is great to make sure that your doughnuts are consistently frying. Set it for the time you need, and flip half way through the frying process.
Proof the doughnuts on squares of paper. I cut up pieces of parchment paper and put each doughnut on its own piece. This means you aren't handling the doughnut itself when you lower it into the fryer. Touching the doughnut may leave little finger marks in it, which don't affect the taste, they just change the look. You can put the whole thing, paper included, into the fryer, and the paper will release. Then fish the paper out and throw it away.
Have everything ready to go. Have your setup ready. Your oil hot, then a sheet pan with a rack on it to drain the doughnuts, and then the sugar ready to go to toss the hot doughnuts in. Having it all set up makes the frying process much easier.

top down photo of doughnut in cinnamon sugar

side on close up bite shot cinnamon sugar doughnuts

Troubleshooting fried doughnuts.

If your doughnut is soggy : The oil temperature is likely too low. This means the outside isn't frying fast enough and is soaking up all the oil. Tweak your temperature and make sure it is correct. Make sure if you are using a thermometer it isn't sitting on the bottom of the pot. This will give you a false reading.
The Doughnut is raw in the middle: The oil is too hot. This means the outside cooks before the inside gets a chance to. Turn the oil temperature down.
If your doughnut is dense: It may not have proofed enough. To tell if the doughnuts are proofed, press one lightly with your fingertip. If a small indentation which bounces back a little is left, they are ready. Fry off the wonkiest one first and break it open just to check. The proofing will take anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the weather and the temperature in your kitchen.

Frequently Asked Questions for Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts

Can I bake these?
You can if you want, but they will basically just be a hamburger bun. If you want to make baked doughnuts I suggest searching for a baked doughnut recipe.

How do I store leftover oil?
I re-use frying oil a few times. Just strain it back into the bottle once it has cooled, then store in a cool dark place. Make sure that you label it so you know it's deep frying oil. Only fry similar things in the oil if you are re-using it - save anything like fish or something with a seasoned coating until the last time that you use the oil.

What should I do with the scraps of dough?
Fry them off! When you cut out the doughnuts, keep the holes punched out from the middle, and then cut up any excess dough into pieces. It doesn't matter if they aren't even - you are just going for little bits of dough about the same size as the doughnut holes. Rise them along with the doughnuts (they will take a little less time), then fry them up and toss them in the sugar too. Warm doughnut scraps are just the best.

Do I need a stand mixer for this recipe?
I used one, but you definitely don't need one. You could absolutely mix this by hand, particularly because it doesn't require the butter to be incorporated, thanks to the oil. Just pop everything into a bowl and bring it together, and then turn out onto a surface and knead until smooth and elastic. It may take a little to come together, but try not to add more flour if you can. You may need to use a bench scraper to help you move the dough around while you get it going.

A few wee tips for cinnamon sugar doughnuts

The dough for these is pretty soft, so I like to do the first rise in the fridge. It needs a minimum of 3 hours in the fridge, but overnight works great too. Just don't leave it more than 24 hours as the yeast loses its rising power.
This doughnut recipe is a super solid base recipe - so you can finish them off any way that you want. You could add a glaze, or icing and sprinkles, or mix up the sugar that you toss them in. Mix and match within the batch.
My cinnamon sugar is pretty strong - dial it back a little if you don't want them super spicy. If you make it and find it is too spicy for you when you do a tester, just add more sugar.
The oil takes about 15 to 20 minutes to heat up. Make sure that you allocate time for this while the doughnuts are proofing. Sometimes I will heat it up to temp then let it cool slightly near the start of the rising process. This means that it isn't totally cold when I get close to needing it in case I forget, then I can just warm it up the rest of the way as needed. You don't want to have to wait for your oil to heat up when your doughnuts are ready, and risk them over proofing. Starting heating it about 20 minutes in to the second rise works great for me.

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Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust

This Pumpkin Cheesecake has a smooth and creamy pumpkin filling and a buttery gingersnap crust, and is topped with piped whipped cream. This Cheesecake can easily be made ahead of time, and makes the most perfect dessert.

Pumpkin Cheesecake with a Gingersnap Crust

Hi hi! Just popping in to share this recipe from my friend Kelsey's book - Pumpkin Cheesecake with a Gingersnap crust! I am not usually one for baked cheesecake, but Kelsey's version is smooth and creamy, and the pumpkin filling is super light and delicious. I topped this one with blobs of whipped cream, but Kelsey finished it with lightly torched Swiss Meringue in her book, which looks amazing!

side on shot of baked pumpkin cheesecake

The Farmer's Daughter Bakes by Kelsey Siemens

The recipe for this Pumpkin Cheesecake comes from my long time internet friend Kelsey's new, beautiful book, 'The Farmer's Daughter Bakes'. Kelsey grew up on and still works on her family orchard in BC in Canada, and writes a blog sharing beautiful seasonal recipes. I was SO EXCITED when she said she was writing a book - her photos are all so beautiful and she shares the most amazing in depth behind the scenes look at orchard life. Every year her and her family have a pumpkin growing contest, and it's just the best thing ever.

Kelsey's book is broken up into seasons, with recipes reflecting what is in season at that time - Falling for the Harvest, Spring Fever etc. Each section is filled with so many beautiful recipes inspired by the farm. It is all so beautiful and I can't wait to bake my way through it - there's basically a whole section on rhubarb, which might just be my favourite thing of all time.

I knew when I saw this cheesecake though that it had to happen - despite living in the States for 6 years I have never baked with Gingersnaps, or made a pumpkin cheesecake, so it was time to change that! Congrats Kelsey, the book is so, so beautiful - I hope you are so proud! xx

Steps for making Pumpkin Cheesecake

This recipe is super easy to make - there are only a couple of steps. The hardest part is waiting for it to chill down before you can eat it!

Make the crust - The crust is made of ground gingersnaps, which are pressed into the bottom and sides of a springform. The crust is then baked and left to cool.
Make the filling - This pumpkin cheesecake is cream cheese based, so cream cheese is mixed with sugar, then pumpkin puree, flour, and spices go in. Eggs are then added one at a time, and you are good to go.
Bake the cheesecake - The pumpkin cheesecake filling is added to the cooled crust, and baked at a low temperature until set.
Cool the cheesecake - To prevent cracking, the cheesecake needs to be chilled gradually, so it hangs out in the oven with the door cracked for a while. It then cools to room temperature, then chills down in the fridge to set the filling to make it a sliceable texture.
Top and serve - Kelsey does a torched Swiss Meringue in her book, but I just went for a simple whipped cream topping. Either is great!

Top down shot of slice of pumpkin cheesecake

side shot of piece of pumpkin cheesecake

How to make Pumpkin Cheesecake ahead of time

This Pumpkin Cheesecake needs a fair bit of time to cool down after it has baked, so this is perfect to make ahead. Kelsey says in her book that you can make it up to a few days ahead. Store the baked cheesecake in an airtight container in the fridge. Keep it naked though - don't add the toppings until you are ready to serve.

side shot of cheesecake with gingersnap crust

Frequently Asked Questions for Pumpkin Cheesecake

What if I don't have pumpkin puree?
I had a whole bunch of canned pumpkin in my cupboard so I used some of that, but if you don't have any on hand you can easily make your own. Kelsey has a recipe for it in her book!

What can I use instead of Gingersnap Cookies?
Graham crackers would work, or digestive biscuits if you're in NZ, otherwise any sort of vanilla cookie should work great. You may have to adjust the butter quantity - you want to aim for a wet sand consistency.

How do I add a meringue topping?
Kelsey has a version in her book, otherwise you can follow the steps in this recipe too. I would make 1.5 times the meringue in that recipe. Hold off adding it until just before serving.

top down shot of pumpkin cheesecake with whipped cream

A few wee tips for Pumpkin Cheesecake

Low and slow is your friend when making pumpkin cheesecake. This recipe bakes for an hour, and then cools in the oven. It then finishes cooling at room temperature before going into the fridge. The slow cooling process and low baking temperature is what prevents the cracks on the top from forming.
You want to make sure you don't have any big air bubbles in the cheesecake batter. To fix this, run a spatula through the batter a bunch of times (see recipe). Then, bang the mixing bowl on the counter a few times too to get rid of an big bubbles. Bubbles will rise to the top when baking and make the top surface bumpy.
When you pull this out of the oven, and leave to cool at room temp, the filling may feel a little soft to the touch. Don't worry about that - it will firm up into the most perfect creamy pumpkin cheesecake filling in the fridge!
Make sure you allow enough time for this to properly chill down. It needs 20 minutes in the oven then an hour or so at room temperature. Then it needs at least a few hours in the fridge to fully chill before you cut into it. This would be great to make ahead.
Make sure your cream cheese is VERY room temperature. If not, you may end up with little lumps in your cheesecake batter. Take it out the night before if you can.

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Garlic Butter Dinner Rolls

The softest, squishiest garlic butter dinner rolls are the perfect accompaniment to any meal. These are easy and fun to make, and the recipe can easily be scaled. They are baked until golden brown then finished with a garlic butter when they are hot from the oven.

The best Dinner Roll Recipe
Steps for making the best Dinner Rolls
Ingredients in Garlic Butter Dinner Rolls
How to scale this recipe for other uses.
How to store Garlic Butter Dinner Rolls
FAQ for Garlic Butter Dinner Rolls
A few wee tips for Garlic Butter Dinner Rolls
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The best Dinner Roll Recipe

Hi hi! I am so excited to share the recipe for these Garlic Butter Dinner Rolls with you! I've tested this a whole bunch of times to get it just right for you, and am so stoked to finally share! This recipe is such a winner - super super soft dinner rolls, finished with a salty garlic butter glaze. I made them a whole lot of different ways when testing, so I've also listed some optional sizing and baking pan variations for you too!

This recipe is also perfect for burger buns - I will write a separate post up for them later, but for now, enjoy these! I am so excited for them!

Steps for making the best Dinner Rolls

These are pretty hands off - you dump all the ingredients in then leave it to mix. However there are a few steps along the way that I discovered which make the process super easy, and you get the best rolls!

Activate your yeast - I use active dry yeast in the recipe, and it needs to be bloomed in lukewarm liquid. To get my liquid 'lukewarm' I mix boiling water with the milk and it works great, or you can mix them both together and then warm up either in a pan or the microwave. The milk and water, yeast, and sugar hang out until the yeast is foamy.
Add the remaining ingredients - Unlike my brioche recipes where I mix up everything except for the butter first, with this recipe you just dump everything in and then leave it to knead in the mixer!
Mix the dough - This takes a wee bit. Because the rolls are so nice and soft and fluffy, the mixture is pretty wet, and it takes a bit for the gluten to develop and come together. Don't worry though. We are baking by weight, so you know you've added the right amount of each ingredient. Scales for the win, as per usual.
Shape and do the first rise - Once the dough has finished mixing, you pull it out of the mixer and shape into a ball. You may need a tiny bit of flour here if it's sticking a wee bit. Shape it into a ball, resist the urge to play with it because it's SO SOFT, and then cover with plastic and leave to do its first rise, which takes about two hours!
Pre-shape - I did a TON of reading when I was developing these, along with watching a bunch of videos and one technique that is new to me for rolls in particular is giving them a pre-shape. You divide the dough into the number of rolls you're going to make (in this case it is 12), then shape each into a ball and leave to hang out under some plastic wrap for 10 minutes or so, then shape them again into a ball. This helps develop even more tension in the dough and gives you beautiful perky round rolls!
Second shape and second rise - The dough balls get another wee roll and then are arranged in the pan, covered lightly and left to do their second rise. This takes about an hour, and you can preheat the oven while this is happening. The rolls should puff up and double in size, and when poked gently with your fingertip, will spring back and leave a tiny dent.
Bake the rolls - The rolls get brushed with egg wash and then are baked until golden brown. This takes 15-18 minutes, but you can check the internal temperature too if you need! For enriched dough you want to shoot for 190°f / 90°c. Internal temperature is a great way to check doneness if you're new to baking with yeast!
Finish with garlic butter - If you're serving these right away, prepare the garlic butter while the rolls are baking. Butter and minced garlic get combined and simmered for just a wee bit on the stove to take the edge off the garlic and infuse the butter, then the warm garlic butter gets brushed over the rolls when they are hot out of the oven.

Ingredients in Garlic Butter Dinner Rolls

The ingredient list for these dinner rolls is a bit more lengthy than some other roll recipes, but I think that everything has its place and they all contribute to the most amazing roll recipe!

Flour - We have All-Purpose and Bread Flour in these. The Bread Flour gives the dough strength which it needs to make a super round, soft and fluffy dinner roll.
Yeast - I use active dry yeast, but you should be able to use Instant just fine if that's all you have - I need to test it but I don't see it being an issue. You can skip the activation step.
Milk and Water - Milk helps with softness and browning.
Milk Powder - Milk Powder gives a super soft, smooth, tender dough. I used whole milk powder, non-fat should work fine too.
Butter - Provides softness and richness in the dough.
Egg - Helps with dough strength and richness. This recipe only has one egg, just to help keep it together! There is another egg used as an egg wash too, to help the buns bake up to be beautifully golden brown.
Salt - Essential for flavour in all bread recipes!

How to scale this recipe for other uses.

I tested this recipe both as a double and a single, but ultimately wanted to make a recipe that was super solid and can easily be doubled. For some reason in baking it is always easier to double a recipe than halve it and be certain that it worked, so I wanted to make sure that I had a super solid single batch recipe that you could double, and it works great. Use the scale button in the recipe card to double the ingredients.

I also tested out a bunch of different sized rolls. The recipe makes about 600g dough. You can divide this however you like depending on the roll size that you want. This recipe also makes really good burger buns, which I will cover in a new post very soon. You can use it to make 12 good sized dinner rolls as I have here in this post, but you could also:

Divide the dough into 9 and arrange in a 9" square pan for 9 larger dinner rolls
Divide into 6 and shape into buns to make 6 large burger buns. Or, divide into 8 to make 8 slightly smaller ones. You can either use rings for these or arrange them stand alone on your pan. I'll break my whole process down in a post soon!
Double the recipe and use it to make 24 dinner rolls. If you do this, I would suggest arranging them on a half sheet pan. You could also divide the dough into 18 and make 18 slightly larger rolls. I would also use a half sheet pan for this. This would be great if you were feeding a few more people. The rolls are VERY easy to eat, particularly straight out of the oven, and make great leftovers, so if you've got a larger family to feed then I would suggest doubling

How to store Garlic Butter Dinner Rolls

The rolls store super well in an airtight container at room temperature and will stay soft for a few days. You can re-warm briefly in the microwave before eating them. If you're planning on having leftovers, don't add salt or the garlic butter to the tops until just before serving. It will go soggy while storing them.

Even if you are making these a little ahead of time (for example you make them in the morning for the evening meal), hold off on adding the garlic butter until just before serving. You can refresh them in the oven for 5 minutes or so just to warm them up. This will make sure they are nice and fresh when you brush the butter over them. Alternatively you could make a compound butter to serve them with. Something with garlic and herbs would be so good, and can be prepared ahead of time.

These would freeze well. Don't add the garlic butter, and once the rolls are cooled, pop them into a ziploc bag and freeze. Bring to room temperature and refresh in the oven or microwave before serving.

FAQ for Garlic Butter Dinner Rolls

Can this recipe be doubled?
Yes, super easily. Just double everything (there is a button to do this in my recipe card). The rise time will be the same. See the notes above for scaling the recipe for possible roll configurations.
Can these be made sweet?
They can - just increase the sugar to 2 Tbsp. Rich eats these with Nutella or Peanut Butter all the time - you could also glaze them hot cross bun style when they come out of the oven to give them a shiny sweet finish. Obviously leave off of the garlic butter!
Can I make these ahead of time?
Yes! The dough takes a fair amount of time to do the first rise even at room temperature due to the higher quantity of liquid and butter and egg, so you could easily do the first rise overnight in the fridge and then assemble the next day. You can make the dough up to 24 hours ahead of when you need it. Any longer and I find that the yeast generally won't be as active. The rolls themselves store well but are best on the day they are made, so if you are planning ahead, I would aim to bake them on the day that you serve them.
Can I make these without a stand mixer?
Not these ones I don't think. The dough needs a LONG time in the mixer in order to develop enough strength, and it is really sticky. You could probably make these by hand if you really, really had to, but you're going to be there for a very long time kneading. If you want a recipe that can be made without a mixer, my small batch dinner rolls are perfect for this!
Help! My dough doesn't look like it is coming together!
It's a sticky dough, just a heads up! It needs about 15 to 20 minutes in the mixer, but it will come together!
Can Dinner Rolls be frozen?
I haven't tried it but I think that it would be fine to freeze the baked rolls in an airtight container. I would thaw on the counter and then refresh in the oven briefly to help soften them up.
Do I have to make the garlic butter?
Absolutely not - you do you here! You could sprinkle them with flaky sea salt after you brush with the egg wash, or you could sprinkle with some everything bagel seasoning, or sesame seeds.
How long do these need to rise for?
The first rise has been taking about 2 hours for me, and then the second takes about an hour. Because it is cold at the moment I am using a little countertop oven on the proof setting to rise my bread in. You can also generate this environment by microwaving a bowl of water for about 30 seconds, then removing and using the warm microwave to rise your bread, or you can do it in the oven with the light on. The most important thing is to watch your dough, not the timing. Rise time may vary a lot depending on what temperature your kitchen is.
Do I have to use Bread Flour?
Yep, it's super important. Bread Flour (or High Grade Flour if you are in NZ, or Strong flour if you're in the UK), is higher in protein than all-purpose flour, so is super important for developing a strong dough, especially when it's a soft one like these rolls. I tested a bunch of different ratios of bread to all-purpose flour when I was making these, and the bread flour makes a huge difference. Dough made with only AP doesn't come together as well and isn't as elastic.
Can I leave out the milk powder?
The role of the milk powder in these rolls is to help keep the dough super soft. I haven't tried it without it, so I am not sure about this sorry! I would get some if you can as it gives bread the most amazing soft texture.
What kind of pan should I use?
I prefer something metal - 12 rolls fit perfectly into a 9"x13" (23x33cm) pan. You can either use something with sides, or a quarter sheet pan works great too. I tested both and either are perfect. You can see all the products I use often here.

A few wee tips for Garlic Butter Dinner Rolls

The dough will take a while to come together. Mine takes about 15 to 20 minutes in the mixer. If you're worried, set a timer and walk away. When it is ready it will be somewhat balling around the hook and pulling away from the sides, and the dough will be super smooth and elastic. You can do the windowpane test on it, where you stretch out the dough. It should stretch out enough that you can see light through it.
Don't add more flour when you're mixing. The dough is sticky. And it takes a while to come together in the mixer, and even when it's done, it won't ball up around the hook as much as some other recipes do. It will be a bit tacky, and super smooth and elastic when it is ready to rise. This is the benefit of baking in grams - I know exactly how much flour you are adding in, so can be confident in telling you that your mix will come together just fine!
You can add a tiny dusting of flour onto your work surface when shaping the dough into a ball to rise, and then a bit more when shaping. Use only just enough to help it not stick, not too much more. The dough is super nice to work with!
To get your milk and water mixture lukewarm, just mix the milk with the 40g boiling water and it should give you a lukewarm situation! If it feels like it needs a little more warmth to get it lukewarm, just zap a little of the liquid in the microwave to warm it up a touch and add it back in.You want it to feel about body temperature when you stick your finger in. Too hot and it will kill the yeast so just be careful!

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Hundreds and Thousands Biscuits

These Hundreds and Thousands Biscuits are a take on a New Zealand childhood classic. Buttery shortbread is topped with a pink royal icing and finished with rainbow nonpareil sprinkles.

Hundreds and Thousands Biscuits

Hi hi! Just popping in to share this recipe for Hundreds and Thousands Biscuits. These are my favourite New Zealand childhood biscuit (what we call cookies in New Zealand), and we still make sure to get a few packets when we go home now, because they are just so, so good!

