Helen Goh Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi peeps, you're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer and author of four baking books, including “Salty, Cheesy, Herby Crispy Snackable Bakes.” On each episode, I hang out with the sweetest bakers around and take a deep dive into their signature bakes.
My guest today is Helen Goh. Helen is a celebrated pastry chef, recipe developer, cookbook author, and food columnist. She resides in London, but was born in Malaysia and raised in Australia. You probably know her from her work at the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen, where she has been a creative force for more than a decade. She also co-authored two books with Yotam Ottolenghi, “Sweet: Desserts from London's Ottolenghi” and “Comfort,” which came out last year. Now Helen is branching out on her own with her very first solo cookbook, the newly released “Baking and the Meaning of Life: How to Find Joy in 100 Recipes.” The recipes in this book draw on her Chinese Malaysian roots, her Australian upbringing, and the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean influences from her years with Ottolenghi. Think Chocolate Tahini cake with sesame brittle, plum and pistachio bars, and pandan and coconut chiffon cake. And let me tell you listeners, every recipe sounds incredibly delicious and the photography is gorgeous. What's particularly interesting about the book is that it also infuses Helen's psychology background and education, she has a doctorate in psychology, through reflections on life and how baking can bring us together and add meaning and joy to both everyday and milestone moments. Helen joins me to talk about her upbringing, including her family dinners growing up, her mom was an amazing cook, and how she went from studying psychology to developing the world's best chocolate cake, if you know, you know, and other recipes, what it was like working at the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen and her testing sessions with Yotam at his house and the inspiration behind her first solo book, spoiler alert, it was a bake sale. She also walks me through her champagne and blackcurrant celebration cake from the new book, a recipe that required lots of testing and might be the book's most delicious, according to Helen. I loved chatting with Helen. She is just the loveliest. Stay tuned for our chat. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.substack.com.
Today's episode is presented by Diamond of California Nuts, the century-old nut brand you know and love. As we're gearing up for holiday baking season, my favorite season, make sure you're stocked up on all the baking nuts you'll need, and with Diamond, you know you're getting guaranteed fresh quality. You can really taste the difference. Diamond has us covered with all the nuts, whole, chopped, sliced, and even in-shell too, if you're ever in the mood to crack some walnuts. Hey, maybe you have a nutcracker. I'll go with the chopped walnuts, which I put in my crazy delicious chocolate marshmallow walnut fudge. The pecans are a must in my chocolate bourbon pecan pie, and I also love using them to make candied nuts for holiday gifting, that's when I want to be using the best ingredients I can find. So when you're at the grocery store, look for the nuts in the white bag with the red Diamond logo in the baking aisle. That's your sign, you're getting premium quality nuts that bakers have trusted for generations. Visit diamondnuts.com to find a store nearest you and to explore their fan favorite recipes like walnut butter cookies. Yum. Happy baking.
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Let's chat with today's guest. Helen, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk champagne and blackcurrant celebration cake with you, and so much more.
Helen Goh:
Hi, Jessie. I'm so thrilled to be on this show and speaking with you. Thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you were born in Malaysia into a second-generation Chinese family, and you lived there until you were 11 when your family moved to Australia. And throughout your fantastic new book, you mentioned a few of the sweets you remember eating when you were little before you moved. I think one of your earliest memories is eating buns or steamed sweet cakes for the Tomb Sweeping Festival.
Helen Goh:
Yes, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell us about those and about how old you were?
Helen Goh:
Yeah. The Tomb Sweeping Festival, I think we attended from when we were very little. It's a bit like the Mexican Day of the Dead, so although it sounds a little bit macabre, it's really about celebration of the ancestors, the relatives who have passed. So not only is it not macabre, it's kind of quite a joyous event. And what happens is that we wake up at the crack of dawn and we all pile into the car with lots of food. It's essentially a picnic by the grave site and lots and lots of families do it, so it's almost like a pilgrimage to the grave site. And then we clean the urns, we plant new pot plants, and then we eat and kind of reminisce about our beloved departed ones.
It's something that I grew up with and almost didn't really understand as a child, although I knew that we were there to celebrate my grandfather. So there's something about continuity. My father is buried in Australia, and when I go back with my sons and my husband, we also participate in the Tomb Sweeping Festival. So it just feels like this idea of continuity. There's just something really lovely about, I mean, my children never met my father, but they know something about him, there's a picture of him and we talk about the foods that he loved. And so for me, it's just a really lovely, notwithstanding eating picnic food, one of my favorite things to do.
Jessie Sheehan:
And was there a specific food, these steamed sweet cakes that you would've eaten there or that would've been something you would've eaten on the regular, it was just good picnic fare?
Helen Goh:
Well, in Malaysia, you see, the cakes at that time, I mean now bakeries sell all kinds of things from cheesecakes to 10-layer honey cakes, but at the time when I was a small girl, the cakes were mainly more mochi-like, the texture of mochi. They're usually steamed, they're either made with glutinous rice flour or mochiko or cassava flour or tapioca flour, and usually they're steamed. So, not that these were specifically for the Tomb Sweeping Festival, but that this was the kind of traditional treats that I grew up with.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is that the same thing as the, I love this word that you described it, these squidgy little steamed cakes, K-U-E-H is that...?
Helen Goh:
Yes, that's right. They're called kueh, and usually we say kueh-kueh, which is actually just means plural. The plural is just say it twice.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because fried is my favorite food group. I also read about some sticky blocks of crispy fried dough.
