Kelly Mencin Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and author of four baking books, including “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes.” On each episode, I hang out with the sweetest bakers around and take a deep dive into their signature bakes.
Today's guest is someone whose baked goods have New Yorkers lining up down the block. Literally. I'm talking about Kelly Mencin, the culinary director and co-owner of Radio Bakery in Brooklyn. Kelly grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, baking with her family, then headed straight to culinary school after high school. Her career took her to Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery and Bouchon Bistro in California, Gramercy Tavern in New York, and Rolo's in Ridgewood, Queens, where her nostalgic desserts made waves. In 2023, Kelly opened Radio Bakery in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with the Rolo's team and her inventive spins on bakery classics, think heirloom tomato croissant, smoked salmon and cream cheese focaccia sandwiches, and Earl Grey morning buns quickly turned Radio Bakery into one of the city's buzziest places. Radio has since expanded to a second Brooklyn location in Prospect Heights, and while both locations notoriously have lines down the block, the wait is 100% worth it. Their menu changes often with seasonal treats. Kelly joins me to talk about her journey from pastry student to pastry chef, to savory cook, to bakery owner, her decision to open a croissant-focused bakery, and her thoughts on baked goods and bakery virality. Then she walks me through her cheesy pretzel bear claw recipe, a bear claw-shaped croissant filled with a grainy mustard béchamel and cheddar cheese. Talk about yum. It's a personal favorite of Kelly's, and one she feels doesn't get the attention it deserves. I loved chatting with Kelly, so stay tuned.
Today's episode is presented by California Prunes. If you're a long-time listener, you know I'm a long-time fan of California Prunes. They're good for your bones, your gut, and even your heart, but most importantly, they're just a good snack. And I love a good snack. They're in my cabinet right now because they satisfy my sweet tooth at a moment's notice. Of course, I also love baking with them. They have such a complex flavor that gets even deeper when paired with chocolate or warm spices or nuts. Some of my favorite recipes are my famously delicious cream scones with chopped prunes. My sticky toffee pudding, with prunes, and I've even added prunes to my chocolate banana bread. Each recipe has 100% been better for it, but if you don't believe me, you can try all of these recipes for yourself at my website, jessiesheehanbakes.com. My big tip is that anything you'd bake with dried fruit, from oatmeal cookies to granola, scones and muffins is a prune moment. You can use them whole because they're so nice and juicy, or chop them up to spread the joy. They also help you hit some of your health goals, and if I can do that with a cookie, I'm happy. Prunes contain dietary fiber and other nutrients to support good gut health, potassium to support heart health, and vitamin K, copper, and antioxidants to support healthy bones. There's a reason they've been on grocery store shelves since the 1800s. For more recipes and info, check out the California Prunes website at californiaprunes.org. That's californiaprunes.org.
Let's chat with today's guest. Kelly, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie, and to talk cheesy pretzel, bear claw croissant with you and so much more.
Kelly Mencin:
Yes, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me on.
Jessie Sheehan:
So first, can you share an early baking or sweet memory? And it can be an actual memory of making something, or it can be an actual memory of eating something.
Kelly Mencin:
Sure. One of the first things that comes to mind is, actually it's very, it's really funny. I love chocolate chip cookies and throughout my whole life I've been obsessed with chocolate cookies. I remember I was young, we were in my kitchen at home and we had the Nestle Toll House package out with all the preformed cookies, and I was baking them with my family and some family friends, and I remember there was one preformed cookie that couldn't fit on the sheet tray, and I remember my dad's friend John taking a bite of the raw cookie dough, and me staring at him, I gasped. And then him offering it to me, and wow, did that unlock a whole flavor memory and just such a good memory of looking back and being like, that just changed my whole world.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.
Kelly Mencin:
I didn't just have to eat baked cookies, I could try the dough too.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's incredible.
Kelly Mencin:
That's just really funny.
Jessie Sheehan:
This was something I thought of too, because your bakery sort of has this croissant dough focus, not everything looks like a traditional croissant, but I don't want to spoil or alert my entire episode with you, but do you remember eating your first croissant?
Kelly Mencin:
Oh yes. My first real, real memory of eating a first croissant, the best croissant I've ever had that I'm still trying to get that version. I went to school at Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island. I did an externship in France at this small school in Yssingeaux, École Ducasse Pastry School. One of our first classes was making croissants every day, and we made brown butter croissants, so we browned the butter that would then go into the croissants and every morning we would bake them. And the memory is so clear of these hot pain au chocolat made with brown butter croissant dough and I am still chasing that high.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.
Kelly Mencin:
It was just incredible. I mean, all of us gained like 20 pounds on that trip.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course.
