Baking: Method and Recipes

Apple cake is popular throughout the United States, especially during the fall when the new apple harvest is coming in. This simple, moist, rich cake really hits the spot.

Here is an easy, quick recipe for basic American breakfast biscuits. Spread with jam or serve topped with a generous portion of sausage gravy. Baking powder biscuits make a great addition to any Sunday morning breakfast.

Barmbrack is a tea bread popular in Ireland, especially around Halloween. It is best served toasted with a smear of butter and a cup of Irish tea.

This fun cake originated in the Southern United States. Bake one up when you find yourself stuck with some flat leftover soda. A favorite for birthday parties.

This recipe is for Southern cornbread, a drier, crunchier cornbread than its more cake-like Northern counterpart. It is best eaten same day it is baked. Stale leftovers can be used to make cornbread dressing. See the variations to make the Northern version.

Dresdner Stollen is the famous fruitcake from Dresden that is sold throughout Germany during the Christmas holiday season. Stollen is made from a rich yeast dough mixed with candied fruit and almonds. Loaves are folded to symbolize the Christ child in swaddling clothes. Although the dough itself is not traditionally all that sweet, baked loaves are brushed with butter, topped with powdered sugar and stored for at least two weeks before eating, allowing them to develop a rich and complex flavor. Also known as Christstollen, or Weihnachtsstollen.

Empanadas are meat pies popular throughout the Latin world. They probably originated in Galicia in the northwest corner of Spain. Spanish settlers introduced empanadas to the New World, and they are a special favorite in Chile and Argentina. The variety of fillings for empanadas is endless and includes stewlike mixtures chicken, beef, ham and cheese, fish and seafood. Other fillings include spinach, peas, potatoes, pumpkin and beans.

This is the traditional recipe for Irish soda bread, containing only flour, baking soda, salt and buttermilk. Soda bread became a popular hearth bread in Ireland in the mid-19th century when baking soda became available as a leavener. A baked loaf of bread is called "cake," while flattened wedges baked on the stovetop are called "farl." Soda bread is best eaten warm from the oven. It stays fresh for only a day or two, tightly wrapped. Leftovers are good for toast.

Lekach is a spiced honey cake that is especially popular for Rosh Hashanah when sweet dishes symbolize a sweet New Year on the Jewish calendar.

Variations of the poppy seed torte are found throughout Central and Eastern Europe. It is known as Mohntorte in Germany and makowiec in Poland. This recipe is a simple, flourless version from the Czech Republic.

These easy-to-make, flourless cookies are excellent served with tea or coffee. They will keep for over a month stored in a well sealed container.

Maria Luisa is an elegant cake popular in El Salvador and Colombia. A variation is the English tea cake called a Victoria sandwich.

Naan is the famous bread from northern India that is baked in a distinctive tandoor oven. Variations of naan are found throughout Central Asia and Iran and into the Middle East. The intense heat of a tandoor is most closely replicated in the modern home by a very hot oven.

Pan de muerto, or "bread of the dead," is a sweet anise-scented bread served during Mexico's Días de los Muertos celebrations. The bread is offered up at temporary altars to relatives and friends who have passed away. Loaves are typically round and decorated with a knob of dough on top, representing a skull, and with bone-shaped pieces of dough around its perimeter. Pan de muerto is often sprinkled with colored sugar or glazed with orange juice.

Pães de queijo are tasty little cheese buns popular in Brazil. They are made with yuca (cassava) flour, which gives them an interesting taste and texture and makes them a gluten-free treat. Modern Brazilians can purchase packaged mixes or buy pães de queijo from street vendors, but homemade is best. Serve pão de queijo with coffee for breakfast.

The famous cake of three milks, pastel de tres leches is believed to have originated in Nicaragua. It has become very popular throughout Central America and is becoming more and more common in the United States. Soaking the cake in three kinds of milk gives it a rich, dense quality, almost like a cheesecake.

Pâte brisée is a basic, all-purpose pastry dough used to make tender crusts for tarts, galettes and small hors d'oeuvre.

Cobbler is a traditional American dessert that uses the freshest fruits of the season. The fruit is baked with a sweetened batter that rises up and around it to form a crispy crust. Peach, apple, berry and cherry cobbler are all popular variations.

This fruit tart is a simple way to use the freshest stonefruit of the season. Don't restrict yourself to plums! Peaches and apricots work well too. German tarts are generally less sweet than their American counterparts, so the full flavor of the fruit shines through without being cloying.

Pita bread is common throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Versions of this simple round loaf are found from Northern Africa to as far east as India. The popularity of pita, also known as khoubz araby, is said to have been spread eastward and westward by the conquering armies of Alexander the Great.

Unlike the Mexican snack of the same name, Salvadoran quesadilla is a rich, sweet dessert cake often found in local panaderías, or bakeries. The queso in quesadilla is traditionally unsalted Salvadoran queso fresco, a fresh farmers-type cheese. But parmesan cheese is often substituted.

These easy-to-make cookies are a favorite in the United States. It is unclear where the name originated, but the Joy of Cooking suggests that it derives from the German Schneckennudeln, a type of cinnamon-scented sweet roll.

Torta di mele is a typical Tuscan dessert. Tuscans are known for finding all kinds of ways to use up leftover bread, and day-old bread is best for this recipe. Because this torte contains an egg custard, leftovers should be refrigerated.

Walnuts (noci) are a favorite of the Italians, and this simple, dense cake makes excellent use of their rich, round flavor. Serve with a capuccino or a hot cup of tea.

This tender, lightly sweet loaf makes good use of Ethiopia's abundant honey.