In the corner of the Carolinas known as the Wandering Goose, baker Heather Earnhardt overburdens her pastry case with triple chocolate chip cookies and pear cardamom muffins and enormous layer cakes—and that’s just the top shelf. Her signature is buttermilk biscuits, slathered with butter and jam, and they are very good. Request them warmed in the oven and now they’re great—browned edges crisp, interiors fluffy, butter melted creamily into the dough, the jam a bright finale. 

Here are more of my favorite dishes of 2013.