Helen Goh:
Oh, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. With a viscose maltose or something.
Helen Goh:
Jessie, I knew that you would pick up on that because I know that you love a crispy rice, what is it? Rice Krispies Treats, and you are a master of that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Helen Goh:
And that is the Malaysian version or the Chinese version of it. And I don't know how the little things are made. I think they are fried bits of dough, almost like, you know those Greek cakes that you pipe straight into oil?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, totally.
Helen Goh:
So they're kind of tiny little crispy bits, and then you kind bring them all together with maltose. So it's a block of crispy dough that's held together by the sticky substance.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my gosh.
Helen Goh:
Exactly like your Rice Krispies-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, and exactly like heaven for me.
Helen Goh:
... with your beautiful marshmallow.
Jessie Sheehan:
Your mother I read, I loved learning this, always cooked. She made beautiful family meals. Your dad as well, sometimes he cooked as well.
Helen Goh:
Mom really did most of the cooking. I mean the rest of us were either at school or my dad was working. And I think it was such a dislocating experience for my mother to move from Malaysia, just everything was so different. But the one thing she could do, the one thing that was constant and consistent was cooking. So she really focused on that, shopping all day and cooking all day. And I think we grew up around the table, not just because she wanted to learn to cook better, there was always this feeling that there was a mark of respect was to engage with the cooking to say, oh, that had a bit too much soy, or maybe you cook the sugar snap peas a little bit past their al dente point.
And she really loved that. And I think looking back, it was validating for her. It was validating for her sense of competence, it was validating for her sense of having created something that we were all enjoying. So I think from that very early age, we were very schooled in critiquing and analyzing what we are doing and thinking how could this be better? And I now look back and think it probably set me up for my career with Ottolenghi, right?
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back. Today's episode is presented by King Arthur Baking Company. We love King Arthur's flour and their test kitchen-approved recipes, but we're especially excited about their new baking cookbook for kids called “Sweet and Salty,” which is available now on Bookshop, Amazon, and kingarthurbaking.com. This cookbook is so cute and expertly written, so the kids of all ages can bake along. Toddlers can help their parents measure flour and maybe take a turn kneading dough, and when they get a little older, some real baking can begin. They'll learn baking basics such as folding, creaming and how to keep eggshells out of your batter. Hey, that's a huge one. Then there are tons of fun, easy recipes to practice with, from cheesy crackers to gingerbread sheet cake. I want to make that giant chocolate chip cookie myself. This book also includes a few project bakes, like an impressive layer cake perfect for a birthday, which young bakers can tackle once they become better, more confident bakers, which with this book in hand, will happen pretty quickly. It's seriously a treasure trove. Find the “Sweet and Salty” cookbook plus all the great baking resources you'll need this holiday season at kingarthurbaking.com.
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everybody. Kerry Diamond from Radio Cherry Bombe here to share some Cherry Bombe housekeeping with you. The new issue of Cherry Bombe magazine is almost here, and it is all about cake. We just revealed the covers, and hopefully you saw them. Our new cover stars are Lucie Franc de Ferriere, From Lucie, Aimee France, aka yungkombucha420, and Amy Yip of Yip.Studio, three truly talented self-taught cake artists. We had so much fun working on the cover shoots, and I was honored to interview each of them for their cover stories. The pages of the issue are packed with sweet stories, beautiful recipes, and gorgeous photography, all on thick, lush paper. The issue will be out in early December, so head to cherrybombe.com to pre-order or subscribe.
What else? Our next virtual Bombesquad meeting is happening this Tuesday, December 2nd ,from 3:00 to 4:00 PM EST. We're hosting a virtual cookie swap over Zoom with three fantastic cookbook authors and cookie authorities: Kat Lieu, Sarah Keiffer, and Vaughn Vreeland. Our Bombesquad host, Donna Yen ,will talk to them about their holiday bakes, cookie trend,s and all the tips and tricks we can squeeze in. Plus, they will answer your burning cookie questions. Actually, that said, no burning cookies, just burning questions. Our monthly virtual meetings are open to official Bombesquad members and paid Substack subscribers. If that's you, check your email for the registration link. If you'd like to join us on Tuesday, there's still time to become a subscriber at cherrybombe.substack.com. See you Tuesday.
No,w back to our guest.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you describe a classic or a memorable, and maybe every night was memorable, meal of your mom's? What would've been on that table?
Helen Goh:
It wasn't ever just one thing. We had the Lazy Susan and I think my father probably was quite demanding. I think he worked long days, we were setting up in a new country, he was very ambitious, partly as a confluence between that and my mother's sense of competence in cooking, we always ate very, very well. I mean now I think of it and I think of how I struggle to put a meal on the table sometimes, I kind of marvel what she did because there was always a protein, there was always a vegetable and there was always a light soup, a kind of broth. And the broth might've been made with the bones that she'd collected once she deboned the duck, that was the protein for that dinner.
So there were multiple layers, multiple flavors, multiple textures. I would say the thing that stays with me most is a steamed fish, like a whole sea bass, I think you call it branzino there, just whole steamed so it's just very pure and very light and it just is finished with very thin slivers of ginger and spring onion and a bit of hot sesame oil is just poured right at the end and it just crisps up that skin and tightens up that skin. And I think that the simplicity of that, knowing now what I know about cooking, just how difficult it is to get something simple cooked perfectly and I think she did that day in and day out.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you studied psychology at university, but you worked in a bakery with your sister, I think maybe on the weekends while you were in school. I think there was a delicious cheesecake there that you loved and you have a cheesecake in the book that's based on that. That was, I assume your first experience like working in the food industry, did you love it just because it was a job to make money and you were working with your sister and you got cheesecake afterwards? Or were you also kind of intrigued by the idea of a bakery?
