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There’s no doubt that summer is the perfect time to pick up new hobbies. For me recently, that’s meant cooking and baking at the slightest twinge of boredom. But where I’m from in Florida, it can be difficult to find a recipe that will hold up to the intense heat and humidity. As a result, I’ve expanded my repertoire of summer baking recipes to include fresh, seasonal ingredients that are best enjoyed during the hotter months.

Featured image by Suruchi Avasthi.

25 Summer Baking Recipes to Beat the Heat

I’m a bit of a summer standout—I love spending my days in the kitchen this time of year. Of course, I know that many others would rather be sipping a refreshing cocktail or lounging poolside. Luckily, if you fall into the latter group, know this: many of these recipes require little to no baking. And for the dishes that do, trust that they’re well worth the effort.

If you’re looking to satisfy your sweet tooth while making the most of the warm weather, these summer baking recipes are exactly what you need.

Muffins and Cupcakes

Cakes

Bars

Quick Breads

This post was last updated on June 21, 2025 to include new insights.

Inside its Milan store at 10 Corso Como, Gentle Monster introduces a new centerpiece that shifts the energy of the space. The GIANT HEAD KINETIC OBJECT reflects the brand’s ongoing focus on perception, awareness, and emotional response.

Developed by the Gentle Monster Robotics Lab, the sculpture consists of three distinct heads. At the center, a face slowly closes its eyes and tilts as if lost in thought. A smaller and a larger head move around it in a continuous rhythm. Eyelids blink. Pupils shift. The entire structure responds like a nervous system.

Other sculptural elements, shaped like stars, are placed throughout the store. They speak to inner movements, to invisible but constant processes of the mind.

This is not decoration. It is a study in motion, mood, and atmosphere. Gentle Monster continues to build spaces that speak without words. The result is physical and emotional. Every detail counts.

Merging themes of interstellar travel and cultural convergences, Zak Ové creates large-scale sculptures and multimedia installations that explore African ancestry, traditions, and history. The British-Trinidadian artist’s practice is deeply rooted in the narratives of the African diaspora, focusing on traditions of masquerade. He delves into its role in performance and ceremony, as well as masks as potent instruments for self-emancipation and cultural resistance.

Ové’s interdisciplinary work spans sculpture, painting, film, and photography, exploring links between mythology, oral histories, and speculative futures. “His sculptures often incorporate symbols, iconography, and materials drawn from African, Caribbean, and diasporic traditions, merging them with modern aesthetics to celebrate the continuity and adaptability of culture,” his studio says.

Ové often delves into the relationship between contemporary lived experiences and the spirit world, like in “Moko Jumbie” or a glass mosaic installation in London titled “Jumbie Jubilation.” In these works, the artist brings an ancestral spirit rooted in African and Caribbean folklore known as a Jumbie to life as a spectral dancer, cloaked in banana leaves with a torso of a golden, radiant face.

The motif of rockets has emerged in Ove’s recent installations, like “The Mothership Connection” and “Black Starliner,” which feature totem-like stacks of African tribal masks and lattice-like Veve symbols—intricate designs employed in the Vodou religion to represent spiritual deities known as Lwa.

“The Mothership Connection” combines architectural elements referencing the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., and a ring of Cadillac lights nodding to Detroit, “Motor City.” The crowning element is a giant Mende tribal mask that glows when the 26-foot-tall sculpture is illuminated at night, with a pulsing rhythm suggestive of a heartbeat.

The title is also a reference to the iconic 1975 album by Parliament-Funkadelic, Mothership Connection, in with outer space is a through-line in the group’s celebration of what BBC journalist Frasier McAlpine described as a response to the waning optimism of the post-civil rights era. Mothership Connection soared at a time when “flamboyant imagination (and let’s be frank, exceptional funkiness) was both righteous and joyful,” he wrote.

Ové echoes this exuberance through vibrant colors, repetition, and monumental scale. Library Street Collective, which exhibited “The Mothership Connection” on the grounds of The Shepherd in Detroit late last year, describes the work as a nod “to a future where Black people are included in all possible frames of reference.”

