Jen Yee Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You are listening to She's my Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and cookbook author, and my fourth book is coming out this fall. Each Saturday I'm hanging out with the sweetest bakers around and taking a deep dive into their signature bakes.
My guest for today's episode is Jen Yee, Executive Pastry Chef at Wynn Las Vegas. Before landing in Vegas, Jen spent years honing her skills in renowned restaurants, such as Eugene in Atlanta and Aureole in New York City, as well as Lafayette Grand Cafe and Bakery, where she led the pastry kitchen and bakery. Today she oversees the pastry programs at more than 20 venues across Wynn and Encore Las Vegas. I chat with Jen about what it's like to be at the helm of the resort's pastry program and what motivated her to jump at the opportunity to do so. We also discuss past chapters in her career, such as her work with culinary giants like Gordon Ramsay. And then we dive into Jen's recipe for crullers, as well as her selection of glazes, such as strawberry and matcha pistachio. Stay tuned for our chat.
Thank you to Grappa Nonino for supporting today's show. Grappa is a traditional Italian spirit made by distilling pomace, the skin seeds and stems of grapes left over from the wine-making process. Generations have loved to sip grappa or use it in cocktails, and some even use grappa as an ingredient in baked goods and desserts. I've used bourbon, rum, and amaretto before, but never grappa. So the folks at Grappa Nonino challenged me to create some special treats with their award-winning grappa varietals. I made a chocolate budino with Nonino's Monovitigno Chardonnay grappa. The varietal's notes of bread, vanilla, and pastry paired so well with the chocolate. Nonino's Monovatino Merlot grappa with its notes of rose petal and cherry and its fruity finish was the perfect addition to my ricotta cake with strawberries. A trifle is always a showstopper, so I made a raspberry trifle but swapped out the traditional sherry for Grappa Nonino Monovitigno Moscato. This varietal's floral, sage, thyme, and vanilla flavors were an ideal complement to the tart raspberries and sweet mascarpone cream. Nonino has been distilling grappa since 1897 and has been led by generations of amazing women, from Silvia Nonino, Italy's first female master distiller, to Silvia's three granddaughters who run the distillery today. Keep an eye on my Instagram, @jessiecheanbakes, to learn and see just how I use Grappa Nonino in my baked goods and desserts and to get the recipes. You can also learn more about Grappa Nonino at grappanonino.it.
Peeps, have you heard the news? Cherry Bombe's first-ever Jubilee Wine Country is happening in Napa Valley on October 26th and 27th. It'll be a weekend filled with great wine, winemakers, beautiful food, seasonal produce, conversation, connection, and California. Passes are now available. To learn more and snag a pass, visit cherrybombe.com.
Let's check in with today's guest. Jen, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to chat crullers with you and so much more.
Jen Yee:
Thank you. It's a cool experience to be on a podcast.
Jessie Sheehan:
I often ask guests about an early baking or sweets memory or moment. I wonder if yours perhaps involved baking a cake from a box when you were little. And I think I read that you thought like, "Oh, this is from scratch baking because I get to watch it bake." Can you tell us about that, and if you remember if it was Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker, or was it a chocolate cake or a vanilla cake?
Jen Yee:
My very first memory of cake baking came from a box, I think it was the Duncan Hines Butter Golden variety. My mom loved making Bundt cakes from the box and there was a side recipe. She didn't follow the regular back of the box recipe, there was always a special extra doctored-up side recipe on the side of the box. It was called Sock it to Me cake, and it's based I think on a classic Southern cake.
But yeah, that was my first cake-baking memory, was making Sock it to Me cake. And it came with a little sachet of icing that you would ice the Bundt with. And yes, I did think that was from scratch baking, because that was the whole point of those box mixes was to make you feel like you were doing the work. You had to crack the eggs and you had to get the butter in there. So yeah, it's pretty close to scratch baking.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know in addition to cakes from a box, there was other baking happening in your San Francisco childhood home or at least influenced by watching TV with your uncle and watching Jacques Pépin. And I think it was the dessert portion of those shows that kind of drew you in. Can you tell us about that?
