Aleksandra Crapanzano Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You're 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 four baking books, including “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes.” On each episode, I hang out with the sweetest bakers around and take a deep dive into their signature bakes.
Today's guest is Aleksandra Crapanzano, a journalist, cookbook author, screenwriter, and consultant. Aleksandra grew up in New York and Paris, among other places, and much of her work celebrates French food and culture. She's the author of several cookbooks, including “Gateau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes,” and her latest, “Chocolat: Parisian Desserts and Other Delights,” which will be out this October. The book is part cookbook, part cultural dispatch, blending timeless French technique with playful Parisian flair. Her recipes and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, the Atlantic, Town & Country, and Food & Wine. And she's a recipient of the James Beard Foundation's M.F.K. Fisher Award for Distinguished Writing. Aleksandra joins me today to talk about her childhood in Paris, including the after-school walks she took with her beloved dog to her favorite creperie and pâtisserie, some of the differences between French and American home baking, like the fact of French use sugar as a seasoning like we use salt and that they rarely use vanilla unless they're actually making a vanilla-flavored baked good, and her serendipitous entry into the world of food writing. She also walks me through her chocolate Madeleine recipe from the new book, and I can't wait to share our conversation with you. Stay tuned. You can find today's recipe on Cherry Bombe’s Substack.
Today's episode is presented by California Prunes. If you're a long-time listener, I'm a long-time fan of California Prunes. They're good for your bones, your gut, and even your heart, but most importantly, they're just a good snack and I love a good snack. They're in my cabinet right now because they satisfy my sweet tooth at a moment's notice. Of course I also love baking with them. They have such a complex flavor that gets even deeper when paired with chocolate or warm spices or nuts. Some of my favorite recipes are my famously delicious cream scones with chopped prunes, my sticky toffee pudding with prunes, and I've even added prunes to my chocolate banana bread. Each recipe has 100% been better for it, but if you don't believe me, you can try all of these recipes for yourself at my website, jessiesheehanbakes.com. My big tip is that anything you bake with dried fruit, from oatmeal cookies to granola, scones, and muffins, is a prune moment. You can use them whole because they're so nice and juicy, or chop them up to spread the joy. They also help you hit some of your health goals. And if I can do that with a cookie, I'm happy. 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. There's a reason they've been on grocery store shelves since the 1800s. For more recipes and info, check out the California Prunes website at californiaprunes.org. That's californiaprunes.org.
Peeps, guess who was on the cover of Cherry Bombe's Italy issue? It's Chef Missy Robbins of Lilia, Misi, and MISIPASTA in New York City, and Chef Nancy Silverton of Osteria Mozza, Chi Spacca, and more in Los Angeles. Yes, we have two covers. We couldn't be more excited to have these two iconic chefs grace the cover. Their careers have focused on bringing the best of Italian cooking to the U.S. The entire issue is about la dolce vita with delicious recipes, beautiful photography, and stories that will transport you straight to the trattorias, bakeries, and gelato stands. The Italy issue is out now. Head to cherrybombe.com or click the link in our show notes to order your copy.
Let's chat with today's guest. Aleksandra, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie, and to talk chocolate Madeleines with you and so much more.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Oh, my goodness. Thank you for having me.
Jessie Sheehan:
So at seven months old, you started traveling back and forth to Paris. Your mother was Jane Kramer. She was the European correspondent for the New Yorker, and by 10, you'd moved there permanently, and you have so many amazing early French and Swiss baked goods and sweets memories. And please, will you tell us about the chocolate piano that you ate when you were seven in Switzerland?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
I will. Oh, my gosh. It was exquisite and I wish I had taken a photograph of it. I was eight years old. It was an incredibly, incredibly hard, sad time. My parents had been in a car crash. They were both in intensive care. They had been flown to Switzerland, where there's a really good teaching hospital and I led this very strange existence of kind of going, I was eight years old, of living in this wonderful hotel where they took incredible care of me. And I would go in the afternoons to Sprüngli, which was the great chocolate house of Zurich. And it was two floors. The second floor was a cafe with huge French windows. It was absolutely glorious and I ordered the same thing every afternoon and I swear that chocolate piano saved me. It was literally a chocolate baby grand piano. The keys were in white chocolate.
I mean, there was dark chocolate. There was a milk chocolate mousse in the inside and even a stool, which was incredible, with a little kind of tufted top to it. And I would very slowly every afternoon eat it kind of piece by piece and it absolutely saved me.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then tell us about I think there was a caramel you ate when you were 11, maybe at a fancy French restaurant.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
You've really done your research. I love this. So when we finally moved to Paris, I was 10 years old, and at that point the dollar was super, super strong. So I really got to eat in places that were incredible and my parents took me down to Vézelay to Marc Meneau's L'Esperance, which still is the greatest, most sublime meal of my life. And I'll never forget, I popped a caramel into my mouth and it just exploded, but perfectly. Not an explosion or not a little ooziness, but just kind of it opened up and it was so ethereal. And yet it was caramel and I was just wowed. I was completely wowed.
