Joanne Chang Transcript

Joanne Chang Transcript

Jessie Sheehan:
Hi peeps. You're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, a brand-new baking podcast from Cherry Bombe. 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 world-class bakers and pastry chefs and taking a deep dive into their signature bakes. Today, I'm talking all things sticky buns with Joanne Chang, the award-winning pastry chef, cookbook author, and founder of the Flour Bakeries and Cafes in Boston and Cambridge.

Joanne has built a major following for all of Flour’s baked goods, but her sticky buns or sticky sticky buns, as she calls them, occupy a special place in people's hearts. Joanne and I talk about her life and career, and then we break down her sticky bun recipe and her unique tips for making them. There's flicking flour, her slap-slap-slap technique, the window-pane dough test, and something called the cat's piano. It's all as fun as it sounds, so stay tuned.

Today's show is presented by Le Creuset and California Prunes. I have some housekeeping. Here's a fun event you all need to know about. It's the Cherry Bombe Jubilee Conference, and it's taking place Saturday, April 15th at Center415 in Manhattan. Jubilee is the largest gathering of women in and around the food and drink space, and it's a beautiful day of connection and community. This year's conference is the 10th in-person Jubilee and Cherry Bombe's 10-year anniversary. It's going to be a very special day. Tickets are on sale right now. To get your ticket, visit cherrybombe.com, or click on the link in our show notes. 

Here's a word about Le Creuset. For nearly a century, Le Creuset has been creating joy in the kitchen and beyond as the first in colorful cookware, the finest in quality and design, and the favorite for generations of cooks and bakers. You know what? I love my Le Creuset so much that I have them hanging on the wall in my kitchen. I use them when I bake for melting butter, for making honeycomb candy and caramel, for choux pastry, and more, and also, of course, when I cook. They are literally my everything. This season, I will definitely be baking bread in their new bread oven. If you haven't seen it, it's a two-piece, enameled cast iron set that includes a domed lid to help trap and circulate steam for that perfect, golden, crispy crust every time. It comes in gorgeous Le Creuset colors, including flame, cerise, and Marseille, which happens to be my Le Creuset color. Whether you're making a wishlist for your kitchen or want to add to your existing collection, head to lecreuset.com to discover the world of Le Creuset, browse their beautiful colors, and even snag some recipes. 

Let's chat with today's guest. Joanne.

Joanne Chang:
Hello.

Jessie Sheehan:
So happy to have you here on She's my Cherry Pie and so excited to talk about your crazy delicious, and, yes, I have had them, wildly addictive and downright famous sticky sticky buns, among other things, with you.

Joanne Chang:
I'm so excited to be here. I'm excited to talk to you about all of that stuff too.

Jessie Sheehan:
Oh great. I was given your first book, Flour, by my mother-in-law when it came out in 2010 and read it cover to cover, as one does, and I was so taken with your baking trajectory, which you described in the introduction to that book. Could you share a little bit with our listeners just in case they have not read it cover to cover, as I have, every word?

Joanne Chang:
Absolutely. I definitely never planned on becoming a pastry chef or a bakery owner. In fact, I grew up in a very traditional Taiwanese household in which we never had dessert, ever. We had oranges most days for dessert. On special occasions, we had mangoes, and that was kind of a big deal.

When I started to learn about this world of pastry out there, I became obsessed. I mean, I think because I wasn't allowed it, that also fed kind of my obsession. I went to, actually, college, Harvard, and studied math and economics. Never really thought about pastry as a career. Just had this passion for desserts that I had kind of been denied as a kid. I was kind of starting to bake on my own, just flipping through magazines and cookbooks. Later on, after I graduated, I was that person who was kind of always fiddling around in the kitchen, baking, and experimenting, and then bringing all of my both successes and failures to class or to the workplace.

I did that throughout school. Then I graduated and got a job as a management consultant, again, not thinking I was going to end up in the food business. When I wasn't working in the office, I was at home cooking and baking. I was hosting dinner parties, and I was bringing in cakes and cookies all the time. After about two years of working in business, I thought, "Gosh. What am I going to do as a grownup? What am I going to be when I grow up?" Rather than sticking around in consulting, rather than going to business school as my peers were, I said, "Maybe I'll try doing what I love in my spare time. Maybe I'll try cooking, or baking, or doing something in a kitchen."

I applied for a job in a restaurant kitchen in Boston. The first chef who reached out really took a huge chance on me. She was one of the top chefs in Boston, Lydia Shire. She said, "Yeah, come and be my garde-manger cook." I made the jump, and landed in the food world in the restaurant business, and kind of haven't looked back.

Jessie Sheehan:
Then how did... From there to opening up these incredible bakeries in Boston that I wish that every single listener could one day go to because I love Flour so much.

Joanne Chang:
Aw. I wish everybody could too, and, hopefully, everybody will. I worked for Lydia at Biba. Once I got into a professional restaurant kitchen, I started to learn more about what that career path would be like. I honestly just was like, "I'm not going to be a consultant anymore. I'm going to go work in a kitchen and see if I like it," but I didn't really know what I was going to do from that point on. I just said, "I got to try something new." I jumped into this job and then started to just learn restaurant life, and all of the different departments, and the different things you could do, whether it's savory, or pastry, or catering, or private cheffing, or whatever. My true passion was pastry. I loved being in a kitchen in general, but I really, really gravitated towards the sweet side of the kitchen.

