Margarita Manzke 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 Margarita Manzke, the award-winning pastry chef who is a big part of the baked good revolution in Los Angeles. Margarita and her husband Walter own and operate the popular République, Bicyclette, and Manzke in the city, as well as Wildflower Bakery, which has 16 locations in the Philippines, Margarita's home country. Margarita is also an author and her book, “Baking at République: Masterful Techniques and Recipes” was released in 2019. Earlier this year, Margarita was awarded the James Beard Award for outstanding pastry chef. I am so excited to chat and to take a deep dive into her coconut cream pie, the recipe for which can be found in her book. Stay tuned for my chat with Margarita.
Thank you to Plugrà premium European style butter for supporting today's show. I've been using Plugrà butter ever since my first baking job. My fellow bakers introduced me to Plugrà as the butter to use and the one with the best flavor. It was also the butter that they used at home, which says a lot. Ever since then, I've relied on Plugrà for all of my baking projects, like testing recipes for my cookbooks and my freelance recipe development work and trying the recipes we talk about here on the podcast. Everything from chocolate chip cookies to galettes, poundcake, hand pies, shoe pastry, and blondies. The pastry chefs and bakers I interview all agree and they're the best in the business. Ingredients matter and a quality butter is key to all of these baked goods. Plugrà premium European style butter is a great choice because it contains 82% butter fat. Also, it's slow churned, making it more pliable and easy to work with. My go-to are the unsalted sticks. I get to control the amount of salt in the recipes and the sticks are individually wrapped, which makes them easy to measure. If you don't have a scale, no problem. Sticks or solids, salted or unsalted, whichever you prefer, Plugrà premium European style butter is the perfect choice. From professional kitchens to your home kitchen, ask for Plugrà at your favorite grocery store or visit plugrà.com for a store locator and recipes.
Let's check in with today's guest. Margarita, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk coconut cream pie with you and so much more.
Margarita Manzke:
Thanks for having me here. I'm super excited as well.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yay. So I've had the pleasure of eating at République many times and I adore its bountiful display case filled with your pastries and baked goods. And I wonder if you could describe what one sees in the case when they enter the restaurant and in so doing, if you could also describe your dessert style.
Margarita Manzke:
Well, the idea of the pastry case being right where you enter is to kind of give you an element of excitement, especially for those who love pastries because yes, it is the first thing you see when you come in the door, this 18 foot or so long pastry case, and it's totally, especially on the weekends packed with a variety of pastries. It's the same feeling I guess I get when I go into a place and first thing I see are pastries and that's what excites me and what makes me happy and totally want to eat there. So that's what we wanted to give our customers, that feeling as well. The philosophy, at least my philosophy for my desserts or pastries is that less is more. I don't really like too many components in one dessert. I like to feature or highlight one fruit and then just add elements to it that will make it taste better and not really muddle the flavor.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you say, I love this. You break the rule of bakeries everywhere by putting all the treats in the case in the morning, the quote is, one heroic push and I love that. Why is that breaking a bakery rule?
Margarita Manzke:
I don't know. I guess it's the idea is to put out everything at once that we bake fresh right up till we open, and it's one big push as far as we sell out and there's no more refilling the case or anything like that, so you got to get there early or you're going to miss out.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you come from a very close-knit cooking and restaurant family. And I read that you started cooking at age seven in your mom's restaurant in Manila and also in your parents' resort. I heard it described as a hotel, a restaurant, a resort, and that you said that you've always known that you wanted to own a restaurant one day and today you own many. Before you even knew this, before you went to not one, but two culinary schools. How did you know that you would own a restaurant one day and why? What about being around restaurants your whole childhood made you want one yourself or made you want to run one yourself?
Margarita Manzke:
When I was seven years old, I think from the time my mom brought me to the restaurant because she didn't have a sitter and I needed to be there, I think I just naturally just fell into it from childhood. I never really thought of anything else, to be honest with you. Was really never interested in anything else other than being in the kitchen. And there were times, I remember when I was a kid that my mom couldn't bring me to work.
