Is baking your entire personality? Is The Great British Baking Show your comfort watch? Or maybe you just love eating cookies? Either way, you’re one of us. Come join our Bon Appétit Bake Club.
We’re Jesse and Shilpa, senior editors and the resident bakers of the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen. We love to bake—some might even call us obsessive—and we love to talk about all the hows and whys and what-didn’t-works that come with it.
Think of the Bon Appétit Bake Club as a book club, but for baking. Each month we share a brand-new meticulously tested recipe. Bake along with us, share your wins (or your fails—we’ve all been there), post pictures, ask us your pressing questions. We’re creating a community of confident, curious bakers who find just as much joy in the process of baking as the final results.
Want to join the club? Here’s how:
- First, and most important, bake this month’s recipe, which you’ll find below.
- Join the Bon Appétit Bake Club chat on Substack and we’ll take you behind the scenes of our recipe development process.
- Post and share photos of your beautiful bakes on Instagram using the hashtag #BABakeClub.
- Share feedback and ask us questions in the Recipe Notes section of the recipe page in the Epicurious app. We read every comment and look forward to talking with you about butter, sugar, and more.
- Send your baking questions to bakeclub@bonappetit.com or call in at 212-286-7071 for a chance to be featured on our podcast. Each recipe’s episode goes live at the start of the following month on the Dinner SOS feed.
November 2025: Giant, Gooey Cinnamon Roll
Surely there's a scientific reason oversized (or miniaturized) versions of food are so appealing. Take this panna cotta, or this falafel, for instance. A simple change in form is enough to make one squeal with delight. Such was the case with this giant cinnamon roll. Designed to maximize the ratio of sticky, gooey insides, arguably the best part of the pastry, it was received with joy almost every time I made it. And I made it a lot. This one was uniquely challenging because scaling up a recipe involves much more than simply increasing the weights of ingredients. With this cinnamon roll (which started out as a sticky bun!), it took a few attempts to figure out the baking time and temperature so the insides were cooked through without the top burning, a less prevalent problem with traditional cinnamon rolls because the heat is distributed more evenly across the smaller shape.
But perhaps the most challenging part of the bake was reconfiguring the way I shaped the roll. Rolling it the traditional way required some mental gymnastics and also resulted in all of the filling leaking to the bottom. The solution was inspired by braided challah, utilizing three separate ropes of dough to form the final shape. The result is a goofy spiral of dough that springs upwards and locks all of the filling within its tender embrace.
Speaking of filling, the bun hides a sneaky ingredient I'm inordinately proud of thinking to include A little instant vanilla pudding mixed with the cinnamon sugar mimics the ooey-gooey texture of mall-famous cinnamon roll filling thanks to the modified food starch it contains. When you rip the bun open, there are swirls of shiny, sticky cinnamon goo that combine with the cream cheese frosting on top for a cinnamon bun experience you won't soon forget.
October 2025: Chocolate Chip Cookies With Olive Oil and Sea Salt
If there is one thing I’m not, it’s vegan. Not that I don’t respect or understand the decision, but my life revolves around butter and eggs, so it’s just not in the cards for me. That said, I am more than happy—if not downright eager—to make a vegan baked good if the end results are equal to, or better than, their dairy-laden counterparts. This month’s recipe is one of those cases. Introducing: my (accidentally) vegan chocolate chip cookies made with olive oil.
Now, olive oil might sound like a wild choice for a traditionally buttery cookie, but hear me out. Chocolate and olive oil are a match made in heaven. Both are nuanced and fruity with a touch of bitter complexity. And as an added bonus, the oil keeps the cookies soft and moist for days. It’s a true win-win.
After I successfully swapped out the butter, the rest of the Test Kitchen team were curious if I could push the recipe even further and go completely vegan. To our surprise and delight, we discovered that the cookies came out perfectly chewy with a delightfully crisp exterior even without eggs. So for anyone searching for a vegan cookie recipe that doesn’t compromise, look no further. And for those of us who just enjoy delicious riffs on classic chocolate chip cookies, give these a try. They certainly won me over.
