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

Hollandse Appeltaart (Dutch Apple Pie)

Chef Joost

Hollandse Appeltaart (Dutch Apple Pie)

A tall Dutch apple pie built for birthdays and coffee: brown-sugar pastry, tart apples, cinnamon and raisins, all held under a woven lattice that says house, not patisserie.

Hollerkücherl (Elderflower Fritters)

Chef Elsa

Hollerkücherl (Elderflower Fritters)

Whole elderflower heads dipped in a crisp, golden beer batter and fried until shattering, dusted with powdered sugar and Vanillezucker while the short Austrian bloom lasts.

Homemade Animal Crackers

Chef Dean

Homemade Animal Crackers

Buttery, crisp little cookies cut into whimsical animal shapes, these homemade crackers deliver the gentle sweetness and satisfying snap you remember from childhood, but with the honest flavor only real butter and pure vanilla can provide.

Homemade Bourbon Biscuits

Chef Thomas

Homemade Bourbon Biscuits

Dark cocoa biscuit fingers sandwiched with proper chocolate buttercream, made the way they should be: at home, with good butter, on a grey afternoon that needs them.

Homemade Custard Creams

Chef Thomas

Homemade Custard Creams

Two crisp vanilla biscuits sandwiched around a pale yellow custard buttercream, made properly at home and quietly better than the packet you grew up with.

Homemade Digestive Biscuits

Chef Thomas

Homemade Digestive Biscuits

Nutty, oaty, properly biscuity digestives made by hand on a quiet afternoon, the kind that ask for nothing more than a hot mug of tea and a chair by the window.

Honey Madeleines with Lemon Zest

Chef Ally

Honey Madeleines with Lemon Zest

Delicate shell-shaped cakes perfumed with local honey and fragrant lemon zest, their golden edges giving way to tender, slightly springy centers that taste of butter and quiet Sunday afternoons.

Honiglebkuchen

Chef Elsa

Honiglebkuchen

Dark, spiced Austrian honey gingerbread with rye flour and a whole blanched almond on top. They smell like a Salzburg Christmas market and taste better on day four than day one.

Hopia (Filipino-Hawaiʻi Local Sweet Bean Pastry)

Chef Makoa

Hopia (Filipino-Hawaiʻi Local Sweet Bean Pastry)

A Filipino gift pastry made Local in Hawaiʻi, flaky and soft around sweet mung bean or ube, the kind you tuck in a cookie tin and pass hand to hand.

Hortopita Ipeirotiki (Χορτόπιτα Ηπειρώτικη)

Chef Dimitra

Hortopita Ipeirotiki (Χορτόπιτα Ηπειρώτικη)

Epirotic hortopita is a mountain greens pie: handrolled phyllo, a sharp mix of horta, leeks, dill, mint and olive oil, baked until the edges crack and the bottom stays crisp.

Hot Cocoa Cookies with Molten Marshmallow Centers

Chef Dean

Hot Cocoa Cookies with Molten Marshmallow Centers

Deep, dark chocolate cookies concealing a secret: molten marshmallow centers that ooze when you break them open. Topped with toasted mini marshmallows, these capture everything you love about a steaming mug of cocoa in cookie form.

Husarenkrapferl

Chef Elsa

Husarenkrapferl

Buttery almond shortcrust rolled into small balls, pressed with your thumb, and filled with jewel-bright jam. The cookie that belongs on every Austrian Christmas plate.

Iced Gingerbread Men

Chef Thomas

Iced Gingerbread Men

Soft, spiced gingerbread men rolled out on a December afternoon and decorated by whoever happens to be in the kitchen, which is usually most of the family.

Iced Oatmeal Cookies

Chef Dean

Iced Oatmeal Cookies

Tender spiced oatmeal cookies with crisp edges and soft centers, finished with a sweet vanilla glaze that hardens to a crackly shell. The cookie jar classic your grandmother made, perfected.

Idaho Spud Pie

Chef Dean

Idaho Spud Pie

A towering tribute to Idaho's beloved Spud candy bar: chocolate cookie crust layered with dark ganache, billowy homemade marshmallow filling, and a generous crown of toasted coconut dusted with cocoa. Pure roadside diner nostalgia in every forkful.

IJzerkoekjes (Vlaardingen Iron Cookies)

Chef Joost

IJzerkoekjes (Vlaardingen Iron Cookies)

A cookie named for the iron that marks it, not for hardness: soft cinnamon discs from Vlaardingen, pressed in a checkered pattern and packed for the herring boats.

Illinois Pumpkin Pie

Chef Dean

Illinois Pumpkin Pie

A silky spiced custard nestled in a flaky all-butter crust, honoring Illinois's reign as America's pumpkin capital. This is the pie that ends Thanksgiving properly, with a slice that trembles on the fork and tastes like autumn made edible.

Indiana Sugar Cream Pie

Chef Dean

Indiana Sugar Cream Pie

A humble masterpiece of cream, sugar, and patience, baked until the top blisters into a golden caramel crust while the filling sets to spoonable silk. This is poverty cooking elevated to art form.

Ionian Pasta Flora (Πάστα Φλώρα Ιονίου)

Chef Dimitra

Ionian Pasta Flora (Πάστα Φλώρα Ιονίου)

Pasta Flora is the Ionian-Venetian jam tart Greece made its own: tender shortcrust, thick fruit filling, and a lattice that bakes firm enough for school-day squares.

Iowa Sour Cream Raisin Pie

Chef Dean

Iowa Sour Cream Raisin Pie

The humble funeral pie of the Iowa heartland: plump raisins suspended in spiced sour cream custard, crowned with golden-peaked meringue that shatters into sweetness with every forkful. This is the pie that built church suppers.

Ischler Törtchen

Chef Elsa

Ischler Törtchen

Hazelnut shortcrust rounds from the emperor's summer retreat, sandwiched with chocolate buttercream, bathed in dark chocolate glaze, and finished with a single bright pistachio.

Italian Rainbow Cookies

Chef Dean

Italian Rainbow Cookies

Three delicate almond sponge layers in the colors of the Italian flag, sandwiched with fruity jam and dressed in bittersweet chocolate. These labor-of-love cookies honor generations of Italian-American bakers.

Jalisco Piloncillo Ring Cookies (Coricos)

Chef Lupita

Jalisco Piloncillo Ring Cookies (Coricos)

Jalisco's crisp corn ring cookie, sweetened with piloncillo, scented with anise, and shaped by hand for dunking in coffee without falling apart.

Jam Sandwich Biscuits

Chef Thomas

Jam Sandwich Biscuits

Buttery shortbread rounds with a little cutout window of raspberry jam, the kind of biscuit that makes a wet afternoon feel like the right place to be.

Where cooking meets culture.

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

Discover Culinary Explorer