From there, I ended up leaving after a year, and I got a job in a bakery. Then I became a pastry chef in a restaurant. Then I went to New York City and worked for François Payard when he opened up Payard Patisserie, came back to Boston, was a pastry chef again. All throughout my bouncing back and forth between restaurant and pastry jobs, I was trying to think, "Well, now what am I doing?" I knew I wasn't going to be a consultant anymore. I'd finally just jumped into the food business, into the restaurant world, but then what?

Probably about the time I was in New York, I thought, "I would love to just open a beautiful little pastry shop where everybody knows your name, and it's a wonderful neighborhood spot that makes everybody happy." I started kind of just dreaming up what it would be like. At first, it was literally just a dream. I had notebooks where I just daydreamed and fantasized. Then when I came back to Boston, I thought, "Gosh, maybe I could do this." Honestly, when you're really young and kind of naive, you don't know what you don't know, so I just jumped in.

I found an incredible spot that was in an area that was kind of underdeveloped and took a chance on that area. The neighborhood took a chance on me. We opened our first bakery in September of 2000 and to a line out the door, and it hasn't changed since.

Jessie Sheehan:
It's incredible. I feel like you've succeeded. Even though no one knows my name when I go there since I live in New York and not Boston anymore, I still feel like they might know my name.

Joanne Chang:
Oh, that's awesome. That's wonderful.

Jessie Sheehan:
You succeeded. Then the books. You've written these five books, yes? Four baking and one restaurant book. Did the books just kind of come naturally out of owning the bakery? Were you approached, or did you always think to yourself, "Somewhere we got to put these recipes into a book"?

Joanne Chang:
Well, I think after a while, people did say, "Gosh, I want that recipe. I want this recipe," but I didn't think about cookbook writing at all. Basically, what happened was I had one bakery, and I was the pastry chef. I was teaching everybody everything, right? Every time we hired a baker, I would have to teach that person how to make cookies, cakes, pies, et cetera.

Then when we opened the second bakery, my job changed. I could no longer be the one pastry chef. We opened the second bakery. I had a pastry chef for each location, but then my job became helping those pastry chefs teach their teams and teach their pastry cooks. I was no longer actively teaching. I really love teaching people how to bake. I was missing that element of what had been my day-to-day for six, seven, eight years.

When we opened the second bakery and I was no longer teaching, I was actually approached by a friend of my husband and business partner, Christie Matheson, who is a cookbook author. She had co-written a bunch of cookbooks for various chefs, and she was a customer of Flours. Like you said, she said, "I think you should take all of these recipes and put them in a book." I looked at her, and I said, "I don't know how to do that." She said, "That's where I come in." We joined forces, and we co-wrote the first Flour book together. I just fell in love with the process. I loved the testing of the recipes. I loved writing down the teaching of how to bake something.

Before, it had been verbal. I'd stand in front of a baker, and I'd show them. I think I love that maybe more. Actually, it depends. I love them both. I was writing these recipes, and I loved just sitting there and trying to explain in a recipe how to make the perfect croissant or the great sticky bun. I fell in love with that whole process. After the first book, I thought, "Gosh, that's not the only thing I'm going to do. I'm going to keep going with this," and so I did. I just kept writing, and I still love the whole process.

Jessie Sheehan:
Before we dig into sticky sticky buns, can you just describe your dessert style for those that maybe haven't been to a Flour bakery or don't know your books as well?

Joanne Chang:
Sure. I think because my training was done all over the map, as many people's training is, I worked for an American pastry chef, then a French pastry chef, then a Mediterranean chef, then I guess another American-European chef. Then I myself am Taiwanese. My pastry style doesn't really fit into one small box, other than the box of “Does it taste so good that you just want to keep eating it?”

That's how I always view the pastries on the counter. We do have a lot of French influences, but then there's a couple things that might be from Asia or might be from another part of Europe, and it's because it's something that just tastes amazing. My style is fairly simple and straightforward, hence the name Flour for the bakery. It's really just influenced by, “Is it something that is so amazing that you can't stop eating it?”

Jessie Sheehan:
Now we are going to talk about your stickiest, richest, gooiest, most decadent, sticky sticky buns. Could you describe those for those not as lucky as me who have actually had one?

Joanne Chang:
Yes. When I was starting with the idea of a menu for this dream bakery of mine, Flour, I was trying to figure out what absolutely had to be on the menu. Sticky buns was one of the things that I knew had to be on the menu. One, it's a decadent pastry regardless of which bakery you get it at or if you make it yourself. Two, I knew that there was a way that I could make it decadent, and buttery, and rich, but not so crazy, sweet, and overwhelming.

I wanted something that people would be able to eat over and over again because sometimes there are desserts or pastries that kind of hit you over the head and leave you unconscious, and that's not what I wanted with the sticky bun. I wanted something that was really irresistible and something that you could maybe not have every single day because, honestly, it's a pretty rich pastry, but something that you would crave for a special occasion, and you wouldn't be like, "Oh my gosh. Then I'm going to have to take a 10-hour nap afterwards."

I experimented with a bunch of different recipes when I was planning Flour, and I landed on the brioche recipe that I learned working for François Payard when I was in New York. I took the brioche recipe, and I used it as the base for these sticky buns. I took a French brioche recipe, and I married it with what we call goo, which I had learned working for an American pastry chef, Rick Katz.

