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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal. Listen, we're getting close to pie season and crumble and crisp season. And when is it not chocolate chip cookie season? We're going to talk all things baking. Pizzas, cakes...
with Jessica Badalana, who knows everything about flour because she's the staff editor at King Arthur. And she's got a new podcast, Things Bakers Know, and she's a cookbook author too. We're going to talk about what goes into a good bake and why baking is bringing much needed joy for people right now. Preheat the oven. She's coming up next right after this news.
Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Y'all know I love food. I love food culture. I love restaurants. And I especially love cooking. But I'm not a baker. I've always wanted to get better at it. And ever since we had Rima Seal on to talk about her flatbreads, I have made those dozens of times.
So consider this a self-help show that you can listen in on. We're going to become better bakers this morning. Our teacher is Jessica Badalana. She's a longtime chef, cookbook author, editor. She's now also a podcaster as the co-host of Things Bakers Know, a new podcast from King Arthur Baking Company, otherwise known as the people who make your flour. Welcome back to Forum, Jessica. Hi.
I'm back. I'm back. I'm happy to be here. I want to start with where you start in the podcast, which is the most important baked good, the chocolate chip cookie. What is your relationship to chocolate chip cookies?
Oh, it's deep, passionate relationship. It may be one of the longest relationships of my life, honestly. I think, you know, when we were talking about this podcast, we started kind of noodling around with ideas for what we would discuss on each episode. And very clearly, we all came to a consensus that Chocolate Chip Cookies should be the lead episode because they're so beloved. I think they're, you know, they're an iconic...
baked good. And I think it's something that inspires a lot of nostalgia. Did we invent that? Did we invent chocolate chip cookies? We invented, well, I didn't, but yes, Ruth Wakefield is attributed with inventing chocolate chip cookies at the Toll House in Massachusetts.
And they're not that old, actually. That's sort of the remarkable thing is that, you know, they are a product of this century. But boy, what a banger, honestly. Can you even imagine a world before the chocolate chip cookie? I don't want to. I mean, I feel, you know, like there are people around now, you know, pretty advanced in their years, as we say in the podcast. But, you know, they experience life without a chocolate chip cookie, which, wow, I don't know. I've probably eaten more chocolate chip cookies than any other person.
Sweet thing. And don't you think people have like strong opinions too about what makes the best cookie? I know you do. That's for sure. You, okay. There are, there are maybe, let me see if I have the taxonomy of the chocolate chip cookie right. Okay. There are the sort of big cakey ones that I usually imagine like wrapped in saran wrap at a bad coffee shop.
There are the kind of really buttery, almost kind of crispy ones, like you could kind of snap them, you know? And then there are the, and then there's the kind you make or the kind that I think you recommend, right? Which are sort of this, you know, maybe we've got a little crisp around the outside, but they're kind of gooey in the center.
Yeah, I mean, and it is something that inspires a lot of debate and discussion, which is also a great reason to talk about it on a podcast because that's what, you know, podcasts are intended to do, like rile people up, right? With some, you know, lighthearted debate and discussion. But we did a chocolate chip cookie as King Arthur's recipe of the year last year for 2024. And it's like a super soft cookie.
Extra large cookie and very polarizing. You know, we knew people would make it because everyone is curious about trying new, you know, new approaches to chocolate chip cookies. And these have, you know, they have melted butter in them. The batter rests overnight. They're made with bread flour. And, you know, they almost have like a bendy texture. And, you know, it's it inspired a lot of debate. Huh.
We're talking about the do's and don'ts of baking. We're going to try and get a little better at banking this morning. We're talking to Jessica Badalana, chef, cookbook author, staff editor at King Arthur Baking. Her new podcast is Things Bakers Know. Here's what we want to hear from you.
Is there – imagine this is car talk for a second here. Is there something you've been trying to bake and you just can't get right? You can give us a call. We'll laugh about it, and then we'll try and fix it. Maybe Jessica can help you out. Or maybe you just want to talk about things that you buy versus things that you make as baked goods. The number is 866-733-8000.
6786, that's 866-733-6786. You can email forum at kqed.org. All the social media things, Blue Sky, Instagram, et cetera, we're kqedforum. So when you were talking about the things that you do with that cookie, I was thinking like, God, this is the thing where bakers are hearing it and they're like, oh, melted butter. Ah, rests overnight. These are the things that I actually don't understand as a cook but not a baker. Why would melted butter make something different?
