This pear tart recipe is primed for any holiday menu. Featuring caramelized, jewel-toned Starkrimson pears fanned across a buttery, flaky crust, and a wreath of pastry leaf cutouts, it adds unmistakable festive flair to any table. The pears get their sheen from a base of buttery cinnamon sugar that bubbles up as the tart bakes. Meanwhile, an optional drizzle of dulce de leche—homemade or store-bought—makes each slice extra glossy and sweet.

Perfect for prepping ahead, this fruit tart can be baked a day in advance, and the steps can be broken down even further: Make the dough up to three days ahead, roll it into the pan the day before, and freeze decorative cutouts until assembly. Each element comes together to create a tart that’s as beautiful as it is indulgent.

Tips for the perfect pear tart

• Dulce de leche your way: Homemade dulce de leche—either starting from scratch or by simmering a can of sweetened condensed milk—is impressive, but a can of store-bought pre-made dulce de leche works perfectly. Making your own? Cans of condensed milk can be simmered 3 months ahead; opened dulce de leche keeps 3 weeks in the fridge.
• Dough prep: Make the tart dough up to 3 days ahead. Chill tightly wrapped, or freeze up to 3 months. Thaw 1–2 hours at room temperature or overnight in the fridge before using.
• Decorative crust: Roll out dough scraps, cut shapes, and chill or freeze for an hour before placing on the tart. Freeze solid to maintain shape while baking.
• Pristine pear slices: Keep sliced pears in tight halves, with cut sides placed in lemon juice to prevent browning until assembly.
• What type of pears: Starkrimson pears boast crimson-red skin and make this easy tart truly stunning, but if you can’t find them, look for red Anjou pears or red Comice pears. The tart is easiest to assemble with slightly underripe pears, but very ripe pears will also be delicious. Bartlett and Bosc pears will also work, but they won’t be quite as eye-catching.
• Pie crust decorations: For a decorative crust, roll out dough scraps in Step 4 to ⅛”–¼” thick on a lightly floured surface and chill 5 minutes. Generously flour surface and pastry and cut into decorative shapes with pie cutters or small cookie cutters. Adhere to edges of tart shell with egg wash as desired. Brush tops of cutouts with more egg wash and freeze pastry 1 hour (cutouts will keep their shape best during baking if they are frozen solid). Continue to fill and bake as instructed. If cutouts brown too much before tart is done, cover individually with small pieces of foil.
• The finishing touch: The dulce de leche, while highly recommended, is totally optional. If preferred, you could serve your pear tart with a scoop of caramel or vanilla ice cream, a dollop of bourbon- or rum-spiked whipped cream, or a drizzle of crème anglaise.

If you love pumpkin, you HAVE to try this easy pumpkin bread recipe! Moist, warmly spiced, and filled with pumpkin flavor, it’s the perfect fall treat.

This pumpkin bread recipe is super moist, warmly spiced, and filled with delicious pumpkin flavor. It’s one of my favorite fall recipes, and I make at least one loaf every year. On a crisp fall day, you can’t beat the smell of homemade pumpkin bread baking in the oven!

I first published this pumpkin bread recipe in 2019, and I’ve since updated it to include even more pumpkin and warm spices. This version has a moister texture and richer fall flavor…and it’s completely impossible for me to eat just one slice at a time. I think it’s the best pumpkin bread I’ve tried. I hope you love it too!

Pumpkin Bread Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make this easy pumpkin bread recipe:

• Pumpkin, of course! I tested this recipe two ways: using a full (15-ounce) can of pumpkin and using slightly less, 1 1/2 cups. While I hate to leave you with leftover pumpkin, I found that using 1 1/2 cups gave the loaf a better texture. It’s super moist, but not dense. You’ll have a few tablespoons of pumpkin puree leftover—perfect for making a pumpkin spice latte! Be sure to use pure pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling. I like Libby’s.
• All-purpose flour – Spoon and level it to avoid packing too much into your measuring cup.
• Vegetable oil – For moisture and richness. Another neutral oil, such as avocado or canola oil, would work here too!
• Milk – Use whatever kind you keep on hand. Regular milk, almond milk, and oat milk are all great choices.
• Baking powder, baking soda, and eggs – They help the loaf puff up as it bakes.
• Cane sugar – For sweetness.
• Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves – For warm, cozy fall flavor. A tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice works too.
• Vanilla extract – It enhances the spices’ warm flavor.
• And sea salt – To make all the flavors pop!

Find the complete recipe with measurements below.

How to Make Pumpkin Bread

This pumpkin bread recipe is so easy to make! Here’s how it goes:

First, make the batter. Whisk together the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry ingredients in another.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Don’t overmix, or the pumpkin bread will be dense.

Then, bake. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350°F until the top springs back to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 60 to 70 minutes.

• Tip: Check the loaf after 45 minutes in the oven. If the top is browned, tent it with foil for the remaining bake time so that it doesn’t get too dark before the loaf cooks through.

Let the quick bread cool completely before slicing and serving.

Finally, enjoy! Devour a slice plain, or slather it with butter or honey butter. Leftover pumpkin bread keeps well in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

For longer storage, wrap slices in aluminum foil or plastic wrap, and freeze for up to 3 months. Allow the slices to thaw at room temperature, or unwrap and defrost them in the microwave for about 30 seconds.