Helen Goh:
You know Jessie, I look back now and think, oh my gosh, what a missed opportunity, because I don't think I ever ventured into the kitchen. I was very much a sales girl by the counter. I could tell you what the cakes tasted like, but I had zero interest at that time in terms of how things were made. And I must have been there, I mean I only worked on the weekends, my sister and I both, and I don't think I showed any interest. I couldn't tell you how anything was made and now I'm kicking myself because it was a divine bakery and they made everything so beautifully. But I had zero interest then, unfortunately.
Jessie Sheehan:
So after university, while working actually in the pharmaceutical industry, you had sort of an aha moment of sorts when you realized that organizing lunches for the doctors you were working with was more interesting to you than your actual job. I wanted to hear about what those lunches were. I love a story like that.
Helen Goh:
So straight out of university, I wanted to graduate in psychology and I did a Bachelor of Science, and the faculty said to me, "You're too young to do psychology, go away and get some life experience," which I think is pretty sound advice. So I went away and I fell into this job really more for practical reasons because it offered me a car and it offered me travel and those were my two things. It was about the freedom of getting away.
And so I joined this company, it was a German pharmaceutical company and part of my job was to go door to door to doctors to tell them about the new products that we had, new drugs that were on the market. And it was pretty tedious going door to door. And one of the things to be expedient that you could do is to host a lunch, invite all the doctors, and then you have this sort of captive audience, and then you could en masse talk to them about these products rather than go door to door.
And very, very quickly I realized that I was much more interested in planning the menu for the lunch than in actually talking about the drugs. And I just really listened to that. I remember spending more and more time at the caterers trying to put together a menu for these events. I mean, they were very simple events, but still I was still much more interested in a spanakopita, how was that made and what kinds of cakes that we were going to serve afterwards than the actual event.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Helen Goh:
And I listened to that and I thought, well, at that time my boyfriend, who was a journalist, he had an opportunity to take a redundancy package. It was a small sum of money, I mean to us, it was a big sum of money then. And he said, "Well, what would you do if you had a sum of money?" And I said, "Well, we'd open a cafe, of course." I mean the sheer lunacy of that, Jessie, you have no idea because we had zero experience. I mean, he was a journalist.
In our naivety, I mean, because honestly, if you knew what was in store, you just wouldn't do it. I mean, you'd just run a mile. But we were both so naive and so taken up with this idea of owning a little cafe. I guess we also felt a bit lost at that point. So we did it. And my absolute skill was that we employed two very, very good chefs and I learned everything. During the day when they were there, I just watched them like a hawk and just learned everything I could. And in the evenings when the cafe closed, I just read, I was voraciously looking at books.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love, first of all, I love the name Mortar and Pestle, yes, was the name of the little cafe bakery. You need to tell us, I mean, you guys open this place, you don't really know what you're doing and then the chocolate cake from the bakery is awarded the distinction of being the world's best by a popular media outlet. Can you describe that cake, Helen, and tell us that story?
Helen Goh:
It's pretty crazy because it was a tiny little cafe and we did work really hard and the whole idea of the name Mortar and Pestle and the logo of the shop was actually a mortar and pestle. And because I grew up with the mortar and pestle in Malaysia with herbs and spices, you grind it and it's this idea of the painstaking attention to detail. So that was our kind of ethos, and we'd lived and died by that. So, even though we were inexperienced, you know that feeling when you do a small menu and you give it everything you've got, people did take notice. And of course I had those two very good cooks and chefs who I learned everything from.
But one day, this journalist who was vaguely an acquaintance of my partner at the time, he walked past, saw that there was this sort of coffee machine, he'd come in and had a slice of this cake and it blew him away. And then I got a call from him saying, "Would you mind if we come in to film you making the cake?" And then, well, I didn't know what he had in store, but I said, "Yes, of course, come, I'll show you how to make it." And somebody took some pictures.
And that weekend we were closed on a Sunday and I was sort of sitting on a bench outside soaking up some rays, and this man from across the road, a bookstore came running up to me and says, "That's you on the cover of the newspaper." And it was, with my tiny little face with this huge writing that said World's Best Chocolate Cake, and with a photo of me making it. And it is a nice cake, it seems to have withstood the test of time, still being made by lots of people, but I think part of that was the simplicity. Everything is made in one bowl with one whisk.
Well, you don't even have to melt the butter. You chop up the butter, you add the chocolate chips and some sugar, and you pour hot coffee, a lot of hot coffee over it, and that melts everything. When that's melted, you add sugar, eggs, flour, some vanilla and a pinch of salt and pop it in the oven. So that has been published in “Sweet.” And as I said to you at the time when we were doing the book, I'm very happy to have the recipe of that cake in there, but we must not call it the world's best chocolate cake because disappointment is guaranteed, right?
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course.
Helen Goh:
And called it Take Home Chocolate Cake, what a benign title.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. Eventually, you left Australia, you moved to London, you started working at Ottolenghi, but after only four months, you told Yotam that you were going to complete a doctorate in psychology.
