Simple Cooking

You can always buy barbecue sauce that's to your taste-there are so many kinds on the market now-but this is the one I've come up with over the years, and it's what we use when we make our barbecued St. Louis spareribs at Sweetie Pie's.

Appalachian apple stack cake is communal cooking at its finest. Originally, each layer was baked at home by individual cooks, likely in cast-iron skillets, then brought together and assembled for church suppers and gatherings. Instead of the spongy cakes we're used to today, these layers are more like cookies—firmer, so they slowly soften beneath liberal applications of apple butter and cooked apples. This recipe stays mostly true to those principles. Instead of individually baking the layers one skillet at a time, though, use a cake pan to trace a pattern on parchment paper and trim circles of rolled dough to fit it. Bake two layers simultaneously (more if you have a convection oven). The edges of the cake layers won't be as perfectly neat as if you'd baked them in skillets or cake pans, but that's all right. This is a rustic cake.

This pizza dough recipe can be made with storebought active dry yeast or fresh yeast. It makes enough for two 12-inch pizzas. For the best flavor and texture, be sure to stash the the dough in your refrigerator for at least 24 and up to 48 hours before using.

It's the original 1:1:1 cocktail (equal parts gin, vermouth, and Campari), but Chiltern Firehouse in London tweaked the ratio on this bittersweet Italian classic.

If you don't have both spices, it's okay to omit one or the other.

I do love a good Bundt cake—they're just so elegant and beautiful! This easy melt and mix recipe is flavored with chai and pumpkin pie spice.

It just may be the perfect cocktail—especially when you can make it (and serve it) in bulk.

We're partial to the grenadine from Jack Rudy Cocktail Co.

Almost any fresh fruit (pears, apples, berries) can replace the figs.

The low oven temp and long bake time allow these nuts to take on rich flavor without burning.

The elegant Cuban combo of lime and rum has nothing to do with the syrupy slush you'll find at swim-up bars.

This potent New Orleans nightcap is as much about the aromatic absinthe rinse as it is the Cognac and rye.

Got some burned bits? Great job! The natural sugars in the root vegetables, along with the brown sugar, will caramelize, giving you a little bitterness to counter all that sweetness.

Sandwiching the puff pastry between two baking sheets ensures that the pastry rises perfectly even.

When in doubt, add soda. The resulting highball (about 2 ounces of any booze filled to the top with soda) is refreshing—and impossible to mess up.

Pretty much everyone in the South fights about who's got the best pimiento cheese recipe. Make these if you want to put the debate to rest.

Make sure the cake pan you're using is at least 2" deep; the batter will rise to the very top while baking and will overflow in a shallow pan.

Whole wheat flour gives this brown sugar–oat topping a nutty flavor that perfectly complements the sweet-tart apples beneath.