This goo is a really rich, decadent, gooey mixture that's made with butter, brown sugar, heavy cream, and honey. It's super, super sticky, especially once it gets baked. I kind of used that as my starting point, and then I wanted to make sure, again, that it wasn't something that was so sweet that it knocked you over the head. I added nuts, which a lot of sticky buns have, but we added extra nuts. We wanted to make sure that there was something to counter all of the super, super rich gooeyness of the goo. That became the base recipe for our sticky buns. It's buttery brioche. It is lots and lots of pecans, and then it's this rich, ooey-gooey goo mixture that gets baked with the sticky buns. Then when the whole thing is cooled, we take that goo and pour it over the top, so it's kind of dripping off the sides of the sticky buns.

Jessie Sheehan:
Let's take a quick break, and we'll be right back. Thank you to California Prunes for sponsoring this episode of She's My Cherry Pie. What do California Prunes have to do with baking, you might ask? The answer is everything.

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Okay, let's dive in. In this particular brioche dough, you have unbleached flours, your first ingredients. A, do you have a favorite maybe that you're using at home or at the bakery? B, why unbleached?

Joanne Chang:
We always use King Arthur unbleached flour. I think just from a purity sake, if you are using bleached flour, you're obviously adding a chemical element to the flour to make it a little bit whiter. In my baking career, I've always used unbleached. I've always tried to use as little additives as possible.

Jessie Sheehan:
Then bread flour. I kind of know why there's bread flour in there too, but maybe you want to share just in case people are like, "Can't I just use all-purpose?"

Joanne Chang:
I mean, you could use just all-purpose. I always tell people, "I would rather you bake the sticky buns with all-purpose only if that's all you have than not bake the sticky buns." Having bread flour or high-gluten flour in the mix gives you a better chew. It allows for the liquid that's in the brioche dough. It allows for more activation of the gluten.

Gluten... Often it is something that we're trying to avoid. A lot of people try to avoid it, but when it comes to sticky buns, you really do want gluten development in your brioche because you want something that's got a little bit of... When you pull apart the sticky buns, you want to see the fluffiness of the brioche and kind of those layers. That happens because you have gluten development. We actually use a brand called Sir Galahad.

Jessie Sheehan:
The recipe offers you a choice of yeast. It's either active dry or fresh cake. Do you guys use fresh cake in the bakery, or is that just a... Talk to me about that because you don't often see that as an option.

Joanne Chang:
Exactly. I think most people don't have access to fresh cake, which is why I put the active dry, which is what's very commonly available in supermarkets. We use fresh cake. Again, I think it's a tradition thing. I was taught to bake with fresh cake yeast. It's just what I know, and so that's what we do.

Jessie Sheehan:
Then there's sugar. There's kosher salt. I thought this was interesting: the water is cold. I feel like often, with yeast, you're told room temp. You're definitely not told hot, but you're often-

Joanne Chang:
Exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:
... taught room temperature. Can you tell us about cold?

Joanne Chang:
Yes. I think if you're at home, you don't have to be quite as exact with the temperature, in that it doesn't have to be cold, cold. At the bakery, we actually used cold water and ice. That is because we're making such large quantities, and it's in the mixer for a total of probably about 20, 25 minutes. The friction that is generated by all of that kneading with the dough hook creates a lot of heat, and that the heat that is generated when you're mixing brioche in such large quantities can cause the yeast to get overactive.

We start with cold water and ice, knowing that as the mixer is mixing the dough, it's going to warm up the whole dough. If you're at home, your little mixer probably is not going to get that hot.

Jessie Sheehan:
Right.

Joanne Chang:
You can use a room temperature water or even a warm water. You're right, don't use hot water. That will kill the yeast.

Jessie Sheehan:
Right. It makes sense because I use instant yeast, but I always freeze it when I'm not using it. It makes sense that yeast can obviously tolerate cold temperature. If it's not room temp but it's a little cold, that's going to be fine.

Then the recipe calls for eggs and then some unsalted butter at room temp. This is kind of a little nerdy, but the kind of room temp where you just pressed your finger on it and you can kind of see an indent, but it's not melty, or what are we looking for?

Joanne Chang:
Correct, correct. Again, this one, it's a little bit different what we do in the bakery versus at home. In the bakery, we don't use room temp butter. We use cold butter for the same reason we use ice. By the time we've thrown in all the butter and the dough has been in the mixer for, at that point, probably 10, 12 minutes, it's pretty warm even with the ice in it. We throw in cold butter, and that kind of brings the temperature down a little bit.

At home, I think the best thing is what you just said, not melted butter, but butter that you can kind of bend. That's so that when the butter goes in, it goes last into the brioche dough. When it goes in, you really want it to absorb well into the dough. If you use cold butter, it's going to take a long time, and then your dough might get a little tough. I think room-temp butter allows the butter to absorb into the dough much, much easier.

Jessie Sheehan:
Then the pecan filling is simple. It's brown sugar, granulated, toasted pecan, some cinnamon. Why both sugars? What does the granulated add that the brown sugar can't and vice versa?

Joanne Chang:
Well, I mean, I think I just wanted a little bit of that molasses-y taste that the brown sugar can add, but I didn't want it to be overwhelmingly molasses-y. I think just mixing the two gives you a little bit of that sweetness. You need a little something in-between the swirl because that is what we call sticky sugar. The sticky sugar goes on the brioche before you swirl it up. You want a little bit of sweetness. I think just plain white sugar is just a little bit too plain. All brown sugar is a little bit too strong, so a mix.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yup, a mix.