Well, it's, you know, I think there it's actually toxic cookies are sort of fun to think about as a test case for what happens if you,
change the ingredients a little bit. Like you change the form of the ingredients or you change the way they're combined. Because I think the reason that a lot of people are like, I'm a cook, I'm not a baker, is because they don't sort of have a fundamental understanding of like what each ingredient is doing. Correct. And so, you know, so it makes it feel impossible to sort of riff, right? You're like nervous to go off script.
in a way that I think you're not if you're making a savory recipe. And, you know, there's all of these things that you can do or not do that will affect the cookie, even if you're using the same ingredients, right? Like,
So if you melt the butter, you know, you're cooking off some of the liquid in the butter and then you're able to stir it together in a single bowl like our recipe of the year. What's going to happen is, you know, those cookies are going to spread a little bit more than they would if you used creamed butter. But that's just sort of one example. It's like if you do a cookie, a chocolate chip cookie that has –
more light brown sugar than white sugar. You know, brown sugar has more moisture in it. So, you know, that will affect the texture. If the type of chocolate you use, and we talk about this in the first episode of the podcast, you know, obviously if you use chocolate chips, they're going to stay as more discreet pieces. If you use chopped chocolate, you'll have more melted chocolate throughout, again, changing the texture. And what about those little discs? I feel like that's come up in the mix. Those discs are very popular. Yeah. And I think those are nice if you want, like,
puddles of chocolate, right? Which I think is a great thing. And on the first episode of the podcast, we talked to Zoe Francois, who is a noted baker, and she has a great book called Zoe Bakes Cookies. And one of the things I love about that book is
is that in the sort of the front part of the book, she goes through all of these potential tweaks. Like what happens if you add more baking powder? What happens if you do this to the chocolate, if you do this to the butter? So you can really drill down on sort of your ultimate,
chocolate chip cookie. While we're on the topic of baking powder, what does baking powder do? Baking powder and baking soda, which both have baking right in the title, but powder and soda tell me nothing about what they do. Yeah, so they are, you know, they're both commercial leaveners that are, you know,
I would, again, you know, fairly recent, like it used to be that everything was naturally leavened until the advent of these commercial leaveners, which made leavening much more consistent. But I, the way I like to think about it, this is like, you know, one of those little tricks is powder for puff, soda for spread.
Powder for puff, soda for spread. Okay. And, you know, soda needs an acid in order to activate it and make it work. So you often see recipes that have baking soda will also have buttermilk or they might have molasses or another acidic ingredient because it needs that in order to, you know, like you remember those volcanoes you did in kindergarten where you combine the baking soda and the vinegar and then it, you know, bubbles up and over. Wow.
um, baking powder already has that acid, but, and so people, you know, you, sometimes you see a recipe that uses both baking powder and baking soda and you're like, well, you know, you might wonder why. Um, and you want puff and spread. Is that why you want puff and spread? And if you use too much baking powder alone, you, um, you know, it can have a sort of
unpleasant flavor. And again, if you use too much soda alone, like you can't add enough acid to neutralize it and you'll get that baking soda-y flavor. Like if you've ever bitten into like a quick bread that has that nasty baking soda flavor. So, you know, there are cases that you use one or the other or cases that use both, but they have a slightly different role. Wow. That's so interesting. Also, molasses is acidic. Why do I think of that as sweet?
Well, I mean, it's got some acid. Yeah, it's got some acid. Exactly. Let's bring in a caller. Hey, Mark in San Francisco. Welcome.
Hi, thank you. So I have a wood-fired pizza oven, and I've been experimenting with dough for probably three years now and have not come across a perfect recipe. I've tried starters. I've tried traditional Neapolitan doughs, special flours that are formulated for high-heat ovens. Any advice to try and help me not tear my dough? Oh, is it tearing? Is that the problem?
A lot of times I tear it as I flatten it out and prepare the pizza. Oh, Mark. Good question, Jessica. Great. Yeah. Great question. I mean, there are so many different... Well, first of all, I'm envious that you have a wood-fired pizza oven because that's a dream of mine. Hopefully I will someday realize. You know, there are so many different styles of pizza out there. So...
Without knowing exactly what style Mark is going for, I think there is a benefit to really letting your pizza dough relax, right? Because oftentimes, even if you're using a store-bought dough, people get it home, they take that cold dough out of the fridge, and they just start trying to like –
you know, work it and press it. And that can be really challenging. So a nice relaxed dough that's had like a long bulk fermentation period, you know, a long time to rise and sort of relax is going to be easier to work with. So easier to stretch without tearing, which sounds like, you know, one of the issues. And then beyond that, I think, you know,
What about more bread flour? Because doesn't bread flour have more gluten and therefore holds together? Wow, Alexis, you say you're not a baker. It's my one thing. We've bent Mark into the one thing I know about bread flour.
Yeah, it does. And, you know, sometimes that strength is really nice to have. There's also, you know, a case to be made for these softer, more finely milled flours, like, you know, the double zero flour, which gives you a more tender sort of supple dough that can be easier to stretch because strength is great.
But, you know, sometimes too much gluten can also just like make it a little harder to stretch, a little chewier, which, you know, again, might be the pizza dough that you're after. But it's, you know, it's worth sort of experimenting. And I think, you know, great news for Mark. He has to wait a little bit, but we are we do have a pizza book coming out in the spring of twenty twenty six.
But in the interim, I would recommend this book called The Joy of Pizza by Dan Richer, who is the owner of Raza in New Jersey. It is a great resource for baking pizza and baking pizza at home, which I think is key. And different. Yeah. And different.