Hundreds and Thousands biscuits are named after the sprinkles on the top, which is the name that we use for Nonpareils - I guess because there's hundreds and thousands of them? They are a basic vanilla biscuit, topped with icing and then finished with sprinkles. They may be basic but they are so, so good - we have holiday cookie 'sampler' boxes that you get from the supermarket around the holidays and the hundreds and thousands biscuits were always the first ones to go!

corner shot of hundreds and thousands cookies on sheet pan

How to make Hundreds and Thousands Biscuits

I combined two of my favourite things to make this recipe - my Great Grandma's famous shortbread recipe, and Hundreds and Thousands Biscuits. The cookie has a vanilla shortbread base, then a royal icing top that sets up hard, and is topped with sprinkles. These are super easy to make, and only have a few steps:

Make the Shortbread Dough - This dough is super easy to make. You cream together butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt. You then dump in the flour and mix to combine, and that's it! It gets wrapped up and hangs out in the fridge for a bit to hang out.
Roll out the cookies - Grandma's shortbread was a slice and bake but I turned these into a roll-out situation because they are easier to cut neatly. You roll the dough out between two pieces of parchment paper (easiest and cleanest way to do it), then freeze it down which makes cutting out the cookies super neat and easy.
Bake the Shortbread - Shortbread gets baked at a lower temperature, and we aren't looking to brown it up much, just to bake it until it's set and super tender and buttery.
Make the Icing - I use royal icing to finish these off. I made this one with egg whites, but you can use meringue powder if you don't want to do raw egg whites.
Add the Sprinkles - They aren't hundreds and thousands biscuits without them! I wait a few minutes before adding the sprinkles so that they don't sink.

Frequently Asked Questions for Hundreds and Thousands Biscuits

Can these be made ahead?
Yep! You can store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for a few days. Once you add the icing and the sprinkles, the sprinkles will start to bleed, so just keep that in mind. You can also freeze the cut-out cookies before baking.

What do I do with extra royal icing?
There is a bit more icing than you need in the recipe. This is because you need enough to be able to comfortably dip the cookies into the icing without them snapping and to get a good coating. It can be stored in the fridge in an airtight container with some plastic wrap on the surface, to be used in another project.

What are the best sprinkles to use?
I just use regular nonpareils for these. I use the colour combination you can get just at the grocery store, but you could mix it up with lots of different colours

A few wee tips for Hundreds and Thousands Biscuits

Leave a few minutes between dipping the cookies in the icing and adding the sprinkles. If you add them too soon, then the sprinkles will sink, which isn't the end of the world. I just prefer them a little raised up. I dip about 5 or 6, then wait, then add the sprinkles. Once you get started there isn't too much down time because you can be waiting for others to dry while dipping more.
This shortbread works well for cut-out cookies too. I made it quite thin to mimic the hundreds and thousands biscuits. If you wanted to make more detailed cut-outs, you could roll it a bit thicker.

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Birthday Cake Blondies

These soft and chewy Birthday Cake Blondies are filled with sprinkles and white chocolate chips. These Blondies are super easy to make and come together quickly, and are stuffed full of nostalgia.

Birthday Cake Blondies

Hi! Just popping in here to share this new recipe with you from my friend's book - Birthday Cake Blondies! These blondies are buttery, soft, and chewy, and are filled with rainbow sprinkles and white chocolate chips. They come together super quickly so are perfect if you need to throw something together to have in a pinch, or they are the best quick baking project if you are in need of something sweet.

What are Blondies?

I'm not going to lie - I hadn't heard of blondies until I moved to the States, and even then I wasn't super familiar with them for a while! This is the first blondie recipe on the site but it certainly won't be the last, as I am totally hooked on how good they are. Blondies are basically the sister to brownies, but instead of being flavoured with chocolate and cocoa like brownies, they are vanilla flavoured! They still have all the good stuff brownies have - white and brown sugar, some oil, melted butter, egg, etc, but just minus the cocoa and melted chocolate. Mike amped it up one more step by adding in sprinkles and white chocolate for a nostalgic Birthday Cake situation.

Even Better Brownies by Mike Johnson

This recipe for Birthday Cake Blondies comes from one of my best baking buddies, Mike! Mike runs the amazing blog MikebakesNYC, and is a super close friend of mine - we spend most work days texting back and forth with ideas and recipes, bouncing things off each other and cheering each other on. It's the best sort of friend to have and I am so grateful for our friendship, and just SO proud of his new book, Even Better Brownies!

Mike's book is full of Brownie and Bar recipes, and is a must-own. He covers basically everything you can think of - there's cookie bars and blondies, a small batch brownie recipe, ice cream sandwich recipes, cheesecake, you name it. It's going to be a go-to book for me whenever I need brownie or bar recipe inspiration, and because it's Mike, each recipe is accompanied by the most beautiful photos. He also wrote it in a super short time period while working a FULL TIME JOB as a lawyer on the side. Just casually. The guy is amazing. Congrats Mike! I am so, so proud!

Ingredients in Birthday Cake Blondies

Blondies are essentially brownies but without the chocolate - so the ingredient list is super similar!

Brown and White Sugar - Brown sugar gives fudginess to brownies, while white sugar provides chew. Both essential for blondies!
Melted Butter - Butter provides flavour and lift in these brownies, and helps the vanilla flavour to shine through.
Eggs - The blondies have that beautiful, crackly shiny top that you often see on brownies - this comes from beating the eggs together with the sugar until they are lightened in colour and have thickened. This aeration when baked up gives a paper thin finish to the blondie which is just so good!
Flour - Flour and baking powder give texture
Sprinkles and White Chocolate Chips - It wouldn't be birthday cake blondies without sprinkles! I used rainbow jimmies. Mike also popped some white chocolate chips in there for a super nostalgic vibe.
Vanilla - Mike calls for Imitation vanilla in this recipe, but I don't have any, so I subbed in some regular vanilla extract instead. Clear imitation vanilla will give you that real box mix birthday cake flavour if you're into that.

How to Scale a Recipe

Recipes that are made by weight can be easily doubled - the tricky part is working out what sized pan to use. The way that I work it out is like this - you work out the surface area of the pan that you are baking in (In this case 8"x8"=64 square inches), so for example a 9"x13" pan would have an area of 117 square inches, which is almost double 64, so if you doubled this recipe, baking it in a 9"x13" pan would work well. You would have to adjust the baking time slightly, but for pan conversion, this formula works well.

Frequently Asked Questions for Birthday Cake Blondies

What sort of sprinkles should I use for these blondies?
Use Jimmies! The long, thin, waxy sprinkles. Don't use Non-pareils as they will bleed into the batter. Jimmies hold their shape when baking. Confetti sprinkles would work well too!

Do I need an electric mixer for these?
You don't! You should be fine with just a whisk. Just make sure that you mix the eggs and sugar together well until thick and lightened in colour.

Can these be made ahead of time?
These are great made ahead of time! Once they are cool, pop them into an airtight container.

A few wee tips for Birthday Cake Blondies

Watch carefully when baking these - the line between underbaked and overbaked is quite thin. Check them after 30 minutes and give them an extra 2-3 if you think that they need it. You are looking for them to be golden brown and set on the top and edges.
Mike mentions putting half the chocolate chips on the top of the blondies before baking, but I folded them in instead and just added a few sprinkles on the top so that the chocolate didn't get too brown.
Mike calls for clear imitation vanilla in this recipe to get that real birthday cake vibe. I'm going to admit I'm not super into that, but if you are, then use the imitation stuff! I just used regular vanilla extract!

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How to make Caramel Popcorn at home

Caramel popcorn is much easier to make than you think! Homemade caramel popcorn is made by coating freshly popped popcorn with a honey caramel mixture, then baking in the oven until set. This post is the ultimate guide on how to make the best caramel popcorn at home.

Hi hi! Just popping in to share this recipe for homemade Caramel Popcorn! As a popcorn connoisseur, I've eaten more than my fair share of caramel corn in my life, and this has to be some of the best I've made.

Homemade Caramel popcorn is crunchy and sweet, and so much easier to make than you think - you make a simple caramel and pour it over freshly popped popcorn, then bake the whole thing in the oven on low temperature to make sure that the popcorn is evenly coated.

I love making popcorn at home. This easy caramel popcorn recipe would go super well paired with my homemade kettle corn recipe too.

Caramel for Caramel Popcorn

The caramel component of this homemade caramel popcorn is super easy. A lot of recipes use corn syrup but I am not easily able to find that in New Zealand, so I make my caramel popcorn without corn syrup and use honey, which acts as an invert sugar in the recipe. You could also use an equal quantity of golden syrup. The caramel sauce recipe is super simple and just uses butter, brown sugar, honey, salt, vanilla extract, and baking soda.

It is important to bring the caramel up to the correct temperature when you are cooking it. This ensures that the caramel gets hot enough that it will set hard on the popcorn.

I use a candy thermometer to bring it to 250°f / 121°c. I haven't made it without a thermometer unfortunately so I am not sure on the cooking time without one sorry!

Pulled back shot of tahini caramel corn on sheet pan.

Secrets for the Best Caramel Popcorn

I have a couple of wee tricks I came across while I was testing and researching the recipe for this Homemade Caramel Popcorn. While the recipe itself is a super simple concept, there are a few things which really make a big difference to how the caramel corn comes out.

Low and Slow Baking: This helps to slowly melt down the caramel without burning it, so that as you stir, the popcorn gets evenly coated in caramel.
Add in some non-caramel popcorn pieces: This is my secret trick for the BEST caramel popcorn. To me, it tastes best when you have a variation of caramel coating on the pieces - so some more heavily coated than others. To do this, I hold back a couple of handfuls of the popcorn, and add them throughout the process. One handful goes in just after the caramel is added, and the other goes in just after it comes out of the oven.
Stir often: Once the popcorn is baking, you want to stir it often to get a nice even coating.
Separate when cooling: This step is a quick one but helps to keep the popcorn from clumping. Once it is cool enough to handle, separate out the pieces and leave them to cool individually. They harden quite quickly but it is more enjoyable to eat when you have individual pieces of caramel corn.

Tips for Easy Caramel Corn

To make popcorn for caramel corn, you can use your favorite method. I use a silicon popcorn maker which can go in the microwave. I have owned this for a few years and it works great.

Popcorn made on the stovetop works too - to do this I like to test the oil with a few kernels first. When they pop, you are good to add the rest of your popcorn and get it popping.

Popcorn is great to be made ahead of time - just make sure that you store it in an airtight container or ziploc bag to help it stay fresh.

What is the best popcorn to use for caramel corn?

A few years ago I started making popcorn a few times a week for an afternoon snack, and found myself one afternoon on the internet down a deep popcorn kernel rabbit hole. There's a whole load of different types of popcorn which all give varying results of the popped corn. My favourite to use for Caramel Corn is Mushroom Popcorn Kernels, which give the big puffy popcorn pieces. You can use whatever you have on hand - i've given a weight measurement for the kernels for this reason. Feel free to pop a little extra just to make sure that you have enough so you can add some more in if you need!

Caramel popcorn flavour variations

There are a few ways you can spice up your homemade caramel corn! I love it plain, but here are a few ideas:

Tahini Caramel Corn: After you stir in the baking soda, add in 50g of tahini to the mixture. It will make the caramel look a little strange, but proceed with the recipe as directed.
Peanut Caramel Popcorn: During the last 10 minutes of baking the caramel corn, add a big handful of roasted peanuts, or another nut of your choice - pecans or cashews would be great. Mix around to make sure that it gets nice and coated in the caramel. If your nuts are not toasted, add them at the beginning of the baking process, so they toast along with the popcorn.

A few tips for homemade Caramel Corn

It's going to feel like the caramel isn't going to coat the kernels properly. Don't freak out - as you stir them in the oven, they get a really nice coating.
I like to spread the caramel caramel corn out to dry over two sheet pans. This means the pieces of popcorn dry individually, and don't stick to each other when it comes to storing.
I clipped my parchment paper down with binder clips to my sheet pan, so that when I was stirring the popcorn, it didn't go anywhere.
Things move fast once you are making the caramel, so make sure that you have your popcorn ready to go on the sheet pan. It may help to have a second set of hands to help quickly stir if you can. Don't worry too much about coating every piece - as it bakes in the oven the caramel melts down and coats the popcorn.

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Answers to your baking questions

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30 Minute Ginger Molasses Cookies

My recipe for large ginger molasses cookies produces cookies that are soft, and perfectly chewy with just the right amount of spice. Ready in 30 minutes — there's no need to chill the cookie dough. Win! I have included options to stuff these with either cream cheese filling or salted caramel if you are after a delicious variation too!

close up of ginger molasses cookies on rack

Hi hi! I am just popping in to share this super easy recipe for my Ginger Molasses cookies! These are a soft and chewy cookie which ticks all the boxes for me - while it makes for an amazing holiday cookie, I love it all year round too.

This ginger molasses cookie has no chill time, so you can have them ready to go in about 30 minutes.

I have played around with stuffing them with homemade caramel and also a super easy cream cheese filling. There are notes on this further down the post.

This is a super soft and chewy ginger molasses cookie - if you are after more of a thin and crispy situation with the same flavour profile, check out my easy gingersnaps recipe, or my roll-out gingerbread cookies for a recipe which is great for decorating with icing.

These cookies are soft, chewy, and super easy to make. There is no chill time when making them, so you can have them ready to go in no time at all.

All it takes is a few simple steps - creaming together the butter and sugars, adding in the egg, then incorporating the dry ingredients and mixing to combine. The soft dough is then scooped and rolled into balls, then rolled in a spiced sugar mixture.

The cookies then have a quick wee spin in the oven until they are super puffy and perfect, and left to cool just for a bit, leaving you with spicy, super delicious, chewy ginger molasses cookies.

wet ingredients for ginger molasses cookies

A few wee tips for Ginger Molasses Cookies

These are massive. If you want them a little smaller, a 2 tablespoon ball of dough would work perfectly too - just bake them for 9-11 minutes instead of the longer time.
To me these are a delicious amount of ginger, but if you really want a super spicy cookie then feel free to increase it (I love that really strong ginger taste too).
If you don't have cardamom on hand, you can add a little more cinnamon.
If you like your cookies a bit crunchy, up the baking time a minute or two
If you like your cookies really soft, you can increase the flour quantity to 340g for a cookie that is a little puffier.
These won’t look done when they come out of the oven / will look all puffed up, but they settle on the tray!
If you're in Nz (or the UK) and can't get molasses, treacle will work great.

Can Ginger Molasses cookies be made ahead of time?

Yes - the dough for these cookies can be made ahead and frozen. I prefer to leave them uncoated. Place the rolled cookie dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet and freeze until solid then transfer to an airtight container and store in the freezer.

When you are ready to bake, remove from the oven and leave to stand for 5-10 minutes before rolling in the ginger sugar and baking. I like to bake my cookies from frozen at a slightly lower oven temperature - 165°c / 330°f is good.

For all my tips and tricks see my post: How to freeze cookie dough and bake from frozen

Stuffed ginger molasses cookies

I played around with stuffing these cookies with both a cream cheese filling and a homemade salted caramel and it worked perfectly. This is a super fun way to add a delicious twist to this cookie recipe - often I double the recipe and stuff some and then leave some plain.

To stuff with cream cheese:

Make cookie dough as directed.
To make the cream cheese filling, beat together 225g room temperature cream cheese and 50g powdered sugar until well combined.
Scoop out the cookies as directed.
Working with one piece of dough at a time, flatten a ball of dough with your hands. scoop 1 tablespoon of the cream cheese filling onto the dough and then carefully enclose the filling with the cookie dough.
Flatten the cookie slightly so that it bakes down evenly (if you leave it as a ball the cream cheese will cause a hump when it bakes).
Repeat with the remainder of the cookies.
Roll the cookies generously in the ginger sugar and arrange on a baking pan - I do 6 per pan.
Bake as directed for 13-14 minutes, until set around the edges. Remove from the oven and scoot into a round shape using a slightly larger cookie cutter than the cookie.

This also works amazingly with my easy chocolate cookie recipe.

To make caramel stuffed cookies:

I borrowed this technique from my caramel stuffed chocolate cookies but the concept is exactly the same and the same as stuffing them with cream cheese. I use my homemade caramel recipe.

Make a batch of caramel candies as directed. I haven't tested this with storebought caramels but I assume it would work the same.
Cut the caramel into 4cm squares.
Make the cookie dough as directed.
Working with one piece of dough at a time, flatten, then place a square of caramel onto the dough. Carefully enclose the caramel in the dough, then gently flatten the dough ball slightly.
Bake as directed.

For more detailed instructions on this method please refer to my post: Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Cookies

cream cheese filling on cookie dough — Place cream cheese onto dough

enclose cream cheese filling in cookie dough — Carefully enclose around cream cheese

caramel on cookie dough — Same deal - caramel on dough

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Super Fluffy Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

These Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls are the perfect project. They come together super easily, are impossibly soft and fluffy, and are finished with a smooth cream cheese frosting.

Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

Hi! Just popping in to share the recipe for these Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls with you. These Cinnamon Rolls, like most sourdough recipes, do take a few days to come together. However the process is incredibly hands off, and the end product is WELL worth the wait. They are some of the softest cinnamon rolls I have ever had, and they are so satisfying to make!

Baked To Order by Ruth Tam

The recipe for these Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls comes from my friend Ruth's new book, 'Baked to Order'. Ruth and I have been internet friends for years now, and I was SO excited when she told me she was writing a book! Ruth's recipe writing is super meticulous and always so well explained, so I knew the recipes in this book would be nothing short of incredible.

Ruth is my go-to authority when it comes to sourdough baking. I tested out her everyday loaf from her book from her earlier this year, and have made it more than 20 times since. Her recipes are super easy to follow and written in a way that explains the process so, so well. There are plenty of sourdough recipes in the book I can't wait to try, but there are also some other amazing looking baking recipes in there too. The book is a must-own, in my opinion. Congrats, Ruth!

Baking with a Sourdough Starter

This recipe uses a stiff sourdough starter, which I hadn't worked with before. Lots of sourdough recipes use a starter at 100% hydration. The hydration of a dough or starter is calculated by the ratio of liquid to flour and is always calculated relative to the flour weight - so for example, for a starter to be at 100% hydration, it is fed with equal parts flour and water, for 85% hydration it means that the weight of the water is 85% the weight of the flour (so 85g water to 100g flour).

I maintain a starter at 100% hydration, and then just build the levain that the recipe asks for using some of that starter. Ruth does the same - the one she feeds every day is a 100% hydration, then uses it to build the levain for whatever recipe she is making.

This dough starts with a Stiff starter rather than a liquid one - you mix 100% hydration starter that is at it's peak with some bread flour and milk, to form a stiff dough, then leave it to rise until it has doubled and domed. I used a small glass jar for this and marked the level when I fed it so I could monitor the progress.

The stiff starter was super easy to make, and incorporated into the dough so nicely. It was super fun watching it puff up and be ready to use.

If you don't have a starter already, Ruth has a great guide on her site for starting your own, and a super adorable series in her Instagram highlights where her kids show you how to start a new one!

Steps for making Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

There are a few steps in this recipe. Sourdough recipes take a bit more planning than traditional bread recipes - you have to plan out your timing a wee bit to make sure your starter is at peak at the right time. However this one is pretty flexible - the dough can hang out in the fridge for 8-24 hours, so you can assemble whenever suits you best.

