Yeast

Why not make cinnamon buns into a coffee cake that can be pulled apart when ready to serve. It's a dessert that is just meant to make it to the breakfast table the next morning (if there's any left).

Snack on these to satisfy your craving for sweet, salty, and crunchy. Unlike the pale, sugar-laden honey-wheat pretzel twists sold in bags at the grocery store, these are subtly sweetened with fragrant honey, deeply browned, and snappy. They are dipped in a plain water bath, rather than lye, because the honey provides sufficient flavor and helps with the browning.

My dear friend Matt Michel caters pizza parties from his wood-oven pizza truck, Rolling in Dough. Who better to help me perfect my pizza dough than the man behind the wheel? Nasturtium petals are unexpected in pizza crust, but their peppery essence works so well. I like mine served sauceless with lots of toppings, but to each his own.

1 slice per serving This recipe makes two loaves of a basic bread that gets its hearty, chewy texture from bulgur. The bread is great for both sandwiches and toast. If you don't want to bake both loaves at once, you can freeze half of the unbaked dough to use another time.

These light and airy biscuits owe their texture to three leavenings: yeast, baking soda, and baking powder.

1 pretzel per serving Most pretzels are high in sodium because salt is not only on the outside but in the dough as well. With this recipe for one dough and two topping options, you can easily please all soft-pretzel lovers. Choose sesame, poppy, and caraway seeds for savory pretzels; if you're more in the mood for something sweet, go with the cinnamon-sugar topping.

I know deep-fried doughnuts don't strictly count as baking, but I've included them here because they start with a dough, and they taste too good to leave out, especially made with a chocolate ganache filling instead of the ususal jam.

Nick Malgieri, the director of baking and pastry programs at The Institute of Culinary Education in New York City, created this recipe exclusively for Epicurious. The enriched yeast dough is a snap to make and even easier to shape into decadent, delicious cinnamon rolls. Best of all, the rolls can be baked ahead and reheated for a fresh-from-the-oven breakfast treat. For more on cinnamon rolls, including tips from Malgieri, see Classic Recipes: Cinnamon Rolls.

Cookbook author and food photographer Lara Ferroni created this classic doughnut recipe exclusively for Epicurious. For Ferroni's doughnut-making tips and more recipes, see our complete guide to homemade doughnuts. We've included two glaze options, sugar and chocolate, but these doughnuts are terrific on their own or simply dusted with confectioners' sugar. If your kitchen is on the cold side, an easy way to create a warm place for the dough to rise is to turn the oven on to 250°F, and set the bowl of dough or the baking sheet of doughnuts on top.

No tandoor oven? We didn't think so. Any heavy-bottomed skillet will get the job done.

Brioche is a special bread because of its delicate crumb, richness and flavor. The traditional fat used is butter, but other cultures use lard. I propose one very good reason for using schmaltz instead of either: flavor! This is a delicious savory bread that makes superb dinner rolls to serve with chicken or turkey, a simple salad, chicken soup, or anything, really. As far as I'm concerned, this version is out of the park (my assistant Emilia started it, I finished it, Marlene tested it and confirmed). You need to make it the day before you bake it, but it's a really simple preparation. It can be baked free-form, in individual ramekins, or in a loaf or terrine mold. Marlene made nifty "bubble top" rolls by filling muffin cups with three 1-ounce/30-gram balls, a technique she picked up from Dorie Greenspan's excellent book Around My French Table. I had my first bite while it was still warm from the oven, with a little extra schmaltz and a sprinkling of Maldon sea salt. Heavenly. If you bake it in a rectangular mold, slice it and toast it, delicious. This from Marlene: "OK, I want to say I was skeptical of this at the beginning. The dough smelled chickeny, not only while it was rising but also while it was baking. However, these totally rocked. There was no hint of chicken in the taste or the smell in the final product. The crust is the best I've ever produced. It was crisp, almost flaky, like biscuits. The crumb was delicate and soft."

The eight days of Hanukkah, the Jewish celebration of lights, honor the sacred lamp in the Holy Temple, which burned for eight days even though it only contained enough oil for one. Traditionally, many Hanukkah foods celebrate the oil in addition to the light. One of the most common is the jelly doughnut, known as sufganiyah. The word derives from the Hebrew word for "sponge," an apt description for the texture of the doughnuts. I think they are more accurately "pillowy."

Meaning "snails" in German, schnecken are pecan-cinnamon buns drizzled with gooey pecan caramel.

For my first two months in the army I was based outside Toul. In the town was a pâtisserie that made the best brioche with pastry cream. I would go to the shop whenever I could. The baker spread pastry cream over the dough, and then rolled it up like a biscuit rolé (jelly roll). My father made a brioche-and-pastrycream roll, too, but shaped it like a bretzel. Chantal still remembers them from the first time I brought her home to meet my parents—to do that you had to be serious. When I told my father I planned to put them in this book, he was so pleased.

Dusted with flaky sea salt, these buttery Parker House rolls are folded, making them perfect for late night leftover turkey or roast sandwiches.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in being made, and to learn how to make other Mediterranean classics, check out the video classes.

Editor's note: This Plain French Bread (or Pain Français) recipe accompanies an excerpt from Bob Spitz's book Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child, published on Epicurious on the occasion of Julia Child's Centennial. Count on a minimum of 6 1/2 to 7 hours from the time you start the dough to the time it is ready for the oven, and half an hour for baking. While you cannot take less time, you may take as much more time as you wish by using the delayed-action techniques described at the end of the recipe.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other Italian classics, check out the videos.