Jen Yee:
Back then, this was in the '80s, and '80s, early '90s, I would come home from school and on the public TV channels they would have a Jacques Pépin, yes, a show called “Great Chefs.” They had different versions, like “Great Chefs of the World” or “Great Chefs of the U.S.,” “Great Chefs of New York.”
And typically those shows were sectioned in creating an appetizer. They'd follow a chef do an appetizer recipe, then an entree recipe, and then a dessert recipe. And I remember being especially excited when the dessert portion of that show would air, so I'd always pay much closer attention.
Jessie Sheehan:
And do you think that you knew back then that pastry would play a role in your life or did you ... At an early age, where you're like, "Just a minute, I love this." I know that you baked from Martha Stewart's books and you bought Claudia Fleming's amazing book, but was it already percolating for you?
Jen Yee:
I really knew that I wanted to be in pastry pretty early on, like in high school, when I was starting to make things on my own without my mom and tinkering around in the kitchen, and just knew that I had a pretty good aptitude for it. Things would most of the time look like the picture in the book or the magazine, so I knew I was doing something right.
My parents were less excited about me going into a culinary field, but I knew that I think from a young age I wanted to do something creative. I wanted to be a creator of ... a maker of things. And to make something so tangible like food, it is kind of ephemeral, but it is something that someone can enjoy and touch and feel. And so yeah, I knew from a young age that creating or making was what I wanted to do.
Jessie Sheehan:
Post college you had a job plating desserts in San Francisco's Home Restaurant. And I had a couple of questions. I wanted to know what kind of desserts you were plating because I'm not familiar with the restaurant. And was this your first time having a professional restaurant, baking, pastry chef type experience?
Jen Yee:
Yes. This was my very first professional kitchen job. I didn't work a lot throughout high school and college, I had a couple short-term jobs. I did some volunteering in college, but this was my first like, yeah, you got to show up on time and you got to know what you're doing.
And the job was, I was mostly left alone. The chef and sous chef were doing a lot of the preparation during the day. And they would get me started in the afternoon and then they would leave and I would be left to my own devices to plate the desserts the way that ... I was supposed to do some light prep work. And I loved it. It was my first kitchen job. I worked evenings. I think I started at four o'clock or five o'clock and worked until midnight, one o'clock. I worked every weekend. I remember my chef asking me, "Are you sure you want to do this? It's evenings, it's weekends, it's holidays." And I said, "Yes."
Sometimes I do regret saying yes because I've missed some birthdays and some holidays, but I wouldn't have traded being in that kitchen for that time. I loved that time. And it was a small restaurant, it was called Home Restaurant. I believe it was around for maybe 10, 15 years in the Castro of San Francisco. It had a great feel for being a casual restaurant. It was still a very professional kitchen. We had a great chef.
And so I really cut my teeth in that little pastry corner. And it was actually ... And I've been to restaurants where they don't even have a pastry station, and for a casual restaurant like Home was, we had an actual pastry station. We made our own ice creams and everything was made from scratch and I love that. It was a wonderful time. I think I was there for about a year before I moved. I actually moved to London to go to pastry school.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I was going to say that the plating job inspired your trip to London and pursuing your degree at the Cordon Bleu. And then, while there you worked with Gordon Ramsay. And I just have to say, was that scary or was that really exciting? What was it working for Gordon Ramsay like?
Jen Yee:
While I was in school I was able to work part-time. And I remember walking up to Pétrus, that restaurant was part of the Gordon Ramsay family at the time, and dropping off my resume. And then the Gordon Ramsay group called me and I ended up being a commis chef at Angela Hartnett's Menu. So Angela Hartnett is one of Gordon Ramsay's proteges and she's now a very, very successful chef in her own right and restaurant owner. So that's where I worked, I worked at The Connaught Hotel.
