I rarely encounter new baking tips or techniques. I've been writing about food and developing recipes for a long time, after all.

Leave it to Cook's Illustrated, my favorite food magazine, to wow me. (Cook's, home of America's Test Kitchen, is like a marriage of Bill Nye the Science Guy and Julia Child.)

In the November/December 2007 issue, Cook's set out to create foolproof pie dough.

Cook's confirmed things any experienced pie baker knows:

• a combination of butter and shortening works best for a flaky crust with great flavor


• a food processor is the best way to mix the flour with the fat and liquid without overworking the dough


• more water makes the crust easier to roll, but can also make it tougher

They add the flour in two stages, which I've never tried but which makes sense—it creates a good mix of fat-coated and uncoated flour.

They then add cold water and cold vodka.

Wait a minute. Vodka?

Yep, vodka. The ethanol in 80 proof vodka helps prevent gluten from forming. Gluten (the protein that forms when flour mixes with water) gives pie crust its structure, but too much gluten makes the crust tough.

So, Cook's concludes, vodka is the perfect way to add moisture without creating too much gluten. They chose vodka because it's flavorless.

To get the full recipe, you have to be a Cook's online subscriber, but they do offer a 14-day free trial.

In the meantime, I've got a bottle of Grey Goose in the cabinet and a bunch of apples on the counter...sounds like an apple pie to me. I'm off to experiment. I'll let you know how it goes.

You can never be too rich or too thin, or have too many brownie recipes. Come to think of it, if you have too many brownie recipes it's unlikely you'll ever be too thin.

Recently I've been experimenting with brownie recipes, venturing beyond my tried and true favorite, which appears on my cookie recipes website. I wanted to see what would happen if cut the chocolate just a bit, used brown sugar for part of the granulated sugar, and added a bit of baking powder.

The resulting brownies are a little softer (cakelike) in texture, and still absolutely delicious.

Makes 16 brownies

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease or butter a 9-inch square baking pan. (No need to grease it if it's a nonstick pan.)

Place the chocolate and butter in a microwave-proof bowl. Microwave on 80% power for 1 minute. Remove from the microwave and stir well until the chocolate is melted and smooth. If there are still lumps in the chocolate mixture, return to the microwave and heat in 10-second increments until you can stir the chocolate smooth.

Stir the sugars into the warm chocolate mixture. Add the eggs and vanilla and stir vigorously to incorporate the eggs.

Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder, then stir into the brownie batter just until the dry ingredients are incorporated.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the center no longer looks wet.

Let cool, then cut into squares.

It's prime season for blueberries, and next to eating them fresh by the handful, my favorite way to eat blueberries is in muffins.

I like a lot of blueberries in these muffins. If they don't turn your lips purple, they don't have enough blueberries. You can skip the lemon zest (the yellow part of the peel) if you prefer, but lemons and blueberries are a heavenly combination.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
2 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper cup liners or lightly grease it.

In a large bowl, thoroughly stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, sugar and lemon zest.

Add the eggs, milk and butter and stir vigorously just until mixed. (Do not overbeat.) Stir in blueberries.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tin, filling the cups about 2/3 full.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Let cool for 2 to 3 minutes, then turn muffins out onto a wire rack. These are best served slightly warm.

Makes 12 muffins.

Once a year, during the oh-so-brief season for fresh sour (pie) cherries, I make either a fresh cherry pie or, if I'm feeling lazy, a cherry cobbler. If I'm feeling both ambitious and decadent, I make both. Pitting all those fresh cherries is a lot of work, but it's worth it.

Since fresh pie cherries are rarely available, you can use frozen and thawed or canned unsweetened cherries (not cherry pie filling) in this cobbler instead.

More about sour cherries, plus my pie recipe

Makes 6 to 8 servings

Filling:
5 cups pitted fresh sour (pie) cherries
1/2 to 2/3 cup sugar, to taste
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits

Topping:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch baking pan or dish, preferably glass.

Make the filling: Toss the cherries with the sugar, cornstarch, and almond extract. Pour into the baking pan or dish. Dot the top with bits of butter.

Make the topping: Combine the flour, sugar, and salt. Beat in the egg to make a loose dough.

Scrape the dough by spoonfuls onto the cherries.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbly.

Serve slightly warm, plain or with vanilla ice cream.

Need a source for baking, decorating and candymaking supplies of all kinds? My favorite online source is Candyland Crafts. The selection is huge and the prices are reasonable. They have tons of molds, character cake pans, cookie cutters, icings, decorating tips--you name it.

Maybe it's just the wonderful produce store where I get my fruits and vegetables, but the blackberries seem especially good this year. These large, luscious berries often take a back seat to the other berries, which is too bad. A good, ripe blackberry has a tart-sweet-slightly floral flavor all its own. And the berries make a sublime topping for a rich cheesecake.

Crust:
1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons melted butter

Filling:
2 pounds cream cheese, at cool room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup whipping cream

Topping:
1/4 cup blackberry or raspberry jam
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups fresh blackberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Make the crust: In a bowl, combine crumbs, sugar and butter and mix well with a fork. Evenly pat the crumb mixture over the bottom of an ungreased 9-inch springform pan.

Bake for about 8 minutes, or until the crust is firm. Remove from oven and let cool in the pan.

Lower the oven heat to 300 degrees. Fill a 10-inch or larger baking pan with about 3/4 inch of boiling water.

Make the filling: On medium-high speed, beat the cream cheese with the sugar until completely smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the vanilla, then the whipping cream. Beat just until smooth.

Pour the filling into the crust-lined pan. Wrap the bottom part of the pan loosely with foil (to keep water from leaking through the pan seam), then set in the water-filled baking pan.

Bake on the lower rack of the oven for 1 hour 45 minutes, or until the center is set. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

When cool, remove the pan sides. Refrigerate the cheesecake for several hours or overnight.

Make the topping: In a small pan or microwave-proof bowl, combine the jam and orange juice. Heat over low heat or on high in the microwave just until the jam melts (about 30 seconds in a microwave). Remove from the heat and let cool.

Brush a little of the jam mixture evenly over the top of the cheesecake. Add the remaining jam mixture and the vanilla to the berries and toss to coat. Spoon the berries evenly over the top of the cheesecake.

Refrigerate until serving.

Makes 8 to 10 servings.

It took me many tries to come up with the perfect molasses cookie. The warm, spicy flavor helps take away the blahs of late winter. These taste great with a cup of tea or a latte. Enjoy!

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsulphured molasses, preferably dark
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Finely chopped candied (crystallized) ginger (optional)
Coarse or granulated sugar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease cookie sheets.

Cream the butter with the brown and granulated sugars on medium speed until light, about 2 minutes.

Beat in the molasses, egg, and vanilla. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices. Beat into the dough on low speed until just blended in.

Pinch off pieces of dough and roll into balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. (If the dough is too sticky to handle, refrigerate it for 20 to 30 minutes to firm it up a bit.) If desired, press one side of cookie balls in crystallized ginger, and/or roll them in sugar. Set on cookie sheets 2 inches apart.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the cookies have crackly tops and look dry around the edges. The cookies should still be a bit soft in the middle.

Let cool on cookie sheets for 2 to 3 minutes, then remove to wire racks.

Store these cookies in cookie jars or tins. They also freeze well.

If you're at high altitude, add another 2 tablespoons of flour. The cookies will be flatter and not as chewy--more like gingersnaps--but still delicious.