When you're a kid, sometimes it's more of a hassle unless you really need to bring your kid to work, to bring them to work. And she would make me stay home and I would just remember just crying and bawling and saying, I want to go, and she would have to distract me with a bowl of mixing flour or whatever at home. And then once I would get busy with that, then she would slip out and go to work. So I think I just naturally enjoyed it, being in the kitchen and whether they would have me crack eggs or mix this or mix that or scoop this, I just really enjoyed myself being in that environment and keeping myself busy working with food. And during our summers, that's where we would go. My whole family would work in the restaurant business with my mom and my dad and helping out and I in particular, and my sister would be in the kitchen helping out.
So I wasn't interested in music, I wasn't interested in art, I wasn't interested in anything else but being in the kitchen. Of course the dream was I want to own my own restaurant one day like my parents or maybe take over their business or help out and there wasn't really anything else.
Jessie Sheehan:
You've said that you have had very little formal education in pastry, which is particularly remarkable in light of the fact you've been nominated in the James Beard Awards outstanding pastry chef category for eight consecutive years running and a win for outstanding pastry chef or baker in 2023. So when you were at the Cordon Bleu and at the CIA, you just focused on savory, was there a pastry unit?
Margarita Manzke:
When I was at the Cordon Bleu, I did a part of it in pastry. I did both pastry and savory, but at the CIA, it was just the savory part of it, although they had maybe a couple of weeks of pastry. The thing about pastry is that when I was a kid, that's what I love to do. I love to bake and I was pretty confident. It came naturally to me. As I got older and I really knew that I really wanted to be in the restaurant business, cooking in the kitchen, I was very insecure about my cooking skills. I wasn't confident about seasoning this correctly or how to saute this correctly. So that's what I pursued and I said I have to learn how to cook first before opening my own restaurant because I was already confident in pastry and I loved it.
When I graduated, the jobs that I pursued were also in the kitchen. I did develop my cooking skills and I really enjoyed it as well. The pastry part was really, I don't want to say an accident, but it wasn't planned. We moved to Carmel and we opened this tiny restaurant with 50 seats and we couldn't hire a pastry chef because 50 seat restaurant, there was only four of us in the kitchen, eventually five. The person with most pastry experience was me, and so it fell on me and they just said, just make whatever you know. And eventually my husband and I, he's the cooking part and I'm the bread and pastry part. That's how it turned out.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back. Today's episode is presented by California Prunes. I'm a California Prunes fan when it comes to smart snacking and baking. First off, California Prunes are good for your gut, your heart, and even your bones. Prunes contain dietary fiber and other nutrients to support good gut health, potassium to support heart health and vitamin K, copper, and antioxidants to support healthy bones. And of course, prunes are a great addition to scones, cakes and crackers. Anything you are baking that calls for dried fruit, consider California Prunes. Prunes work perfectly in recipes with rich and complex flavors like espresso, olives and chilies, and they enhance the flavor of warm spices, toffee, caramel, and chocolate.
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Kerry Diamond:
Hi everybody, I'm Kerry Diamond, the founder of Cherry Bombe and the editor-in-chief of Cherry Bombe Magazine. The Cherry Bombe online shop is temporarily closed because we're switching warehouses. If you are looking for the newest issue of Cherry Bombe, be sure to visit one of our amazing stockists. Cherry Bombe is carried by great bookstores, cafes, magazine shops and culinary boutiques across the country and abroad. Places like Back In The Day Bakery in Savannah, Good Cakes and Bakes in Detroit, and Le Dix-Sept Pâtisserie in San Francisco. Visit cherrybombe.com for a stockist near you.
Jessie Sheehan:
So now we're going to talk about the coconut cream pie. Buko is a young coconut, although a traditional buko pie is a double crusted with chunks of young coconut, and your version is a teeny bit different because it's a single crust blind baked pie with pastry cream. I love this, the bottom, and we're going to talk about it, but the bottom is smeared with this incredible coconut jam. Then there's the coconut pastry cream. Then there's whipped cream, and I think I read there's whipped cream because you love whipped cream, and I wanted to just a high five to whipped cream. Because I love whipped cream too. So first things first with this recipe, we're going to make pâte brisée. Pâte brisée is just a fancy word for pie dough, correct?
