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Auzerais Bellamy Transcript

 Auzerais Bellamy 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 three baking books, including my latest, "Snackable Bakes." Each Saturday, I'm hanging out with the sweetest bakers around and taking a deep dive into their signature bakes.

Today's guest is Auzerais Bellamy. Auzerais is a pastry chef and owner and founder of Blondery, a bakery and mail order business in Peekskill, New York, specializing in blondies. Auzerais started her culinary career in fine dining and began making blondies on the side for family and friends in 2017. Her baked good business blossomed and she opened her Peekskill storefront last year. Auzerais joins me to chat all about blondies and the tips, tricks and ingredients she uses to get her luxurious treats just so. If you're not sure what a blondie is compared to a brownie, well, you're about to find out. Auzerais also walks me through her honey date pistachio blondie recipe. I learned a ton from our conversation, and you will too. Stay tuned.

Thank you to Plugra European-Style Butter for supporting today's show. You might be new to Plugra European-Style Butter, but it's been a favorite in my fridge for some time. Whether I'm baking for fun or for work, or developing recipes for my next cookbook, Plugra and its 82% butterfat are essential. The color, soft, creamy texture, and rich flavor it brings to my pie dough cannot be beat. And my chocolate chip cookies, they're chewier and pudgier. The higher butterfat content means less moisture and more fat, which is precisely what you're looking for. Remember, fat equals flavor. Plugra European-Style Butter is available in different forms for all your baking, cooking, and snacking needs, including salted and unsalted sticks and solids. I'm partial to unsalted Plugra. If you've learned anything listening to She's My Cherry Pie, it's that ingredients matter. The next time you bake, reach for Plugra and taste the difference it makes. From professional kitchens to your home kitchen, Plugra Premium European-Style Butter is the perfect choice. Ask for Plugra at your favorite supermarket or specialty grocery store.

I have some exciting news. She's My Cherry Pie is coming to Dallas. On Tuesday, June 20th, we are hosting a special afternoon with networking, a panel conversation, and of course, sweet treats. The event is sold out, and thank you to everyone who purchased a ticket. I can't wait to meet all of you and check out the Dallas baking scene while I'm there. If there are any Dallas bakers or pastry chefs I should know about, be sure to DM me thank you to Plugra Premium European-Style Butter for supporting this event.

Now, let's check in with today's guest. Auzerais, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk blondies with you and so much more.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Thank you for having me.

Jessie Sheehan:
Now, first, just in case people don't know, can you tell us how generally, not necessarily your blondie, but how in general blondies are different than brownies?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Blondies are typically the afterthought at a bakery. They are usually caramel or butterscotch base, and I wouldn't even say butterscotch base. They're just butter and sugar mixed together with some chocolate chips. That's kind of it. They're not usually very good if you get them at a bakery.

Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell us why you think that, and I think so too, but why you think that blondies are superior to brownies?

Auzerais Bellamy:
They have a lot more range. We're up to I think 192 flavors of blondies, and I don't think you could do that with a brownie.

Jessie Sheehan:
I think you're right, and I think you've also said that with a brownie, you can cover up maybe an inexpensive butter or not a great chocolate with all of that chocolate going on in a brownie. But with a blondie, you have to be much more careful about what the ingredients are that are going in because each one shines. Is that right?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yeah, that's so true, and that's why we try to use very natural ingredients and no artificial flavors. We really try to get our ingredients to shine in our blondies.

Jessie Sheehan:
I want to go back to your early blondie making days. I believe that maybe it was either someone at church or in church who first gave you a piece of candy that inspired your love of the blondie. Can you tell us that story and about what that candy is?

Auzerais Bellamy:
It's those pecan or pecan praline candies that you get in New Orleans. That was the, I think, starting point of Blondery because I was forever chasing that memory of biting into one and it tasting something that someone enjoyed creating. You know how you can taste that and stuff? That's what it tastes like.

