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FALL: Justin Burke > Apple Sonker with “Milk Dip” · Recipe Journal Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, it's Annelies Seiderold,
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: and you're listening to the Recipe Journal Podcast,
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: where we dive into the details of how recipes are made, one recipe at a time.
• 0:12
  [music]
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sonker, slump, pan dowdy, buckle, crisp, crumble, cobbler.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Today, we are making sense of this wonderful panoply of words and chatting
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: with former pastry chef and author of Potluck Desserts, Justin Burke.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you are team apple pie, I have a hunch that Justin's apple sonker with milk dip is for you.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe your Thanksgiving table.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: But first,
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: we need to talk about potluck desserts and why it has become my sidekick for what
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: to bake whenever a potluck pops up.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: While it's a cookbook,
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: it also represents Justin's journey toward family and home,
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: charting how queer potlucks helped him embrace his identity and find chosen family
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: through essays interspersed in the book.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: The cookbook isn't just another baking book though,
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: as it is an instruction guide full of nostalgic bakes and sidebars to anchor down
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: on technique.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: This very premise for the book is to organize potluck desserts by the kind
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: of vessel they're baked in.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've got a loaf pan handy, you can head straight to that chapter.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: For the applesauker with milk dip,
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: get your 9x13 out and get ready to bake after hearing from Justin.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Justin.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hi.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm great.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing great too, because this weekend I'm going to bake.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have like lots of ideas of what I'm going to bake.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a question of when.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: There is a recipe from your book that I think in particular, I keep thinking about it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a brown butter snickerdoodle bar,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: which is a whole other conversation,
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: but that one keeps coming up because who doesn't love brown butter?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's finally- That's my mom's favorite.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And she bakes it, which I feel like is an accomplishment to get her to bake.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and brown butter, you know, makes everything better.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Really does.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that should be a t-shirt.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: But let's start by talking about potluck desserts.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So your book.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Does this really interesting thing where it divides the recipes into the types
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: of vessels that will be used in the baking.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got sheet pans, we've got casserole dishes, 10 by 10, loaf pans, and the 9 by 13.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So tell me more about how you think of 9 by 13 desserts and how they come into baking.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's such a great question.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: The book is split up by vessel, which...
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a lot of like positive feedback from that.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: nervous novice at home bakers,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: you tend to think first of like, what is my capacity to bake?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: What tools, equipment do I have?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So we just skipped right to the beginning of that question.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to like a nine by 13, I think
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Genuinely, I gravitate towards 9x13.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's because I'm self-taught.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: I learned all of the skills and techniques baking in a larger format.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's my comfort zone.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I know.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of the reverse,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: scaling it down to single portions,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: especially when I first started working in restaurants.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, someone give me a hotel pan and I'll make that one work.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know, 9x13, that's just comfort to me.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I go.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I could probably write so many more books just on a 9x13.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: That to me is like home comfort dessert.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And a cookbook about potluck desserts had to be about 9x13.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: At least a chapter.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we're going to be talking about the apple sauker with milk dip in a moment.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I love the fact that this particular dessert makes 10 to 12 portions,
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: which that's wonderful for thinking about beyond potlucks.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's thinking about,
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: in this case,
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: like Thanksgiving or the holidays or even like large dinner parties
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: if people still do that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Ha ha ha.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Buckles, cobblers, slumps, and saukers.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, I feel like they're very poetic words.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: But your book invites the family of cobbler adjacent desserts in.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me your best descriptions for how to define each of these.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like this is a dissertation.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: I could probably give a dissertation on this.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: So cobbler, that's the OG.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's the umbrella family.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's not really a true definition,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: but I guess the cobbler lore is that Old English in Europe,
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: there was the cobbler and the top of it replicated a cobbler stone pathway.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of where the name came from.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then after that base information,
