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that work best are moist, not-too-sweet cakes like carrot cake or zucchini bread, and chewy cookies like oatmeal, molasses, or peanut butter. High-rising cakes like sponge cake, or rich cakes with a delicate crumb like pound cakes, rise irregularly on a grill, and have a tendency to burn at the edges before they are fully baked. These cakes need to be baked in an oven, but that doesn’t mean they won’t benefit from a turn over the fire. Slices of pound cake or banana bread, squares of gingerbread, or doughnuts are all completely delicious when glazed with sweetened butter and toasted over an open fire.

FLATBREAD

Grilled Chickpea Chapati with Cilantro Sesame Sauce

MAKES 6 SERVINGS

Chapati, unleavened Indian flatbread, are some of the easiest and tastiest breads to bake on a grill. Because they have no yeast, there is no need to rest and raise the dough for hours before baking. These chapati contain chickpea flour, which gives them a rich and slightly sweet flavor. Chapati are best rolled and cooked just before serving. Although you can use any rolling pin, the small Indian rolling pin (belan), which bulges in the center and tapers toward the ends, allows you to grasp the dough with one hand and roll with the palm of the other, making thinning and stretching the dough effortless. We serve these chapati right off the grill with a tahini yogurt sauce that’s inundated with cilantro.

INGREDIENTS:

¾ cup chickpea (garbanzo) flour

1½ cups bread flour, plus additional flour for kneading

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1½ teaspoons melted butter or ghee

1 scant cup warm water (110 to 115°F)

⅓ cup tahini

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

½ cup yogurt, preferably whole milk or Greek

Finely grated zest and juice of ½ lime

1 garlic clove, minced

1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

½ teaspoon sea salt

¼ cup minced fresh cilantro leaves

DIRECTIONS:

Combine the chickpea flour, bread flour, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Stir in the melted butter and water and mix long enough to form a cohesive dough.

Flour your hands and a work surface. Scrape the dough out of the bowl and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes, adding only enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to your hands or the work surface. (Try to add as little additional flour as possible.) Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest for 1 hour.

Meanwhile mix the tahini and oil in a small bowl with a whisk until thoroughly combined. Mix in the yogurt all at once. The mixture will bind initially and then relax. Stir in the lime zest and juice, garlic, hot pepper sauce, salt, and cilantro. Set aside.

Light a grill for direct medium-high heat, about 425°F.

Divide the dough into six portions and roll each into a ball. Coat with flour and pat out into a ¼-inch-thick disk on a clean work surface. Coat a small rolling pin with flour and roll out each disk until very thin, about inch, flipping the chapati over halfway through the rolling process to make sure it is not sticking too badly. You can sprinkle the surface of the chapati with flour as you work if needed to keep it from sticking to the pin. Avoid flouring the work surface because it will cause the chapati to slide across the surface rather than stretch and thin. Lightly flour the finished chapati and stack on a plate or cutting board.

Brush the grill grate and rub with oil. Grill the chapati, two or three at a time (or however many fit comfortably on your grill), until blistered and browned on both sides, 45 seconds to 1 minute per side. Serve immediately with the cilantro sesame sauce.

FLATBREAD

Cumin Naan with Grilled Tomato Chutney

MAKES 4 TO 8 SERVINGS (4 BREADS)

Naan, the yeasted flatbreads of central Asia, are traditionally baked in wood-fired tandoors, large vertical ceramic ovens that get superhot—hot enough to sear the surface of bread in seconds. Although home cooks try to duplicate the effects of a tandoor by lining the floor of a conventional oven with ceramic tiles, the heat is never the same. We think a grill gives more authentic results, especially a charcoal grill. Like