Gordon Ramsay was not there all the time. It was still a very serious kitchen and there were still people getting screamed at a la Ramsay. But yeah, it wasn't scary. It was intimidating, yes, for sure, to be in a kitchen of another caliber. It was very different from ... Although Home Restaurant was very professional, this was very different. It was quieter, it was way more serious. But I loved it and it was in a new country, I was going to school, and I was working in a field that I was going to school for. It was a cool time.
Jessie Sheehan:
You are the executive pastry chef at Wynn Resort in Las Vegas, and that's been a little over a year, and I wondered what drew you to that job? Was it Vegas? Was it that warm weather that you get to experience in the summer? What drew you in?
Jen Yee:
I was executive pastry chef for a family-run restaurant group called Hopkins and Company. And we had about five or six properties within the group. And I was enjoying doing plated desserts at the restaurants and also running the bakery, called The Buttery. And we helped to open that just after the pandemic. So I was very happy, comfortable in Atlanta. We were able to buy our first apartment and I was living a good life.
And then Chris Lee did call me, looking for an executive pastry chef for Wynn Las Vegas. And I didn't take it seriously at first I have to say. I never really considered Las Vegas as a stop in my journey, I don't know why. But he gave me a synopsis of the role and I thought, "Okay, you know what? I would be really dumb to pass this up and to just say no without even doing a little research and going out there."
So I did spend a weekend here. I did a tasting. I got to work in the kitchen with the other pastry chefs and cooks at Wynn, and I was just so blown away. I was so impressed by, one, the size of the kitchen, and the seriousness, again, of this pastry shop. We call it the pastry shop, which is the central pastry kitchen at Wynn. Everyone was so professional, everyone was skilled, everyone was so respectful. Tons of money and tons of labor and tons of cool equipment. And Wynn especially prides itself on staying progressive and staying on top of the game. And they invest in pastry, and they invest in specialized equipment, and they invest in our pastry team and having the best chefs and best cooks in the city.
Yeah, that really sold it for me, that weekend. After that there was really only one decision to be made, or one way to make that decision.
Jessie Sheehan:
I've read you're overseeing a pastry program at 20 different venues, but you're also in charge of a pastry program for in-room dining. Actually, my favorite food is always eaten in a hotel room, even if it's bad food. There's something about room service which will forever feel fancy, and like Eloise, which is a childhood book about a little girl who lives in a hotel. But anyway, I love the idea of I'm eating Jen Yee pastries and desserts, and I'm like in my bed.
I also read this, which I loved. I'm not sure when you said this, which job you were at, but your take on making desserts that follow a big meal, which is going to happen at the kinds of places often where you're in charge of dessert, is to make them both light and bright and refreshing and not too sweet and something that kind of wakes you up rather than ... I think maybe it was at Lafayette, because I think you said something about, "You've eaten this big steak frites and you want the person to want the next course, but not to have it overwhelm them."
Would you say that is still sort of back of the mind, operating thought when you're preparing desserts based on, I'm sure in many of these venues, very fancy big meals?
Jen Yee:
Yeah. I mean, I like to make desserts that I like to eat, and that's typically the light, refreshing dessert is typically the dessert that I would choose on a menu. That's not to say that I don't love a giant chocolate cake or a rich sticky toffee pudding that's just all sweet and all rich.
So there's a place for everything. But I think even now, I always think about the style of restaurant that we're trying to make a dessert for. The style, the cuisine, the specialty ingredients that they might use. We try to incorporate some of that into our desserts. And also yeah, taking into account that whoever's going to be eating that dessert is going to have had a full meal beforehand.
When we're thinking about things for our in-house bakery and patisserie and cafes at the Wynn, you can approach it a little bit differently. You can go whole hog because you might have guests who just want a sweet. They're there in the afternoon, they need a sweet pick-me-up, and they want something much different than what you would get at the end of a meal at a restaurant.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back.
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Now back to our guest. Now I want to talk about your recipe for crullers. And first I was hoping you could tell us what a cruller is and about this special pâte à choux batter.