Jessie Sheehan:
Soft caramel, not hard caramel?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
It was a soft caramel, but it wasn't pasty. It really was a kind of miracle of chemistry.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love, love, love. And then also I love learning about this. So when you were little, you would walk your dog after school. You would often go to a creperie for very special crêpes, which I think now you make for your son.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
I do.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us about walking to the crêperie with your dog.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
So I've always had the same breed of dogs, and they're Bouvier, Bouvier des Flandres. And this one was Romeo who came from Normandy and he was 125 pounds. And I was, at that point, 80 pounds I think, but I had this enormous dog. And in Paris I was really safe, especially with that dog. And so I would come home after school and we lived on the du Cherche-Midi. So I would walk down the Rue du Cherche-Midi as I passed Poilâne, the great French bakery. The woman there would always come out and she would bring him a little punition, those little great cookies that they make at Poilâne. Still my favorite. So we would kind of walk by there and then I would go to the corner of the Rue Bonaparte and Saint-Germain. There was a woman who made these great crepes at a crepe stand. And I would always have two. I would one with chestnut inside and one with just a little bit of lemon and sugar and they were so good. And I still think they're the breakfast of champions.
Jessie Sheehan:
When you make them now for your son, what flavor?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
He loves them with jam inside, but he also does. He's got a good taste for lemon and raw sugar.
Jessie Sheehan:
It reminds me of like a Dutch baby when you do it with lemon and sugar, which people are always like, "Lemon for breakfast?" But it's so good, so delicious.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
It just cuts the butter.
Jessie Sheehan:
So good.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yeah. And there's a famous French children's book called “Sans Famille,” and there's a description of this incredibly poor family. And once in a while when they have enough money the mother makes crêpes for the son and just the smell of the butter melting, it was so evocative. So I always think of that, too.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then the last sort of early memory that I wanted to talk about, you described snack time at four o'clock, friends' houses. What kinds of yummy treats were being given to you by your friends maman or mère.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Almost entirely yogurt cakes or these little ... And I love yogurt cakes. I mean, there are great yogurt cakes in “Gateau,” in my last book, and in this one, chocolate ones. So easy, and the yogurt really does, it makes it tender. It's so easy. Kids learn how to make a yogurt cake in Maternelle, which is nursery school. And literally they use the little ceramic or glass cups that the yogurt is sold in and they use that to measure the ingredients. And it's done in one bowl with one whisk. And because it has oil in it and because it has yogurt in it, it's completely foolproof. There's nothing that can ever go wrong, so it's great. And the other thing, and there's a recipe in “Chocolat” for this, where these little treats made with cornflakes, a little American import there. And you're really just taking a big bowl of cornflakes and you're pouring in a little bit of hot chocolate, melted chocolate essentially with maybe some honey in it, maybe a little vanilla, whatever you want to add to it.
And you just toss it with your hands, which is really funny. And then you just drop clusters of it onto parchment and put it in the fridge. So I mean, it's so easy. You don't need to preheat the oven, you don't need to worry about heat, you don't need to worry about anything. There's no egg, there's nothing raw on it. It's perfect. And no matter how you drop them, they somehow do come out looking like flowers. It's kind of amazing. I mean, it's the only time I have cornflakes, but you can also put them into little muffin tins and then just put the muffin tin into the fridge. And there you are.
Jessie Sheehan:
So delicious. We'll be right back.
Peeps, did you hear the news? Cherry Bombe's Jubilee conference is headed to Los Angeles this fall. It's taking place Sunday, September 28th, at Hudson Loft in downtown L.A. It'll be a full day of inspiring conversations, delicious food and drink, and incredible community. Since 2014, this one-of-a-kind gathering has celebrated the voices and talents of women across the worlds of food, drink, restaurants, and hospitality. Now it’s L.A.'s turn, and we can't wait to give the city the love it deserves. Tickets are sold out, but sign up for the waitlist at cherrybombe.com and be the first to know if more tickets become available.
Now, back to our guest. Was there any at-home baking or cooking? I know you once cooked a chicken for your babysitter, but in general, were you cooking and baking? Were you already kind of excited about doing that, even in Paris?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes, I was simply because I loved food shopping. I've always loved food shopping. Not a supermarket, but little. And also because you can take your dog everywhere in Paris. When I walked the dog in the afternoon, when I walked Romeo, we would stop and we would go to the various stores for food. And I loved the way that the Parisians would talk to the shopkeeper about what it was that they were cooking because it really is, it's a process of seduction. You want the best meat, you want the best whatever. You have to convince the person to sell you that. And so I really became fascinated early on, and the ingredients were just so good, but it is true that the first time I really started to cook was because I had a babysitter, but she could not cook anything.
And I thought, "You know what? I'm just not going to eat this horrible food." So I started actually cooking for me when the babysitter was there. And also my mother really never baked. It was just not her thing and so I started doing that early. I remember the first thing I actually made, though, was not a yogurt cake. It was the torts that are made in Caprese that are just different kinds of nuts and chocolate, flourless. Super, super easy. And I remember still making that cake and I remember that my father had a meeting in the house. He's a professor and he and his colleague ended up eating it. I remember from the other room hearing them talk about it and I thought, "Oh, my gosh, this is the fastest way to praise."
