Vanilla

If you’re baking more than one tray of cookies at a time, swap their shelf positions in the oven halfway through cooking time to ensure even coloring.

Poaching peaches in ginger beer infuses them with sweet, spicy flavor. Layer the fruit with ice cream and top with more ginger beer for a fun spin on a classic float.

Pan-searing dates turns them into an irresistible, warm treat with a crisp, caramelized exterior and a soft, sweet interior. Paired with cold vanilla ice cream and topped with olive oil, mint, and flaky sea salt, the fruit becomes a sophisticated dessert with a fun mix of sweet and savory.

I use my favorite no-churn ice-cream recipe in these ice-cream sandwiches which makes them really quick and easy. You could use your own favorite ice-cream; just defrost it slightly so you can spread it between the brownie layers easily.

A very thick glaze with a bold, caramel-like flavor, this is an interesting way to use brown rice syrup in desserts. The intense flavor goes perfectly with spice or any strongly flavored cupcake. The texture of this glaze is very sticky at first but it well set up after an hour, or pop finished cupcakes in the fridge to speed it up.

To make these cakes, I use the reverse creaming method, as opposed to the more common creaming method. Instead of beating air into the sugar and butter, adding the eggs then stirring in the dry ingredients, the reverse creaming method requires the butter to be rubbed into the dry ingredients, followed by milk and eggs. As well as being simpler, with fewer stages, I think this method produces a better textured, more even sponge. When you rub the butter into the flour and sugar, the flour particles get coated in fat, which minimizes gluten formation in the cake. Gluten is the essential component in bread, but in cakes too much can produce a tough and chewy sponge.

These sheet-pan brownies don't require any special equipment. The batter gets spread into a thin layer yielding rich, chewy brownies that are about 1/4-inch thick.

We used dried lavender in this syrup because it gives the syrup a lovely pale hue. Fresh lavender won't lend the same color, but it does give the syrup a more powerful floral flavor.

Buttery, eggy brioche makes this French toast extra-decadent, but Southern-inspired buttered pecans and bourbon maple syrup take it over the top.

This has the authentic taste of that old-fashioned ripple of fudge. You can swirl it through just about any ice cream you like. Try it in old-fashioned Tin Roof Ice Cream with chocolate-covered peanuts.

This double-chocolate brownie with crunchy pecans and ice cream is perfect for dinner parties, family gatherings, or any time a hungry crowd wants something sweet and delicious.

This cake tastes like a strawberry malted milkshake. The white chocolate nest? That just makes it irresistible.

The combination of rice syrup and almond butter make these bars less sweet, with a toothsome, more substantial savory quality than most other versions.

The fruit-to-sugar ratio in this marmalade recipe makes it not too sweet and you can really taste the grapefruit.

In this recipe, a few textured and vibrant toppings gussy up a tender, buttery, and ultrasimple shortbread.

While you can make a very nice vanilla sugar by simply plunging a vanilla bean into a jar of sugar and leaving it there (for a really, really long time), I actually like to make a slightly fancier version by processing vanilla and sugar together until the bean is all broken down and the sugar is speckled with countless tiny beans and specks of pod. The sugar is more intensely flavored than regular vanilla sugar. Packaged in a pretty glass jar, it also makes for a great gift.