Joanne Chang:
Then we just have a little bit of cinnamon. I don't want these to be super cinnamony. I really think that the focus is on the brioche itself, which is really rich and buttery, and then, also, all of the flavors of the goo, but the pecans are the star. I didn't want too much cinnamon, so just a tiny pinch.

Jessie Sheehan:
Well, it's funny that you mention that because I was just going to ask you. You call for an eighth of a teaspoon, which is such a tiny... I almost thought like, "Oh my gosh. I guess I don't know the power of my cinnamon," because it is a really tiny amount.

Joanne Chang:
I mean, you could add more. I mean, that's the other thing, is that these recipes, they're a starting point for you as a baker. I always encourage you to make the recipe as written once so that you know what the baker who wrote them intended and then make it yours. If you like cinnamon... I do like cinnamon, but if you want more cinnamon, then add more cinnamon. If you don't like cinnamon, take it out. I mean, it's really up to you.

Jessie Sheehan:
Then the famous goo, which is kind of a caramel concoction, there's butter and light brown sugar. There's honey in it. I wondered if you're using honey maybe instead of corn syrup, which you might normally see, to kind of cut that sweetness or because you want that honey flavor. Talk to us about the honey.

Joanne Chang:
I don't love using corn syrup. It doesn't have any flavor, and it doesn't really add, whereas honey has so much flavor, and so much richness, and a really lovely, mellow, kind of almost buttery undertone when you just eat it straight. Then just imagine that mixed into the goo. Then it has a super sticky quality.

For a sticky bun... That's why we call it sticky sticky buns, is that we want you to have something that, honestly, if you pick it up with your hands, you got to immediately find a wet nap because it's so sticky. The honey adds both flavor, great flavor, but also just kind of that mouth feel.

Jessie Sheehan:
Then there's cream. There's some water and then some salt in the goo. I thought we would jump into making the brioche dough. First of all, I loved your note because the brioche dough is kind of a separate recipe, and you sort of mention you're only going to use half this recipe to make the buns, but please make the whole recipe because you need that mass in your mixer to kind of knead the dough properly.

I thought that was a great note. I feel like as a recipe writer, people always want to know if they can halve something or double something. This is a great example of, in this instance, please don't just do half this recipe.

Joanne Chang:
Well, the recipe needs five eggs. That's why the halving of it becomes a little tricky because most people aren't going to do what we would do in the pastry kitchen, which is just crack five eggs, weigh it, and then measure out, and whisk it, and then weigh out half. That's just too confusing at home.

Then honestly, when I wrote Pastry Love... This is the fifth book versus the first book. There were a lot of people who said, "I don't want that much brioche." I did create a version of the original brioche recipe that is half size. I think it's two eggs and a yolk. I think I then reduce the butter just a little bit because there's so much richness in the yolk to try to make up for that. I do think it works out better when you make a little bit more because you do have... You know how sometimes when you're using a mixer, if there's not enough stuff, then whether it's your whisk or paddle, it doesn't quite catch on the bottom?

Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, yes.

Joanne Chang:
When you make a small batch, sometimes you just don't have enough stuff for the dough hook to do its thing. A bigger amount just gives you more to work with.

Jessie Sheehan:
We're using our stand mixer with the dough hook. If memory serves, you're sort of combining the dry ingredients first, and then adding the water and eggs, and kind of mixing a shaggy dough. Is that correct?

Joanne Chang:
Exactly, exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:
That's three or four minutes. Then you say, "Scrape the sides in the bottom of the bowl." Do you have a favorite tool that you would... I mean, I'm sure there's one you might use in the bakery versus one you might use at home, but is there a kind of one of those flexible bench scraper situations or just a spatula? What's the best tool for kind of scraping that brioche dough from your stand mixer bowl?

Joanne Chang:
I mean, definitely, at home, you could just use a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula, or, honestly, I mean, if you don't mind getting your hands dirty, I love just getting my fingers in there. I love just kind of taking all the stuff that's at the bottom, and mix, and trying to lift it up from the bottom, and incorporate it into the whole thing. I think a spatula or a wooden spoon is perfect.

Jessie Sheehan:
Then we're mixing for three to four minutes before we're going to add the butter. What do we want the dough to become before we add that butter?

Joanne Chang:
The dough will come together and become kind of a... Not stiff ball, but it's not going to be shaggy. It should all start to come together. What we're trying to do in that three to four minutes... I mean, at the bakery, we end up doing it for 12 to 15 minutes. I'm always trying to be conscious of what is realistic at home. I felt like three to four minutes is what people will probably have the patience to do.

In three to four minutes, what you're starting to do is start to develop some of that gluten. You have the water, and it's combining with both the high-gluten flour, the bread flour, and the all-purpose. That's starting to activate all of the gluten strands within the flour. You want to start activating that gluten before you throw in the butter because as soon as you throw in the butter, that's going to inhibit gluten development.

We let it go for about three to four, five minutes. If you pick it up, you should be able to kind of stretch it a little bit, and you'll see that the dough should be not quite piecey like a batter, but it should have a little bit of elasticity. That's going to be what helps your sticky buns both capture the gas in the yeast when you're baking it and also kind of lead to those kind of flaky layers when you're pulling it apart.

Jessie Sheehan:
I think probably a traditional brioche recipe, you're adding your butter a little bit at a time and waiting for it to kind of disappear before you add the next piece. Then now it's a much longer. It's a 10-minute sort of period again, I assume, just to get that butter really incorporated and to continue to knead that dough.