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you remember how old you were when you would've started baking like that?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Probably definitely by 10.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Incredible, love. I love to ask this question, but I'm assuming the answer's going to be no, but maybe I'm wrong. Any food TV?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
No.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
I was really not allowed to watch TV.
Jessie Sheehan:
So maybe there would've been some available, but it wasn't. Yeah.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
No, no. And I was allowed to watch, when we moved to Paris, I was allowed to watch only two things and dubbed in French so that I could ... I mean, my parents were not strict, but they were not big on TV. But I would watch “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “County,” and “Little House on the Prairie” dubbed in French.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my gosh.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
It was so bad. It was so bad.
Jessie Sheehan:
I watched more “Little House on the Prairie” than “Dukes of Hazzard,” but I remember both of them vividly. What about cookbooks? I know it sounds like Julia Child was around. Were there other cookbooks that either you had or you borrowed from your mom?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes. Patricia Wells was a pal of my parents. And so she was the restaurant critic at Le Figaro, but then she did “Bistro Cooking,” which is still a seminal book for me. I remember the “Silver Palate Cookbook” from that period.
Jessie Sheehan:
Baking books or not really?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
No, but I did get a subscription really early on to Gourmet and that was huge for me. What's interesting in France is that people don't have a lot of cookbooks. They're baking and cooking the classics essentially at home, so they're generally taught how to do that. And then they'll have a couple cookbooks, maybe a couple just reference ones, but I don't remember that world opening up to me at that point, whereas I do remember the magazines, particularly Gourmet.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. So after college at Harvard, I know this, you went to film school at NYU. So at least at this point in your trajectory, the idea of pursuing a job in food wasn't really on your radar, although you were cooking a lot, baking a lot. Now you're in the United States, but the idea of a food job was not there.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Totally. No, not at all. So in graduate school, we had no money. My husband is a writer. I was in graduate school. We had no money, and I still wanted to eat well. So I realized I can't go out, but I can cook. And I really started cooking seriously then in a different way because I was cooking every night, but I never thought of it. And then my last year of film school, my money job when I was finishing my thesis film was to be a field producer for Martha Stewart's CBS show in the Westbrook Studio. She had one of the great cookbook collections. I mean cookbook library. Bigger than my apartment at the time. And if I was taking a break, or at the end of the day, or waiting for the train, or whatever it was, I would go and I would just look at the cookbooks. And I would Xerox a couple recipes and I just started reading cookbooks really seriously then. And then I started writing and I signed a big agent and all of that. And then suddenly there was a writer's guild strike.
And during the writer's guild strike, I thought, "You know what? Writing is a muscle." My son had just been born and I knew I wanted to take off time. I knew I didn't want to go back and forth to LA or to London where I was also doing a lot of work, but I wanted to write. And I very randomly sent in an article to the New York Times magazine to Amanda Hesser, who I had met once, and said, "Can I write something for you?" I mean, it was insane to me to think I could start with the New York Times, but she loved it and I did that for 18 months.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
And I think I always knew that I was going to write books and I always knew that food would continue to be enormously important. And I always knew that I would probably write a movie to do with food at some point, but then suddenly everything eventually started to connect.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, it's such an incredible story. Of course, after the New York Times magazine, Ruth Reichl approached you about writing for Gourmet. That must have been like an incredible pinch-me moment, having been a child who read Gourmet Magazine.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Amazing, amazing moment. I am completely devoted to her. She called me up. She'd read something I had written for Food & Wine and said, "Come write for us." And she gave me incredible freedom. And it was short-lived because Gourmet shuttered, which was just a terrible, terrible thing, but it was the first time that I had been asked and allowed to write really whatever I wanted. It wasn't writing 500 words about X. And that really changed my perception of what...
Jessie Sheehan:
Were either the New York Times magazine job or the Gourmet job, did they involve recipe development or was it more like food journalism?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
No, no. The New York Times definitely involved recipes, but Gourmet just was essays, personal essays. It was heaven. Debra Needleman, who was starting off duty at the Wall Street Journal, called me up and said, "Would you come write a food column?"
Jessie Sheehan:
The same Debra Needleman who now makes baskets upstate?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
My husband grows willow and is into basket weaving, et cetera, so I know the name well.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
She was amazing. It was such an incredibly exciting place at the time.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my gosh.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
And I ended up writing about food for the Journal for 15 years.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
So long time.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then I know you had a column for a while there, A Little Something Sweet.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
I did for almost 15 years.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because I'm interested in this journey. You're one of those people who probably cooks as well. She bakes, but you're writing, at least the last couple of books, are about baking. So I'm interested in this transition, if there was one. Did you pitch that because baking was sort of true to your heart?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
I did. I pitched it because I do believe in, and this was why I pitched the title, too, A Little Something Sweet, I do believe that we all do need a little something sweet. And this goes right back to France and it actually goes right back to chocolate, too, for me, is when I was in Paris what I really learned was that you can have a little something sweet every day. And that the way to do that is not to have a five-layer cake with five inches of frosting. It's to have something that is just a little something sweet that happens to just be also a little bit sweet, meaning a square of dark chocolate, or a small bite of a flourless chocolate cake, or a chocolate Madeleine, or it can be a taste of a punition, a cookie.