Mark, great question. If you want us to help you tune up your baking, give us a call here. We've got Jessica Badalana, longtime chef, cookbook author, cookbook's called Repertoire, staff editor now at King Arthur Baking, and there's a new podcast she's hosting called Things Bakers Know. The number is 866-733-6786, forum at kqed.org. On all the social media platforms for KQED Forum. We'll be back with more.
right after the break.
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Welcome back to Forum. Alexis Madrigal here. We've got Jessica Badalana on the do's and don'ts of baking. She's a chef, cookbook author, staff editor at King Arthur Baking, new baking podcast. Just imagine the siren emojis everywhere. It's called Things Bakers Know. We have a bunch of interesting chug chip cookie questions. So let's do a little more lightning round on cookies, and then we're going to move on to some other things.
A listener asked, did the person who invented the chocolate chip cookie invent the chocolate chip as part of that invention? As myth goes, she had some chopped up chocolate that she added to a cookie dough. So no. So chips came later. Got it. Got it. Although it would be a worthy, you know, if chocolate chips did one thing in this world, that would be fine. Yeah.
The other was, a listener writes, "I grew up baking chocolate chip, peanut butter, and oatmeal raisin cookies with my mom and siblings. In her later years, our mother worked tirelessly to create the perfect oatmeal raisin cookie. She tried soaking the raisins in hot water before adding them. She ground part of the oats. She added various spices and made other tweaks." Okay, oatmeal raisin cookies, what do you think?
Oh, I like an oatmeal raisin cookie. Yeah. I mean, would I pick it over a chocolate chip cookie? Definitely not. Only by accident and then with a great disappointment. I know raisins and cookies make people really mad. And actually, if you are a person that likes the idea of the oatmeal cookie but can't get over the raisin thing, our Test Kitchen director, Sarah Jampell, just wrote this amazing recipe for these oatmeal date smash cookies that
They're these oversized cookies, and instead of raisins, they have chopped up dates, which have that delicious sort of like maple syrupy quality. These cookies, I'm telling you, they're also like a stir together. They're made with melted butter, so they come together pretty quickly, and then the dough chills for a few hours. They're insane. I have made them...
Well, more times than I want to admit on there. Smash cookie? Is this like a crossover from the Smash Burger? Is that where this is coming from? Sort of. Sort of. You know, we were talking about Zoe Francois earlier, and she told us that in her book, she has a recipe for this chocolate chip smash cookie. And she was inspired by the cookies that they make at Le Van in New York City, which is a very famous place.
cookie bakery and the Levan cookies, if you've never had them are giant and they're almost like borderline raw-ish on the inside. And so Zoe was playing around with this technique and she pulled them out of the oven and she was not happy with that sort of rawness. And she, you know, sort of exasperated, just like took, take a spatula, took a spatula and press them down. And then she was like, actually the texture I got when I did that is sort of interesting. And,
And so she writes about that in her book and our test kitchen director, you know, it's all like a trickle down. She was inspired by this idea and this technique and then applied it to these oatmeal date smash cookies. So she makes these large balls. They have to be a big cookie for this to work. And then they bake part of the way you pull them out of the oven, smush them down with a spatula and then put them back in your turned off oven to set. Oh, they're so good. Wow.
Everyone's got to make those. Make them this weekend. Yeah, smash it. Oh, that sounds good. Let's bring in Nari in Berkeley. Welcome, Nari. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. So I have a question about sugar, the level of sweetness in sugar and cookies and other baked goods. So American products tend to be really sweet for my palate, whereas if you go to Asia, like I was in Seoul, there are all these patisseries that make beautiful cakes and cookies and other baked goods.
and they're just a lot less sweet, right? And I'm just kind of wondering, like, how do I adjust recipes to make them a little bit less sweet? Is there something about the balance with the other ingredients that I need to be thinking about? Oh, that's what a good question. I mean, Grace Wan always told me the greatest compliment for dessert is not too sweet. So, Nari, great question.
Yeah, I think people often, this is something that comes up, you know, a lot for us because
Folks want to make something less sweet, and so they think, I'm just going to cut down on the sugar in the recipe, right? That seems sensible enough. But sugar has a functional aspect to baking. I mean, not only is it a flavor enhancer, sort of like salt that can elevate or complement other flavors, but it also helps with browning. And this browning and caramelization also add flavor. If you think of like...
an amber colored caramel, something like that. You know, like, you know, as, as flour cooks, it develops that like delicious toasty flavor. It's also hygroscopic. So it attracts, um,
and helps baked goods retain moisture. So, you know, if you just start to cut back on the sugar without making other adjustments to the recipe, like you could end up with, you know, something that browns less, something that dries out more easily. It also tenderizes baked goods because it interferes with like the way the proteins coagulate. So it's doing a lot more than just sweetening things.