Joanne Chang:
Exactly. It sometimes can go even longer. I actually just made this small cookbook version at home a couple months ago. I realized, "Wow, this is... " I think it ended up going for almost 18 minutes. Again, you're letting the butter absorb into the dough, but then you're also just waiting for the dough to start to come together on its own so that it's... Once you add all the butter, that's adding a fair amount of soft ingredient.

There's some water in the butter, a lot of milk solids in the butter. The dough will go from being, like I said, kind of like a firm piece of dough. It'll get soft and kind of... Not like a batter, but it'll definitely get looser. What you want is you want to keep working the dough in the mixer until it comes back together again. The time in the mixer will just start to get the butter to absorb into the dough and then the gluten, which has started to develop. Now you've got the butter that's kind of counteracting that. You're trying to get that gluten to develop.

By the end, when it's ready, it will come together, come back together as a ball, but it's going to be much softer. When it's right, it hits the side of the mixing bowl. It's got a nice little slapping sound because it's all come together as one mass. As you're mixing it in the mixer, it starts to hit the side of the bowl. It makes this... I think it's a beautiful little slapping sound like ‘boop, boop, boop, boop.’ Then that's when the dough is ready.

Jessie Sheehan:
I was just going to ask you about the ‘slap, slap, slap, slap’ sound because I loved that description. I've never heard it described that way. In anything in baking, it's great to have a few cues. Then at that point, we're kind of testing the dough by pulling at it, you describe.

Joanne Chang:
Exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:
Tell me what we're looking for.

Joanne Chang:
Well, if you've got the ‘slap, slap, slap…’ If you don't get the ‘slap, slap, slap,’ because, again, I just did this the other day, you can add a tablespoon or so of flour. Sometimes that will help the whole thing come together. Once you've got the ‘slap, slap, slap,’ then the dough has come together as a ball.

Then kind of as one last check, if you take a little bit of the dough and just gently pull it, you should get what's called window pane, which is the dough will stretch and thin out, and then you should be able to see through the dough. It doesn't tear. It just stretches and becomes super thin. Then you can kind of figuratively peek through it. You're looking for that stretchiness, which will happen if you have the ‘slap, slap, slap.’ That is what tells you that the gluten has been well developed in the brioche dough, which is going to give you some beautiful rise and texture in your final sticky bun.

Jessie Sheehan:
Then we'll take our dough. We'll put it in a bowl. I usually put the plastic wrap over the bowl, but you have us put it down on top of the dough itself.

Joanne Chang:
You want to give it room to breathe a little bit. I don't press it and then enclose it entirely. I think you could just do it over the top as well.

Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, perfect. Then it proofs in the fridge for six hours or up to overnight. I love this about freezing because I don't know. I'm always anxious about freezing yeasted doughs, but you say, "In an airtight container, it can be frozen for up to a week."

Joanne Chang:
Yes, you can freeze it at that point. I actually recommend, I think it's... At that point, you've already messed up your kitchen. It's messy. What I would do is what we do in the bakery, which is we shape the sticky buns, or the pain au raisin, or the brioche au chocolat, or whatever we're making with the brioche, and then we freeze those.

I think that's better because if you freeze the dough blob, then you'll need to defrost it overnight and then the next day, and then you get your kitchen dirty again. You absolutely can just freeze it. Maybe you just run out of time, so go ahead and freeze it, but if you have the extra time, I would take the brioche dough to its completion, and then just don't bake it off because maybe you don't want a dozen sticky buns that night.

Jessie Sheehan:
Right.

Joanne Chang:
Maybe just take the sticky buns, put them in the freezer. It depends on how good your freezer is, but for about a week, the yeast will hold. After that, the yeast will die. Keep it for up to a week. Then you have sticky buns kind of at the ready.

Jessie Sheehan:
I know, which is really what we all need and want. I'm going to go through the assembly of the goo and the filling, but they're so easy. What I think it's important for people to understand about a recipe like this is, yes, brioche, it takes some skill, obviously, and technique, but the rest of it is so simple.

The goo is melting your butters and your sugars, and whisking in the remaining ingredients off the heat, and cooling to room temp. Then the filling too is just whisking sugar. Often, maybe not in sticky buns, maybe this is more cinnamon rolls, but your filling will include melted butter. This is nice because it's literally just whisking sugar, cinnamon, and sprinkling, and pecans-

Joanne Chang:
Exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:
... which is so nice. When it's time to assemble, rolling out into a 16 by 12-inch shape, just wondered, again, bakery versus home. You have a favorite rolling pin or style that you prefer?

Joanne Chang:
Yes. I prefer the tapered French rolling pin. At home, honestly, I have one of the ones that has handles and that's on a roller. When I'm at work, I prefer the tapered French. The roller one is easier to use in some ways because it rolls on its own, but I find you can't manipulate whatever it is you're rolling as well, whereas the tapered, you really have a lot more control over what it is you're rolling.

You can feel the dough. With the tapered one, you can feel where there are thicker spots in the dough, where the dough's thinning out, where you might need to manipulate a little bit to get it to the right shape. I prefer that one.

Jessie Sheehan:
I also loved your description of the dough at this point, which is like cold, damp Play-Doh.

Joanne Chang:
Yes. It's a beautiful dough to work with. It's really lovely.