Jessie Sheehan:
A single caramel.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
A single caramel, something that marks that day. And this is what I really love, too, about the French, is that they do believe that exquisite things can and should be eaten every day. And so I wanted to bring that concept to readers of the Wall Street Journal, which was dessert doesn't have to be scary. It can be as simple as pouring a little amaretto on some watermelon and cutting it in chunks and you've got something great.
Jessie Sheehan:
I read this, which I thought was really interesting. It's a little out of context because I can't exactly remember where I read it, but you said that baking is the easiest aspect of cooking. Unpack that for me because so many people, as we both know, are terrified of baking because they see it as science and rigid. I actually agree with that because I love food, but I don't love to cook. I'm not a riffer. That's why I love to bake because I like to follow rules and I like to make rules, but tell me about that.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
It's so true. Well, first of all, I think cakes look complicated. And as we both know, they couldn't be easier. I mean, it is about following a recipe. And if the recipe is good, the cake's going to work. Right? And to me, the fact that they're done in advance is really key. In other words, if I'm having people over to dinner, the dessert is always the easiest thing because it's usually done in advance. And you know that dinner's going to end beautifully. It's all's well that ends well, right? Is that ...
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, it is.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes. Let me put my Shakespeare here. But if you end a meal with something like something chocolate or a cake, that is often what people also remember. But I do think the reason why people think that desserts are so complicated is that desserts don't look like what they are, right? I mean, if you serve fish, it will probably look like fish. If you serve a steak, it looks like a steak. There is that transformative thing in dessert that I think scares people away because it's kind of, well, wait a second, how did it get from the eggs and the flour and the sugar into this beautiful domed cake? What is that process? I think it's really easy, actually, compared to that last minute. Is everything perfectly cooked? You can smell, right? You can smell when a cake is done if you're really paying attention. And I know that people say that you can smell when a chicken is done, but it takes a lot more practice. It's different.
Jessie Sheehan:
So “Chocolat” is your fourth book, and these books are mostly cookbooks. They are cookbooks and all written ... I loved this. There's a theme in the sense that they, at least the first three, are definitely written due to something changing in the food scene in London, in L.A., and in Paris. Talk to us about that. That seems so journalistic to me in a way. You're approaching the recipes through this journalistic lens of noticing something like the forest for the trees, as it were.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Absolutely. So when I was, I would say, probably within the first five years of writing for the Wall Street Journal, I began to notice that I was reading a lot of really great British cookbooks, particularly Nigel Slater. I loved Nigella Lawson. I mean, there was all of the Ruthie Rogers books on the River Cafe, hugely influential to me, Fergus Henderson. And I thought, wait a second. When I was growing up, my mother's best friend was in London. She was British and we used to go from Paris to London, back and forth and back and forth. And we would always bring food from Paris to London because the food in London was so bad. And I thought what has happened? And I was also going to London a lot in film because I was doing a lot of film work there and I suddenly would walk around Soho, which in London is the film Soho world, and I would see all of these people eating and the food was incredibly good and it was incredibly international.
It was full of flavor and boldness and I thought something has really changed here. And I love that journalistic thing of thinking how is it that a city has gone from having terrible food to having great food? What is that process of transformation and how did that process happen so quickly. For London, it was really figuring out that there were a couple of great cooks who happened to be great teachers. And so the next generation were trained by Ruthie Rogers, Rose Gray, Fergus Henderson. And that began a whole other generation and then that generation had grown up with cooks who knew how to teach. And so then you get another generation and it kind of spread. And that combined with how international the city was moved me tremendously. And then I also witnessed that in L.A., a place where you either had martinis and steaks or you went to the outskirts of the city and had really great immigrant food, but that there wasn't anything kind of in between. And then suddenly there was an explosion of that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. There were a couple of things you said about French baking that I thought were so interesting. One is that the French use sugar like we use salt as a seasoning, not as the flavor that you should be tasting when you bite into something.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
It's so true. So when the French add sugar and Alain Ducasse, for example, when I went to visit him in the summer at his chocolate manufactory, I just heard him telling all of the cooks around less sugar, less sugar. It was always less sugar and it was really because the French want the flavor of whatever it is that you're making to be the most prominent ingredient. And I think of it a little bit like theater. You want the star to have the spotlight. And if the star is really good chocolate, then you don't want to have somebody take a bite and just taste sugar. You want them to read immediately chocolate. Or if it's an apple cake, you want them to read apple cake and not cinnamon. If it's a peach tart, you want them to taste peach. You don't want them to be distracted by something first.
So I feel like you want just enough sugar to awaken the possibility of the sweetness in the same way that you want just enough salt to bloom the flavors. Once I realized that that is actually a very French thing and not as common, it just clicked. It was like, well, of course that is why you can eat dessert every day in France, because you're eating not an enormous sugary confection. You're eating something that has such pronounced, beautiful flavor that you don't need a lot of it to be satisfied and it isn't crazy, crazy caloric.
