Alexandra Stafford Transcript

 Alexandra Stafford 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 cookbook author, and my fourth book is coming out this fall. Each Saturday I'm hanging out with the sweetest bakers around and taking a deep dive into their signature bakes. 

My guest today is Ali Stafford. Ali is a recipe developer, blogger, and cookbook author. Her popular blog, Alexandra's Kitchen features simple seasonal recipes and has been recognized by places like the New York Times, Saveur, and Bon Appétit. Ali's newest cookbook, now a New York Times bestseller, is called “Pizza Night” and it's an absolute delight. In today's episode, Ali and I chat all about pizza with a special focus on, you guessed it, the dough. Ali shares her recipe for what she calls Neapolitan-ish dough, why it's important to understand the relationship between dough hydration and oven temperature, and her tips for using an outdoor pizza oven. We discuss her classic margarita pizza as well as some of her alternative dough recipes. I think you're going to love hearing about Ali's pizza recipes and tips in this episode. Visit cherrybombe.com for Alexandra's recipe. Stay tuned for our chat. 

Thank you to Plugra Premium European Style Butter for supporting today's show. As some of you know, I've been a big fan of Plugra for some time now and was introduced to it at my very first bakery job when I was just a newbie baker. Fast-forward to today, I'm a professional baker, cookbook author and recipe developer, and I continue to rely on Plugra for all my baking needs. My fridge is always stocked with Plugra sticks and solids. I especially love that Plugra contains 82% butterfat. The higher butterfat content means less moisture and more fat, and as bakers know, fat equals flavor. Plugra butter is also slow churned, making it more pliable and easy to work with. I do a lot of baking this time of year for work and for myself and my family. Comfy bakes like my pistachio chocolate anytime buns and cinnamon sugar buttermilk doughnut holes, and I always reach for Plugra unsalted butter. I've also been making a lot of yeasted breads lately and I love the buttery flavor Plugra adds to my dough. Plugra Premium European Style Butter is the perfect choice from professional kitchens to your home kitchen. Ask for Plugra at your favorite grocery store or visit plugra.com for a store locator and recipes.

Peeps, the new icons issue of Cherry Bombe's print magazine is here and it features three culinary icons on the covers. Indian food superstar, Madhur Jaffrey, Dr. Jessica B. Harris, and the Chinatown champion, Grace Young. Inside you'll find stories on more incredible women in the world of food plus recipes like Marcella Hazan's iconic tomato sauce. You can snag a copy or subscribe at cherrybombe.com or pick up a copy at a retailer near you like Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York City, Now Serving in LA, Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis, and Bold Fork Books in Washington DC. Check out cherrybombe.com for our complete list of retailers. Let's check in with today's guest.

Ali, so happy to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to chat pizza with you and so much more.

Ali Stafford:
Thank you so much for having me. It's so fun to be here.

Jessie Sheehan:
So you have said that your cooking and your baking is influenced by your mom, and it was actually her recipe for peasant bread, which we'll talk about shortly, that helped ignite interest in your blog and inspired your first book, “Bread Toast Crumbs.” She was an incredible home cook. Homemade spanakopita was like a no-brainer for her, as was her sister. And you used to listen to the two of them on the phone talking about recipes, which I just love that image. Can you recall a specific conversation or a recipe they discussed?

Ali Stafford:
I can't remember a specific recipe. I just remember the old-school phone with the cord being stretched all the way into the living room and my mom maybe even lying on the ground just talking to her sister. They would talk about maybe it was the latest magazine that had arrived. Did you see that? I can't think of anything specifically. I do know they shared this one cookbook, I think it was called the Bakery Lane Soup Bowl. It's old. And it was bread and soup. They both did, made many of the bread recipes from that and many of the soup recipes that they would change and adapt over the years, but that was one of their staples.

Jessie Sheehan:
So you went to cooking school after college and you worked in restaurant and catering kitchens and I love, love, love that you worked at Fork in Philadelphia. There was just a big Cherry Bombe dinner there and so I got to go there and so I just want to say hi Ellen.

Ali Stafford:
She's the best.

Jessie Sheehan:
She's the best.

Ali Stafford:
She's wonderful.

Jessie Sheehan:
I loved it so much. So you started, I never know if people like to say blog or they prefer website. I know blog and blogger can be a slightly controversial. Do you care about that?

Ali Stafford:
I actually don't care. It started as a blog. It still is a blog. When I post a new entry, it comes up at the top, but it is really much, I guess more of a website where you can search and find recipes. When I started, it very much was a journal of what I was doing and there was no goal or real theme except for food. There wasn't necessarily recipes. What was I finding at this market? What did I eat at this cafe? It was really a journal and then as time evolved, it became much more of a recipe, recipe, recipe.

Jessie Sheehan:
It's called Alexandra's Kitchen, and you started it in 2006. And I know that in the beginning it was for fun, but you, in the back of your mind, had a goal of earning some money. Can you describe it today?

Ali Stafford:
Sure. I do try to keep things on the simple side. I think simple is a relative word. Sometimes I say things are simple and people are like, "That's not simple." Which is fine, I've learned. But when I think back on the early days when I started the blog, I had just left the restaurant world and catering company, so I would blog about things that I had learned like tempura stuffed squash blossoms, which are not easy and a lot of home cooks don't want to do that. It's a really fun thing to do. And I feel like I really remember a moment when I stopped doing the restaurant-y style dishes. I had two kids, I was at home. It was a recipe for these honey soy chicken thighs that my mom made every... She did it with wings. It was an old probably New York Times Craig Claiborne recipe, I forget the original recipe, these wings that she would make for parties.

And I made them and people loved them because they were so easy and it was drumsticks and thighs and just basically throw everything in a pan. I feel like that was a little bit of an aha moment. I was like, "Oh my gosh, people really just, they need simple recipes. They're busy." Whether they have kids or not, everybody is busy. And sometimes also the more complicated recipes don't pan out, they're not worth it.

Jessie Sheehan:
In the back of your mind or maybe front of mind goal of earning money from the blog, it started to happen with your mom's recipe for peasant bread when that exploded. So first, can you describe what makes that bread essentially a no-knead loaf special and different from Jim Lahey's no-knead bread, from Zoe Francois's no-knead bread? Can you tell us a little bit about that bread?

