A festive, Italian-inspired holiday loaf. This recipe is somewhat involved, but the results are incredible. As of this writing, it’s the best bread I’ve ever made.

This recipe includes figs and candied orange peel, but you can replace the fillings with any mixture of dried fruit and …

Based on some scones a friend of mine devised in a dream.

For the filling recipe, see my raspberry dulce de leche, or improvise another thick raspberry caramel.

For the raspberry juice, I puréed a bunch of raspberries and strained the seeds out of it.

This is the result of a confluence of me being on a rosemary kick and my mother being on a quest for the shortbread cookies of her youth—solid and crisp when you’re handling them, but sandy when you bite into them. The trick to getting that texture turns out to be replacing some of the flour …