Emily Luchetti's Blog, page 8

Making Time to Bake

I don't completely buy the argument that people would bake if they had more time. If you look at how you spend your time over the course of a day there are things you can cut out. Take a break from internet/email/twitter. Turn off the TV. Instead of visiting with a friend at a coffee shop- go home, get out the flour and sugar, preheat the oven and bake together. Making cookies with your kids is quality time and you get to eat something delicious at the end.

You may not have time to bake everyday but that is actually good since we should be eating dessert that often anyway.

There are great desserts that can be made in a short period of time. The frozen section of the grocery store is the perfect place to find timesavers. Take your favorite two flavors of ice cream and combine with caramel sauce, toasted sliced almonds, and cocoa nibs to make a sundae. In a sauté pan warm berries or cut up peaches with enough orange juice to make a sauce, sugar to taste and spoon over vanilla ice cream. Layer three kinds of sorbet in a loaf pan to make a colorful terrine.

Many recipes that that take longer to prepare can be broken up into separate time chunks. You can work them around your schedule. If you want to make a layer cake, bake the cake on day one. Wrap well and leave at room temperature. The next day make the frosting and frost it. For a pie, on the first day make the dough and put it in the pan. Refrigerate overnight and the next day fill and bake the pie.

Dessert making doesn't have to be labor intensive or time consuming. Have fun and get baking.

Aaron Toensing, Bix Pastry Chef

All chefs in the Bay Area rely on seasonal products to develop their menus but Aaron Toensing, pastry chef at Bix for the past 10 years, lives it more than most. He is a regular at the Saturday morning farmer's market, and he arrives early, around 7 a.m., before the crowds. He hand-picks the majority of his produce and he knows which farmers have the best produce.

This week he was excited to find sour cherries which are rarely available because they are very perishable and aren't grown as widely as sweet cherries like Bings.  On the Bix dessert menu he made them into a compote and served them with an almond panna cotta.

Born and raised in Wisconsin, Aaron was making salads in a Minneapolis hotel when the pastry chef went on maternity leave. To help out he stepped in and has never looked back.  He moved to San Francisco to attend the California Culinary Academy and then worked at Postrio under Janet Rikala.

Over Blue Bottle Coffee at The Ferry Building, I talked to Aaron about his sweet life.

EL: What flavors/ingredients do you like best?

AT: "Nectarines. I like to slow grill them for about 40 minutes. It's so simple but it brings out their sweetness and vanilla flavor. This is best to do at home where you spend the time turning them and you can eat them right away. They don't hold well. I like the sugar flavor better in nectarines than peaches. Although Indian Blood peaches that come out in September are really good."

What flavors do you like least?

"Tropical fruits. I use them in the winter because you need fruit on the menu but because of shipping the flavors aren't as good as our local seasonal fruits."

What comes to mind when I mention the following? First, rhubarb.

"Strawberry rhubarb pie."

Passion fruit.

"Never use it."

Chocolate.

"Our Chocolate Brioche Bread Pudding. Brioche and a chocolate curd layered in a chocolate custard. It's a staple at Bix."

Berries.

"Summer berry pudding. I use strawberries from Dirty Girl and raspberries from Yerena. I add some Syrah to the berry juices. It gives a nice balance to the berries."

Coffee.

"What I start the day with. Also coffee ice cream. To make coffee ice cream I roast coffee beans and espresso grounds in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes before I add it to the hot milk and cream."

Coconut.

"Coconut sorbet. A go to in winter"

What dessert has someone else created that you loved?

"The XXX- triple dark chocolate layer cake at Baker and Banker."

Who has influenced your dessert style?

"Bruce Hill. He has a great palate both savory and sweet. He comes up with crazy ideas that actually work."

What ingredients would you like to see appreciated more by diners?

"Pastry in general.  Also rhubarb. It's more popular in the Midwest. Here people don't get how good it is."

What kitchen tool would you be lost without?

"My microplane. I use it all the time. I even started grating hazelnuts. After I grate oranges, I push them through a chinois with a muddler. Four oranges will can yield about a tablespoon of the most amazing orange oil."

Where do you like to eat out in the city?