Helen Goh:
There was a number of months between landing in London, enrolling in the course and starting the course. And that was when I fell into Ottolenghi. When I wrote to Ottolenghi, there was a, well, one of the delis in Notting Hill was very close to where we lived at the time. My husband I think thought, well, you've got four months, why don't you dabble in some cooking? And I went to the store and thought this was just this cave of amazing salads and cakes. And so I wrote to Yotam, and he answered straight away within the hour. Then an hour later, we were both sitting on the pavement talking about how we could work together.
And then on that Monday, I started cooking and I was cooking with Sami Tamimi, who was doing all the salads at that point, and just learned so much from him. And then it was time to go back to start that doctorate. And I said to Yotam, "This is the time, I need to leave now." And he said, "Well, you're not studying all the time, so in your downtime and when you're not studying, why don't you create some recipes and help us develop some recipes and manage a few of the delis." And so that's what I did. That's how I came to not leave Ottolenghi.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know, I love, he sort of created a job title for you as it were like Lead Pastry Recipe Developer. And I love the stories, you bringing over boxes for tasting sessions at Yotam's house and his husband being like, "Oh my God, it's Helen," and seeing you out the window. And then you would bring over a million sweets and you and he would sort of almost do what you had done with your mom after your family meals and have a critiquing session.
Helen Goh:
Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly what happened. Because I was then at university, then I would do the recipe playing or development at the weekends, and that was his weekend off. So if I'm playing in the kitchen and if I think I've got something maybe worth looking at, I'll give him a call and he'll say, "Well, come on over," Because it's his Sunday, he's relaxing at home with his partner. So I'd come with my boxes of bits of things that I'd made during the day and Carl, his husband, would kind of peek and I could see him peeking from the third floor, looking at this foreboding that here I am bringing this box of coma-inducing sweets.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. I want to talk about your new book, “Baking and the Meaning of Life.” Publishers, you said, had always asked you about the idea of the theme of baking as therapy when you would maybe be in discussions about a first solo project, but it was actually a specific event, a bake sale, no less, the sort of inspired the book for you. Can you tell us about that bake sale that you went to?
Helen Goh:
Yes. I mean, I've always loved baking without necessarily being analytical about it. I've very much kept my two careers, psychology and baking very, very separate. Like they're two parallel tracks that never meet. Partly because they satisfy both parts of me and partly because I was very concerned with my patients finding out that I was really a baker and that maybe it said that I wasn't serious about them or that I wasn't focused on my career. So I kept them very, very separate. But in 2023, I think, I can't remember what month it was, but in 2023, there were a spate of natural disasters and the deadliest one was the earthquake that shook Syria and Turkey. And there was a British Turkish cook called Melek who decided that she would organize a bake sale.
And it was all done through the Bush Telegraph, as we know as Instagram. And very quickly, quite a group of us got together and we were told to bake as much as we could and to deliver it to this pub in North London on a Saturday morning at seven o'clock. I made individual corn cornbread and some cupcakes and some cheese scones. And my husband was driving and my children were helping in the car balancing boxes, we baked for two whole nights and two whole days, and we were driving on this Saturday morning to this pub in North London. And when we arrived, we dropped off our goods. We were also given an empty box each to of course buy everybody else's bakes in a kind of circular economy.
And my husband was waiting in the car for us, and when we came out having filled our boxes, he said to me, "That's just the most inefficient way to raise money," because he'd seen us bake for two nights and two days, and then these cupcakes were two pounds. How much money were we going to make? And I thought, you are absolutely right. But what he didn't see and what he didn't feel was that vibe, that atmosphere in that room that day. This idea that here were these bakers, not all of us were professional bakers, there were some people who just wanted to contribute, who felt that they could do something that they were competent at to raise money in this spirit of community, that we were coming together in North London and to do something beyond ourselves in solidarity with these people thousands of miles away who were affected by this disaster.
And it just gave me such a sense of the importance of not just the joy that we got eating those cakes and scones, but this feeling of how symbolic it is. And I think it's because cakes are inessential. Nobody needs to eat them, so it must be something else that it does for us. And I think it's what it represents. I mean this idea that we've always celebrated with food, but I think we mark really important moments with cake. Birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, so many rituals and traditions in our lives are marked by baked goods, whether it's hot cross buns on a Good Friday or Chinese New Year pineapple tarts and what it symbolizes.
And I think it's because they're not essential items, yes, it's delicious to eat and it brings sort of that comfort and joy, but it goes beyond that. And I think baking really is very unique in that it helps us to locate ourselves in time, in terms of the schedule of these rituals like Thanksgiving or Christmas or Eid. It helps us to locate ourselves in time and in community, because it's something that we share with thousands of people around the world. Not everybody celebrates Christmas, for example, but there will be a good number of people making mince pies around that same time. There's a sense of real community around that and the symbol of what it speaks to, what does this bake represent that we are all partaking in that tells us something about who we are as a species.
Jessie Sheehan:
I loved reading that when writing the book, you were mining your life for the most precious recipes and then sort of reflecting on how they created meaning for you. And I would love to jump into one of those recipes, which is your champagne and blackcurrant celebration cake. You write that perhaps it's one of the most ambitious in the book, though, since I've now spent some time with the recipe, actually each component is quite simple, it's just there are a few of them, but it's a simple... Yeah.