Feed your starter. I keep mine at 100%. It needs to be at peak when you build the levain so plan ahead.
Build the levain. This is a stiff starter, so you mix together some starter, bread flour, and milk into a stiff dough and leave it for 8-12 hours (I left mine overnight)
Autolyse the dough. This step lets the mix hydrate and the gluten starts to form.
Add salt and start to mix. Salt is left out of the dough for the autolyse because it inhibits the starter a little, so it is added a bit later to allow the starter a wee bit of a head start. The dough is mixed until it starts to come together.
Add the butter. The butter goes in a wee bit at a time, and is mixed until combined.
Mix the dough. This takes a bit! I let mine go for 15 to 20 minutes, and it goes through phases where it looks like it won't ever come together, but it will! Have trust.
Room temperature bulk - the dough is bulked at room temp, then transferred to the fridge for 8-24 hours. Note that it will only expand a little during this time, so don't worry if it doesn't look like anything is happening. Most of the rising happens when the rolls are assembled.
Assemble the cinnamon buns - roll out the dough, add the filling, and roll up into a log, then cut into buns.
Rise the buns - The cinnamon buns rise for about 8 hours at room temperature. During this time they will puff up loads. I proofed them in a little countertop oven on the proof setting, but a warm spot anywhere in your house will work great.
Bake the buns - The buns bake at 400°f / 200°c for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Finish with cream cheese frosting - you can either add a wee bit just after they come out and then the rest once cooled, or add it once the rolls are cooled.
Enjoy!

Sample Baking Timeline for Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

Here's a sample timeline for baking these. Remember that the temperature of your house will also affect rising time. If it's cold, look for a slightly warm spot to do the rise in, or increase your rise time by a wee bit.

Day 1: Feed liquid starter, late morning to ensure it peaks that evening.
Day 1: Build levain in evening, leave to sit 8-12 hours, overnight
Day 2: Make dough early in the morning, leave to bulk at room temperature for 2 hours, then transfer to the fridge for 8 hours.
Day 2: Just before bed, assemble cinnamon rolls and leave to proof at room temperature overnight.
Day 3: Early morning, bake off cinnamon rolls and enjoy!

You can change this schedule to fit whatever you are working with - when I shot these I made the dough and then gave it overnight in the fridge, then assembled the buns SUPER early the next morning and left them to rise throughout the day, then baked them off early afternoon.

Frequently Asked Questions for Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

I don't have a sourdough starter! What should I do?
You can make your own, or you can buy them online! Often you can go to a bakery and ask if they will give you some of theirs. If you have any friends who bake sourdough you can ask them for some too - you only need a tiny bit to start off, and you can then feed it for a bit until it is healthy and ready to go. You can't adapt this recipe to not use a starter, so make sure you have one ready to go before starting.

Help! My dough isn't coming together!
The dough for these is super soft, and SO lovely to work with. However, it does take a while to come together in the mixer. Don't freak out if it looks super sloppy. If you've made the recipe by weight, you'll be fine. It will come together, just give it some more time. Mine took about 15 minutes in the stand mixer to come together into a smooth ball.

Can I make this by hand?
I don't think so. Not this one - it needs a really long mixing time to bring the dough together, which a stand mixer does the best job at.

A few wee tips for making sourdough cinnamon rolls

Remember to account for the time needed in this recipe. You need to feed the stiff levain, then bulk the dough at room temp and in the fridge, then assemble and wait again for another rise before baking these off. Check out my sample baking timeline for an idea of how I did it.
Make sure your starter is at peak for when you build the levain. I fed mine about lunch time and then built the levain in the evening before bed.
These are super soft and fluffy, and store well at room temp. If you are planning on storing them, keep the frosting separate. Zap the rolls quickly in the microwave, and then add the frosting!
If you are baking these off in the morning, see if your oven has a delay timer start! I often set my oven to preheat while I am still sleeping, so in this case I would set it to start preheating at 5.30 so when I got up at 6.30 it was all ready to pop my cinnamon buns in to bake off.

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

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Hot Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

These Hot Chocolate Sandwich Cookies are inspired by a mug of hot chocolate - soft and chewy chocolate sugar cookies are sandwiched with a homemade marshmallow filling. These are the perfect cozy holiday treat!

Hot Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Hi hi! Just popping in here to share this recipe for Hot Chocolate Cookies with you! A super fun project to do with the Holiday Season approaching, these Hot Chocolate Sandwich Cookies are super easy to make. The cookies don't need any chilling time before baking, so you can throw together the mixture in just a few minutes.

These are often my go-to if I need to make something in a hurry that I know everyone will love! I stepped it up a wee bit and added a layer of homemade marshmallow between the cookies, for a Hot Chocolate inspired sandwich cookie. If you haven't made marshmallow before, it can look intimidating, but I promise it is super easy and fun to make, and once you have it nailed, the flavour options are endless!

Side shot of mound of marshmallow on cookies

Steps for making Hot Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

These cookies are super easy to make! Here's the steps involved:

Mix up the Sugar Cookie Dough - This dough comes together super quickly. Butter and sugar are creamed together, an egg and a yolk are added, and then dry ingredients go in. So, so easy. The whole process takes about 5 minutes.
Scoop out the dough - I use a cookie scoop for this which makes the process quick and helps make sure the cookies are all the same size. The cookie dough is scooped, then rolled into a ball and rolled in some granulated sugar.
Bake the Cookies - The cookies are baked until they have flattened out and puffed up slightly. They will come out of the oven looking puffy but don't worry - they deflate as they cool. You can use a cookie cutter a little larger than the cookie to scoot any sneaky ones back into a perfect circle if needed.
Make the Marshmallow - Marshmallow has a few steps but is easy to make. Gelatin is bloomed with some cold water, then a hot sugar syrup is whipped into it. Your mixer does most of the work!
Fill the Cookies - The marshmallow gets put into a piping bag, and piped onto one of the cookies. It is then topped with a second cookie to make the perfect sandwich! If you don’t have a piping bag you can use a big resealable bag with the end snipped off, but make sure that you add a rubber band around the top so the seal doesn’t pop open while you’re piping!

A few wee tips for Hot Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

I have used a little instant coffee in these (you can also use espresso powder). It is only a little amount but coffee really helps bring out the chocolate flavour. You can leave it out if you like or if you don't have any instant coffee on hand! Make sure it's the fine instant coffee and not the freeze dried version.
Get everything ready for the marshmallows - have everything set up because once you make it, you will want to work fairly quickly before it sets.
I like to use a disposable piping bag for the marshmallow as it gets super sticky! You can also use a resealable bag with the end snipped off - it will need to be a large one to hold the marshmallow.
Put a clip at the end of your bag to make sure that the marshmallow doesn't fall out the end. You could use a rubber band too - just use something because I've been there and it is very, very sticky.
I use a cookie scoop to portion my dough. It is especially helpful if you are making cookie sandwiches and need the cookies to all be the same size. I have a 2 tablespoon cookie scoop that I use all the time - they are a great investment!
Unless your oven is super fancy and can take having two trays of cookies in it at once, I prefer to do these one tray at a time. I do 8 per tray, and just scoop and roll the next batch once the ones in the oven are getting close to being done.

Frequently Asked Questions about Hot Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Can I add other things to these?
You sure can! If you wanted to make a spiced version, you could add ½ to 1 teaspoon of cinnamon to the cookie itself, and a little into the rolling sugar too for a cinnamon hot chocolate. You could also add flavour to the marshmallow if you liked - a little peppermint extract would be so good!

Can these be made ahead?
The sugar cookies are soft and chewy, so don't last as long as other more crunchy cookies do, so you are best to assemble these on the day that you serve them. You can make the actual cookie part a day ahead and store in an airtight container. You will need to use the marshmallow as soon as it is made.

What do I do with extra Marshmallow?
You may have a wee bit left over once you have finished assembling the cookies. You can pipe the leftover into a lightly greased baking pan, and then dust with equal parts powdered sugar and corn starch. Leave it to set, then turn out onto a board and cut up with a sharp knife - you've got your very own home-made marshmallows! They keep in an airtight container super well for your hot chocolates this holiday season.

Stack of hot chocolate sugar cookies, with bite taken out of the top one.

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Answers to your baking questions

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Small Batch Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies

These Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies are dairy free and small batch. They come together quickly in one bowl, and are filled with puddles of chocolate. These cookies don't require a stand mixer, are super adaptable, and you can add in any mix-ins that you like. They are crispy around the edges and chewy in the middle, and will quickly become your new favourite cookie!

Olive oil chocolate chip cookies on sheet pan

Hi hi! Just popping in to share this Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe with you! I have been wanting to develop a dairy free chocolate chip cookie for a really long time. I finally got around to it, and I am so excited to share it with you, as I think it's going to be a game changer. I LOVE my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I just can't pass up a version that is small batch and requires no chill time. I love these dairy free chocolate chip cookies and I think that you will too. If you are looking for more lower yield recipes, my small batch chocolate chip cookies are amazing!

A wee note - I was testing these and made them a whole bunch of times, so I had lots in my house when I was shooting. So the actual recipe makes 8 large cookies, I just utilised some of the extras for the photos. There's notes in the FAQ for making these a wee bit smaller!

Why these are the best Small Batch olive oil chocolate chip cookies

Small batch - this is a small batch chocolate chip cookie recipe, so only makes 8 cookies. They are perfect to make for a small group or to just have on hand when you don't want a full 24 batch of cookies.
Dairy free - these Small Batch olive oil chocolate chip cookies are dairy free! I used milk chocolate in them when I was making them, but the actual base of them is dairy free, so if you need to keep them strictly dairy free, use a dark chocolate. They are dairy free but you do NOT miss the butter in them, trust me!
One bowl - you only need one bowl for these, which makes cleanup so easy!
NO mixer required - unlike a lot of my cookie recipes, these don't require a stand mixer. I do use an electric hand mixer which I think helps, but you could whisk super well with a bowl and a whisk and you'd be just fine, which makes these easy to ma

Dairy free Chocolate Chip cookies thanks to Olive Oil

These are dairy free chocolate chip cookies, thanks to our good friend Extra Virgin Olive Oil! The olive oil gives the cookies a really nice subtle flavour, and compliments the toasty sugar and dark chocolate perfectly. Instead of creaming together butter and sugar like you would with a butter based cookie, the oil, sugars, and egg are whipped together until slightly fluffy which helps with the cookie's texture. The mixture will look a bit oily as you're scooping, and will feel a little sticky, but it's meant to be like that. The finished cookies are slightly shiny on top, have crispy edges, and are perfectly chew in the middle.

What makes these Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies super flavourful

Three types of sugar - I used muscovado, white sugar, AND turbindao (raw sugar if you're in NZ, sugar in the raw if you're in the States - the brown crystals that go in coffee). The muscovado provides thickness in the cookie, and toastyness from the molasses. Granulated sugar gives spread and helps with the crispy edges, and the wee bit of turbinado sugar provides a really lovely crunch.
Espresso powder - Coffee helps bring out the chocolate flavour, so I snuck a teaspoon of espresso powder in here along with the dry ingredients. It's subtle but makes a difference! See FAQs for alternatives.
Salt - I use both Kosher salt in the dough, and finish with flaky sea salt. Salt in baking helps to cut through the sweetness and compliments chocolate really well. Leave the flaky sea salt off if you like but don't skip it in the dough.
Chocolate - I used chopped milk and dark chocolate for this. Keep it all dark if you're staying dairy free, or mix it up if you like!

Shot of dairy free chocolate olive oil cookies on a sheet pan

Why baking temperature is important in cookies

When I am testing cookies, I always bake a few from each batch at different temperatures to see how they behave. Baking at a hotter temperature will set up the cookie a bit more and give you a slightly thicker finished cookie. A lower temperature will mean that it spreads just a little more and is a bit more chewy. I love playing around with the temperature while i'm testing and see the results!

For this specific cookie, I tested at both 325°f and 350°f, and found that I preferred the texture of the 325°f cookie.

With that being said, this really highlights how much of an impact the temperature can have on your baking, so make sure that you invest in an oven thermometer to check if your oven is at temperature. Sometimes the thermostat will be off and so the temperature will be incorrect, which can really affect baking times and textures for your baking. It's important to go by visual cues as much as baking time when you're baking things!

Tips for getting nice even Chocolate chip cookies

There are a few wee tricks to getting nice round even cookies!

Get a cookie scoop - This helps to make your cookie dough balls all the same size! I have a couple of different sizes and they are so helpful.
Weigh your dough balls - If you don't have a scoop, you can use your scale! Pop some plastic wrap on it so the dough doesn't stick and weigh out portions of dough. Mine were 75g for these cookies.
Scoot your cookies - Once the cookies come hot out of the oven, use a cookie cutter slightly larger than the cookie itself to scoot them back into a round shape.

How to get puddles on the top of chocolate chip cookies

I use this tip every time I make chocolate chip cookies for big, melty puddles on the top of my cookies. I always chop up a little extra chocolate when I am making cookies, and keep it to the side. Then once I have portioned out the dough, I roll the dough into a ball, and flatten it slightly, and then press some of the additional chocolate onto the top of the piece of dough. I then squish it back into a ball shape, so you have some chocolate on the top of the ball and kind of enclosed within it too. This means that when the cookies bake into round cookies, you'll have nice chocolate puddles on the top.

I like pressing a mixture of chocolate shards and chunks onto the top of the cookies. If you have any bare spots when they come out of the oven, you can pop some extra chocolate chunks onto the tops of the cookies when they are super hot, and they will melt down!

angle shot of Small batch olive oil chocolate chip cookies

Chopped Chocolate vs Chocolate Chips for cookies

Even though I call these chocolate chip cookies, I almost always use a bar of chopped chocolate when I make cookies. I usually have a couple of different sorts on hand, and so I will often just throw a bunch into a bowl on my scale until I have the correct weight of chocolate, then chop it all up and throw it into the cookies. Here's why I prefer chopping my own chocolate for cookies

Chocolate Shards - When you chop your own chocolate, you get a wide variation of sized pieces of chocolate. You get some big and small chunks, but you also get a whole lot of shards and chocolate dust on your board. The chocolate shards distribute through the cookie, which gives it so much flavour!
Super Melty Chocolate Puddles - Chocolate chips often have stabilisers in them which keep them from melting in your baking. This is great for if you need them to hold their shape in something like muffins or a cake. However I love how chopped chocolate gives you pockets of melted chocolate throughout the cookie.

corner shot of Olive Oil chocolate chip cookies with chocolate puddles

A few wee tips for Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies

These Small Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies will be a bit on the oily side and the dough is sticky. Don't worry - it's meant to be like that.
If you wanted to add something like spelt flour, that would be so good here! I would replace about 50g of the AP flour with spelt if you wanted.
When you are rolling if you find your hands are getting messy, you can wet them with a little bit of water to help the dough not stick as much.

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

No-Bake Snickers & Chocolate Cheesecake Recipe

This is smooth and creamy no-bake chocolate cheesecake is filled with
chopped snickers bars and has a buttery graham cracker base. It’s so easy to
make. No cracking, no water bath—no fuss!

Chocolate Snickers Cheesecake topped with Snickers bar and Chopped Peanuts

Hi! Just popping in to share the recipe for this No-Bake Snickers Cheesecake! This easy chocolate cheesecake is quick to make and can be made ahead. There's a graham cracker crust, topped with a thick layer of creamy chocolate no-bake cheesecake, stuffed with chopped Snickers bars. You really can't go wrong with homemade no-bake cheesecake. I have a few easy, homemade cheesecake recipes on my site - this delicious No-bake chocolate cheesecake recipe or this No-bake Passionfruit Cheesecake are both also so good!

No Bake Snickers Cheesecake components
How do you make a graham cracker crust?
Best no bake cheesecake filling
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best cream cheese to use for cheesecake?

top down shot of chocolate cheesecake with chopped candy bars

chocolate cheesecake out of pan and ready to serve with knife

No Bake Snickers Cheesecake components

This no-bake snickers Cheesecake is super easy to make - there's only two components, then a few bits and bobs for finishing it off!

Graham Cracker Base - Super simple, our old mate Graham. Graham cracker crumbs are mixed with a wee bit of sugar and a pinch of salt, then melted butter is added. You want it to look like wet sand.
No-Bake chocolate cheesecake - This is a slight riff on this recipe of mine. I lightened it up a bit, and then folded through some chopped up Snickers bars. It's smooth and creamy, and perfectly chocolatey. Just so, so good.
Cheesecake Toppings - add whatever you like here. I chopped up some more snickers bars and added some roasted salted peanuts. I also added some flaky sea salt. If I had some salted caramel sauce in my fridge that would have been amazing drizzled on too to drive home the caramel component of snickers.

Top down shot of snickers cheesecake top with snickers and peanuts

How do you make a graham cracker crust?

Graham cracker crusts are super easy to make, and can be used in a bunch of different ways.

Make your graham cracker crumbs. I prefer to make graham cracker crumbs in a food processor, but if you do not have one, put the graham crackers into a bag and hit with a rolling pin until you get crumbs. I like to sieve the mix to take out any large bits.
Add butter. It is important to make sure that your graham cracker crust is the right consistency.
Mix to combine. Once your crumb crust is combined, press it into the pan then leave to chill in the fridge while you make your no bake cheesecake filling.

Different brands of graham crackers have different levels of absorbency, so some will take more or less butter. It needs to be the consistency of wet sand. Mix the butter in then check your consistency, then adjust if needed.

slices of chocolate cheesecake with snickers topping

Best no bake cheesecake filling

There are two ways to make a no-bake cheesecake (that I have used anyway) - either setting it with gelatine, or setting it with chocolate. I use gelatine in my no-bake cheesecake bars, but the chocolate works great here. It gives it more of a whipped finish than the gelatine set. I love both, so it's nice to be able to have some variation, or have a gelatine free option if you're making this for someone who is vegetarian!

The other nice thing about no-bake cheesecakes aside from the fact that they are super easy to make, is that they don't crack! Baked cheesecake can crack due to the eggs in the recipe or from overmixing, and you have to muck around with a water bath. There's none of that here. No-bake cheesecakes are the best.

What kind of pan is best for cheesecake?

When making a cheesecake it is important to use a pan where it will be easy to remove once done. A lot of cheesecakes are made in a spring form pan, so you can just pop the whole thing out, but I prefer to use a square pan double lined with parchment paper, extending over the sides to form a sling. This means when the no bake cheesecake has fully set, you can pull it out using the parchment paper as handles. I made this no bake snickers cheesecake in a 9" square pan - if you want to scale the recipe you can use my scaling calculator.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good substitute for Graham Crackers?
If you can't find graham crackers, you can use digestives, or wine biscuits (if you're in NZ), or a mix of both! I would do some digestives and maybe some malt biscuits for a malty base. You may need to adjust the butter quantity a little to account for different biscuits.

Can Cheesecake be made ahead of time?
Yes, this No-Bake Snickers Cheesecake is perfect for making ahead, in fact it needs a few hours at least in the fridge so I usually do overnight just to be safe. Just keep the pan wrapped in the fridge until you are ready to serve, or you can slice ahead of time too if you need to.

What is heavy whipping cream?
Heavy cream, or heavy whipping cream, is the cream you use to make whipped cream with. In NZ it is just the regular cream you get at the supermarket.

What is the best cream cheese to use for cheesecake?

It is important that you use full fat cream cheese when making cheesecake, as it relies on it for structure. I prefer cream cheese that comes in the blocks. Cream cheese in the UK often has a little more moisture than US cream cheese, so if you are in the UK maybe reduce down the second measure of cream just to make sure your cheesecake batter isn't too loose.

Tips and tricks for snickers cheesecake

There are two measures of cream in the recipe. The first gets whipped, and the second measure goes in as liquid to help loosen up the mixture.
I topped this with roasted salted peanuts and more snickers, and some flaky sea salt. If you have some salted caramel on hand that wouldn't be a bad idea either.
When you cut this, try and dodge the toppings. They can catch and drag down, giving a messy cut. I moved them out of the way when I made the cut then popped them back afterward when I was cutting this to shoot.
The topping for this is a bit lighter than a traditional cheesecake. Make sure it is completely set before slicing.

Top Down shot of chocolate cheesecake with peanuts and snickers

For more no bake cheesecake recipes, check out:

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Soft-Baked Apple Cinnamon Rolls

These Apple Cinnamon Rolls are super gooey and delicious. They are filled with a cinnamon brown sugar filling, a cooked apple pie filling, and toasted pecans. They are then finished off with a smooth cream cheese frosting. The components for these Cinnamon Rolls can be made ahead of time, meaning the rolls just need to be assembled in the morning for the perfect Holiday breakfast!

