Hetal Vasavada Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You are listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and author of three baking books, including my latest, “Snackable Bakes.” Each Saturday, I'm hanging out with the sweetest bakers around and taking a deep dive into their signature bakes.
Today's guest is Hetal Vasavada. Hetal is the culinary creative behind the “Milk and Cardamom” cookbook and website. Hetal joins me to talk about her baking life, the Indian treats she ate growing up, competing on “MasterChef” when Christina Tosi was the judge, and her next baking book. We also walk through one of her most beloved bakes, gulab jamun bundt cake, a riff on the traditional Indian dessert. Stay tuned for my chat with Hetal.
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Let's check in with today's guest. Hetal! So excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk gulab jamun cake with you and so much more.
Hetal Vasavada:
I'm so excited to be here.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yay! So you have said that your mom was your biggest inspiration in the kitchen. She's a natural-born chef, she never followed recipes, she used her intuition to create delicious Indian meals. However, despite being inspiring, while you wanted a pink buttercream frosted cake for your birthdays when you were little with flowers piped on top and your name written in fancy cursive, your mom had other ideas. Can you tell us what your mom would make you for your birthday instead of cake?
Hetal Vasavada:
She sure did. Man, every year it was something different, but the most memorable one is one year she made me a seero cake. So seero is basically semolina that's toasted in ghee till it gets really nutty and fragrant, and then you add a simple syrup basically to it to sweeten it, and for the semolina to soak it all up. Think of it like a really sweet semolina-meets-oatmeal vibe.
And she would then take it, and like Play-Doh, form it into a cake shape and then stick not just a birthday candle, but a tapered table candle into it. I don't think she knew what it was, but it was a prayer candle.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love how she was really trying. How would you describe your dessert style?
Hetal Vasavada:
I like to call it like Indian desserts in drag. It's just everything is extra and over the top. The pinks are pinker, the gold is golding, there's more flowers. I've always really liked everything extra, as has my family. Even when we go to weddings, I remember sharing pictures of my family members at a wedding versus my husband's family photos at our wedding. All you see is sparkles and bright colors on my side of the family, but I really like just showing that they see joy that you feel when you're eating these desserts and having it in a visual way on the dessert.
Jessie Sheehan:
I was hoping you could tell us about your first book. I know there's another one on the way and we'll talk about that too. But tell us about your first book, “Milk and Cardamom,” which is the same name as your blog or your website, but it's hybridized sweets which blends flavors of your Indian heritage with your American upbringing. Can you tell us about the book?
Hetal Vasavada:
This book was literally me mashing up all the foods I wanted as a kid, but never really got until I was older, with all the things I actually got. And then there's some recipes in there that I didn't have the heart to change.
So I have my churma ki ladoo recipe in there that's traditional to how my mom makes it. And my mom's kind of a health nut so instead of deep-frying the whole-wheat flour in butter, she actually will make a flatbread and toast it and then blend it so there's not as much fat in it. But I have a lot of... My seero recipe is in there with memories of my mom making me zero birthday cakes, I guess. And then I have a lot of fusion desserts.
And when I put this book out, I honestly was so nervous because it's such a niche subject and I was like, "I don't know how many people can relate to these"-
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell us what year it was?
Hetal Vasavada:
This was 2019 when the book came out, and I remember mildly panicking because I was like, "What if no one can relate? What if people aren't into this?" Because baking is not a big thing in Indian culture, at least in my parents' generation. My mom would tell me how no one had ovens. You had your town baker that you would bring ingredients to and they would bake something with whatever you brought them, but there was no grandma's cookie recipes that were passed down or anything like that. I was like, "What if no one relates? What if no one buys it? What if..." You know that full imposter syndrome panic?
And the book came out, I realized very quickly how many people there are like me, especially first-generation Indian-Americans who can relate that grew up with bendas but wanted funfetti. And I also realized because most moms were not making mithai at home, a lot of people didn't know how to make it, and if they lived in an area that didn't have an Indian store or a sweet shop nearby, when they're doing celebrations, the closest thing they can really have to something sweet is cakes, cookies, pies.