Ali Stafford:
Yeah, sure. So it's really a very old-fashioned recipe, four cups of flour, a whole packet of yeast. If you're buying in bulk, you can use less, but packet of yeast, a little bit of sugar, a little bit of salt, and that's it. It rises in three hours, so there's no long slow rise. After the first rise, you divide it and then you bake it in buttered Pyrex bowls, so there's no shaping it or handling it. It's a very wet dough. You divide it with forks and you just plop the dough into the bowls. It's a very high hydration. And you let it rise again, and then you bake it. The crust is golden and crisp and buttery, but it's not thick like an artisan style bread. The texture it is, it's not light and airy. It's a very moist crumb. It makes really good toast. It's good for sandwiches.

I think people love it, 'cause it's very foolproof and you really don't need special equipment or techniques or time and people love it. I love Jim Lahey's bread. I love the artisan bread in five minutes. I love all of them. They're all good.

Jessie Sheehan:
I love love, love that. And then this was a question I was just pondering when I was thinking about you and the book and this conversation, but do you think if a different recipe had hit on the blog, your trajectory might've been different? In a way, you became this peasant bread person known for a million other fabulous things too, but that was the thing where you had your aha moment of, oh, I think I can make money here. And then it was your first book and in a way, your second book.

Ali Stafford:
So the thing that's interesting is, again, I really didn't think that the blog could be anything probably until that peasant bread recipe came. And then there was one other recipe on the blog, this buttermilk blueberry breakfast cake recipe. Also one of my mother's, very simple. And those two recipes were driving a lot of the traffic, but I didn't really know that because I don't look at analytics. It really wasn't until I'd say the last five years or so, I don't know how long I've been working with this SEO company, Foodie Digital, they're wonderful. They really don't want you to write like SEO driven posts. They would look at my analytics and they would say, "Ali, people are coming to your blog for bread recipes, whether you want to be a bread blog or not." 'Cause I don't consider myself a bread blog. I love blogging about everything; vegetables, dinners, baking. There's nothing as off limits.

She said, "If you want to really bulk up your library in a way that is beneficial to you, bread recipes are what people are coming to you." That helped me a little bit. I didn't want to be a bread blog, but I was like, okay, here and there I can do some more bread recipes. I love bread, I love pizza, of course I love baking. So it wasn't like, oh, this is a bummer, I have to do only bread recipes. But I really like to have a balance of dinners, vegetables, salads, bread, love.

Jessie Sheehan:
So 11 years later, you wrote “Bread Toast Crumbs.” Can you tell us a little bit about that book and do you feel like that book and bread helped forge the way for your pizza book?

Ali Stafford:
Yes. It was based on again, my mother's peasant bread recipe. And the inspiration honestly came from so many of my blog readers. I had never strayed from my mother's recipe. I always made it exactly as it was. I didn't add any extra seasoning or ingredients, but people would write in and say, oh, I added jalapenos and scallions, or I turned it into a monkey bread, or I made pizza with it, and I was like, "Wow, you guys are amazing." And then I also, because I was making so much bread to troubleshoot with people who were having trouble, I found myself with so much extra bread on hand, and that was what inspired the loaf to crumb angle. So it's the second chapter, is what to do with leftover bread in sliced form. And the third chapter is the crumbs chapter, what to do with crumbs, meatballs, gratins, there's so many things you can do with crumbs. Bread crumbs are delicious.

So with that book, it was just again, very easy bread breaking and what to do with the leftover bread. I swore I would never write another book after “Bread Toast Crumbs.” I swore I would never write another baking book because it's so easy, but people still had trouble with the bread and I thought, I don't think I have it in me to troubleshoot pizza. And as time went on, it really is such a passion. Bread, pizza, it's a passion and I like helping people figure out where things are going wrong. And with this book, the difference with “Pizza Night,” the difference is that I have people start with grams. So there are volume measurements, but every recipe starts with 550 grams of flour, two grams of yeast, 15 grams salt, and then the water varies depending on the style of the pizza, but I really want people to start with the gram measurements. And then if you don't have a scale, there are volume measurements.

But it's so important to measure with the scale and to measure with grams because then you know that you're measuring accurately and you know that you're following the recipe as it is intended to be written from the start. And you may need to adjust the water depending on your environment, depending on the flour you're using. You may need to use a little bit less water if, say, you live in a really humid environment or the flour you're using for whatever reason doesn't absorb water the way the flour I'm using. If that's the case, if you haven't started with accurate measurements, you don't know the next time around that you're actually using less water, you may be using the same amount of water and then you're like, what am I doing wrong? And the only thing you're doing wrong is just not using a scale.

Jessie Sheehan:
I love that you're such a grams evangelist. Now I want to talk about “Pizza Night,” which is your New York Times best-selling cookbook. So exciting, Ali.

Ali Stafford:
Thank you.

Jessie Sheehan:
And like you said, you'd never wanted to write another cookbook. There were seven years actually between the two books, but you've also said your favorite meal is pizza and salad and pizza's pretty meaningful to you. And I think you've said this, but you became an expert in teaching pizza, and I love this, it's a quick fun fact about Ali that I loved, which is that you're a creature of habit and I am too. And you have zero wanderlust, and I'm the same. But I do for the record, want to say that Ali did go to Italy to Rome and Naples amongst other places to research “Pizza Night.” Will you tell us about the structure of the book?

Ali Stafford:
Sure. So the start of the book is really the four dough, so the four main pizza dough recipes; a Neapolitan style dough, a thin crust pizza dough, a pan pizza dough, and a gluten-free pizza dough. And there are variations for sourdough and there are other small variations too in that dough chapter. There is also a sauce and dressings chapter that follows. And then the book is organized seasonally and there are 13 pizza salad pairings per season, so 52 pizza salad pairings total, one pairing for every week of the year. And yeah, it starts with spring.

Jessie Sheehan:
And I found this really interesting. So you mentioned they're basically four simple, four-ingredient, no-knead dough recipes for the pizza dough plus these sourdough variations. But what I found really fascinating is they may all have the same four ingredients, but really the only difference is in the hydration level, which I didn't really understand. Was that something you always knew? Am I just behind the eight-ball that you always knew that about pizza and bread, that it's all about less or more water or was there a hydration aha eureka moment when you were planning or writing the book?