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: it goes into like so many different directions,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: which I think is why we've gotten so many different versions of what a cobbler is.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I would define a cobbler as fruit base is the bottom.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's very saucy, so it's not going to be very dry, right?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: We got to have the sauce.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: We got to have that caramelization,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: whether it's sugar, chocolate, cream, whatever it is, make it saucy.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then on top of it is some type of batter.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: It can be biscuit dough.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a more traditional batter.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: It could be dropped in like those cobbler patterns, or it could be poured.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's different ways of doing it.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Some people are like hot butter on a cast iron first.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Pour the batter, then the fruit, and then it reverse bakes.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: So there's different variations.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Then you get,
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think what most people are more familiar with,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: aside from a cobbler, is a crisp and or crumble.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think those are used just depending on where you are from regionally.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't use a batter.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: That uses more of a, like, it's not fluffy, it's crunchy.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: You have, like, flour and oats and sometimes nuts.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's scattered on top of the fruit.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Again, fruit, saucy, that's very important.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's baked.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think the difference between a crisp and a crumble is how you apply the butter.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: A crisp is like the butter is dropped over the dry ingredients.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Crumble uses melted butter, mix it in so it absorbs and it gets like those crumbles.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then this is where it starts getting kind of wonky depending on where you live.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Then there's a slump, which I love.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I loved the idea of making a slump.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, you're in a slump, make a slump.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: A slump?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a slump is great.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it's more Northeast, kind of New England.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: I like to refer to it as like the dessert version of chicken and dumplings.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: So you're going to first cook the fruit, stew it, essentially get that really thickened.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's two approaches to it.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: You can then drop the batter over the stewed fruit.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Over on the stovetop and let the juices and the steam cook the dough
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: and it gets really pillowy and delicious.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Or you can transfer it after you drop the dough into the stew,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: put it in the oven and let it do its work.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: But what's really great about a slump is that all that sauciness gets absorbed into
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: the dough and it's just like so good.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have a buckle.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Don't we love the idea of a buckle?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I love the idea even of how the dough buckles by the fruit.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a buckle is so...
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: It just gives me homey, in-the-cabins, cozy-ness.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because a buckle is kind of like the cousin of a coffee cake, essentially.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: So you're going to...
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Make the batter.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of almost like a cake batter.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Put it in the casserole dish or the pan,
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: and then you drop the fruit that you want on top of that.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And essentially like a cobbler where it's like fruit batter,
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: batter fruit and it reverses, this is like the other way.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you see the fruit,
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: but you create these like craters because the dough just like buckles over it
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: and it gets really jagged.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, no one buckles the same.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's beautiful in my opinion.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, it's like a coffee cake cobbler.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then I never know if I say this the right way or not.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Pandowdy.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Have you heard of a Pandowdy?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Pandowdy.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that is not in the cookbook.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: I had to.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: I only have so many recipes I could put in.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't use batter.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: That uses pie dough crust.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it was one of those things that started by being able
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: to use excess pie dough that you trim, like the trimmed edges.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And essentially that is, again, saucy fruit.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then you lay all these different shaggy pieces of pie dough over it, like almost shingled.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then you bake over it.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like a cobbler meets a pie, essentially, which is kind of cool.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think the one that if you're not from North Carolina,
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: you don't know what it is, is the Sankar, which is mysterious.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's from North Carolina.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I asked my best friend whose husband is from North Carolina if he'd ever heard of
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: a Sankar and he was like, no.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's also specifically, you say it's from Surrey County, North Carolina, which I love that.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Surrey County.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it is North Carolina based, but you're right.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Most North Carolinians don't know about it if you're not from Surrey County or like
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: that Virginia, North Carolina border.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And also, too, there's not one way of making a soccer.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's a big battle between families of who has the OG recipe and what makes the soccer.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's a whole festival in Surrey County.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is...