September 2025: Banana Pudding Paris-Brest
For those unfamiliar with the old-school pageantry of this French pastry, let us enlighten you: A Paris-Brest is a giant wreath of pate à choux (a foundational, and simple, French pastry dough) that puffs and expands dramatically in the oven. Imagine one giant, ring-shaped éclair that’s perfect for slicing and sharing. This version swaps the traditional praline mousseline filling for a banana diplomat cream (just a fancy term for pastry cream lightened with whipped cream) and layers it with candied nuts and slices of banana, cramming everything good about Southern banana pudding into a flashier, French package.
The recipe is our showiest to date, and will teach you how to master pate à choux, a base you can riff on to make classic éclairs, cream puffs, churros, and more. You’ll also learn how to infuse pastry cream with intense banana flavor using one of Jesse’s party tricks: steeping the peels in milk. Yes, the peels.
Paris-Brest is a labor of love, but after a year of celebrating your Bake Club successes, we think it’s time for a true project. So get yourself a piping bag, let your bananas ripen, and strap in; it’s well worth the effort.
August 2025: Peach-Blueberry Crumb Pie
No-bake this, no-cook that. I am keenly aware that summer is the high season for recipes you don’t need to turn your oven or stove on for, but have you been to the store lately? Stone fruit is everywhere! When else am I meant to make a cherry cobbler or my annual plum torte or the sort of fantastical fruit pie that would make any farm-dwelling former ballerina green with envy? The time is now, I tell you. So turn on the air conditioning, because we’re making a lovely, homey peach and blueberry pie. It’s everything good about summer (fruit! leisure! long days!) tucked away in a crisp, flaky crust, lightly scented with cardamom, and topped off with a brown sugar streusel.
There are some powerful learning moments in this bake: How to make a buttery pie crust that will never fail you. How to select the best fruit for a fruit pie. Why it’s important to precook a high-moisture filling (like juicy fruit) so your pie crust is crisp rather than gummy. And perhaps the hardest and most important lesson of all: How long to wait before you dig into your pie ( it’s longer than you think).
I know Jesse and I will discuss our frustration over the non-standardized nature of pie pans on the podcast later this month, but in the meantime may I gently but eagerly prod you in the direction of a particular pie pan? The nine-inch model from USA Pan has been a firm favorite for years now in the Test Kitchen and at home. It’s not quite a deep dish, but it is capacious, which means fillings rarely overflow. The rim is the perfect place to rest your crimped pie edges on, and the quick and even heat conductivity of the metal results in a beautifully baked crust every time.
And in news you could use, we're on Substack now. Come join us there to talk about your bakes, ask questions, and get a behind-the-scenes peek into the Test Kitchen. We’ve outgrown our Closed Friends group on Instagram for a while now, so this feels like the right move. Jesse and I are delighted we can interact with even more of you.
July 2025: No-Knead Cheddar Jalapeño Bread
After last month’s layer cake, we figured it was high time to pivot toward a more savory place, so we are baking up a homemade loaf of crusty, bakery-worthy bread. This is no squishy sandwich loaf, but rather a big, browned boule studded with fresh jalapeños and chunks of cheddar cheese. It’s ultra-savory and just a touch spicy—the perfect way to showcase peak-summer peppers in all their glory.
For those who might be intimidated by homemade bread (we see you!), think of this recipe as an introductory course. It’s made with instant yeast, so it comes together quickly without having to fuss with finicky active dry yeast or sourdough starter. And you don’t have to knead it; a few quick folds is all it takes. It all comes together within the span of a few hours and is incredibly forgiving.
You also don’t need any special equipment to make it. It’s got a short ingredient list and an even shorter set of tools you’ll need. As long as you have a big, heavy Dutch oven, you are ready to make bread!
June 2025: Hummingbird Cake
June marks a little over six months of the Bon Appétit Bake Club. I am stunned and even a little emotional to think there are now more than 400 members of this virtual club, with some of us meeting IRL at our first Bake Club live event last month (where we baked scones and drank tea and took many photos).