Jen Yee:
Right. Crullers are not your average donut. They're in the doughnut family, but they're not made in your typical doughnut way. It's not a yeasted dough, it's not even a cake donut or a batter. So it uses pâte à choux, which is a cooked roux-based batter. And read a long time ago that pâte à choux, choux translates into the word "cabbage" in English, but that term pâte à choux might have evolved from the term pâte à choux, which means hot pastry. So there are conflicting stories of its origin.
But yeah, so pâte à choux is one of those wonderful, magical pastries. It makes an unlikely pastry. When you're making it you're like, "How is this ever going to give you this purely ethereal pastry?" But it does. It's so versatile. You can bake it, you can fry it. It's a pretty neutral dough, so you can add cheese and herbs to it and make gougères. You can use it as a vehicle like we do for frostings and fillings and crullers. You can just dunk it in sugar and make churros. So it's really versatile, and of course you can bake it and make eclairs and cream puffs, so I love that you can make a million things out of one.
Jessie Sheehan:
And would you describe ... It sort of has this golden brown and almost crispy exterior and then the inside is more tender, melts in your mouth. Would you even say custardy?
Jen Yee:
Yeah, I would say there is an egginess to it. It depends on how well you dry out the pastry because you don't want it too moist inside, you want it to leave enough room to pump in whatever fillings you please. But yeah, there's like a tenderly crisp exterior with a very open crumb inside.
Jessie Sheehan:
And if I'm sleeping at the Wynn and getting room service, can I get a cruller?
Jen Yee:
You have to walk downstairs and go to Espresso, which is one of our cafes at Encore. And the crullers, we do five flavors right now. And yeah, they've been very popular. We started that program maybe four or five months ago now. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. First things first, we're going to bring to a boil some water, some whole milk, some cubed butter, and some fine sea salt and organic sugar. And I had a couple of questions. First of all, bringing to a boil, so is this on high heat already or are we doing medium high heat?
Jen Yee:
I typically go high heat, yes. You want to chop your butter, you don't want a big chunk of butter because you don't want everything else to be boiling and your butter is still unmelted.
Jessie Sheehan:
And is it salted butter or unsalted?
Jen Yee:
We like to use unsalted. All of our recipes are baking recipes use unsalted, then we can control the salt.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then it's fine sea salt. I wondered why not kosher. Do you always bake with fine sea salt or is it just for this recipe?
Jen Yee:
I like fine sea salt. It dissolves easily in the liquids. It has a slightly saltier saltiness to it, so I don't have to use as much. And I do like it in my baking, yes. I like kosher salt for cooking.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then there's organic sugar here and I assume it's granulated sugar. Why organic and is there a brand that you like?
Jen Yee:
I like to use organic sugar in as much of my baking as possible. Typically, it's made from cane. It doesn't go through the same refining process as white granulated sugar, and so you keep a little bit of that molasses in the granules and so you get a more naturally sweet flavor. It's not a saccharine so much flavor, so I like that. And we've used ... Wholesome is pretty much ... They have big packaging for food service.
Jessie Sheehan:
And what kind of pot are you using at this point? Just something with a real heavy bottom?
Jen Yee:
Yeah, we use a rondeau. All of our choux is made by hand. Yes, we use mixers to mix it, but we are cooking it and stirring it by hand. It's like a 15 to 20 quart rondeau pan, which is, yes, a wider, heavy-bottom shallower pot.
Jessie Sheehan:
Once the mixture boils, we're going to turn off the heat and we're going to immediately add some sifted all-purpose flour all at once. Do you have a brand of flour that you're using that you would share with us?
Jen Yee:
We're using King Arthur Sir Galahad flour, which I think at the grocery stores it's just comes as the King Arthur all-purpose flour. You can use organic too, but I find it's given me the most consistent results, so I like to use that.
Jessie Sheehan:
And now we're going to stir the flour with an Exopat. Is that a brand of silicone spatula?
Jen Yee:
Yeah, it's a very firm spatula, like a fiberglass spatula, so it's heat-resistant. When you're starting to mix this dough it's a very, very firm dough, and so you need something really strong. That's why a lot of home recipes will call for a wooden spoon.