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: By far the most fascinating American dessert I can think of that I've met so far.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I love it.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember your first sonker?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I do actually, but I didn't realize he was eating a sonker.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's what's so sad about it.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: So my mom is from North Carolina originally.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: We used to do family road trips every summer from California because that's
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: where I'm originally from.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: To her parents' family members.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Some lived in Illinois and Indiana.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Some lived in North Carolina.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: We never went to North Carolina because a lot of the North Carolina relatives moved
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: to Indiana and Illinois.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And one of my aunts made one.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: I just thought it was an unusually looking cobbler.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't realize that the milk dip The sauce that they pour on top of it,
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was just melted ice cream at the time.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I was young,
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: very young,
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: tasted delicious,
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: didn't really care about the backstory,
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: didn't really understand about food storytelling.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was just like a ravenous eight year old.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: But then when I had a this is a soccer for the first time,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: it's when I started living in North Carolina when I was an executive pastry chef.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Down here and I went to a friend's restaurant and they had a soccer on the menu.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was so cool.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: This was in the era of avant-garde desserts.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And what are you doing to attract James Beard and food and wine and Bon Appetit's attraction?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And they really just stayed true to their roots and put a soccer
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: on the menu.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I ate it and I was like, this is cool.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Then I did a rabbit hole.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, wait, there's so many different versions of Sockers.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: This is insane.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw the intensity of the battle of who owns it, who has the perfect recipe.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then I told my mom and she was like,
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: yeah, you've been eating Sockers this way for X amount of years.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, shut up.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was just like a really sad looking cobbler that just tasted amazing.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's the second time you bring up the battles.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing that you mentioned in the head note is that a soccer can involve
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: a batter and then fruit like an inverted pie or pie like dough over the fruit.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: However, you chose a different path.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: You said that you used what looks like a pancake batter.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so curious about the pancake style batter you decided to use.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: The pancake batter?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if like Surrey County folks would be like, this is the pancake version.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's just what I call it.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: What I like about the pancake version is like cobblers or buckles or anything.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can see the fruit kind of come up when it bakes with this batter, it blankets it.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's a sheet.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so you look at it and you're like, what is this pale looking bread essentially?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then you, you,
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like spoon into it and then it's like a thick,
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: it's cakey and then you see like the really rich syrupy fruit inside.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: But the key is then you pour that milk dip over on top of it
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: and it just like brings all those flavors together for that perfect bite
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: of intensity, of flavor.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I love the pancake version because there's a good contrast between the sweetness
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: of the milk dip The sweetness and this,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: this recipe in the book uses ginger with the apples.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's,
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: and I love very gingery apple,
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: especially in an apple pie, like give me the ginger and the heat.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: So there's sweetness and heat and a little bit of savoriness to it.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then that pancake batter just like sucks up all those juices from both sides,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: adds more of that vanilla butteriness to it.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like, mm, cannot beat it.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's delicious.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love the fact that you described how it kind of creates this blanket over the top
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: where you think, what is this?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Truly.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a few moments actually where you talk about that in the book as far
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: as like bringing a dessert out and having it almost have a surprise underneath.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: even as you were saying that,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about how sometimes it's sort of like there's more than meets
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: the eye.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like people.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: You look at a person and you think you know what they're all about.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: But really, there's a lot more that meets the eye.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe people are sonkers too.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I should have used the sonker as like the mascot for the narrative
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: of potluck desserts, right?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, don't judge me.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Don't judge me until you get to know me.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Especially because you have this really cute little cow like...
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's the cutest.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's my favorite.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty darling.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: That was so spontaneous.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's all credit to my food stylist, Katrine Kelty.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: She, I think,
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: jokingly brought the cow gravy boat out from her prop barn and was like,
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: what about this?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, yes.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's something so queer about...
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: That vessel being a cow and then it pouring milk dip out.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just like, this fits the entire book.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it kind of, I kind of want to get a tattoo of it.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to lie.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think it would be really fun.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: It could be like your wrapped up book tour for book one and I'm getting
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: a cow gravy boat tattooed on my arm as like a reminder.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Conversation starter.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you mentioned about gingery apples,
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: and that was something that I also just noticed as far as looking
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: at your ingredients.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting to me.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes one is baking with warming spices to try to really think about getting
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: that warming spice mix right.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not too much nutmeg, especially most of the time for people.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And also,
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: but not just reaching for pumpkin pie spice that already has the decision made
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: for you.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Here...
