August 28, 2026  | By Alicia P.Q. WittmeyerI’m the editor of The World. |
Good morning, world. I hope you’ve enjoyed getting a feel for some of the other newsletters The Times produces this August. The New York Times in 2026 truly contains multitudes, and alongside the weighty reporting, there are corners of the paper focused on journalism that produces joy, or introspection, or might even try to improve your life a little. We aim to bring you a little taste of it all, every day, here at The World, but for those of us in the northern hemisphere, August felt like a good time to lean into the more mellow parts of the paper.
In that spirit, for our last August Friday edition, we’re bringing you the delightful “Bake Time,” hosted by Vaughn Vreeland, who works at NYT Cooking.
Also:
| Shocked survivors in NepalTough times for tough penguinsAn outcast artist now lauded in Japan |
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| Julia Gartland for The New York Times |
The original viral recipe
By Vaughn Vreeland
As I settle back into my routine after some long-awaited time off, what’s motivating me to get back in the kitchen is all the ripe stone fruit (peaches, plums and nectarines) I’m seeing lately. I took one step into my local farmer’s market recently and my heart went pitter-patter!
For my first bake back, I’m going tried and true with the original plum torte, created by the late, great Marian Burros. Ask just about anyone around here and they’ll say it’s our most famous recipe, first published in 1983. The little cake that could, as I know it. It stands the test of time and the test of nearly 22,000 readers who’ve reviewed it. And yet … its five-star rating hasn’t wavered. One might even call it the original viral recipe.
The simplicity of it all also allows you to riff, have a bit of fun and color outside the lines. I filmed a deep-dive on it some years back, where not only do I make some questionable outfit choices, but I also try a whole host of variations with different fats, flours and fruit. The olive oil and semolina version was a clear winner for me, but my crew enjoyed the original recipe just as much.
That’s why I love this cake, and what makes summer baking so fun. You barely have to do any work to have something truly fabulous. To celebrate all the plump stone fruits out there, along with the annual resurgence of this iconic New York Times recipe (see below), I also wanted to share my all-time favorite bakes of the season. They’re all just as easy as the plum torte and deserve just as much recognition, I think.
Original Plum Torte
Ingredients
Yield: 8 servings
| 150 grams of sugar115 grams unsalted butter, softened125 grams unbleached flour, sifted1 teaspoon baking powderPinch of salt (optional)2 eggs24 halves pitted purple plumsSugar, lemon juice and cinnamon, for topping |
Method
| Step 1Heat oven to 175 degrees Celsius.Step 2Cream the sugar and butter in a bowl. Add the flour, baking powder, salt and eggs and beat well.Step 3Spoon the batter into a springform pan of 20, 23 or 25 centimeters. Place the plum halves skin side up on top of the batter. Sprinkle lightly with sugar and lemon juice, depending on the sweetness of the fruit. Sprinkle with about 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, depending on how much you like cinnamon.Step 4Bake 1 hour, approximately. Remove and cool; refrigerate or freeze if desired. Or cool to lukewarm and serve plain or with whipped cream. (To serve a torte that was frozen, defrost and reheat it briefly at 150 degrees Celsius.) |
Tip
To freeze, double-wrap the torte in foil, place in a plastic bag and seal.
Apri-caught feelings
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| Bryan Gardner for The New York Times |
Topsy-turvy never felt so good as this apricot upside-down cake from Vallery Lomas. A bit of almond flour gives it a slightly denser texture, but also adds a hint of nutty flavor that accentuates the brightness of the apricots. The “faux caramel” — melted butter, brown sugar and spices — is a fabulous shortcut to stovetop caramel, which is traditionally used to patch together tiled fruit in upside-down cakes. Give me any bake that puts stone fruit on a pedestal — but that pedestal better be plush and delicious just like this one.
Tastes so good, make a grown man cry
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| Andrew Bui for The New York Times |
This warm cherry skillet cake from Kayla Hoang is a nod to traditional cobbler (warm fruit baked in a bed of cake), but Kayla hacked the system and found a way to make it even easier by making the entire batter in the skillet. This is one of our newer recipes, but I’m going to try to commit it to memory, just like the plum torte. I feel like it’s primed for a whole host of mix-ins and flavors. I may do a cherry-and-nectarine number with a shower of toasted almonds on top. Ooh, I’m getting hungry.
