Fresh apple cider is my new favorite fall indulgence, and this jelly uses that pure liquid gold to make a lightly-spiced and pectin-set apple jelly, a perfect pairing with cheese on your next charcuterie board, as a flavorful glaze for meat or poultry, dolloped on crispy potato latkes, or even swirled onto yogurt or vanilla ice cream like a reverse a-la-mode.

This low-sugar recipe is made with Pomona’s pectin, which uses calcium to set rather than sugar. For that reason we’re able to use a mere 1/4-1/2 cup of sugar, and that’s more for flavor than anything (a little bit of sugar greatly enhances the natural apple flavor of the cider).

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I’ll admit I’ve never been a fan of apple juice, even as a kid. Apples? Sure. But for some reason the juice never did it for me.

But apple cider is far and above better than apple juice. It’s what apple juice wishes it was. And seeing that the good stuff is usually only available for a few short weeks each fall, I’m making the most of apple cider season this year (would you believe we’ve already gone through almost 2 gallons of it between recipe testing for this and another recipe, and just drinking it by the glass).

This recipe uses fresh pressed apple cider, sometimes called sweet cider or soft cider, not to be confused with alcoholic hard cider. I’m talking about the refrigerated kind you get from your local apple orchard or farmer’s market during apple season and only during apple season. This kind of cider is unfiltered and more intensely apple-y than regular apple juice, and is usually unpasteurized so it needs to be refrigerated.

This recipe is made with Pomona’s pectin, which allows us to use about half as much sugar as most traditional pepper jelly recipes. That said, it still uses a good amount of sugar, because otherwise all you’re really tasting is peppers and vinegar. It’s the sugar that brings it all together and mellows out the vinegar too.

(Don’t miss the free printable labels available at the bottom of this post!)

Let’s be clear: this is not a spicy raspberry jam recipe. This is a true pepper jelly first and foremost, with a hint of raspberry second.

I did a similar twist on pepper jelly a few years back with my Cranberry Pepper Jelly (add it to your Thanksgiving menu and thank me later). The fruit adds such wonderful nuance to the pepper jelly, especially since peppers on their own are mostly spice with not a ton of underlying flavor.

I actually think this same process would work for blackberries, blueberries, or even strawberries too!

Every baker should have a go-to classic banana bread recipe, even if it is only used as a foundation for countless mix-ins and variations. This recipe is exactly that: with a moist crumb and robust flavor it is more than satisfying on its own, but oh so easy to add mix-ins like chocolate chips or nuts to make your own perfect loaf (which is undoubtedly different than my perfect loaf or your aunt’s perfect loaf or… well, you get the idea).

My recipe archives have been missing a basic banana bread recipe for some time now (or as Taylor would say, plain a$$ banana bread). This brown butter banana bread is about as close to basic as you’re going to get (you’re welcome).

The key to this banana bread’s simple perfection is (obviously) the brown butter, which adds a rich and nutty and almost caramelized flavor that compliments the banana beautifully. It’s also well balanced, with enough sugar to keep it moist and tender (too little sugar = dry dry dry), and also a dollop of full fat sour cream that adds moisture and body (too little fat = even drier).

The sour cream is an addition inspired by my sour cream coffee cake and also sour cream chocolate cake; I figured, if it works that well for ultra-moist coffee cake and chocolate cake, it should work equally well for banana bread too! I first tested this theory in miniature in my banana bread muffins, and now it’s incorporated into my full size banana bread recipe as well.

Passionfruit is one of the most intensely flavored fruits, with a tart acidity that rivals that of any artificially flavored ‘sour’ candy (love Sour Patch Kids? Then you’ll adore these!) Made with just a few simple ingredients including passionfruit pulp, sugar, and pectin, these passionfruit jellies have a natural passionfruit flavor that is bold and bright and will send your tastebuds flying.

Pâte de fruit is a sugar-based confection that relies on pectin for its setting power rather than gelatin, which gives these candies a unique, jammy texture that practically melts in your mouth (unlike the “bouncy” chewiness of a gummy bear, for example). That also means that, unlike gelatin-based gummies, pate de fruit is entirely vegetarian (and, if you buy organic or vegan sugar, also vegan!)

Pectin-set candies are a bit more involved than gelatin-based ones, as you do need to cook the sugar and fruit mixture to a very specific temperature to achieve the ideal texture. That means pull out your most accurate digital thermometer (psst, have you calibrated it recently?)

You’ll also need to carefully manage the pH (acidity) of your fruit mixture, as we want the pectin to set, yes, but only at the end when it’s reached the appropriate temperature (otherwise you’ll just end up with a pot full of molten gloop). This is achieved by buffering the pH with baking soda, cooking the mixture up to temperature, then adding citric acid to bring down the pH back to where we want it for the pectin to set and for the passionfruit flavor to pop.

But the final result, when you bite into that first sugar-dusted square, is a bright pop of tropical flavor that will tickle your tastebuds in all the right ways. It’s intensely tart and perfectly sweet, with a satisfying texture that’s delicate and jammy and effortlessly melts onto your tongue.

These eye-catching black sesame amaretti cookies might look colorless, but they are certainly not flavorless! With an intense roasted black sesame flavor that’s supported by the nutty almond, this Asian-inspired twist on a classic Italian cookie is both surprising and satisfying, not to mention visually stunning with dark gray crackles peeking through a snow white powdered sugar coating.

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve published a new amaretti flavor, and dare I say this one might be my favorite yet?

I’ll be honest I didn’t expect them to be quite so good the first time I made them. Usually my first go at any recipe is like throwing spaghetti at the wall, just to see what happens. It started with a spark of an idea that came to me while looking at the various nuts, seeds, and powders stashed in my pantry that made me think, “what if I swapped out some of the almond flour with finely ground black sesame seeds?” In this case that hunch that turned into a munch (we devoured the first batch in no time!)