I remember at Lafayette when we were making choux, I had a sous-chef, he brought this ... He called it the claw. And it's basically, it looks like a big wooden cat claw and it had these very thick tines to it. And so it was really great to make the choux and to stir it and to get into all the corners of the pot. And we don't have that here today. I don't know where he got it, I should ask him. But you just want to use a very strong utensil to stir the-
Jessie Sheehan:
If a lay person wanted to buy an Exopat, can you just buy them in a restaurant supply store online?
Jen Yee:
Yeah, you can definitely find it in professional restaurant supply. I'm sure you can get it on Amazon or any of the restaurant-ware websites.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to stir that up with our Exopat. Then we're going to turn the heat to medium, and we're going to cook and stir this mixture until a skin forms on the bottom of the pan. Are you also looking for a little bit of steaming at this point, or is your indicator at this point just the sticking on the bottom of the pan for about two minutes, depending on how much batter there is, et cetera?
Jen Yee:
Yeah. Typically, I like to give it about a minute per kilo or a couple pounds, just so I know I am cooking it thoroughly. And then yes, the skin on the bottom will also be an indicator as to how well it's being cooked because you really want to cook out as much of that moisture as possible.
That's also why we use a rondeau because it has a large surface area. So if you're at home, you want to find a pot that's not too narrow, you want to be able to get that dough exposed to as much heat as possible.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to transfer it to a stand mixer bowl fitted with a paddle attachment, and we'll mix on medium speed to cool that mixture down while we are going to crack, and you write to buzz some eggs. What is egg buzzing and where do we do it?
Jen Yee:
Yeah, I like to cool down that mixture. Or you have to cool down that mixture because when you're adding your eggs, you don't want them to cook. I leave the cracking of the eggs until last so I can keep them nice and cold.
Jessie Sheehan:
We don't use room temperature eggs because you actually like the coldness of the egg to try to bring down the temperature of the batter?
Jen Yee:
Yeah, that's right. And I like to crack them into a pitcher and then use an immersion blender to blend them or buzz them. When I got to Vegas, nobody knew what I was talking about, buzz them. The term people use is also to burr mix them because there's-
Jessie Sheehan:
The burr motor, yeah.
Jen Yee:
Yes, but I just buzz them. I like to do that because I like to blend all the little proteins and the albumin and the little strands you get from eggs, and I want to make sure it's a nice smooth consistency before I get them into the batter. It's not necessary, but I like to do it to make sure that I have a well blended egg before it's going into the mix.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you do that in a pitcher, so then you can pour it in a steady stream on medium speed into the stand mixer bowl. And you'll scrape occasionally. Are we still using our Exopat at this time or have we moved on to a regular spatula?
Jen Yee:
You can move on to a regular spatula or a bowl scraper. It's a little plastic tool, one of pastry chefs' essential. So bowl scraper is good or a firm rubber spatula, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love a bowl scraper, particularly with sticky dough. It's almost like a flexible bench scraper in a way. I love that tool.
Jen Yee:
Yeah, you can cut with it too if you're using the other end. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we've added our eggs in a steady stream. We've scraped occasionally with just a regular spatula at this point, and then we're going to chill the dough. Do you chill it like in the stand mixer bowl, just in the refrigerator?
Jen Yee:
Because we're making big batches we'll transfer it to a hotel pan or you can transfer it to a casserole dish or a bowl. And press a sheet of plastic on the surface and then chill that overnight.
Jessie Sheehan:
Overnight.
Jen Yee:
Yeah. Or at least four hours until it's really cold and firm. I like to do that because it makes it much nicer to pipe, and when you do pipe it, you get very defined lines and grooves.
Jessie Sheehan:
After it's chilled overnight, we're going to transfer the batter to a pastry bag with a 847 closed star tip. Can you tell what a closed star tip looks like? And also tell us if there's a brand of pastry tips that you like.