And I found a lot of people making desserts for my book for their holidays and creating food traditions around the items that are in my book. I remember being extremely like, "This is crazy." I remember growing up with gulab jamun that my aunt would make, and it was her gulab jamun that really just... They're always so perfect. I remember getting in trouble because I would steal them when they're fresh out the fryer soaking in that syrup and they're nice and warm and they melt in your mouth. And those are strong food memories for me.
And now, there's people growing up, now it's their fourth, fifth year are making this cake that they make every Diwali, and I'm like, "Oh wow, this is crazy." There's kids growing up that are like, "Oh yeah, my mom would make the gulab jamun cake." It's wild.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, that is so cool. Going back a little bit, can you tell us about your experience on “MasterChef?” I think it gave you some confidence or definitely gave you confidence to pursue a career in food.
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah, it gave me confidence, trauma, all the good stuff that comes with reality TV and being on TV. I grew up with a mindset that in order for you to be successful or legit in a certain field, you must have a degree in it. And I didn't have a culinary degree. I didn't go to a culinary school. I was all self-taught.
Another thing is in order to, I think, be a chef, you have a certain amount of confidence and ego to be like, "Hey, eat my stuff and pay me." I didn't have that. I mean, my friends and family, they're all going to say, "Yes, it's good, yum," whatever, but I had no idea how I stacked up against other amateur home cooks. And my husband suggested doing “MasterChef” and forced me to try.
I was the only person in my cohort to apply with a dessert. Once I was there, they had these mini-cooking... What they would say is, "We're going to show you how the kitchen works," but reality, it was you have an hour, make something go in the test kitchen. And I made French macarons from memory and everyone else around me had meat and swooshes of purees and sauces and veg, and I'm like, "Yeah, I'm not making it," because I was just doing sweets the whole way through. And somehow, partially maybe it was impressive that I did French macarons, but also I think token vegetarian also helped. I'm not dumb to not realize that.
And I made it on the show. And on the show, it was Christina Tosi's first year judging. So we actually had a baker in-house, and when she would turn to me when she would try things off-camera and she would turn to me and say, "Hetal, this is really good," or Gordon Ramsey would turn to me like, "You did really well with this," it slowly boosted my confidence like, "Okay, no, I belong here."
And one of the things for the show that they wanted you to do is obviously cook from your heart, meaning cook things that have meaning to you. And if you didn't, more likely than not, you're not getting any TV time. So everything that you make better have a story behind it and that was just kind of an unspoken rule. So I would really dig deep during each challenge to where will this take me? What story can I bring into this? And I started to learn how to story-tell with food.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm excited to talk about the cake, but before we do, I just want you to briefly tell us about your new book, which is coming out in October of '24.
Hetal Vasavada:
Yes, I'm so excited. So my next cookbook is another baking book, but this time, I am sharing how to do all that dessert drag that I like to do. So how to decorate cakes, but all the cakes and cookies and tarts and pies that are in this book, the decorations are inspired by arts and handicrafts in India. And I'm not talking like paisleys and henna and elephants and peacocks. I'm talking talking madras checkerboard. I'm talking Bandhani tie-dye. I am talking about lacquered wood. The small things that, within the art community, that's been passed down by tradition over generations.
I grew up in a crafting family. My mom does beadwork and textile work. That was really the deep inspiration to where these designs came into my head. So expect really beautiful desserts and really fun Indian-American nostalgic flavors.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back.
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All right, now I'm really excited to talk about gulab jamun cake with you. The cake is inspired by these Indian dough balls that were soaked in this spiced syrup. It's a quintessential Indian dessert. They're soft, fried, dough balls. They're yeasted, yes?
Hetal Vasavada:
No, they're not.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, so almost like a little cake donut that's fried?
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah, pretty much.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, but a milk fat donut? A milk fat donut. Okay, please, please describe.
Hetal Vasavada:
So you would take milk fat. That would be either mawa, it's called mawa or khoya, depending on where you're from. You add a little bit of flour to it and a little bit of fat to it, and you roll them into smooth balls. So basically, it's like deep-fried balls of uncaramelized milk fat. It's great. And the outside gets caramelized.
You deep-fry it, low and slow so that the inside cooks and the outside gets nice and brown. And then while they're hot, you add them to hot simple syrup that has saffron, cinnamon, rosewater, and cardamon in it. And then you let them soak.