In a monumental assembly of African masked figures titled “The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness,” Ové conceived of 40 graphite sculptures organized in a militaristic grid, each six-and-a-half feet tall, that have marched across the grounds of Somerset House, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, San Francisco City Hall, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The title of this piece references two groundbreaking works in Black history—Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel Invisible Man, which was the first novel by a Black author to with the National Book Award, and Ben Jonson’s 1605 play The Masque of Blackness, noteworthy for being the first time blackface makeup was used in a stage production.

Ové reclaims and reframes dominant narratives about African history, culture, and the diaspora, interrogating the past to posit what he calls “potential futures,” where possibilities transform into realities. “By fusing ancestral wisdom with Afrofuturist ideals, Ové ensures that the voices of the past remain integral to shaping the futures we envision,” his studio says.

“The Mothership Connection” will be exhibited later this summer and fall at 14th Street Square in New York City’s Meatpacking District, accompanied by a gallery show at Chelsea Market. Dates are currently being confirmed, and you can follow updates on Ové’s Instagram.

There’s no wrong time of year to drink tequila. Whether you like it neat, on the rocks, or mixed into a margarita, paloma, or another cocktail, this agave-based spirit is always in season. There’s a tequila for every palate and every price range. It’s also a great choice for whiskey and rum drinkers looking for a change of pace. And although we could get into the various price ranges, today is all about inexpensive tequilas.

When it comes to bargain drinking, you have to be careful with tequila. While there are well-made, affordable varieties, there are plenty of inexpensive offerings that would be better used to power your lawn mower. Don’t let that discourage you though.

When we talk about bargain tequilas, we aren’t talking about bottom-shelf swill. We are, however, limiting the discussion to tequilas priced less than $30. You’ll be glad to know there are many balanced, noteworthy tequilas that fit this criterion. 

What are you up to this weekend? We’re doing the link list a day early because the boys and I are heading to Cornwall tonight to visit my aunts, dad, brother, cousins, and cousins’ kids, and to eat our weight in Cornish pasties. Hope you have a good one, and here are some links from around the web…

Happy Juneteenth! Here are nine places to celebrate today. (NYTimes gift link)

Very cool vacation pants.

The Ohio woman who won that raffle for the cottage in Ireland paid $12.67! (NYTimes gift link)

An English house with amazing details, like the alphabet poster and green bedroom.

Excited to watch this movie on the flight.

Celine Song, the director-writer of Materialists and Past Lives, actually worked as a matchmaker years ago. “Everybody’s very honest with the matchmaker in a way that I think they’re probably not as honest with their therapists. Of course, that’s something that I talk about in the film. It’s like, well, a therapist, it’s about the soul. It’s about what you’re going through. It’s about a psychological crisis. But when it comes to a matchmaker, you’re saying like, ‘Oh, I would like to acquire a boyfriend and I want the asset that I’m acquiring to have these specs.’”

This brush has been great now that I’m air drying my hair.

Baby ducks working up their courage to join the mom in the water. Gahhh!

Who else wants to eat picnic-y dinners all summer?

Also, curious about moisturizing socks. Has anyone ever tried them?

Hahahhaha.

Plus, three reader comments:

Says Anonymous on a very low-key summer checklist: “1. Ice cream once a week, min. 2. A fruit crumble; agnostic to fruit type. 3. Just bought my first bikini in 15 years and gonna wear it at the pool! Under a UPF rash guard because I’m not a maniac but still! THE BIKINI WILL KNOW SHE’S THERE.”

Says Sequoia on a very low-key summer checklist: “Every summer my son and I master something. So far, we’ve had summers of pancakes ’21, lemonade ’22, ice cream ’23, last year was the summer of the terrible job, and this summer we’re back with the summer of pizza.”

Says Carey on a very low-key summer checklist: “My daughter loved satire so I introduced her to Onion articles, as they became more appropriate for her. ‘‘Unconditional Love Given to 15-Year Old Who Just Called Mom a Bitch in Middle of Hollister’ was a touchstone for us.”

Lots of love, and we’ll still be publishing Big Salad while we’re traveling, if you’d like to sign up. Have a good one. xoxo

(Photo by Vradiy Art/Stocksy.)

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