Apple Cinnamon Rolls

Hi hi! I am so excited to share this apple cinnamon roll recipe with you! These homemade Cinnamon Rolls are super easy to make, and the components can be prepared ahead of time, so that come the morning, all you have to do is assemble them and pop them in the oven.

Components of Apple Cinnamon Rolls

Brioche Dough - This is my go-to brioche dough. It comes together really easily and is super versatile. I like to make mine ahead of time and give it a cold rise in the fridge. The cold rise not only makes the dough really easy to work with, but the cold temperature of the fridge slows down the rise of the yeast, which means that the dough can work on your schedule. This makes these Cinnamon Rolls the perfect breakfast!
Brown Sugar Cinnamon Filling - This cinnamon filling has the usual suspects - brown sugar, softened butter, and cinnamon. They are all mixed together to form a paste, which is spread over the rolled-out dough to form the base of the filling.
Cooked Apple Pie Filling - This apple pie filling is super easy to make - diced apples are cooked with a little sugar and butter, then corn starch is added to help thicken up the filling. The whole lot then goes into the fridge, ready for assembly.
Toasted Pecans - These are optional - leave them out if you don't like nuts or if you have an allergy in the house but I love the crunch that they give. I always toast my nuts in the oven just for 10 minutes. You can do these in a big batch and keep them in an airtight container in the pantry or freezer so you always have toasted nuts on hand!
Cream Cheese Frosting - This is a super simple cream cheese frosting - butter and cream cheese get whipped together, powdered sugar and a wee bit of salt get added and whipped until thick. Finally a little heavy cream is added to help make the icing smooth and spreadable. The cream cheese frosting goes on while the Cinnamon Rolls are still a little warm, so it melts down and adds to the gooeyness.

The Perfect Make Ahead Holiday Breakfast

I developed this Apple Cinnamon Roll recipe with breakfast in mind, so you can prepare all the components the night before, making assembly the next morning super easy.

Here's all the steps you can do the day before:

Make the brioche dough and pop in the fridge for an overnight rise.
Make the apple filling and store in an airtight container in the fridge.
Toast the Pecans and store in an airtight container at room temperature.
Measure out your brown sugar, cinnamon and salt for the filling and store in an airtight container at room temperature.
Bring out your butter and cream cheese the night before so that it is at room temperature for assembling the filling and the frosting.

Steps to finish off the Apple Cinnamon Rolls the next day for breakfast:

Mix together your brown sugar and cinnamon and the softened butter to make your filling.
Roll out the brioche dough, spread with the filling, then top with the apple filling and toasted pecans.
Roll up and cut into rolls, then give a quick second rise.
Bake the Cinnamon Rolls off and prepare the cream cheese frosting while they are in the oven.
Finish them with the cream cheese frosting for the perfect breakfast!

A few wee tips for Apple Cinnamon Rolls

These are pretty gooey cinnamon rolls, so make sure that the pan you use will help keep them contained. I used a quarter sheet pan and it was only just enough to hold them in - a 9"x13" baking pan would work great.
If you find that the log of dough is getting hard to work with once you have rolled it up, chop it in half, and put both halves onto a baking sheet lined with parchment. Cover with plastic wrap and either chill for about 20 minutes or pop it into the freezer for 10 minutes. This firms up the filling and the dough and makes it a little easier to cut. Then cut each piece of dough into 6 rolls and proceed as usual! You may need to give it 10 minutes or so extra on the second rise to account for the time chilling.

Frequently Asked Questions for Apple Cinnamon Rolls

Can I make these in the same day?
You sure can! I like to give the brioche a cold rise still, so a minimum of 2 hours in the fridge works great. This makes the dough super easy to work with and gives you flexibility in your timing too. Make the apple filling while the dough is mixing so that it has enough time to chill down before assembly, and make sure to pull your butter and cream cheese out in time for them to come to room temperature for assembly and frosting.

Do I have to use Nuts?
Nope! If you don't want to you can just leave them out.

How do I know when the Cinnamon Rolls are baked?
It can be a little tricky to tell when enriched bread is baked, especially when it has a filling. I like to double check the doneness by taking the internal temperature of the bread using an instant read thermometer - 190°f / 90°c is a good number to shoot for. Make sure you're poking the thermometer into the bread and not the filling.

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I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!

Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls have Pumpkin both in the dough and the filling. Soft pumpkin brioche is rolled up with a pumpkin brown sugar filling. The rolls are baked and then finished with a coffee maple cream cheese icing.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Why these are the BEST Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Why should I reduce down my pumpkin puree?
What to use instead of Canned Pumpkin Puree
Steps for Making Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
How to get Neat Cuts in Cinnamon Rolls
Frequently Asked Questions
Frosting Variations for Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
For more Pumpkin Recipes, Check Out:
Made this recipe and love it?
A note on salt and oven temperature
Why is this recipe in grams?

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Hi hi! I hope you are all well - I am just popping in to share the recipe for these Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with you! I have a whole bunch of Cinnamon Roll recipes tucked up my sleeve in the lead up to the holidays, starting with these bad boys!

These are what would happen if Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Cinnamon Rolls had a baby. I added some reduced pumpkin puree (more on that in a second) to the dough, and also to the filling. Then I finished them off with a maple coffee cream cheese icing. These Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls are SO soft, and SO good. They are a fun variation on a regular cinnamon roll, and I hope that you give them a try!

pulled back shot of pumpkin cinnamon rolls

Why these are the BEST Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

I tested these a bunch of times, and did a whole lot of research on other recipes online. Initially I only added pumpkin to the dough, but quickly realised that the taste gets drowned out a bit by the eggs and butter in the recipe. So I added it to the filling too - game changer.

Soft Pumpkin Brioche - I reduced down some pumpkin puree, and added it into the dough. Adding pumpkin puree to the dough makes it super soft, and amazing to work with. The dough is lightly spiced with cinnamon and cardamom.
Brown Sugar Pumpkin Filling - I added pumpkin to my regular brown sugar filling for Cinnamon Rolls, along with some cinnamon and cardamom. You could use pumpkin pie spice here too if you wanted to.

Why should I reduce down my pumpkin puree?

Reducing down the pumpkin puree takes out some of the moisture. It also concentrates the flavour. This step only takes a couple of minutes, but makes a big difference. It means you can add more pumpkin puree into whatever you are making, which intensifies the pumpkin flavour.

I reduced down one can total for this recipe, and then split it up to use in both the dough and the filling. This can be done ahead of time and the reduced puree stored in the fridge until you are ready for it.

All you need to do is to put your pumpkin into a small pot, and place over medium heat. Then you cook it, stirring constantly, until it has reduced in consistency and dried out a little, 3-4 minutes. Then you pop it into a bowl or container and leave to cool until you are ready to use it!

cut up cinnamon rolls with maple coffee frosting

What to use instead of Canned Pumpkin Puree

You can make your own! Preheat the oven to 400°f / 200°c. Cut a pumpkin in half, remove the seeds, and place cut side down on a lined baking sheet, and roast until totally tender. This should take anywhere between 45 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes. Scoop out the flesh and process in a blender or with a stick blender. You may not need to reduce it down depending on how wet it is if you make your own.

Steps for Making Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

You can break the workload up if you like, but here are the steps for making Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls!

Reduce down your pumpkin, and leave to cool.
Make your pumpkin brioche, and leave either at room temp or a few hours to overnight to proof in the fridge.
Mix up your brown sugar pumpkin filling.
Roll out your dough into a rectangle, and spread with the filling.
Roll up into a log, then cut into rolls, and place into your pan.
Rise again until puffy.
Bake!
Remove from the oven, and leave to cool.
While the rolls are cooling, make the Coffee Maple Cream Cheese Icing.
Ice the rolls, and enjoy!

How to get Neat Cuts in Cinnamon Rolls

There are a few tricks here. These cinnamon rolls in particular are a little sloppy, so I have a few things that help.

The first is to chill down the log of dough. I like to roll it up, trim off the ends, then cut it in half. I then transfer that to a parchment paper lined baking sheet, and cover it with plastic. The dough logs get put in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. All this does is help firm up the dough and filling a little. This makes them easier to cut cleanly! You can skip this step if you like, particularly if you have made your dough ahead of time.
I cut these with a nice sharp serrated knife, but you can also use unflavoured dental floss to cut them into neat rolls. Both these methods stop the rolls from getting squished when you cut them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to put the pumpkin in the filling?
Nope! Leave it out if you want - it will work just fine!

Can I make these ahead of time?
I love making brioche ahead of time. It makes it a tiny bit easier to work with. Rolling out cold dough is a bit easier than room temperature dough. I like to prepare my dough either the night before or earlier in the day, and give it a minimum of 2 hours and up to overnight in the fridge. Don't leave it for more than 24 hours as the yeast won't be as effective.

Do I have to reduce the pumpkin?
I only tested these with reduced pumpkin, so not reducing your pumpkin will mean that it is wetter. This will lead to a wetter dough and a sloppier filling. Reduce it down - it only takes a few minutes!

Help! My rolls are all wonky!
Make sure you've got enough flour on your surface as you are rolling out. You don't need to drown it. Keep your dough moving as you roll it out, to make sure it isn't sticking. I like to flip it a few times if needed. Make sure that you also square off your dough as you are rolling it out. I use a bench scraper to make sure my dough is even as I am rolling it out, so that it gets as close to a rectangle as possible.

What can I use in the place of espresso powder?
Finely ground instant coffee will work great.

Can I freeze Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls?
If you want to freeze these Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls, you are best freezing them once baked, then leaving to thaw and refreshing slightly in the oven before eating. Finish with the icing once you have refreshed them.

What rolling pin do you use?
I have a polyethylene rolling pin I use all the time for rolling out things that need to be nice and flat, it's my most used rolling pin!

Frosting Variations for Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

I originally just made these with a maple cream cheese frosting, but then decided adding some coffee would be a good idea. You can make them however you like!

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting - Ditch the espresso powder.
Coffee Cream Cheese Frosting - Leave out the maple syrup. You will likely need a little less powdered sugar if you do this. Start with 200g and see how you go.
Regular Cream Cheese Frosting - Use this recipe.
Brown Butter Cream Cheese Frosting - Use this recipe.

For more Pumpkin Recipes, Check Out:

Made this recipe and love it?

I would LOVE for you to leave me a review below to let me know how you liked it! Make sure to tag me on Instagram if you make it!

A note on salt and oven temperature

It is important to note the type of salt that is called for in a recipe. I use Diamond Crystal salt throughout my recipes - if you use a different sort of kosher salt or regular table salt you will need to adjust accordingly as some salt is 'saltier' than others. Morton's salt is twice as salty, so you will need half the quantity. Same goes for a regular table salt. I am working to get gram measurements throughout my recipes for salt but still getting there.

All oven temperatures are conventional unless otherwise stated. If you are baking on fan, you will need to adjust the temperature. An oven thermometer is a great investment to ensure that your oven is the correct temperature.

Why is this recipe in grams?

I post my recipes in grams as it is the most accurate way to bake. Cups are not only inaccurate but they vary in volume worldwide. There is no way for me to provide one cup measure that works for everyone. However, posting in weight fixes this issue. If you would like the recipe in cups you are welcome to convert it yourself via google, but please do not ask me to do it for you as I am not comfortable providing a recipe using a method that I have not tested. Baking with a scale is easy, accurate, and also makes cleanup super simple. Here is the scale that I use if you would like a recommendation! Here's to accurate baking!

Butterscotch Apple Pie

Butterscotch Apple Pie is a three-layer pie. A flaky pie crust is filled with a spiced, cooked, apple filling and baked, then topped with a layer of creamy butterscotch pudding. The pie is then finished off with swoops of perfectly whipped cream. This Butterscotch Apple Pie comes from Erin Jeanne Mcdowell's amazing new book, "The Book On Pie".

Slice of Apple Butterscotch Pie on plate

Butterscotch Apple Pie

Hi hi! I am popping in to share the recipe from the INCREDIBLE new book one of my best friends Erin wrote! There's a super flaky pie crust, filled with a pre-cooked apple filling. The filling is baked into the crust, then once cool, a layer of butterscotch pudding is added and left to set. The whole thing is then finished with lightly sweetened whipped cream. This multi-layer pie is one to please both the apple pie lovers and the cream pie lovers. it's been my absolute favourite pie recipe of Erin's for a really long time now, so as soon as her book came in, I knew exactly what I wanted

The Book On Pie by Erin Jeanne McDowell

I'm lucky enough to call Erin one of my best friends, and I am just SO PROUD of her and this beautiful book. I watched it turn from a giant spreadsheet and flavour combinations and chapter ideas in a notebook to a two week long photo shoot this time last year. I was able to sneak onto set for a couple of days while they were shooting to lend a hand. It was just so amazing to watch Erin, Mark (the most amazing photographer), and her team turn the ideas into this incredible book.

The Book On Pie is JAMMED with everything you can think of when it comes to Pie. Erin is an incredible teacher (she has taught me so many things that I've shared with you here on the blog). This translates into her easy to follow recipes and detailed tips and tricks. You feel like she's there holding your hand through every step, and there are comprehensive recipes for every pie in the book.

I can't tell you enough just how amazing the book is. You need to pick up a copy for yourself and just trust me on this one. So so many congrats Erin - I am SO BLOODY PROUD of you and how hard you've worked on this. It's everything that I knew it would be and so, so much more. Thank you so much for letting me be a part of it. I love you!

Components of Butterscotch Apple Pie

Erin first made this Butterscotch Apple Pie for me a few years ago when we had a "Pie Sleepover" at her house. I went to stay and we made Nine Thanksgiving pies so that there was one for every type of Pie eater at the Thanksgiving Table.

I took one bite of this pie and was instantly obsessed. The combination of spiced apple filling and smooth custard is the most amazing thing. It's all snuggled into a flaky pie crust. I've made it every year since, and I am so excited to finally be able to pop the recipe here for you. Here's what it's made up of:

Flaky Pie Crust - The pie starts with a flaky, par-baked pie crust. I wrote loads on par-baking and how to do it in this post if you would like to read more.
Cooked Apple Filling - The next layer is a pre-cooked apple filling. This comes together quickly in a pot. It is then left to cool (you could do this while you are par-baking the crust). The filling then goes into the cooled crust, and the whole thing goes back into the oven until bubbly.
Butterscotch Pudding - Once the apple filling is cool, it is topped with a layer of creamy butterscotch pudding, and set in the fridge. The butterscotch pudding is super easy to make, and gets it's butterscotch flavour from the brown sugar and butter. I would happily eat it alone, but it is HEAVEN combined with the apple filling.
Whipped Cream - The whole pie is finished off with a thick layer of whipped cream, and a little cinnamon.

Frequently Asked Questions about making Butterscotch Apple Pie

Can this be made ahead of time?
Yep! You can prepare different components of this Apple Butterscotch Pie ahead of time. The dough can be made up to 3 days before (or longer if it's being frozen), then the crust can be par-baked 24 hours before. You can also make the apple filling ahead of time and have that prepared and ready to go.

How long does this need to set?
You can either leave the butterscotch pudding layer to set for at least 2 hours, or you can do it the night before and leave it to set overnight. You want to add the cream the day of serving. I prepped the dough the night before, then the next day I par-baked the crust, made the apple filling, cooked it off, then added the butterscotch layer and left it to set overnight. The day that I shot it I just added some whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkle and was ready to go!

Can I make this with a different pudding?
Absolutely. The amazing thing about this book is that you can mix and match the fillings, crusts and toppings, to make this your own.

A few wee tips for Butterscotch Apple Pie:

I made this ahead of time - you can make the apple filling ahead and have it ready to go. You can par-bake your crust up to 24 hours ahead of time too.
The par-baked crust needs to be sealed to protect it from moisture. To do that you just brush it with a quick egg wash and return to the oven for a minute in order to help seal it off. Super easy!

For all my tips and tricks on how to make foolproof pie crust from scratch, check out my post on how to make homemade pie crust!

Top down shot of pie with butterscotch pudding layer showing

For more Pie Recipes, Check Out:

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I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!

Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Brown Butter Pecan Pie

This Brown Butter Pecan Pie has everything a Pecan pie needs. It has a chocolate base (Black Bottom), toasted nuts, and a brown butter golden syrup filling, all tucked into a flaky par-baked pie crust. This pie is the perfect addition to your Thanksgiving table this year!

Hi! Just popping on to share this recipe for Brown Butter Pecan Pie with you. Pecan Pie isn't really a thing in New Zealand (we don't celebrate Thanksgiving, and Pecans aren't super common), so I actually hadn't tried one until I moved here in 2014.

Pecan Pie is super simple to make - you par-bake a pie crust, then fill it with a custard like mixture and pecan halves. That's it! The whole thing gets baked until the middle is only just set. The result is a super gooey, incredibly flavourful pie, with crunch, goo, a flaky crust - just so, so good.

There are a bunch of variations on Pecan Pie, and I think every family has their own classic recipe. Here's mine!

How to make the best Brown Butter pecan Pie

There are a few steps that you can take to take your Pecan Pie to the next level. I obviously did as many as possible, which lead to a super flavourful, gooey, delicious Pecan Pie which has an incredible depth of flavour.

Toast Your Nuts - Toasting your Pecans is a super easy way to make them taste extra good. This takes 10 minutes in the oven and can be done ahead if you like so when it comes to assembly time you are good to go.
Make your own Pie Crust - Once you've had some practice, making your own pie dough from scratch is SUPER easy. You can do it ahead of time (see the tips section), and freeze it if you like!
Use Golden Syrup - I grew up on Golden Syrup and it's just so good. It adds a beautiful depth of flavour. I get mine online, although I know you can get it in some stores! This article also tells you how to make your own!
Brown Your Butter - It's no secret that I love, love, LOVE browned butter in anything, and using brown butter in this Pecan Pie really helps the toasty flavours come through.
Add Chocolate - You can't go wrong with adding chocolate. I turned this into a black bottom pecan pie by adding a layer of chocolate ganache to the par-baked pie crust, underneath the filling. It makes it extra gooey, and extra delicious.
Add a tiny bit of acid - Adding just a little apple cider vinegar helps to cut through the sweetness of the pie. You won't notice the taste itself but it makes a big difference! I use apple cider vinegar in my pie crust too to help prevent gluten formation and to keep the pastry tender.

I know that making brown butter can be intimidating. Don't be scared, I will hold your hand the whole way through in my post and you'll be nailing it in no time: Brown Butter 101: The Ultimate Guide

Chocolate Ganache in Par-baked Pecan Pie Crust

pecans in parbaked pie crust ready for oven

Golden Syrup vs Corn Syrup in pecan Pie

If you haven't had Golden Syrup before I really recommend that you try. It is made with a different process to corn syrup, and is made from Sugar rather than Corn Syrup which is derived from Corn.

Golden Syrup is rich and caramelised, and gives baking a really amazing depth of flavour, whereas corn syrup's flavour is just 'sweet'. It's worth tracking some down for this pie if you can - I also use it in my Ginger Crunch recipe if you need something to help use it up!

A good pecan pie starts with a great pie crust

Homemade pie crust takes a bit of practice, but once you have the hang of it, it is super easy. You can easily make the pie dough ahead of time and freeze it until you are ready to use. I made six the other day for recipe testing, and they are just hanging out in my freezer! Make sure that you wrap them tightly, then thaw them overnight in the fridge before you use.

The recipe below makes enough for two single crust pies, but it's truly no more work at all, so you might as well make both and have one on hand for something else. It's also much easier to accidentally over or under hydrate a smaller batch of pie dough!

To read all my tips and tricks on the perfect pie crust, check out my post - how to make homemade pie crust

How to make the best Pie Crust

How to Parbake a Pie Crust for Pecan Pie

I used to be scared of par-baking pie crust (if you don't believe me check my early pie recipes, they are all double lattice with cut-outs. I was SCARED). Once I realised 1) It's not as scary as I thought and 2) Crimping is really fun, now I love par-baking pie crusts!

Par-baking a pie crust starts the baking process. It gives the inside of the pie crust a chance to cook a little before it has filling in it. This helps to prevent the dreaded soggy bottom. It also helps to make your pie flaky, as it has some time to bake without the filling.

