Cookbooks

These sausage-studded cheese puffs are a Cajun take on a classic French appetizer.

Indulgent raspberry cream cheese makes homemade brownies even better.

Slightly undercook these mouthwatering morsels for a molten effect.

This addictive sauce is also incredible with beignets or ice cream.

For perfectly browned tops, cook one pan at a time on the topmost oven rack.

If using large mustard greens, remove the tough stems and tear leaves into bite-size pieces. Smaller leaves can be left whole.

Everyone loves a Bundt, and a sweet-potato version drizzled with coffee-chocolate sauce is hard to beat.

These taste even better a few days after they're made.

Feel free to substitute whole milk for the heavy cream.

Baking a batch of these classic Austrian sandwich cookies is a project—but totally worth it.

A simple toasty and buttery treat.

This zesty combination makes a lively snack or tasty addition to salads and grain dishes any time of year.

Frozen corn and cranberries are the secret to these festive flapjacks.

The Pale Rider swaps out fruit for jalapeno and simply adds manzanilla, a small dose of cane syrup, and lime.

Almonds were brought to Spain by the Moors, and they've featured in Andalusian cuisine ever since. Typically they are used as a thickener for sauces and, most famously, as the base of ajo blanco. Whole Marcona almonds are roasted with sweet or hot smoked paprika–I prefer to use sweet paprika, introduce a little heat via cayenne, and round it out with cumin and salt. In the event of a crippling Marcona almond shortage, regular blanched almonds will do the trick.

Garlic oil is one of my favorite "secret ingredients" for finishing pizzas. It's quick and easy to make, but it's best made at least an hour in advance. The longer you leave it, the more the garlic flavor infuses into the oil, so I recommend making it a day ahead, at the same time you make your sauce.

This is what I'd call the quintessential American pizza dough, inspired by New York-style pizza: medium thin, satisfyingly chewy, and the ideal companion to mozzarella, tomato sauce, and the pizza toppings Americans love best, from pepperoni and sausage to olives, mushrooms, and other vegetables. It's the dough I teach first to new students, and the one I recommend experimenting with because it's so versatile and user-friendly.

Feta, Kalamata olives, oregano, and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice give this grilled-squash pizza its unmistakably Greek flavor. I use a panini press to grill the slices of yellow squash and zucchini because I love the look and slightly charred flavor this method produces. You can also cook the squash in the oven or on a grill or stove-top grill pan. Grilling the cut face of a lemon half in the same way gives it a beautiful appearance and tones down its acidity a bit.

Here is a starter I use frequently in my restaurants. My poolish follows the traditional proportions of equal parts water and flour, so its hydration is at 100 percent. In general, unless I specify otherwise, use the same flour in your starter that you will be using in your dough. I always make starters with cold water to slow down the fermentation process for greater flavor complexity. It's helpful to use a clear glass bowl so you can see how well your starter is fermenting.