Hot Oven Club
The Recipe Box
Dependable help for ordinary kitchens: oven basics, technique, bread, pastry and the occasional rescue.
Recipes
The Club’s Brown Butter Shortbread
Four ingredients, no mixer, and a nutty depth that tastes like you worked much harder than you did.
Troubleshooting
The Hardest Step in Baking: Let It Cool
Why cooling is really the last part of the bake, and how long each type of treat needs to wait.
Troubleshooting
Why Did My Cake Sink?
Six usual suspects behind a sunken middle, and how to tell which one you are dealing with.
Pastry
Cold Hands, Flaky Crust
Good pie crust is about keeping fat in solid pieces. A simple method that takes the fear out of pastry.
Bread
Your First Week With a Sourdough Starter
Flour, water, patience. A day-by-day plan for making a starter, with what is normal along the way.
Technique
Why You Should Weigh Your Flour
A cup of flour can vary by 30 percent. The kitchen scale is the best $20 a baker can spend.
Technique
What Room Temperature Butter Actually Means
It is cooler than you think. How to get butter right for cookies and cakes, including when you forgot.
Oven Basics
Your Oven Is Lying to You
Why the number on the dial may be 25 degrees off, and a $10 fix that will improve everything you bake.