Ali Stafford:
I think I definitely learned more as I was writing the book, but I do remember this moment from, it's a passage in “Tartine Bread.” So Chad Robertson, he talks about his mentor and he really says dough is dough. If you have a certain amount of flour, there's only so much water you can add. If it's a tiny amount of water, it's going to be a cracker. If it's a ton of water, it's going to be pancake batter. There's really this range of water for it to be bread. And then I think the biggest aha moment me with pizza was the Neapolitan style pizza dough. So just quickly, pan pizza dough, it's like a focaccia essentially. Very high hydration. That I always knew. Thin crust pizza dough, I knew a little bit lower, but with Neapolitan style pizza dough, if you look for a classic Neapolitan style pizza dough recipe, it will be 55 to 62% hydration, which is very low and that's because those pizzas are baked in a 900 degree oven for 60 to 90 seconds.

It's a small amount of water, but it's a tiny amount of time. So very little water is going to evaporate from the dough. If you try to bake that dough in your home oven, it's going to be a brick, it's going to be dry. For the home oven Neapolitan style dough, which is the poofy-rimmed, slightly soft center, you need to start with a lot more water. In my oven, I can cook them in about five minutes, but other ovens it's going to be five to 10 minutes. That's a long time for the water to evaporate. So you need to have more water in it from the start. So understanding that relationship, hydration versus oven temperature, was a big aha moment when writing the book.

Jessie Sheehan:
Is Neapolitan different? For instance, if we're making pan pizza, which is akin to a focaccia kind of situation, are we changing it less for our home oven because you bake it at a lower temperature even in a professional kitchen?

Ali Stafford:
Exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:
So interesting.

Ali Stafford:
The pan pizzas are 475. Maybe in a professional oven there might be a little bit higher, but yes. So you don't really need to change it.

Jessie Sheehan:
That is so interesting. And I love this, but I'm also was curious about it. So you have your 52 pizza recipes and I notice you don't embellish the names, you're not trying to be whimsical with this. You just tell us what it is. Was that more of a choice because you wanted that beautiful index to just open up and be two pages and it's very easy to read every recipe? Is that more of an Ali thing? You're not a Bunny's favorite meat pizza, you know what I mean? Or is that more of a artistic choice?

Ali Stafford:
Yeah, I think it was more of just a practical choice. I wanted people to hear the title and think, yes, I want that.

Jessie Sheehan:
I appreciate that, even though I tend to lean a little too whimsical. I'm always being yelled at by my editors-

Ali Stafford:
No, that's fun.

Jessie Sheehan:
For my cookbooks because my recipe names are three lines long 'cause I get excited.

Ali Stafford:
But there's intrigue in that too. You're like, who is that person? If you see that in a title. You're like, I want to learn. I'm going to read the intro 'cause I want to know-

Jessie Sheehan:
Who Bunny is.

Ali Stafford:
Yes, yes.

Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back.

Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everybody. This is Kerry Diamond, founder of Cherry Bombe magazine and host of Radio Cherry Bombe. Today's episode of She's My Cherry Pie is presented by Nonino, the legendary family-owned Italian company from Friuli-Venezia Giulia, founded in 1897 and known for its award-winning grappa. Since 1940, Nonino has been led by six generations of incredible women, starting with the matriarch, Silvia Nonino, who was Italy's very first female master distiller and the first woman in the country to manage a distillery. L'Aperitivo, Nonino's botanical aperitif is based on an original recipe of Silvia's. In 1973, her daughter-in-law, Giannola Nonino helped introduce the world to the first single varietal grappa. Giannola's three daughters, Elisabetta, who is the CEO today, Antonella and Cristina run the distillery. They revisited their family recipes to create Amaro Nonino, the bittersweet herbaceous liqueur that is beloved by the world's top mixologists and an essential ingredient in the famous paper plain cocktail. And then there's Francesca Nonino, Giannola's granddaughter who is Nonino's global brand ambassador and helps out in the distillery. That is an incredible family tree. Visit grappanonino.it for recipes and information on Nonino's grappa varieties. That link is in our show notes.

Jessie Sheehan:
Now back to our guest. So we're going to talk about the classic margarita pizza. I thought we would talk about this particular pie because it is what you always order in a pizzeria. Can you tell people why that's a good pizza to start with when you're checking out a place you don't know that well?

Ali Stafford:
Sure. It's often just a good measure of how the rest of the pizzas are going to be and honestly, so often I think it is the best one. I feel like when we try other ones, they're always good and they're always interesting, but it's almost hard to beat that classic combination of just a really fresh tomato sauce, good mozzarella, olive oil, fresh basil. It's simple but perfect. I think it's probably just one of those examples of how minimalism just shines. It's just really good ingredients, very few of them. Every ingredient shines and then together they just taste so good.

Jessie Sheehan:
And I also love that it is the one you make most often at home because your children love it. They love it.

Ali Stafford:
Yes, they love it.

Jessie Sheehan:
So first let's talk about the Neapolitan-ish pizza dough. True Neapolitan pizza is made with only flour, water, salt and yeast, but in specific ratios to produce the dough with a certain hydration, but often done in a wood burning stove at 900 degrees for 60 to 90 seconds. So that's where the ish comes from in your recipe.

Ali Stafford:
Right, yes. So there are very strict rules, I forget what, it's the AVPN. If you're a pizzeria and you want to actually make Neapolitan style pizza dough, you have to adhere to these strict rules. So obviously I'm not doing that in a home oven. And the real difference, as I said earlier, is just the amount of water. There are instructions in the book. If you want to make this dough for your outdoor Ooni or Gozney or whatever outdoor pizza oven you have, you just use less water. I think it's 385 grams. It doesn't matter. It lowers the hydration to roughly 70% hydration, which is still high in terms of Neapolitan standards. But when I cook it in my outdoor oven, I cook it at a slightly lower temperature. I don't get my oven up to 900 degrees. I like the 650 to 750 range. I still preheat it for a long time. That's very important, whether it's home oven with a baking steel.