"Nopa, Baker and Banker, Zuni. My wife and I cook at home a lot too."

What was the last thing you made outside of work?

"Barbecued pork sugo with homemade pappardale. I have become obsessed with making pasta. There are only three ingredients but its surprising all the different variable that affect it."

What's your least favorite pastry trend?

"Cupcakes."

What do people not know about you that you wish they did?

"Nothing. Everyone knows it all. I don't have any secrets."

Got Pie?

We all know late spring and summer to be baseball season, allergy season and fog season but for me it's also pie season. I make an endless variety of desserts using fruits but pie has a special place. When I make desserts at home for the next few months it's almost always pie. It starts with strawberry-rhubarb and quickly expands to cherry as soon as they are at the market. Apricot, raspberry, and blueberry follow as soon as possible.

Nothing beats pie from the making to the eating.

It's kind of an art to make one but it isn't difficult. Take your time and focus. Make the same pie recipe several times. Once you get the hang of it you will find it relaxing. I promise.

I use all butter in my crusts, no shortening. While many believe the latter gives a flakier crust you can get a wonderful texture with butter and you get the butter flavor.  Shortening crusts taste bland. They also don't get that beautiful golden brown color you get from butter.

Pulling a pie hot from the oven with its brown crust and bubbling fruit is a sight to behold. You wait until it cools just enough so the fruit settles and you don't burn your mouth when you take a bite.

Unless a pie has a cream or custard filling never refrigerate it. Like a tomato, its flavor and texture decrease once you do. If you want to warm it don't put it in the microwave. Eat a piece warm from the oven or reheat in a preheated 350 degree oven for 5 minutes.

Pie doesn't need fancy garnishes or presentation. The only thing you have to do after putting a slice on a plate is decide if you are going to eat it with whipped cream or ice cream.

Email me at emily@emilyluchetti.com if you want a recipe for strawberry-rhubarb or blueberry pie.

Got Pie?

We all know late spring and summer to be baseball season, allergy season and fog season, but for me it's also pie season. I make an endless variety of desserts using fruits but pie has a special place. When I make desserts at home for the next few months it's almost always pie. It starts with strawberry-rhubarb and quickly expands to cherry the first time I see they are at the market. Apricot, raspberry, and blueberry follow as soon as possible.

Nothing beats pie — from the making to the eating.

It's kind of an art to make one, but it isn't difficult. Take your time and focus. Make the same pie recipe several times. Once you get the hang of it you will find it relaxing. I promise.

I use all butter in my crusts, no shortening. While many believe the latter gives a flakier crust, you can get a wonderful texture with butter and you get the butter flavor.  Shortening crusts taste bland. They also don't get that beautiful golden brown color you get from butter.

Pulling a pie hot from the oven with its brown crust and bubbling fruit is a sight to behold. You wait until it cools just enough so the fruit settles and you don't burn your mouth when you take a bite.

Unless a pie has a cream or custard filling, never refrigerate it. Like a tomato, its flavor and texture decrease once you do. If you want to warm it, don't put it in the microwave. Eat a piece warm from the oven or reheat in a preheated 350 degree oven for 5 minutes.

Pie doesn't need fancy garnishes or presentation. The only thing you have to do after putting a slice on a plate is decide if you are going to eat it with whipped cream or ice cream.

Email me at emily@emilyluchetti.com if you want a recipe for strawberry-rhubarb or blueberry pie.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies?!

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies?!

Occasionally I get surprised by people's ingenuity. A couple of months ago at Del Posto in NYC  I had Brooks Headley's dessert combining eggplant, ricotta ice cream and chocolate sauce. It was divine. Then last week a friend sent me a link to a recipe for Oreo stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies.

On occasion I will eat an Oreo and admit it tastes pretty good. But a recipe for an Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookie? I say "why" but I realize others say "Why not?" Is this the pastry version of turducken where a boned out chicken is stuffed inside a boned out duck which is in turn put inside a boneless turkey?

It appears this cookie inside a cookie recipe is all over the internet. Little did I know how my life was lacking before this discovery. Everyone is doing a version. Watch your grocer's freezers- Soon we will see it as an ice cream flavor.