Margarita Manzke:
Correct. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I thought this was really interesting. With your recipe, you use a stand mixer and I feel like a lot of people think you should use your hands or you should use a food processor. What makes you like to use the stand mixer?
Margarita Manzke:
We have to make lots of it, and it's the easiest way to mix a big batch of dough. The paddle works great mixing the butter and the flour together and breaking it down into pea size pieces, coating that fat with the flour. So I mean either one, I've used both. Small batches I just use my hands in a bowl. Big batches I use a stand mixer with a paddle.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is it just like a huge Hobart at the restaurant? It's not like a KitchenAid or something.
Margarita Manzke:
Yeah, I think we have a Globe and a Hobart, which they both work very well.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. So in the stand mixer, we're going to mix some flour.
Margarita Manzke:
We use central milling flour right now, and sometimes King Arthur is great too. Sir Galahad, for all-purpose flour.
Jessie Sheehan:
So it's all-purpose flour, sugar, fine sea salt. And is there a reason you use fine rather than kosher or do you...
Margarita Manzke:
I like the flavor of sea salt better than kosher. I think it's just cleaner and kosher salt is really light. So as far as my recipes, the sea salt... If I use kosher salt, I tend to put more and it just doesn't work with my recipes, I think. The one that we use right now is juice toast sea salt.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then you're going to add kind of a lot of high fat butter and kind of blend it till pea size. Should we have our... If we wanted to try and give it a try in a stand mixer, even if we were only making one pie, would you put it on a low speed at this point?
Margarita Manzke:
Yes, definitely low speed.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, perfect. And the butter's very cold.
Margarita Manzke:
Butter has to be cold. A lot of times we put it in the freezer for a good 30 minutes.
Jessie Sheehan:
After you cube it?
Margarita Manzke:
After we cube it, before we add it to the flour into the mixer.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then you're going to add some water and some vinegar. The water's very cold as well.
Margarita Manzke:
Yep, correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
And a little bit of vinegar. Is that for tenderness?
Margarita Manzke:
Yes. We use apple cider vinegar. We've also used white vinegar. It's just really the acid, something that's more neutral and obviously not a balsamic vinegar or anything darker.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then you're going to pat your dough into a disc, chill it for at least an hour, and then pull it from the fridge and bang it with your rolling pin. Is there a kind of rolling pin?
Margarita Manzke:
We use wooden rolling pins at work, and it's just like a uniform all the way down.
Jessie Sheehan:
It doesn't taper.
Margarita Manzke:
The one that tapers. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. And the banging is just to sort of... You want it to be cold, but the banging sort of helps to soften it a little bit. Loosen it up.
Margarita Manzke:
Yes, exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then I love this, because I do this as well. You put the disc that's now sort of flatten out a bit between two pieces of parchment before you roll it out. Can you tell us why you do that?
Margarita Manzke:
That's just really to prevent from sticking, because sometimes, depending on how cold your room is, if it's not cold enough to keep the dough from getting too soft right away, I like to put it in between two parchment papers so I can roll it and then turn it, roll it, turn it, roll it, turn it easily without having to lift up the dough when it starts to get warm, and then it starts to kind of deform and maybe tear. For easy handling of the dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I love it also because I like to keep things very tight and clean when I work, and I love that I'm not having to flour my counter.
Margarita Manzke:
Exactly that too.
Jessie Sheehan:
Also, I think this is true, right? When I use parchment, it means I'm using much less flour because we're not worried about the stickiness. So I feel like cleanliness and less flour, it's like a win.
Margarita Manzke:
Win-win. Yeah. If you use parchment, sometimes it gets tight, right? I just loosen it by peeling the parchment off and then putting it back on.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Then you're going to transfer it to a 10-inch pie plate. And do you peel off the top and then flip it over into the pie plate and then peel off the other piece?
Margarita Manzke:
Yes. You're good. You know what you're talking about. Yeah, try it.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're using a 10-inch pie plate and I wonder, do you like glass? Do you like metal?