They are so soft at that point and they just melt in your mouth. I love it when they're warm, straight from the fryer into the hot syrup. That's my personal preference. Some people like it when they're cold and have been in the fridge for a while.
Jessie Sheehan:
And are they served on a platter of little balls or is it in a bowl of the syrup?
Hetal Vasavada:
A bowl, a bowl filled. Yeah, bowl filled with syrup and gulab jamun.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.
Hetal Vasavada:
And they're just little golden balls of joy and they're so good. And the other thing is Indian mithai, everything's very small and bite-sized for the most part because everything's also very sweet. There's a high amount of sugar in it because there's this idea of you basically would feed each other these sweets during big occasions. So when you get married, the first thing you do as a couple is you feed your partner a sweet, a mithai, whether it be gulab jamun or burfi or whatever. But it's to signify starting your life together on a sweet note. And you do it for Diwali, you do it when someone has a baby.
It is significant in the sense that is a part of the culture and a tradition of something good has happened, we must celebrate with sweetness. So these gulab jamun balls, they were served at my wedding, they've been at every big party that I've had with my family. It has very fond memories, but they're really hard to make.
Jessie Sheehan:
So this is a bundt cake that we're going to make. First things first, we're going to make the cake. So we're going to grease our bundt pan.
Hetal Vasavada:
So I always go with Nordic Ware. They make the best, thick-walled Bundt pans and they bake really well and they stay non-stick forever as long as you grease it really well. I've had no issues with their Bundt pans ever.
Then if I want a really tall cake, I'll do a six-cup pan, and if I want a more wreath-like thinner cake, then I'll do a 10-cup.
Jessie Sheehan:
Nice. Could we use cooking spray or are you just a butter?
Hetal Vasavada:
I double.
Jessie Sheehan:
You double?
Hetal Vasavada:
I am risk-averse in all things in life, and that includes my Bundt cake pans. So actually, I butter liberally, and then I use the baking pan spray that has flour in it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Baker's Joy, I think it's called.
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah, there's Baker's Joy and I think Pam has one too, and I'll use that on top of it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh, what a great tip.
Hetal Vasavada:
To make sure... It's because nothing's more depressing than you trying to turn out your Bundt cake pan and it's all stuck and you're like, "Why?"
Jessie Sheehan:
I couldn't agree with you more. I love that.
So we're going to preheat our oven to 325, which is a teeny bit low, no? I feel like most of the time, I'm baking a cake at 350. Tell us about 325.
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah, so what I learned is Bundt cake pans, because of the nature of the shape tend to develop humps in the center and you'll see a little bump coming up. To keep it lower and more even so that when you flip your Bundt cake pan, it's not just lifted up on its own, I bake it low and longer because what happens is the pang gets hot, so it bakes everything that's touching the pan quicker and then towards the center, all of it forces it to come up and crack and bubble up over the center of the pan. So if you bake it lower, you don't get the hump that Bundt cake pans can get on the bottom of them.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think that's brilliant and I also think it's funny. With a bundt cake, it's different because the top, when you bake it, becomes the bottom. So if it's humped, like you said, it's going to be a little wobbly. I think that's really smart. I love that.
And now we're going to add softened unsalted butter and granulated sugar to a stand mixer bowl. Is it a Kitchen Aid that you like to use?
Hetal Vasavada:
Yes. So I have both the classic and the professional, depending on how many cakes I'm making. But yeah, I use a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I whip it good. It has to be three minutes. I think this is the biggest mistake so many new bakers make is not creaming their butter and sugar enough. And I don't think people realize how important it is to continue creaming it.
Yeah, sure, it might look the same from minute one to minute two and three. At a molecular level, it does change because you're adding volume. You're adding air bubbles, which is insulation. Like if you've ever made cookies where the outside part bubbles and then the inside just stays in a hump, the center stays in a little lump and the outside bubbled out, it's because you didn't whip the butter and sugar long enough. Those air bubbles create a little bit of insulation from the hot pan and it also increases the volume. So if you don't whip it enough, your cake's going to be flatter. You're going to have less cake.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to mix on high for three minutes, as you said, until the butter turns pale and fluffy. Should we also be scraping down with a spatula or just let it go the whole three minutes?