Jessie Sheehan:
It sounds it. Then I thought this was interesting. Usually, when I'm making a sticky bun or a cinnamon roll, I'm putting the long side of the dough closest to me and rolling it up long, but you have the shorter side facing you, and you're rolling it up a little bit shorter. I guess if you do it that way, you're getting kind of more rolls. Do you know what I mean?

Joanne Chang:
Oh yes.

Jessie Sheehan:
Now I'm switching my way and copying you because everybody wants more swirl.

Joanne Chang:
Exactly, exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:
I don't know. I feel like I haven't seen that before, but maybe I just don't get out enough. Then another thing I thought that was interesting, which is a little different, is often I feel like a recipe, like a sticky bun or a cinnamon bun, will have you leave a teeny border. It'll have you sprinkle the filling but not to the edges, whereas you're just, I think... In this recipe, we just sprinkle the whole thing. You don't have to worry about a border.

Joanne Chang:
I don't worry too much about... I mean, there is a little bit that you trim on either end, so if you do sprinkle all the way to the edge, you're going to lose a little bit. I feel like, especially if you're doing it right, you kind of want every bite to have all of the filling, so I don't worry too much about that.

Jessie Sheehan:
Then you're using a bench scraper or a chef's knife to cut the sticky bun.

Joanne Chang:
Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:
I've seen people use dental floss. Do you ever go in a different direction, or those two tools do it for you either at home or in the bakery?

Joanne Chang:
I think bench scraper or knife, for sure. I feel like dental floss would be really hard to control. One, I don't have dental floss in the kitchen, so I'd have to go into the bathroom and find the dental floss. It's really easy to just cut with a bench scraper or a knife. I have seen that trick too. I'm not quite sure what that leads to.

Jessie Sheehan:
It feels like the ends would kind of taper. You'd pull it tight.

Joanne Chang:
Right.

Jessie Sheehan:
They would kind of pull up or something.

Joanne Chang:
Right.

Jessie Sheehan:
Then you're pouring your goo into your pan, as you said earlier, and sprinkling with the remaining pecans that you didn't put in the filling, and proofing again till pillowy maybe, pillowy soft.

Joanne Chang:
Exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:
Is that what we're looking for?

Joanne Chang:
Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Jessie Sheehan:
Baking at 350. I love the note about resting for 20 to 30 minutes. I feel like often people... It pops out of the oven, and they think they need to invert it right away.

Joanne Chang:
Right. No, I like these to sit in that goo as it starts to cool off so that even more of it absorbs into the sticky buns. If you do take them out of the oven and immediately invert them, the goo is so hot that it just runs off. It hasn't had the time to thicken and kind of coat the whole thing. Give it a little time. If you wait too long, it might solidify. You have to wait until it's warm, hot to warm. Then when you invert, it should be kind of gooey, ooey-gooey, and then you can take big spoonfuls of it and pour it all over your sticky buns.

Jessie Sheehan:
I also love that you have... I think I've done in the past, kind of tried to flip the entire pan when I'm... You're very smart. Obviously, I don't need to tell you that. You're doing it, you say, to invert each one individually.

Joanne Chang:
I think when you invert the whole thing, I mean, it's very messy. This is something that we try to teach at the bakeries too, especially because we're baking commercially, and we're baking often dozens, and dozens, and hundreds of things that even if you're baking off... For us, we bake them 15 at a time.

Even if you're baking off 15 at a time, for the guest who gets the one sticky bun, that's the one that they're eating. They're not getting the other 14. I often think if you do things kind of all at once, you miss out on the individuality of whatever it is. Sometimes it's fine, totally fine. When it comes to pastry, I really do think you have to stop and look at each and every one because, again, that one item is going to one person's mouth and belly. It doesn't matter what everybody else is getting.

Jessie Sheehan:
What is really exciting, and I can't wait to ask you about, is that in Pastry Love, you have a new version of this sticky sticky bun, which I'm just obsessed with. It sounds so good. These are apple cider sticky buns. You said you might even love them more than the original.

Joanne Chang:
Well, I love apples. I really do love apples. I wanted a different version of the sticky bun after having done them for... At this point, it's been 20-some years. I just knew that there were so many different ways.

I've done a honey version and baking with less sugar. There's different variations out there, for sure. I loved the idea of just something... There's apple cider donuts here in New England. I wanted to do my version of that, which is with the sticky buns.

Jessie Sheehan:
Maybe the recipe has the regular brioche dough, but it offers up the option of the whole wheat version, which I thought could be so nice with the apples, a whole wheat brioche.

Joanne Chang:
In Pastry Love, I try to introduce some new flours. We were playing around with a lot of different flours when I was writing the book. I really wanted to incorporate that into the recipes. Whole wheat flour has some challenges when you're baking or when you're making brioche, but I really love that kind of wheat-y texture and flavor. It's a really rich kind of aftertaste. It's hard to describe, but I really love that.

Jessie Sheehan:
When you make the goo for this particular sticky bun version, you make it with some reduced apple cider and chopped apples, which I love. It's like apples times a million. The cider, the spices, a little orange zest. Talk to us about what orange... Is the orange zest kind of pulling out a little bit of the cider flavor? Is it just adding another kind of level to what flavors you're getting?

Joanne Chang:
We do a mulled cider every fall at Flour, and it includes oranges. I just wanted to kind of bring that element of that flavor into these sticky buns. Apple cider and all of the mulling spices... It's really warm and fragrant, and I thought that would be a nice little hint. I don't want it to be an orange-apple sticky bun, so there's not a lot of it but just enough to kind of wake up the whole thing.

Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. I also love this direction. There's a section in the beginning of Pastry Love where you get into this when you ask us when we're about to roll out the dough, "To generously flick the flour." I've never heard it described like that. You go into exactly what flicking flour is. I know the listeners need to know what flicking flour is. Please, please tell us.

Joanne Chang:
Well, when you're rolling out dough, a lot of times, I feel people don't flour their work surface enough. Then you're really battling the dough at that point because then the dough is sticking to the work surface, or maybe it's even sticking to the rolling pin. It becomes much harder than it needs to be to roll out your dough. You can just take flour and sprinkle it on your work surface, for sure, but flicking it with kind of... It's almost like when you skip stones across a pond, and you do the sideways motion. When you take a handful of flour and just kind of do this quick flick, it spreads flour evenly over the work surface. Then you put your dough on that, and then the dough doesn't stick to the work surface. It's a really fun little action that we do in pastry.

Jessie Sheehan:
Back to what we were talking earlier about, explaining to people in a book how to make a croissant, I thought that was so great. I don't know if there's another place where you are actually instructed how to do that, that move with the flour. I just appreciated and loved that.

Now with these buns, we're rolling into a 12 by 12-inch square. I don't know if that was a... Maybe it's because it's a slightly different brioche recipe or if that was just different book, different size.

Joanne Chang:
No, I think it was just different book, different size. Also, over the years, as I've heard from people who are baking from the books, I'm just learning more about what people have in their home kitchens. I wanted to just offer another option.

Jessie Sheehan:
Then I noticed it's super fine sugar here in the filling, whereas in the other recipe, it's just regular, old granulated. Again, what's the thinking behind that?

Joanne Chang:
We started to use superfine sugar for a while at the bakery. We've actually gone back to regular. The super fine... In fact, I did get some people from Pastry Love who said, "Oh gosh. I can't make this recipe because I don't have superfine sugar." They're interchangeable. They're totally interchangeable.

The super fine is actually really, really nice as a finishing sugar. If you're creating something and rolling it around in sugar, like a donut or something, the super fine is really pretty. I think for this recipe and for any recipe, it really is interchangeable. It's a little bit finer, a little bit softer. It's just a little bit nicer. If you have it, great, but if you don't, then please-

Jessie Sheehan:
Don't worry about it.

Joanne Chang:
... don't worry about it.

Jessie Sheehan:
When you're ready to roll up these buns, you have us roll from the top.

Joanne Chang:
Oh, I think that's just-

Jessie Sheehan:
I use-

Joanne Chang:
... how I've always. Do you roll from the bottom and go up?

Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I roll closest to me and roll away from myself. At least it looked like to me from these directions, it's almost like you're rolling from the top and bringing it towards your body.

Joanne Chang:
I always roll from the top and come back down.

Jessie Sheehan:
Oh.

Joanne Chang:
We do something called cat's piano, where you take the edge of the brioche. You kind of use your fingers and smear the edge of the brioche into a little thinner sheet. That way when you do the roll, you have that thin lip of brioche that folds into the spiral. It just gives a little bit of a nicer finish. For me, when you're doing that, then it's definitely easier to roll from the top and go down.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, that makes sense. We're going to bake the sticky buns at 350 for about 35 to 45 minutes. It says til golden brown. Are there other things, other signals or signs, that people can look for to make sure that their buns are done?

Joanne Chang:
Yes. I know the 35 to 45 minutes seems like a little bit of a large range, but it's really because one of the things I try to do in all of the books is to train people to bake not by time, even though that is important, but by sight and by touch. The 35 to 45 is a range because your oven is different from my oven. Depending on what type of oven you have, how big the oven cavity is, what type of baking vessel you have, everything's just going to bake differently.

The best way to test the buns is when you look at them in the oven, they should be golden brown on top. Then what I do is I actually... If you need to, put on a glove or something. I just pick up one of the buns, which is baking in the goo, and I lift it up a little and try to peek underneath. You can tell when the dough is still doughy and it still hasn't baked through because it'll be kind of modeled looking. It'll be speckled because it's still doughy. You kind of want to peek. When the whole thing is golden light brown, then that means the dough has baked all the way through. You don't want to bake them too much. That's the thing I worry about, is if you bake them too much, then they get a thick crust, and that's not ideal. You want to bake them till they are golden brown. When you peek under, then the dough should be cooked through.

Jessie Sheehan:
Literally on the bottom or sort of in the area between where the buns touch?

Joanne Chang:
No, literally on the bottom. You separate it from its neighbors. If you lift it up, then you can actually, with your other hand, just touch the dough. If it's soft and gooey, then it needs to bake a little bit more. When it's baked through, it'll still be soft, but it'll have a little bit of give to it. That's when they're ready.

Jessie Sheehan:
Would you ever suggest a probe thermometer and a certain-

Joanne Chang:
You know what? I don't know off the top of my head what it should be baked to. Well, in the last couple of years at Flour, we've gotten to using thermometers for so many things because there's so much nuance. To just tell somebody, "Well, you want to do it until there's no more speckles," was not being-

Jessie Sheehan:
It's hard.

Joanne Chang:
... very effective.

Jessie Sheehan:
It's hard. Then the other variation on the sticky buns, besides this bun, besides the apple cider one, is something that I can't tell you how much I love because I'm a popcorn-obsessed person, but it's the sticky bun popcorn.