So home oven, my biggest tool is a baking steel. Outdoor oven, my biggest tip is just to make sure that you preheat it sufficiently. I think these ovens advertise themselves as being able to get up to these temperatures in 15 minutes. The surface is not fully preheated. You really have to take the time to preheat it for 45 minutes to an hour. It's a bummer, but that is what is going to make the difference in your pizza.

Jessie Sheehan:
I had read that, that with your outdoor oven, you don't quite go as high as it'll let you. Is that just so you have more control?

Ali Stafford:
It is. I just think it's way more forgiving. When you make the transition to cooking in an outdoor oven, it's so much fun. I love my outdoor oven, but you are going to have a lot of flops. You're going to burn your pizzas, they're going to stick, and it's just going to be a learning curve. I think if you just start at a slightly lower temperature, that 650 to 750 range, first of all, yes, it'll be more forgiving. The pizza will still cook in two and a half to three minutes. A pizza cooked in that amount of time is still going to have those Neapolitan classics, just soft, pliable, so fresh tasting. You're doing yourself a favor if you just, I think, start a little bit lower and cook it a little bit longer than those classic Neapolitan standards.

Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to begin to mix our dough and we are going to go through the pizza recipe as if we're going to eat it on Friday.

Ali Stafford:
Okay, great.

Jessie Sheehan:
So it's Wednesday morning and this is for our Friday night pizza party at Ali's house. I'm invited. First in a large bowl and we're using a whisk.

Ali Stafford:
I have three of these four quart glass Pyrex bowls and they have a lid. Just be careful where you buy them. Sometimes they don't come with the lid, so you might have to order the lid separately, but it's so nice to have a lid, especially for these long slow rises. Having an airtight seal is nice. If you just use a tea towel, which is what I did for years, always a damp tea towel. That's what my mom did. But for a long slow rise, your dough will dry out a little bit on top. You'll form a crust and it's a bummer. It's not ruined if it does, but you want to keep your dough moist and hydrated during these long rises. So a bowl with a lid is great. Love the four quart Pyrex. I don't have a particular brand of whisk, any kind of whisk is fine for these purposes. I love my flat-bottomed whisk for other reasons, but for mixing flour, salt and yeast, any whisk.

Jessie Sheehan:
In this bowl, we're going to have either bread or all-purpose flour. You do not want us to use double zero in our home oven, so a few questions about that. First of all, I think your brand is King Arthur Baking because of the malted barley in it. So can you tell us a little bit about King Arthur Baking bread flour and malted barley, and also about why you don't want us using double zero?

Ali Stafford:
And just to clarify, you can use double zero flour in your home oven. One of the biggest challenges of baking in a home oven, they don't get hot enough so they don't brown as well. Double zero flour does not have any malt in it, whereas King Arthur flour, bread and all-purpose, contains a little bit of malt and that helps with browning. If you don't care about the browning, it doesn't matter. Double zero flour is, I think, a beautiful flour. I think the thing that's tricky with double zero flour is that all different brands vary a little bit. It will make a much wetter dough. So with this recipe, if you want to use your double zero flour, you may find you need to use less water. It'll just take a little bit of time to pinpoint the amount of water.

Jessie Sheehan:
Also, just in case listeners don't know, can you tell people what double zero is?

Ali Stafford:
Sure, yeah. It really just refers to how finely it's milled, so it's a very finely milled flour. I remember the first time I made a pizza dough with it and the dough felt so soft and nice and I thought, wow, I can't believe. It was really a revelation, but I really do more and more for a home oven. I just encourage people to use bread flour or all-purpose flour for those browning purposes. Its strength, the dough will be a little bit easier to handle. You'll probably get a little bit better oven spring in your home oven. Double zero flour is also becoming more and more readily available, and I call for it in my thin crust pizza dough. It's known for its extensibility, so rolling out makes it really nice, but again, if you're looking for that poofy rim and some browning abilities and just a nice chew, I really think the bread and all-purpose flour is better.

Jessie Sheehan:
I think you're being nice because you don't want people to buy a product that maybe they wouldn't use normally. If people don't mind buying the bread flour, do you prefer that for a little more chew?

Ali Stafford:
Just slightly, but honestly it's a very subtle difference between the bread. If you make the dough with bread flour versus all-purpose flour, all-purpose flour dough will be a little bit stickier than the bread flour. The bread flour just absorbs a little bit more water, so it'll be just slightly easier to work with. I love a high-hydration dough. I don't mind a wet sticky dough, but it can be tricky for people. And the bread flour just seems to give people good results.

Jessie Sheehan:
We've got our bowl, we've got our whisk. We're adding our flour, AP or bread, and King Arthur brand. We're going to add salt, Diamond Crystal, and I thought this was really interesting to learn, that salt is important. People might get scared, like that's so much salt. Salt is important because it strengthens the gluten and slows your fermentation.

Ali Stafford:
Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:
We're using instant yeast, which I'm a fan of. Your brand is Saf.

Ali Stafford:
Saf, yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:
Saf. And I also thought this was so interesting. It's only a half teaspoon.

Ali Stafford:
Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell us why we're using so little?

Ali Stafford:
All of the dough recipes follow the same pattern, so it's a long slow rise. Initially, 10 to 12 hours with a lot of wiggle room in there. If you need to shorten it or lengthen it, it's fine. So a half teaspoon is honestly more than enough. You can even get away with less than a half teaspoon of yeast, but that's just a good easy amount to remember and cold water because we want that long, slow fermentation initially. So that's why small amount of yeast and cold water.

Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to add our cold water and to get that slow rise. I thought this was interesting if you're new to pizza making or you're in a human environment, you might add a little less water and that's because it's harder to handle when it's so hydrated. But if we're using our outdoor oven, which gets hotter, we might be able to use a little bit less. We're going to use a spatula which you love, which is?

Ali Stafford:
Gir. Am I saying it right? Do you know G-I-R-

Jessie Sheehan:
I never know if I'm supposed to say gear or Gir.

Ali Stafford:
Yes, but it stands for get it right and it is the best spatula.

Jessie Sheehan:
I agree. I agree. And we're going to mix with that until our dough comes together, forming a sticky ball. If the dough is dry, at this point, we could use our hands a little bit to gently knead it in the bowl. I love this. We're not taking it out of the bowl until it comes together. Now we're going to cover our bowl with a towel, as you said, a damp towel or ideally this red lid for our Pyrex. Is that correct?