Jessie Sheehan:
It's a cliche, but when something is super special, you taste the love inside of that item. The candy is a little pool of almost like a caramely praline with a toasted I always say pecan and get made fun of, but either pecan or pecan placed on top, right?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Exactly, yeah, or mixed in. I think that it was the butter. The butter notes in it were so present, and then the fact that it was a toasted pecan and not a raw pecan, those little touches matter, even the salt salt balance. I just remember it melting in my mouth and me being like, wow, that's amazing.

Jessie Sheehan:
Do you know how old were you then? Do you remember?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Very young. I want to say maybe eight.

Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh! And then did you start to make blondies as a kid? Was that one of the things that you experimented with when you were baking when you were little?

Auzerais Bellamy:
No. I actually started trying to make the candies. I don't think I had enough pastry knowledge to understand caramelizing sugar or anything like that, so they were always a fail. But the blondies came along much later. I found a recipe just similar to what I just described. It was just mixed some butter and some sugar and add some chocolate chips. There was a technique though that I found and it was melting the butter.

When I made it that way, there was a big difference. I was like, I'm going to add some salted caramel to this, and then it's like, how can I box it up if there's salted caramel on it? I have to put something on top, and that's where the pecans came in. I was like, oh, this is the pecan praline candy that I had.

Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. Yeah, I think I read that an original blondie that you played around with earlier in your career before Blondery was a blondie with... I think it's almost like a hack from making a dulce de leche. You take a can of sweetened condensed milk and you boil it on the stove top for like hours, right? The can is unopened. It's in this little pot of water, and for hours you boil it until the sweetened condensed milk milk changes into almost like dulce de leche. You were spreading that on your original blondies, is that right?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Correct. Yes. But the problem with that recipe was that it would seep into the blondie and I wanted something that would stay on top. That's how we got to where we are now.

Jessie Sheehan:
When was the blondie with the sweetened condensed milk situation happening? Was this before Blondery when you were just a professional pastry chef, but you liked to make blondies at home and you were playing with this idea?

Auzerais Bellamy:
No, that was before pastry school, before I was even 18 years old. That's why I say that the blondie is over 10 years of developing, because I went through several recipes of caramel and several techniques and several different types of chocolate. It's over 10 years of development.

Jessie Sheehan:
It sounds like the blondie baking didn't begin in earnest professionally until you moved to New York. You'd been working at Bouchon Bakery in California, and you came out to New York to work at the location in Rock Center. Either you wrote or I read that your peeps back home in California, they missed your blondies. Now, they missed them because you'd been making that one with the sweetened condensed milk, and it was maybe the holidays or something and they wanted you to send them. Can you tell us that story?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yeah. I think it was maybe a year in to living in New York. I had three roommates. I got texts and phone calls like, "Oh, Thanksgiving's coming up. Are you coming home?" I'm like, no, I have to stay here. On a pastry chef's salary, I couldn't afford to go home. I said, "Well, maybe I can ship them to you." They're like, "Okay, do it." At the time, I think the blondies were 25... I priced them at $25 a box for a 24 piece. Now we're at 75. I shipped them via USPS, and I think they were in takeout containers, like meal prep containers.

I would wrap the meal prep containers in plastic wrap and then put them in the USPS flat rate box and hope that they get there. A few times they didn't, but when they did, my family was like, "Wow, these are so good. I'm so happy that we were able to share them with our friends and family for the holidays." And then one holiday season I set up a website, and then it took off from there.

Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh! But someone in New York City tasted them in 2016, I think it was, and raved about them. Was that the inspiration for maybe deciding to go more? Tell us about that.

Auzerais Bellamy:
I had quit the industry, pastry, completely because I was really frustrated with the lack of representation. I felt like I wasn't necessarily being challenged or growing in my career. I was like, I'm just going to leave and go do something else. I went and cleaned houses actually, and I found someone who needed a personal assistant. He happened to work in marketing. I think one holiday season he knew I made blondies. I had mentioned it, I think, but it wasn't a business. It was just something I did during the holidays.

He asked me to give him 25 boxes for his employees, and the next day he comes back and it's like, "My employees love those things. What are you doing with that? Are you going to sell them? What's going on?" I'm like, oh, I don't know. I just make them. I send them home. He's like, "Well, literally everyone came up to me and said they were good." That's what made me think, oh, other people like these, strangers like these, so maybe there's something here.

