There are many things I love about bread, but right up there near the top is the impressive flexibility of any recipe once you’ve truly got the hang of it. My Honey-Vanilla Challah is a perfect example of this. I shared the original recipe back in 2007 yet there are at least a dozen variations of it. Sometimes I add dried apples, other times I add fresh ones. Diced apricots and chocolate are another favorite addition, as are cinnamon and raisins, or pears and cardamom. You can add pretty much whatever flavors and mix-ins you like to this recipe, which is why I love it and also a helpful option when you’re baking at 2 o’clock in the morning and haven’t been to the grocery store in… a while. I have a good excuse though…

Although I haven’t posted in about a month, believe it or not my days have been filled with foodie thoughts. I’ve been leafing through old issues of Saveur, bookmarking recipes in Everyday Food, and spending far more time than is healthy ogling things in my newest cookbooks: Savory Baking and Rustic Fruit Desserts. But when it came time to take these inspirations and make them manifest in my kitchen? That’s when I ended up in the nursery sorting baby clothes, or searching the internet for the perfect nightlight, or freaking myself out by reading books about caring for a newborn – all of which include a chapter on the dreaded colic. I pray our son does not visit this scourge upon us. Please. God.

Quick announcement: My Apple Cobbler recipe (the one the won my husband’s heart even though I set his kitchen on fire) is among the many delicious entries in Bon Appetit’s Holiday Bake Off contest. Would you vote for it in the Miscellaneous Dessert category? In order to submit your vote simply log into Bon Appetit (or create a free account if you don’t have one) then click here to be taken to the voting page. Thank you!

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and for me that means two things: lots of baking/cooking and watching holiday movies on infinite loop. Holiday films are something of an addiction for me from late November thru New Years Eve, and luckily my husband finds it more amusing than annoying when I watch Elf or Home Alone for the umpteenth time. I can’t help it. Buddy the Elf cracks me up when he writes a note to his father that says, “I’m sorry I ruined your lives and crammed eleven cookies into the VCR,” and when he tells his dad that plans for the day involve making snow angels for two hours, ice skating, eating a whole roll of Tollhouse cookie-dough as fast as they can and then snuggling.

Over the past couple weeks many of you have emailed me asking one of two questions: Have you found out whether the baby is a boy or a girl? And, is pregnancy affecting your kitchen habits? The answers are: yes and yes.

Name any ingredient you can think of, and chances are you’ve seen it in a bread recipe. Seeds, fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, spices, eggs, oil, sugar… all make regular appearances in ingredient lists, and contribute to some wonderfully flavorful loaves.
And yet, at its simplest, truest, most essential core, bread comprises just four ingredients:
Flour. Water. Yeast. Salt.
Bread that sticks to these …

It’s hard to describe the sheer awesomeness of this coffee cake, with its beautiful spirals and layers of brown sugar, pecans, walnuts and orange marmalade. But for you, I will try. Imagine the aroma of warm sugar and nuts, think about the sensation of fresh, fluffy bread melting in your mouth. That is this coffee cake.
I decided to play around …