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're being very assertive with your cinnamon.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's like a whole tablespoon.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I liked the fact that it's not a teaspoon.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's a tablespoon of cinnamon.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that is, that is not shy.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you get the mix of warming spices right?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you called me out on this.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I love
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And baking to be more reserved with sweetness and to lean more on savory notes,
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: warming notes, herbaceous.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Let me add some herbs and let me like shock you.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: But that's because I don't have a sweet tooth.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't crave desserts or baked goods.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Only when I'm sick do I want sugar.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that kind of helped me position myself when I was first starting in
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: the industry of how to make my very nostalgic Americana type desserts stand out
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: in this, again, this is like early, early aughts.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: So stand out in this avant garde smoke and mirrors world that we were living,
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: especially in restaurants.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I just really developed How to take something just to the edge of discomfort
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: for people,
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: not to say like they don't like the flavor,
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: but they're just eating a dessert,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: but they're not like, oh,
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: my tooth hurts, which we don't want your teeth to hurt when you're eating desserts.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: We want you to enjoy it.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's comforting.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Desserts are to comfort,
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: but also introduce us to What I truly think worldwide baking and desserts do,
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: they introduce different flavors.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: They don't lean on just a lot of sugar,
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: caramelized sugar, chocolate, which I think is very American.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to...
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Create a lot of contrast in this book,
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: talking about nostalgic American desserts,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: potluck desserts, familiar desserts, but introduce bold flavors.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's really what I was trying to teach beginning bakers,
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: is to learn how to play with flavor, how to take risks.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: I really do love a good tablespoon of cinnamon,
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: just taking it to that edge right before the heat turns into hot, like a red hot.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Same with ginger.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I also always approach...
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like very classic desserts, like apple pie, especially in the fall.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, how can I make something that doesn't have cinnamon, nutmeg, clove?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do I, how do I get out of this box that we're in?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: this was my way of introducing heat and spice,
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: but also know that that milk dip and that batter is going to soften the palate,
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: cool the palate and it works.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: The fruit in the soccer reminds me of apple pie filling.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as I saw the cornstarch, here we go.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just without the pie crust,
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: could this be a dessert to substitute instead of apple pie at the holidays?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And do you ever make it for the holidays?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, 100%.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'll say it here.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: You'll be the first one to have this.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: I do not like apple pie.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: I just, it's not my pie.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's not what I gravitate towards.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so...
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: I always find an apple pie substitute and this would be it for me, for sure.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: I have made sonkers.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't made the apple one.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: I've done a cranberry one.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've done an apricot one.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I did a pecan pie version of a sonker, which is kind of cool.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a perfect,
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: perfect holiday dessert because it's, I mean,
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: execution wise,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: it's a lot easier and it frees up space and you can make it ahead of time.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Make the different parts ahead of time, too, in a simple day of.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's so many different approaches to it to work your schedule of
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: the holiday cooking,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: which is always chaotic, even though we try so hard to not make it crazy.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think that's super helpful.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, like,
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: if we were going to make it ahead of time, so, like,
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: to your point,
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: you can bake it ahead of time and then maybe have it, like,
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: at room temperature and then have the milk dip just in the fridge and bring
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: that out, right?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 100%.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: I find that desserts usually for Thanksgiving, sorry,
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: tiny segue,
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: but desserts usually for Thanksgiving are like a one to two day
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: before Thanksgiving kind of affair,
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: knowing that my side dishes and then,
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: of course, the turkey is going to
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: always be like the main
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: point of,
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Contention?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Point of contention, sure.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my gosh.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: I have so many stories about turkey.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: But we're not talking about turkey.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm curious to find out how many times did you make this applesauker recipe
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: before getting it to the point we see it now?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: These desserts.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: A lot.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just say a lot.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because I took a different approach with this than I think a lot of cookbooks do.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Again, this was my first one.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: So really, I didn't know what I was doing.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think there's so much more information now that's come out in
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: the past three years of the process of creating a cookbook.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: I went into it right before we started peeling back layers.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so...