Pumpkin Bread Recipe Variations

Do you like nuts, fruit, or chocolate in your pumpkin bread? Feel free to adapt this recipe to suit your tastes. Here are a few fun ways to change it up:

• Add some crunch. Stir in 1/2 cup of your favorite chopped nuts, and sprinkle some on top. Chopped pecans or walnuts would be especially good!
• Make it fruity. Fold 1/2 cup dried cranberries, dried tart cherries, raisins, or chopped dates into the batter.
• Go the chocolate route. Fold 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips into the batter. Scatter more on top for good measure!
• Frost it. Craving a more decadent treat? Slather this loaf with my tangy cream cheese frosting!

Let me know what variations you try!

More Favorite Pumpkin Recipes

If you love this homemade pumpkin bread, try one of these delicious pumpkin recipes next:

Can’t get enough quick bread? You’ll love my banana bread and zucchini bread too!

Pumpkin Bread

Prep Time: 20 minutes mins

Cook Time: 1 hour hr

Total Time: 1 hour hr 20 minutes mins

Serves 8

The BEST pumpkin bread recipe! A delicious fall treat, it’s super moist and warmly spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

• Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease an 8×4 or 9×5-inch loaf pan.

• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, ginger, salt, cloves, and nutmeg.

• In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, eggs, sugar, vegetable oil, milk, and vanilla until smooth.

• Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined, being careful not to overmix. The batter will be thick.

• Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until the top springs back to the touch and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. I like to check the loaf after 45 minutes. If the top is nicely browned, I cover it with foil for the remaining bake time to prevent further browning.

• Allow to cool completely in the pan before slicing and serving.

*1 (15-ounce) can of pumpkin puree contains about 1 3/4 cups, so you’ll have a little leftover. Use it to make a pumpkin spice latte, or stir it into overnight oats. I’ve also tested this recipe using the entire can of pumpkin. It still works, but the loaf bakes less evenly and has a denser texture at the bottom.

Here’s the thing about boxed cake mixes: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them, and they exist for a reason. While we’ve got plenty of homemade cake recipes to choose from when you’re in the mood for a baking project, sometimes you need to whip up something sweet and satisfying, stat—whether for an impromptu get-together or because you forgot a loved one’s birthday (oops!). 

That doesn’t mean cake mix can’t be improved, though. There are plenty of add-ins you can use to deepen the flavor and/or texture of the cake, like nuts, spices, freeze-dried fruit, and flavorful fats like brown butter. While there are many options for customizing cake batter, you can’t just fold in whatever you want. Cake mixes are carefully designed food products that are engineered to work just right if you follow the package directions. They make the process incredibly easy, often not even requiring essential cake-batter steps like creaming butter and sugar. But that also means that alterations to the basic formula can sometimes have unintended and undesirable effects.

In doing research for this piece, we came across dozens of articles on this same topic that offered a variety of suggestions we were more than a little skeptical of. There’s a good chance many of those articles never tested the tips they were sharing (because, LOL, that’s the internet these days, don’t you love it?). But we’re a different kind of food brand, one that stands by its recommendations and roots them in real testing, so that’s what we did here, cooking up round after round of boxed cake mix with different ingredients added, all so we could tell you which ideas are good and which…aren’t. 

While all of these ideas are for modifying the mix itself, one of the better roads to making a boxed cake mix taste more homemade and special is to make a frosting from scratch. Whether you prefer American or German buttercream, whipped cream, or ganache, whipping up a homemade frosting usually takes no more than 10 minutes, making it an easy option for a more personal touch. Once you frost your cake, you can decorate it with sprinkles, cookie crumbs, broken pretzels or potato chips, fresh or candied fruit, or anything else that’s calling to you. 

What follows is a list of additions—some recommended, some acceptable, and some we most definitely advise against using—all scaled for a 15.25 ounce package (which is fairly standard) to make your next box of cake mix taste a little less out-of-the-box. 

How We Tested

In order to get started, we identified the boxed-mix “upgrades” we were most doubtful of or just curious about. We wanted to see in what ways each add-in altered the flavor and the texture of the cake, whether negatively or positively. Did the additions affect how the cake rose, how it browned, or how it domed? Was there a change in the crumb? Did the ingredients add to the experience of eating the cake or take away from it? We then bought multiple boxes of the same cake mix, followed the package directions exactly as written, and mixed each sample for the same amount of time with whatever modification we were making. 

The results are as follows: “recommended” modifications are ones we’re confident will not harm most boxed cake batters, and in many cases stand to improve them, or, at the very least, alter them in pleasing ways; “acceptable” modifications are ones we didn’t think were particularly good, but also didn’t do anything outright objectionable to the cake—we probably wouldn’t do any of them, but one could; “not recommended” additions are ones we found to be unappealing or downright disgusting, and don’t think they should be on any list of cake-batter mods.

Recommended 

Spices

Perhaps the simplest way to add a subtle boost of flavor is incorporating spices into your cake mix. Cinnamon and nutmeg are obvious choices, but other good options include cardamom, allspice, and star anise. You’ll want to be mindful of pairings: Try saffron (which is best bloomed in fat or liquid before adding to the mix), cardamom, or lavender with white chocolate frosting, or a variety of peppercorns with berries and stone fruit for topping your cake. It’s best to start off with small amounts, like 1/2 a teaspoon. Use your sense of smell to gauge whether or not you should add more, and take notes so you can refine your spice levels on future batches. 