It feels like just the right time to celebrate with what else but cake! We’re making Hummingbird Cake, an imposing icon from the American South. It’s a storied dessert with an interesting history that involves a Caribbean island, possibly a bird, and a magazine that’s over five decades old. If you’re unfamiliar, think of it as a banana version of carrot cake, full of nuts, spices, fruit, and cream cheese frosting.
It’s our most involved project yet, a traditional layer cake that involves baking the cakes, cutting them in half, making a filling and a frosting, stacking and assembling it all together before spackling the whole lot with more frosting. We believe you’re ready for it and we’re here to hold your hand too. Drop all your questions in our Closed Friends group or send them to bakeclub@bonappetit.com.
I’ve found a cake turntable invaluable for building and frosting cakes effortlessly. I highly recommend having one for this recipe. Spring for a sturdy metal model like this one from Ateco. It’ll serve you well for a very long time (I’ve had mine for more than 10 years). If space is a concern or you fear you may not regularly make layer cakes, consider a plastic turntable. You can repurpose it to hold oil and salt near your stove when you’re not using it for decorating.
May 2025: Coffee Cake Scones
Turns out, there is such a thing as a too-tender scone. Our first attempts were deliciously soft, a physical manifestation of the term melt-in-your-mouth. But our colleagues, the toughest critics (in the nicest possible way), were perturbed. “Is this a shortcake?” “Did you mean to make muffins?” “I like a scone with a bit of a crumble.” Well, pardon us.
We retreated and made the scones again: with heavy cream and butter; buttermilk and butter; no heavy cream; all heavy cream; all butter. Many rounds later, we found the answer in a tub of sour cream. The tang of cultured dairy makes these scones stand out, keeping them moist but not claggy. And with that addition, channeling coffee cake became the natural next step. With clusters of streusel on top and a cinnamon sugar swirl within, these are scones that anyone will love. Even our discerning colleagues.
And this month, for the first time, Bake Club goes live! On May 16, Jesse and I are hosting a workshop in the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen, where we can make these scones together, in real life, side by side, while chatting all things baking and drinking cups of tea. If you’ll be in NYC and would like to come, you can buy the last few remaining tickets here. We’d love to have you.
April 2025: Millionaire’s Shortbread
Millionaire’s shortbread is the ultimate show-off bake. Tender shortbread stacked with chewy caramel, glossy chocolate, and flakes of shimmering sea salt? It’s practically begging to be peacocked around like a trophy. Our version went through about 10 rounds of testing until every detail was just right.
A simple shortbread dough gets a special upgrade: toasting a bit of the flour beforehand. This lends a deep nuttiness, almost like coffee, without any extra ingredients. The caramel takes a hybrid approach, bolstering caramelized sugar with sweetened condensed milk, so you get a bittersweet flavor with a sliceable texture. The final layer combines chocolate with butter for a mirror-like shine and fudgy bite.
While you won’t need any special ingredients or equipment to make this, just make sure you have a square 8x8" pan on hand. For the cleanest edges, use a metal pan with straight edges, like the Test Kitchen favorite USA Pan.
March 2025: Pistachio Bundt Cake
The key to this pistachio cake’s tender crumb and mowed-grass green hue? A blender. It does all the hard work for you, decimating the nuts into a coarse flour and evenly distributing the dry ingredients (no sifting needed). This cake is satisfyingly hefty, with the regality of a cruise ship out at sea, and sturdily moist thanks to the pistachios’ natural fat content, a combination of melted butter and oil, plus a pearlescent lemon glaze. I’ve kept it on the counter under a mixing bowl for days, sawing off slices each time I saunter past.
I know many of us are nervous about inverting a cake in a Bundt pan. There’s always a moment of: Will it or won’t it? Over the years, I’ve found the best insurance against stickage is a can of baking spray—not cooking spray, which is a different product entirely. Made with oils and flour, baking spray works particularly well for Bundt cakes, getting into the valleys of the pan more effectively than just oil or butter. It comes out of the can in a beige mist, making it easy to see any missed spots. I stock Baker’s Joy in my cabinets both at home and at work.
