Spiced Apple Cider Jelly

Say hello to autumn in a jar: this gem-like jelly is made from fresh pressed sweet apple cider, fragranced with fall spices, and water-bath canned so you can enjoy a taste of fall all-year round (but you can also make this small-batch recipe and refrigerate it instead!)

Fresh apple cider is my new favorite fall indulgence, and this jelly uses that pure liquid gold to make a lightly-spiced and pectin-set apple jelly, a perfect pairing with cheese on your next charcuterie board, as a flavorful glaze for meat or poultry, dolloped on crispy potato latkes, or even swirled onto yogurt or vanilla ice cream like a reverse a-la-mode.

This low-sugar recipe is made with Pomona’s pectin, which uses calcium to set rather than sugar. For that reason we’re able to use a mere 1/4-1/2 cup of sugar, and that’s more for flavor than anything (a little bit of sugar greatly enhances the natural apple flavor of the cider).

(Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of the post to download the cozy, autumn-inspired printable labels!)

I’ll admit I’ve never been a fan of apple juice, even as a kid. Apples? Sure. But for some reason the juice never did it for me.

But apple cider is far and above better than apple juice. It’s what apple juice wishes it was. And seeing that the good stuff is usually only available for a few short weeks each fall, I’m making the most of apple cider season this year (would you believe we’ve already gone through almost 2 gallons of it between recipe testing for this and another recipe, and just drinking it by the glass).

This recipe uses fresh pressed apple cider, sometimes called sweet cider or soft cider, not to be confused with alcoholic hard cider. I’m talking about the refrigerated kind you get from your local apple orchard or farmer’s market during apple season and only during apple season. This kind of cider is unfiltered and more intensely apple-y than regular apple juice, and is usually unpasteurized so it needs to be refrigerated.

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Raspberry Red Pepper Jelly

Sweet and spicy and fruity: that’s what this jelly is made of! With just the right amount of spice, balanced with sweetness and fruitiness from the raspberry, it’s a perfect alternative version of an already perfect preserve (honestly pepper jelly is really the only way I enjoy eating peppers these days).

This recipe is made with Pomona’s pectin, which allows us to use about half as much sugar as most traditional pepper jelly recipes. That said, it still uses a good amount of sugar, because otherwise all you’re really tasting is peppers and vinegar. It’s the sugar that brings it all together and mellows out the vinegar too.

(Don’t miss the free printable labels available at the bottom of this post!)

Let’s be clear: this is not a spicy raspberry jam recipe. This is a true pepper jelly first and foremost, with a hint of raspberry second.

I did a similar twist on pepper jelly a few years back with my Cranberry Pepper Jelly (add it to your Thanksgiving menu and thank me later). The fruit adds such wonderful nuance to the pepper jelly, especially since peppers on their own are mostly spice with not a ton of underlying flavor.

I actually think this same process would work for blackberries, blueberries, or even strawberries too!

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Brown Butter Banana Bread (Mix-in Ready!)

Banana bread often veers into two extremes: overly dry, or so moist you worry it’s underbaked. But this loaf just might be the goldilocks of banana bread, with the perfect balance of moisture and tender crumb and a nutty brown butter flavor that serves to enhance the caramel notes of the banana. A tiny bit of sour cream adds moisture and body and prevents the bread from being too dry or cakey. In other words, it’s just right.

Every baker should have a go-to classic banana bread recipe, even if it is only used as a foundation for countless mix-ins and variations. This recipe is exactly that: with a moist crumb and robust flavor it is more than satisfying on its own, but oh so easy to add mix-ins like chocolate chips or nuts to make your own perfect loaf (which is undoubtedly different than my perfect loaf or your aunt’s perfect loaf or… well, you get the idea).

My recipe archives have been missing a basic banana bread recipe for some time now (or as Taylor would say, plain a$$ banana bread). This brown butter banana bread is about as close to basic as you’re going to get (you’re welcome).

The key to this banana bread’s simple perfection is (obviously) the brown butter, which adds a rich and nutty and almost caramelized flavor that compliments the banana beautifully. It’s also well balanced, with enough sugar to keep it moist and tender (too little sugar = dry dry dry), and also a dollop of full fat sour cream that adds moisture and body (too little fat = even drier).

The sour cream is an addition inspired by my sour cream coffee cake and also sour cream chocolate cake; I figured, if it works that well for ultra-moist coffee cake and chocolate cake, it should work equally well for banana bread too! I first tested this theory in miniature in my banana bread muffins, and now it’s incorporated into my full size banana bread recipe as well.

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Passionfruit Jellies (Pâte de Fruit)

Intensely flavorful with a delightful jammy texture that almost melts in your mouth, these passionfruit jellies are what’s known as pâte de fruit: a traditional French confection made by cooking fruit puree, pectin, and sugar until it sets into a firm gel that is then molded or cut into squares and dusted with granulated sugar.

Passionfruit is one of the most intensely flavored fruits, with a tart acidity that rivals that of any artificially flavored ‘sour’ candy (love Sour Patch Kids? Then you’ll adore these!) Made with just a few simple ingredients including passionfruit pulp, sugar, and pectin, these passionfruit jellies have a natural passionfruit flavor that is bold and bright and will send your tastebuds flying.

Pâte de fruit is a sugar-based confection that relies on pectin for its setting power rather than gelatin, which gives these candies a unique, jammy texture that practically melts in your mouth (unlike the “bouncy” chewiness of a gummy bear, for example). That also means that, unlike gelatin-based gummies, pate de fruit is entirely vegetarian (and, if you buy organic or vegan sugar, also vegan!)

