Karen Resta

Though madeleines are only small sponge cakes shaped like shells, they somehow always have an air of sophistication, and there are a number of reasons for that. The first and foremost reason is the shape, which is delicately molded and detailed to look like a soft ivory fan. Another reason is that when made well, madeleines are incredibly light in texture, almost melting on the tongue.

Valentine’s Day is one of those holidays that demands chocolate. It can be a gesture of your love and appreciation for your special Valentine. Or it can also be a reminder that you can indeed treat yourself to some gourmet goodness.

Chocolate—and gourmet chocolates in particular—have earned a reputation as one of the best and most delectable gifts you can give another person. The sheer variety of chocolate available today is nearly endless, but if you're shopping for a gift, skip the grocery store candy aisle and opt for turtles, truffles, and bars that are crafted by the finest chocolatiers from around the world.

Drinking chocolates run the gamut from sweet to gently bitter and from a rich, dense texture to a light, barely-there mouthfeel. What anyone likes in terms of a drinking chocolate is highly subjective and intensely personal. There are, however, several ways to put any drinking chocolate to a critical test. The flavor profile, the source of the cocoa beans, the processing method, and more all play a part in choosing the one for you. We’ve put together this collection of drinking chocolates, covering many bases and different ideas of what a drinking chocolate can be.

This collection of top Easter baskets includes a variety of options, all available online. On Easter, it could be that your day is all about candy and sweets, as much as anyone could want! These sweet (and savory) baskets will make it your own special occasion, filled with delights and we can all pretend that the Easter Bunny delivered all these delicious treats right to our doors!

A good basting brush can really change your grilling or baking game, taking it from “This is really good,” to “Wow, this is amazing! How’d you make it?!”

It’s all about the specialized design of your tools. In brushes, the basics are the handle and the brush. What are they made out of? Will the brush bristles be too strong, too light, too big, or too small? How will the handle fit your hand, and will you enjoy using it? And last but not least, is it easy to clean? That last question is important because sauces and melted butter and beaten egg yolks have a habit of getting in every nook and c

Leonardo da Vinci once said, "Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail," and this definitely applies to baking cups. Little cakes, muffins, and cupcakes are designed to be detail-driven. We look at them more closely than we might a larger cake or loaf, we admire their precision, and many bakers find ways to decorate these treats for the individual person in a number of inspired ways.

Salt water taffy is a candy with a personality all its own. It reminds us of sunny days at the beach, walking in our flip flops up the boardwalk, looking at all the amazing things we can eat. It's one of those treats that we equate with summer and lazy days. Right up there with the smell of salty air and sunscreen, hot dogs, and french fries is the sticky smell of sugar being cooked to be made into fresh salt water taffy.

It’s a good bet you’ve already got a muffin pan or two in your kitchen, but do they really work as well as you’d like? Muffin pans are one of those kitchen tools that often don’t get taken as seriously as they should be, and because of this, they end up in the back of the cupboard, unused and forgotten.

Baking supplies are endlessly inventive because baking is endlessly inventive. A “celebrity chef” from the early 1800s and the inventor of French haute cuisine, Marie-Antoine Carême, said it well: “The fine arts are five in number, namely: painting, sculpture, poetry, music, and architecture, the principal branch of the latter being pastry.”

Different methods can be used for melting chocolate. There are electric chocolate melting pot models, double-boiler models, and models that use solid fuel to maintain temperature. Consider how you intend to use the pot and what kind of chocolate experience you're looking for, then choose accordingly. None of these pots require a lot of work to set up or clean, but they do have quite a range in terms of size, so check the dimensions and weight to find your best fit.

f the idea of making things easier in the kitchen appeals to you, we recommend buying a few kinds of parchment paper—it’s truly a very helpful product that can be used on a daily basis. But one quick pro tip: Always check the level of heat resistance and oven safety of your parchment paper, because it can vary.

Bench scrapers might be one of the least-known, most-adaptable kitchen tools. They cut, chop, lift, blend, smooth, measure, provide measurement-equivalent information, and clean surfaces. Bench scrapers are often referred to as dough scrapers or pastry scrapers, and they come in super handy when baking bread or working with other dough. If you haven’t tried this versatile tool yet, you really should!

There’s no question about it, cupcakes are made to be carried around. Unlike cakes, which are perfectly happy sitting on a countertop waiting to be eaten by whomever appears, cupcakes really want to be shared with the one person they’ve been made for. Cupcakes need to be safely delivered to those people, and that can be a problem. In bags, they get crushed, and in boxes, they fall sideways, and this is just unacceptable since cupcakes are all about their looks.

Having the right pan is vital because the texture of brownies is subject to strong opinions, and the texture depends on the baking pan. So, whether you're in the market for something round, square, glass, ceramic, or even budget-friendly, we curated a great selection for all kinds of brownies, so you can create your best batch ever, every time.