Helen Goh:
Yes. And I think that's a lot with baking. I think that once we break down the process and you go step by step, I think a lot of baking is that. And it's exactly what I was saying before, that if you just take it apart and it requires that focus, but in itself it's not that stressful, that sense of satisfaction when you bring it all together.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. You've called it not only the most ambitious in the book, but maybe the most delicious, and it has a half bottle of Champagne in it, so it's great for celebrations, unapologetically indulgent. And I love that sort of came to you at the end of writing the book, almost like this was the cake you imagined you would want to celebrate the writing of the book with.
Helen Goh:
Yes. So I had a recipe tester both in America and in Australia, because from writing Sweet, what I really saw was how different different ingredients can be, different ovens function, I think you don't really use fan force so much, and I almost exclusively use fan force. As soon as I signed the contract for the book, I thought I need to locate these recipe testers, one in America and one in Australia.
And the American tester is Maria Ziska. She's worked on a number of books and she's wonderful. But anyway, I was speaking with my Australian tester when we finished the book and we were wrapping up, we were having these very long conversations in the, well, it would've been middle of the night for me, but when she's working, I'm a bit of a night owl, but because she was working in Australia... Anyway, at the very end of what we thought was the final recipe, we were on the phone speaking together and I said, "Well, when you're in London, next we'll have to meet for a drink."
And we were kind of fantasizing and I said, well, my favorite drink is Kir Royale, Champagne and blackcurrant pastis. And she said, "That's my favorite." And there was a sort of pregnant pause and then, "Oh, clear, I think we need to do a cake that's sort of with these flavors." So I started playing around with it. It needed to be something very light. I needed to get a good Champagne flavor in there. It took quite a bit of time. So we did think the book was finished, but then it maybe took another few weeks to get cake right.
Jessie Sheehan:
So the first thing we're going to do is make the Champagne cake layers. And it's a chiffon cake, yes?
Helen Goh:
It's a chiffon.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Helen Goh:
I want a very light cake and usually with chiffon cakes, I bake it in that tube, that very deep tube pan. And that tube pan, of course, is very important because you don't grease it. It's very light. The cake rises up the sides, and then as soon as it comes out of the oven, you turn it upside down so that it doesn't fall from the weight of all the air that's trapped in there.
But I really wanted the texture of something as light as chiffon, but I wanted a layer cake. So it posed all kinds of problems, how to get a light cake that could support a kind of Champagne cream. And I wanted Champagne in the actual cake as well. And the only recipe I could think of, a cake batter that could support that level of liquid, was a chiffon cake. Funnily enough, my children don't like that cake and I think it's because I wanted it to taste distinctly of Champagne, because sometimes it's annoying when you call something that, you buy that bottle of Champagne and then it doesn't taste, you can't taste that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Helen Goh:
So through a number of trials, put in as much Champagne as I could in there, and I think that's why they don't like it. It's got that bitter fizz to it.
Jessie Sheehan:
So if we're going to heat the oven to 350 degrees, we're going to line the bottom of two, you call them deep, eight-inch round cakes. Is it more than a traditional two inches for us?
Helen Goh:
I put deep in there because I don't know about in the States, but here in the U.K., there are Victoria sandwich pans and they're very shallow, I think maybe even two centimeters. So I just put that in just to make it clear that it isn't that.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to line the bottoms with parchment, but we're not going to line or grease the sides of the pan. And that's for what you just mentioned, we want that chiffon to grip the sides of the pan.
Helen Goh:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to place some egg yolks and granulated sugar in a large bowl. Are you working with a large metal bowl or a glass bowl? What do you like to make this cake in?
Helen Goh:
I like metal because I find glass so heavy.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Helen Goh:
I love the idea of glass, obviously when people are making reels for Instagram, you can see, right? And that's really lovely. But the metal bowls, I just feel like I can transfer them very quickly, it's light. I do like a stainless steel bowl.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to use a handheld whisk. Is there a particular kind of whisk we're using at this point when we're whisking up the yolks and the granulated sugar?
Helen Goh:
Right. So I'm thinking there of a hand beater. And the reason for that, and you'll see that in the book I very rarely ask for different kinds of beaters, but this is because with a chiffon cake, you're beating the egg whites separately and I wanted to have a clean ball ready for the egg whites to be beaten. So any beater, it is whisked. But what is the alternative beater called?
Jessie Sheehan:
Are you imagining a handheld mixer that you would plug in?
Helen Goh:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. And you can have the little paddles on it or the whisk on it.
Helen Goh:
That's right. And so that part is not so important. What it is I'm trying to do by asking for a separate mixer and a separate bowl there is to make sure that when we go to whip the egg whites, that we have the right whisk and the right clean bowl.
Jessie Sheehan:
Mix together until the mixture is light and creamy. Will that be about a minute?
Helen Goh:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Helen Goh:
You are really just kind of trying to emulsify the whole thing.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to stir in some sunflower oil. What tool should we stir it in? Are we still using our handheld mixer?
Helen Goh:
With the beater, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. So we'll stir in some sunflower oil. And I wondered, is that your favorite oil to bake with or do you also bake with grape seed oil or is sunflower sort of the standard?
Helen Goh:
I was looking for the oil that would least interfere with the flavor of the Champagne here. So I do tend to go for sunflower oil. I don't know the ins and outs, but vegetable oil seems to be a big no-no these days. Olive oil just can feel so grassy and-
Jessie Sheehan:
Too much flavor. Yep. We're going to add the Champagne and some vanilla and some fine sea salt. And I wondered, do you ever use kosher salt or do you just use fine sea salt?
