With its fluffy crumb, dimply dough, and endless spins, focaccia has stolen the heart of countless bakers — including us. So we decided to dedicate a whole episode to it.

Jessica and David dissect the current focaccia moment and how this simple bread has evolved from its Italian origins to something truly showstopping. Then Samin Nosrat stops by the show to share the story behind the viral salt-brined focaccia from her TV show Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and dish on her latest focaccia recipe, found in her newest cookbook Good Things. As always, Jessica and David answer your biggest bread baking questions in Ask the Bakers, then Jessica shares a Jess-opinion about sweet focaccia before closing the show with the recipes they’re making this week.

Find our 2025 Recipe of the Year: Big and Bubbly Focaccia

Pick up our Big Book of Bread for even more focaccia

Order Samin’s latest cookbook, Good Things

Find Samin’s salt-brined Ligurian Focaccia

Get some bread flour to make Samin’s latest focaccia recipe

Check out our Small-Batch Cheesy Focaccia recipe

Read more about how to make an inside-out focaccia sandwich

Make our Big and Bubbly Cinnamon Roll Focaccia recipe to hop on the sweet focaccia trend

What David’s baking this week: Strawberry Lemonade Bars

What Jessica’s baking this week: Karpatka Cake

Record your question for our Ask the Bakers segment here!

We’re back, and we’re talking cheesecake! Jessica and David dive into a bit of the history behind this iconic dessert before Jessica sits down with TV host and cookbook author Carla Hall to chat all things cheesecake, including Carla’s best tips and tricks. Then, they answer your biggest cheesecake questions, covering everything from water baths to springform pans. Jessica delivers her Jess-opinion on the best style of cheesecake (hint: It’s not from the US!) before they close the show with the recipes they’re baking this week.

Recipes and other links from this episode:

Subscribe to our new Substack: Things Bakers Know!

Find some of our favorite cheesecake recipes: NY Cheesecake, Cannoli Cheesecake, Irish Whiskey Cheesecake

Pre-order Carla Hall’s upcoming cookbook, Carla Bakes

Find our Basque Cheesecake recipe and Pumpkin Basque Cheesecake recipe

Need a springform pan? Get one here!

Find our recipe for No-Bake Chocolate Cheesecake Bars

Get our recipe for light, fluffy Japanese-Style Soufflé Cheesecake

What David’s baking this week: Super Protein Pancakes

What Jessica’s baking this week: Favorite Fudge Birthday Cake

Record your question for our Ask the Bakers segment here!

Target 30K

Things Bakers Know, the official podcast from King Arthur Baking Company, is back with a ten episode second season — starting March 23rd! Join King Arthur’s Jessica Battilana and David Tamarkin as they explore every corner of the baking world. Each episode dives deep into a different baked good — its history and lore, tips and tricks, trends and takes — and they'll always leave time to answer baking questions from listeners. Along the way they chat with the best bakers in America to get their expert advice. Plus this season, we are on video! Things Bakers Know is available wherever you get your podcasts, and now on Youtube, or by going to KingArthurBaking.com/podcast!

Target 30K

We’ve officially unveiled our 2026 Recipe of the Year, and we couldn’t be more excited to share it with you. Announcing: Flaky Puff Crust Pizza!

In this episode, David and Jessica are joined by two of our Test Kitchen stars and the creators of this exceptional recipe, Sarah Jampel and Molly Marzalek-Kelly. They discuss how and why they landed on pizza as this year’s Recipe of the Year, the biggest challenges of recipe development, and the keys to this recipe’s unique success. (Hint: It includes butter.) Jessica and David then answer questions from our listeners about how to maximize their pizza success, from saucing to topping, before closing out the show with the recipes they’re making this week.

This episode concludes our second season, and we’ll be back in March with the next batch of freshly baked episodes!

Bake our 2026 Recipe of the Year: Flaky Puff Crust Pizza

Find all of our past Recipes of the Year here

Preorder King Arthur Baking Company's Book of Pizza: Recipes for Every Pizza Maker, publishing April 7, 2026

What David’s baking this week: Delicata Squash Galette with Cheese and Herbs

What Jessica’s baking this week: Ultimate Flaky Biscuits

Record your question for our Ask the Bakers segment here!

This episode is sponsored by Plugra. Learn more about their premium European-style butter at plugra.com.

Celebrating Holiday Cookies with Dan Pelosi

‘Tis the season to bake as many cookies as you can!

