Simply having the best time baking
We found a form of renewed baking joy this year. We tried out lots of new bakes and rekindled love for old recipes. We want to thank all bakers that inspired us to bake more and try out different recipes.
We also made several variations on our own trusted recipes. Below a collection of our favorites of 2025, with links to our own recipes and those by other wonderful and talented bakers.
Our Favorite & Versatile Weekend Sourdough
This is one of our favorite recipes to use and make all kinds of variations with (even the pumpkin bread you see featured above). Thin crust, full of flavor and open creamy crumb. We added this straightforward version, giving you weekend options for a freshly baked loaf on Saturday or Sunday morning. Feel free to make your own version
Sourdough Pizza
Many years ago, we did not like sourdough versions of certain bakes that much, including pizza. But for some time now, results have been so good, especially with the pizza, we actually like it better than the yeast based version. Taste and texture of the crust (we play with the thickness, depending on the wishes of the consumers) are more complex and interesting, the chewiness and level of sour just right for us.
Easter Raisin Buns with Pistachio filling
I love baking buns and coming up with new versions. The Easter bun with pistache paste filling and fragrant citrus I dreamed up for Easter 2025.
We use a pistache paste we make ourselves. We combine the pistachios with some almonds, which gives great depth of taste.
Again there are a lot of options with these buns. With a few different ingredients and fillings you can make your own special version very easily.
The Best Burger Buns from a great Baking Friend
Stefano, owner of You Bake It has been a baking friend for many years. In the past, we had made his burger bun recipe, and this year we rediscovered it. We made a few alterations, use vegetable oil instead of butter and (less) honey instead of sugar, do a shorter bulk rise and longer final proof, make 8 instead of 6 buns with the recipe. Just a few tweaks to make it our own. Give these buns a try with home made guacamole and a crispy chili fried egg for instance. Heaven!
These wonderful buns are made with a “tangzhong” (aka “water roux“). This is a Japanese technique that is very simple yet effective. You cook a small amount of the total flour and liquid (usually water or milk) before combining the paste with the other ingredients. Cooking flour with water or milk causes the starches contained in flour to gelatinize, so they can absorb more water. Adding tangzhong exceptionally soft and fluffy, and they keep for longer.
Old Friends Raisin Bread: The 2025 Sourdough Version
In the last few months of the year we’ve also developed the sourdough version of our original Old Friends Raisin Bread, because it’s just as delicious, if not more. Made with great ingredients like organic cranberries, sultanas, date syrup, vegetable (macadamia) oil and seasonal spices ⭐
The Famous Sourdough Croissant Bread
We are rather well known for our Classic French Croissant Recipe and have enjoyed helping many bakers all over the world with their own croissant making journey since 2012. When we saw that there was a ‘viral’ sourdough croissant loaf, we were of course intrigued.
We went to the source and tried out Amy bakes bread’s Sourdough Croissant Bread recipe. The main thing we ended up changing in the recipe was the lamination. We used thin slices of butter, instead of grated butter. Man, it tastes good, also after putting a slice from the freezer in the toaster for a quick pick-me-up. It is not our ‘daily’ bread for obvious reasons, but it sure is fun, making it now and again.
Chocolate, Coffee & Pecan Sourdough Bread
This chocolate sourdough bread, infused with coffee and given an extra crunch with chopped pecans, was inspired by a recipe from Sourdough Brandon and the Chocolate Sourdough Bread from Pantry Mama.
Usually it’s a quick scan of a recipe, also using our own experience to make adaptations. We were surprised at how delicious the loaf turned out to be and made it several times already.
Jalapeño-Cheddar Sourdough Bread
Cannot remember when we were introduced to the combination of jalapeño and cheddar in a sourdough loaf, but it was somewhere in the first months of 2025 after rejoining Instagram. We are both big fans of organic cheddar and have used jalapeño in our cooking many times.
The recipe we initially used to make the loaf was the one from The Perfect Loaf. The recipe works great and comes with clear instructions on how to incorporate the ingredients into the dough. We made it several times and also turned our WKB sourdough and mini boules into versions with jalapeño and cheddar.
Cinnamon Raisin Sourdough Bread
In april we made our first time Cinnamon Raisin Sourdough inspired by amy bakes bread’s lovely recipe. We used two types of cinnamon, organic Kassie and Ceylon for maximum flavor, because they are very different when it comes to flavor and scent.
Cold ferment in fridge for only 12 hours (amy’s recipe states 18 to 24) but the result was excellent.
Burnt Basque Cheesecake
After a thorough search, we found this recipe on the Spanish Saboras website, hosted by food blogger and chef Lauren. When we first made it we could not believe it turned out so well. The recipe was so simple, and the mixture went in the tin almost liquid, so we thought it would be a small disaster. But we decided to bravely bake it, supported by the many enthusiastic comments of other bakers.
Now, many months later, we have made it several times, even this Christmas, accompanied by a lovely blueberry coulis and it was a big hit with everybody.
Sourdough with Turmeric and Nigella seeds
This is just another variation on a basic sourdough bread inspired by pictures on IG. I think I used our Sourdough Pain Naturel, a good basic recipe to start and used by many novice sourdough bakers, which we love and appreciate of course. Just added about a teaspoon (5 grams) turmeric and also a teaspoon nigella seeds or kalonji (what a wonderful hard to describe flavor they give, it’s warming, earthy, savory, nutty, just complex and special and claim many health benefits). So great to be able to use natural ingredients as food coloring that’s still so vibrant after baking.
Some other ‘Firsts’ & Rediscovers in 2025
- Made first panetonne with lievito madre
- Made first sourdough version of cinnamon rolls
- Tried ‘artistic’ scoring / drawing with sourdough, even though no talent for the artistic whatsoever, so leave it to other people
- Rediscovered rough puff and next to our beloved appelflappen (apple pockets) also made these wonderful little cinnamon-sugar pillow cookies. Very addictive!
- Made a 2.0 version of our staple walnut caramel pie
- Made an indulgent version of the Breton Kouign-amann, and filled the buttery salty caramel pastry with crème pâtissière
- Discovered lots of new wonderful coffees, also very good decaf versions.
A bit about Coffee
I used to work for a coffee company for some years. Ed knows a lot about coffee and follows coffee movement people like Lance Hedrick and James Hoffmann. Next to wonderful cups of coffee I get fed a lot of information about coffee trends. From washed and natural to Anaerobic fermentation, co-fermentation and yeast inoculated coffee. There are so many places, brick and online to get good beans from. We even stopped roasting our own beans, because the high quality and many variaties you can buy, makes it not that interesting anymore, plus green beans are much harder to come by.
In Holland there are lots of excellent, interesting, sustainable, coffee farmer respecting roasters to buy your beans from. From Boot Koffie, to Little Roastery to Rumbaba and Koffie Kenner (they sell coffee from roasters from all over Europe).
The main thing we both agreed on, after trying lots of different coffee, also based on these new techniques and trends (soup shots, turbo shots, oxo rappid brewer and of course the V60), is that we love coffee the best when it simply tastes like very, very good coffee (so not so much like cookie dough, candy or red wine and licorice!)
Hope to get inspired and bake even more in 2026. Wishing all bakers a wonderful New Year with many happy baking moments and crusty loaves! 🥐
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