A combination of both my pastry and morbid curiosities got the better of me and I had to get into the kitchen and make it.  It wasn't offensive as I thought it would be but it didn't bring out the best of either the Oreo or the chocolate chip cookie. It made the chocolate chip part too sweet and the bitter cocoa powder taste of the Oreo was lost. Perhaps I am being too picky and I should have just enjoyed it for its creativity.

While this concoction didn't work in my book it has gotten me to thinking of other things you could put inside a chocolate chip cookie. A chocolate truffle? A marshmallow? A soft caramel candy?  What would you like to see stuffed inside a chocolate chip cookie?

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies?!

Occasionally I get surprised by people's ingenuity. A couple of months ago at Del Posto in NYC  I had Brooks Headley's dessert combining eggplant, ricotta ice cream and chocolate sauce. It was divine. Then last week a friend sent me a link to a recipe for Oreo-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies.

On occasion I will eat an Oreo and admit it tastes pretty good. But a recipe for an Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookie? I say "why" but I realize others say "Why not?" Is this the pastry version of turducken where a boned out chicken is stuffed inside a boned out duck which is in turn put inside a boneless turkey?

It appears this cookie inside a cookie recipe is all over the Internet. Little did I know how my life was lacking before this discovery. Everyone is doing a version. Watch your grocer's freezer- soon we will see it as an ice cream flavor.

A combination of both my pastry and morbid curiosities got the better of me and I had to get into the kitchen and make it.  It wasn't offensive as I thought it would be but it didn't bring out the best of either the Oreo or the chocolate chip cookie. It made the chocolate chip too sweet and the bitter cocoa powder taste of the Oreo was lost. Perhaps I am being too picky and I should have just enjoyed it for its creativity.

While this concoction didn't work in my book, it has gotten me to thinking of other things you could put inside a chocolate chip cookie. A chocolate truffle? A marshmallow? A soft caramel candy?  What would you like to see stuffed inside a chocolate chip cookie?

King Arthur Flour

Last weekend I taught a hands-on baking class at King Arthur Baking Company in Vermont.

Over two days I had 12 students for 10 hours and we had a baking marathon. They learned how to make double strawberry cream tart; white layer cake with chocolate frosting; coffee orange angel food cake; cornmeal thumbprint cookies with raspberry jam; oatmeal almond cookies; brown butter crepes with pears and caramel; lemon pound cake; caramel sauce; a pie crust; and chocolate pudding.

I demonstrated how to make each one, and then they made them on their own; they worked hard but had a blast. When they left with carefully packed bags of their sweet accomplishments we laughed and said they were all going to have bake sales outside their houses the next day.

I enjoy giving hands on classes. People learn more when they do something themselves rather than watch someone else. When you try to repeat it at home it's hard to remember everything. Demo classes are informative but nothing beats learning by doing.

You have probably seen King Arthur flour in the baking aisle of the grocery store. But it is so much more than that. It's a Mecca for professional and amateur baking enthusiasts.

Located in Norwich, a quintessential New England town, they have a baking classroom and a bakery with delicious pastries and breads, and a store that sells baking mixes and all the equipment you could ever need or want for baking.

They have a cake flour called Queen Guinevere.  I was glad I traveled with only a carry on suitcase or I would have loaded up a cart and left with much more than I needed.

King Arthur's goals are to educate, inspire, and to be a baking resource for bakers worldwide. They have written award winning cookbooks, a catalog, blog, and a customer service hot line. The company is 100% employee owned and you can sense it.

Finally A Scientific Report on Sugar I Agree with

Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh conducted a study around the premise that if people think about eating something they will end up actually eating less of that food. For a summary and more details go to http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/health/2010/fall/sweet-satisfaction.shtml

I have been preaching this idea for years when I am asked why many pastry chefs aren't heavy. Pastry chefs surrounded by chocolate pudding cakes, strawberry tarts or the equivalent think about consuming these sweets but when they look back over their day they realize they just thought about it and didn't actually end up putting a spoon to their lips. When I told people this they were skeptical but now I have scientific proof.

Now if we could only have to think about losing weight rather than go to the gym or eat more veggies that would be a real scientific breakthrough.