Margarita Manzke:
What we use at work is either ceramic or glass.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. I like glass because I like to be able to see if the bottom has browned, but I also love... I do feel like the metal just can make for a very beautiful even crust and sometimes a little faster. And I know this is a 10-inch pie plate. Do you think it would work in a 9-inch or is it really, you might have some overflowing pastry cream?
Margarita Manzke:
You can definitely use a 9-inch. I've used a 9-inch before.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, great.
Margarita Manzke:
It works.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to crimp the edge of the dough and freeze for about 20 minutes and then blind bake at about 350 degrees for about 40 minutes with parchment and pie weights, and then take those off and go another 20 minutes till golden brown. I thought this was so interesting because usually I feel like instructions to parbake, the temperature's much higher and it's for maybe a shorter amount of time. How did you land on 350 for your parbake?
Margarita Manzke:
We've done trial and error here, and this is what we've concluded, and that's also, to be very honest, we're baking lots of things sometimes at the same time. The good temperature to compromise for a lot of baking stuff is 350, 325 or 350. So that time is good for 350 temperature.
Jessie Sheehan:
So next thing we're going to do is make the coconut jam, and I just love... I've never made a coconut jam. I cannot wait to do so. But you're going to simmer some coconut cream and it's that sort of the unsweetened coconut cream you see in a can in the grocery store?
Margarita Manzke:
Yes. I like Chaokoh. I find that when I use the other brands, sometimes they are not creamy enough and they're watery. They don't have the right consistency.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're simmering our coconut cream with some brown sugar. I wondered why brown rather than granulated?
Margarita Manzke
Brown sugar gives it more of a caramelly, molassesy taste than white sugar.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then a little bit of fine sea salt, which we talked about, and we're going to simmer over medium heat. Is there a type of sauce pan that you like to use? Maybe it's different in the restaurant versus home, or maybe not.
Margarita Manzke:
As long as it for me is like a heavy bottom stainless steel pan. I don't like to use aluminum because sometimes it discolors and it gives off a certain metallic aftertaste. So I always go stainless steel and the best ones are the heavy bottom ones, so it doesn't scorch right away.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to cook until very thick, about 20 to 30 minutes. And are we stirring continuously and are we on a very low heat?
Margarita Manzke:
We stir every five to 10 minutes or so just to make sure that it's not scorching in the bottom or sticking or anything like that.
Jessie Sheehan:
And do you use a whisk or a spatula? Does it really not matter as long as you're kind of making sure the bottom is being moved around?
Margarita Manzke:
I use a heat-resistant spatula or a wooden spoon, but a spatula works great.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do we have a low heat or medium low, something like that?
Margarita Manzke:
Medium low is good, just as long as it's simmering, bubbling but not boiling.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I can imagine the jam just adds incredible flavor. But what's the purpose of the jam in this pie? Is it a different texture as well as more of a bright coconut flavor?
Margarita Manzke:
You cook down the coconut cream so it caramelizes and it just gives a different... It's a very different flavor. Coconut flavor from the young coconut. You kind of taste two different coconut flavors in the pie. Who doesn't like caramel? And so this is kind of like the caramel part of it, but it's coconut jam.
Jessie Sheehan:
Does it need to come to room temp before we're going to use it in the pie dough or does it need to be cold?
Margarita Manzke:
Room temp. Yeah, I mean I wouldn't use it straight out of the pan. After you cooked it, you need to cool it down and then it sets a little bit just like jam. It's kind of still loose right after you cook it, but then when you cool it down, refrigerate it, it sets a little bit and then you spread it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Next we're going to make the coconut pastry cream. We're going to use a whisk. Is there a type of whisk you like?
Margarita Manzke:
The metal whisks. It's kind of like the whipping whisk.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to whisk together some whole milk, some cornstarch, some egg yolks in a bowl. And again, is it sort of at the restaurant it's big metal bowls?
Margarita Manzke:
Yeah, a stainless steel bowl is always good to use because it doesn't really impart any aftertaste. It keeps the flavor clean, whereas plastic sometimes has a smell of another food or whatever.
Jessie Sheehan:
You wouldn't use glass bowls in the restaurant.