Jessie Sheehan:
I love that story. And then I think around this time, maybe 2016, 2018, you did something very bold at Bloomingdale's while you were ramping up your business. Can you tell everyone what you did in Bloomingdale's?

Auzerais Bellamy:
There was an event for I think the launch of the live action Lion King, I want to say, and a designer that I admire was doing a popup there. I thought if I could just give her the blondies, maybe she could introduce me to someone at Bloomingdale's so that maybe I can get the blondies into Bloomingdale's. It ended up, I never talked to her that night. I've never even met her. She probably doesn't even know I was there that night. But I worked up enough courage to ask someone on the floor like, "Hey, who is in charge of this event?" They were literally standing right behind me. I tried not to be obvious and look who they were.

I remember being so nervous, but I walked over and I was like, "I have these blondies. And if you like them, then maybe we could work together." I was just trying to do my elevator pitch, and it was so weird probably and shaky. But the next day, the buyer followed me on Instagram and I was like, oh my God, it's going to happen. And then I can't remember exactly what happened after that, but that sparked my relationship with Bloomingdale's and Macy's. I was able to do popups all around the country at their stores and really get the word out about Blondery, and I felt that was the best place to do that because I knew that that's one of the places where my target customer was shopping.

Jessie Sheehan:
I know that originally Blondery was just an online shop, as it were, in New York City. Then you moved to Peekskill in Upstate New York, and you have both a retail shop and the online aspect of the business. That was a surprise, or did you specifically move there thinking, oh, great, retail?

Auzerais Bellamy:
No, that was a surprise for sure. I was not thinking Blondery would have a retail anytime soon. It was definitely something I thought about. But the move to Peekskill, we found a place that's on a main street. The mayor really wanted us there. Our landlord really wanted us there. It was like, but if you want to be here, you kind of have to open to the public. I was like, ugh, why? But now I have to say I was completely wrong about what I thought retail would be for Blondery.

The community here is so supportive of us and even the surrounding communities too. People travel actually to us as well. It's just been so amazing. We're actually getting ready to build out our retail counter, because right now it's just a stainless steel table that we threw our tablecloth over and some Amazon bookshelf that we put our products on. But now we're getting ready to build a coffee counter and under counter storage. It's been great, but it was not planned.

Jessie Sheehan:
Today at Blondery, the blondie that started it all with the sweetened condensed milk, and the pecans is sold at Blondery and it is the OG blondie. As you said, took 10 years to get it right. Can you describe the version that you sell today and how it's different than that original one you were making back in the day?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yes. It's a chocolate chip blondie, so an homage to the blondies that you typically see in bakeries. But then we take it a step further and we do a salted caramel ganache now. There's a thick layer. It's probably about half an inch thick. It's a process that takes the whole shift. My team works for eight hours a day. It takes a whole shift to make a batch of caramel ganache. It's basically a dulce de leche that we add glucose to that basically creates a fudgy texture, and then we add some pink Himalayan salt at the end of the cooking process, so you get that sharp bite of salt.

And then we also do toasted pecans that we're getting from a farm out in Texas, and we have to buy a lot of them. I think we buy 500 pounds at a time of pecans, and that's it. It's very simple, but it's also very complex, but it still is our bestseller. I always say it's everyone's favorite. People who don't like nuts, people who don't like chocolate, people who don't like sweets, they're like, "I don't like those things, but I like that blondie."

Jessie Sheehan:
I also love that it feels like the toppings, the caramel ganache and the pecans, they help bring out all those flavors that are ideal in a blondie, which are this butterscotchy vibe, which I feel is a great segue into your incredible blondie technique. The listeners, the first step in blondie making for you at Blondery with the boiling of the butter and the sugar?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Well, the first step is getting really good ingredients, I would say. We use Plugra Butter, Domino Sugar. I've tried using different things. It never works out. I don't mean to name drop, but they are the best for this thing.