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: I just went in blind.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Fortunately,
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: my agent is Sally Eka,
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: so she is amazing and would be like, okay, no, this is, let me tell you the truth.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: But for recipe testing,
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that the intention was for this to be first and foremost for nervous novice
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: and at-home bakers.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I needed to make sure that they felt comfortable doing it.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: So recipe testing, it was non-professionals.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: I probably had it tested far more Then you typically would with professional recipe testers.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of like two or three times,
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: it was like five or six times because I really needed to hear their
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: at home realistic pain points and then adjust and assess.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: For this one,
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: particularly for the soccer,
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: me personally,
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think I tested this about a dozen times and it was
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: because I kept Second guessing myself on two parts.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: The milk dip, which I think we'll talk about a little bit later, that I knocked out.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, done.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody can do this.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was the batter and the fruit.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: For the fruit part, it's just kind of what we talked about.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was so nervous that I was taking it a little bit too far.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is this Justin's palette or is this a palette that can be enjoyed by a lot of people?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually I just had to say,
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: they're never going to know the beauty of What cinnamon and ginger can do
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: if you ump it a little bit, if you don't give it to them.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: So take the risk.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: You already know you're going to get some people who are like, I don't like it.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: One star.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, cool.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: I feel famous now.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: You don't like me.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I really battled with that.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was the batter, the thickness of it.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was so worried again that it was going to confuse people or there was
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: the potential of them overbaking it where it got dry.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had to really get to that like thick but still like visual cues
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: of it's not going to be golden brown.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not going to be like dark and beautiful.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: It will be pale.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: It will be shiny on top.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: So just really getting into the headspace again of being like A beginning baker
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: and identifying those visual cues because that's what they lean on so often are
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: the visual cues versus like the technical,
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know how to adjust because I have had experience or the science behind it.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that all makes sense.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so many conversations we can have about all of that,
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: especially when it comes to Davey Cookbooks.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: The question for the recipe is that it's an applesonker.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: I find that sometimes when you talk to people about apple pie,
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: so glad to hear that you do not like apple pie.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: I noted, heard, I will never serve you apple pie.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And yet,
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: if you talk to people who make apple pie,
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes they have very strong feelings about the right types of apples to use or
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: to use a variety of apples.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't call out varieties of apples in the ingredients.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even call them out in the head notes.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just curious, do you have
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Used in your trials of your dozen recipe tests of this particular recipe.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: And like, you're right.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't call it out because I was being very intentional.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: This was a North Carolina based dessert.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: So they use North Carolina apples.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm not going to be like Jonah Gold's,
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: the Arkansas Blacks,
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: like all of these amazing apples that we have access to in North Carolina.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of other people don't have access to.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I would be doing a disservice because another part of
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: the book was making it approachable and accessible to anyone.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: So everything that was listed ingredient wise can be sourced from local, larger supermarkets.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like I needed for my own consciousness,
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: you need to be able to find it and not have to order it online.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that was one reason I didn't specify the apples.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: But when I was testing it, I tried a variety of different grocery store apples.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I even threw some Red Delicious in there.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, well, I've got to know because someone, someone is going to reach for them.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: It really never changed the flavor.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: It sometimes structurally changed the sauce.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Some apples were a little bit more broken down than keeping their firmness,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: but I didn't find that to be the end-all be-all.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: It still tasted delicious.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: So why am I going to add that?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Something that could cause anxiety and nervousness and self-doubt and feeling unaccomplished.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because I said, the apples will be firm.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it comes out and you're like, I have like a couple firm apples, but it still tastes good.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: But did I fail?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the reason.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: And also, you have to stay true to soccer lore.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: There is no one right way of doing it.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not going to be the authority on that.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: So for the batter and the recipe and for many in your book,
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: you're a fan of creating a well in the middle of dry ingredients to introduce
