Baked Goods Category

These very thin crèpes are used to make mu shu dishes. You can buy them in the frozen foods sections of Asian markets, but they're easy to make at home.

This is similar to an almond-flavored biscotti, only smaller and softer. Look for it in Jewish markets.

This matzo cracker is served during Passover to symbolize the unleavened bread the Jews ate during their hasty exodus from Egypt. To conform with Jewish dietary laws, matzo producers can't use leavening agents like baking soda or yeast. But they're still able to give the matzo crackers a bit of airiness by baking them in extremely hot ovens, which causes trapped air bubbles in the dough to expand.

Jews use this during Passover to make pancakes, matzo balls, and other dishes. Many stores also carry matzo cake meal, which is a finer grind of matzo meal.

These thin, crisp slices of bread are often used as a base for appetizers or served with soups or salads. When crushed, they make an excellent breading for meat or fish.

During their Harvest Moon Festival each fall, Chinese families decorate their homes with lanterns and eat moon cakes from beautiful lacquered boxes. The cakes come in different flavors, but they're all rich and subtly sweet.

This Indian flatbread is made with wheat flour. It's usually served hot.

These cookies have a creamy vanilla filling sandwiched between two chocolate wafers. They're addictive all by themselves, but cooks also crush them and use them to make pie crusts or ice cream toppings.

These crunchy cookies are made with puff pastry and sugar.

This large, dome-shaped Italian coffee cake is traditionally offered as a gift during the Christmas season. The cake is slightly sweet, and contains raisins, nuts, and candied fruits. Many Italian markets carry them year round, often packed in pretty boxes.

Panko breadcrumbs have a coarser texture than ordinary breadcrumbs, and they make for a much lighter and crunchier casserole topping and coating for deep-fried foods. They're especially good for breading seafood. Tan-colored panko is made from the whole loaf, white panko from bread with the crusts cut off. Look for both kinds in the Asian foods section of larger supermarkets.

These tortilla-shaped Indian crackers are made with chickpea or lentil flour. Before you serve them, you need to fry them in very hot oil or heat them in a microwave oven until they puff up and become crisp. You can then break them up and serve them with curried dishes, or use them like tortilla chips. They're sold in Indian markets.

This flaky Indian flatbread is made like puff pastry, in that the dough is repeatedly rolled flat, brushed with clarified butter, folded, and then rolled again. When fried, the bread becomes light and flaky. It's served with kebabs and stews, or stuffed with various fillings.

This pliable Italian flatbread is usually stuffed with filling, much as tortillas are in Latin America. The plural is piadine.

This puffy Middle Eastern flatbread is often cut in half, pulled open to form a pocket, and then filled with hot savory ingredients. It's also served like bread at meals, or cut into wedges, toasted, and served with dips. Look for pita bread among the baked goods in supermarkets.

This sweet and tender bread is great for making French toast or for nibbling.

These are very thin potato slices that have been deep-fried and salted. They're crisp and just sturdy enough to dunk into a creamy dip without breaking. They come in many flavors, including barbecue and sour cream. The British call them "crisps," and use the word chips for French fries.

This is a rich buttery cake that's traditionally made with a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. If you don't want to make one from scratch, you can find ready-made pound cakes among the frozen foods in your supermarket.

Pretzels are ropes of dough that are usually shaped into knots, sprinkled with coarse salt, and browned in an oven. They can be soft and breadlike or hard and crunchy. Soft pretzels, also called bread pretzels, are often served with mustard, while crunchy pretzels are eaten just the way they are.

This simple, crusty bread hails from Puglia, Italy, and is great for making sandwiches or dipping into olive oil. Some producers flavor it with olives or cheese.

This heavy and slightly sour bread is made with molasses and a blend of rye and wheat flours. It's often cut into thin slices and used for appetizers.

A specialty of El Salvador, these are tortillas stuffed with cheese and other flavorings.

This bread is studded with raisins and often flavored with cinnamon. It's usually served as toast for breakfast.

These come with or without a coating of sesame seeds.

These crunchy snacks are relatively low in fat--and flavor. They come in different flavors, like caramel, cheese, ranch, and apple cinnamon. Don't confuse this with mochi, which is also sometimes called rice cake.

These addictive Japanese snacks are available in many large supermarkets.

Produced by Nabisco, these are the best-selling crackers in the United States. They're high in fat and sodium, which makes them a tasty foil for cheese or peanut butter. Cooks sometimes crush them and use them as a pie crust or topping for casseroles. The crackers are also used to make the filling for a mock apple pie, which contains no apples. Reduced fat and low sodium versions are available.

These are made with flour, nuts, and butter, baked, and then rolled in powdered sugar.

This is a favorite of Northern Europeans, who use it to make hearty sandwiches. Most of it is made with both rye and wheat flours. There are dozens of varieties, ranging from light tan to almost black.

These salty crackers are very crisp, and they're great for snacking. They're often made into tiny sandwiches with cheese or peanut butter in the middle.

This Iranian flatbread is about two feet long, enough for the whole family.

These crumbly quick breads are often served at teatime in Britain. They're usually split open and lathered with butter, jam, and/or clotted cream. Americans pronounce the name SKONE, but the British and Australians say SKAHN. They freeze well.

These rich cookies are loaded with butter.

These sweetened biscuits are traditionally split in half and topped with whipped cream and strawberries. You can buy them ready-made in stores, where they're often displayed near the strawberries, but they're easy to make from scratch. Don't confuse shortcake with shortbread, a rich butter cookie.

These cakes are made with butter or other solid fat, so they're richer and heavier than foam cakes. Examples include pound cakes and butter cakes.

These Indonesian chips are made with tapioca and different flavorings. Before serving them, you're supposed to fry them in hot oil for a few seconds until they expand and become crunchy. Look for them in Asian markets.

Mexican cooks put various savory toppings on these corn patties. Look for them in Hispanic markets.

These matzo meal crackers are used in soups or ground into crumbs.

A San Francisco specialty, this is French bread made with a special starter of yeast and bacteria that imparts a pleasant, sour taste to the bread. It's especially good with seafood.