Jessie Sheehan:
Oh no, we love, love, love Plugra.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yeah, they've been the best for everything that we do. That's what we use in everything. And then you melt the butter, and you can also melt the brown sugar with the butter if you wanted to and get a little crazy. But you melt the butter, you add the brown sugar, and then you add your eggs slowly. You add your flour, your salts. We use fruit powders usually. We try not to use extracts. We'll use strawberry powder or dragon fruit powder. Actually in our strawberry rose, we use both because strawberry powder is a little too red to come off pink, so we have to use dragon fruit powder as well, which is very expensive, but worth it to get that perfect pink hue.

In our red velvet blondie, we use actually beet powder to get that red coloring. And then you bake it and we let it cool. We do do something a little different with the baking as well, is we put it in sheet trays, line sheet tray. We do that because, one, we wanted to bake very evenly and be the same height. And two, we didn't want a super thick blondie. We wanted it to be bite-sized, two or three bites, and that's it

Jessie Sheehan:
With the special blondie technique, with the melting of the butter, do you brown it or you just want it melted and then you're going to add your sugar or you're going to melt the butter and sugar together? Is that right?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yeah, you can melt the butter and sugar together or you can just melt it. But I love the idea of browning it as well. I think that that's a great idea.

Jessie Sheehan:
It just adds more like caramel notes. I know that melted butter idea came to you years ago from a recipe that you looked at, which I also love. I actually love melted butter and cookies. I melted butter a lot of the time because I don't always love to pull out my stand mixer and cream butter, so I love the idea that melted butter means that you don't need to do that.

Auzerais Bellamy:
I did try the creamy method as well, and that produced a more cakey blondie. I wanted something that was more I wouldn't say fudgy because that's the wrong word, but more chewy, and that's what the melted butter gives you.

Jessie Sheehan:
Could not agree with you more. I feel the same way. Because in cookies, I always want a chewy cookie and I feel like the melted butter makes it less cakey, more chewy because you're not creaming up that softened butter. I couldn't agree with you more. You've also said that not only does this technique in your blondie produce a uniquely chewy texture, but the blondies never crumble. They're not cakey. They're not cookie like. I love that.

Auzerais Bellamy:
We say our blondies are a mix between a chocolate chip cookie and a brownie because they have the appearance of a chocolate chip cookie and that light color, but the texture more of a brownie. You'll see our Venn diagram. One of our brand marks is a Venn diagram with chocolate chip cookies on one side, brownies on the other, and then blondie in the middle.

Jessie Sheehan:
Now, I wanted to talk about, just do a deep dive into the making of your honey date pistachio blondies. First things first, we're going to heat the oven to about 325 degrees, is that right?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Correct.

Jessie Sheehan:
And that's a little low for a blondie or for a brownie, but you find that that slightly lower temp, what does it do, help bake it more evenly?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yes, because I'm suggesting that you use a nine by 13 pan. You want to make sure that it's baking in the middle too, and that's why you're baking it so low.

Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. I don't think people always understand higher heat isn't always better, because things cook more quickly and therefore you can have very well done edges, but your middle still need some time. Now we're going to lightly grease a nine by 13 inch pan. I wondered if you had a favorite brand of pans either that you use at home or that you might be using in the bakery?

Auzerais Bellamy:
I get them from Webstaurant, but I'm unsure of the brand, but I know I always go for the more expensive one.

Jessie Sheehan:
Good to know.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Because I don't want the little metal shards in our product.

Jessie Sheehan:
No. No. And then we're going to grease the pan. Do you like to grease with butter or with cooking spray?

Auzerais Bellamy:
We use cooking spray that doesn't have any of the propellants in it.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I like cooking spray as well. And then do we line it with parchment paper?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yep, exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Just on the bottom or do you like it to come up the side so we can lift it out? How do you like to do it?

Auzerais Bellamy:
We take a full sheet of parchment and cut it into quarters, and that ends up being the exact size you need for a quarter sheet tray, which is the nine by 13.

Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to cook the butter, our Plugra butter. Is it unsalted butter or salted?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yes, unsalted.

Jessie Sheehan:
Unsalted?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yep.