Helen Goh:
I love kosher salt. When I bake for myself or cook for myself, that's almost exclusively what I use. One of the things that the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen is that we try to use ingredients that everybody can get everywhere. And kosher salt is not so readily available here or even in Australia, so we've always used fine sea salt.
Jessie Sheehan:
Sift over the bowl some all-purpose flour and some baking powder, and we'll whisk very gently to combine. And we want to sift just so that the chiffon is incredibly light.
Helen Goh:
It's a hangover from the past when flour came in sacks, and that's why you sift to kind of get away any material from the cloth. But I actually am evangelical about sifting.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, interesting. No matter the cake, you'll sift?
Helen Goh:
It'll be very unusual for me not to sift. I don't do it for breads, but I love this idea. For me, it's just kind of an insurance.
Jessie Sheehan:
Always with the leavening and the salt in there, or at least with the baking powder, the baking soda when you're sifting?
Helen Goh:
I do, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Helen Goh:
I like to put it all together. I just feel like that just gives you the best chance of it dispersing equally.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now, if we're going to place our egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, we'll whisk on medium-high speed until frothy, about 30 seconds. Then we'll add a little bit of cream of tartar, whisk for about a minute until soft peaks form. And then on medium-high, we're going to sprinkle in additional granulated sugar. When all the sugar is added, increase the speed to high, beat until firm peaks form. Are we looking for sort of the tip to be standing straight up? Is that what you consider firm?
Helen Goh:
Yes, exactly. So not too floppy. I add the sugar while the egg whites are beating to stop it from going dry and crumbly when egg whites are over-whipped. So it's less likely to do that when you introduce a bit of sugar as well. And the cream of tartar also helps sort of stabilize it.
Jessie Sheehan:
And it's best to add the sugar after you already see soft peaks before we add our sugar?
Helen Goh:
You want soft peaks, yes. Because I think if you add it too quickly, it weighs down the mixture and then has a hard time mixing, and if it's added too late, so when it's already kind of formed its firm peaks, then it is a bit kind of airy and crumbly that, I don't know how to describe that feeling when egg whites sort of get foamy.
Jessie Sheehan:
Or almost dry, yeah.
Helen Goh:
Almost dry and crumbly rather than kind of soft and glossy.
Jessie Sheehan:
So now we're going to transfer about a third of the egg white mixture into the Champagne batter, fold it gently with a large whisk. Before we were just using the handheld mixer, now we've actually grabbed a whisk and are sort of moving things together with our whisk.
Helen Goh:
Yes. So that's a handheld whisk, or you can use that attachment whisk from the mixer. So this so that you're not beating, you're really just folding it in with the whisk. Some people like to fold with a big cook spoon, but I find that the whisk helps you to kind of aerate, keep it aerated.
Jessie Sheehan:
So when you are folding something like whipped cream into something or egg whites into something, you'll do that, because when I hear fold, I think flexible spatula, but when you see fold, you're going to use a whisk to do those things.
Helen Goh:
It's funny because-
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Helen Goh:
... in a number of recipes, I've been quite specific by saying fold with a handheld whisk and then change to a spatula. And a number of people have said that reads really weirdly like why I would do that? But then when they go to make the cake, they understand why. Because initially if you use a spatula, it's quite hard to mix things thoroughly through, but once it is incorporated, then the spatula helps you to kind of get that bit right at the bottom of the bowl and turn it over. So I think to read it sounds fussy and a bit pedantic, but once you make it, the instinct is to actually switch.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. So we'll fold in the remaining egg whites at this point, maybe with a spatula using a light hand to avoid deflating the batter too much, but ensuring the egg whites are fully blended into the batter.
Helen Goh:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, love. So now we're going to scrape our batter into our two prepared pans before we bake them. I love this, one at a time, we're going to drop the pans onto the countertop from about eight inches to break any large air bubbles. Love that. Eight inches sounds so high to me, but I love that.
Helen Goh:
I know. And I remember testing, this one took a lot of testing, I remember doing it very gingerly the first time from sort of four inch and thinking that just didn't do anything. And then if you raise it higher than eight, you think that actually, the cold cake could fall out of the tin.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Helen Goh:
So eight inches felt to me like the medium.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to bake for about 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Do you like a wooden skewer? Do you like a metal skewer? What is Helen's cake tester of choice?
Helen Goh:
Well, because I'm constantly losing things, ideally it's your metal, very, very fine metal skewer but I can never find it when I want it. But I do have packets and packets of wooden skewers in my cupboards, and I can always locate that. So it almost always is a wooden skewer.
Jessie Sheehan:
I also love when it's wood, because then it's a little bit rough and so if you're looking for, I like to look for a moist crumb often because I don't want to over-bake cakes, I love the wood can kind of pull that out where the metal sometimes is too slippery.
Helen Goh:
It's too smooth. It's too smooth. You are absolutely right.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. When the cakes come out of the oven, we'll immediately drop the pans twice on a heatproof work surface, again from about eight inches. You write, it feels counterintuitive, but it helps prevent the cakes from sinking in the middle. And is this a tip just for chiffon cakes or any cake that you're worried about it sinking, you should drop?
Helen Goh:
I only do it for chiffon cakes. I feel like that's particularly... But I don't do it when I use the chiffon cake tin to make the chiffon cake. It's just something about this pan, because the tube pan, the tube is there for a reason. Right? So it rises evenly up the sides, but when you've got a round tin, the middle can just collapse from the weight. And I think it was Rose Levy Beranbaum who talked about using a cake nail.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, that sounds very familiar. And so many things when you go back and figure out where you first heard them, it's from Rose.