We kick off the show by unveiling King Arthur’s 2025 holiday cookie lineup before being joined by Dan Pelosi, a baker known for his annual holiday cookie party. He chats with Jessica about the keys to successfully throwing a cookie party, including his holiday cookie philosophy, then David and Jessica answer your burning baking questions with their advice for avoiding cakey cookies and making cutout cookies that actually keep their shape. In this week’s Jess-opinion, Jessica gives her thoughts on the controversial inclusion of chocolate chip cookies in the holiday cookie landscape, and we close the show with the best cookies she and David are baking this season.

Introducing our 2025 holiday cookie platter

Find our list of all the classic holiday and Christmas cookies you should bake

Level up your cookies with our scoop set

Learn more about Dan and his recent cookbook, Let’s Party, on his website

Blog: Why you should always bake a few test cookies

Find our Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies recipe

We like decorating with this Simple Cookie Glaze

What David’s baking this week: Rugelach and Piped Vanilla Shortbread Cookies

What Jessica’s baking this week: Whipped Lemon Shortbread

Record your question for our Ask the Bakers segment here!

This episode is sponsored by Plugra. Learn more about their premium European-style butter at plugra.com.

We have a very special episode today. Ahead of the busiest baking season of the year, we’ve got an entire show dedicated to answering your biggest holiday baking questions! And we’ve invited some friends to help us. We’ve assembled an all-star collection of our King Arthur colleagues, including Molly Marzalek-Kelly and Sarah Jampel from our Test Kitchen, Amber Eisler from our Baking School, Martin Philip from our YouTube channel, and Melanie Wanders from our R&D team. Together, we tackle pressing questions like how to make holiday cookies ahead of time, what to do if your cream puffs keep deflating, and the best way to make whole grain dinner rolls that are still light and fluffy. Let’s get baking!

Take Mel’s Cookie Decorating Essentials On Demand class

Find Martin (and more King Arthur bakers!) on our YouTube channel

Record your question for our Ask the Bakers segment here!

This episode is sponsored by Plugra. Learn more about their premium European-style butter at plugra.com.

The recipes mentioned in this episode include:

Latke Focaccia recipe

Everyday Olive Oil Cake recipe

Gingerbread Biscotti recipe

Fluffy Frosted Orange Rolls recipe

Buckwheat-Cardamom Chocolate Chunk Cookies recipe

Olive Oil Sufganiyot recipe

Jelly Doughnut Cake recipe

Chocolate Bûche de Noël with Cookie Butter Whipped Ganache recipe

It’s high time for pie, and we couldn’t be more excited!

David and Jessica kick off the show by sharing some of their best pie tips and tricks, before bringing in a real pie expert — Stacey Mei Yan Fong, author of the award-winning cookbook 50 Pies, 50 States — to offer her advice. We’ve got some great Thanksgiving pie questions to answer, from the best way to prebake your crust to advice for preventing a runny apple pie filling, before closing the show with a Jess-opinion about the other dessert you should make for Thanksgiving and the pies Jessica and David are making this year.

Read David’s article: How My Brother-in-Law Stole Thanksgiving—and How I Got it Back

Find our Pies On-Demand Baking Class

Check out all our pie resources: How to Bake Pie

Learn more about Stacey and her book, and tune in to her Instagram page for her virtual pie hotline

Find everything you need for your holiday pies in our Pie shop

Mix it up this year with Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie

Read PJ’s blog about baking pie crust upside down

Find our Pie Thickener chart

What David’s baking this week: Cranberry Chiffon Pie

What Jessica’s baking this week: Classic Apple Tarte Tatin

Record your question for our Ask the Bakers segment here!

This episode is sponsored by Plugra. Learn more about their premium European-style butter at plugra.com.

Today, we’re talking about one of the world’s perfect foods: chocolate.

And who better to join us than Amy Guittard of Guittard Chocolate? For her, chocolate literally runs in the family. She explains everything from how chocolate is made to what the percentages on the bag really mean. Then David and Jessica answer this week’s listener questions, sharing their tips for better brownies and choosing cocoas. To close out the show, Jessica is back with this week’s Jess-opinion, in which she finally addresses the elephant in the room: white chocolate. And of course, she and David share the recipes they’re baking this week!

Find our (surprisingly easy!) Rich Chocolate Mousse recipe

Learn more about Guittard chocolate

Find all of our chocolate and cocoa in our Shop (including Guittard!)

On the blog: Types of cocoa, explained

Also on the blog: How to make brownies with shiny crust (or just bake our Fudge Brownies)

Learn more about tempering: A basic guide to tempering chocolate

What David’s baking this week: Fugazzeta

What Jessica’s baking this week: Jalapeño-Cheddar Pull-Apart Bread

Record your question for our Ask the Bakers segment here!

This episode is sponsored by Plugra. Learn more about their premium European-style butter at plugra.com.

Target 30K