Perfection in pie form
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| Christopher Simpson for The New York Times |
I can’t put it any better than Sam Sifton: “For most of us, a great and truly perfect peach is a rare event. We can expect but one or two a season, for all our trying. Enter the pie. A peach pie can elevate good peaches to excellence and great ones to the sublime.” I make this pie at least once a year, and I’m gearing up for it again this weekend. It’s become a bit of a ritual. I overbuy peaches, saving the best ones for snacking, while the rest are exalted in pie glory. It’s perfect, just like the title states.
To our readers: If you want access to any of the other recipes (I’ll be making the cherry skillet cake) and you’re not a subscriber yet, try this: If you download The New York Times app, you can get a month of The Times, including Cooking, for free. And if you are already a subscriber, thank you as always. — Alicia
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| TOP NEWS |
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| Waiting for a rescue helicopter in the Rasuwa district of Nepal yesterday. Atul Loke for The New York Times |
‘They all died and I lived’
Hundreds were killed and more than 1,400 people were still missing in Nepal and Tibet after flash floods. Shocked survivors described the flood’s terrifying speed and force.
One man said he heard what sounded like a thunderclap before a wave of muddy water crashed into his home, carrying away his wife and two daughters. “They all died and I lived,” he said. Here’s the latest.
“I cannot explain how big the waves were,” another survivor said from a hospital bed in Kathmandu. “It wasn’t just water. It was a combination of boulders, sand and thick sludge.” These images show the scale of the destruction.
Scientists are still determining the exact cause of the flash floods, but early indications are that they were caused by a landslide and glacial collapse, made more likely by climate change.
| OTHER NEWS |
| The C.I.A. director made a secretive visit to Moscow to share his bleak assessment of the state of Russia’s war in Ukraine and to urge the Russians to cut a deal.Trump, as part of an escalating trade war, signed an executive order to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America.Canada’s minister for trade with the U.S. said that if the U.S. dropped its challenges to the country’s laws around the French language, talks could restart.Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general held responsible for the killing of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, died in custody at The Hague. He was 83.Qatar’s prime minister, a key mediator in the U.S. war with Iran, held high-level talks in Tehran.Saudi Arabia appears to be preparing for a new war against the Houthis in Yemen.Denmark voted to compensate women in Greenland who had been subjected to forced contraception.My colleague Cecilia Kang, who covers technology, explains Meta’s settlement of a lawsuit claiming that the company’s social media platforms had harmed teenage users. Watch the video. |
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| Click to watch. The New York Times |
WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING
| Prince William has said nothing publicly about his brother’s decision to return home. Can that last?Starbucks removed a drink powder that baristas said was causing rashes and breathing problems. |
TOP OF THE WORLD
The most clicked link in your newsletter yesterday was about A.I. in China.
| SPORTS |
Football: Liverpool reached an agreement in principle with Paris Saint-Germain to sign the French star Bradley Barcola for about 120 million pounds.
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| NUMBER OF THE DAY |
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| Ana Elisa Sotelo for The New York Times |
Four
That’s how many Humboldt penguins are living in Punta San Juan, Peru, once home to one of the largest breeding colonies of the species in the world. Scientists attribute the drop in population to this year’s Super El Niño, which continues to strengthen. But these birds are resilient, and researchers say there are things humans can do to lessen other pressures on their food supply and habitat.
| MORNING READ |
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| Philip Game/Alamy |
Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist whose death was announced yesterday, had a complicated relationship with her home country, where she was shunned by the cultural elite for her provocative style. But as news of her death spread, Japanese artists, scholars, politicians and art lovers celebrated her legacy.
“Her recognition in Japan was a case of playing catch-up with the rest of the world,” one art collector said. “At the time, there was simply no room in Japan to accept her.” Read more about how Kusama went from being an outcast to a celebrated artist in Japan.
| AROUND THE WORLD |
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| Akos Stiller for The New York Times |
A secret seat of power opens up
Viktor Orban was the prime minister of Hungary for 16 years until his defeat in an April election. Now, his suite of offices overlooking the Danube River is crowded with Hungarians on guided tours, eager for a peek inside.
Peter Magyar, the new prime minister, has said that Orban’s defeat was the start of what he calls “Operation Cleansing Fire,” the exposure and purge of Orban’s style of politics. Take a look inside.
| RECOMMENDATIONS |
Fact-check: Some influencers are promoting lymphatic workouts to help with bloating or swelling. Experts weighed in.
Manage: Here are tips to help reduce your kids’ screen time.
Compete: Can you identify these current best-seller books? Take our quiz.
Revisit: The infamous Gucci thong from the 1990s is back, this time with diamonds.