Jen Yee:
We use Ateco. Ateco is a pretty well-recognized brand. Yeah, it's an 847. You can have an open star tip and a closed star tip. So an open star tip will-
Jessie Sheehan:
It's like the edge of the tip is jagged, yes? And then sometimes they kind of go straight, but sometimes they kind of curve in?
Jen Yee:
Inward, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And here we want closed. So are they almost like the tines of those ... The little jagged edges are sort of pointing in?
Jen Yee:
Right, yes. That's what a closed star tip is, when they are pointed inward. And what I like about that is it creates a much more defined and sharp pattern or grooved pattern along the cruller, which also creates more surface area for that cruller to reach the oil, or even if you're baking it, to be exposed to heat. So you're getting a little bit more crispiness.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to have ready a half sheet pan sized piece of parchment paper and we're going to draw ... I wonder, do you use a pencil? Basically we're going to be drawing 12 3 1/4 inch rounds on this piece of paper. But I know from doing that that you want to be careful that you flip the paper over so that whatever you're baking on, it doesn't absorb the color of the ink or the pencil.
Jen Yee:
Yeah. What we do is we will draw the circles in Sharpie on a half sheet of paper. And then we'll use another half sheet of paper to lay on top of that Sharpied paper so that we can continue to use that one template and we don't have to make a million circles on paper.
Yeah, that's always nice to just give yourself that template. And I always write on the template the size of the circle so I'm not just trying to measure out the circle again if I'm coming back to it a couple of weeks later.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to pipe a circle, I assume, inside each round that we just drew and then we're going to freeze the crullers.
Jen Yee:
Yes. At this point you can fry them if you wanted to, but because we make them in such volume, we make a big batch of dough, we pipe all the dough the next day, and then we freeze them. And that's another lovely thing about pâte à choux is you can freeze the raw batter and come back to it and defrost it and do what you like.
I mean, that's what gougères are all about. That's what makes it the best last-minute hors d'oeuvre is if you have a bag of gougères in the freezer, you can get them on a tray into the oven and you can have snacks for your guests.
Jessie Sheehan:
Would you ever bake off gougère, for instance, from frozen, or do you always bring it to room temp first?
Jen Yee:
I like to slack them out a little bit, even if it's just for 20 minutes, just so they don't have to work as hard in the oven. And typically if you don't defrost them, they won't have a chance to expand as much, so you'll have a slightly smaller gougere or choux.
Jessie Sheehan:
When we're ready to fry our crullers, we're going to thaw for about 30 minutes, and then we're going to grab a vessel for frying. What are you guys using to fry?
Jen Yee:
We use the commercial restaurant fryers, it's a standalone fryer. And it has basically the surface area of a half sheet of parchment.
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, I noticed that the next direction is literally to flip the paper upside down into the fryer and then lift off the paper. And that's so genius and amazing. I can't even imagine if I had that at home, that would be so ... Because usually I feel like people end up cutting out each square and flipping them over one at a time.
Jen Yee:
Yeah. I mean, you can do that. And if you have a wide enough pot at home, you could probably do four at a time maybe because you do want them to be frying at the same time. And if you're doing that individually, one's been in the oil 30 seconds longer than the last one. So if you can.
And obviously make sure your crullers are still stuck to the paper because there can be an instance where it will come away from the paper. But also, make sure as you're dropping that piece of paper into the oil that you're going away from you, that the cruller itself is facing away from you and the paper is on your side.
Jessie Sheehan:
Smart. Makes sense. The crullers, because they're frozen, they've thawed a little bit, they're going to stick to that paper. That shouldn't be a problem.
Jen Yee:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
What I read is that the product that we're melting in is creamy shortening?
Jen Yee:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell me what it is. Should I picture like a Crisco kind of situation?
Jen Yee:
Yes. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And is that what you prefer rather than vegetable oil or canola oil?
Jen Yee:
I've done crullers in peanut oil. I've done crullers in sunflower oil even. They fry very well in all types of oil.
Jessie Sheehan:
Shortening isn't a choice like, oh, that's the best thing to fry in?