Malted Milk Powder

Former Serious Eats editor and baker extraordinaire Stella Parks has called malted milk powder the “umami bomb” of baking. The ingredient adds a depth of toasty, savory flavor similar to butterscotch or toffee, as well as a bit of creamy richness. You can add anywhere from a teaspoon to a tablespoon to enhance your cake. 

Nut and Seed Butters

Adding nut and seed butters—whether you opt for almond butter, peanut butter, tahini, or pistachio paste—can significantly change the flavor of your cake for the better, giving it a nutty richness. We tested these additions both as swirls, in which we only slightly thinned the nut butter with some batter, then swooshed it into the mix without fully incorporating it, and also as a fully-incorporated flavoring. Swirling was not great—it created a gummy texture in the pasty swirled portions—but whisking half a cup of cake batter with half a cup of nut butter before fully mixing it with the rest of the batter resulted in a cake with a more even distribution of flavor and enjoyable texture. 

Browned Butter

Replacing the butter or oil called for on the box with browned butter is a great way to add nutty, toasted notes to your cake. Just be careful not to burn it, and make sure it cools to room temperature before you incorporate it into your batter.  

Freeze-Dried Fruit

Stella has raved about the power of freeze-dried fruit in desserts before. When ground into a powder, the fruit can easily be incorporated into cake batter or frosting for an intense fruitiness and vivid color. Though some recipes (including Stella’s double-strawberry cake) call for up to 3 cups of freeze-dried fruit, we recommend starting with half a cup. Just be wary of adding too much, as it can throw off the flavor and texture of your cake.

Sprinkles and Chocolate Chips

Forgot to pick up the funfetti cake mix? Just add sprinkles to your batter (and your frosting) instead. If you opt for chocolate chips, you may want to dust them in a bit of flour to ensure they’re evenly distributed and don’t sink to the bottom of the cake when baking. 

High-Quality Extracts

Even if you’re making cake from the box, it never hurts to spike it with a quality extract. With extracts—anything from lemon and almond extract to rose or orange flower water, not to mention high-quality vanilla—a little bit goes a long way. Just about 1/2 of a teaspoon should do the trick, though it will depend on the extract. Some are potent enough to pack plenty of flavor with just a few drops, while others can be measured in as described. When in doubt, it’s best to start with less and use your sense of smell to gauge whether or not you want to add more. 

Orange or Lemon Zests

Freshly grated lemon or orange zest will add freshness and give the cake a bit of zing. The zest of one lemon or orange should be enough for a box of batter. 

Food Coloring

Food coloring is a fun way and easy way to (literally) brighten up your cake, especially if you’re making it for a kid’s birthday party. If you’re making a layer cake, you can divide the batter and add a few drops to each cake layer to create different colors before baking and stacking. This is an addition that works best on a white or yellow cake, since colors won’t show up as well on darker mixes like chocolate. 

Instant Espresso Powder

Instant espresso powder pairs especially well with chocolate and enhances its cocoa flavor, but you can also use it in a yellow or white cake batter. Adding about one teaspoon should be enough. 

Sour Cream

For a cake with some extra tang that fluffs up nicely, adding sour cream is the way to go. You’ll want to add about 1/4 cup per box of cake mix. The only thing to note about this technique is that in our testing, it created some tunnels and tubes throughout the cake that may affect how the inside crumb looks to those with a more detailed eye. We think the flaw is a small price to pay for a decent boost of flavor, but consider yourself warned! 

Acceptable

Replacing Butter With Olive Oil

Many websites recommend swapping out the recommended amount of butter or oil on the box with olive oil, presumably in an effort to recreate the flavor of an olive oil cake. We found that, while the olive oil flavor came through in the final cake, it doesn’t match quite well enough with the flavor of the boxed mix to really taste like a proper olive oil cake. The effect is more like a kiddie birthday party cake that just happens to taste faintly of olive oil. It’s not a total fail, but it’s not the best either.

Nuts and Candied/Dried Fruit

The addition of nuts and dried or candied fruit (such as citron, citrus peel, or even ginger) can add both flavor and texture to a boxed mix, but they did seem a little odd and out of place in a light and fluffy cake—this trick tends to work better in a denser, more rustic dessert like banana bread or carrot cake. If you decide to go this route (which is a bit unexpected and not quite a natural fit), you’ll want to cut the nuts or fruit into small pieces, then dust them in a bit of flour before adding them to the batter; this will prevent them from sinking to the bottom and instead will allow the ingredient to be evenly distributed. 

Liquor

When we thought about adding liquor to the cake batter mix, we wanted to be intentional about the flavor of the liquor we were adding—not all of them would work. We went with a Frangelico, which has a hazelnut flavor we thought would play well in the context of a cake, but it ended up yielding too boozy of a cake. Other liquors like Grand Marnier or allspice dram might work better here, but make sure to use a small amount when adding it to your batter—substituting no more than a quarter of the water or milk called for on the box with the liquor—so as to not create an overpowering flavor. 

Replacing Water With Buttermilk

When we tried replacing the water in the cake batter with the same amount of buttermilk, we were expecting it to have a similar effect as sour cream. Instead, buttermilk created a denser cake, and it barely altered its flavor, with less browning than that of the baseline cake. If you prefer a denser cake—which we think isn’t a common texture for this type of cake—this is the way to go, but other than that, buttermilk didn’t add anything of note to the cake. 