Jessie Sheehan:
When you mentioned blooming flavor, this made me think of something else that I read that I was fascinated by, which is there is not a lot of vanilla used. Even as an American baker, which I am, I will always use vanilla because I'm working on kind of like a ginger cookie bar. And I am adding vanilla to it, even though I don't see it in a lot of other recipes, because I feel like the vanilla is going to help me bloom that ginger and that cinnamon, but I thought that it was so interesting that in France or in Paris, the kinds of recipes that you're writing, let's say, you're not going to do that unless it's a vanilla cake.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Absolutely true. And I love all of your books and your recipes. So if you're using vanilla, you're doing the right thing, I got to tell you. And I think you're absolutely right about the ginger. That makes total sense. In France, it's two things. I think one is that some of the recipes that are still made today date back to the Middle Ages and they didn't have vanilla then. They certainly didn't have vanilla extract. Vanilla was incredibly expensive. It was mostly only used by the nobility for a long, long time. I think that that is part of it and part of it goes back to this thing of French cooking at its most sublime, whether it's baking or savory cooking, is really just letting the essence of those ingredients speak for themselves. And yet when you go and you get a vanilla cake in France, I mean, it's fantastic because it will have vanilla bean in it, it'll have vanilla paste in it. It'll have vanilla in many different ways and it'll have an intense, beautiful vanilla flavor. So vanilla is considered such a primary ingredient also.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And also I thought this was fascinating, the idea that if you're going to make an apple cake, maybe you don't put in cinnamon because you actually want it to taste like an apple. You don't need that kind of warm fall cinnamon flavor going on at the same time.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes, and so I think to me, there's something about cooking. And maybe this has to do with as we grow up as cooks, I think we're maybe more confident and are able to think about subtraction as opposed to addition. I think that when I was younger and a little bit more nervous as a cook, I would feel like I needed to add things and now I want to just take things away. I want to subtract until I get to the barest amount that I need for something to be really, really great. When you taste an apple cake that has no cinnamon, it feels like you're biting into an apple and I love that. But listen, I also love in fall, I love that combination of cinnamon and sugar and apple, which we grew up with. So to me, it's all about nostalgia. If you've grown up eating cinnamon with apple, that's what you're going to want.
If you've grown up and you've had apple cakes without cinnamon, that is what you want. And yet I do feel like we want both the nostalgia and then we want something new, so try it. Try that. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So I want to talk about “Chocolat” and how it celebrates maybe Paris or maybe your love affair with chocolate. I thought this was fascinating that so many of our beloved chocolate desserts have origins in Paris, chocolate mousse, chocolate soufflé, and hot chocolate, and pain au chocolat. I thought that was fascinating. How did the idea of writing the book come to you? Are you an incredible chocoholic at heart? Tell us everything.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
I am a total. I mean, I do have to have a piece of chocolate every day, so absolutely. I mean, yes, this definitely comes from the heart. And chocolate is considered somewhat healthy, but it also has an incredible history. I mean, in the introduction, I talk about Louis XIII, XIV, XV, and XVI, who all had their own chocolate fixations and obviously Marie Antoinette. And the whole idea of chocolate over the history of France being considered at times the stuff of the devil and other times the stuff of God and how the Vatican was weighing in on whether chocolate was sacred or profane. And there is this incredible history that shows that it's just been a fixation for so, so long. But it's also true that Parisians really do have a love affair with chocolate. Walking down the streets of Paris, you will find that there is a great chocolate shop certainly every five minutes, if not every three minutes.
And they're just their exquisite temples to chocolate. I mean, they have chocolate to bake with and they have little chocolate truffles and they have chocolate bars and you can walk down the street and you suddenly get these whiffs of this incredible chocolate. And you look and you see and the people who have these shops have presented everything with such extraordinary beauty and yet it is ephemeral. It's like theater. It's going to be eaten and go away, but it is something that the French really do just deeply love. So that even when Alain Ducasse had, I think, it was 21 Michelin stars in 2013, when he decided he was going to basically turn his focus to chocolate, nobody blinked an eye. I mean, here, if one of the great chefs decided that they were suddenly going to open up a chocolate shop, he would be like, "What has happened to that person?" There, it made total sense. It was like, well, of course it needs to be explored.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. You also said something interesting, I think maybe in the introduction, that chocolate is actually an easy ingredient to bake and cook with. Why?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Because chocolate needs so few things to be good. I mean, you could make a chocolate cake with some eggs, chocolate, a little bit of sugar, some butter, maybe some almond flour. I mean, it doesn't require a lot. And if the chocolate is good, and I do believe that the chocolate does need to be really good in these recipes, but if the chocolate is good, then the rest really follows suit. The only rule about chocolate is that it doesn't like anything that's too cold or too hot. So you don't want to cook chocolate at 450 degrees and you don't want to put it in the freezer. You really want to stay in a nice middle zone and treat it gently in that respect, but otherwise, very easy. And it's also because it is the thing that people love, it's the thing that in a restaurant people get angry if you take a chocolate dessert off the menu in a restaurant.