Pectin-set candies are a bit more involved than gelatin-based ones, as you do need to cook the sugar and fruit mixture to a very specific temperature to achieve the ideal texture. That means pull out your most accurate digital thermometer (psst, have you calibrated it recently?)

You’ll also need to carefully manage the pH (acidity) of your fruit mixture, as we want the pectin to set, yes, but only at the end when it’s reached the appropriate temperature (otherwise you’ll just end up with a pot full of molten gloop). This is achieved by buffering the pH with baking soda, cooking the mixture up to temperature, then adding citric acid to bring down the pH back to where we want it for the pectin to set and for the passionfruit flavor to pop.

But the final result, when you bite into that first sugar-dusted square, is a bright pop of tropical flavor that will tickle your tastebuds in all the right ways. It’s intensely tart and perfectly sweet, with a satisfying texture that’s delicate and jammy and effortlessly melts onto your tongue.

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Black Sesame Amaretti Cookies

Amaretti are some of my favorite cookies for a reason: they are ridiculously simple to make, with only 3 main ingredients—plus the black sesame in this case—and always a crowd pleaser. Even better, they’re naturally gluten-free AND dairy-free (but you won’t miss a thing, I promise!)

These eye-catching black sesame amaretti cookies might look colorless, but they are certainly not flavorless! With an intense roasted black sesame flavor that’s supported by the nutty almond, this Asian-inspired twist on a classic Italian cookie is both surprising and satisfying, not to mention visually stunning with dark gray crackles peeking through a snow white powdered sugar coating.

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve published a new amaretti flavor, and dare I say this one might be my favorite yet?

I’ll be honest I didn’t expect them to be quite so good the first time I made them. Usually my first go at any recipe is like throwing spaghetti at the wall, just to see what happens. It started with a spark of an idea that came to me while looking at the various nuts, seeds, and powders stashed in my pantry that made me think, “what if I swapped out some of the almond flour with finely ground black sesame seeds?” In this case that hunch that turned into a munch (we devoured the first batch in no time!)

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Brown Butter Banana Bread Chocolate Chip Cookies

Luscious, gooey-in-the-middle brown butter chocolate chip cookies with a banana twist, making them taste like a combination of your favorite chocolate chip cookie and a slice of freshly baked, still-warm banana bread. It’s the perfect recipe to use up that sad single banana languishing on the countertop (you only need a single egg yolk too!)

With a deep and nutty flavor from the brown butter, a hearty kick of banana flavor, and studded with a mix of semisweet and dark chocolate pieces that melt into luscious puddles of molten chocolate in the oven, these lengthily-named cookies will become a fast favorite.

So we’ve done BBCCCs (brown butter chocolate chip cookies), but what about BBBBCCCs (brown butter BANANA BREAD chocolate chip cookies)? Indeed, adding a banana to my favorite cookie recipe makes for a cookie that tastes like a perfect mashup between chocolate chip cookies and banana bread.

The idea for this recipe came about when Taylor — who has a banana every morning for breakfast — somehow wound up with an extra banana that quickly turned (let’s just say he likes his bananas medium rare, even a speck of brown and he won’t touch it). I couldn’t very well let that sad, lonely banana go to waste, but given that it was just a single banana, it wasn’t quite enough to make a loaf of banana bread or even my banana bread muffins, at least without more math than my morning brain was willing to do.

But I figured banana cookies sounded pretty good, so why not?

Turns out you can’t just go adding banana to cookie recipes willy-nilly though. Since bananas have a high water content, simply adding banana will lead to puffy, cakey cookies. And I, for one, am not a fan of cakey cookies (whoopie pies being the one and only exception).

To make up for the extra water content, I removed the whole egg, leaving just egg yolk, and removed the splash of milk as well (the banana more than makes up for the water lost while browning the butter, which is why the milk is there to begin with). A single egg yolk combined with the equivalent of one small banana is enough to give these cookies a fudgy, toothsome, and borderline-gooey texture that is anything but cakey.

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10 Pantry Ingredients to Level-Up Your Baking

I’ve been baking all my life, and developing my own recipes for the last 15 years, and during that time have learned and developed a few tricks and secret ingredients to level-up homemade treats, taking them from good to downright extraordinary.

I’m not one for keeping secrets, so I’m here to spill the beans on these 10 (no longer) secret ingredients that will make your bakes look and taste more like professional, bakery-made treats. Plus, they can all be stored in the pantry for months and even years.

You may have noticed one or more of these ingredients listed as optional in many of my recipes. While their omission won’t necessarily cause the recipe to fail, they are included in the recipe for a reason, usually to level-up the recipe by enhancing the flavor, texture, and/or appearance.

Sometimes I’ll utilize a few of these secret ingredients together at once (like my next-level brown butter chocolate chip cookies which feature dry milk powder, instant espresso powder, flaky sea salt, AND good chocolate). While one of these things on its own might not be super apparent in the final product, together they make for some of the best cookies I’ve ever made (and I don’t say that lightly!)

Just a heads up that some of these ingredients won’t be available in your local supermarket, so it does take a bit of foresight and planning to acquire them online or from a specialty baking supply store (and I’ve included links to the products I use where appropriate). But they are all long lasting and shelf stable in your pantry, so they’ll keep beautifully for a year or more, giving you plenty of opportunity to put them to good use!

(Note this post contains affiliate links.)

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