Replacing Water With Soda

While replacing the water called for on the box with the same amount of soda didn’t harm the cake, it also didn’t help. We used Fanta Orange Soda with the hope its citrus flavor might be a pleasant addition to a yellow cake mix, but the resulting cake tasted like we’d merely infused one processed food product with the artificial flavor of another—which is to say it wasn’t very good. We didn’t try other soda flavors, though, so while we’re skeptical that any soda will do much to improve a boxed cake mix, it’s certainly possible some will work better than others.

Adding an Extra Egg

When we used one more egg than the box called for in our tests, the resulting cake was particularly light and fluffy, though it did create more doming on top. The addition of an extra egg was good as far as texture was concerned, but it also added a discernibly eggy flavor, which we would rather do without. 

Not Recommended

Replacing Water With Coffee

This was one of the tests we thought might yield great results, but the cake tasted like two-day old drip coffee had been infused into it. If you want to add a coffee flavor to your cake, you’re better off sticking with espresso powder. 

Mayonnaise

Almost every article we saw online on this topic mentioned adding a few tablespoons of mayonnaise to boxed cake batter for a moister cake. We can only conclude most of those writers never tried it,  because we found the vinegary flavor it added completely repulsive. It’s really not a shocker, folks—the savory, vinegary flavor profile of mayo doesn’t belong anywhere near a cake.

Jam

We tested the addition of jam in boxed cake batter in two ways: as a swirl in the pan right before baking, as well as fully incorporating it into the batter. The former created a greasy, oily cake that felt under-baked due to the jam’s extra moisture, while the latter route wasn’t flavorful enough. It would be better to add freeze-dried fruit powder to the cake mix itself for a fruity effect, or spread the jam between the layers of cake and leave it out of the cake itself.

May 2023

I live in Maple Country, where the hillsides along the Vermont–New Hampshire border ignite in fiery reds, oranges, and golds every fall. The same trees responsible for that show are also behind my favorite pantry staple: maple sugar.

Unlike maple syrup, which many of us drizzle over pancakes and forget about after brunch, maple sugar is a powerhouse ingredient that deserves a permanent place on your baking shelf. Years ago, I started sprinkling it into everything—scones, whipped cream, even dry rubs for pork—and quickly realized it isn’t just a quaint product from my local farm stands. Maple sugar is versatile, deeply flavorful, and worth seeking out wherever you live. If fall is your baking season, this is the ingredient that will transform your routine.

What Is Maple Sugar?

At its simplest, maple sugar is crystallized maple syrup. Once sap from a maple tree is boiled past the syrup stage, the water evaporates and the syrup thickens, eventually breaking down into golden granules. The result tastes unmistakably of maple, but in a form you can scoop, sprinkle, and swap in anywhere you’d typically reach for granulated sugar.

Outside New England, you’ll usually find it in natural food stores or online, often in 1- to 3-pound bags. Some specialty shops still sell it in solid blocks, which can be grated like fresh Parmesan for a rustic finishing touch to desserts.

Maple Sugar’s History

Maple sugar has been used in the Northern US and Canada for centuries. Indigenous peoples developed methods to concentrate sap into sugar long before cane sugar arrived in North America. They stored it in birch-bark boxes, transported it in blocks, and relied on it as a shelf-stable sweetener through long winters.

To make the sugar, fresh sap was sometimes poured into long, shallow troughs carved from hollowed-out basswood logs. Because the sugary portion of the sap is denser than water, it settled at the bottom. Overnight, the water on top would freeze, and in the morning, the ice could be removed, leaving behind a more concentrated liquid. From there, the concentrate could be boiled down and transformed into sugar.

Unlike liquid syrup, maple sugar didn’t spoil or spill. It was both food and currency—a portable, durable source of energy that traveled well.

How Maple Sugar Is Made Today

Maple product production has continued to advance over the years. Today, modern maple syrup and sugar producers use technology like reverse osmosis to remove water from sap before boiling, but the final step still requires heat and patience. To make maple sugar, syrup is cooked to around 260°F, then stirred vigorously until it lightens, crystallizes, and breaks into jagged grains. The process is simple but exacting: Stir too little, and it hardens into a block; stir too much, and the crystals can clump. The result larger grains are then sifted into the fine amber granules you’ll scoop from a bag.

Why Use Maple Sugar Instead of White Sugar?

The short answer to why you should reach for a bag of maple sugar over standard granulated sugar is for its flavor. White sugar is neutral with one note of sweetness. In contrast, maple sugar is complex, with caramel notes, a gentle woodsy aroma, and a depth that immediately makes desserts taste more autumnal.

It’s also less processed than refined cane sugar, if that’s important to you. White sugar typically comes from either sugarcane or sugar beets. To get that pure, snow-white granulated texture, it goes through multiple steps: The juice is extracted, clarified, boiled, crystallized, spun in centrifuges, filtered (often through bone char, in the case of cane sugar), and sometimes bleached. By the end, very little of the plant’s original character remains—it’s designed to be neutral and uniform.

Maple sugar, on the other hand, starts and ends with maple sap. As described above, once boiled past the syrup stage, the concentrated sap simply crystallizes into granules. No bleaching, no additives, no refining beyond heat and stirring. The result is a sweetener that’s not just flavorful but also closer to its natural source.

While the flavor differs from white sugar, it behaves almost identically to granulated sugar: You can swap it one-to-one in most recipes without fuss, which makes it easy to incorporate into your favorite recipes.