February 2025: Tiramisu Basque Cheesecake
If you’ve been on social media at all this past year, you’ve likely been served an image of Basque cheesecake, a chubby wedge of it with a scorched top the color of a walnut coffee table. It’s easy to see the appeal—dramatic visuals aside, it’s astonishingly easy to make. You don’t need a crust, or a water bath, or the long, slow cook of a New York–style cheesecake. The trick lies in cooking it hot and fast, much like pizza or steak, resulting in a cheesecake of epic contrasts, deeply caramelized on the outside while remaining quiveringly soft inside. Not one to leave well enough alone, I’ve gone and added buttery mascarpone and a not insignificant amount of instant espresso to the batter to mimic another custardy classic, the iconic tiramisu. Topped off with a rosette of cocoa-dusted cream, it is two desserts for the effort of one.
A springform pan is essential for this recipe. Choose one with a light finish and a minimum height of 2". Pans with a raised rather than recessed base make removing your cheesecake much easier, enabling you to neatly slip a spatula between the metal and the pastry. Having an overhang on the base plate makes it easier to hold the pan, especially when it's full of runny batter. This pan fulfills all our requirements and is the one we turn to in the Test Kitchen.
January 2025: Incredibly Good Homemade Pizza
We live in NYC, one of the greatest pizza cities in the world. So of course we don’t need to make pizza at home. But we choose to! Because it is fun and rewarding. Our new recipe for homemade pizza meets you right where you are: It can come together in fewer than 4 hours and is adaptable to an overnight rest. You don’t need a stand mixer, a clunky baking stone, a specialty oven, or even to change out of your pajamas. And you’ll still get a world-class pie. The decidedly untraditional two-step cooking method (stovetop plus broiler) is a game changer, guaranteeing a puffy crust with enviable char (or leoparding, as the pros call it).
The dough starts off wet and sticky. To make handling easier, we highly recommend a flexible bowl scraper. A staple in professional kitchens, it’s terrific at gathering doughs and batters, scraping them out of bowls and off of fingers and counters. It’s hard to overstate how often we reach for this unassuming tool every time we bake.
December 2024: Chocolate Olive Oil Cake
We love a one-bowl cake. This recipe has fruity olive oil in both the chocolate cake and the swooshy ganache-like frosting. It’s a low-effort, high-reward centerpiece for your next get-together or celebration. And if there are any leftovers, thanks to that olive oil, the crumb will stay moist and plush for days.
Using Dutch-process cocoa powder gives this cake an intense chocolaty flavor. Our go-to brand for pretty much anything baking-related is Guittard Cocoa Rouge. It has a bold, concentrated complexity without any of the dull chalkiness common in other brands.
November 2024: Caramel Apple Monkey Bread
This project bake screams autumn. The perfect follow-up to apple picking, it’s a fruit-studded beauty, drenched in a tangy cider caramel. Between the dough and caramel, this recipe uses almost half a gallon of apple cider. Bake it on Sunday, serve it up for a lucky crowd, and dig in with your hands—pulling apart the caramel-drenched pillows one by one.
Make sure to use a 12-cup or larger Bundt pan for this recipe. Using a smaller variety can result in the dough proofing out of the pan. Nordic Ware actually invented the Bundt pan, and we love their version for its sturdy construction and even heat distribution.
Coming Up
Next month we have a majestic dessert that is very festive and just right for the holidays. Procure a carton of eggs and a soupçon of vinegar.
Over on the podcast we will be talking all about Jesse's improbable Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies—and marvel at the hundreds of cookies our readers have baked. You can find it on the Dinner SOS feed. Give us a listen—we often tackle reader-submitted questions and this month we have the one and only Dorie Greenspan as our charming guest host. As always, if you have any questions or deep thoughts on baking, write to us at bakeclub@bonappetit.com. We always love to hear from you!