Hetal Vasavada:
I scrape down halfway through. The scrapings very important as well so you have a homogenous mixture. The OXO Good Grips Silicone Spatulas, they have the big white ones. Those are my favorite scraping spatulas. My other favorite spatula is, I think it's Tovolo. They have these flex-grip mini-spatulas, which are also extremely useful.
But the reason why I like them is because the whole thing, the handle and the head is all silicone, so there's no worry about the head falling off. Cleaning it is easier because there's no nooks and crannies that you're trying to get batter out of or worry that water's going to get in and get gross. They are heatproof. The heads are just stiff enough that you can scrape without it folding in half on itself. It can manage a thick batter very well.
Jessie Sheehan:
And now we're going to add our eggs one at a time, and we're going to mix well between each addition. What speed are we at at this point?
Hetal Vasavada:
I usually whip them at like eight, nine. Pretty much medium-high.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. So kind of about the same as we did for the butter and the sugar?
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah, because I like to think about it when I'm adding eggs to the creamed sugar and butter. It's like when you're making dressing. You're whisking whatever acid really quickly before you add the oil into it or as you're adding the oil into it so that you get a nice emulsion. Same thing. You're trying to create an emulsion, so you want it to be whisking quick because if you whisk too slowly or mix too slowly, you're not going to build an emulsion and it's going to get kind of curdley looking.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to add vanilla.
Hetal Vasavada:
Nielsen-Massey. I am obsessed with their Indonesian Vanilla. And then if I'm going for a paste, Heilala is another one that I like.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to add some salt. Do you like to use kosher or do you like to use fine sea salt?
Hetal Vasavada:
Kosher, always.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to mix that for 30 seconds. Still at sort of a medium-high, yes?
Hetal Vasavada:
Mm-hmm, yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. And then we're going to add some all-purpose flour.
Hetal Vasavada:
For this specific cake, because you need the structure because they're soaking it in so much syrup, I do King Arthur because it has a little bit of a higher protein content in it compared to other brands of all-purpose flours. So the gluten and basically the protein helps provide structure so it doesn't turn into basically a mush post-soak.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're also going to add some cardamom.
Hetal Vasavada:
For this one, I really like Burlap & Barrel's Cloud Forest Cardamom, and they sell just the seeds. There's many ways you can get cardamom. You can get the pods, you can get ground pod plus seed, and then ground seed. I prefer ground seeds because the pods are a bit fibrous and it's hard to get them down to that fine powder. So you end up finding these fibers of the cardamom pods in your cake. I don't want that. I want just the seeds.
And fun fact, cardamom is just, the flavors of it, is just as variable. All spices are like this. They're variable in flavor depending on where they're grown, the variety that's grown. So I found Indian cardamom to be a little bit stronger and have this menthol flavor to it. But when you want something a little bit more delicate, a little bit more floral, I found the Central American-grown cardamoms tend to have that kind of lighter.
Jessie Sheehan:
I noticed it's only a half-teaspoon, which seems like such a tiny amount. So it must have tremendous bang for the buck. Is that correct?
Hetal Vasavada:
In my book, I say, "Use freshly ground cardamom." Don't buy powdered cardamom. Buy either whole cardamom seeds or whole cardamom pods and grind it yourself. The reason being a lot of the flavor compounds or the chemicals that make up the flavors in cardamom and a lot of spices are volatile. Volatile, not meaning that they're bad for you, just meaning that they're sensitive to heat and to light. And they will basically evaporate off over time. Usually within a week, I found that my ground cardamom will lose most of its flavor and I won't get as much flavor as I want. So I always grind my cardamom fresh right before baking so I can get as much flavor as possible out of it.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. Okay, so now we're going to mix. We're going to mix our all-purpose flour and our cardamom only until it's just incorporated. We don't want to over-mix. Then we're going to spoon our batter into our prepared Bundt pan. Tap the pan on the counter three to five times to remove our air bubbles. And we're going to bake for like 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. And can you tell people about the air bubble trick? People might know, but just in case.
