Our Best Bread Recipes

Blogger Molly Yeh fills this braided bread with a mix of halvah (the confection made with crushed sesame seeds and honey) and tahini. Yeh recommends using an extra-smooth, pourable tahini (Whole Foods' 365 brand is a good bet), but if your tahini is cakey and thick, she advises mixing it with warm water until spreadable.

The trick to these crisp, chewy bagels is the poolish, a fermentation starter (also known as a mother dough) made with bread flour, yeast and water. It is quickly assembled the night before the bagels are made.

Even though this bread is dense, hearty and complex-tasting, it requires no yeast and therefore no rising time. Cathal Armstrong says he likes it best "fresh from the oven and with lots of Kerrygold butter."

The festive twist on cinnamon-swirl bread makes this loaf special enough for a holiday brunch, but don't limit yourself. A toasted, buttered slice can warm up any chilly morning.

These little patties are moist and dense, almost like a griddle scone. Grace Parisi cooks them on a griddle, just like pancakes, and serves them with a spicy butter made with sambal oelek (Asian chile sauce).

This recipe is as fun to eat as monkey bread (little balls of yeast dough that are baked in a pan together, then pulled apart at the table) but a lot less time-consuming to make.

John Currence ingeniously uses both naturally low-fat buttermilk and fat-free sour cream to make his tender corn bread.

This recipe is full of potassium-packed bananas. Instead of processed sugar, it calls for agave nectar, a natural sweetener; a little canola oil replaces the usual butter. The bread is an improvement on the one Erin McKenna often made with her mother when she was growing up: "I thought it was so healthy, because of the bananas. I didn't factor in all the sugar and butter."

Jessamyn Waldman makes her excellent focaccia rolls from a dough she learned while baking at New York City's Restaurant Daniel. When she sells the rolls at farmers' markets, she varies the toppings by season; she uses potato and rosemary in the winter and tomatoes and feta in the summer.

Grace Parisi loves popovers, but baking them can be tricky: They don't always rise as they should. For these foolproof ones, Grace adds a bit of baking powder to the batter and chooses to use a regular (not nonstick) muffin tin.

Jessamyn Waldman, founder of Hot Bread Kitchen, grew up in Canada eating challah, the Jewish Sabbath bread. Unlike the eggy challahs of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe, this version comes from the Sephardic Jews of the Mediterranean, who flavored their challahs with caraway and anise. Many challahs are braided, but this one is twisted into a round, turban-shaped loaf.

Lionel Vatinet sweetens his bread with local honey, which may benefit the immune system and help to combat allergies.

"Old Bay isn't really a Cleveland thing," says Jonathon Sawyer about the seasoning on these fluffy, buttery rolls, "but sometimes it's the right ingredient. I remember my mother's Parker Houses being laced with salty, savory Old Bay and a mean aged cheddar."

These buttery, onion-flecked, pull-apart rolls are an irresistible cross between Parker House classics and bialys.

To make a chunky bread, fold in 2 1/2 cups toasted sunflower seeds, 5 cups soaked and drained dried currants or 6 cups walnut halves in Step 3, after folding in the salt water.

Chef-owner Billy Allin serves his airy, chewy homemade English muffins all day long. In the morning, he offers them with butter and jams, such as house-made peach preserves; later in the day, he might use them for BLTs and other sandwiches.

These chewy pretzels from chef Hans Röckenwagner develop a shiny, professional-looking crust as they bake.

Thinly sliced, toasted or not, this dense, hearty whole-grain bread is wonderful topped with smoked salmon, sour cream and chopped onions, or with bitter orange marmalade. Allow time for the sponge to sit overnight.

Scott Conant serves these tender, peppery breadsticks as a starter. He packs them into a tall glass or plates them with small wedges of La Tur cheese (a dense, buttery Piedmont cheese made from a blend of cow, sheep and goat milk), drizzled with aged balsamic vinegar and sprinkled with flaky sea salt.

Gontran Cherrier, who has an eponymous bakery in Paris's 18th arrondisement, spent several years in the pastry kitchen at elite Paris restaurants like L'Arpège and Lucas Carton. So when he creates a bread, he often thinks about pairing it with a dish. He made this light chocolate brioche with foie gras terrine in mind; the Sichuan peppercorns add a spicy, aromatic kick that's good with rich foods. The brioche is also delicious with strawberry jam or quince paste.

As this loaf bakes in the oven, the texture of chewy dried strawberries softens slightly. Buy your dried strawberries at a specialty food shop or health food store that rotates its stock frequently to make sure that they're plump and moist.

This moist, nutty bread is a terrific way to use up late-summer zucchini. The walnuts in the bread are super-heart-healthy, and the yogurt adds moisture without any fat.

Lionel Vatinet developed this hearty bread—a good source of fiber—to satisfy his Eastern European customers.

Nan-e barbari is a classic Persian flatbread that gets crisp and golden in the oven, thanks to roomal, a flour paste that's spread over the bread before it's baked. Jessamyn Rodriguez likes to serve it with feta and olives.

Ethiopians eat with their hands and use this tangy, spongy, crêpe-like flatbread like silverware. It's made from teff, tiny whole grains the size of poppy seeds that are ground into flour. This ancient grain is gluten-free and provides calcium, iron and protein. The flour is mixed with water to make a pourable batter that ferments overnight and develops its characteristic, mildly sour flavor. It's cooked quickly on one side in a skillet like a pancake until bubbles appear on the surface.

In a class at Point Reyes's culinary center, students learn to top focaccia with pears and blue cheese.

Michelle Gayer of Salty Tart bakery in Minneapolis smothers her monkey bread with honey-laced brown butter before baking then serves the pull-apart bread with a cream cheese–based dipping sauce that's spiked with bourbon.

Michelle Gayer tops her sensational focaccia with sweet, tender strips of roasted butternut squash scattered with thyme and drizzled with honey.

This soda bread has no eggs, no butter, no sugar, and no raisins—just baking soda, flour, buttermilk, and salt. Enjoy it with a swoop of good Irish butter.

Birote (pronounced bee-row-teh) is a crunchy, darkly baked sourdough bread said to have a flavor unique to the environment of Guadalajara, but if you grab your favorite beer and some limes, you'll come pretty close!