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 [email protected] for a chance to be featured on our podcast. Each recipe’s episode goes live at the start of the following month on the Bon Appétit podcast feed.
April 2026: Strawberry Shortcake Roll
Last year, for deputy food editor Hana Asbrink’s birthday, I made a strawberry roll cake filled with whipped cream and tiny jewel-red strawberries. It was an immediate hit and we decided right then that it belonged in Bon Appétit Bake Club. With fluffy cake, vanilla-bean-flecked cream, and juicy berries, it’s a dream dessert, tailored for this joyful season filled with new blooms and tender asparagus. Roll cakes traditionally require a complex series of steps when it comes to shaping, but this version utilizes an oil-based chiffon sponge, making it particularly easy to roll with no cracks and no heartbreak.
March 2026: Chocolate Guinness Cake
After last month’s cheesy biscuits, we’re going back to our dessert-loving roots and baking chocolate cake. But not just any old chocolate cake—this is a malty, brawny loaf imbued with Guinness stout. The crumb is tender beyond belief because of how you mix the batter. You’ll combine the dry ingredients, then rub in the butter by hand, until it practically disappears. This mimics a technique called reverse creaming and prevents excess gluten from forming. And there’s no special equipment, like a stand mixer, required.
February 2026: Cheddar Biscuits With Old Bay
A biscuit warm from the oven, split open so the steam rises to meet you, rivals the pleasure of an exalted loaf of homemade bread, all for a mere fraction of the effort (and wait time). This month’s recipe is packed with cheese and zhuzhed up with Old Bay seasoning. These biscuits are tall and layered like a lasagna, thanks to a quick and dirty lamination technique not unlike croissants. You don’t need any special equipment for these, but I highly recommend availing yourself of a nice bench scraper. It makes shaping the dough so much easier. Chris recently handed me a set from Gestura and I’ve been loving it because it’s small but sturdy, with thoughtfully curved edges and a minimal handle.
January 2026: Homemade Bagels
With a few pantry staples and a little time, this recipe yields a dozen delightfully chewy bagels that rival the most beloved of NYC shops. The trick? A two-step process: The bagels are first boiled, then baked. This dual approach gives them their signature chew, tanned sheen, and pleasantly dense (not tough) interior. And for a little fun: You can top these bagels with just about anything you like. Some of our favorites are furikake, Parmesan, sesame seeds (classic), and flaky salt.
December 2025: Cherry and Chocolate Pavlova
This bake is inspired by Black Forest cake, a Bavarian dessert defined by its layers: chocolate cake, cream, cherries, and kirsch, a cherry brandy. Over the years it spread far beyond its woodland origins, to countries like India, Fiji, the Philippines, and the Caribbean Islands. One bakery in Chennai, India, where I grew up, made tall triangular slices, a treat my parents brought home if we did well on our school tests. Pavlovas are prone to crack, weep, or turn soggy and chewy. The key is in the ratio of sugar to egg whites. Two parts sugar to one part egg whites (by weight, of course) gives you a sturdy, crisp, snow-white pavlova.
November 2025: Giant, Gooey Cinnamon Roll
Designed to maximize the ratio of sticky, gooey insides, arguably the best part of the pastry, this giant cinnamon roll was received with joy almost every time I made it. A little instant vanilla pudding mixed with cinnamon sugar mimics the ooey-gooey texture of mall-famous cinnamon roll filling, thanks to the modified food starch it contains. It’s purposefully large enough to cut into slices like a cake, but if you’re like us, you won’t be able to resist tearing it apart with your bare hands. Nor should you.
October 2025: Chocolate Chip Cookies With Olive Oil and Sea Salt
I am more than happy, if not downright eager, to make a vegan dessert if the results are equal to, or better than, their dairy-laden counterparts. This recipe is one of those cases: my (accidentally) vegan chocolate chip cookies made with olive oil. Chocolate and olive oil are a fated match, both nuanced, fruity, and a touch of bitter. As an added bonus, the oil keeps the cookies soft and moist for days. It’s a true win-win.
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 pastry dough) that puffs and expands dramatically in the oven. This version swaps the traditional praline mousseline filling for a banana-peel-infused (yes!) diplomat cream (just a fancy term for pastry cream lightened with whipped cream) and layers it with candied nuts and slices of banana. Everything good about Southern banana pudding, just in a flashier, French package.
August 2025: Peach-Blueberry Crumb Pie
Turn on the AC, because this month we’re making a lovely, homey pie. It’s everything good about summer (fruit! leisure! long days!) tucked away in a crisp, flaky crust, lightly scented with cardamom, and topped with a brown sugar streusel. There are some powerful learning moments in this bake: How to make a crust that will never fail you. How to select the best fruit for a pie. Why it’s important to precook a high-moisture filling so your pie crust is crisp rather. 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).
July 2025: No-Knead Cheddar Jalapeño Bread
This is no squishy sandwich loaf, but rather a big, browned boule studded with fresh jalapeños and chunks of cheddar. It’s ultra-savory and just a touch spicy. For those who might be intimidated by homemade bread (we see you!), think of this recipe as an intro course. It’s made with instant yeast, so it comes together quickly, without having to fuss over finicky active dry yeast or sourdough starter. And you don’t have to knead it; a few quick folds is all it takes.
June 2025: Hummingbird Cake
This month 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.
May 2025: Coffee Cake Scones
The tang of cultured dairy from sour cream 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.
April 2025: Millionaire’s Shortbread
Millionaire’s shortbread is the ultimate show-off bake. Our version went through about 10 rounds of testing until every detail was just right. The base of these bars—a simple, ultra-tender shortbread—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.
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 and moist thanks to the pistachios’ natural fat content, a combination of melted butter and oil, plus a pearlescent lemon glaze.
February 2025: Tiramisu Basque Cheesecake
It’s easy to see the appeal of Basque cheesecake—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. I’ve 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.
January 2025: Incredibly Good Homemade Pizza
Our pizza recipe meets you 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, or a specialty oven. 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). To make dough-handling easier, we highly recommend a flexible bowl scraper.
December 2024: Chocolate Olive Oil Cake
This one-bowl cake has olive oil in both the chocolate cake and the ganache-like frosting. It’s a low-effort, high-reward recipe. And if there are any leftovers, thanks to that olive oil, the crumb will stay moist 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 and using almost half a gallon of apple cider. 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
In May, we’ll have a dessert that’s brighter than the sun itself. And on the podcast, we’re talking about Jesse’s Guinness cake (the most popular recipe of March!) with special guest Helen Goh. You can find the episode on the Bon Appétit podcast feed. Have a listen—we often tackle reader-submitted questions. As always, if you have any questions or deep thoughts on baking, write us at [email protected] or drop us a line in the Substack chat. We love to hear from you.