By the way, hold on. Just before we go on, and I want you to solve her problem, but hygroscopic, H-Y-G-R-O-S-C-O-P-I-C, hydroscopic, that's tending to absorb moisture from the air. Yes. If you'll take one thing away from the show, let it be that word. Sorry. Go ahead. I know. It's a good Scrabble word, right? Yeah. So what do you do then? If you want to take some sugar out, then do you have to, what could you add in and...
I would say that, well, and I also think I am of the school that thinks sugar is sugar is sugar. You know, sometimes you hear like people are like, oh, I don't use white sugar. I use, you know, I use brown sugar. I use honey. I use maple syrup. You know, but to my mind, you know, sugar, when, you know, when it's broken down to its constituent parts is sugar. You might feel better about using sugar that's not, you know, bleached the way white sugar is.
But, you know, in terms of what it's doing to your body, I don't know. Probably not a huge difference. And I think it's better to look for recipes that are, you know, lower sugar recipes by nature rather than to remove sugar from an existing recipe. Because recipes are written the way that they're written naturally.
because not only flavor, but also function, right? So there are certainly lower sugars out there that use like, they're sweetened with applesauce, that are sweetened with date puree again, or there's also recipes where I think you have a little bit more wiggle room to tinker. Like if it's not a cake say, or not a cookie, not something that's baked, if it's a custard that you can kind of sweeten more to taste.
You know, I think you'd have better success with that than just, you know, taking an existing recipe and saying, I'm going to cut the sugar by 25%. I mean, you can certainly experiment, but I think the possibility for error is a little higher because of all the work that sugar is doing. Yeah. Interesting. So interesting. Here's a couple of...
questions that I will take together that come down to working the dough. Anne writes, "Can your guests talk about working and overworking flour? I have trouble overworking dough when I roll out cookies and occasionally even my cakes get over mixed. Are there general rules of thumb?" MK writes, "I'm a hack baker at best. The only abiding secret I cling to was revealed to me years ago offhandedly, conspiratorially by my brother-in-law while baking chocolate chip cookies.
Freeze the sticks of butter, then grate them into the dough and toss casually. Never overmix. Clump sloppily and bake. I've sloppily applied this technique to almost every baking item containing butter. What do you think? I mean, is it working? I'm curious. I have never seen a cookie recipe for grated frozen butter. I see that for biscuits sometimes, but I've never seen it for cookies. But I mean, if it's...
It's working for her. You know? Yeah. Great. I like the Will Wonders Never Cease laugh of the recipe developer who's thought of it all and is like, all it takes is one hour of live radio and we've surprised you. Exactly. Exactly. How about on the other question of sort of overworking dough? Like how would one even know that one had overworked dough?
Well, a toughness, right? Because once you combine your flour with the wet ingredients, like what starts, you know, the gluten starts to form. And, you know, gluten can be a good thing depending on what you're trying to make, but gluten can also, you know, make things tougher. So if you mix and mix and mix, like those gluten strands are just, you know, further developing and it's going to make your baked good tougher. And it also, I mean, it depends on the flour that you use too, right? Like,
Cake flour is a lower protein flour. So, you know, by its very nature, it is going to create less gluten in your baked goods. So that can be, you know, a good,
a reason why it's called for in cake recipes and things like that. Similar with all-purpose has a relatively low protein level, whereas, you know, bread flour, other high-protein flours have more gluten-forming potential. So that's why you typically don't see, you know, cakes that call for them. I also think, you know, if you're mixing...
A cake in the mixer, it is nice to take the bowl off of the mixer before it's fully mixed and get in there with a spatula to get the last bits of dry ingredients. And I think it's good practice to sort of stop mixing
As soon as you see no longer, as soon as you no longer see bits of flour in there, not just like keep cranking and cranking, because once it's incorporated, that's good. You're done. You don't need to keep going. And when you're baking cookies, I often see that, you know, I see people feeling
fail to scrape down the sides of their bowl, right? So they get some flour and butter up on the side of the bowl that doesn't get fully incorporated. So I think it's also best practice with cookies and with cakes to scrape down, you know, your mixer bowl sort of at the midway point just to make sure that everything's getting incorporated, you know, nicely, but then you don't have to beat it forever. Yeah. Hot tips, everyone. Let's bring in some callers since you did walk us into gluten. Cindy in Sunnyvale, welcome.
Hi. Pardon me. Yes, I have a question. I deal with both gluten and gluten intolerant in my house. And so I'm always challenged trying to make the gluten-free chocolate chip cookies that won't just smear all over the place. And I've tried all different types of blends.
I've tried, you know, melted butter refrigerant. It's just ridiculous. So can you give me some tips? Hey, thank you so much, Cindy. We also have, you know, Chantal writes in to say, I have a gluten-free child at home. And after years of trial and error, we're finally becoming better at baking with gluten-free ingredients. Our go-to gluten-free flour is from King Arthur. I'd love to hear any gluten-free baking tips you might have.