For all my tips on a perfectly par-baked crust, check out my post: How to blind bake pie crust

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good substitute for Golden Syrup?
You can sub regular corn syrup for this recipe, although I really recommend tracking down some Golden Syrup if you can!

How can you tell when pecan pie is baked?

You can tell when the pie is baked when the outside is firm and set and the inside still has a little bit of jiggle to it. For me, this takes 50 to 55 minutes. You are better every so slightly underbaking it rather than overbaking it to get the nice gooey inside.

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Cranberry Bread

This Cranberry Bread recipe is made with Olive oil and Ricotta which gives it a beautiful moist texture. It is super easy to make and can be made ahead. Cranberry bread has a tangy lemon glaze and can be made with fresh or frozen fruit - perfect for using up any extra holiday cranberries!

Hi hi! Hope you are having a great week. I am just popping in to share this Cranberry Bread recipe. I have made this cake a bunch of times over the last few weeks while testing, and we are yet to get sick of it. I love making loaf cakes and quick bread recipes, and this cranberry bread is the best of both worlds.

This homemade cranberry bread is super easy to make, while still being crazy delicious. It is a great way to use up any cranberries that you have lurking, or is a great reason to grab an extra bag next time you are at the store. I finished it with a quick lemon glaze made with lemon juice and powdered sugar, but you can finish it any way that you like!

Ingredients in Cranberry Bread

This Cranberry Bread recipe is super easy to make and comes together without a stand mixer or electric mixer.

Granulated Sugar - The sugar is needed to offset the tartness of the cranberries. I like to rub the zest of a lemon into the sugar before I start the mixing process, which helps to release the oils and bring through the lemon flavour.
Ricotta - I use whole milk ricotta in the cranberry bread - this lends moisture and the most delicious texture.
Almond Meal - I love adding a little almond meal into my loaf cakes to help with texture. It gives flavour and helps to keep the inside of the cake beautiful and moist (I know we hate this word, but this cake truly is amazing and so moist).
Cranberries - I made this with frozen cranberries as I had a whole bunch in my freezer. However you can absolutely sub these for fresh cranberries. I made this with that spare bag of cranberries you may have lurking in your fridge around Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Baking with Olive Oil has become one of my favourite things. I love the fruity flavour and complexity it adds to recipes.

Frequently asked questions

Can cranberry bread be made with fresh cranberries?
Yep! I tested this with frozen fruit, so you can easily switch to fresh. This recipe would be perfect if you have an extra bag of cranberries floating around from Thanksgiving! I haven't tested this with dried cranberries but it should work - you could also add in some nuts.

Can this be made with other fruit?
Yes! I tested this cranberry bread recipe with Raspberries and Blueberries and it worked well. Just make sure that you toss them in a tiny bit of flour before you add them so that they don't sink too much.

Can Cranberry bread be made ahead of time?
This can definitely be made ahead of time. The Olive Oil and Ricotta in the recipe help to keep this nice and moist, so you can just store it wrapped in plastic wrap at room temperature or in an airtight container once it is cooled. You can either store it glazed or unglazed.

How do you store cranberry bread?
Keep cranberry bread in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days.

What is a good substitute for Almond meal?
I love adding a tiny bit of almond meal to loaf cakes to add texture. If you have someone with a nut allergy in the house or you don't have access to almond meal, you can sub for more all-purpose flour.

Top down cut shot of Cranberry Olive Oil Loaf Cake.

Recipe Notes

Make sure that all your ingredients are at room temperature before you start making this cranberry bread. I like to measure out the ricotta first and bring to room temp in a bowl, so that you don't have to warm up the whole container.
If you want to do a different glaze on this, go ahead! You can make yours a little thinner if you would like. Alternatively you can leave it off all together, and finish this with a dusting of powdered sugar.
This cake is great to make ahead! I have added notes in the FAQ section about making ahead.
I used a 1lb loaf pan to make this (approximately 9" x 5" x 2.7" / 23 x 12 x 7cm). Alternatively you can use a larger loaf pan but the loaf will bake up a little flatter.
If you would like, substitute the lemon zest and lemon juice in the cake and icing for orange zest and orange juice for a cranberry orange bread with an orange glaze.

Cranberry Olive Oil Loaf Cake with Lemon Glaze

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Answers to your baking questions

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I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Homemade Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

Stuffed with chunks of Reese's peanut butter cups, these homemade peanut butter cup cookies are a twist on classic chocolate chip cookies. For best results, chill the cookie dough balls for an hour in the fridge before popping the cookies into the oven.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies on a tray

Hi hi! I hope things are going well! Just wanted to pop in and share this recipe for Peanut Butter Cup Cookies. I took my tried and true favourite Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe and filled it with Peanut Butter Cups. As a baking blogger I love a homemade cookie recipe, and these peanut butter cup cookies are a fast and easy way to mix things up a little. If you would like to try another cookie recipe using candy, my M&M chocolate chip cookie is amazing, along with my mini egg chocolate chip cookies and my Kit Kat Cookies. These chocolate chip peanut butter cup cookies are the perfect peanut butter dessert!

These reese's peanut butter cup cookies are a super fun twist on my forever fave best chocolate chip cookie recipe. They are super easy to make and can be made ahead. I have filled them with Peanut Butter Cups, but you could fill them with any candy that you have on hand. They would be particularly good with something like a snickers! In this post I share all my tips and tricks for making perfect chocolate chip cookies:

How to make peanut butter cup cookies
Can you freeze cookie dough?
The best chocolate for chocolate chip cookies
How do you get chocolate puddles on chocolate chip cookies?

corner shot of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies with salt

How to make peanut butter cup cookies

These reese's cookies are super easy to make:

Cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix to combine. This recipe uses three kinds of sugar - granulated sugar, muscovado sugar (or brown sugar), and turbinado sugar, for great texture and flavour.
Add in your dry ingredients - All-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda. Mix until only just combined - stop before the flour is completely incorporated in order to avoid over mixing.
Add in your mix ins. I filled these chocolate chip peanut butter cup cookies with reese's peanut butter cups, but here is your chance to play around with cookie mix ins as you like.
Scoop the dough. I like to scoop the dough and then chill it, rather than chilling first, as cold cookie dough can be hard to scoop. This makes it easy to freeze some dough for later too.
Chill the reese's cookie dough. Chill the dough for at least an hour, but you can do this up to overnight if needed.
Bake your peanut butter cup cookies, transfer to a cooling rack to cool, and enjoy!

Close up shot of peanut butter cookies on baking sheet.

I love to freeze cookie dough when I bake it - it works great for my other cookie recipes, and it works perfectly for these cookies with peanut butter cookies too.

To freeze cookie dough, I scoop the dough out onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper, and then lightly cover the pan with plastic wrap. Then I pop the whole thing in the freezer, and freeze until solid. Once the cookie dough is solid, I pop it into a ziploc bag or other airtight container.

To bake frozen cookie dough, you bake directly from frozen. Do not defrost. You will need to add 2-3 minutes onto the baking time to account for the frozen dough, but this is a perfect way to store dough if you don't want to make a whole batch all at once.

For all my tips and tricks on how to freeze cookie dough and bake from frozen, check out my post: How to freeze cookie dough

Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, layered on top of each other.

The best chocolate for chocolate chip cookies

You can use whatever you like in these cookies, but I really prefer chopped chocolate over chocolate chips or chunks for a few reasons:

Chopped Chocolate gives you variation - When you chop up chocolate you get a whole bunch of different sized and shaped pieces, giving you get a variation in chunk size.
Chopped chocolate gives you tiny chocolate shards - Chopping chocolate means that as you chop, you get all those tiny shards of chocolate and chocolate dust on the chopping board. This means that when you add all those in to the dough along with the bigger chunks, you get shards of chocolate throughout the dough, which gives the most amazing flavour.
Pockets of chocolate - Chopped chocolate gives you the most perfect pockets of melty chocolate throughout the cookie.
Chocolate puddles - Chopping your chocolate means you can press additional chocolate on top of the cookie before baking. This gives you the most amazing chocolate puddles! I'll tell you more about how to get those below.

I like to use a bar of chocolate for these Peanut Butter Cup Cookies, and I usually just use a grab bag of what is in the pantry. If I'm feeling fancy i'll grab some Valrhona, otherwise the Pound Plus bars from Trader Joe's are great. I am also currently working my way through an 11lb bag which I ordered online a few months ago.

Balls of cookie dough with peanut butter cups and chocolate chunks on top.

layered chocolate chip cookies on a baking sheet.

How do you get chocolate puddles on chocolate chip cookies?

There are a few different ways to get puddles on top of your peanut butter cup cookies. I find that this method is the most effective. After you have scooped out your dough, you flatten a ball in your hand. Then you press some extra chocolate onto the top side, then continue as usual and roll it into a ball. This then gives you even chocolate distribution as the cookie bakes.

This step is totally optional but I always like to chop up some extra chocolate to have on hand for this. If you are adding mix-ins like the peanut butter cups, chop up some extra ones of those too to stick on the top.

For all my other best tips and tricks on all things chocolate chip cookies, check out my post: How to make perfect chocolate chip cookies

How to store chocolate chip cookies

This recipe for peanut butter cup chocolate chip cookies makes 24 cookies, so if you are not planning on freezing your cookie dough, you can store baked cookies in an airtight container.

Cookies keep for up to a week, but I like to freeze the dough if I know I am not eating them soon after making them as they are so good from fresh!

Stacked up chocolate chip cookies with extra cookies in the foreground and a bottle of milk in the background

Frequently asked questions

What if I don't have Peanut Butter Cups?
Leave them out! This recipe is legit just my Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe but made with Peanut Butter Cups, so you should make that instead!

Can I use other candy for this?
You sure can! Switch up the mix-ins. I like to use a base of some chopped dark chocolate, then supplement with candy mix ins such as the peanut butter cups. You could use M&Ms, Snickers Bars, whatever you like! Go for 250g of candy, and a little extra on the top if you would like.

What is a substitute for Muscovado sugar?
If you don't have any Muscovado sugar, you can sub it for either light or dark brown sugar if you like! Both will work fine. Muscovado gives a darker colour of dough and a slightly deeper flavour. I have made these with light, dark, and muscovado sugar, and they all work great.

How do you get cookies all the same size?
I use a cookie scoop! I have a bunch of different sizes, and they help so much to keep the cookie dough balls nice and even. If you are looking to get just one, get the one I linked, but a 1 tablespoon and a ¼ cup are great to have on hand too.

Peanut Butter Cup cookies on baking sheet with melted chocolate puddles on the top.

For more chocolate chip cookie recipes, check out:

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Vanilla Malt Snack Cake

This Vanilla Malt Snack Cake with Chocolate Frosting comes from Yossy Arefi's brand new book, snacking cakes. The cake is a super simple, super moist, one bowl vanilla snack cake, with malt powder added for extra flavour. It is finished off with a fluffy chocolate frosting and sprinkles for good measure.

Hi hi! Happy Tuesday! I just wanted to pop in and share this recipe for a One-bowl Vanilla Malt Snack Cake with Fluffy Chocolate Frosting. It comes from my friend Yossy's brand new book!

What is a Snacking Cake?

I'm going to be honest - I had no idea what a 'snacking cake' or snack cake was until I moved to the States. I immediately became obsessed with them as soon as I found out they existed. A snacking cake is a small, single layer cake, usually finished with either a simple glaze or frosting. Snacking cakes are less involved than something like a layer cake, but is perfect for a small gathering or even just when you want a little bit of cake.

All of the cakes in Yossy's book can be made with just a bowl and an electric hand mixer. All the recipes are made in an 8" square or 9" round pan. Each recipe has a load of different options in terms of ways to finish each cake, or different flavour variations to mix it up. Yossy has 50 recipes in the book (they all look amazing), but with all the flavour options and suggestions, the possibilities are endless.

What is Malt Powder?

According to this Spruce Eats article, malt powder is a mixture of evaporated milk powder, Barley, and wheat flour. It's the taste we associate with Malteasers and malted milkshakes. The "malt" name actually comes from the process that the barley goes from.

Malted Milk Powder was initially made as a supplement for babies to help with their digestion. It also lends an amazing flavour to baked goods. Malted milk powder keeps super well, so you can just grab a jar and have it on hand for adding into things. I popped it in this cream pie once and it was so good!

Yossy suggests adding it to the vanilla buttermilk cake in her book, and oh boy, it was amazing. The cake is super easy to make and comes together in one bowl. The frosting is also super easy, so you can pop this together in no time.

Frequently Asked Questions for Vanilla Malt Cake

What if I don't have Malt Powder?
Leave it out! This will still be a super delicious Vanilla Buttermilk Cake.

Can I make this cake into cupcakes?
You sure can! Yossy mentions in the book that to make these into cupcakes, you can fill lined cupcake cases halfway with batter, then bake for 12 to 18 minutes.

Can I use a round pan?
To make this into a round pan, bake in a 9" round pan until puffed and golden, and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes.

Can I make this as a sheet cake?
To make as a sheet, double the ingredients and bake in a 9" x 13" pan until golden and puffed and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes. Double frosting ingredients too.

A few wee tips for Vanilla Malt Cake

Try to make sure your ingredients are room temp - bring the buttermilk and egg out of the fridge to come to room temperature before you start. If you forget you can always pop the egg in some warm water, and zap the buttermilk in the microwave just to take the edge off of it.
My frosting so it wasn't as fluffy as it could be because I put a teeny bit too much milk in. Start with 1 tablespoon and go from there!

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I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!

Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Thanksgiving Doughnuts

Thanksgiving doughnuts five ways - brioche doughnuts with fall and thanksgiving inspired fillings and glazes. These doughnuts use one base recipe and then vary the filling and topping based on the flavour for a choose your own adventure style recipe!

Thanksgiving Doughnuts!

Hi hi! I am so excited to share these recipes with you! The other day my friend Mike came around, and we had a huge day making all these Thanksgiving inspired Doughnuts. Mike and I first met when he came to my place after a long time of being internet friends, and we made this cake. I'm not going to lie, making a cake together the first time we met gave Mike a true look at the real me (I find making cakes a wee bit stressful!) but we are still friends now and so something must have gone right! He's so so lovely and it's so nice having a friend you can text about anything you need (he's been a lifesaver switching my site over), and so I was so excited to collaborate again!

We wanted to come up with a whole bunch of recipes using one brioche base, and then switch up the format of the doughnut and the fillings depending on what flavour we were inspired by. Here's the Thanksgiving Doughnuts we ended up with, from five batches of Brioche:

Pumpkin Cheesecake Stuffed Brioche Doughnuts
Chocolate Pudding Stuffed Brioche Doughnuts
Apple and Custard Stuffed Brioche Doughnuts
Maple Glazed Doughnuts with Candied Pecans
Apple Cider Glazed Doughnuts
Assorted Doughnut Holes (pumpkin spice, maple glaze, apple cider glaze)

We had the best time! It's always so fun shooting with someone else and seeing what their setup is / how they would style a certain shot. We definitely learnt a lot along the way, but I can't wait for our next wee collab! For now, enjoy these Thanksgiving Doughnuts!

Same Dough, Different Formats:

I made five batches of dough for these doughnuts and we treated each slightly differently! We made three different types of doughnuts:

Filled Doughnuts - These are made by dividing the dough into portions. We did 75g per doughnut. The portions get shaped into balls, and pressed slightly to flatten, then left to rise. These take a little longer than the cut-out doughnuts to rise as they are a bit more substantial. They then get fried off and drained slightly, then rolled in sugar. You can flavour the sugar or coating any way that you like! Once they are cooled, they get filled with your choice of filling.
Cut-out Doughnuts - These are the classic round doughnut with the hole in the middle. The dough gets rolled to about ½" thick and then small ring doughnuts are cut out. You can use a doughnut cutter, but I just use two round cutters. We did two sizes - smaller apple cider glaze and larger maple glaze!
Doughnut Holes - These are a fun byproduct of making cut-out doughnuts. I usually fry them first as they rise quicker. You can also use the round cutter you were using for the middle to punch out additional doughnut holes from any extra dough that you have. You can finish these however you like - we rolled some in sugar and then added some glaze to the others.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Brioche Doughnuts

These are a wee nod to pumpkin pie. We made regular 'filled' brioche doughnuts, then rolled them in a pumpkin spiced sugar. We then filled them with a pumpkin cheesecake filling, which is super simple and is made by whipping together cream cheese, a little vanilla, more pumpkin spice, and a little reduced pumpkin puree.

Reducing down the pumpkin puree concentrates the flavour and reduces some of the moisture. This stops the mixture from going runny when the pumpkin is added. I always reduce it down if I'm adding it to something like a buttercream or cheesecake, it helps so much!

Chocolate Pudding Brioche Doughnuts

These are super similar to the pumpkin cheesecake doughnuts, except that we rolled them in a granulated sugar mix and filled them with chocolate pudding. The chocolate pudding recipe is from the filling of this chocolate cream pie, which comes from my friend and Pie Queen Erin Mcdowell. There is a malted version here too. You could also roll them in this cacao sugar for an alternative finish - either leave out the tea or keep it for an Earl Grey Chocolate Pudding situation!

Apple Pie and Custard Brioche Doughnuts

These were possibly my favourite of the filled doughnuts. We filled them with a cooked apple pie filling, and then a vanilla bean pastry cream. The spiced apple filling paired perfectly with the smooth pastry cream. It reminded me of an apple crumb pie with custard.

If you can, make the custard and the pie filling ahead of time to give them time to thicken up. Make sure that you cut the apples nice and small so that they can fit through the hole in your piping bag when it comes to stuffing the doughnuts!

Apple Cider Glazed Doughnuts

These are super simple - we made smaller cut-out doughnuts (only 2 ½" in diameter - so cute!), and then finished them with an apple cider glaze. The glaze is made by reducing apple cider (if you're in NZ that's old fashioned apple juice - the cloudy one, NOT the vinegar), until syrupy. We then mixed it with some powdered sugar and heavy cream, dipped the doughnuts, and finished with a little sprinkle of cinnamon.

You could also make these in a larger format if you liked, the same size as the maple pecan doughnuts. You do you here!

Maple Glazed Doughnuts with Candied Pecans

These are slightly larger cut-out doughnuts, closer to the traditional ones you would get at a doughnut shop, and they are a classic for a reason. We kept things pretty simple with a fluffy brioche doughnut, which we finished with a maple glaze and a pecan. We candied the pecans, but you could easily just sub in regular toasted pecan halves!

The maple glaze is Mike's brainchild and is super good. It's not crazy sweet and goes so, so well with the fluffy interior of the doughnut.

Doughnut Holes

The Doughnut holes are kind of a fun byproduct of doughnut making, and I love them. The 'holes' come from the dough that is punched out from the inside of the cut-out doughnuts.

The best part about these is that you can finish them any way that you like. We dipped some into the remaining glaze, and tossed some in the pumpkin spice sugar from the cheesecake doughnuts. I love them best hot out of the fryer, tossed in sugar.

Frequently Asked Questions for Brioche Doughnuts

Can I mix and match the types of doughnut?
Absolutely. Because the dough is all the same, you could divide a batch of brioche in half, and then portion half out to be filled doughnuts. You could then roll the remainder out and cut out a few round doughnuts and some doughnut holes.Add image

What do I do with the scraps from cutting out doughnuts?
You can either re-roll them and cut out more (these ones tend to be a little wonky), or you can cut them into pieces similar to these doughnut bites and use them to test the oil. Then fry the rest off, toss them in sugar, and you have the best little doughnut bites!

Do I have to make the dough the day before?
You don't have to! I prefer to give my dough a cold rise though because it makes it easier to work with, so you can do either a minimum of 3 hours in the fridge, or you can do overnight. Don't leave it more than 24 hours or the yeast starts to lose it's rising power. If you really need to then you can do a room temperature rise but the dough is hard to work with, particularly for the cut-out doughnuts. If you have cold dough you will get really nice neat cut-outs.