Ali Stafford:
Yes, correct. Yep.

Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to let it rest at least about 15 minutes or 30 minutes. And I just wanted to note that the most flavorful dough will be this way. We're going to do it over several days. However, if your name is Jessie and you are very impatient and you want to make this dough the same day, tell us what we do.

Ali Stafford:
So after you mix the dough, it's going to sit for 15 to 30 minutes and then you're going to do a set of stretches and folds, and that is different than what I have done with my mom's peasant bread recipe and other pizza dough recipes in the past. The dough right initially upon mixing might look a little bit dry and shaggy. In just 15 minutes to 30 minutes, and this can be wiggle room. If you need to go out and you come back an hour later, the dough will not have risen much. You can do this set of stretches and folds then. In that short period of time, the gluten will relax, it will start to hydrate. And you just wet one of your hands, you grab it, pull it, and it will form into a nice cohesive ball and you can feel the gluten already developing.

That is just a step that's going to help strengthen the dough, and it's just one set of stretches and folds. Then you cover it, and then it's going to sit at room temperature for 10 to 12 hours. If you are Jessie and you want to make your pizza tonight, you can do it a couple ways. Say it's the morning, you can still use that same amount of yeast and let it rise all day. And then once it's risen, divide it, you'll form it into balls and it will sit for another hour before you bake it. If you are even more pressed for time, say you need it three hours, you'll increase the yeast. You can use one, you can use up to two teaspoons. I would say one would be plenty. Use lukewarm water instead of the cold water. Put it in a warm place to rise just to give it a little boost. Within an hour and a half to two hours, it'll have risen. Then you proceed. Punch it down, divide it, ball it up, love.

Jessie Sheehan:
So now we're going to stretch and fold our dough for our Friday night pizza party. It's still Wednesday. I think this is fair to say this is the only kneading this dough gets.

Ali Stafford:
Yes, yes.

Jessie Sheehan:
And is that typical of pizza dough? Is it an oxymoron to say it's no-knead pizza dough? Is all pizza dough no-knead?

Ali Stafford:
It really depends. Plenty of pizza dough recipes that call for putting it in the food processor, putting it in the stand mixer and kneading it until it's strong or people like to do the windowpane test. I just never found it necessary. Particularly Jim Lahey's recipe, I feel like taught us tiny amount of yeast long, slow rise overnight. I remember the New York Times article, it was like, "Let time do the work." That time the gluten strengthens. The purpose of kneading is to develop gluten and to develop strength. Time can do that for you. And the set of stretches and folds really came from my learning sourdough. Sourdough tends to be, in my experience, just a little bit more gentler of a process. You do these sets of stretches and folds for a couple of hours during the first mixing, and it is just to strengthen the gluten. But I find with pizza dough just one set of stretches and folds early on, is it's plenty to just give your dough a little bit more strength?

Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to fill a small bowl with water and we're going to dip one hand into the water, and then we're going to use our dry hand to stabilize our bowl, dough's in the bowl. And we're going to grab the edge of the dough with our wet hand and pull it up and towards the center. I assume we're wetting our hand so that the dough just doesn't stick to it.

Ali Stafford:
Exactly. Yep. Exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to repeat this folding and stretching motion just eight to 10 times, moving the bowl as we do so until the dough is shaggy and smooth. My friend, Sam Seneviratne. I don't know if you know-

Ali Stafford:
Yes. Oh yes, I love her.

Jessie Sheehan:
Sam has a great image of this for people. She describes it as a clock. I found that really helpful at explaining, it's like you're taking a 12 o'clock. You're taking more than four, but when you're just doing four times, it's like a 12 o'clock, a three o'clock, six o'clock and a nine o'clock.

Ali Stafford:
That's perfect. Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:
But you do a few more than that.

Ali Stafford:
Maybe a few more. And there's no right or wrong. You could get away with four honestly, but it's honestly, once you start doing it, it's hard to stop. It's just fun. You see, you really can feel the dough transform as you're doing it. It's becoming more elastic, becoming more cohesive, and you're like, yes, this looks nice.

Jessie Sheehan:
We're about to add a little bit of olive oil. Should we flip it over so all those seams are on the bottom or does it not really matter?

Ali Stafford:
I do. I think it's just a natural thing to do, but it would not turn out wrong if you didn't.

Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to pour about a teaspoon of olive oil, and I know your favorite is?

Ali Stafford:
I love the California Olive Ranch. It's always available and it's tasty. It's great for salad dressings. Olive oil's expensive and it's reasonably priced. It's good.

Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to rub the olive oil all over the dough. We're going to cover the bowl tightly. Again, if we have it, that red lid on our Pyrex. If we don't have it, since this is a long rise from six to 10 hours, would a dish towel be a mistake here? Should we wet it periodically?

Ali Stafford:
No, I think that is really why the olive oil is included, because that will protect it from drying out. But you could check on it. A damp cloth should be fine for you.

Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to let the dough rise at room temp until it's nearly doubled in volume, about six to 10 hours. Obviously time is going to vary depending on the time of the year it is, the temperature of the kitchen, et cetera. And now it's the portioning of the dough stage, so it's six to 10 hours later. Are we at Wednesday night at this point?

Ali Stafford:
Yes. Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. So it's Wednesday night. This is the first recipe I've done where it's like days of the week. So on Wednesday night we're going to dust our dough with flour, we're going to deflate the dough. Do you punch it?

Ali Stafford:
I have the flexible dough scrapers. I just scoop it out of the bowl, flour the surface, scoop it out onto a floured work surface, and then it's there. You can.

Jessie Sheehan:
We're turning our dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. This is always a question I wonder about bench flour. If you have a recipe with bread flour, do you dust your work surface with bread or do you just use all-purpose?

Ali Stafford:
I usually use all-purpose, yeah, but you can use either.

Jessie Sheehan:
So turn the dough out onto our lightly floured work surface. We're going to divide the dough with a bench scraper. You prefer, I think a metal-

Ali Stafford:
I do. It's just a little bit stronger just for dividing for portioning, but you can use your plastic.

Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to divide the dough into four equal portions. Should we be really anal and weigh it at this point?