Yeah, I mean, gluten-free baking is its own, you know, its own Wild West, right? Like, it is a challenging thing for, you know, especially if you're used to, you know,
you know, conventional baking because a gluten-free flour is not going to behave in the same way that, you know, a gluten-full flour is going to behave, which I'm sure these callers, you know, they know, they've experienced, they've tried, they've been frustrated. I think it's good, you know, practice to, if you're, you know, if you're buying a gluten-free flour and
and not making your own blend, which I think is the route that a lot of folks go down. It's nice to then use the recipe from that flour manufacturer. So if you were buying King Arthur's gluten-free measure-for-measure flour, I think it's nice to then look on our website for a recipe for gluten-free chocolate chip cookies that uses that flour because there's no sort of standardization as far as gluten-free flour blends go from brand to brand or if you're making your own at home.
So that can also make it more challenging because I don't think, you know, you can always swap in one brand for another and hope that it's going to behave exactly the same, unfortunately. But, you know, the positive thing is there are so many gluten-free resources out there now. You know, obviously we have tons of recipes on our site. We sell many different types of gluten-free flour, even a gluten-free bread flour, which is –
incredible. The R&D team has worked on and is truly a remarkable product. But there's lots of gluten-free cookbooks out there. And I think looking to a trusted recipe is even more important when you're baking gluten-free because nothing is going to behave the way that you want. This is tricky chemistry we're talking here. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I wanted to do another little foreshadowing
fun thing with you here and that is to run through a few things that you recommend just buying and not making or you know make it try and make it and with the proviso that you can't just say make them all there's six of them okay starting with what feels to me the most obvious buy in the world croissants
Buy. Buy, right? You would definitely buy, right? I mean, it is like that is advanced baking, right? Yeah, I think, you know, if you are, you know, if that sounds fun to you to, you know, laminate dough at home, I think, sure, give it a shot. I have never had a home-baked croissant before.
That's as good as one made in a bakery. And part of that is because they have a machine called a sheeter that, you know, helps. More like a cheater sounds like to me. Sheeter, sheeter, pumpkin eater. Yeah, you, you know, because the idea is that you're trying to trap people.
you know, layers of butter between layers of flour, right? Like over and over until you have thousands of layers. And so the sheeter allows them to like, you know, flatten it, fold and they fold it, flatten it again. And that's, if you do that at home, it's a manual process of, you know, taking a block of butter at the right temperature, wrapping in dough, rolling it out, folding it, turning it, resting it. Like, can you do it? Yes.
But I do think, but yeah, I think, but why? And I think it's, I think there's other project bakes that you'll have better success with. I mean, I don't mean to discourage anyone from baking anything, but I would, I buy my croissants. Okay. Would a project bake be perhaps the next baker, maker buy, which is birthday cake?
Oh, make. And not just because you can and you can quite easily, but also I think there is, I think that a scratch-made birthday cake is,
is an act of love, right? It's twofold. And I even have a very, you know, one of our forthcoming podcast episodes is actually all about birthday cake. And I talk about my like love for the kind of misshapen, poorly frosted, you know, leaning tower of birthday cake. Like I think those heartfelt cakes, even if they're like maybe not as delicious as a bakery cake are always going to be much, much sweeter. Sourdough bread.
Well, you know, I just finished... Our big book of bread came out at the end of October and I have...
baked so much sourdough bread in the last two years. And then I took a little break. But you decided to buy it all from here on out. I did. I took a little break. I was like, I'm not breaking, baking any more bread. But just this week, I got my starter out. I've been feeding it, you know, I'm, I'm gearing up for, for some more sourdough baking. I think sourdough baking is a really, I think bread baking in general is a really fun and kind of sticky habit. Um,
I think it's fun because you're never going to bake the same loaf twice. There's a lot to learn every time.
It feels really satisfying. See, that's exactly what's unsatisfying. I mean, every time I buy like a good loaf of bread, I'm always like, I can't believe you just get this for $7 or whatever it is, you know, even the most by the most expensive loaf of bread you can find at the farmer's market. It still feels like an incredible deal to me because it's so to get that to get the sourdough like bowl of dreams. It's like not easy. It takes not
Not just the time that they did, but the years of time to learn how to make that thing, you know? Yeah. I mean, I think you have to consider it like any craft, right? I think bread baking, particularly sourdough bread baking...
is a craft and you know, we we always say in the office like, you know craft has no horizon, right? Like you're always kind of chasing the Sun which some people find really satisfying other people find really annoying I will say when I lived in San Francisco I was just up the street from the original Tartine bakery location and at that time of my life. I was like, why would I ever?
make bread. Like, Chad and the team are doing it for me. You know, now I live, you know, much further away from... I don't have a neighborhood bakery like that. And so, you know, I make it more often. We are talking baking, the do's and don'ts and tips and what to buy and what to make. We're
We're talking with Jessica Badalana, chef, cookbook author. The cookbook is Repertoire. She's staff editor now at King Arthur Baking. And her new podcast is Things Bakers Know, which is a lot. Like, for example, that word, which I've already forgotten. Hygroscopic? Hygroscopic. Hygroscopic. There it is. Which means attracting moisture from the air. Take that, everyone. Science show. Is there something you've been trying to bake, you just can't get right? Give us a call. Maybe Jessica can help.
help you out. Maybe baking has enriched your life in some way or plays a role in your life. I'd love to hear that too. If you can't get through on the phone lines, that's 866-733-6786. You know, pull out the computer, write a little email, forum at kqed.org, or you can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, et cetera, or KQED Forum. We'll be back with more with Jessica Badalana right after the break.