How to Use Maple Sugar

This is where maple sugar proves it’s more than just a novelty. Swap it into everyday recipes and suddenly everything tastes richer and more complex.

• Bake with it: Use it cup-for-cup in place of white sugar in cookies, cakes, muffins, or scones. It adds a subtle maple backbone without overpowering. Try it in apple pie, pumpkin bread, or cinnamon rolls for instant fall vibes.
• Upgrade breakfast: Sprinkle it over oatmeal, yogurt, or cold cereal. Unlike brown sugar, which can clump, maple sugar melts quickly and evenly.
• Sweeten drinks: Stir into coffee, tea, or hot cocoa. It dissolves easily and lends a cozy maple aroma. A maple-sugar latte is basically autumn in a mug.
• Whipped cream boost: Swap it for powdered sugar when whipping cream. The flavor is transformative—suddenly, your pie topper tastes like it belongs at a sugaring shack.
• Savory rubs and marinades: Mix with salt, pepper, and spices for a dry rub on pork, salmon, or chicken. Its natural caramelization creates a gorgeous crust on roasted or grilled meats.
• Finishing touch: Dust over baked apples, roasted carrots, or even popcorn. Maple sugar has enough character to work as both a seasoning and a sweetener.

Once you start using maple sugar, you’ll find yourself reaching for it almost instinctively.

The Takeaway

Maple sugar may look like a niche specialty item, but it deserves mainstream status. It’s an easy, flavorful substitute for granulated sugar, it connects to a centuries-old tradition, and it brings a distinct sense of seasonality to whatever you cook. For me, it’s not just a farm-stand souvenir—it’s the flavor of fall itself. And once you bake with it, I think you’ll feel the same.

Protein girlies, I’m back with another protein cinnamon roll recipe! These absolutely delicious Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Protein Cinnamon Rolls are made with simple ingredients, have no rise time, and contain some sneaky added protein thanks to PB2 and blended cottage cheese!

These yummy protein cinnamon rolls make 6 rolls (I love making mine in a muffin tin! The rolls fluff up so perfectly when baked), AND pack 10g of protein per roll! They’re perfectly peanut butter-y, and the chocolate chips melt into the dough when it bakes — it’s truly a match made in cinnamon roll heaven. I hope you love this recipe as much as I do!

Featured Ingredients

• All-purpose flour: The base of the dough, all-purpose flour gives these peanut butter chocolate chip cinnamon rolls the perfect texture.
• Blended cottage cheese: Choose 4% or 5% cottage cheese, and make sure you blend your cottage cheese before mixing it with the dough and the frosting. This will ensure a smooth consistency throughout.
• PB2 powdered peanut butter: You’ll need PB2 for the dough, the filling AND the frosting. It adds great peanut butter-y flavor + a great boost of protein.
• Chocolate chips: The chocolate chips get folded right into the dough. I’ve tested this with standard size chocolate chips as well as mini chips, and both work great!
• Maple syrup: Maple syrup and cinnamon are a match made in sticky roll heaven.
• Brown sugar: For the filling, you’ll mix brown sugar with PB2 and ground cinnamon.

Bake in a Muffin Tin

Since this recipe yields 6 rolls, I love baking them in a muffin tin! The rolls fluff up perfectly when baked, and look just like these gorgeous photos! If you prefer to make 4 larger rolls instead, I recommend baking them 4×1 in a loaf pan. You can also double this recipe to make 12 muffin tin sized rolls.

Feel free to prep and freeze these ahead of time. After you roll your cinnamon rolls, place them onto a cutting board or baking sheet. Freeze them individually for 2 hours. Once they are partially frozen, tightly wrap them in plastic wrap and freeze them for up to 3 months.

Make sure to fully thaw them before baking.

Store these cinnamon rolls in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week. I like to warm mine up in the microwave and add a little more frosting to the tops before serving these as leftovers .

If this old-fashioned lattice apple pie recipe reminds you of the dreamiest slice of diner pie, then we’ve done our job. Honeycrisp apples are juicy, bright in flavor, and hold their shape beautifully, even after a long bake, making them one of the best apples for pie. All they need is a little butter, lemon zest, and cinnamon to bring out their very best.

The stovetop pie filling can be made up to two days ahead or frozen for longer. (Line a pie dish with plastic wrap, freeze the apple filling, and then pop it out and triple-wrap it in more plastic. When you’re ready, drop it straight into your crust and bake.)

Don’t be tempted to swap out the pie dough here for Our Favorite Pie Crust recipe. Unlike a double-crust pie, a lattice crust lets moisture evaporate, concentrating the filling and preventing a soggy bottom. The cream cheese in this dough keeps it tender and easy to handle while you roll and weave the lattice top. For clean, even strips, use a pizza cutter or sharp knife and aim for wide bands—they’re simpler to work with and, as developer Shilpa Uskokovic notes, far less fussy than spindly lattice. No need for an egg wash here; just brush the top crust with a bit of water and sprinkle on some granulated sugar for an extra-flaky pie crust that sparkles.

Dollop the top of the pie with homemade whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream and pair each slice with a mug of black coffee for the authentic diner experience.

Every September, I announce on Instagram, both officially and emphatically: “It’s fall, y’all.” It’s a tradition no one asked for, yet I continue to deliver on dutifully year after year. This announcement doesn’t come when the mornings start to feel chilly, the air starts to feel crisp, or the first leaves start to fall, but rather when all three happen at the same time. This year, that moment came surprisingly early—right after Labor Day—which meant an earlier start to fall baking. The first thing I always make after my officially unofficial declaration of fall? Apple pie.

