Is baking your entire personality? Is The Great British Baking Show your comfort watch? Or maybe you just love eating cookies? Either way, you’re one of us. Come join our BA Bake Club.

We’re Jesse and Shilpa, senior editors and the resident bakers of the Bon Appétit test kitchen. We love to bake—some might even call us obsessive—and we love to talk about all the how’s, why’s, and what-didn’t-work’s that come with it.

Think of the Bake Club as a book club, but for baking. Each month we share a brand-new meticulously tested recipe. Bake along with us, share your wins (or your fails—we’ve all been there), post pictures, ask us your pressing questions. We’re creating a community of confident, curious bakers who find just as much joy in the process of baking as the final results.

Want to join the club? (Of course you do!) Here’s how:

• First, most importantly, bake this month’s recipe, which you’ll find below.
• Join our Close Friends on Instagram—just, DM @bonappetitmag proof of your Bon Appétit subscription and we’ll add you to the group. We’ll take you behind the scenes of our recipe development process and you can ask us your baking questions.
• Post and share photos of your beautiful bakes on Instagram using the hashtag #BABakeClub.
• Share feedback and ask us questions in the Recipe Notes section of the recipe page in the Epicurious app. We read every comment and look forward to talking with you about butter, sugar, and more.
• Send your baking questions to [email protected] or call in at 212-286-7071 for a chance to be featured on our podcast. Each recipe’s episode goes live at the start of the following month on the Dinner SOS feed.

November 2024: Caramel Apple Monkey Bread

This project bake screams autumn. The perfect follow-up to apple picking, it’s a fruit-studded beauty, drenched in a tangy cider caramel. Between the dough and caramel, this recipe uses almost half a gallon of apple cider. First, it takes the place of water in the dough for extra flavor. Then, more cider is boiled down into a thick, glossy caramel that magically reveals itself when inverted, running down the sides like a Willy Wonka waterfall. Think of this as our primer on enriched dough, a type of dough that includes ingredients like eggs and butter to yield a tender crumb and soft exterior. (Brioche and challah are two classic examples of enriched breads.). Bake it on Sunday, serve it up for a lucky crowd, and dig in with your hands—pulling apart the caramel-drenched pillows one by one.

Coming Up

Next month we’re making a one-bowl cake that’s easy enough to whip up for a last-minute gathering yet fancy enough to show off at a birthday party or celebration. And the coolest part? It utilizes a pantry staple that keeps the cake moist and plush for days. We can’t wait to share it with you.

Until then, we hope the monkey bread brings you joy. And tune in on Tuesday, December 3, to hear us answer all your monkey bread questions.