Margarita Manzke:
Glass bowls are... Not in the restaurant. I use it at home.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, me too. So whisk the milk, the cornstarch, the egg yolks in a bowl. Set that aside. Now we're going to cook some coconut milk, whole milk, granulated sugar and vanilla in the stainless steel sauce pan. And we're going to boil that, whisking constantly and then temper that egg yolk mixture, put a little bit of the egg yolk mixture in and whisk, whisk, whisk until the eggs come to the same temperature as the warm coconut milk mixture. And then once it's all together, whisk for about one minute. Is that just to make sure that corn starch gets activated?
Margarita Manzke:
Yeah, just to make sure the corn starch is cooked so that it doesn't give off that starchy flavor or that taste in the tongue of uncooked starch.
Jessie Sheehan:
Also, I feel like...
Margarita Manzke:
When it's smooth and velvety.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, sometimes if you pull too soon it won't set because the corn starch never got hot enough. Then we're going to transfer this mixture to the stand mixer again, fitted with the paddle attachment, and then on low speed while it's hot, you're going to start to add your butter. Does the pastry cream at this point have to be hot? Could you bring it to room temp and add the butter or do you want it to be hot when you add the butter?
Margarita Manzke:
Normally you bring it to a temperature where it doesn't totally melt the butter, but it melts it slowly to emulsify in the pastry cream.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you wouldn't want all of the butter to melt immediately, but you want it just to be that sort of sweet spot, as you said, where it emulsifies?
Margarita Manzke:
Yes, exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then you'd continue to mix until the mixture cools down and now you're going to add some fresh young coconut meat in one inch pieces. Is that from a fresh coconut? Like a green coconut?
Margarita Manzke:
Yes. I mean you can buy it in Asian grocery stores or I've seen it in regular grocery stores as well, but definitely in Asian ones and it comes already peeled and sometimes it's wrapped in plastic. It's the white coconut.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm just imagining because I can't wait to make this, but I'm imagining when you eat it, the chunks are in the pastry cream.
Margarita Manzke:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I love that. It's like a third texture.
Margarita Manzke:
So yeah, you definitely get the texture of the young coconut.
Jessie Sheehan:
And it's pretty soft when it's young, right? When it's still coming out of a green coconut. So now we pour into a container, I assume that can be any container you have. You just want to cover the top with plastic so it doesn't form a skin and then keep it room temperature while you continue with assembly, or do you stick it in the fridge briefly? Do you want it to be cold?
Margarita Manzke:
It's cooled down already in the mixer, and then you put the plastic cling film on top, and then I normally stick it in the fridge, but if I'm going to use it right away, I just put it straight in the pie.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to make some toasted coconut and you're going to toast unsweetened, shredded coconut. I wondered if there was a brand or is that just sort of a local product you're getting?
Margarita Manzke:
Yeah, I mean as long as it's the shredded one, I think there's a couple. You can get the shredded one that looks like little pieces of string, but you can also use the wide variety where it's not shredded and it's unsweetened because those toast really well too, and they look really nice on top of the pie.
Jessie Sheehan:
I agree. I love that and I love this. We're going to toast in a heavy bottomed pan over medium heat. I always use the oven. Is there a reason you guys use the stove top? Is it the issue of room in the oven or do you prefer to toast nuts and coconut and things like that on the stove top?
Margarita Manzke:
The stove top, when I'm toasting a small amount, and obviously you have to continuously toss it in the pan, but we use the oven for nuts for big batches, whichever you're more comfortable doing honestly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to make the coconut whipped cream, which is stand mixer, whisk attachment, and more whisking cream confection or sugar on low speed. Then increasing the speed as the cream begins to stiffen and then whipping until stiff peaks. I will sometimes use coconut extract, which I know for many is not okay. But I wondered if there was any coconut flavor you ever thought about trying to put in the whipped cream for yet another kind of coconut experience or if you kind of like that there is part of this cake that's still creamy and milky, but in a very kind of clean, unflavored way?