Ali Stafford:
I like to. I do, but that is just because I like to have the dough balls as similarly sized as possible. I think it really doesn't matter, but there is something about the ratio of the dough to sauce to cheese. So if one is really small and one is really big, you might put too much sauce and cheese on the other one. So there is a little bit of intention behind them being all the same size, but that's up to you.

Jessie Sheehan:
And then you'll have people who are mad 'cause they want the biggest pizza and you're like, they're all the same, but they're not. So we're going to form each portion into a ball by flouring our hands and grabbing the edges of the dough and pulling them towards the center to create the rough ball, just like the thing that I said Sam says it's like a clock. We're going to flip our balls over, cut both hands around our dough and drag it towards us, creating that tension. Claire Saffitz once described it as almost like ball bearings.

Ali Stafford:
Oh, yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:
Which I thought was so interesting to hear. And we're creating a tension just repeating this cupping and dragging until we have a tight ball. Now we're going to store our dough. This is so interesting, but we're going to place our dough balls. Have we floured or oiled them at this point?

Ali Stafford:
When you are shaping them and cupping them and creating that tension, you are using a minimal amount of flour. If you use too much, it's hard. You end up just dragging the dough all over the place. If you use too little, it sticks. Find your balance, you create the tension. And they're lightly floured at this point.

Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to put them into individual airtight containers. So I would love you to tell us about these containers because it's very specific.

Ali Stafford:
Sure. So lots of big grocery stores carry just food storage containers with a lid. A two-quart size is maybe ideal. You need to have a little bit of room to grow. You don't want it to be too narrow. If it's too narrow, it will just grow vertically in the fridge and then when you pull it out, you mangle it. It's totally fine. While it proofs at room temperature, it will reshape into a nice disc, but something that allows the dough to expand horizontally and a little bit vertically. For years, I used the deli quart containers. I find those to be a little bit too narrow now. I like something with a slightly wider base, but you don't want it too wide. You really just want to keep it snug. You probably have these containers on hand. They might not be a matching set, but if you look at your set of food storage containers that you already have, you probably have some of these.

Jessie Sheehan:
I wonder if there's a great photograph of this in the book for people that of course have already purchased the book or are about to. It looked almost like that Ziploc brand. I wasn't sure.

Ali Stafford:
I think so. The photo shoot was in California, so I bought those when I was out there and they worked perfectly.

Jessie Sheehan:
It's a great visual of what we're looking for here. And we're going to transfer these containers to the fridge until sometime on Friday, depending on when we're baking off our pies. Usually if we want a pizza party at night, these are going in Wednesday night and they're probably coming out late afternoon on Friday.

Ali Stafford:
It's maybe an hour and a half before you plan on baking, just because if you take them out an hour and a half, it'll probably be more like two hours by the time you get all of your ingredients. Or if you're very organized, an hour and a half to two hours before you plan on launching your first.

Jessie Sheehan:
During that time in the fridge, the enzymes are turning the flour into sugar and contributing to the browning we're going to get eventually and also the crispiness we're going to get eventually?

Ali Stafford:
Exactly. So this is one reason why if you have the time to make your dough ahead of time, you are going to see better results. The enzymes in the flour and the yeast convert the starches and the flour into sugars, and that sugar contributes to flavor and it contributes to browning. So again, getting back to the trouble that home cooks have with their home oven is the browning. So having some time in the fridge really will help your pizza brown better and you will notice a difference in the flavor. It tastes great. But also I find the sweet spot to be two to three days in the fridge. These dough balls can last for up to a week in the fridge or maybe even a little bit longer. You'd be surprised by how long they last and you can get good results. Sourdough is a little bit different. It's a little bit less forgiving. The window is a little bit shorter for how long they can last, but you have some wiggle room.

Jessie Sheehan:
That's so great. We're going to prepare our dough. So we're going to transfer the dough from its storage container to a roomier, lightly floured, covered container. Are we moving it back into our four-quart Pyrex?

Ali Stafford:
I love a DoughMate container for this, and this is one piece of gear that is not essential and it's large. If you don't have storage space, it's a pain. I live in the suburbs and I have a basement and I can put my DoughMate containers downstairs. If storage is an issue, this is not something to invest in because it is bulky, but it is just really handy because it's lidded, so it will keep your dough ball from drying out 'cause it really will in an hour and a half to two hours. And this is what I used to do for a long time. I would take my dough out of the fridge, I'd put it on a board and just cover it with a towel for maybe an hour, a little bit longer, and you'll get a dry crust. And then when it's time to shape that dough ball, you have this crust and it's a bummer. So having it in an airtight container is helpful.

If you do not have a DoughMate, you can use plastic wrap, something that will create a seal like a Pyrex covered with plastic, like a nine by 13 sort of type dish.

Jessie Sheehan:
And this is nine by 13 each one of our balls?

Ali Stafford:
No, you can put in a nine by 13. You can probably get, I would say three dough balls. Yes, they might bump into each other during that time, but you can just gently use your flexible dough scraper to separate them and gently-

Jessie Sheehan:
That's so helpful.

Ali Stafford:
Lift them out.

Jessie Sheehan:
This container is lightly floured. We have some choices on our flour at this point. It could be semolina, it could be all-purpose or it could be rice, which reminds me of I use rice when I'm prepping my bannaton for my sourdough. So can you tell us about these three flours and why we might want one versus the other at this stage with our dough bowl?

Ali Stafford:
So in the DoughMate or/and if you're using a nine by 13 Pyrex or whatever you're using, you can just use all-purpose flour. Then when you take it out and it's time to shape it, I really love rice flour at this phase because it doesn't burn the way wheat flour does in the oven, and especially in an outdoor oven. I just find rice flour to be really nice. Rice flour is expensive. You can use a mix of rice flour and all-purpose flour or just all-purpose flour. It really is fine as long as you're just being careful to use the minimal amount. I use semolina on the peel just to create that. I like that texture. Some people don't. Some people just prefer no semolina, just flour or rice flour. It's all personal preference, but I like the crunch of the semolina.

Jessie Sheehan:
So this rest is about one and a half to two hours. We're going to prepare our oven and our pizza peel. So about one hour before we want to bake off the pizza, we're going to place our baking steel. You have a favorite brand and you have a deep love of baking steel. Please tell us what it is and about your favorite brand.