People are very forgiving, too, I think. This is a good book for beginners that way because if you make something in chocolate, chances are it's going to taste really good. And even if it looks funny or you get something wrong or whatever it is, people, they'll still be happy.
Jessie Sheehan:
It makes people happy. Well, I want to jump into the Madeleine recipe, but before I do, one thing that I just noticed that I just wanted to ask you about, there's a buttercream recipe at the end of the book and kind of like what we think of as an American buttercream with confectioners sugar and butter. And I thought it was fascinating that to flavor it with chocolate, you're asking for a little bit of chocolate extract. Can you tell us about that? I've never used chocolate. Usually if I'm going to do that, I would've used cocoa powder maybe or I would've used a little bit of melted chocolate. Tell me about the use of chocolate extract.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
So I use it very, very rarely, but in something that I don't want to add a lot of liquid to or a lot of dryness, I'll do that. So with the chocolate extract, you don't need to add a lot more sugar, for example. You don't need to add more confectioners sugar to thicken it back up if you add too much liquid. It's just it kind of works perfectly in an icing.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Is there a brand that you love?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
That's a good question. I try and find whatever brand is pure.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I love that.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Nielsen-Massey probably.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right, so now we're going to talk about the Madeleine au chocolat. So first of all, just tell the listeners and me about them because they really are the most famous French cookies, but also kind of almost a cake. So tell us about a Madeleine.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
So a Madeleine is essentially a tiny little cake traditionally obviously made in those little Madeleine tins, which are the shape of a shell, specifically the shells that pilgrims picked up, religious pilgrims. And they are known for having their little hump, right? A good Madeleine has a little hump and that is because of the thermal shock. So if you're cooking a Madeleine traditionally, and this is not a chocolate Madeleine, you're cooking one in a fairly thin metal pan and you're putting it into a very hot oven and the thermal shock literally creates this little camel hump on the back. And I love them and I love entertaining with Madeleine. And I did this just the other night because you can make Madeleine batter, and you should make it in advance, and then you can actually even just fill the molds, put some Saran Wrap on and stick them in the fridge. And then right before dessert time, you put them into a preheated oven for 12 minutes.
Jessie Sheehan:
That was one of my questions. So you don't even need to bring them to room temp?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
No, no, no, no, no, no. And you literally go straight from the pan into the oven to the table, which works beautifully, too, because Madeleine should be eaten right away because they have this kind of transcendent beauty to them when they're eaten warm right out of the oven. And then after 15 minutes they're still delicious. After half an hour they're good, and then after an hour you want to dunk them into tea, as Bruce did. That is true of classic Madeleine. Now, for chocolate Madeleine, I do a slightly different version of the recipe in that chocolate Madeleine can sit for a little bit longer. And because chocolate doesn't want that extreme heat, I actually forget entirely about creating a little bump or hump. And I cook them at a lower oven temperature and I also make them in silicon pans usually because they're so easy.
I mean, Parisians love shortcuts. And so one of the things that has been around in, at least in France for a long time now, are silicon pans, whether they're nine-inch round pans or Madeleine pans. You don't have to butter them. You don't have to flour them or dust them with cocoa. You put the batter right in and they pop right out.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my gosh.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
So you're always getting that perfect shape. The chocolate Madeleine can take a little bit, that you can have an hour and they'll still be terrific. You can also dip them into chocolate, which kind of covers them and then they will last for a little bit longer. If you really need them to last longer, you can add a little bit of honey to them, but they are so good and, again, not too sweet. They have a lot of lightness to them and the depth from the cocoa.
Jessie Sheehan:
There is a very famous, delicate lemon-infused Madeleine made famous by Proust, but that's who we think of when we think of Madeleine.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Absolutely. So in remembrance of things past, Proust wrote about his mother noticing that he had come in from the cold one day and suggesting that he have a little bit of tea and he never drank tea. He was a coffee drinker. In fact, he was a famous coffee drinker, but he decided that one moment he would have some tea and then she asked for some Madeleine to be brought from the town and this was the town of Compre, which was famous for Madeleine. Proust, without thinking, dips this Madeleine into his tea and puts it in his mouth and goes through what can only be described as a truly kind of existentially transformative moment. And this little cake that is a Madeleine, because it is a cake, not a cookie really, makes him suddenly aware of his entire life and childhood and kind of the beauty of that moment. He ends this little section about the Madeleine that is so beautiful by a saying, "I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal." So this little Madeleine made him feel as if suddenly the world had meaning and beauty.
Jessie Sheehan:
I feel like we all need to eat Madeleine.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
We all need Madeleine.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right now.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes. Oh, my gosh, right now more than anything.