Margarita Manzke:
I don't like using extracts as much as... And I'm not saying I've never used it. I have used it before and I don't see anything wrong with it, but sometimes for me, some of the extracts give an artificial flavor. And for me, there's a lot of coconut in the pie already, and I don't think it's necessary to put a flavoring that sometimes I think sometimes gives off an artificial flavor. For me, that kind of ruins it a little bit. What I have done though is if I want to have a coconut cream or whipped cream is I infuse coconut flakes or even toasted coconut into the cream, bring it up to a boil with the sugar in it already and strain that.
And then I add... And it's in the cookbook as well, there's a recipe for that cream, and I add a little bit of kappa carrageenan, which is just a really, really small amount to make the cream. It's kind of like a stabilizer and you cool that cream down and then it sets because of the carrageenan, and then you're able to whip that into a really nice consistency, really velvety and smooth.
Jessie Sheehan:
That sounds delicious. I wonder if you could also even just take the heavy cream, infuse it with the coconut, maybe overnight, like a cold infusion or even a warm infusion.
Margarita Manzke:
Yeah, that definitely works.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then once it's cold again, so maybe the cold infusion is the way to go. That would be yummy as well. So now we assemble, we're going to spread the coconut jam on the bottom of the pie shell, spread the pastry cream on top of that, spread the whipped cream on top of that, filling the pies till it's just below the rim, sprinkle with the toasted coconut and then refrigerate for about three hours to eight hours.
Margarita Manzke:
Yeah, you would want it to set definitely because you want clean slices. If you slice it right away, it's just going to...
Jessie Sheehan:
You'll be sad. And I know there's also a mango passion fruit version of this cream pie. Can you tell us about the mango passion fruit cream pie?
Margarita Manzke:
Yeah. When mangoes are in season and they're called Manila mangoes, they're very similar to the mangoes that we have in the Philippines. They come from Mexico, I believe. When this is in season, our guests go crazy over it. It's a version of it except that we add passion fruit curd in the bottom of the pie instead of the coconut jam, and then it's the same pastry cream with the coconut, or you can take the coconut out either way. And then the whipped cream on top, and then we fill the top with fresh cut mangoes and it's delicious.
Jessie Sheehan:
That sounds incredible. It's the mango underneath the whipped cream or is there no whipped cream?
Margarita Manzke:
It's the whipped cream and then the mangoes covering the whole pie is covered with mangoes. You can't see the whipped cream, so when you slice into it, you get fresh mangoes, the whipped cream, the pastry cream, and the passion curd.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.
Margarita Manzke:
And the flavors go very well together.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, that sounds so delicious. I just wanted to ask you about one or two other recipes from the book. Can you tell us about the thick cut, caramelized French toast? It sounds so delicious. I'm not like a big French toast person.
Margarita Manzke:
It is. It's one of our signature dishes during the daytime, the cafe. And when we opened, Walter my husband, just said, why don't you just bake these gigantic brioche loaves? And instead of what? 10 years ago, maybe everybody would do the French toast in thinner pieces and a lot of them shingled. He just thought, let's just make one big slab of brioche French toast. And that's what we did. Before we put the French toast in the pan, we put some sugar on the pan down, caramelize it a little bit, and then put the French toast on top. So then as it cooks, the sugar caramelizes and it all sticks to the French toast. It has a layer, a thin layer of caramelized sugar.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love your husband for the slab genius situation. That is so smart. I can picture the thin shingled pieces and I'm like, give me a slab.
Margarita Manzke:
I know. And it's great because you think that it's a big slab and it's a thick French toast, but then when you put your fork into it's the most fluffy tender because it's warm and it's super soft.
Jessie Sheehan:
And does the bread because it's so thick, do you soak it in the custard overnight or...
Margarita Manzke:
We do. At least an hour, but if not overnight.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Thank you so much for chatting with me today, Margarita. And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Margarita Manzke:
Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Plugrà premium European style butter and California Prunes for their support. Don't forget to subscribe to She's My Cherry Pie on your favorite podcast platform, and tell your baking buddies about us. Be sure to check out our other episodes and get tips and tricks for making the most popular baked goods around from birthday cake to biscuits to blondies. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network and is recorded at CityVox 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.