Ali Stafford:
The brand is the Original Baking Steel and the product is just the baking steel. I had the Original Baking Steel for a long time. I recently invested in the Pro, which is a little bit bigger and a little bit thicker and very, very heavy. The Original Baking Steel is heavy enough to get in and out, but the Pro is pretty incredible. Both are great. I put it on the very top rack of my oven. I find that that's where I get the best browning. Some people find that tricky, so I just recommend top third. I also recommend people to experiment. Every oven is different depending on where the heat source is, and you may find you get better results with the baking steel on the bottom rack, but I just always find top rack to be what works in my oven.

Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to preheat our oven to 550 degrees convection roast or as high as it will go. I have a question because I have a convection oven. I always had thought that maybe because it's convection and there isn't supposed to be a warmer or hotter place in the oven, does it matter where you place it in a convection oven?

Ali Stafford:
That's a really good question. I don't know. I just have a convection setting and I just find that when I cook things on convection, they brown better and just more evenly. So however hot you can get your oven, whatever setting it is, use that.

Jessie Sheehan:
So now we're going to dust our pizza peel. I know that you love Epicurean as a brand, but can you just remind us or those of us that don't know what a pizza peel is?

Ali Stafford:
Sure. They're either wooden or metal and it looks just like a paddle and that is what you are going to use to launch your pizza onto your hot baking steel or pizza stone.

Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to lightly flour it. At this point, we could use the semolina for maybe that subtle crunch or the rice because it doesn't burn like wheat, so it's particularly great outside. Or we can top with parchment. Do you have a preference? Do you usually use a flour as opposed to parchment?

Ali Stafford:
I always use parchment in my home oven, always. For my outdoor oven, I don't because it would catch on fire. But a home oven, first of all, it will protect your steel from getting dirty from all the semolina or flour bits of ingredients that fall off during the baking, which then after you pull it out, just burn and maybe end up on your oven floor. So it just makes the process so much easier. Also just the transition from the peel to the steel is seamless with parchment. You just don't have to worry about sticking with a higher hydration dough. That can be a little bit tricky. If you don't want to do that, you can assemble your pizza directly on the peel with the semolina or rice flour or whatever flour you're using, but you do work quickly and you've got to shimmy it as you're working to make sure it's not sticking.

I do find wooden peels to be easier for people. I prefer wooden peels for launching. I think they're great and I do love that Epicurean brand. In terms of the outdoor oven, I have both. I love my Gozney Dome, but I also recently discovered I have a friend who's an Ooni ambassador and it's the Ooni Koda 16 and it's less expensive and it makes a great pizza. You can't go wrong with either of them.

Jessie Sheehan:
Great to know. Now we're going to stretch our dough. We're going to lightly dust our work surface with flour. All-purpose at this point are rice or semolina?

Ali Stafford:
When you're stretching, either all-purpose flour or rice flour.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, perfect.

Ali Stafford:
Or a mix.

Jessie Sheehan:
And we're using our lightly floured hands. We're going to pat the dough gently to flatten it, and then we're going to stretch it into a 10 to 11 inch round by laying it on the back of our hands. Are our hands in a fist?

Ali Stafford:
A little bit, yes. You want to avoid your fingers poking through. So I do find if you make fists, it can hang off them.

Jessie Sheehan:
And is it on both of your hands?

Ali Stafford:
I do both, yes. Yeah, you're using both to...

Jessie Sheehan:
Gently rotate.

Ali Stafford:
Gently. Gravity will do the work as it's hanging off of your wrists. And if you've proofed your dough properly, an hour and a half to two hours, this should be no problem. It will stretch and open up so easily. It's when we rush at this step, which is a very understandable thing to do when you are short on time. But if your dough is cold and has not rested properly, you're going to be wrestling with it to get it to that 10 to 12 inch round.

Jessie Sheehan:
And you say if that happens, if it resists, just set it down on the work surface, give it five or 10 minutes and then continue stretching.

Ali Stafford:
Yep, exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:
Once we've done our hand move, we're going to place it back on the counter and just very gently stretch it outward a teeny bit right on the counter. So we're going to transfer the stretched dough to the prepared peel. If we're using paper, should we put it down on the paper when we put it on the counter and then pick up the paper on the peel? How do we get it on our peel?

Ali Stafford:
I put the parchment on the peel and I sprinkle the parchment with a little bit of semolina because I like that. And then when I've gotten my dough into that 10 to 11 inch round, I lift it up and I set it on the parchment, which is on the peel.

Jessie Sheehan:
Great. So we're transferring our stretched dough to the prepared peel. We'll give it a little shake to ensure it's not sticking. At this point, and I love, love this so much. We could par bake our dough.

Ali Stafford:
Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:
And then after that, leave it at room temp for three days. Can you tell us about par baking, the fact we can do, I think with almost all of the doughs and what it should look like? What we're looking for with the par bake?

Ali Stafford:
Sure. So a couple of reasons to par bake. One is just say at the end of the night you have your dough ball and it's proofed and it's ready to go, but you're done making pizzas. You can just stretch it out, par bake it. That just means putting it on the peel, baking it for 60 to 90 seconds without any toppings, and it will be very pale when you pull it out of the oven. It will be poofy a little bit on the edge and there might be the faintest bit of brown, but you're really just looking to par bake it. Then you can save that. You can either freeze it, you can store it at room temperature for a few days, and then when you're ready to make a pizza, same process though, you still need to preheat your oven and your baking steel. You just top it and bake it as you wish.

So it's a great tool to use for over proofed dough that you want to salvage. It's also a great tool if you don't love... A Neapolitan style pizza dough is characterized by that poofy rim and it's a wetter pizza. It's often served with a knife and fork. I love that. Some people don't. Some people just prefer a crisper bottomed pizza or even a crisper bottomed Neapolitan style pizza. And if that is you, par bake your pizza for 60 to 90 seconds, take it out and then top it and you'll have just a much crisper bottom.

Jessie Sheehan:
Love. Love. If we want to par bake and then make pizza a few days later, we're still par baking at that really high temp. It's just for a much shorter period of time then we're going to cover it in some way, keep it fresh on the counter. And then three days later, we're just going to behave as if we have not par baked our pizza, except maybe it'll be a teeny bit of a less time.