Jessie Sheehan:
I feel like I need a t-shirt. Just eat more Madeleine. We'll get through it.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Exactly. Have a Madeleine and keep calm.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, exactly.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
No, absolutely. So it has that legend and lore.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
And if you've only had Madeleine that you've bought, because the Madeleine that you buy in shops are meant to last, and they're very different from having just out of the oven kind of ethereally good Madeleine.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I just wanted to mention one more thing before we jump in that you say in the book. This is a batter. It's much more like a little cake. I think of them as cookies because of the way they look, but they really are. They're made with a batter, not a dough. They rise with this delicate, tender crumb. It's just like a delicious little cake. So these ones are dark chocolate and they're made zesty with orange and just bloomed with a touch of salt. The first things first is we're going to heat our oven to 375, which, as you mentioned, would be a little different if we were making, let's say, a lemon Madeleine. We're going to grease either a 24 little vessel Madeleine mold with unsalted European butter and dust with flour or what we should all be doing is running out, getting silicone molds, and we put that mold on a baking sheet. So a couple of questions. First, is there a brand of either the metal Madeleine mold or the silicone one that you would recommend?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
So the Madeleine molds that I have that are metal I've had for so, so long that I don't even know if they even had a brand. The silicone ones I've just gotten on Amazon. And kind of anything goes, I think.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Unsalted European butter, is there a brand you love?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes. I mean, gosh, I love anything that has a higher fat content for butter. Easy to get here. I'll use the Plugrà or the Kerrygold.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. And then the baking sheets that you like to use when you are using the silicone, is there a brand of baking sheets?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes, I love USA Pans.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. Me, too.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
It's a great line.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I agree. As you said, the beauty of the silicone is that we don't have to grease and we don't have to flour. They're so easy. Now we're going to brown the butter. We're going to melt some additional unsalted European butter in a skillet over medium heat. We're going to cook until it's amber colored, smells like hazelnuts. About how long, when you're making brown butter, do you feel like that takes?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
So the trick I think to making brown butter is to melt the butter in a large enough pan that you're moving pretty quickly, actually, and a light pan so that you can actually see when it gets brown. I actually like those white pans. I can't remember who makes them, but they're white on the inside, so you can really see the color. I don't want to give a time because it really depends on how big your pan is. I tend to try and do it in a skillet, say, of around 10 inches. I start slow and then I raise the heat and then I bring it way down for that last little bit.
Jessie Sheehan:
So once we have that hazelnut smell and that amber color, we will remove from the heat, set aside to cool until it's still pourable. We do want it to come to room temp, but just not solid. Then in a stand mixer or a hand mixer, is it a paddle attachment or a beater attachment at this point?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
I always just use the whisk attachment.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
I almost never take it off.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, love. So with our whisk attachment, we're going to beat the eggs. Do they need to be room temperature? Does it not ...
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
I think ideally they should be room temperature. Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll beat some room temp eggs, we'll add some granulated sugar and some orange zest, or, here's a great example, or vanilla paste or seeds from a bean, but we're not necessarily going to do both. And then is that Nielsen-Massey again when you're buying vanilla?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes, but you know what else I really, really love is Burlap & Barrel. I love, love, love. Burlap & Barrel makes not only a vanilla extract now, but they also make vanilla powder, which I've started to use.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
I actually just put something in my coffee, too, which I never do but it was so good.
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, it's so brilliant because then you don't have to worry about the added liquid and yeah, I love that.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
And it smells good and they're great with sourcing.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is it a one-for-one, like one teaspoon?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
It's a one-for-one.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. It's so easy. And we are going to whisk for about five minutes or until the mixture has tripled in volume. Then we'll remove the bowl from the stand mixer, if that's what we're using. We'll place a sieve over the bowl and we'll sift in some all-purpose flour, some unsweetened cocoa powder, baking powder and fine sea salt. Had some questions. Is there a brand of all purpose that you love?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes. I've tried to test pretty much every recipe with King Arthur flour.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And then unsweetened cocoa, I thought that was interesting. So not Dutch processed?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Not Dutch processed. And again, I think this is just because the French tend to just use really great Valrhona natural cocoa powder, so you're not necessarily getting quite the same darkness of color that you would with Dutch process. Yeah, but, I mean, I just think Valrhona is so good and their cocoa is so good.
Jessie Sheehan:
So unsweetened cocoa powder, baking powder. And then fine sea salt, do you ever use kosher or is kosher not a very French thing?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
It's not a very French thing and I find that kosher of salt changes from brand to brand. What I like about fine sea salt is just it doesn't have the iodine, so you're not getting that taste. It's very fine. It melts well.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. With the mixture on the lowest speed, we're going to whisk just to integrate all of our dry ingredients. And then with the mixer still on low, we'll pour in the melted butter. Again, we'll continue to whisk to incorporate, but just we need to stop as soon as the batter is homogenous. You don't want to overdo it. Then we're going to fill the molds with the batter. Are we filling to the top?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes. Actually, for the chocolate Madeleine, you can fill all the way to the top of the mold.
Jessie Sheehan:
Nice, nice. Fill to the top of the mold, place in the oven. We'll immediately reduce the heat to 350. Bake for about 12 minutes until the knife inserted in the center of the Madeleine comes out slightly moist, but not streaked with batter. Oh, should we picture a paring knife?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes. Just the little tip of a knife.