What is the best way to make sure my doughnuts are done on the inside?
I like to use a thermometer to check the internal temperature. This is particularly useful for the filled doughnuts as you can't tell as easily when they are done. I use an instant read thermometer - you want to shoot for somewhere around 190°f / 90°c. Alternatively you can do a tester and snack on it while you work, but the internal temp works well!

What the heck is pumpkin spice?
I had no idea when I moved to the States that pumpkin spice was a thing. It is also called 'pumpkin pie spice' and if you're outside the States, it's basically the same thing as mixed spice, so that will work great in it's place!

What happens if I bake these doughnuts?
You will have burger buns. This brioche recipe is the same one that I use for my bread buns and babkas, so they are really only doughnuts if you fry them. If you want to make baked doughnuts, Mike has a couple of really great recipes! Alternatively you could bake these if you really wanted to but it will be more of a filled bun situation and not a doughnut.

Troubleshooting Doughnuts:

My Doughnuts are raw inside: Your oil is probably too hot! If your oil is too hot, your doughnuts will brown too much on the outside before they are fully cooked. This will give you a melt in your mouth middle, and not in a good way. The best way to do this is to carefully monitor your oil temperature, you want it to stay around 350°f. I use a deep fryer which is really helpful with the added bonus of feeling like I have a tiny doughnut shop (both Mike and I never want to open one after this but frying things in the fryer is fun!)
My Doughnuts are taking forever to cook / are Oily: This sounds like the opposite issue and that your oil is too cold. Again, watch it carefully! If you are using a thermometer make sure that it's suspended in the middle of the oil and not touching the bottom as this will give a false reading. Make sure you check the temp between batches too, as adding the doughnuts will drop the temperature.
My Doughnuts are stodgy and dense: Sounds like they weren't proofed enough! Make sure that they are properly proofed. To do this I like to poke one. If the dough bounces back straight away then they aren't ready yet. If your finger leaves a little indentation in the dough which slowly bounces back, you are good to go. Remember that proofing takes a little longer if you started with cold dough. For the filled doughnuts to proof at room temperature for us, it was about 50-55 minutes. Remember that the weather makes a big difference too!

A few wee tips for Thanksgiving Brioche Doughnuts

I made all my dough ahead of time. This made it easy to break up the workload. If you want doughnuts the next morning, you can make the dough the night before, and then rise them and fry them off. If you want them same day, you can make the dough in the morning and give it a cold rise and go from there.
Make sure that you account for time for fillings to chill. The custard, apple pie filling, and chocolate pudding all need time to cool. Overnight is great if you can, otherwise if you put them in a shallow container then they will cool quicker too.
To get the nice "tan line" on your doughnut (which isn't necessary, it is just the sign of a well fried and well proofed doughnut), you fry the doughnut on one side then flip it over. The tan line comes from the little piece of doughnut which comes in less contact with the oil so you get a lighter line around the middle.

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Homemade Pumpkin Bars

Pumpkin Bars are the perfect pumpkin treat. This easy pumpkin bar recipe is soft and moist, and loaded with chocolate chunks.

Hi hi! I am popping in to share this pumpkin bar recipe, which come from my friend Sabine's brand new book! I was lucky enough to get a little peek earlier this year when she asked me to write a recommendation for the back. It was truly such a huge honour to be asked, and I am so excited for her new book!

How to make Pumpkin Bars

This pumpkin bars recipe is super, super easy to make and come together really quickly. All you have to do is cream together the butter and sugar. Next in goes and egg and some vanilla, then some pumpkin puree.

Dry ingredients are whisked together and added in, and folded just to incorporate, then a whole bunch of chocolate chips go in. I used chocolate chunks in this pumpkin bars recipe, and scattered some on top.

The whole thing then gets baked until the middle is done, then left to cool before being sliced into bars. They take almost no time to throw together, and keep super well in a container.

Pumpkin Puree vs Pumpkin Pie Mix

I had no idea pumpkin in a can was a thing until I moved to the states. In New Zealand we mainly only eat savoury pumpkin dishes so it took some getting used to. However, I LOVE sweet pumpkin dishes, and I also LOVE how easy canned pumpkin is.

If you haven't come across it yet, canned pumpkin is literally just canned pumpkin puree. If you can't find it where you are you can make your own.

You can also buy canned pumpkin pie mix. Do NOT confuse this with canned pumpkin. Pumpkin pie mix already has the sugar and pumpkin spice added to it. You just want the plain pumpkin.

How to remove bars cleanly from the pan:

Make sure you make yourself a parchment paper sling when you are lining the pan. I didn't and just lined the bottom and sides. I should have listened because it made it a bit harder to remove!

How to store pumpkin bars

These pumpkin bars well, so you can make them ahead of time. There are steps included for freezing them in the recipe too.

How to tell when pumpkin bars are baked:

These do stay a little moist in the middle. Make sure that you check the middle with a tester when baking. You want it to come out clean, but a few crumbs clinging are ok. Remember things bake once they come out of the oven.

To add a frosting:

If you want to add an easy cream cheese frosting to these pumpkin bars, you can use my cream cheese frosting recipe.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I make gluten free pumpkin bars?
I haven't tried but I would say they would work fine with a cup for cup gluten free flour sub.

What is a good substitute for canned pumpkin?
If you can't get canned pumpkin, you can make homemade pumpkin puree

Can pumpkin bars be made ahead of time?
Yes - these homemade pumpkin bars keep well in an airtight container. Alternatively there are tips for freezing them in the recipe.

❤️ Made this recipe and love it? ❤️

I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!

Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Kit Kat Cookies

These Kit Kat Cookies are perfect for using up Halloween candy. They are soft and chewy in the center and slightly crunchy around the edges, and are filled with chocolate chunks and chopped Kit Kat.

Hi hi! I am just popping in to share the recipe for these Kit Kat cookies with you! I love making homemade cookies, and I love Kit Kats, so adding Kit Kats was a bit of a no brainer here.

These are a bit of a riff on my peanut brownie cookies - aka peanut chocolate cookies, which are a New Zealand Baking classic. They have a chocolate base, then are filled with chunks of Kit Kat and chocolate. Just the best. If you're after a 'plain' cookie base, you can add Kit Kats to my classic chocolate chip cookie recipe.

The perfect way to use Halloween candy

I know Halloween will look a wee bit different for a lot of us this year. This recipe captures all the fun things about tiny candy bars, and pops them into a cookie! I started with a chocolate base, added in some chocolate morsels, and then mixed in a whole lot of chopped Kit Kat bars.

The chocolate gives the cookie a super delicious gooeyness, and then the Kit Kats are crunchy from the wafer and sweet from the milk chocolate coating. I loaded up the cookies with them and made them large bakery style. I then finished them some more chopped Kit Kats and some salt.

These cookies are super easy to make and the mixture comes together really quickly. It also requires no chilling time, meaning you can have Kit Kat cookies ready in well under an hour.

Ingredients in Kit Kat Cookies

This recipe is super simple and comes together with pantry staples and then some chopped Kit Kats.

Unsalted Butter. The base of almost all my recipes here. Salted works great too, but omit the additional salt in the recipe.
All-Purpose Flour - I played around a lot with the ratio of flour to butter in the cookies, and settled on something that gave the perfect amount of spread.
Brown Sugar - These cookies have both granulated sugar and light brown sugar in them. The granulated sugar helps with the spread, while light brown sugar gives depth of flavour and softness. Both are needed for a perfectly balanced cookie!
Chopped Chocolate. I love using chopped chocolate in my chocolate chip cookies to give melty pockets of chocolate.
Cocoa Powder. Unsweetened cocoa is perfect for baking and gives the base of the cookie a chocolatey depth of flavour. This makes it perfect to load up with chocolate and Kit Kat pieces!
Kit Kat Bars. I used a bunch of chopped mini bars leftover from Halloween, but regular kit kats would work great here too.

A few wee tips for making Kit Kat Cookies

Because of the Kit Kat in these, the dough won't freeze super well. The cookies will keep in an airtight container for a few days!
Make sure you give your oven enough time to preheat. Often even when your oven says it is done preheating, it isn't at a constant temperature. I like to give it about 20 minutes to warm up properly for best results.
These cookies come out of the oven pretty puffy, so don't freak out. They will flatten off a little as they cool!
I added some extra chopped Kit Kat on the tops of these both before baking for crunch. I then added some extra on top after baking if they looked like they had any bald spots!

FAQ for Kit Kat Cookies

Can I make these with other candy? Yes you sure can! These would be great with Peanut Butter Cups or Snickers bars. Just sub the equivalent amount (300g) worth, or you can do a mixture of different candies!
How do you store chocolate chip cookies? I always store cookies at room temperature in an airtight container. You can warm up slightly in the microwave for 10-15 seconds before eating. This gets them nice and melty
Can I make these a different size? Yep! I used a ¼ cup cookie scoop which gave me 15 large cookies. If you like you can use a 2 tablespoon or a 3 tablespoon cookie scoop. Start with 11 minutes baking time and check them from there.
How do you make chocolate chip cookies round? I give them a 'cookie scoot' which is where I take a round cutter bigger than the cookie. I then 'scoot' them into shape just as they are hot from the oven. It works great!

Tips for Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Answers to your baking questions

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Pretzel Bites with Feta Pesto Dip

Chewy, salty pretzel bites are served with a whipped feta and pesto dip. These Pretzel Bites are easy to make and make the perfect snack for serving a crowd!

Pretzel Bites with Whipped Feta and Pesto Dip

Hi! Happy Wednesday! Just popping in here to share these pretzel bites with you. They are a bit of a riff on my regular pretzel recipe. However, instead of shaping them into fancy pretzels, I made them into bites!

I served them alongside a really quick dip - a whipped feta and pesto dip, which comes together in about 5 minutes in the food processor.

Why these Pretzel Bites are the best snack

Apparantely it's sports / football season? I am going to admit I haven't watced more than one full game of football in my life. My favourite food just happens to be dip though, so if there are snacks involved, sign me up.

These pretzel bites are super, super easy to make. They only require one rise, then a quick boil in a baking soda bath, and then they bake for 10 minutes and they are done!

The recipe can easily be doubled, the dough can be made ahead, and you can have these ready in an hour and a bit for the optimal snack experience.

A few wee tips for Pretzel Bites

Make sure that your feta is at room temperature for processing. Pull it out a little before you need to make your dip.
If the dip looks like it has separated a little, don't worry - as it cools down it will come back together, it's just a wee bit of oil!
I finished my dip with a little olive oil and some chopped chives
It is easiest to set up a production line when making these - I rolled out some dough and then made one tray's worth of pretzel bites. I then soaked them in the soda mixture, and baked them off. While they were baking I prepared the next tray.
You can do two trays at a time if you like, just make sure to switch them half way.
These brown quickly so just keep an eye on them!
I use a silicone mat so that they don't stick. I find with parchment paper, as the Pretzel bites come out of the water bath, they get the paper wet and then they stick. A silpat or other silicone mat stops this from happening!

Frequently Asked Questions about Pretzel Bites

Can I make these ahead?
The pretzel bites themselves are best on the day that they are made but they come together quickly. You can however make the dough ahead of time - make it the night before and then do the first rise in the fridge.

Do I have to use Beer?
Nope! You can use water or milk in the place of the beer in the recipe and it will work just fine.

Can these be made vegan?
I haven't tried it but I don't see why it would be an issue. Just sub the milk in the recipe for a vegan milk, or you can use water.

Do I have to use pretzel salt?
You don't have to but it makes them so, so good. I bought a box a few years ago and it's lasted super super well. You could also use everything bagel seasoning if you needed another option!

Baking Soda Vs Lye in Pretzels

Some pretzel recipes will have you use lye to soak the pretzels in. Giving the pretzels a wee bath in lye (sodium hydroxide) helps to speed up the Maillard reaction, which gives the pretzels that lovely brown colour and chew.

However, lye is caustic (alkaline) and scary, so I used something a little less alkaline but still very effective - baked baking soda. Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) is moderately alkaline, but baking it produces sodium carbonate, which is slightly more alkaline, so therefore perfect for dipping your pretzels.

You still get the great chewy finish and colour on your pretzel bites without having to worry about the safety risk of using Lye. Yay chemistry!

To make baked baking soda: Line a sheet pan with foil, and spread a box of baking soda evenly over it. Bake at 250˚f / 121˚c for one hour, then transfer to an airtight container. You use ¼ cup at a time and it stores well so you can keep it for other recipes!

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Mud Pie Bars

These Mud Pie Bars are the perfect chocolate dessert for any chocolate lover. They have a layer of chocolate crumbs, followed by a layer of chocolate cake, then a layer of chocolate mousse. These chocolate mousse bars are then finished off with a layer of whipped cream and chocolate curls.

Mud Pie Bars from Sarah Kieffer's Book, 100 Cookies

Hi hi! Happy Tuesday - hope your week is going ok so far. I made these mud pie bars from Sarah Kieffer's latest book, '100 cookies' a few weeks ago, and am finallysharing the recipe with you!

Sarah's first book, 'The Vanilla Bean Baking Book', is probably one of the most used in my collection. Her recipes are amazing, work every time, and are so well written, so I will often turn to it for reference. It is so amazing that I just knew this new book would be incredible. And turns out, it's even more incredible than I could have even imagined.

Top down shot showing mud pie bars with layers exposed

The ultimate chocolate lover's dessert.

I had a really hard time deciding what to make from Sarah's book to share here, until I flipped to these mud pie bars. They are made up of four layers, so are a little more labour intensive than your standard bar. However, every second of work is 100% worth it, as the final outcome is rich and chocolatey - to me, this is the perfect chocolate dessert.

Four layers of Mud Pie Bars

Part of what makes these so, so impressive are the four layers, which are:

Chocolate Crumbs: The first layer is a thin layer of chocolate crumbs. Sarah calls for chocolate wafer cookies. However I didn't have any, so I gutted some oreos and crushed those up instead, and they worked great.
Chocolate Cake: The next layer is a chocolate cake layer poured over the chocolate crumbs. This cake is rich and dense, and provides the perfect base for what is coming next.
Chocolate Mousse: A rich, silky, chocolate mousse is made and allowed to set, and then spread over the base and left to chill for a wee bit to firm up.
Whipped Cream: Finally, the whole thing is finished off with a thin layer of whipped cream and a coating of chocolate curls. The cream cuts perfectly through the rich chocolate.

Close up shot showing layers in mud pie bars

How to break up the work load of a complex baking project

These Mud Pie Bars have a few elements, so you can easily break up the work! Here's how I did it:

Day one:
- Make the chocolate crumb layer and leave to cool.
- Bake the chocolate cake layer and leave to cool (it needs four hours in the fridge at least).
- Make the chocolate mousse and leave to set overnight.
Day two:
- Add the chocolate mousse layer to the bars and leave to chill
- Add the whipped cream layer and serve!

Swoops of whipped cream with chocolate curls

Frequently Asked Questions about Mud Pie Bars

What can I use instead of chocolate Wafers?
If you don't have chocolate wafers, Oreos work perfectly. I removed all the filling then ground up the cookies.

Can these be made Gluten Free?
If you would like to make these gluten free it would be very easy, as the cake has very little flour in it. Just swap the all-purpose flour for a 1:1 gluten free swap, and use a gluten free oreo in the base.

How to store mud pie bars
These keep great in the fridge! Sarah said they are best after two days, but we had some on day five and they were still great. If you are worried you can leave off the whipped cream topping on half and add fresh cream at a later date.

Lines of chocolate mud pie bars showing chocolate layers

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Ginger Caramel Slice

This Ginger Caramel slice is a mashup of two New Zealand Classics - ginger crunch and caramel slice. This Ginger Caramel Slice has a gingery oaty base, then is topped with a smooth ginger caramel and finished with a drizzle of chocolate and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt.

Hi! Happy almost Fall! I am so excited to share the recipe for this ginger caramel slice - this is a mashup of two of my most favourite New Zealand ‘slices’ (what we call a bar) - ginger crunch, and caramel slice!

Ginger crunch is traditionally a simple cookie base, topped with a super sweet ginger icing layer - I have taken the cookie base, added oats to it for some chew, then topped it with a super chewy, silky, ginger caramel, which comes together quickly and is super easy to make.

Once the slice is cool, it gets cut up into pieces, and drizzled with a little dark chocolate as a nod to the smooth chocolate topping that usually finishes off a caramel slice. These really are the best of both worlds and have a wee bit of spice to help transition us into our fall baking. I really hope that you give them a try! Here are all the things we will cover about ginger caramel slice today:

Ingredients in Ginger Caramel Slice
Tips for the best ginger slice
Using Binder Clips in Baking
How to get a perfect layers in baked goods.
Frequently Asked Questions

Ingredients in Ginger Caramel Slice

The other thing that I love about this ginger caramel slice is that it comes together with pantry staples. The base has brown sugar, flour, oats, ground ginger, all-purpose flour, and a little baking powder, which is then combined with melted butter and honey in a bowl and pressed into the crust, and baked until golden brown and left to cool.

The topping is then a super simple caramel, made with a can of condensed milk, honey, brown sugar, butter, and salt. The presence of the condensed milk and honey helps to keep everything smooth as the caramel cooks on the stove top. Ground ginger is stirred in right at the end for a delicious spiced caramel, which is poured over the cooled base and left to set in the fridge.

All-purpose Flour - AP flour is used as the base of the slice, and mixed with some baking powder, salt, and ground ginger
Unsalted Butter - Butter goes into both the base and the filling of this ginger caramel slice.
Old Fashioned Oats - I love adding oats into baking, as it gives taste and texture!
Brown Sugar - There is brown sugar in both the base and the topping. It provides the most amazing caramel flavour.
Honey - Honey is also in the base and the topping of the slice! It helps act as a binding agent in the base, and then works as an invert sugar in the filling to help smooth things out!
Sweetened Condensed Milk - The base of every good caramel slice, condensed milk provides creaminess while helping to smooth everything out.
Ground Ginger - There is ginger in both the base and the filling, making this the perfect fall transition dish!
Chocolate - I melted some chocolate and mixed with a tiny bit of neutral oil to create a shiny chocolate that I drizzled over the bars.

Tips for the best ginger slice

I like to give the caramel slice at least a few hours or up to overnight to chill down. You want to make sure that there is no heat left in the caramel at all when you cut it into bars!
I made these pretty big for the photos, you can cut them in half again to give you 18 bars.
I finished these with a little drizzle of chocolate and a sprinkle of sea salt. If you would like a full chocolate layer on top you can melt together 180g of chocolate with 30g (2 Tbsp) neutral oil and do a smooth chocolate topping instead by pouring it over and leaving it to set.
The easiest way to cut these is by using a hot knife. To do this I put some boiling water into a jar, and then dip my knife in and wipe it down before cutting. Just be careful of the knife being warm! Re-dip it and wipe between cuts to keep the knife nice and clean and your edges straight.

side on shot to show the layers, waiting for chocolate drizzle

Using Binder Clips in Baking

Binder clips! I like to use little metal binder clips on the sides of my baking pan to help keep my parchment paper steady in my baking pan and to stop it flopping down onto your filling. They can go in the oven provided they don’t have any paint on them so make sure if you want to bake with them you use the plain silver ones!

How to get a perfect layers in baked goods.

I like to press in the crust of a slice or bar in a few different steps. The first is to transfer your base to your lined baking pan and roughly spread it out. I like to use the spatula I just used to combine the mixture to do this. Then I gently pat it down with my hands so it is a semi even layer. I then like to use a flat-bottomed metal measuring cup to tamp it down nice and firmly.

Then finally I go in with an offset spatula and tidy up the sides and any bumps. It seems like a lot of work, but it means that you get a super flat base of your slice, which means that your filling will sit nice and evenly! This is the secret to perfectly flat layers in my baking!

ginger caramel slice cut into rectangles ready for their chocolate drizzle

Frequently Asked Questions

Can these be made without a thermometer?
Having a thermometer is super helpful for the making of the caramel, so that you can ensure that it is brought to a high enough temperature for it to set - I take this caramel to 230°f / 110°c. If you don’t have one, you want to cook the caramel, stirring constantly, for 10 minutes or so. It will thicken and darken a few shades. Make sure you keep mixing it to make sure it doesn’t catch.