Jen Yee:
No. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, good to know. Yeah. I have read that some people, they think that the best fry is in shortening.
Jen Yee:
Right. Yeah, I mean, they do ... I think French fries are incredible. I don't know what it does to the potatoes, but something happens, and I can't say it's the healthiest fat to fry in. I would love to try some of these newer oils, like there's an algae oil that's really popular, or we're looking into some allergen-free oils so that might hit our fryer soon.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I was going to ask you about a thermometer and a brand, but it's probably because you're using this commercial fryer, there's probably just a dial on it. You turn it to 375 and that's where you are.
Jen Yee:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Like we just talked about, we're picking up the entire sheet of paper. The back of the paper should be towards our body and the crullers towards our oil so we don't splatter ourselves. Gently lay the paper onto the oil facedown, gently peel away the paper, and then frying about two and a half minutes per side. What tool, I'm sure ... Is it like a spider situation that you're using to kind of flip each cruller?
Jen Yee:
Yes. Yeah. We use a spider, and you basically push down on one side of the cruller and it'll force it to flip over.
Jessie Sheehan:
Awesome.
Jen Yee:
Your first fry should be with the piped side down in the oil.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. Which will happen naturally from the parchment paper and the flat side will be up. And then you'll just slightly touch one half of the cruller and it'll flip over and get that bottom half.
Jen Yee:
Correct, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to glaze them. What do you do with them when they come out of the fryer?
Jen Yee:
We will take them out of the fryer and put them on a cooling rack set over a tray. That allows any excess oil to drip through and also allows air to circulate under the cruller so it's not getting soggy on the bottom. And typically we'll fry 12 at a time. And then once that 12 has come out of the fryer, we will put in another round of crullers. And while they're frying for two and a half minutes, we're dipping that first batch of crullers.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, so do you dip when they're still a teeny bit warm or they've already cooled?
Jen Yee:
Yes, they're still almost hot. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love that. I didn't know that. Oh, I love that.
Jen Yee:
It allows the glaze to really absorb into the cruller and it makes a wonderful crust with the sugar in the glaze.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, yum. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jen Yee:
Yum. I like that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, yum, yum, yum.
Jen Yee:
You do have to work pretty quickly because the heat of the cruller is going to dry that crust. So if you want to sprinkle some things on top, you might want to glaze a couple and then sprinkle, glaze a couple, sprinkle.
Jessie Sheehan:
This is a perfect segue because I want to talk about some of the glazes. It seemed like basically the assembly is very similar for all of them, it's just that some of the ingredients differ. For instance, with the chocolate glaze, we're sifting confectioners sugar and cocoa powder together and putting that into a stand mixer bowl. Tell us what brand of cocoa powder you're using.
Jen Yee:
We use a Dutch processed cocoa powder called Cacao Berry.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to add some whole milk, some chocolate liqueur.
Jen Yee:
Chocolate liqueur, so you can find that in any wine or alcohol shop. It just gives it that extra layer of chocolatiness that I like.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum. So we add milk, we add chocolate liqueur, we add some kosher salt. And here's an instance where you use kosher. Yeah. And we're going to paddle that until smooth. Like on medium speed or is this a high speed situation?
Jen Yee:
Yeah, medium, low speed. You're just trying to combine everything well. If there are any lumps in the sugar, that'll just get paddled out.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to store in pastry bags. And what kind of tip would you use when you're glazing the crullers?
Jen Yee:
I don't typically use a tip. We are now just dipping them, so I would transfer-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, love, love, love.
Jen Yee:
I would transfer the glaze to a bowl small enough to where you can dip the crullers.
Jessie Sheehan:
For this particular chocolate glaze, is there a particular topping that you always put on top of the chocolate glaze?
Jen Yee:
We like to put some crispy pearls. I think you can find these crispy pearls, chocolate-coated pearls, Amazon or a cake shop. But they're just little crispy cookies that are coated in chocolate and that just adds a lovely crunchy texture.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. Then there's the matcha pistachio glaze, which is, again, the sifted powdered sugar. This time we're adding a little bit of glucose. Can you remind us what glucose is and why we use it in this recipe?