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah. So when you tap the pan with a batter onto either your counter or the floor sometimes is what I'll do because a counter makes a lot of noise, it basically, one, forces the batter into all the nooks and crannies of that Bundt cake pan so that you're not getting these air bubble holes where the mold is. And it also forces the air bubbles to rise through the batter and get out because if you have too many air bubbles in the batter, it's going to one, cook differently, and two, you'll have holes in your cake and it'll come out looking like Swiss cheese.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then my other question was about a toothpick because I often want, when I'm testing a cake, I kind of want a crumb or two because it indicates to me that I haven't over-baked. But for this cake, you want us to stick our toothpick in and have it come out clean.
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah. One of the things that's beautiful about this cake is even if you over-bake it slightly, it's okay. You're soaking that thing in syrup.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Hetal Vasavada:
So you don't have to worry about having a dry cake.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. It's extra insurance. And speaking of syrup, now we're going to make the syrup. So about 10 minutes before the cake is done baking, we're going to make the syrup. We're going to add water, we're going to add granulated sugar, we're going to add cinnamon sticks. We're going to add some cardamon pods, which are Burlap & Barrel. We're going to add some saffron, is that-
Hetal Vasavada:
I do Diaspora saffron.
Jessie Sheehan:
Diaspora, nice. And we're going to add all of that to a small sauce pan.
Hetal Vasavada:
Obsessed with All-Clad. I am a purist. I've learned when I'm buying pots, pans or anything, if it's pretty, that's great, but I found out that pretty ones don't usually work that great for too long. All-Clad is just kind of tried and tested and lasts forever. They're great.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to bring to a boil and simmer for about two minutes. Then we're going to take off the heat and we're going to whisk.
Hetal Vasavada:
OXO again. All their Good Grips products are... My entire kitchen is stacked with it.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to whisk in some rose water also. Is it pretty easy to purchase? I don't know if I've ever purchased it. Just in my grocery store?
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah, there's a bunch of different brands, honestly. So if you're going to buy online, Nielsen-Massey makes a rose water. And the others that I like is Sadaf, which is a Middle Eastern brand, or the Cortas is another one. But do not get rose essence, get rose water, and don't get the rose water that you use on your face. There is a difference between all three. The edible rose water, you need to make sure that it's food-grade and essence is stronger, extremely strong. That's made for more candy-making. Rose water is literally, you can even make it at home. I have a recipe for it in the next book, but very easy to make at home too.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to whisk our rose water and some lime juice. We're whisking that into our syrup that we just simmered on the stovetop. Then we're going to remove our cinnamon stick and our cardamon pods. We're going to reserve about a quarter-cup of the syrup. Set that aside.
And I assume this is happening as soon as the cake comes out of the oven. Don't let it rest at all.
Hetal Vasavada:
No.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to poke what is going to become the bottom of the cake, but right now at the top, we're going to poke that with tons of holes. Are we using a fork or a toothpick?
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah. I use the biggest fork I have and just poke.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it.
Hetal Vasavada:
Just so much because you want all these channels for the syrup to get down and deep into the cake. So you want to poke as many holes as you can into it.
Jessie Sheehan:
If you had a long skewer, is that ideal so that it can go all the way to the bottom of the pan or is just poking fork tine length enough on the top?
Hetal Vasavada:
Tine length up to basically how long the tines are. Because for the cake, what I had in mind is the bottom three-quarters of it is soaked in syrup, the top-half is drier, and that's where the glaze comes in.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. Love. That makes perfect sense. So we're poking the holes into our really warm Bundt, about tine length, the length of the tines on the fork into the bottom of the Bundt cake, and while it's still in the pan. And then we're taking the remaining syrup and pouring it all over the bottom. It looks like the top now, but it's going to become the bottom of the cake into all of those holes, which I just love, love, love, love. And you've said it'll look like a lot of syrup, but the cake will soak it all up.
I have to say, I have poked a lot of holes in my time. I don't know if I've ever done in a Bundt pan when it's still in the pan. I thought that was just genius. What a way to get all of that moisture in there and kind of in a clean and easy way because it's still in the pan. I guess it's like when you do it with a loaf cake, except with a loaf cake, that's usually the top. But I love it that with a Bundt, it's actually the bottom.