Jessie Sheehan:
I love that we don't need to soften it. It doesn't need to be brought to room temp because it's just going to be melted. We do that in a large sauce pan. Is there a brand of sauce pan or a kind of sauce pan? Just a regular old metal pot? What do you like best?

Auzerais Bellamy:
At home I use Material Kitchen a lot for my own cooking. In the kitchen, we use a huge pot, so I don't even know what brand. It's very old.

Jessie Sheehan:
We're cooking that butter until it melts. Is it a high heat or a medium heat?

Auzerais Bellamy:
I usually tell the girls to keep it low because we're not trying to brown it.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, although maybe you will be now.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Although maybe we will do brown butter blondie.

Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to add the brown sugar if we want and cook that a bit as well on the stove top, or you can take the melted butter off the stove top and add the sugar. Either one. You just want to get it smooth and shiny. Is that right?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yep. And then you're going to immediately put it in a stand mixer.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. You're going to stir it while you're melting them together, and then place it in the stand mixer with your paddle attachment and beat it until it cools to room temp?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yep, exactly. You don't want to add the eggs right away or you're going to cook them.

Jessie Sheehan:
Right. Is there a particular speed on the stand mixer that we want?

Auzerais Bellamy:
We usually keep it at the lowest speed.

Jessie Sheehan:
At the lowest to cool it. Is there an amount of time or you just have to keep... I usually feel the bottom...

Auzerais Bellamy:
We feel the bowl.

Jessie Sheehan:
I feel the bottom of the bowl to know if the ingredients inside of it have cooled yet.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yep. We do the same.

Jessie Sheehan:
It may still be on the lowest speed, but you're going to make sure the mixer is on the lowest speed and you're going to add the eggs slowly and in three additions. Should the eggs be room temperature, or can they be... What do you like?

Auzerais Bellamy:
If your butter and sugar mixture is cool, then you should be able to use any temperature. But I think as a baker, the temperature of your kitchen, you know all of those things. If your refrigerator's super cold, you want to always mix something with something that has the same temperature. If your refrigerator is running cold, then yes, room temperature eggs is probably best.

Jessie Sheehan:
And then you're going to scrape the mixer bolt, stop the mixer and scrape it after each addition of the egg just to make sure everything was incorporated.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yeah, yep. You'll see that it'll separate if you don't do that.

Jessie Sheehan:
Are you using, like at work, you're using a Hobart mixer, like a really large stand mixer.

Auzerais Bellamy:
We have a 20 quart and an 80 quart.

Jessie Sheehan:
Wow! Okay, now we're adding the honey. Is there a flavor that you were using for these boxes with this brownie in it or a brand?

Auzerais Bellamy:
I don't think we were super brand specific, but we do try to support local, so I'm sure it was something that we got from a farmers' market nearby.

Jessie Sheehan:
That's lovely. I assume you can pick whatever flavor of honey you like. You just have to know that that will be the flavor of the blondie or that will give the blondie some flavor.

Auzerais Bellamy:
We tried to do these in small batches. This particular blondie we only made twice. We were able to support twice a local farmer, but we also didn't need to buy in bulk, and that way trap us into only using this particular honey.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yep, makes sense. Now we're going to whisk our dry ingredients. First, I wondered if there's a kind of whisk you like either brand or style, balloon or skinny.

Auzerais Bellamy:
I like the balloon whisk for sure. Again, I'm sure you know there's the one with the black handle and it also comes in different sizes. No one knows the brand, but it's in most kitchens and you can definitely find it on Webstaurant.

Jessie Sheehan:
We're whisking in a large bowl. I assume in the kitchen at work, they're probably just big metal bowls is what you're working with?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yeah, but we actually will use a bus tub sometimes if we're making that big of a batch or a fish tub if we're putting the dries in. It's not always a bowl. It's something that it's portable that we can move easily to an 80 quart mixer.

Jessie Sheehan:
Just so peeps know, we used to call them fish bins. They have nothing to do with fish. I mean, it might, but not in a bakery. If I remember, it's sort of like a flat white box that's rectangular, maybe a few inches high.

Auzerais Bellamy:
I think they're called that because when you work in restaurants, the fish does get delivered in that, and then the porters will wash it out and pastry will steal them and use them to put chocolates and things of that sort.

Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.

Auzerais Bellamy:
I see now that they sell them actually. Before you couldn't really buy them. When I first started my career, I remember looking for them for my home kitchen and I would have to bribe my pastry chef to like, hey, can I please have four fish bins? But now you can buy them actually at the restaurant supply stores.

Jessie Sheehan:
We have our bowl or our fish bin, our whisk. We're going to add flour. Do you have a brand of flour that you like to use?

Auzerais Bellamy:
King Arthur all the way.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yay! We have King Arthur flour, baking powder. It's interesting, I think of baking powder as being a slightly controversial ingredient in a blondie because there are lots of blondie recipes in the World Wide Web where people aren't putting it in because they're worried about it being too fluffy or too cakey. But I agree with you or with Blondery that I think a teeny bit of leavening is a good idea in a blondie because without it, they are quite, quite dense, like, as you were saying before, almost fudgy.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yeah. I really want that chewy texture. And to get chewy, it's a mix between fudgy and cakey. And if I'm not giving full fudge because I'm not mixing... With a typical brownie, you would start by melting chocolate and then adding the butter. We're not doing that, so I'm not going to get that fudgy part. I have to add leavening.

Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to add some salt. Do you guys like to use kosher salt? Do you use fine sea salt? What kind of salt?

Auzerais Bellamy:
We use kosher salt in any baked goods, and then we use pink Himalayan for any finishing.

Jessie Sheehan:
Love that. And then you add a little bit of cinnamon, and that's just to play with the pistachios and the honey. I think that sounds so nice.

Auzerais Bellamy:
It just gives it a little kick at the end.

Jessie Sheehan:
Is there a brand of cinnamon that you're fond of?

Auzerais Bellamy:
We love Burlap & Barrel.

Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh, so good. We love that too. You've whisked all the dry ingredients together. You're going to add them to the bowl and the stand mixer. Still on low speed, I assume, so you don't get flour exploding in your face, until it's just...

Auzerais Bellamy:
Or over mix it. We don't like to over mix it.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. Well, I was going to ask you, what are we looking for? Should we still see streaks of flour or just wait until that last streak disappears? What's our signal?

Auzerais Bellamy:
The last streak. Sometimes stop it sooner and just do it by hand. Every mixer is different in the speed variations. We see a very wide difference between our 20 quart, our seven quart, our 80 quart. Speed one is very different on all three of those machines. Really you have to use your eyes and senses when you're baking.

Jessie Sheehan:
I think that's a really good point. I mean, people say that all the time about ovens. When you draft a recipe, when you write a recipe, you can tell people to bake something at 350 degrees. But unless they have an oven thermometer inside, you have no idea what their oven and hots pots, cold spots in an oven. It's interesting, I've never thought about it with a stand mixer, but you're right. One person's low speed on one mixer, even the same brand, is going to be a very different low speed on another.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Different models.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, no, that's really true. That's a really good thing for people to remember, which is just what you said, use all your senses. You can't just be like, I am a robot. I am on slow speed.

Auzerais Bellamy:
You should never do that with the recipe. I think the ingredients and weights, yes, be very strict with that, but baking times, the temperatures, the speeds, you know your equipment best. A true artisan, a true skilled craftsman will take into account all of those things when looking at a project.

Jessie Sheehan:
Once that last streak of flour disappears and maybe we give it a quick stir in the bowl with our spatula off of the mixer, we're going to transfer the... I mean, do we call it blondie dough or batter?

Auzerais Bellamy:
I call it batter.

Jessie Sheehan:
Batter. It seems more battery.

Auzerais Bellamy:
It's going to be very liquidy.

Jessie Sheehan:
It will be? Okay, good to know. We're going to add our batter to the pan at this point. Do we even need to smooth the top with an offset spatula, or is it liquidy enough that it just smooths out on its own?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Smooth the top with the offset spatula so you can take a taste off the offset. Spatula.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. Yes.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yes. We usually do just spread it out to the corners, because we're typically baking in a huge full sheet pan, so we have to do that. But I found in the quarter sheet, you don't necessarily need to, but I will sometimes tap it on the bottom just to kind of even out the layer.

