Recipe Archive

Pastries & Cookies

Pastries and cookies reward precision without losing warmth. Browse doughs, fillings, laminated layers, bars, pies, and small bakes made for sharing.

881 recipes

Culinary Explorer

A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.

Discover Culinary Explorer

Recipes

Caramelized Honey Shortbread

Chef Dean

Caramelized Honey Shortbread

Tender, sandy shortbread transformed by honey taken to the edge of burnt, where sweetness becomes something deeper, more interesting, and entirely worth the extra five minutes at the stove.

Cardamom Morning Buns

Chef Ally

Cardamom Morning Buns

Flaky, buttery laminated pastry spiraled with brown sugar and freshly ground cardamom, baked until the edges turn deeply caramelized and the kitchen smells like Sunday mornings should.

Cardamom Rose Pistachio Cookies

Chef Dean

Cardamom Rose Pistachio Cookies

Fragrant butter cookies perfumed with cardamom and rose water, studded with bright green pistachios and crowned with dried rose petals. A Persian-inspired treasure for holiday cookie tins that proves American baking has always borrowed brilliantly from the world.

Casadinho de Doce de Leite

Chef Juliana

Casadinho de Doce de Leite

You don't need pastry courage for this. Two tender little cookies, a spoonful of doce de leite, and the patience to let the dough chill are enough to solve the sweet table.

Cavacas das Caldas

Chef Margarida

Cavacas das Caldas

The glazed choux pastries of Caldas da Rainha, crisp shells hiding soft interiors, born in a town of thermal waters and whimsical ceramics, sweet and proud and unmistakably Portuguese.

Cavacas de Resende

Chef Margarida

Cavacas de Resende

The twice-baked rings of Resende, where Douro grandmothers turned simple dough into something worth saving. Crisp as autumn leaves, scented with lemon, made to be dipped.

Cavallucci Senesi

Chef Graziella

Cavallucci Senesi

The ancient spiced honey cookies of Siena, dense with walnuts and candied fruit, perfumed with anise. Medieval travelers sustained themselves with these at stable inns, and the name stuck.

Chai Masala Brown Butter Snickerdoodles

Chef Dean

Chai Masala Brown Butter Snickerdoodles

Pillowy soft snickerdoodles transformed by nutty brown butter and the warming embrace of cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, and black pepper, rolled in a glittering chai-spiced sugar that crackles with every bite.

Charleston Benne Wafers

Chef Dean

Charleston Benne Wafers

Impossibly thin, shatteringly crisp sesame cookies from Charleston's Lowcountry, where African benne seeds became a signature of Southern hospitality and one of America's first fusion foods.

Chebakia (الشباكية)

Chef Zohra

Chebakia (الشباكية)

The flower of the Ramadan table: dough scented with toasted sesame, anise, saffron, and orange blossom water, fried crisp, then soaked in warm honey beside harira.

Cheddar Chive Biscuits

Chef Dean

Cheddar Chive Biscuits

Tall and impossibly flaky biscuits studded with sharp aged cheddar and bright fresh chives, with a golden buttermilk crust and soft pull-apart sides that beg to be split and stuffed with eggs or country ham.

Cheese Scones

Chef Thomas

Cheese Scones

Sharp cheddar scones with a hum of mustard and cayenne, golden-topped and tall, made for a bowl of soup on a grey afternoon or a picnic basket on a hopeful one.

Cheesecake-Stuffed Strawberry Cookies

Chef Dean

Cheesecake-Stuffed Strawberry Cookies

Soft, rosy strawberry cookies concealing a tangy cheesecake heart that stays creamy through baking. This is the kind of over-the-top American ingenuity that makes our cookie culture worth celebrating.

Cheesecake Swirl Brownies

Chef Dean

Cheesecake Swirl Brownies

Dense, fudgy chocolate brownies marbled with ribbons of tangy cream cheese, creating a stunning two-toned dessert that proves American bakers have always understood the magic of combining two perfect things into one.

Cherry Scones

Chef Thomas

Cherry Scones

Light, crumbly British scones dotted with sticky red glace cherries, baked until tall and golden, the kind that ask for nothing more than butter, jam if you like, and a strong pot of tea.

Chinese Almond Cookies

Chef Dean

Chinese Almond Cookies

Crumbly, fragrant cookies shaped like golden coins for good fortune, with an intense almond flavor that perfumes your kitchen and announces the Lunar New Year to anyone lucky enough to walk through your door.

Chinese Almond Cookies (Hawaiʻi Local Red-Dot Cookies)

Chef Makoa

Chinese Almond Cookies (Hawaiʻi Local Red-Dot Cookies)

Buttery, sandy Chinese almond cookies from Hawaiʻi's Local table, marked with the lucky red dot, the kind you found in a bakery case, a manapua man's box, or a holiday tin.

Chios Koulourakia Mastichas (Κουλουράκια Μαστίχας)

Chef Dimitra

Chios Koulourakia Mastichas (Κουλουράκια Μαστίχας)

Chios mastiha gives these buttery koulourakia their clean pine perfume. Grind the resin with sugar first, shape simply, and bake them pale gold.

Chocolate Chess Pie

Chef Remy

Chocolate Chess Pie

A humble Depression-era treasure with a crackly sugared top giving way to intensely fudgy chocolate custard, the kind of pie that proves simple ingredients and honest technique beat fancy every time.

Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

Chef Dean

Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

The original Toll House cookie made better with toasted walnuts, delivering crispy caramelized edges that give way to chewy, chocolate-studded centers with satisfying nutty crunch in every bite.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Chef Dean

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Deep, fudgy chocolate cookies coated in powdered sugar that crack into beautiful snowy fissures as they bake, revealing an intensely dark interior that tastes like the best brownie you've ever had.

Chocolate-Dipped Florentines

Chef Thomas

Chocolate-Dipped Florentines

Lace-thin biscuits crisp with caramel, almonds and candied fruit, backed with dark chocolate combed into wavy lines. The Christmas tin biscuit that looks like trouble and isn't.

Chocolate Halva Rugelach

Chef Dean

Chocolate Halva Rugelach

Buttery cream cheese pastry wrapped around ribbons of chocolate tahini and shards of crumbly halva, each bite a conversation between Eastern European tradition and Middle Eastern sweetness.

Chocolate Haupia Cream Pie (Hawaiʻi Local Coconut Pudding Pie)

Chef Makoa

Chocolate Haupia Cream Pie (Hawaiʻi Local Coconut Pudding Pie)

A Hawaiʻi Local bakery pie from Oʻahu: firm coconut haupia over chocolate cream in a flaky shell, chilled clean, topped with soft whipped cream.

Where cooking meets culture.

Culinary guides, cultural storytelling, and the editorial depth that makes cooking meaningful.

Discover Culinary Explorer