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Welcome back to Forum. Jessica Badalana here, friend of the show, expert baker, chef, cookbook author. She is staff editor at King Arthur Baking. She's got a new podcast out called Things Bakers Know. Okay, here we're going to move into a little pie segment here for a minute. Bill writes, most pie shell recipes include flour, butter, and water.
I find that the water causes too much gluten to form, whereas if I leave it out, the crust is very flaky. Do you approve? Pass judgment upon Bill. Wow, no water at all, Bill? Apparently not. I am... Hmm.
I'm just... Boy, I would worry that without the water, you'd really have to be working that butter in to get the pie crust to hold together. I do think, yes, it's possible to...
you know, add too much water and then yes, to get that sort of like the gluten starts to develop in your crust is tougher. I mean, if you're just combining butter and flour, I think what you have is like shortbread, right? Like butter, flour, sugar. That's like a, it's going to be a very short crust. I imagine like the water in the, I don't know. I think you need some water.
I think you, I add ice water and I added a little bit of it at a time. And I sort of hold my hand like a claw almost in my bowl of flour and butter bits. And, and as I add the cold ice or as I add the ice water, I sort of pour it over the back of my hand and like using my hand, like a claw kind of incorporate it like that. Yeah.
Not too much water. Like you want just enough so it starts to form big clumps, but it shouldn't be holding together at this point. Like a T-Rex claw? Yeah, T-Rex claw, exactly. Or like claw machine claw.
Yeah, okay, okay, got it, got it. And after you've added water, it should look still pretty shaggy. Like you might look at it and be like, this is not, this isn't going to work. And then I dump it out onto a sheet of plastic wrap and sort of gather up these bits. It's going to look really unpromising at that point, which is normal. And then using the heat of my hands and just sort of the heel of my hand, I kind of press down.
against this mound of dough and using the plastic wrap to help me. And that, like the warmth from your hands and just working a little bit will bring that
pile of crumbs together into, you know, a nice disc of dough. So I think you need the water. I understand the hesitation over water is a bad idea. Underwater, you know, makes it hard to roll. But if you get the sweet spot there, you know, where it holds together but isn't like wet, I think you'll be okay. I mean, I'm just, yeah, I'd be curious to know what the texture of
of Bill's waterless pie crust is like, because I've never seen that. - Yeah, write us back Bill, let us know. Inquiring minds are curious. - Yeah.
Given what you just said, let me just throw one more make or buy at you. Pie crust. Is it fine to just buy pie crust? No, you should make. You should make. It is one of the sort of foundational things. I think it's great, too, because you can make it ahead. You can freeze discs of pie dough. You can freeze rolled out pie dough or even roll it out, put it in the tin, overwrap the whole tin with plastic, freeze it.
Um, there's a lot because if you're most pie crusts that you're going to buy at like a regular supermarket don't have, they're not all butter pie crusts, right? They're probably mostly shortening, which is not that delicious. I don't think like a little bit of shortening is nice for flake, but I prefer the majority of the fat in my pie crust to be butter because well, butter is tastier. Um,
And yeah, so I think I think make. All right. Let's bring in Natalie in Marin.
Hello. Thanks for having me. Maybe one thought to Bill's question. I heard also that you can add vodka or substitute some of the water with vodka because it evaporates more. Anyways, that's not actually my question. My question is that I cannot stand either a pie that's too wet or that is like ultra gelatinous. And one of the things that I always struggle with when I'm working with the fruit portioning
portion of the pie is creating that right balance between, you know, like wetness and gelatin. And like, how do you account for that before you put that in? Like, do you leave some of the fruit juice or water in the bowl or do you put it all in and add more starch or gelatin? How do you kind of balance those things? Yeah.
Yeah, this is a problem that I hear people talk and ask about a lot. Because if it's too wet, you slice into a pie that has too... It all runs out. The whole fruit filling runs out. That's very dispiriting. And if it's
over thickened it's like you're eating like a bouncy ball like it's got that sort of unpleasant gelatinous quality that you're describing and it's hard because like the moisture content of fruit is going to change throughout the season right so it's like you know that adds a variable that is also challenging um you know i think you always want to add some thickener to your fruit pie filling um
A starch that will soak up the liquid that the fruit releases as it bakes, which will, you know, give it some structure and help it set in the oven. And there's lots of things you can use, you know, all-purpose flour, cornstarch, tapioca, and the amount you use depends.
depends on the fruit that you're using. So some fruits have more natural pectin like apples, so they need less thickener while other fruits like, you know, like a berry pie, strawberries say don't have very much natural pectin. And so they need like, you need to add that additional starch in order to get the pie filling to set. Right.