Joanne Chang:
Oh, right.

Jessie Sheehan:
Can you just walk us through that? Because it's so brilliant to think of a sticky bun, and then think of it as popcorn.

Joanne Chang:
It just kind of hit me. I don't know. I must've been making popcorn at one point and then just thinking about the goo. There's always caramel corn, and Cracker Jacks, and everything. I thought, "Gosh. I'll bet this goo would make an amazing popcorn," and it does. You make the goo, and then you make popcorn, and then you mix it all and with the nuts, and bake it until it's nice and crispy. It is incredible. It is so good.

Jessie Sheehan:
It sounds so delicious. Just so people who've never made caramel popcorn before... There's honey, and vanilla, and cinnamon, and some of the same ingredients from the goo, but we do add that baking soda. Can you talk about what the soda... Why you add that before you coat your popcorn?

Joanne Chang:
When you add baking soda, it causes the entire mixture to foam, which then gives you this big... Now you have this big foamy, sugary thing. Then when you add the popcorn, it coats it really evenly. It just makes it so that it's easier to coat all of the popcorn.

Jessie Sheehan:
Sometimes caramel popcorn recipes call for a candy thermometer, and I loved that this was not... It's a kind of special tool-less recipe. You just make your goo. You coat your popcorn and into the oven. I've also seen sometimes with a caramel popcorn, you're kind of stirring it every 20 minutes, maybe for an hour, but it seems like in 15 or 20 minutes, you can pull this out, and it's ready to go.

Joanne Chang:
Really, what you're just trying to do is once it's been coated with the goo, you just want to crisp it up in the oven. It's just being kind of toasted a little bit to make sure everything's all crispy.

Jessie Sheehan:
I just wondered if you'd describe just a couple of Flour baked goods that your customers just adore besides sticky things.

Joanne Chang:
Oh, yes. One of our most popular items, in addition to the sticky sticky bun, honestly, it's stuff that we all grew up with. I find that we sometimes will add on fancier pastries, and people love them, but they really gravitate towards the things that we all grew up with, like banana bread.

Our banana bread... I swear we cannot make enough loaves of banana bread. It's like every day, we're baking, and baking, and baking. This banana bread is incredibly moist. We use very, very ripe bananas. Then we use crème fraîche, not sour cream, not yogurt, but crème fraîche, which adds a nice richness and a little bit of a nuttiness to the banana bread. Then we bake it really long and low. In the bakeries, we bake it at 300 degrees, and it bakes for an hour and a half. That way, it stays super moist. It's really awesome. That's very popular.

Our chocolate chip cookie is a signature. We use three different types of chocolate. We also use some of that bread flour that you use in the sticky bun. It makes the cookie a little bit heftier. It's got a little bit more chew. We're very persnickety about the bake of the chocolate chip cookie so that it's golden brown on the edges and a little bit pale in the center so that it's got kind of that crispy caramelization on the edge, but then the center is still soft and chewy. Then there's salt. There's always salt in cookies, but we make sure that there's enough salt that it heightens the flavors of the butter, and of the chocolate, and the vanilla. It's very, very popular.

We've been making one, two, three, four to five different pies for probably the last 15 years. Currently, we have lemon meringue. We have chocolate cream pie and coconut cream pie. Those are super popular, really, really delicious pies. We make all the pâte sucrée and then all the fillings. Then everything is made fresh every day, so really lovely.

Jessie Sheehan:
Wow. Then how about those Oreos and the Rice Krispies treats?

Joanne Chang:
I love taking stuff that people grew up with, like Oreos, or Pop-Tarts, or Rice Krispies treats, and making them just super, super special. Oreos. We've all had Oreos. I never was allowed an Oreo growing up. When I finally had my own bakery and could make whatever I wanted, I was like, "I'm going to make the Oreo of my dreams."

I made what I thought an Oreo should taste like. Then I tried the real thing, and I was like, "Oh, I don't like that." I had this vision of what I thought the Oreo was going to be. Then I made it. It's a very, very, very chocolatey cookie, and it's filled with a creamy vanilla cream. It's thick. It's not hard like the Oreos that you buy in the store. It's got a little bit of softness to it, but it's not soft and cakey like a whoopie pie. It's kind of a little bit of both. It's made, obviously, with real vanilla bean, and butter, and all of the right ingredients. I think it blows the other Oreo out of the water. I don't want to say anything bad about Nabisco, but I really do love these Oreos.

Then our Rice Krispies treats. We use a lot of vanilla bean again, a lot of vanilla bean, and then we brown the butter. It makes such a huge difference in the Rice Krispies treats. We cut them into these really big squares. I don't know that you could eat a whole one in one sitting, but I know a lot of people buy them, and they kind of eat them all throughout the day.

Jessie Sheehan:
Well, I just wanted to thank you so much for chatting with me, Joanne. I mean, talking with you is truly such an honor. I just wanted to tell you that you are my cherry pie.

Joanne Chang:
Aw, thank you. Well, it has been such an honor for me. I love talking pastry. I love Cherry Bombe. Being able to talk to you about things that I love has been so much fun. Thank you so much for having me.

Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Le Creuset and California Prunes for sponsoring today's episode. Don't forget to subscribe to She's My Cherry Pie on your favorite podcast platform 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 CityVox Studios in Manhattan. Our producers are Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker, and our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie. Happy baking.