If you're looking for a new recipe to try this month, we've got you covered. Do you want to bake a cake? Try our seven-minute peanut butter cream cake, a massive raspberry sheet cake or purple lava cakes. Cookies more your speed? We have recipes for pillowy ricotta cookies and adorable strawberry sandwich cookies. And if you're looking for something more unexpected, we've got a giant cake pop, strawberry babka and a sweet and savory key lime pie. Let's start baking!
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Sheila James
1) Rolled rhubarb bars
These bars may be the best way to bake with rhubarb this season. In addition to the rhubarb, which turns into a ruby red jam in nearly 10 minutes, the bars are also filled with chopped white chocolate. To make these bars even easier (and faster), the dough is mixed by hand, so you can enjoy these crunchy buttery bars with little effort.
Get the recipe: Rolled Rhubarb Bars
Buy the recipe: Liner for square pans
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Sheila James
2) Glazed Ricotta Cookies
Inspired by a classic Italian recipe, these soft pillowy cookies are a not-too-sweet citrus treat perfumed with the elusive aroma of Sicilian flowers. The cookie itself is light and fluffy (but not sweet!) and stays moist thanks to the creamy whole milk ricotta.
Get the recipe: Glazed Ricotta Cookies
Buy the recipe: Oatmeal flour AND Sicilian flowers
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Sheila James
3) Raspberry and Honey Sheet Cake Layer Cake
If you are cooking for a big party, this is the great recipe you need. It takes the basic layer cake formula and scales it up a notch: Each cake layer is baked in an 18″ x 13″ half-sheet pan. This recipe features a fruit filling with raspberry preserves and raspberry whipped cream, with honey-vanilla buttercream to finish. Never made a cake this big? Not to worry; we've included helpful assembly tips (such as cutting the top layer of the cake in half to make it easier to assemble).
Get the recipe: Raspberry and honey layer cake
Buy the recipe: Half sheet pan
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Sheila James
4) Giant Brown Sugar Cinnamon Cake
Speaking of super-sized: This giant cake pop is made using a sweet dough crust (not a pie crust, like many giant cake pops out there), which mimics the texture of the original crust while also being thicker, more sweet and much softer. Inside is a brown sugar filling, while the final flourish is a sweet, simple glaze flavored with cinnamon and vanilla.
Get the recipe: Giant Brown Sugar Cinnamon Cake
Buy the recipe: Vietnamese cinnamon
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
5) Strawberry Cream Cheese Babka
Instead of cinnamon and chocolate, this babka is filled with a vibrant blend of sweet cream cheese, strawberries, and lemon. And the bread itself is incredibly soft thanks to a “super-tangzhong” made of flour, water and egg – almost like choux paste – that keeps the babka soft and moist.
Get the recipe: Babka strawberry cream cheese
Buy the recipe: Quick Bread Casserole AND Set of 2 bread pans
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Sheila James
6) Giant Ensaymada
Baker Rezel Kealoha offers an imaginative spin on the classic Filipino ensaymada. Instead of hand rolls, she transforms this savory and sweet-enriched bread into a giant centerpiece topped with the traditional combination of sweetened condensed milk, grated cheese and a cracked salted egg.
Get the recipe: Giant Ensaymada
Buy the recipe: Bread flour
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Sheila James
7) Strawberry Shortcake
This clever recipe turns strawberry shortcake into a stack of adorable sandwich cookies. Soft custard-based cookies surround a pink-tinged filling that gets its flavor and color from freeze-dried strawberries—so if you don't have a mountain of ripe berries to bake, you don't have to worry.
Get the recipe: Strawberry Shortcake
Buy the recipe: Carbonated sugar
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Sheila James
8) Ube Macapuno Molten Lava Cakes
Typical lava cakes impress with their molten fillings, but this version from Abi Baling's book, Mayumu, it is even more stunning thanks to its deep purple hue. Ube—a type of purple potato native to Southeast Asia and beloved in Filipino baking—adds aromatic notes of coconut, pistachio, and vanilla, while a garnish of coconut, white whipped cream, and a red cherry lit completes the ensemble.
Get the recipe: Ube Macapuno Molten Lava Cakes
Buy the recipe: Classic Thermapen®
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne and Brooke Deonarine
9) Brownie Cookies
When you can't choose between a brownie and a cookie…don't! This mix requires you to make brownie batter AND cookie dough, but because both are made using melted butter, they come together quickly and can be mixed completely by hand.
Get the recipe: Brownie Cookies
Buy the recipe: Callebaut Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
Food photography and styling by Liz Neily
10) Key Lime Pie with a Pretzel Crust
Bookmark this recipe for Memorial Day later this month. Tangy Key lime filling under a cooling cloud of whipped cream oozes summer, and this pie has an extra twist: The pressed crust is made with ground pretzels instead of graham crackers for a sweet-salty combination.
Get the recipe: Key Lime Pie with a Pretzel Crust
Buy the recipe: Floribbean Key Lime Juice
Food photography and styling by Liz Neily
11) Famous Shop Blueberry Muffins
With nearly 600 five-star reviews, this recipe is a must. It yields fluffy muffins with a crunchy, sugary topping and of course plentyy of blueberries inside. Bake it and see what it's all about.
Get the recipe: Famous Store Blueberry Muffins
Buy the recipe: Non-stick baking cups
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
12) Peanut Butter Cake
This soft cake contains a full cup of peanut butter, so its flavor shines through instead of fading into the background. Combine it with sticky, marshmallow-y goodnessseven minute frost for a super-energizing treat Fluffernutter or lie down in a thick blanket chocolate cream for a candy-like cake.
Get the recipe: Peanut Butter Cake
Buy the recipe: Cupcake and brownie pan
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
13) Strawberry-Rhubarb Galettes
If you're looking for a way to transform the season's first berries and rhubarb into an elegant dessert, look no further than this galette recipe. Scalloped puff pastry is the buttery base for the sweet fruit filling; top each galette with a bulb of Confectionery slushto complement its bright taste.
Get the recipe: Strawberry-Rhubarb Galettes
Buy the recipe: Carbonated sugar
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
14) Nice Burger Buns
It's grilling season, which means it's time to break out the charcoal and whip up a batch of homemade burger buns. With nearly 1,200 five-star reviews, this recipe is a customer favorite and guaranteed to be better than anything store-bought. Perfect the recipe now so you can make them all summer long.
Get the recipe: Nice Burger Bread
Buy the recipe: SAF Red Instant Tip
15) Mortadella Pizza Sandwich
If you haven't tried this amazing sandwich yet, you should fix it as soon as possible. Not only is the trio of salty mortadella, creamy burrata and crunchy pistachios impossible to resist, but it's all folded inside a puffy bread made from Neapolitan pizza dough.
Get the recipe: Mortadella Pizza Sandwich
Buy the recipe: '00' Pizza Flour
Short on time? Try one of these super quick, super easy spring desserts.
Cover photo by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Sheila James.
Additional contributions by Jessica Battilana.