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: the wet ingredients.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I find that really interesting.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me more about that technique.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Is it something you learned in restaurant kitchens or something you've always done?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that I've always done.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's what my grandmother did.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just, it's muscle memory.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Working in restaurants, of course, I became professionally trained.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: I learned different techniques other than what my grandma taught me.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: I taught myself reading books,
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: but what I always noticed is when I would incorporate not using the well,
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would like pour it into the vessel or do whatever I need to do with it.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: I would be like, oh, look, all the dry ingredients are still at the bottom.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought I had mixed it well.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of people have a hard time really understanding the best way
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: to fold in ingredients.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard to explain it when you're writing it.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: Again, people are visual people.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: But with a well method for certain things,
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: most things,
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: especially for this book,
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: The best way to describe it,
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: because I was teaching my son this actually recently,
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: you know those bugs that like make funnels in the ground and they wait for the ant
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: to fall into it and they snatch it up and all the like dirt on the top of
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: the funnel starts to fall in and they just can't get out.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's basically what you're doing.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're like mixing and I like use my hand and I mix the wet and I allow the like dry
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: to like from the top to come in and so you're like Working from the bottom up versus
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: the top to the bottom.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just, I get a better integration of ingredients.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just why I do it.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Especially because if you think about it,
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes the bottom is where you can get those dry pockets.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and it's so frustrating.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Then you try to get it in, but then you're like, oh, I've now overmixed.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: I've developed too much gluten.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now this is going to be tough.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oy.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oy, indeed.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you mentioned the milk dip earlier.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, we are going to talk about it.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm fascinated by this idea of the milk dip.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Earlier,
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: you even described it as a child as thinking that it tasted like melted ice cream,
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: which I was like, yes, yes, please.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because what is cobbler, or in this case, soccer, without ice cream, honestly, right?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you made this decision, though,
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: to do an Americanized creme anglaise,
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: which is why in the recipe, you say milk dip with quotes.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: So tell me more about that.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Again...
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Back to this soccer lore.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay, why are we pouring hot milk over this?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when I finally saw a handful of recipes that I was able to source,
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: it really was like dairy, sugar, cornstarch.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Is this just an en glaze, creme en glaze?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, are they just cutting corners?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: The cornstarch is thickening it.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: They're not having to worry about like eggs being involved.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is what we're doing here.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I kept searching and I was like, yeah, no, this is what we're doing.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, I cannot write a cookbook and be like, make some hot milk with sugar.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was like,
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: I can't do this,
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: but I accept the challenge of teaching Beginner Bakers,
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: how to make a creme anglaise and not be scared about it.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: To me, this version is very approachable and such a stepping stone
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: of getting more comfortable making more technical,
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: heavy desserts, components to desserts.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so this was like my touch of like a little zhuzh to a very homey dessert.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: But then you have like Creme anglaise on top, not a milk dip.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I wanted to keep it milk dip because it's so fun.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Milk dip.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's so fun.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, like the sound of it.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was very intrigued by the idea of a milk dip.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: And with that milk dip,
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: where do you think a home cook, home baker might veer off and find a pitfall?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the boiling of the heavy cream?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because you do have these like little moments in the cookbook where you underline
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: or you give A note.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so here you have, don't bring to a boil underlined.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you think the pitfall might be in this recipe?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think beginner, nervous, novice bakers don't understand.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Not everything to be heated has to be boiling.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Just needs to be warm.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Puts little bubbles around the edge.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's beautiful.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Stop.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: No rapid boil.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because for so many reasons, like, It can scald.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: It can burn other ingredients that you're putting into it.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: If you have egg or egg yolk in it and you're tempering,
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: it can just completely scramble while you're slowly incorporating.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: Or when you've incorporated everything and put it back on to the stovetop to cook,
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: to thicken it, just scramble that poor thing.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Make it split.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many things.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: But...
