​It’s well known that Bon Appétit editors do a lot of cooking for their jobs. It’s no surprise that we also do a lot of cooking in our free time. Here are the recipes we’re preparing this month to get dinner on the table, entertain friends, satisfy sweet cravings, use up leftovers, and everything in between. For even more staff favorites, click here. A party app worth repeating. I’m highly predictable at parties. If asked to bring an appetizer, I’ll bring crudités: typically endive cups, cucumber spears, and radish halves (not popular, but I love them). The dip is usually the same: a romesco I whip up in a personal blender in minutes. I’ve never measured this, but it goes roughly like this: Drain a jar of roasted peppers and pat them dry.  

​This month, Bon Appétit’s Bake Club is reimagining a classic. Tune in as Jesse Szewczyk analyzes his popular Chocolate Guinness Cake recipe. “The cake came to me quite easily.” I experienced a vision. “I’m fortunate,” Jesse tells cohost Shilpa Uskokovic. However, the challenge arose when it came time to develop the frosting. “I felt like everyone in the Test Kitchen had an opinion on what it should be… I definitely tried at least 10 different frostings.” In the end, Jesse settled on brown butter frosting as the ideal topping—not only for its flavor but also because it evoked the creamy head of a perfectly poured Guinness. “It’s fortified with a touch of Guinness—just two tablespoons,” Jesse says.  

​Horlicks, the well-known UK malted milk beverage, is a staple as comforting as a rich, creamy milk tea. Flaky egg tarts sit among a broad array of bakery favorites—fluffy pineapple buns, sweet-savory pork floss buns, and crispy buns drizzled with sweetened condensed milk. A variety of baked rice dishes completes the savory lineup. The pork chop rice, a Cantonese dish built on fried rice and finished with a Western touch—a layer of tomato sauce topped with melted cheese.

Brewing milk tea for a group evokes the midcentury origins of these cafés. Cuisine, like language, evolves over time: sharp edges soften, and before you know it, a fresh cooking style emerges. Thus Hong Kong’s cha chaan tengs arose in the wake of World War II, as Western influences began reshaping the city’s culinary landscape.

Samuel Dic Sum Lai, a PhD candidate at the University of London, has dedicated his research to documenting the hazy history and culture of these eateries.  

​Pottery employed for preparing and serving food dates back to the world’s earliest civilizations, illustrating that humans have congregated around meals for nearly as long as they’ve had fire for cooking. Today, when these items—bowls, baking dishes, serving vessels—grace our tables, they carry this legacy along with them. Shards from 20,000-year-old clay pots have been discovered in China. During the excavation of Pompeii, archaeologists uncovered kilns containing unfired terra-cotta vases buried under vast piles of ash. Ceramic cooking implements discovered in present-day Ecuador, from the fifth millennium BCE, represent some of the few surviving remnants of a long-forgotten ancient civilization. Similar to those artifacts, these five culinary tools from around the world depict the tales of the creators bringing their ancestral cooking traditions into the present day. Kyūsu, Japan. Photo credited to Hugo Yu, with prop styling by Andrea Bonin. Taisuke Shiraiwa, a Japanese kyūsu (teapot) artist, refined his pottery wheel techniques under the guidance of master craftsman Konishi Yohei in Tokoname, Japan—a renowned ceramics hub. His wood-fired, salt-glazed teapots, made for New York City’s Tea Dealers, shimmer with hues like lavender blush, sea foam, and volcanic ash; features such as flower-shaped lids and fiddlehead-curved ushirode handles ground the pieces in nature’s playful motifs.  

​Almond extract ranks among the strongest ingredients in your pantry. A few drops can elevate a dessert—or totally overwhelm it. A mystery wrapped in colored glass, its distinctive taste derives from a compound that might—or might not—originate from real nuts. It delivers a far more potent kick than other extracts (vanilla, I’m talking to you). Whether you’re a seasoned baker or just starting out with extractions, here’s everything you need to know about this “less-is-more” baking essential. Pure almond extract is a concentrated flavoring derived from bitter almonds, alcohol, and water. In contrast to the sweet almonds you eat as snacks, bitter almonds are loaded with benzaldehyde, the compound responsible for the nutty, fruity flavor of almond extract. Even though it comes from potentially toxic sources, properly manufactured almond extract is safe for consumption, as processing removes the harmful compounds from raw bitter almond oil. That said, benzaldehyde is not exclusive to bitter almonds. It’s also present in the pits of stone fruits such as peaches, apricots, plums, and other members of the almond’s extended family, the genus Prunus. Food processing facilities often throw away these pits, which cost less than raw nuts, so some commercial producers use them to flavor their almond extract.