Helen Goh:
Yes, exactly. Of course. Yes. So for a long time I didn't think that you could make chiffon cakes in other than a chiffon deep tube pan. And I have read about Rose's nail trick, although for some... I mean I must go and buy this nail because it does sound like it would work as a kind of conductor of heat in the middle of the cake, and that does make sense. But in the absence of that, I don't remember where I got this other tip from either, which was to drop the pan so that it instantly falls all in the same...
Jessie Sheehan:
You would worry that that would collapse it. Do you know what I mean? That all that beautiful air would be gone. And just so for the listeners, I think this is what Rose's tip would be, it's that you literally are putting the metal nail, as it were, in the center of the pan so it almost serves the same purpose as that tube to help.
Helen Goh:
It conducts heat so that the middle is rising as evenly as the sides.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to place the cakes on a wire rack to cool completely. And they're going to cool in the pans, we're not going to take them out until after they've cooled. Now we're going to make the Champagne sabayon, and we could have done this while the cakes are in the oven. We're going to place egg yolks, we can freeze those whites for a different purpose, with some granulated sugar and some more Champagne in a medium heatproof bowl and we're going to whisk until combined.
Then we'll set that bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water and whisk constantly, I love this, in a figure eight pattern, making sure the whisk is always in contact with the bottom inside. So first, tell us why the figure eight and then tell us why it should stay in contact.
Helen Goh:
So you've got this very eggy mixture over a pot of simmering water. And first of all, the figure eight just ensures that when you're moving in an adit mixture, it gives you the best chance of covering a lot of ground, right? And if the bottom of the pan, well, because I also use metal usually which conducts heat very, very quickly, if the bottom of the pan touches the water, it's going to cook the eggs. And I want the eggs to be lightened and cooked very, very gently through a kind of almost steam.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Helen Goh:
For those two reasons, you're really protecting the eggs, you really want to whisk as much air as you can into the eggs before they cook.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then also this idea of always having the whisk in contact with the bottom and the sides. That's just-
Helen Goh:
Oh, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
... to keep the mixture moving so that it doesn't cook.
Helen Goh:
Exactly. That's right.
Jessie Sheehan:
When the mixture thickens, after about five to seven minutes, we'll remove the bowl from the heat, keep whisking ideally over a bowl of ice for another two minutes to cool it down. And then we'll whisk occasionally until the mixture cools and we'll refrigerate until it's cold when we'll be doing the last step of combining it with whipped cream.
Now we're going to prepare the jam. We're going to put some blackcurrant jam in a small saucepan over low heat, stir until it's warm, remove from the heat and pass the jam through a fine mesh sieve into a small bowl pressing to extract as much jam as possible. Are we heating it because it'll be easier to spread on the cake or are we heating it because it's easier to remove the seeds or both?
Helen Goh:
Yes. Well, no, because we want to heat it so that we can pass it through the sieve easily, but we don't want it to be warm for the spreading of the cake because that might soften the cake too much. And it's actually, particularly for blackcurrants, because I notice it sounds very fussy to sieve the jam because why would you not just use the jam? And I know a number of people I've seen have made the cake completely with strawberries instead of blackcurrants, and there was no need to sieve it then.
But what I found with blackcurrant, it's very seedy. For me that detracted from the lightness of the cake. It just felt like it got in the way of my enjoyment. So initially I didn't sieve it. I mean, actually my very first test, I used a cassis syrup. But it was quite expensive and I thought, well, they're already buying half a Champagne bottle, so this was my way of using jam, but getting rid of the pesky seeds.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. And you even say that you recommend that people use strawberry, and you said people may even prefer that to the blackcurrant, even though that is for you and your Kir Royale. So I love that strawberries are a hundred percent a suggestion if you want to use a different jam. So we're going to set aside about three tablespoons of the sieved jam that will go into our frosting and the larger quantity we're going to use to spread in our cake layers.
Now the sabayon has cooled in the fridge, and we're going to combine it with the whipped cream. So we're going to place the heavy cream in a bowl of a stand mixer, fit it with the whisk attachment, beat on medium-high speed, I love this, Helen, until soft waves form. I've never heard it described that way. I love soft waves. Then we'll remove the cold Champagne sabayon from the fridge, add it to the whipped cream and mix on low speed until smooth, thick, and combined. Then we'll place back in the fridge. By the time we finished combining them. Is that almost like a stiff peak of whipped cream? Is it softly whipped or it's fairly stiffly whipped?
Helen Goh:
So one of my concerns with that was because the cream in the U.K. is so different to the cream in America and even in Australia. So I didn't give more description because of that. In the U.K. with the double cream, there's a lot of fat content, it's 45%. And it's quite stable. And I think in the States it's 30 or 33, it's much less.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm not sure, but it's much less.
Helen Goh:
Yeah, it is much less. So I think that might be a little floppier, but it should be spreadable.
Jessie Sheehan:
So now we're going to assemble. We'll run a thin flexible knife or a long metal spatula around the sides of the cake pan, I thought this was a great tip, pressing that, listeners, this is to release the cake from the tin, but you want to press that tool as close to the pan as possible to avoid tearing the cake. I hate that when it's at the end of the process and I'm just quickly trying to release the cake and I don't realize that I've very thinly sliced off a side of the cake. So I think that's a great tip.