Jessie Sheehan:
I remember that from the bakery that I worked at, we were all about brownies, but you would pour the batter into the full sheet pan, and then you'd have to nudge it with your offset into the corners. Because even if it's liquidy, it just plops stays there and stays. Yes. Now we're going to sprinkle with some chopped dates, with some pistachios. I wondered if the pistachios are chopped and whether they're toasted or if it's raw pistachios.

Auzerais Bellamy:
We use toasted and they were chopped roughly. Not a lot though.

Jessie Sheehan:
Nice. And not salted.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Not salted.

Jessie Sheehan:
And then you're going to add a sprinkle of additional salt on top of the blondie? Now it's our finishing salt, so it's the pink Himalayan?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love that, love that. How come you didn't fold the pistachios and the dates into the blondies?

Auzerais Bellamy:
We wanted you to see it on top, although I believe taste matters more. That's the age-old question. Does taste or presentation matter? Taste does matter more to me, but we also do eat with our eyes. We wanted you to see what flavor you were getting, so that's why we had it on top.

Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. Do you need to press it in slightly, or is the batter wet enough that wherever they lie, they're going to stay there?

Auzerais Bellamy:
The batter is more of... It's kind of actually like a dulce de leche. It's thick, but it's still runny enough.

Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to drizzle with some additional honey on top. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Is there a way that you like to test your blondies? Will you stick a wooden skewer in the center, or will you touch it with your fingers, or you see it coming away from the sides of the pan? What are your signals?

Auzerais Bellamy:
If it's coming away from the sides of the pan, it's overdone, if it's not deep enough for you to sink a skewer in. You really have to touch the middle. I'm not looking for it to be firm. I'm just looking for it not to be liquidy.

Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Does that make sense? Because if it's firm, then again, it's over baked.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.

Auzerais Bellamy:
I'm looking for it to have a little bit of give, but enough pushback.

Jessie Sheehan:
I mean, this top's a little more complicated because we put our dates and our pistachios on it, but will the top be kind of crinkly? Does the top get a crinkle? No, it's more of a smooth. Is it matte or kind of shiny?

Auzerais Bellamy:
It's definitely matte.

Jessie Sheehan:
Back to this bakery where I worked where we made a lot of brownies, it was a very thin brownie, but we would use a skewer, but the skewer had to literally come off with wet crumbs. If it came out with dry crumbs or even moist crumbs, you'd over baked it. It's really a dance to make. I mean, that may have just been this specific recipe, but the crumbs would be on the end of the skewer. You would take them off with your fingers. And if you could roll them into a little ball, then the brownie was done.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Oh, interesting. Our recipe doesn't have crumbs though.

Jessie Sheehan:
Right. There's nothing that's going to come out.

Auzerais Bellamy:
I think it would just come out wet. And then if it comes out dry, I would say you over baked it.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. I understand that totally. In a way, it's better not to ask people to test it that way at all because they'll just get nervous.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yeah, exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. You're going to let the blondies cool before you invert them onto a parchment lined or a piece of parchment. And then you like to cool them completely, preferably overnight, before cutting them. How come?

Auzerais Bellamy:
I think it's similar to a macaroon in the sense that we want the... Or I should say lasagna too. You want the flavors to settle in and let the texture really just settle before you cut into it. And because we have the blondie cutter now, which is a machine, it used to take us 45 minutes to cut a sheet tray of blondie. Our machine cuts it in less than a minute.

Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.

Auzerais Bellamy:
We have to cut it cool.

Jessie Sheehan:
We would do the same thing at the bakery I worked in. You always waited until the next day to cut the brownies. That must be like an industry... But I wonder if we'd all at home as bakers be better bakers if we waited. I'm not sure I'm patient enough, but if we waited with our brownies and blondies for 24 hours, I bet we would enjoy them more.

Auzerais Bellamy:
When I studied in France, one of the French chefs, he did tell me that in America, his biggest complaint was that we put cinnamon in everything, which is hilarious because we're talking about a recipe I put cinnamon in. And then the other thing is like, you guys like your bread hot. He was always just, wait, give it five hours.

