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

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Recipes

Kniepertjes (Dutch New Year Wafers)

Chef Joost

Kniepertjes (Dutch New Year Wafers)

Kniepertjes are the flat New Year wafers of Drenthe, Groningen, and Overijssel: the old year pressed thin, its secrets already opened, crisp enough to snap under your teeth.

Kokosbusserl

Chef Dean

Kokosbusserl

Pillowy Austrian coconut macaroons with crisp edges and tender, chewy centers, finished with a glossy dark chocolate base that makes them as beautiful as they are irresistible.

Kokosbusserl

Chef Elsa

Kokosbusserl

Soft coconut clouds perched on thin Oblaten wafers, golden at the tips and chewy in the middle. Three ingredients do all the work if you treat them right.

Kokosmakronen

Chef Joost

Kokosmakronen

A coconut cookie with one foot in the old European macaroon family and the other in the Dutch coffee tin: frugal, chewy, golden, and better for being left a little rough.

Kokosmakronen

Chef Klaus

Kokosmakronen

The Advent macaroon that works only when the egg-white mixture is warmed gently first, so the coconut hydrates, the peaks hold, and the middle stays soft.

Kolaczki (Polish Cream Cheese Cookies)

Chef Dean

Kolaczki (Polish Cream Cheese Cookies)

Tender, flaky cream cheese pastry enveloping pockets of fruit preserves, dusted with drifts of powdered sugar. These beloved Polish Christmas cookies melt on the tongue and fill the kitchen with memories of old-world baking.

Kopenhagi Thessalonikis (Κοπεγχάγη Θεσσαλονίκης)

Chef Dimitra

Kopenhagi Thessalonikis (Κοπεγχάγη Θεσσαλονίκης)

Thessaloniki's Kopenhagi is almond sponge hidden between buttered phyllo, baked until gold, then soaked with lemon syrup for the city's old celebration table.

Kouign-Amann

Chef Ally

Kouign-Amann

Brittany's legendary butter cake, layers of simple bread dough folded with European butter and sugar that caramelizes into a shattering, amber-lacquered shell around a soft, impossibly rich interior.

Koullourka Kyprou (Κουλλούρκα Κύπρου), Cyprus Easter Rings

Chef Dimitra

Koullourka Kyprou (Κουλλούρκα Κύπρου), Cyprus Easter Rings

Koullourka Kyprou are Cyprus's sesame-crusted Easter rings, gently sweet and fragrant with mahlepi and mastic, with sourdough giving the small breads their chew and long keeping.

Kourabiedes

Chef Dean

Kourabiedes

Impossibly tender Greek butter cookies wrapped in clouds of powdered sugar, their almond-studded interiors scented with brandy and orange blossom. One bite transports you to an Athenian grandmother's kitchen at Christmas.

Kourabiedes Neas Karvalis (Κουραμπιέδες Νέας Καρβάλης)

Chef Dimitra

Kourabiedes Neas Karvalis (Κουραμπιέδες Νέας Καρβάλης)

Nea Karvali's refugee Christmas cookie is all butter, toasted almond, rosewater, and powdered sugar. Brown the butter, cool it, then beat it pale for the sandy crumb.

Kozak (Twentse Chocolate Marzipan Pastry)

Chef Joost

Kozak (Twentse Chocolate Marzipan Pastry)

The kozak is Overijssel's quiet answer to the mergpijp: soft cake, cream, marzipan, and chocolate, with no jam smuggled in under another name.

Krakelingen (Dutch Sugar Pretzels)

Chef Joost

Krakelingen (Dutch Sugar Pretzels)

The looped little pastry that proves Dutch baking knows drama in small measures: cold butter, coarse sugar, two windows in the dough, and a crackle you hear before you taste.

Kreatopita Ipirotiki (Κρεατόπιτα Ηπείρου)

Chef Dimitra

Kreatopita Ipirotiki (Κρεατόπιτα Ηπείρου)

Epirus gives this meat pie its surname: hand-cut beef, onion, trahana, and sturdy village phyllo baked in a tapsi until the top is crisp and the filling stays rich.

Kremmydopita Mykonou (Mykonian Onion Pie)

Chef Dimitra

Kremmydopita Mykonou (Mykonian Onion Pie)

Mykonos gives its onion pie sharp tyrovolia, green spring onions, and dill. Cook the onions down first, and the filling turns sweet, soft, and unmistakably Cycladic.

Kruidnoten

Chef Joost

Kruidnoten

Small as pebbles and loud with cinnamon, clove, mace, and nutmeg, kruidnoten are the Sinterklaas cookies that carry a spice empire in a child's coat pocket.

Kruimelvlaai (Limburg Crumb Vlaai)

Chef Joost

Kruimelvlaai (Limburg Crumb Vlaai)

The name means crumbs, but Limburg hears celebration: tender yeast vlaai, fruit and pudding beneath a thick roof of buttery knubbelkes, cut for birthdays and serious coffee tables.

Kruisbessenvlaai (Limburg Gooseberry Vlaai)

Chef Joost

Kruisbessenvlaai (Limburg Gooseberry Vlaai)

A Limburg summer tart with a sharp green heart: gooseberries baked in soft yeasted vlaai dough, then sweetened just enough to make the berries sing.

Krumiri di Casale Monferrato

Chef Graziella

Krumiri di Casale Monferrato

The curved cornmeal cookies of Casale Monferrato, where butter, sugar, and fine maize flour come together in a crumbly, sandy sweetness that has survived unchanged since 1878.

Kürbiskernbusserl (Pumpkin Seed Kisses)

Chef Elsa

Kürbiskernbusserl (Pumpkin Seed Kisses)

Delicate Styrian pumpkin seed meringues sandwiched with sharp Ribiselmarmelade, the Christmas cookie that proves Austria's best baking doesn't always start with flour.

Kürbiskernkipferl (Pumpkin Seed Crescents)

Chef Elsa

Kürbiskernkipferl (Pumpkin Seed Crescents)

Styrian pumpkin seeds ground into a sandy, crumbly crescent cookie dusted with powdered sugar and scattered with green seed flecks. Styria's proudest contribution to the Austrian Christmas tin.

Lalangia Manis (Λαλάγγια Μάνης)

Chef Dimitra

Lalangia Manis (Λαλάγγια Μάνης)

Mani's Christmas lalangia are lean olive-oil dough ropes, fried crisp and dressed with honey, sesame, and cinnamon, a fasting sweet with teeth.

Lavender Honey Shortbread with Lemon Glaze

Chef Dean

Lavender Honey Shortbread with Lemon Glaze

Buttery shortbread perfumed with dried lavender and wildflower honey, topped with a tart lemon glaze that cuts through the richness. This is the cookie that makes people ask for your recipe.

Lemon Curd Profiteroles with Raspberry

Chef Dean

Lemon Curd Profiteroles with Raspberry

Shatteringly crisp choux puffs split open to reveal sunshine-bright lemon curd and jewel-toned raspberries, a French classic transformed into the perfect finish for lazy summer afternoons on the porch.

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