How do you store ginger caramel slice?
This ginger caramel slice will keep for at least a week in an airtight container in the fridge. I like to stack a layer then place a piece of parchment or wax paper down and stack a second layer, just so that they don’t stick.

For more bar and slice recipes, check out:

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Answers to your baking questions

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S'mores Bars

Easy S'mores bars are the perfect quick dessert recipe. They have a buttery graham cracker crust, a chocolate ganache filling and toasted marshmallow topping.

Top Down shot of bars showing graham cracker crust, chocolate filling and marshmallow topping

Small Batch S'mores Bars

Hi! Just popping in to share these small batch s'mores bars with you! These bars are a re-make of the S'mores tart which is on my site and super popular. Someone asked if it would be possible to make them into a bar, and so here we are! No Campfire needed to recreate this classic treat.

I love a good homemade bar recipe and these smores bars tick all the boxes - easy graham cracker crust, chocolate ganache filling, and a toasty marshmallow topping. This recipe can also be easily made into a gluten free smores recipe by using a gluten free graham cracker.

S'mores bar with layer of marshmallow ready to be toasted

Top down shot of s'mores bar with taosted marshmallow

Small Batch Desserts - made in a loaf pan!

There are so many things to love about these smores bars, not only are they super delicious, but they are a small batch recipe, so can be made directly in a loaf pan. They are fairly rich, so even though it only makes a small amount, they definitely go a long way.

I cut them into long thin bars for the styling and photos, but you can absolutely cut them in half again to give you 12 smaller s'mores bars.

Side on shot of S'mores bars showing graham cracker crust, chocolate filling and marshmallow topping

Components of S'mores Bars

Brown Butter Graham Cracker Base - This is my favourite base to use for things - simply ground up graham crackers, a little sugar, salt, and then some melted butter to bind. This time I browned the butter which gives it an amazing toasty finish. I gave the base a quick spin in the oven just to help it set. It cools and then the filling is added.
Chocolate Ganache Filling - This silky, rich, dark chocolate filling is super easy to make. Chopped chocolate and unsalted butter are placed into a bowl and hot cream is poured over, then it is whisked into a super smooth filling and poured over the base
Toasted Marshmallow Layer - It's not S'mores without marshmallow! I spread a layer of marshmallow over the chocolate filling then torched it to finish.

S'mores Bars on wire rack with layer of toasted marshmallow on top.

Can I make these in a different sized pan?

You sure can! The quantities for making these in a 9" pan would be:

Crust - 400g graham cracker crumbs, 3 tablespoon sugar, ¼ teaspoon kosher salt, 150g brown butter
Filling - 660g dark chocolate, 105g unsalted butter, 435g heavy cream
Marshmallow Topping - 3 packets (21g) gelatine, 112g water, 155g honey or corn syrup, 112g water, 400g sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste.

What is the best substitute for Graham Crackers?

Digestive biscuits would work well here, or probably another kind of plain cookies made into crumbs. However, You may need to adjust the quantity of butter slightly as different biscuits are more or less absorbent. You want it to look like wet sand and pack in nice and tightly.

Cut shot of s'mores bars showing chocolate filling and marshmallow layer

FAQ for S'mores Bars

Can Smores bars be made ahead?
Yes! The graham cracker crust and filling can be done before, and then add the marshmallow topping on the day of serving.

What if I don't want a super thick marshmallow layer?
If you don't want a super thick layer of marshmallow, set some off to the side in a pan. Just grease a loaf pan or something similar, then add the extra marshmallow in and spread it out with a greased spatula. Dust with equal parts corn starch and powdered sugar then leave to set.

What is the best way to cut smores bars cleanly?
Cutting these is easiest with a sharp knife. I like to either heat mine up with a blow torch, or by dipping it in boiling water and then wiping off. Make sure you do this between cuts to give you a nice clean cut.

What is a good substitute for homemade marshmallow?
If you don't want to make marshmallow, you can top these with a layer of toasted meringue instead! You could also top them with mini marshmallows or a layer of marshmallow creme or marshmallow fluff.

I don't have a kitchen torch - can I broil these?
I wouldn't. The ganache layer will melt and it will be a nightmare. I just got a propane torch from the hardware store - they are much better in my opinion than a culinary torch!

What pan did you use?
I used this loaf pan to make these! A different sized loaf pan will work too but you might get slightly different dimensions.

Why are there two different quantities of butter in the recipe?
I call for 125g butter in the recipe and then 95g to be added to the graham cracker mix. The difference in these two quantities is accounting for the loss that occurs when browning butter. Add 95g brown butter to the graham cracker mix. You may be left with a teeny bit leftover.

How do you store s'mores bars?
Store the smores bars in an airtight container or lightly covered in the fridge.

What can I use in the place of corn syrup?
Glucose, or liquid honey is a good corn syrup substitute.

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Answers to your baking questions

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I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Peach Galette

Easy peach galette recipe has a frangipane base, a flaky homemade pie crust, and sliced fresh peaches. Peach galettes are the perfect summer dessert, and this easy galette recipe can be adapted to use any fresh fruit!

Peach and Frangipane Mini Galettes
How to Bake with Almond Flour
What is Frangipane?
Can these be made with other fruit?
Can these be made ahead?
A few wee tips for Peach and Frangipane Mini Galettes
Other recipes using Frangipane:

Unbaked galettes on sheet pan ready to go in the oven.

Peach and Frangipane Mini Galettes

Hi! Happy Sunday! We are nearing the end of peach season here in NYC, so I had to sneak just one more peach recipe in - these super cute mini galettes with an almond flour crust, made with Blue Diamond Almond Flour!

How to Bake with Almond Flour

I love subbing almond flour for a portion of regular flour in my baking. Almond flour works so well - it gives an extra depth of flavour that takes absolutely no additional effort. It can help create the perfect texture in some baked goods, particularly things such as loaf cakes (it’s a critical ingredient in almost all of my loaf cakes!).

It was my first time incorporating almond flour into pie crust, and I am so happy with how it came out. The pie crust is perfectly flaky and tender, but has a wee toasty hint from the almond flour within it. I paired the almond flour pie crust with a frangipane and some fresh peaches. When fruit is beautiful and fresh it really doesn’t need too much done to it and pairing it with a quick frangipane works so perfectly.

Side image of peach galettes on a sheet pan

What is Frangipane?

If you haven’t had frangipane before it is super simple. It is basically a thick batter made from butter, sugar, egg, and almond flour. Frangipane provides a beautiful nutty flavour and texture to baking.

It is often used in tarts with fruit, and it worked so well in these wee galettes! Because Blue Diamond Almond Flour is super fine and comes pre-sifted, it worked seamlessly into the pie dough. It also made a really smooth frangipane for the base of the galettes. It is made with 100% California-grown almonds which are super high-quality - great quality almonds give you great quality almond flour!

folded pastry with peaches and frangipane

Can these be made with other fruit?

They sure can! Frangipane is a perfect base for other fruit, so you can make these with whatever fruit is in season.

Can these be made ahead?

These Mini galettes are super easy to make ahead. Get them up to the stage where they go into the freezer before baking. At this point you can freeze them until solid. Then transfer to an airtight container or bag to bake off later.

A few wee tips for Peach and Frangipane Mini Galettes

After you mix the dough and shape it into discs, rest it in the fridge for about an hour, and then roll it out on a floured surface into a rectangle, fold it in thirds like a letter, then roll again and repeat the folding. Then you shape it into a rectangle, re-wrap tightly in plastic, and rest for at least two hours before using.
What this step does is make the dough homogenous and therefore easy to work with, but also adds layers through the rolling and folding - the same way puff pastry is laminated. It is definitely an optional step but from my experience it makes the world of difference when it comes to rolling out the dough and getting a nice homogenous dough for assembling these galettes
Make sure you allow enough time for these to chill down after assembly - they can have up to overnight in the fridge.
Adjust your sweetness depending on the sweetness of your fruit. If your peaches are super sweet and juicy, you may not need any additional sugar at all on the top (although I love to add it on the sides for crunch)
I left the peel on my peaches as I love how it looks (and peeling peaches can be a wee bit of a pain), but peel yours if you like!
The galettes might unfold a tiny bit in the oven. This is normal from the juices of the peaches and also from the frangipane as it bakes. Don’t freak out - they will still look amazing!
When it came to assembly I found it easiest to cut all the rectangles of dough out, and then work with two at a time, assemble them, and then transfer them to the baking sheet to chill, then move on to the next ones.

Other recipes using Frangipane:

Thank you so much to Blue Diamond Almond Flour for sponsoring this post! As always, all opinions are my own

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Answers to your baking questions

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Earl Grey Doughnut Bites with Earl Grey Glaze

Earl Grey Doughnut Bites are made with Soft Earl Grey infused brioche which is cut into squares and fried until golden, then drenched in earl grey glaze.

Earl Grey Doughnut Bites on a rack with some with bites taken out

Earl Grey Doughnut Bites
How to make Earl Grey Doughnut Bites
Earl Grey Glaze
A few wee tips for Earl Grey Doughnut Bites:

Earl Grey Doughnut Bites

Happy Saturday! Just popping in to share these Earl Grey Doughnut Bites with an Earl Grey Glaze! These are made from a super fluffy brioche dough, infused with earl grey, then cut into bite sized pieces, fried off into tiny doughnut bites, and finished with an Earl Grey Glaze.

My favourite part about making doughnuts is frying off the scraps. I love the actual process of making the big ones too, but to me there are few things more delicious than freshly fried doughnut scraps, tossed in a little sugar and eaten warm from the fryer. I usually cut out all the extra pieces using a round cutter, and fry those ones off first to check the oil temperature and time needed etc before I start with the actual doughnuts.

How to make Earl Grey Doughnut Bites

I wanted to make some earl grey doughnut holes and when it came time to cutting them out I was thinking of ways to use up the waste, and realised I can just chop the dough into squares rather than punching out holes, and so here we are! Super, super easy - just cut it all up, proof them, then fry them off. This would work for any of my brioche recipes. Because I knew the dough wasn’t going to have a fancy shape I did increase the butter and milk quantity for a super smooth, soft dough. Just so good.

Earl Grey Glaze

I finished these guys with an Earl Grey Glaze made with infused milk, just to really help drive the Earl Grey flavour home. If you love all things Earl Grey you will love these just as much as I do. Enjoy! x

A few wee tips for Earl Grey Doughnut Bites:

Take note of the quantity of milk I have listed - there is Extra to account for the absorption from the tea. I list 380g there which is the milk quantity you start with. You then use 280g infused milk in the brioche dough. Same goes with the glaze, there is additional milk in there to account for that.
If you don’t want to make these earl grey flavour, leave out the infusion step and use 280g whole milk.
Because I wasn’t shaping these into anything fancy I upped the quantity of the liquid and the butter to give a super soft, smooth dough. Because it’s squishy, a cold rise works best! You can do this either for a minimum of 2 hours in the fridge (you just need it to double in size), or you can make the dough the night before.
Use a good quality loose leaf tea here if you can.
I wait for the doughnut bites to cool before glazing, but you can do them when they are still slightly warm if you like!
This recipe makes quite a lot, but if you didn’t want as many you could try either halving the recipe, or shaping half into doughnut bites and the other half into buns - bake them off the same way as you would these. (They would be SO good filled with cream), otherwise you could make a half batch of cinnamon rolls or these earl grey rolls - just use this dough in the place of the dough in the recipe!

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Answers to your baking questions

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I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

Small Batch Double Chocolate Cookies

Rich, fudgy, dairy-free, small batch double chocolate olive oil cookies. These Rye Chocolate Chip cookies can be made with no mixer and do not require a chill time. These Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Cookies will be your new favourite!

Hiiii Happy happy Wednesday! All the days seem a wee bit the same here after over 5 months inside, but I am grateful we are safe and healthy and have AC! I am super excited to share this cookie recipe with you today - it’s small batch (my new fave), and it’s a double chocolate, olive oil and rye situation. If you ask me, it is the perfect addition to my chocolate chip cookie recipe collection!

I tested this guy a whole bunch, and am super happy with how it came out! It is a one-bowl cookie, doesn’t require a stand mixer, comes together super, super fast, and is dairy free! What more can you want. It kind of reminds me of a brownie cookie - the outside is a little shiny, there are big chunks of chocolate throughout, and the texture is super soft and fudgy. I love it so much. This is one of many small batch cookie recipes on my site - I hope you enjoy! If you're after a classic recipe, check out my recipe for homemade chocolate chip cookies from scratch.

Corner of a pan covered in dark chocolate olive oil cookies

How to make small batch cookies

The small batch aspect of the recipe kind of came about as an accident - I halved the recipe for my initial test to see if it would work and then realised it worked great, and sometimes small batch is best! This recipe makes 6 massive cookies, but I’ve included bake time and scoop size if you wanted slightly smaller ones too. The recipe would also double really well. I haven’t tried but these would be insanely good warm with a big scoop of ice cream.

Using Rye Flour in Baking

I love using a little bit of whole grain flour in my baking. I have found that switching a little of the all-purpose flour for a whole grain such as rye or spelt flour makes a huge difference. The rye flour provides chew, and also adds to the depth of flavour with the chocolate taste of the cookies.

How to make the cookies dairy free

The extra virgin olive oil also means that the cookie can be dairy free. If you want to keep this totally dairy free, use all dark chocolate. I used a mix of milk and dark in these.

The taste of the oil is subtle but it definitely comes through, and it pairs so well with the dutch cocoa and chocolate chunks. These are our current favourite, and I hope they will be yours too! Enjoy! x

A few wee tips for Small Batch Chocolate Cookies

I tested these a bunch of different sizes so you can make them however you like.
- To make 2 tablespoon cookies, bake for 12-13 min (yield 12)
- To make 3 tablespoon cookies, bake for 15-16 min (yield 9)
I haven’t tried them without the rye flour, but you can likely just sub the rye for more AP.
I used an electric mixer to do the first part of the recipe but you can just use a whisk and whisk super well if you need!
This would double well too if you liked!
Add other mix-ins if you would like - it would be so, so good if you added some toasted hazelnuts!
These are dairy free, but I used milk chocolate in them. If you need them to be totally dairy free then just make sure your chocolate is Dairy free too!

Frequently Asked Questions about small batch chocolate cookies

Do I have to use the Rye Flour?
No you don't - I haven't tested it without but have feedback from others that you can sub all-purpose flour for the cookies.

How do I store the cookies?
These store best at room temperature in an airtight container. They are best on the first two days.

Do I need to use a mixer for these?
No you don't! I used an electric hand mixer for the cookies but you could just whisk super well and you will be fine.

How do I get them perfectly round?
You can scoot these! As soon as they come out of the oven, take a cookie cutter a little larger than the cookies and use it to scoot them into shape. I use this technique with almost all of my cookies. It is totally optional but I love how it makes them look!

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Espresso Chocolate Babka

Espresso Chocolate Babka is made with super-soft brioche dough, spiked with a wee bit of rye flour for the most beautiful toasty flavour, then a rich chocolate and espresso filling, and a sneaky wee sugar syrup to give a beautiful glossy finish. I love making babka so much - it is super easy once you get the hang of it, and the filling options really are endless.

A super easy, rich chocolate and espresso babka made with a rye brioche. The brioche dough is super soft and fluffy, made with rye flour for a toasty finish, and is filled with an espresso chocolate filling and finished with a simple syrup to give it shine and lock in moisture

Chocolate Espresso and Rye Babka

Hi hi! Sorry things have been a bit quiet around here the last wee while - it’s been a weird year for sure! I am just popping in to share this chocolate, espresso and rye babka! I made this a few weeks ago and never got around to sharing the recipe but here we are - it’s so good!

Using Rye for Brioche Dough

There’s not too many tips and tricks for making this one. The dough is super simple - it is my go-to brioche, but I just subbed in a wee bit of rye. I got a grain mill a while back so have been playing around with adding different flours into my baking, and it’s so fun to play with! I love spelt and rye in things - I often just switch out 15% or so of the all-purpose flour to see how I go, and it makes such a huge difference in the flavour! The rye flour in this is pretty subtle, but I loved it for a wee variation on the traditional brioche. I got theis rye flour from King Arthur.

How to store Espresso Rye Babka

This recipe makes two loaves, which is perfect for having one for you and sharing, or not sharing at all and keeping them all for you - you can tightly wrap them in plastic wrap and pop them in the freezer, then thaw and briefly refresh in the oven for warm babka whenever you need! The dimensions that I roll my cinnamon rolls to are actually the same as my babka, so if you really wanted to you could divide the log in half, turn half into a babka, and the other half into rolls! I have done this before, and baked both off, then froze the babka and had the rolls that day. It works great. You do you here. Hope you’re having a great week! x

Steps for Making Babka

Babka has a few steps, but they are very similar to the process of making cinnamon rolls right up to where you form the log of dough. This is where it differs - for babka you split the log vertically and twist into babka. For cinnamon rolls you would cut into rolls. The fun part about that is that you can cut half into rolls and half into a babka if you like - do what you want here!

Roll out your dough. Take your time here. See the tips below for rolling out a nice even rectangle of dough.
Spread with filling. The chocolate espresso babka filling goes on nice and smooth and works perfectly with the rye.
Roll up. Roll the dough up tightly into a log of dough.
Chill. I like to cut the dough into two here and then chill down - this makes the cutting and twisting process much easier with chilled dough.
Cut and Twist. To twist a babka you cut the log vertically down the middle and open to expose the layers. Then you twist up into a babka loaf and pop into the pan. It is ok if you need to give it a bit of a wiggle to get into the pan. Don't worry if it looks messy - rising fixes that.
Rise and bake. Leave the dough to rise until it is puffy and doubled in size. Bake the babka, then finish with sugar syrup.

How to roll out dough into an even rectangle

Rolling out a nice even rectangle of dough can be really tricky. I've been there. There are a few wee tricks though that can make it a little easier.

Shape your dough into a rough rectangle. The dough will probably have somewhat of a round shape from being in a bowl. This is fine if you want round dough. However, if you start with a rectangle you are more likely to have a more even rectangle of dough when you roll out. Squish the dough into a rectangle shape. I like to use a bench scraper to make the sides nice and straight.
Flatten your dough slightly with your rolling pin. If you start rolling straight away, the dough will roll out unevenly. Instead, flatten it lightly with your rolling pin. Press down on it a few times to flatten it, starting at the bottom and working your way up, then turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat the process again. What this does is gives you a larger flatter piece of dough to start rolling out, which is easier to keep an even thickness.
Square off your rectangle as you go. As you are rolling out, pause a few times to square off the edges of your dough. Again, I like to use a bench scraper for this. It is easier to stop a few times and see what is happening than roll out all in one go and then try and fix any unevenness.

Other Frequently Asked Questions for Chocolate Espresso Babka

Can I use regular flour?
If you don’t want to use rye flour and just want to do full all-purpose, go ahead! use 565g all-purpose insteadAdd image

Can I make this all in one day?
I like to give my brioche dough a fridge rise as it makes rolling it out much easier. I do a minimum of 2 ½ to 3 hours but it can also be made the day before and chilled overnight. You can do the whole thing in one day if you like - it will need 45 minutes to an hour or so at room temp until it has doubled in size

Is the chilling step necessary?
The chilling step is also optional here but I find that it makes shaping the babka a bit less messy. You can skip that too if you like. A wee note on that for this specific recipe - the chilling step causes the chocolate to harden, so it may crack a wee bit as you are cutting the log in half and making into a babka. This isn’t a big deal at all, I just wanted to give you a heads up!

What can I use instead of espresso powder?
Leave out the espresso if you like too! If you don't have espresso, fine instant coffee would work too. This would likely work well with milk chocolate too. The chocolate is quite bitter so feel free to sub in some milk chocolate if you like.

Can I add other things to the filling?
You could also add chopped nuts here if you like - that would be so yum!

What pan did you use?
I use a 1lb loaf pan here - an 8"x4". Something slightly larger will work too the babka will just fill it differently.