Jen Yee:
Glucose really helps with the shine, that's why I use it. And the chocolate liqueur and the chocolate also helps with that too. That's why it's not included in the chocolate one.
Jessie Sheehan:
And is glucose kind of like corn syrup or like Lyle's Golden Syrup?
Jen Yee:
Yeah, you could definitely replace in this recipe glucose with corn syrup, or even Lyle's, or honey.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah. Something that'll give it that shine. Are those all called invert sugars or something?
Jen Yee:
Simple sugars.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. We're going to combine the powdered sugar, the glucose, some whole milk, some matcha powder. I wondered if there was a brand of matcha powder or if that's just a restaurant-
Jen Yee:
Restaurant-grade matcha powder. It doesn't need to be a very expensive ceremonial-grade matcha. Maeda-en is one of those supermarket brands that is very good and still has great flavor.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to add some Valrhona pistachio praline, which is almost like a pistachio paste made from both pistachios and almonds.
Jen Yee:
It's all pistachios, but the pistachios have been candied before making the paste, but you can certainly use a raw pistachio paste. There are plenty of good brands out there.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to use a little bit of spring green, which I assumed was a food coloring?
Jen Yee:
Yeah. Depending on what pistachio paste you use, yeah, sometimes a natural pistachio paste will be a little brown, and depending on how fresh your matcha is, that might affect the color. So we just want to brighten up that glaze. What we use is a liquid food coloring rather than a paste food coloring. So if you are going to use a paste, just be careful with how much you use.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then topping for these, it's toasted pistachios, either Sicilian style or something called a Cali mix.
Jen Yee:
Yeah. We have Sicilian pistachios, which are very small, waxy, dark green, beautiful flavor pistachios. And then we have our California pistachios, which are larger. They have this ... a lot of times have the purple skin still attached to them, and they have this lighter green. A higher crunch also. So I like to mix them so you get a little bit of both worlds.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then there's a strawberry glaze, which is again, powdered sugar and glucose. This time a little bit of buttermilk, some strawberry powder. Is that like ground freeze-dried strawberries?
Jen Yee:
Yeah. That gives you a real strawberry flavor without adding liquid or moisture, if you were to use a puree or fresh strawberries.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And is there a brand of freeze-dried strawberries, or again, that's probably something that restaurants supplies you with.
Jen Yee:
Yeah., I think that we get it commercially, but you can definitely find freeze-dried strawberries now in grocery stores.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, yeah.
Jen Yee:
You have to maybe grind them yourself in a spice grinder. But yeah, there's some good brands out there.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then you top these with some freeze-dried strawberry chunks.
Jen Yee:
Yes, yeah. So you can either buy chunks or freeze-dried halves and you would just break them up with your fingers.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell me about snickerdoodle sugar.
Jen Yee:
Yeah, we love the snickerdoodle cookie. It's your sugar cookie dipped in cinnamon sugar, and that happens to be our most popular flavor at Espresso at Wynn. So yeah, who doesn't love a sugar donut? And I love using the organic sugar for this because it's a little coarser than a fine granulated sugar so it gives you that extra texture when you're eating into it.
Jessie Sheehan:
So after we've dipped our cruller in the glaze, no matter which one we're using, and we quickly try to top them with their specific topping before the glaze sort of hardens up, then do we set the crullers aside to set up before we eat them?
Jen Yee:
Yes. You want that glaze to fully set to the touch. Once the glaze is set, they're ready to go. We typically start serving them around eight o'clock, 8:30 in the morning at Espresso. And so yeah, they're nice and fresh and they get fried every morning.
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Jen, and I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Jen Yee:
Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Nonino and California Prunes for supporting this episode. Don't forget to subscribe to She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and tell your baking pals 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, Catherine Baker, and Elizabeth Vogt. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our content and partnerships manager is London Crenshaw. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie, and happy baking.