Um, we do have a pie thickener chart on the kingarthurbaking.com website, which I look at all the time. Um, because, you know, it tells you the amount of each one of these types of thickeners to use relative to the amount of fruit you have. Um, and you know, they all will work. It's, they will give you a slightly different result. Like some, you know, some thickeners will change the mouthfeel of the pie a little bit or the appearance of the filling. Um,
But we also, you know, I think, you know, like I said, all of them will work. But choosing the right amount to use in relation to your fruit is really important. And there is like a little bit of guesswork there.
But I think, you know, if you abide by the chart, it's going to get you pretty close to, you know, a set pie that is not too thick and not too runny. I also think people...
they tend to cut their fruit pies too soon. Like you really have to let it truly fully cool. And you also have to bake it thoroughly because a lot of these starches- Yeah, I've had a lot of underbaked. Oh, I mean, underbaked baked goods period is terrible. But when you're adding a starch thickener like this, like it has to come, the juices have to come to a nice hot temperature. They have to be bubbling thoroughly.
for the starch to fully activate and do its setting magic. So you've got to bake the pie fully so that you've really activated that thickener. And then you have to let it cool to like true room temperature before you slice it, which I know is hard. But I mean, I feel like if you don't, then you have to be prepared for some amount of running. You have only yourself to blame. Yeah, you have only yourself.
yourself. You ate the marshmallow, you know? Yeah, exactly. And I will say, you know, like I said, you don't need to buy a specialty product, all purpose flour, corn starch will work. We do sell something called instant clear gel, which was new to me until I started at King Arthur. And that's a modified starch made from corn,
that spend ground and then process to sort out specific starches that have the gelling properties you want. It's sort of like cornstarch, but better. And I do think if you make a lot of fruit pies, that might be, you know, a worthy investment. It's, I think, you know, $10 for a jar of it on our website. But the others will work. I would just use the chart. Let's bring in George in San Jose. Welcome, George.
Thank you. I have had to curtail a lot of my cake and cookie baking because of the price of eggs. And I'm wondering if you can suggest a substitute. Thanks for that, George. Yeah, this has been on people's minds for sure lately. And I think, you know, there are a lot of well, we just you know, there are a lot of great egg free recipes out there. But we we also have
you know, we do have suggestions for homemade egg replacers. We've tested, you know, a bunch of them and, you know, there is some guidance
On our website, you know, they're the flax eggs where you use ground flax mixed with water. That can work really well. We also have experimented using like, you know, aquafaba, which is the liquid from a can of chickpeas, which is a great, you know, I think it rose in popularity with vegan baking. But now, you know, it's a great, you know, for people that are just
trying to avoid, you know, the cost of eggs. Uh, there are cases where you can use, you know, applesauce as well, and that can work. So there are, um, egg substitutes out there. And again, on the, our website, we have a whole, I think an entire blog about various types of egg substitutes and which ones are best for different applications. So I think that would, yeah, that'll help you. George, there you go. Uh,
Here is, I like this listener question in part because I like the story it implies. A listener writes, is it important to always sift flour? It's so messy. I don't do it unless the recipe demands it. Sometimes a recipe calls for putting flour in and using the mixer, which results in a cloud of flour all over everything.
Is this accounted for? Is there something this recipe expects me to know to avoid this? See, can't you just imagine, you know, the thing goes down, there's the cloud of flour all over the kitchen? That's the story I liked in that. But what's the answer to those two questions? Is it important to sift? And how do you keep the flour in the mixing bowl?
I, you know, I don't actually, I'm not sure what our company party line is. I don't usually sift unless it's like a chiffon cake or let's see, when else would I sit? I would sift confectioner's sugar if I was putting it in a frosting because confectioner's sugar, you know, has starch added so that can clump up. I,
I would sift cocoa for the same reason, because I think it can be clumpier. But I think sifting flour, you know, often I'll put it in the bowl and just whisk it to break up any chunks. But I don't think, you know, it's necessary really, unless your flour seems especially clumpy and then sure, sift. But, you know, we only have one life to live. So I think in most cases you can get away without sifting. And as for the cloud of flour, I
I mean, I think that if you're using a mixer, a stand mixer, you want to set it on its lowest setting and then just add those dry ingredients gradually. And, you know, I recently learned I have a KitchenAid stand mixer.
And, you know, they require some regular maintenance, which you can perform at home. But just, you know, if you find that like the true low speed on your KitchenAid mixer is no longer seeming that low, which was the case with mine, you know, there are some tweaks you can do. I think the KitchenAid website has, you know, there's some screws you can tighten. There are things you can do.
You can clean the inside of your mixer, which was news to me and a horrifying discovery when I pulled the lid off of that. But getting your mixer in good working order so that when you turn it on to the speed one, it's truly mixing slowly will prevent that backdraft of flour dust. Yeah. Although I did... Yeah. I don't want to give that up myself, but fine. I'll do the maintenance. Evelyn in San Francisco. Welcome.