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't need to go down that rabbit hole because again, those create barriers.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: And this was about breaking barriers.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: This was getting people comfortable.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's also to communicate how I was communicated and taught myself to learn
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: the similarities,
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: to see the common denominators and thing and say like, oh, I've done this.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: I've made Justin's Milk Dip.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: I can, let's go do this.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Let's make a pastry cream.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go further.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Just don't bring it to a boil.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Don't bring it to a boil.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: When you were developing recipes, how do you know you've nailed it?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or how do you know when to just stop?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I know I've nailed it.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you're in the environment when I'm recipe testing and I taste it,
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: my body does an immediate reaction.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I wiggle.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's like my little dance.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I have done that since I was a child.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: When I ate something really good, I would like have this full body reaction.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: And my family used to joke and say that I looked like Scooby Doo from
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: the Scooby Doo cartoons when he would get a Scooby snack
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: and he would like be animated and flip around.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like I would just have this body reaction of like, what is happening?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is so good.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: It happens when I do recipe testing and development.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: I taste something and I'm like, oh my God, I did it.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is so good.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then I step back and I think, now, who did I write this for?
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is this going to be for this audience, that audience?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Where are we in the journey of them learning how to cook and bake
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: when we become more confident and better?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: The other restraining part, I think that's just natural because I do...
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Really hold back on sugar, like I said earlier, but I really do limit the steps.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: I try to keep it very manageable.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: I try to think about space of home kitchens, counter space, tools and equipment, accessibility.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think of all those things.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that kind of gives me the guardrails to not take it too far.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Unless I'm commissioned to write a recipe for a publisher that is asking
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: for something, then I will do what fits their...
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Their voice, their audience.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: it's just,
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: always remembering who I am and where I came from and
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: who I'm actually writing these recipes for.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: Rarely is my audience ever like the professionals.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: They're like the secondary audience.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that they get inspired by the flavor profiles and the uniqueness
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: of rethinking what we think of as desserts.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: But really, I'm for the nervous novice and at-home bakers.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for sharing the recipe with us.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I have four final questions for you.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: And think of these as almost like a rapid fire selection of questions.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Don't overthink it.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Scale or measuring cups?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I knew it.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: I say it in the book.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you need a scale all the time to actually bake.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think it depends on what you're baking.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you're doing something like...
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Breads, lamination, custards, things that really rely on the precision, do it.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: But one of my biggest pet peeves Two of my biggest pet peeves with scales is us
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: as recipe developers and food writers and cookbook authors.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: We say use a scale,
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: but we don't educate how to use a scale and the variables
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: of what can go terribly wrong with that battery dies.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: You forget to zero out.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: It switches like it's on a flat surface.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of stuff, but we don't set them up for success.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: But the other thing, too, is I think it's kind of people are going to at me.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm used to it.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is almost.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of a cop-out to say,
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: like, using a scale keeps the kitchen clean because you use less vessels.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like,
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: to be a better baker doesn't matter what the kitchen looks like,
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: the cleanliness of it, of the aftermath.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: To be a good baker is to have the confidence and know how to read what you're doing,
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: how to adjust and understand that you could have baked amazing brownies a month ago
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: and tried it again.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: Same thing, same technique.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you did that in the spring and now it's summer.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's humidity.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: It changes environments or you're cooking in a completely different state.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I just think that the whole like scale keeps things less cluttered
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: and clean is kind of like an unnecessary talking point because that's not really
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: the point of a scale, in my opinion.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Name of your most treasured cookbook.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no one can ever get it because that's my grandmother's and she hand wrote it.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: So that's it.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so special.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yay, Grandma.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not Thanksgiving without this dish.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: Cranberry relish.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, song you can't get out of your head.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: At the moment, it's Adela's Nicole Kidman.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: I can't.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm obsessed.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: I love that song.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Big fan of that artist.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Justin, for spending time with us.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: We are looking forward to baking the applesauce.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: I can't wait.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Please share, post, tag me.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: I want to see it.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: I love when I see people bake the stuff.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's so much fun.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's it for this episode.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can find the recipe for the apple sanka with milk dip on the Recipe Journal Substack.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank Justin Burke for sharing the recipe with us and telling us all about it.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you also to my producer, Abby Circitella.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, thank you for listening in.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, happy baking.