Jessie Sheehan:
And is that how you test everything? You don't use like wooden skewers or toothpicks?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
No, I actually just like the paring knife. The little skewer, let's just say it works if there is a lot of wet batter, but when you're getting to something you kind of want to see a little bit better.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Then we're going to remove from the oven and then give it about two minutes. Then we'll pop the Madeleine out of the mold. We'll serve them warm just as they are or we'll dust with confectioners sugar. Or you suggested you could even dip half of them in some melted chocolate.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yeah. The other thing, just to remember, is that you can fill the molds, you can put them in the fridge. You can do it for six hours, 24 hours, doesn't matter. Just keep them nicely covered and then pop them into that same oven. But probably add, if they've been in the fridge for more than six hours, I would probably add about 90 more seconds.
Jessie Sheehan:
90 more seconds. Did we say it was about 12?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
12, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So maybe about 14, 13 and a half.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
13 to 14. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Besides sort of sticking the knife in, is there a visual cue and is there a feel?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Well, because it's chocolate, obviously, you're not going to see a browning. Right? That's the one thing, but you will smell that chocolate. You can always smell when chocolate desserts are done, I find, which I love, but it will. It'll have that nice ...
Jessie Sheehan:
Hump?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
These won't have a hump, but they will have puffed up.
Jessie Sheehan:
Plump.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
And when you touch the top, it will be dry.
Jessie Sheehan:
And it'll spring back a little bit?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
It'll spring back a little bit. Don't burn yourself.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, it's nice to have a couple of visual cues so that the people are like, "What?"
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
I just wanted to talk about a few additional recipes from the book. Tell us about the little black dress of desserts.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Of flourless chocolate cake. I mean, it is my desert island dessert. There's also a recipe in “Gateau” for this, but it's so simple. I mean, it's chocolate and basically a lot of eggs and a little bit of sugar. I mean, that is the essence of a flourless chocolate cake, really.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. In your version, are you separating whites and yolks and using the whites?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Sometimes, but sometimes I actually don't. And what's interesting is I always thought that you needed to separate whites and yolks and I always felt that the whites had to be beaten to provide that lightness, but in some cases you don't want a light dessert. You actually do want something that is dense. You don't want to incorporate a lot of air. I think what I realized in really kind of studying the chemistry of baking for these books was that when you're beating, you are adding air. And ask yourself the question: do you want an airy result or not? And in the case of a chocolate cake, you don't always.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, my go-to chocolate flourless chocolate cake that I make for Passover Seders and all of that, but I should make it all the time, it's so good, is just the whole eggs. And it's very dense, but that's okay. And it kind of collapses a little. It's kind of funky looking. I just love the simplicity. It is so much the little black dress because it's just so easy.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
It's like 10 minutes to make. Literally 10 minutes. And if you use a silicon pan, too, then you're 10 minutes to make. It takes longer to preheat the oven and then it's done. With a little bit of creme fraiche, that is the thing that I feel really it's just a great addition because you get that slight tanginess. There's something about crème fraîche, too, that even when it's at room temperature, it feels like it's a little bit cold and kind of light. So I really do love that balance of something that is rich and deep, like chocolatey. That's the chocolate cake. And then that kind of cool tanginess of the crème fraîche.
Jessie Sheehan:
I always serve mine with a dollop of creme fraiche. I mean, brilliant. And not sweetened because I think you need it. I think for me, I love chocolate, but it's almost too much if you don't have the crème fraîche.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
And here we are, right? We're like, "Oh, my God, it's so rich I need to add something else. It's really rich."
Jessie Sheehan:
Exactly, but it doesn't feel. My creme fraiche isn't rich. And now finally, I want you to tell us about the chocolate caramel tart and the millionaire bar that your son used to love eating and sort of the connection between those because I want to know where I can get those millionaire bars.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
They're so good. These go back to when we were living in Brooklyn. They were called Lucia Cookies at One Girl Cookie.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, yes, yes.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
And we would stop there every afternoon on the way home from school.
Jessie Sheehan:
And there would be like a millionaire situation?
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
Yes, and they were called Lucia Cookies and they were little kind of shortbread with a little bit of caramel, with a little bit of chocolate on top.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love millionaire bars so much.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
So good. That is essentially the kind of chocolate caramel tart.
Jessie Sheehan:
Sorry. Yeah, I got off on a tangent. Tell us about the tart.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
No, it's the same thing, which is basically you're creating a kind of a shortbread layer at the bottom and then you are adding a layer of caramel and a layer of ganache on top. And what I like, too, is when you put it out, people think you're getting a chocolate tart. And then as soon as you cut into it, the caramel starts to ooze out a little bit and you suddenly realize. Oh, my gosh, I'm in for a double treat in that sense.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love, love.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
So good. And also really, really easy, too. And shortcuts, again, shortcuts are not bad. If you can find a great caramel and you're in a rush, use it. If you can get a great pre-made tart shell, sure, go for it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Aleksandra. And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Aleksandra Crapanzano:
You are so much fun. Oh, my gosh. I couldn't have been happier to be talking to you today. Thank you, thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to California Prunes for supporting our show. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.substack.com. Don't forget to follow She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen and tell your pals about us. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Our producers are Kerry Diamond, Catherine Baker, and Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie and happy baking.