While this website boasts no shortage of apple pie recipes (we’ve got four of them, to be exact), Stella Parks’ easy, old-fashioned version is the simplest. Unlike many recipes in which you have to pre-cook your apples to achieve a succulent pie filling, Stella’s skips that step entirely while still producing a pie with a thick, saucy filling. Her easy trick is to macerate the apples. 

Why (and How) You Should Macerate Your Apples

When making an apple pie, you want to draw out as much liquid as possible from the fruit so you don’t waterlog the crust, and you also want to make sure the apples are tender. Many apple pie recipes call for pre-cooking your apples to solve those problems, but this can be time-consuming, given that it’s a hands-on task. If the delicate apple slices aren’t monitored closely while cooking, they can quickly overcook, resulting in mushy fruit. Macerating apples helps break down the fruits’ structures and reduces their volume—no cooking or pot-watching required.

While we recommend macerating in a zip-top bag to limit the apples’ exposure to air, you can use a bowl as long as you cover it tightly with plastic wrap pressed directly into the slices. Even then, you should still expect some oxidation. After peeling, quartering, and coring the apples, cut them into half inch-thick slices, making sure they’re as uniform as possible—this will ensure there is an even surface area across all the slices and that they all break down and release their juices at about the same rate of time. Once your apples are sliced, add them to the bag (or bowl) with the brown sugar, spices, and salt called for in Stella’s recipe. From there, the apples need to sit for at least three hours at room temperature, or up to eight hours in the fridge, which gives you plenty of time to make, roll, and shape your pie crust. During this resting time, the tart juice from the apples will collect at the bottom of the bag. Flavored with brown sugar and spices, this liquid acts as a concentrated syrup in the pie filling. 

How to Turn Macerated Apples Into Pie Filling

To ensure the pie filling is nice and thick, we recommend adding a touch of tapioca starch to the apples. This ingredient absorbs excess liquid, thickening the filling without making it gloopy. Add the tapioca starch to the bag of apples after macerating and before baking, then zip it back up and give it a good shake. (You’ll want to use about 1 ounce per 4 1/2 pounds of apples.) Waiting to add the starch after all the juices release from the apples ensures the starch will absorb evenly into the liquid. From there, you’re ready to tuck your apples into the pie plate. (The most exciting part…besides eating the actual pie.) 

What Type of Apples Should You Use for a Juicy, But Not Mushy Pie?

Some apple pie recipes suggest using a variety of apples for a more complex flavor. Different apple cultivars, however, have different textures and flavors, and using an assortment may have disastrous results. Some may break down more quickly and release more liquid than others, creating a watery, mushy pie with unevenly cooked apples. For the best taste and texture, we recommend using one variety of apples per pie. We like tart apples like Granny Smiths, since their high pectin levels hold onto their shape nicely in the oven, keeping the filling thick instead of runny. For extra depth of flavor, we incorporate brown sugar and warm spices.

The Takeaway

Macerating your apples eliminates the common apple pie-baking step that calls for pre-cooking the fruit. It’s an easy, hands-off technique that minimizes cleanup and requires little more than apples, brown sugar, spices, a little salt, and a zip-top bag. The maceration process creates a syrup that we include in the apple filling for extra flavor, and a small addition of tapioca starch helps thicken that filling. The result is a saucy, luscious apple pie that you’ll want to make all season long. 

It’s fall, y’all!!! 

September 2024

These Triple Chocolate Biscuits are so easy to make and taste delicious – chocolate, crunchy on the outside with a soft middle.

Triple Chocolate Biscuits

Our kids love chocolate hazelnut spread and when we saw some on sale, we decided to grab it. They love eating it straight from the jar, so I had to get in quickly to grab some to make these biscuits.

With these biscuits, placing the mixture into the fridge for 20 minutes is a part that can’t be missed. This helps the dough to roll into balls easier and the icing sugar to stick better once rolled.

After baking, you could decorate the biscuits by drizzling with melted white chocolate and then sprinkling with chocolate flakes or 100’s and 1000’s. Our personal choice is to have them plain or sometimes, drizzled with a little white chocolate.

More Biscuit Recipes

If you are looking for some great conversion charts for your kitchen, these Kitchen Conversion Charts are great. I have them laminated and held together with a ring for ease of use. 

Ingredients for making Triple Chocolate Biscuits

To make 24 biscuits, you will need:

• Chocolate hazelnut spread
• Butter
• Caster Sugar
• Egg
• Plain Flour
• Cocoa Powder
• Chocolate Chips
• Bicarbonate of Soda
• Icing Sugar

Making Triple Chocolate Biscuits

Place the chocolate spread and butter in a saucepan or a microwavable jug.

In the microwave, heat on medium heat for 90 second bursts until melted, stirring between each burst until smooth. If using a saucepan, heat over low heat, stirring until the mixture is all melted and smooth.

In a mixing bowl, add the caster sugar, egg, flour, cocoa powder, chocolate chips and bicarbonate of soda and mix well.

Mix through the melted chocolate / butter mix.

Cover the bowl and place in the fridge for 20 minutes.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180˚C / 350˚F.

Line a tray with baking paper.

Sift the icing sugar onto a plate.

Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls and then roll in the icing sugar.

Place the ball onto the prepared tray and press down slightly. Place the balls about 6 cm apart to allow for spreading.

