These are recipes I started with from America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) but made slight changes to along the way.
The recipes I followed exactly from ATK are gathered in the Home Baking Gallery.
Yeasted Waffle
A family favorite, essential for weekend mornings
I’ve made this recipe dozens of times. By preparing the batter the night before, even late risers can enjoy warm, fresh-baked waffles in the morning.
- 🔗 Original ATK Recipe
- ✂️ My Adjustments:
- Reduced the salt by half
- Doubled the sugar (2x)
🎥 There’s also a YouTube video:
⚠️ Critical Tip for Making the Batter!
❗ The recipe says to “Cool milk/butter mixture until warm to touch”, but you must mix the yeast when the milk is between 100–120℉. Any hotter, and the yeast will die, and the dough won’t ferment.
Here’s how I do it:
- Heat the milk and butter only up to 110–120℉.
- Turn off the heat and cover the pan while you finish the remaining steps. → The butter will melt naturally.
- If there are still unmelted pieces, don’t reheat — whisk until melted.
💡 Fun science fact
Butter melts around 95℉, but it transfers heat very slowly, so even if the outside starts to melt, the inside is still cold.
If you keep heating until all the butter is melted, the mixture will be too hot to mix with the yeast.
Crêpe Cake
It was better than Lady M!
- 🔗 Original Recipe
- ✂️ My Adjustment:
- Instead of fruit, I finished the top of the cake with torched sugar.
📝 In their recipe development article, ATK openly mentions the Lady M cake, using the phrase:
“topped with brûléed sugar”
Furthermore, Lady M’s official website describes their signature cake:
“the top is gently caramelized golden”
However, the Lady M cake I tasted had such a weak brûlée effect that it was practically nonexistent.
So I finished mine like a crème brûlée, with a crisp torched top, and everyone loved it. While the appearance might look amateur, I believe the taste was better than Lady M’s.
Cranberry Tart
Excellent filling, but crust needs modification
- 🔗 Original Recipe
- ✂️ My Adjustment:
- Swapped the crust for the one used in the Lemon Tart recipe.
Initially, I used the crust made with 100% almond flour as per the recipe, but it was so hard I couldn’t cut it. The crust cracked everywhere like an earthquake.
😕 Personal Assessment: A crust made only with almond flour and no wheat flour didn’t taste great and didn’t make sense. It felt like an attempt to be gluten-free rather than a flavor choice.
So, I replaced it with the simple crust from the 🔗 Lemon–Olive Oil Tart recipe, and the texture was softer and paired well with the filling.
💡 It worked because I borrowed the crust from a lemon tart recipe, whose acidity is similar to that of cranberries.
🎥 Sharing a reference video too:
💬 If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment!
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