It is. My book is about brioche. Whenever I've tried to make brioche, I'm waiting for that first rise. I expect it to be nice and fluffy, but it always turns out to be like a brick. And I've tried over and again, and I just hate wasting my ingredients because then eventually I bake it and it's a very dense ball, which is not brioche. So I would love any advice you have for brioche. Yeah.
Love it. Yeah, I love it too. Well, brioche is such a delicious bread. And when you get it right, it's so satisfying to make at home. I think there are a few tips to brioche. So brioche is a very heavily enriched dough, by which I mean it's got eggs added to it, it has butter added to it, and it has sugar added to it. And because of that...
It is a bread dough that I would really only recommend mixing with a stand mixer. And then when you have it in your stand mixer, you're going to want to let it go for a pretty long time. Like I would say you're going to mix it for,
between 10 and 15 minutes, which seems crazy. Like your mixer is going to like want to like, you know, sashay off the counter. Like it's going to be hot to the touch. You got to keep going. It will be fine. But give it a full thorough mix. And then, um,
I think pay close attention to the temperature for your two rises. So you're going to have what they call the bulk fermentation, which is when the mass of dough rises is one. Then you're going to shape your brioche, put it in your pan, and let it rise a second time. So for both of those rises, you really want to mind the temperature. Brioche likes to be pretty warm, not so warm that the butter leaks out, but like...
pretty warm i'd say like 75 degrees i do not keep my house at 75 degrees um so what i often do is i will set my bowl of dough like on a heating pad you can get these dough rising mats you can sometimes i turn on my dryer then i turn my dryer off then i put my bowl of dough in there um
which my coworkers think is very funny, but works very well. So find, or you could put your bread dough into a cooler with a, like a glass of boiling water next to it. So get it a nice cozy environment and you'll see, you know, it's going to, because you,
The sugar inhibits yeast development, slows it down a little bit. So you've got to give it some support. And the temperature is a great way to sort of coddle your dough. So coddle your dough when it's in the bulk fermentation stage, put it in the pan, coddle it again. And then for that second rise, like really let it go. That dough should be like...
I would say if you're doing it in a loaf pan, measure it. It should be about an inch, cresting about an inch over the top edge of the pan and then bake it. So I would say you're probably under-proofing is the short answer. I gave you the long answer first. And that's just to get more air into it, basically? Yeah, your dough after that bulk fermentation should be like marshmallow-y. When you jiggle the bowl, it should shake a little bit. It should sort of have a little jiggle to it. And then you know, yes, it's...
The yeast is doing its job. It's adding, you know, the volume to it and also like developing that structure that you need. But my guess is that you're just under proofing it or that you're not proofing it in an environment that's warm enough. Because I would say brioche is like, you know, maybe a different unenriched like sandwich bread is a little less fussy, but brioche is kind of a fussy bread. So you got to treat it. You know, you got to give it some TLC. Yeah.
We have so many more things we could get you. There's a lot of people. I'll just ask you this. Brownies, can you just make them from the mix or should you make them? I mean, that's an easy one. You should make them. You should make them. Although our mix, our brownie mix is very good. And in fact, we have two. We have a gluten, an all-American brownie mix, which has...
you know, wheat flour in it. And then we have a gluten-free one. And I actually prefer our gluten-free one. They make these really fudgy, delicious mixed brownies, which my 11-year-old really likes to make. And, you know, Alexis, I should mention that if people, like, you know, I'm only here for an hour. I'm here for a good time, not a long time. But we have a baker's hotline that's staffed by baking pros. Oh, that's right.
You can call, you can email, you can chat online. And that's 855-371-2253. So if we didn't answer your question, you can do that. Jessica Badalana, staff editor at King Arthur Baking. New podcast is Things Bakers Know. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure, my friend. And the podcast, kingarthurbaking.com forward slash podcast. You can record questions there, too, if you want them answered on a future episode of the show. Perfect.
I want to give a special shout-out before we do the credits. Our show's core engineer, Danny Bringer, is a hero. We really mean it. I don't know anyone in media who cares more about you, the listeners, than Danny. He wakes up every morning at like 3 a.m., fired up to make the listening experience as smooth and good and formative as possible. And he also takes care of us. In a show like this, you develop little rituals. And now every morning before the show, Danny and I repeat the mantra to each other, have a great show.
Sometimes it's deeply earnest. Sometimes we're laughing. Sometimes it's hopeful. Have a great show. But the second I hear him say that in my ears, I know that no matter what stiffens my spine, lifts my spirit for whatever's coming. Happy birthday, Danny Bringer. And thank you from all of us.
the nine o'clock cake that's what he said before the show the nine o'clock hour forms produced by grace juan blanca taurus and cecilia lay our interns are brian vo and jesse fisher jennifer ing is our engagement producer francesca fenzies digital community producer judy campbell lead producer danny bringer of course katie springer is our operations manager for kqed podcast our vp of news is ethan tovin lindsay and our chief content officer is holly kernan i'm alexis madrigal stay tuned for another hour of forum ahead
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