NYC Whirlwind Trip

I got back last night from a whirlwind week in New York City to promote my new cookbook and attend The James Beard Foundation Awards.

Some food highlights:

Hen Consommé at L'Ecole, The Restaurant at the French Culinary Institute
Oysters and Pearls at Per Se
English Muffins and Jam at Sarabeth's.
Hanger Steak with frites at Terrance Brennan's, Artisanal
Pumpernickel bagel and lox from a deli on Third Avenue
Everything on the menu at ABC Kitchen but especially the chicken liver toasts, the ramp and goat cheese toasts, the whole wheat pizza with dates and prosciutto and the beet and homemade yogurt salad. I happily confess I had lunch there two days in a row. It's one of the few restaurants in New York that serves a lot of veggies.

At the two James Beard Foundation events (Friday night's Broadcast, Books and Journalism Dinner and Monday's Awards Gala) our local SF chefs did us proud:

Mourad Lahlou (Aziza, San Francisco)- Braised Beef, Smoked Green Farro, RAs el Hanout Sauce
David Lawrence (1300 On Fillmore)- Maple Syrup Braised Beef Short Rib, Horseradish Creamed Anson Mills Stone Ground Grits
Yigit Pura (Taste Catering)- Tonka Bean Infused Dark Chocolate Cremeux, Organix Mulberry Compote, Floral Red Fruit Tea, Chocolate Puffs
Alex Ong (Betelnut)- Tumeric Marin Sun Farms Lamb Belly with Jalapeno Vinegar

Flying to New York and back I got my fix of Biscoff cookies on Delta. Those cookies are good and not only when you are stuck on a plane at 38,569 feet. To keep myself amused on the journey home I came up with five things to do with Biscoff cookies:

Break into chunks and layer in a glass with berries and whipped cream or plain yogurt
Dip half way into melted milk chocolate. Let harden and eat.
Make ice cream sandwiches with your favorite vanilla ice cream
Grind up and use as a cheesecake or banana cream pie crust.
Break up and put in streusel for a fruit crisp.

I'm glad to be home but can't wait for my next trip.

Pastry for 1000? No Problem.

I spent last weekend at the Pebble Beach Food and Wine Event. It is a three day eating and drinking extravaganza. I made desserts for two events — a Friday lunch called The Romance of Italy and  a walk around tasting on Sunday. For the Italian themed lunch I joined forces with several talented chefs.

At events where different chefs prepare each course the overall meal can often be disjointed and the food doesn't flow from course to course. This was not one of those times;  all the food went together really well.

Here's the menu:

Grilled octopus, potatoes, celery, lemon

Nancy Silverton and Matt Molina, Mozza

Orecchiette, ramps, asparagus, homemade ricotta

Anne Burrell, Food Network

Grass fed 28-day dry-aged rib eye, roasted shallot jus, crispy potatoes with rosemary

Jonathan Waxman, Barbuto

Toasted almond and vanilla bean torte, strawberries, Proseco sabayon

Emily Luchetti

Everyone was very happy when they left. While I got my fair share of Jonathan's juicy steak standing in the kitchen, I wish I had been sitting down for all the courses.

The Grand Tasting consisted of food and wine stations serving more than a 1000 guests. There were about 15 chefs and at least twice as many wineries represented. Bill Corbett from Absinthe and I were the only pastry chefs.

For a pastry chef, tasting events are pretty much the same. When it starts people see I am serving dessert and most say "I'll be back, I need savory first." But there are quite a few who dive right in regardless of the fact they just arrived. Not surprisingly I am partial to these people, and offer them seconds.

As the event progressed and the wine and savory offerings settled into people's stomachs, the line in front of my pastry station got longer and longer. Nothing like Brownie Brown Sugar parfait after a couple glasses of wine.

About 100 chefs participate in the Pebble Beach event. We take part because it's important to keep the restaurants we work for in the public eye. In my case, I also wanted to showcase my new book, The Fearless Baker. Visiting with other chefs is an added benefit. There aren't many places where you can hang out with fellow pastry chefs Mindy Segal, Claudia Fleming, Sherry Yard, Gale Gand, Hedy Goldsmith and Yigit Pura, compare war stories and have a lot of laughs with a view of the Pacific Ocean.