Ali Stafford:
Yes, it might take a little bit, yes, less time.

Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to top our pizza. We're going to use high quality ingredients, good tomatoes, good mozzarella, good olive oil, fresh basil. And we're going to make this incredible no cook tomato sauce.

Ali Stafford:
Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:
So in a food processor, we're going to combine canned San Marzano plum tomatoes. You have a list of all these great brands in the book, but can you tell us a favorite brand?

Ali Stafford:
Sure. My favorite is La Valle. It's L-A and then V-A-L-L-E. I just find it to be delicious and fresh. I do though encourage everybody to taste. You may find a brand new... I love Bianco DiNapoli. Their tomatoes, there's less of the sauce. So if you make the no cook tomato sauce with the Bianco DiNapoli which is wonderful versus the La Valle, which is also wonderful, Bianco DiNapoli is just going to be a little bit thicker and it's fine. It doesn't matter.

Jessie Sheehan:
Can we find those brands in our local grocery store?

Ali Stafford:
Possibly. It depends. Certain grocery stores, I think Whole Foods carries. Both of them can order them online. Cento is a brand you can find in almost every grocery store, and I use it and they're great. First of all, you're going to season it with salt. You're going to add a little bit of olive oil, a little bit of garlic, and if it's maybe not the best tomatoes, though I do think you should look for the best tomatoes, you're going to doctor it a little bit.

Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to add a little bit of garlic. We're going to grate it on a microplane, which I love, and you also recommend a microplane for cheese. We're going to add a little kosher salt, same brand of that California olive ranch and puree until smooth. Taste, adjust the salt. We'll spread our tomato sauce over our dough, leaving a half inch border. We're going to scatter some low moisture, whole milk mozzarella cheese pulled apart into one half inch pieces, and we're going to scatter those evenly over the top. But can you tell us about your favorite brand, which is Calabro? And can we get that in the grocery store?

Ali Stafford:
Yes, certain grocery stores. I can get it at Whole Foods, so I always stock up when I'm there. When we were in California, we couldn't. There are good brands everywhere, it is just a matter of tasting. And it is important to taste because some are just not tasty and some don't melt as well. Some are drier. Calabro, I find you can just feel it compared to other brands. It's a little bit softer. I think it's moister. I think it's really tasty and I love the way it melts.

Jessie Sheehan:
In an outdoor oven, you absolutely can use buffalo mozzarella, which just for the record is literally my favorite food on the planet.

Ali Stafford:
I know. It's so tasty.

Jessie Sheehan:
I'm obsessed with mozzarella, but anyway. Because it retains its freshness, it's creaminess during that brief cooking time, but a slow cooking time-

Ali Stafford:
It just doesn't seem worth it. It's very expensive. If five to 10 minutes in the oven, you're going to lose that creaminess, the freshness, its flavor then it's just not worth it. It also is wetter in a home oven because getting that crisp bottom and not having a soggy pizza, those are challenges. That cheese with the extra moisture is just not great.

Jessie Sheehan:
So now we're going to drizzle lightly with olive oil. We're going to season with a pinch of sea salt at this point, not kosher.

Ali Stafford:
Yes, Maldon sea salt is what I use for finishing, whether it's for seasoning a salad or finishing on a pizza. It's a really tasty... It's not worth it to use that in a pizza dough recipe, it's unnecessary, but when you're looking for just good flavor, a good high quality salt is really nice.

Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to stretch our dough one last time, pulling outward on its edges, redistributing toppings as needed, give the peel that one last shake to ensure the dough is not sticking. We're going to shimmy the pizza still on the parchment, if using, onto our steel and bake until the cheese is melted, the edges are beginning to char, five to six minutes or eight to 10, depending on your oven. When our pizza comes out of the oven, using our peel, we'll transfer it to a cutting board. And I think I read in the book that you love that application or situation for serving. So just put it right down on a big cutting board that you can then serve it. Get rid of your paper, sprinkle with some basil. Are we doing a teeny bit more salt and oil at this point?

Ali Stafford:
You can have it on the table for anybody wants it. I don't think it to be necessary. The sauce is definitely seasoned, is very seasoned. Then you've added another pinch of flaky salt, so it should be seasoned. But I'm a salt lover, so I would never judge anybody for sprinkling more salt.

Jessie Sheehan:
And when we cut our pizza, I had a couple of questions. I know that you love a scissors and I think there is also actually a more traditional pizza cutter situation that you also like. And I wonder, are you a triangular wedge? Because in the book I see a lot of round pizzas being cut into slices almost.

Ali Stafford:
Just honestly from a stylistic perspective, I think they were being creative with the cutting. But I generally for the Neapolitan style, yeah, I either use my pizza scissors. R. Murphy pizza rocker, that is my favorite. It's beautiful. It's sharp and it's big enough so it will go from end to end through the pizza and it's great. I love that. That's probably my favorite. But I like having the scissors, one for the kids. The kids love using the scissors. You can use any scissors. You do not have to buy pizza scissors, but in my kitchen, and this was how it was also growing up, the scissors would always disappear from the kitchens. I always remember my mom saying, "Where are my scissors?" And we would always give her another pair of scissors for Christmas. The pizza scissors never disappear. Nobody uses those for other things. So if you have a pair of pizza scissors, they'll always be in your kitchen.

Jessie Sheehan:
The salad we're serving with our pizza is a spring chopped salad with edamame and peas and endive and asparagus Italian dressing. This is a really important question, but when I eat pizza and salad, I actually like to put the salad on top of the pizza. Do you do that?

Ali Stafford:
I love that. My mom does that. It is so good. There's just something. I think it is just that acidity that just is such a perfect match for the bread and the cheese and maybe there's some meat in there and sauce. It's just perfect.

Jessie Sheehan:
Thank you so much for chatting with me today, Ali. And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.

Ali Stafford:
Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.

Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Plugra Premium European Style Butter and Nonino for their support. Don't forget to subscribe to She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and tell your pals about us. Don't forget to visit cherrybombe.com for today's recipe. 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, Catherine Baker, and Elizabeth Vogt. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu and our content operations manager is Londyn Crenshaw. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie, and happy baking.