So the cake soaks up the syrup, you let it rest about 10 minutes, and then turn it out onto a serving plate. And I'm fairly certain there is no sticking happening in light of your amazing butter plus spray, which I love.
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah. And you want to flip it while the pan is still a little bit warm. Do not let that cake sit in there until it's completely cool because the sugar syrup will thicken and turn into glue.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep, very smart. Just 10 minutes and then you want that thing on a serving plate.
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah, just 10 minutes and then flip it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to take that little bit of reserve syrup and we're going to combine that with powdered sugar, whisk that together to make a glaze, and then pour over the cake. Do you want to wait until the cake cools before you pour it on?
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah. That's another mistake I see a lot of people make is they don't wait and then they'll pour it while it's hot and then it turns into a puddle of icing at the bottom of their plate.
Jessie Sheehan:
But if you wait, then it's sort of a thick glaze.
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then you can sprinkle with dried rose petals if you want. Where do you find dried rose petals?
Hetal Vasavada:
Yeah, Diaspora Co. sells paneer rose petals and they're fantastic.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love that. And then you slice and serve.
I wanted to ask you about a couple of other recipes of yours that I'm in love with. So this isn't from your book, but I think I've found this on Bon Appetit, but that you have a coconut cardamom donut that is based on your favorite, or at least my favorite donut from Dunkin' Donuts, which is the cake coconut donut. It is so good. Can you tell us about this donut and about your family members at Dunkin' Donuts?
Hetal Vasavada:
It's a fun fact that a lot of Dunkin' Donuts are owned by Indians. A lot. I know it's somewhere in almost 50% type of level.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's incredible. I love that.
Hetal Vasavada:
So I grew up in a joint family, so that meant that as my dad sponsored the rest of his family and all the rest of my mother's family, and they all had six brothers, well, six siblings each on each side of my family, some of them worked at Dunkin' Donuts.
So during weekends or anything like that, they would bring home a box of donuts during Diwali especially, sometimes we wouldn't get a chance to drive to Jackson Heights or Edison, which was an hour from where I grew up. We would just bring boxes of the coconut donuts to people instead of mithai, and we'd eat that with chai. And it was my favorite donut. So this recipe was like, what if I mashed coconut burfi, which would be coconut, condensed milk, and cardamom typically, with my favorite toasted coconut Dunkin' Donuts?
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Hetal Vasavada:
So good.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I love that you and I share a favorite donut from Dunkin' Donuts that we both love.
Hetal Vasavada:
It's so good.
Jessie Sheehan:
The coconut is the best. All right, just one last thing, and you kind of mentioned it, but we might as well just keep this coconut theme going. Tell us about your coconut burfi chocolate bark.
Hetal Vasavada:
Oh, yeah. That is super easy. It's basically a thin layer of milk or dark chocolate. It was inspired by Mounds or Almond Joys. Growing up, that was my mom's favorite candy bar because it's so close to coconut burfi. During Halloween, she would make me pay her Halloween taxes in Mounds and Almond Joy bars. So it was inspired from that.
So it's a thin layer of dark or milk chocolate, depending on what you like. And then I mix unsweetened shredded coconut with condensed milk and a little bit of fresh cardamom, and make a thin layer of that, pop it in the fridge, and then add another layer of chocolate on top. And you let that set and you can break it apart. And it is so good and I think it's the perfect ratio of chocolate to coconut, in my opinion.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Can I just say that I'm immediately not going to be talking to you anymore and then I'm going to be making that? Because that is my idea of... I mean, I'm Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, yes, for life, but after that, coconut and chocolate? Incredible.
Hetal Vasavada:
Oh, yeah. And then sometimes what I'll do is I'll toast almonds until they're... I like to have almonds to the point where they're almost burnt when they're deep brown in the center. And then I'll chop those and I'll add them to the top sometimes to... Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Thank you so much for chatting with me today, Hetal, and I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Hetal Vasavada:
Oh, thank you so much for having me, Jessie.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Plugrà Premium European Style Butter, California Prunes, and Ghirardelli for their support. Don't forget to subscribe to She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen and tell your baking buddies about us. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network and is recorded at City Vox Studio in Manhattan. Our producers are Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker, our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial assistant is Londyn Crenshaw. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie and happy baking.