Bake for 12 minutes for softer biscuits or 15 minutes for crunchy biscuits.

Remove from oven and allow to cool on tray.

Decorate with melted chocolate, chocolate flakes and sprinkles if you wish.

Storing Chocolate Biscuits 

Place cooled biscuits in an airtight container and store on the bench for a few days. 

For longer storage, place the container in the fridge or use a freezer safe container and store in the freezer.

Defrost in fridge before enjoying.

Triple Chocolate Biscuits

Simple Living. Creative Learning

These Triple Chocolate Biscuits are so easy to make and taste delicious – chocolate, crunchy on the outside with a soft middle.

Servings 24 biscuits

Calories 127 kcal

Course Snack

Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Total Time 25 minutes mins

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Instructions 

• Place the chocolate spread and butter in a saucepan or a microwavable jug.

• In the microwave, heat on medium heat for 90 second bursts until melted, stirring between each burst until smooth. If using a saucepan, heat over low heat, stirring until the mixture is all melted and smooth.

• In a mixing bowl, add the caster sugar, egg, flour, cocoa powder, chocolate chips and bicarbonate of soda and mix well.

• Mix through the melted chocolate / butter mix.

• Cover the bowl and place in the fridge for 20 minutes.

• When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180˚C / 350˚F.

• Line a tray with baking paper.

• Sift the icing sugar onto a plate.

• Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls and then roll in the icing sugar.

• Place the ball onto the prepared tray and press down slightly. Place the balls about 6 cm apart to allow for spreading.

• Bake for 12 minutes for softer biscuits or 15 minutes for crunchy biscuits.

• Remove from oven and allow to cool on tray.

• Decorate with melted chocolate, chocolate flakes and sprinkles if you wish

Nutrition

Calories: 127kcal | Carbohydrates: 17g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Trans Fat: 0.1g | Cholesterol: 16mg | Sodium: 43mg | Potassium: 44mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 12g | Vitamin A: 114IU | Calcium: 11mg | Iron: 0.3mg

Nutritional information is an estimate and provided as a courtesy. The values may vary according to the ingredients and tools that are used. Please use your preferred nutritional calculator for more detailed information.

Keyword Biscuits, Chocolate, Chocolate Chip, Cookies

I’m an unabashed dairy fan and avid baker, which means there’s always—always—cream cheese in my fridge. The ingredient is essential for many cakes, pastries, and frostings, its tang helping to balance desserts that would otherwise be too sweet. In most recipes, cream cheese needs to be at room temperature before you incorporate it; if you don’t, you risk grainy results.r Softening a cold block of cream cheese, though, can feel like it takes forever, which is no fun when a towering cheesecake or tangy-sweet pastelitos is waiting to be made.

In my haste and desperation, I’ve tried many methods to soften cream cheese quickly. The internet abounds with tips and tricks: Some recommend microwaving it; others dunk packaged cream cheese in warm water; and impatient bakers use their stand or hand mixers to beat it until it’s soft and workable. Determined to find the best way to soften cream cheese, I zeroed in on five popular approaches to see which would work best—and get me closer to a bite of cheesecake the fastest.

Why Soften Cream Cheese?

If you, like me, have added cream cheese or butter to a recipe before it was ready to use, you’ve probably regretted it. What you might gain in time, you lose in texture: When cream cheese is fully softened, it blends seamlessly into frosting or cake batter, creating a smooth, silky finish. Use it cold, and your batter or frosting will be marred by grainy specks, visible blobs, or streaks of white. This is most evident in cream cheese frosting, which should have an ultra-smooth, billowy texture. (Baking expert and former Serious Eats editor Stella Parks even goes so far as to add a custard element to her cream cheese buttercream frosting recipe to ensure it is as smooth as possible.)

How to Tell When Cream Cheese Is Properly Softened

The best way to assess the softness of your cream cheese is to check its internal temperature with an instant-read thermometer, inserting the probe into the center, where it will be coldest. Some recipes call for “room temperature” cream cheese, but this can be confusing, as ambient temperatures vary widely depending on the time of year and your location. As former Serious Eats editor Kristina notes in her guide to softening butter, 70°F (21°C) is typically considered room temperature. This, however, is on the warm side for cream cheese. At this temperature, the cream cheese may become too soft and runny during mixing, especially as friction from mixing continues to raise its temperature. 

Generally, an internal temperature of 60 to 65°F (15 to 18°C) yields properly softened cream cheese for baking. It should yield easily to gentle pressure, leaving an indent when pressed with a finger or spoon, but shouldn’t be so soft that it offers no resistance. It’s also important not to leave cream cheese out for too long, even after it’s been incorporated into a frosting. The FDA advises leaving perishable foods at room temperature for no longer than two hours. Any longer, and the ingredient may begin to harbor bacteria that can cause foodborne illness. Once softened, cream cheese should be used immediately—and any leftovers promptly refrigerated.

The Testing

In my research, I came across several common methods for softening cream cheese: leaving it at room temperature whole and cubed; submerging a sealed package in warm water; microwaving it; or using a stand mixer to beat it until soft. These are the most widely recommended approaches, and the ones I tested for this article.