For more Brioche Recipes:

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Recipe For Chocolate Espresso Rye Babka

Vanilla Buttermilk Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Two Layer Vanilla Buttermilk Cake with Cherry Compote and Vanilla Bean Swiss Meringue Buttercream. This small two-layer cake is perfect for a celebration with a small group. The cake is tender from the reverse creaming method, and the Swiss meringue buttercream is smooth and silky. This is the perfect vanilla bean cake!

Two Layer Vanilla Bean Buttermilk Cake Iced with Swiss Meringue Buttercream and finished with decorative Flags

VANILLA BUTTERMILK CAKE

Hi! Happy Sunday! Just popping in to share this cake I’ve been working on with you. I have a whole bunch of three layer cakes and also a lot of snack cakes on here, but I wanted something that would be a wee in between size - still a layer cake with a filling, but a slightly scaled down version, so I scaled my favourite vanilla bean cake to make two 6 inch cakes, added in some buttermilk, filled it with a super easy cherry compote filling, then finished the whole thing off with a super smooth, silky swiss meringue buttercream.

Two Layer Vanilla Bean Buttermilk Cake with Cherry Compote and Vanilla Bean Swiss Meringue Buttercream with a slice taken out.

TWO LAYER VANILLA BUTTERMILK CAKE - PERFECT FOR SMALL BATCH

This cake only has two layers, so it is a bit more approachable than a regular three layer cake. This means that it comes together super quickly, but is also the perfect amount of cake for a small gathering or a special event with a few people. You can mix and match the cake and the frosting if you like - any other frosting on my site will go great with this!

The cake itself is super simple - it is a vanilla buttermilk cake, which is super tender and has a delicate crumb thanks to the reverse creaming method, which is where you combine your dry ingredients, then slowly incorporate the butter. What this does is coats the flour in fat, which inhibits gluten development, giving you that lovely delicate, soft crumb. It is one of my favourite ways to make a cake, and works particularly well for this vanilla cake.

Two Layer Vanilla Bean Buttermilk Cake with Cherry Compote and Vanilla Bean Swiss Meringue Buttercream. This small two-layer cake is perfect for a celebration with a small group. The cake is tender from the reverse creaming method, and the Swiss meringue buttercream is smooth and silky. This is the perfect vanilla bean cake!

A FEW WEE TIPS FOR VANILLA BUTTERMILK CAKE

I also use good quality vanilla - I exclusively use Heilala. You can use the code CLOUDY20 in their store for a wee discount!
You can fill this with whatever you like. I made a cherry filling, but it would be so good with any stone fruit filling, a berry compote, spiced apple filling, or you can just leave the filling out and have a vanilla on vanilla cake.
The frosting will leave you with a wee bit left over. I don’t want you to feel like you don’t have enough frosting (truly the worst feeling ever), so there is a wee bit more. It is enough if you wanted to do a piped buttercream border, or it keeps in the fridge or freezes well in an airtight container too.
I usually don’t use them because I am lazy, but Cake strips really make a difference here. They are a piece of material that you wet and wrap around the bottom of your cake pan, and they prevent the outside edge of the cake from baking up too quickly and browning too fast, and help the cake bake up nice and flat. You can either buy them or make your own by wetting a strip of scrap material and wrapping around.
When you are dividing your batter between the pans, do it by weight. I like to know the weight of my mixing bowl before I start (write it somewhere in your kitchen), so I can just weigh the bowl filled with batter, and then subtract the bowl weight to get the weight of the batter. You can then work out how much batter goes in each pan. It’s quick and easy and means you get really even layers.
I made the cake layers a few days before, then wrapped them tightly and froze them until needed. Then I let them defrost for a wee bit in the fridge, but you can assemble with the cake frozen if you like - just leave time for it to defrost once you’ve finished making it!
I like to make my buttercream with cold butter, as it has less chance of going sloppy. Sometimes though this means that the butter doesn’t totally incorporate because the mixture gets too cool. To fix this I either quickly run the blow torch over the outside of the mixing bowl (only do this if your bowl is metal), or remove a tiny bit of the buttercream and either melt in the microwave or over the stove and then mix back in - the warmth from the small portion of warmed buttercream will be enough to bring up the temperature of the overall mixture and bring together your buttercream. You can also bring your butter out about 10 minutes before you start, and chop it up so it is a wee bit soft by the time you need it.
I made some wee flags for the top of the cake using skewers and washi tape, inspired by this cake that my friend Tessa made!

More Layer Cake Recipes

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Doughnuts with Balsamic Blueberry and Cheesecake Filling

Fluffy doughnuts are fried until perfectly golden brown, then coated in sugar and filled with a whipped vanilla bean cheesecake filling and a balsamic blueberry compote. These are the most perfect treat!

Balsamic Blueberry Cheesecake Doughnuts

Hi, Hi, Happy Friday! Just in case you were looking for a wee baking / deep frying project this weekend, I have these balsamic blueberry and cheesecake doughnuts for you! I’ve made a bunch of doughnuts before, but I do have to say the filling on these is right up there as a contender for favourite ever. I love a fruit filled doughnut, and paired with a silky whipped cheesecake filling, these things are next level.

For the doughnut base itself I riffed on this dough that I made a few months ago, which is a leaner dough than I would usually work with, but made the most amazing fluffy doughnuts, perfect for stuffing full of delicious things. I switched out the milk for buttermilk, which gave them an amazing flavour, and popped an egg in there just to help keep everything together. If you only wanted to make a few doughnuts you could turn the rest of the dough into buns or rolls - it is super versatile so you can do with it what you like!

How to make Balsamic Blueberry Compote

I love making compotes out of slightly tired or frozen fruit - it is a great way to use whatever you have floating around in the fridge or freezer, and a great way to brighten them up a bit is to cut through the sweetness of the fruit by adding an acid. You can use lemon juice, but my favourite way to do it is to use balsamic vinegar! The balsamic gives a super interesting flavour profile to the filling, and I think it pairs so well with the blueberries. The filling is super easy to make - you just cook everything down, then strain out the fruit and reduce the liquid down just a bit more so that it is nice and thick and won’t run everywhere when you pipe it into the doughnuts. The fruit then gets mixed back in, and the whole thing is left to cool. It works with almost any berries - it’s just my favourite.

I paired the balsamic berry filling with a super smooth, silky cheesecake filling which is really easy to make - basically you just whip together some room temp cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, then a wee bit of cream to make it a nice consistency. It’s super yum as is, but pairs so, so nicely with the balsamic blueberry filling. I’m in love.

Happy Weekend! x

A few wee tips for making Blueberry Cheesecake Doughnuts

The dough for these is a wee bit on the sticky side. Knead it until it is nice and smooth (it may take a while), then give it a few turns by hand to make sure it’s ready. I find because it is a bit wetter than your standard dough, a cold rise makes it easiest to work with when it comes to shaping. You can either do this on the same day (3 hours minimum is what works best for me), or you can do an overnight rise.
Make sure your cream cheese is at room temperature before making your filling.
The blueberry filling can be made ahead - ideally you want it to be totally chilled down. It will thicken as it cools!
I fried the doughnuts in light olive oil! It works great for frying, otherwise you can use a neutral oil.
Just fry one first to make sure your oil is the right temp. A good way to make sure these are done inside is to measure the internal temp - you want something around 200°f / 95°c for a fully cooked inside.

For more doughnut recipes, check out:

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Funfetti Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

This Funfetti Layer Cake is the most delicious, moist funfetti vanilla bean cake. This homemade funfetti cake has a yellow cake base and is made with buttermilk to keep it perfectly dense, and is packed full of Jimmy sprinkles. The confetti cake is layered with a rich chocolate American Buttercream frosting, and finished with more sprinkles. This is the perfect celebration cake, and as a six inch layer cake it is perfect for a small group. This funfetti layer cake with chocolate buttercream will be your new favourite!

The most delicious, moist funfetti vanilla bean cake. This homemade funfetti cake has a yellow cake base and is made with buttermilk to keep it perfectly dense, and is packed full of Jimmy sprinkles. The confetti cake is layered with a rich chocolate American Buttercream frosting, and finished with more sprinkles. This is the perfect celebration cake, and at six inches it is great for a small group.

Funfetti Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

Hi hi! I want to start this post out by confessing that I think I’m breaking the funfetti rules with this funfetti layer cake. Apparently, according to the internet, funfetti cake is a place of white cake, imitation vanilla and sprinkles. I didn’t grow up with white cake (just ‘yellow’ cake which is what we call vanilla cake), so when I set out to make a funfetti cake, I wanted to keep it as delicious and flavourful as possible, so here we are - funfetti in a yellow cake. Don’t come at me, because it’s really, really good.

Funfetti Cake with Yellow Cake

I used my favourite vanilla bean cake as a base here for this funfetti layer cake, but switched out the milk in the recipe for buttermilk, just for a tiny bit more moisture. The cake is my ultimate base recipe - you can infuse the milk to flavour it, and it makes a great sheet cake, snack cake or cupcake base. Because it’s such a great base, it also handled me throwing a whole heap of sprinkles at it like an absolute champ. The cake is super tender, packed with flavour, and is an amazing homemade funfetti cake recipe, as far as I am concerned. It uses the reverse creaming method - where you mix together all the dry then incorporate in the butter and then the wet ingredients, which is not only super easy but gives an incredibly tender crumb. It’s just the best.

What are the best sprinkles to use in Funfetti Cake?

I found that the best sprinkles to use for this funfetti cake were jimmies - if you’re in New Zealand those are the long skinny rainbow ones, the colourful version of chocolate hail. The round confetti ones would work too, just stay away from nonpareils (hundreds and thousands) because they lose their colour and it gets messy quickly.Don't go for anything natural as it will bleed all through the cake.

Dark Chocolate American Buttercream

I finished the funfetti cake off with a dark chocolate American buttercream. I first discovered it on my friend Claudia’s site and it is so good! It is an american buttercream base, but is amped up with dutch cocoa and melted chocolate - imagine ganache and american buttercream had a baby. American buttercream is generally powdered sugar based, and can get a wee bit grainy, but this is fluffy and silky, and so, so good, and is perfect paired with the buttery, rich, sprinkle packed funfetti cake.

A few wee tips for making this Funfetti Cake

I use Fat Daddio’s pans and they are the best I’ve ever tried. I have three 6” and three 8” and they are just so, so good. I really recommend investing in three of each size if you can - it removes the need to halve your layers etc, which can be a huge pain.
I like making the cake ahead of time a wee bit if I can just to allow it to cool completely. The day before is great. You can wrap it and store at room temperature overnight, just make sure it is completely cool. Alternatively I like to freeze it, which makes the stacking process nice and easy to do with a cold cake. If you are making the layers ahead of time, wrap them well in plastic then freeze until you are using. I assemble straight from frozen usually - just make sure to give yourself enough time to let the layers defrost!
I left this pretty rustic around the edges and just added in some sprinkles, but if you like there is enough frosting in the recipe to finish with a border of piping if you liked.
If you want an 8” cake, just double the quantities of the cake and it will be the perfect size. You can probably get away with a 1.5x or 1.75x the buttercream quantity.
When you are dividing your batter between the pans, do it by weight. I like to know the weight of my mixing bowl before I start (write it somewhere in your kitchen), so I can just weigh the bowl filled with batter, and then subtract the bowl weight to get the weight of the batter. You can then work out how much batter goes in each pan. It’s quick and easy and means you get really even layers.
I like to use a cookie scoop to add the buttercream between the layers. that way you can easily add the same quantity between. Otherwise you can just eyeball it and plop the buttercream on!

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Answers to your baking questions

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Recipe For Funfetti Layer Cake

Kiwifruit and Mango Popsicles

Kiwifruit and Mango Popsicles. Creamy Kiwifruit whipped cream and smooth mango puree are combined into this perfect popsicle. These pops are gluten free and super refreshing, and are great for using up summer fruit. There is no cooking required - simply blend up your fruit and you are ready to go!

Kiwifruit and Mango Popsicles

Hi! Happy Monday! Just popping on here to share these Kiwifruit and Mango popsicles with you! I made them with my neighbor last weekend to use up some extra kiwifruit I had from my pavlova adventures, and they turned out so well that I had to share them here with you!

The idea for these actually came from my neighbor (we call her unicorn neighbor because it’s a unicorn situation to have an amazing neighbor in NYC), who was cleaning out her magazine stash and came across a cooking light issue from 2011, which had a recipe for fruit pops in it! She borrowed my popsicle molds and returned them along with some super beautiful and refreshing peach popsicles, with a peach puree and then a peach whipped cream at the bottom.

The whipped cream at the bottom had initially been put there as a way to plug the hole of the mold (they sit flat so can leak a wee bit), but I loved how it looked and it was so, so good to have a wee creamy bit at the end of the popsicle. We re-created them last weekend with mango and kiwifruit, and they turned out great! The recipe was SUPER confusing to read, but we got there eventually with a bunch of tweaking, and I think we worked out a really good recipe which can easily be mix and matched with different fruit depending on what you’re feeling like. I can’t wait to make allll the combinations.

How to make Kiwifruit and Mango Popsicles

These look super fancy but I promise that they are really, really easy, and would be a great project to make with kids. Popsicles keep super well in the freezer just in an airtight container, so you can make a bunch and pop them in there for whenever the need strikes. We made a quick kiwifruit whipped cream by blending up some kiwifruit and lemon, then folding it through some sweetened whipped cream. This became the base of the popsicle, and we added in some kiwifruit chunks to help prop up the stick within the pop itself. The cream part is frozen just until solid, then the pops are topped up with a mango, lemon and sugar mixture, blended until smooth, then frozen, and that’s it! They are so, so easy, and are great to use up any fruit you may have on hand that is looking a wee bit tired.

A few wee tips for Kiwifruit and Mango Popsicles

I used these pop molds for these, but have also tested with these which are a much cheaper version and work just as well!
If you only have the traditional popsicle molds you can pour in the puree and add the kiwifruit chunks and then top off with the whipped cream, or you can add the whipped cream first, freeze, and top off with the mango. Alternatively you could make more of the whipped cream mixture and alternate pouring them in (they may mix up a bit) and have a marbled situation. These are super easy so just do whatever works!
I used golden Kiwifruit because that is what I had on hand, but it would work with green too! You could also freeze some berries in the bottom of the molds too if you like. Do whatever you think is best!
The sugar in the mixture helps prevent the formation of ice. You can drop it if you feel the need, but just know that this may make your pops icy.

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Perfect Swiss Meringue Pavlova

The most perfect, easy pavlova recipe. Using Swiss Meringue instead of the traditional French, this pavlova recipe is crispy on the outside and has a perfect, full, marshmallow center, and is much more stable so is resistant to humidity and changes in weather. It is easy to make and the perfect crowd pleaser. This is the most perfect year round dessert. Topped with Manuka Honey whipped cream and golden kiwifruit, this is a New Zealand classic.

The Perfect Swiss Meringue Pavlova

Hi! I hope you’ve had a great week - mine was filled with an excessive amount of pavlovas. I’ve made 16 in the last two weeks on the quest to find the perfect pavlova recipe (perfect to me anyway), which is, to me, a super fluffy, full interior, and a perfect, pale, but thick crusted exterior.

I grew up eating pavlova - I come from a huge family, and so there were at least two at every gathering, and it is my Mum’s go-to dessert, so I’ve probably had hundreds over the course of my life, but it wasn’t until I moved away from home that it ever occurred to me to make my own, and I’ve been on a bit of a mission to develop the perfect one since, but never really got around to it until this week.

Weather resistant pavlova

Pavlovas can be notoriously fussy, particularly when it comes to the weather. It is super humid in NYC and so I wanted to develop something that would stand up to the humidity, and so I turned to Swiss Meringue. Pavlova is traditionally made with a french meringue (egg whites and sugar whipped together), while a Swiss meringue involves cooking together the egg whites and sugar over a water bath before whipping them up. This additional step creates a much more stable meringue, which is much more forgiving, and much more resistant to humidty than a French meringue. I made the one in the photos while it was pouring down with rain, and it came out perfectly!

How to make the perfect pavlova

When I was developing this recipe, my focus was more on getting that nice thick exterior crust and a super full inside, rather than worrying too much about the pavlova cracking. Cracking is just something that happens sometimes, and to be honest, it’s not the end of the world. I was able to get a crack-free outer by keeping the temperature super low and baking the pavlova for a long time, but the inside slumped down and I was left with a hollow pavlova, which wasn’t as nice to eat.

The majority of my testing was playing around with the bake times and temperatures of the pavlova. Too high and the pavlova would come out too golden and would get a little slumpy, and too low and it wouldn’t get totally crispy before the inside filling started to drop down. Initially I was testing without the addition of lemon juice and corn starch, as I figured the meringue was already stable from the cooking, but I added it in after a few tests and found that it made a huge difference in how pale the outside of the pavlova stayed, and also how full the interior was. 2 teaspoon of each seemed to be the perfect amount - just enough to help stabilise but not enough to make the meringue chalky or overly lemony in flavour.

A few wee tips for the perfect pavlova

Your Grandma / Mum / Dad / Grandad / Friend might have a great no-fail pavlova recipe too and that’s all good! This is just another version.
200g of egg whites is about 6 eggs worth, just for when you are working out approximately how much you need!
You can eat the skin of a Sungold Kiwifruit! I left it on for colour contrast when I was shooting, but you can take it off too if you like.
Pavlova is great to make ahead - once you have made it, store in an airtight container or wrapped in plastic wrap (just wrap the whole tray up), until you serve.
Assemble the pavlova close to serving if you can, to help prevent it from going too soggy when the cream comes in contact with the meringue.
Make sure your oven is the correct temperature! If you bake this too hot the outside will go a wee bit golden, or the inside will slump down. Baking for too long causes the inside filling to separate from the crust and you will have a wee gap. It will still taste delicious, but might be a little bit hollow. I really recommend getting an oven thermometer just to make sure your oven is calibrated.
I cooked this on conventional, not on fan. If your oven only has fan, you will need to adjust the temperature a little.
The eggs get cooked over the water bath with the sugar, so there is no need for them to be at room temperature - straight from the fridge is fine!
Make sure your mixing bowl is nice and clean so that the meringue whips up nicely! You can clean it with soap and water and allow to dry thoroughly, or you can wipe the inside down with a piece of lemon to help remove any specks of grease.
My stand mixer bowl is metal, so I just cook the meringue in the water bath directly in the bowl. If yours is not, just use a heatproof bowl for the water bath and then transfer.
Have your cornflour and lemon juice all ready to go in! I like to prep them while the meringue is whipping.
I haven’t tried making this with a hand mixer but it would probably be ok! You just want to whip until you have really stiff peaks. It will likely take longer than 4 minutes, so just watch carefully.

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Answers to your baking questions

Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:

I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!

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Banana Bread made with Greek Yoghurt

What are the best bananas to use for Banana Bread?

Banana bread with Frozen Bananas.

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How to make the best chocolate chip cookies

What is the best chocolate to use in chocolate chip cookies?

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For a perfect freezer stash - make these ahead!

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Small Batch Brownies with Oil

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Apple Crumble - The Perfect Apple Dessert

How to make the best apple crumble

Large Batch or Small Batch Apple Crumble

How to reheat Apple Crumble

The best apples to use for Apple Crumble

Can I add other Fruit to this crumble?

How to prepare Apple Crumble ahead of time

For more apple recipes, check out:

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How to Make Funfetti Cookies

What are the best Sprinkles to use for Funfetti Cookies?

How to get perfectly round cookies

How to store cookies

A few wee tips for Funfetti Cookies:

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Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts

How to make Cinnamon Sugar Donuts

Community Review

What is the best oil to use for frying?

Tips for frying yeasted doughnuts

Troubleshooting fried doughnuts.

A few wee tips for cinnamon sugar doughnuts

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Pumpkin Cheesecake with a Gingersnap Crust

The Farmer's Daughter Bakes by Kelsey Siemens

Steps for making Pumpkin Cheesecake

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Table of contents

The best Dinner Roll Recipe

Steps for making the best Dinner Rolls

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