Give a baguette five hours to cool completely, so you can really taste the sourdough or whatever it is in the bread. I mean, as bakers, I think we're already very patient people. But if we can wait and get over our fear of refrigeration and freezers, because that's a big thing, we can really see flavors develop and take shape in our baked goods.

Jessie Sheehan:
I'm very pro freezer, very pro refrigerator, but I am not patient, but I'm going to try. When it's cooling overnight, would you wrap it in plastic wrap?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yeah. Whenever we wrap things, if it's going in the freezer, we double wrap it. If it's going in the fridge, we single wrap it.

Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, good to know. I mean, those sound amazing, obviously. And then the next day cut them into whatever size you would like.

Auzerais Bellamy:
We do one by one inch.

Jessie Sheehan:
One by one inch?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:
One by one inch, they're that tiny?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yes, because we like them to be petit four size almost.

Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. Oh, I love that. I might need a slightly larger one, although I guess I could eat a lot of the one by ones. I wanted to talk about a couple of the other Blondery recipes. This isn't exactly a blondie question, but oh my gosh, the 11 layer cake in a jar. Can you describe it for everyone?

Auzerais Bellamy:
It's devil's food cake, our chocolate chip blondie, the salted caramel ganache, the toasted pecans, vanilla Swiss buttercream, chocolate Swiss buttercream, Valrhona chocolate pearls. It's just amazing, its texture, its color. And then we have different flavors that we do, but that's the OG. We also can do it without nuts as well. Texture, that's the biggest thing, is there's texture and there's flavor. You really need to scoop to the bottom of the jar to get all of that in one bite, at least for your first bite. For your first bite, get all of it.

Jessie Sheehan:
When you set these up in the jars, do you then let them rest so that all the flavors can meld, or do you make one and eat it right away?

Auzerais Bellamy:
I've never made them at home, so it's interesting that you ask that. But I think it started with the cake. We actually do an 11 layer cake, and then we made the jars because they were so popular, people wanted a smaller portion. The cake, yes, you would have to let it set up. Otherwise, all that buttercream would just come oozing out as soon as you tried to cut it. But with the cake jar, I think you could probably dive right in. I always tell people, please eat it at room temperature. Do not put it in the microwave. It's literally all butter, so it's just going to be a pool of butter if you put it in the microwave. But you definitely want to eat it at room temperature so you can get all of that creamy mouth feel.

Jessie Sheehan:
I get so upset when people give me cold cake. You put your cake in the refrigerator? I'm just like, no, I'd rather have asparagus. I don't even want the cake if it's cold. I have to bring it to room temperature. 100%. The jars are like... I think I read this, somebody might order 20 of them for a baby shower or something. Is that correct? Because you know that I'm coming to visit you, so get ready. When I come, can I just buy one? Are they in a case? Oh, I love that.

Auzerais Bellamy:
You can buy one. And then we usually have a seasonal one. We rotate seasonal flavors every month. We'll always have the OG and then we'll have a seasonal one. I always tell people the seasonal one's going to be completely different, so you should just get both. You should get the OG and the seasonal. They're completely different.

Jessie Sheehan:
You've convinced me. I'm getting both. And finally, will you tell us about the blondie trim bundle?

Auzerais Bellamy:
Yes. That is our edges and ends that are not necessarily crispy or hard. They're just not the one inch, one inch pieces that we can use. There's one flavor per bag, and it's a surprise as to which flavor you'll get in your bundle. We always say it's not for the picky eaters. It's more so for people who are willing to take a culinary adventure.

Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And just one question, when you do slice them into your one inch, one inch, do people ever get edge pieces from Blondery?

Auzerais Bellamy:
No. Only in the trim bags.

Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, there you go. I love that. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Auzerais, and I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.

Auzerais Bellamy:
Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Plugra Premium European-Style Butter for their support. Don't forget to subscribe to She's My Cherry Pie on your favorite podcast platform, and tell your baking buddies about us. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network and is recorded at CityVox Studio in Manhattan. Our producers are Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker, and our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie and happy baking.