Helen Goh:
It's so easy to do. And yet if you think of pressing it against the tin-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Helen Goh:
... there's much less chance of tearing the cake. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll turn the cakes out. We'll slice them in half horizontally so we have four equal round cakes. Two queries: are we cutting with a serrated knife? And also any tips? I feel like people get a little scared or frightened of cutting layers in half.
Helen Goh:
Yes. If it was a taller cake, I would measure it and put toothpicks around the side and do all that. But because this is quite a shallow cake, I felt that it would have been fussy to give any more detail. And the thing about the serrated and the regular knife is, and this is a thing that I am constantly asking people, when I think it's best with serrated, someone will say, oh no, I didn't find that at all. A serrated knife can snag the cake. And sometimes I use the other and someone will tell me... So I just think people will use what they like.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's so smart. It's so interesting as you write recipes, you work as a recipe developer, figuring out the language that the majority of readers are going to be able to relate to and work. Sometimes I want to tell them everything because I kind of like it when my hand is held, but you're right, then you have people saying, but I don't have that knife. Can I make the cake?
Helen Goh:
I think when it is very important, I do put it in. And when it's not, I feel like it could incite more stress.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Helen Goh:
And one thing that I've learned, and actually I don't remember which of your books, but you talk about it as a flexible spatula. Because sometimes you say spatula and you're thinking, well, is it the spatula that you frost a cake with? Or is it the spatula that you're scraping a bowl out of?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Helen Goh:
And I now almost exclusively, from you, say flexible spatula.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love you for that.
Helen Goh:
Because that says it all.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, then you know.
Helen Goh:
Sometimes it's not silicon, sometimes it's rubber, sometimes it's plastic. So flexible just captures it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love that. So now we're going to place one of our cake circles on a serving plate or cake stand. So we're going to spread a third of the sieved blackcurrant jam evenly over the cake. Then we'll spread a third of the champagne cream on top. Place a cake circle neatly on top and repeat with the same amount of jam and cream.
Continue layering with the remaining two cake circles ending with an exposed cake circle on the top, no champagne or jam on that one. And then I love this, Helen, it reminds me of the way Natasha Pikowicz makes cakes, we're wrapping the whole cake in plastic wrap and refrigerating for two hours or overnight. Are we doing that so the flavors will meld? Why do we put it in the refrigerator?
Helen Goh:
For me, it's more to consolidate the layers because at that point they can shift and it just means that you're giving the whole thing a chance to set a little bit. Because when you put frosting on, you want it to be very stable.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Now we're going to make our blackcurrant frosting. So when the cake is in the fridge, we'll place unsalted, room temperature butter and powdered sugar in a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, beat on medium for two minutes until smooth and creamy. We'll add vanilla, salt, some heavy cream and beat on high for another two minutes. We'll add that reserved sieved blackcurrant jam, beat on low. Just to combine. This frosting reminds me of like an American buttercream is what we call it.
Helen Goh:
Yes. That's very much an American buttercream. Because the cake is with that Champagne cream and the kind of light layers, I felt that it needed a bit of sweetening and the American buttercream just delivers that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Helen Goh:
You are almost craving that, but I'm sure...
Jessie Sheehan:
It also is cut, the sweetness is cut slightly, even though jam is sweet, but with that blackcurrant fruitiness.
Helen Goh:
And the cream.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, yes. Yum. So we'll finish the cake. We'll remove the cake from the refrigerator, remove the plastic wrap, run a spatula around the sides to tidy it up before spreading the blackcurrant frosting over the top and sides. Do you do a crumb coat or you feel like you don't need to because it's just been in the refrigerator?
Helen Goh:
So yes, I debated a lot with that. And that was whether I needed to make more Champagne cream to do a second coating over. And I felt that unless I was doing a kind of very precise sort of layer cake, I wanted it to be kind of quite loose with that champagne cream in the middle and I felt that the icing was enough just to kind of cover it.
And you'll see on the picture it's not completely smooth, it's kind of a tiny bit wavy. And I thought, you know what? I quite like the look of that. It just means that somebody like me who's not very good at getting things looking exactly neat, like a wedding cake, it just means that this gives you that look of that it's meant to be like that.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight. Do we refrigerate now so that we can slice more easily later?
Helen Goh:
Yes, that's right.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then is it always served cold because of the whipped cream?
Helen Goh:
Well, it is because of the cream. Because frosting in the middle is really a Champagne cream, it's not frosting. So for that reason, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
You store it in the fridge, but would you also always serve it cold or would you wait?
Helen Goh:
No, I think as long as it's not sliding off, that's important. Because for example, I mean I have a lot of readers in Australia because I've got a column there, so it's to kind of avoid scenarios of that cake sliding.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Helen Goh:
But no, I think no cake really tastes that good, although some people think a carrot cake is great straight out of the fridge. Right?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Helen Goh:
And I do like the carrot cake as well, but not many other cakes, I think, particularly if there's butter involved.
Jessie Sheehan:
I agree. I don't love a cold cake. And then we're going to garnish with blackcurrants or berries, maybe blackcurrant or mint leaves, optional before serving. And you say that strawberries are a great substitute for the blackcurrant in the cake, if that's what people want to do. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Helen, and I just want to say that you are My Cherry Pie.
Helen Goh:
Oh, you are my cherry pie, Jessie, thank you so much.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to King Arthur, California Prunes, and Diamond of California Nuts for supporting our show. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.substack.com. Don't forget to follow She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And tell your pals about us. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of the Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Our producers are Kerry Diamond, Catherine Baker, and Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie, and happy baking.