During testing, my kitchen’s ambient temperature was 71°F, very close to standard “room temperature.” I used 8-ounce blocks of Philadelphia Original cream cheese, a national brand that’s widely available and generally regarded as the standard for baking. Using an instant-read thermometer, I recorded the starting temperature of each refrigerated block, then timed how long it took to reach 60 to 65°F (15.5 to 18.3°C) in the center. I also noted any internal temperature variation (e.g., whether the ends warmed faster than the center in whole blocks) and assessed each method’s final consistency, convenience, ease, and cleanup requirements.

• Whole Block on a Sheet Pan: I unwrapped an 8-ounce block of cream cheese and laid it flat on an aluminum baking sheet. As former editor Kenji noted in his guide to defrosting foods quickly, aluminum is one of the best kitchen conductors of heat. To maximize contact, I set the block flat, inserted a probe thermometer into the center of the block, and started a timer, recording the temperature every five minutes. Initially, the center’s temperature rose by three to five degrees every five minutes, climbing from a chilly 37°F (2.7°C) to 52°F (11°C) in 20 minutes. After that, the temperature plateaued, rising just one to two degrees per interval. It took 50 minutes for the cream cheese to reach the minimum benchmark of 60°F (15°C), and a full hour to reach 63°F (17.2°C). The ends of the block warmed slightly faster than the center, reading generally just one or two degrees warmer than the middle. 
• Cubed Block on a Sheet Pan: For this method, I used the same setup, but cut the block into eight 1-ounce cubes. I spaced the cubes about 1/2-inch apart on the baking sheet to allow air to circulate. This method proved much faster: The cubes reached 61°F (16°C) in just 25 minutes and 65°F (18°C) at the 30-minute mark. Each cube was at a consistent temperature throughout the test.
• Wrapped Block in Warm Water: Many bakers recommend a warm water bath to speed up softening. For this test, I left the cream cheese in its foil wrapper and placed it in a bowl of 90°F (32°C) water. The block’s internal temperature rose from 37 to 60°F (2.7 to 15°C) in just 10 minutes, and reached 64°F (17.7°C) after 15 minutes. However, this method only works if you’re planning to use a full 8-ounce block of cream cheese, and piercing a thermometer through the foil lets water seep in. Without a probe, it’s hard to tell by feel how soft the block is through the packaging.
• Whole Block in the Microwave: When speed is the goal, the microwave is often the first solution that comes to mind. For this test, I unwrapped a block of cream cheese and laid it flat on a plate. Using 50% power, I microwaved it in 10-second bursts, checking the internal temperature after each. Starting at 39°F (3.8·C), the center hit 61°F (16°C) after four 10-second bursts. The ends of the block, however, warmed up much faster: At 20 seconds, the center was 54°F (12.2°C) while the ends were already at 63°F (17.2°C). By 40 seconds, they had reached 72°F (22.2°C), and were visibly soft, runny, and beginning to bubble—signs of not just over-softening but overheating.
• Cubed Block in the Microwave: For this test, I followed the same method in the microwave as above, but cut the cream cheese block into eight 1-ounce cubes and placed them about 1/2-inch apart on the plate before microwaving. Similar to the results from the room-temperature baking sheet test, this method proved significantly faster than leaving the block whole, taking just 20 seconds for all of the cubes to register 60°F (15.5°C) or above when microwaved at 50% power. However, similar to the whole block in the microwave, the cubes at the outer edge of the plate heated faster than those at the center, registering 71°F (21.6°C) at the 20-second mark, whereas the center cube had only reached 60°F (15.5°C) and showed signs of being over-softened.
• Whole Block in a Stand Mixer: Many bakers recommend using a stand mixer or hand mixer to paddle cream cheese as a quick way to soften it. For this test, I unwrapped a block and placed it directly in the bowl of my stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, I beat the cream cheese on medium-low speed (to avoid incorporating excess air), pausing every 30 seconds to check the temperature. After 2 1/2 minutes, the center reached 60°F (15.5°C), and it took a full five minutes to hit 65°F (18.3°C). I scraped down the bowl periodically to ensure the cream cheese was fully agitated, but despite my efforts, plenty of it remained stuck to the beater, spatula, and bowl—leaving me with less than the full 8-ounces by the end. 

The Results: What’s the Best Way to Soften Cream Cheese?

The best way to soften cream cheese is to cut the block into smaller portions, such as 1-ounce cubes, place them on an aluminum baking sheet, and let them sit at room temperature for 25 to 30 minutes. Because aluminum is such an excellent conductor of heat, it softens cream cheese quickly and evenly. The cubes come to temperature in about half the time of a whole block, with no special equipment or extra cleanup required. If you do this step first, your cream cheese will likely be ready by the time you’ve measured your other ingredients and preheated the oven. 

While a microwave can soften cream cheese in seconds, it’s easy to overdo it, resulting in uneven texture and overly soft spots. Power levels vary significantly from one model to another, so the settings that work for one microwave may not work in another. You can, of course, learn your particular microwave’s quirks and adjust accordingly, but doing so requires trial and error, and may still pose the risk of overheating some portions of the cream cheese.

As for the warm-water method, the five to 10 minutes saved isn’t worth the risk of water seeping into the cream cheese through a hole made by the thermometer’s probe—or the uncertainty of skipping the thermometer and trying instead to gauge its softness through the wrapper. The mixer method, meanwhile, was by far the messiest and least practical: It requires cleaning a bowl, paddle, and spatula, and you lose precious cream cheese to the equipment. Next time I need softened cream cheese, you can bet I’ll be reaching for my trusty quarter-sheet pan and exercising a little bit of patience.