Kelly Mencin:
Because we were just eating everything we made and it was so worth it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Quick question. So if you're making a brown butter croissant, so basically you're making brown butter and then you're refrigerating it so it's solid and then that becomes part of your butter packet later on.
Kelly Mencin:
Yes and no. The butter packet needs to be very specific fat percentage, water percentage. Most bakeries put a small amount of butter in their croissant dough, so that's where this came from. You would brown the butter, refrigerate it, cube it up, and then it got mixed into the dough for extra flavor.
Jessie Sheehan:
I got you. I got you. Oh my gosh. Delicious. Your love of food started when you were pretty young and in fact, you grew up in a food-focused or food-forward family. I hate that word, foodie, so I'm always trying to avoid it.
Kelly Mencin:
Sure.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us about that. I read something about you baking with grandparents and parents.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, so my dad's father actually owned a pizza shop, I, unfortunately never met him. He died before I was born, but my father grew up in a food-focused family and then created that with our family. And so my dad is very culinary-focused, but I grew up with Sunday stews and pot roasts and waking up Sunday morning and my room was above the kitchen and my room just smelled like braised meat, also a very evocative memory, but my dad's mom also, we grew up making potica with her, so it's a Polish rolled nut-filled pastry, and I remember the dough being stretched across our huge dining room table and we had an old nut grinder that we would grind the walnuts and fresh lemon zest and I can see it so clearly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Was the grinder the one that you attached to your table?
Kelly Mencin:
Yes, you attach to the table.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. Brilliant. Brilliant.
Kelly Mencin:
They don't make them like that anymore.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know. It's so true.
Kelly Mencin:
And it's just so fresh. I grew up around that. We didn't do a lot of takeout. My parents cooked almost every night and I look back on it and I'm like, holy shit, it's a lot.
Jessie Sheehan:
Totally.
Kelly Mencin:
And then when it came to dessert, it was back in the 90s, we still would do boxed Ghirardelli brownies, but my dad would zhuzh it up with his blueberries and sliced almonds on top and my mom and I-
Jessie Sheehan:
Blueberry brownies?
Kelly Mencin:
Oh yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Interesting.
Kelly Mencin:
My dad loves chocolate and fruit, but my mom also, we were big on making pies and making homemade ice cream. We had a salt crank ice cream we did every 4th of July. So I just grew up around that. And when it came time to decide a career path, I was like, there's nothing else I want to do than create with my hands.
Jessie Sheehan:
Were those pies like homemade crust, your mom was like a purist that way or was it more...
Kelly Mencin:
It was more like semi store-bought, it was a lot of graham cracker crust, so we'd get the graham cracker crust and the Dream Whip packets.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum.
Kelly Mencin:
And there's a lot of cream pies, and so the Dream Whip packets with the banana pudding mix or the chocolate pudding mix, we brought it to all summer barbecues and stuff.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back.
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So I know in high school you worked in a restaurant and kind of loved that rush of being on the line. That was just a cooking job, right, not a sweets job?
Kelly Mencin:
I mean, it was a small restaurant, so I helped to plate desserts, but it was not a baking job.
Jessie Sheehan:
That I needed to ask because I understand that then you went to pastry school, you didn't even go to cooking school. It sounds like up until then you were kind of both cook and baker.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
What made that decision for you?
Kelly Mencin:
I just gravitated more towards pastry. It's what I wanted to eat. Friends would crave pizza and burgers and I just wanted to bake and eat chocolate chip cookies and pies, and I knew that it would be harder to learn, pastry and techniques and stuff can be a little bit, I mean, in my opinion, a little bit more nuanced than cooking. I feel like it's easier to just pick up cooking. I mean, I did it all throughout high school and even college, and I grew up doing that with my dad. I didn't grow up being educated in a pastry manner, and so I wanted to learn how to make ice creams and doughs and breads instead of breaking down meat and making consommés and stuff like that.
Jessie Sheehan:
I've also read that you consider yourself to be very type A, session with precision and a perfectionist and maybe all of those parts of your personality were like, "Oh, just a minute. Pastry might be exactly me."
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah. I definitely was drawn to it in that way as well, but cooking, I mean, I still have a love for both, but yeah, my personality is definitely more suited for pastry.
Jessie Sheehan:
Was there any pushback from your parents?
Kelly Mencin:
No.
Jessie Sheehan:
They were not like, you have to get a BA?
Kelly Mencin:
Well, the only pushback was you have to get a degree. They did want me to get a BA, and so I didn't just go for pastry. I went for business and pastry.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, there you go.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Is that what that school specializes in?
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, more so I looked at CIA, which was, and still is the one school that everyone talks about, but at the time they weren't doing a four-year degree, they weren't doing a BA. And so I grew up in a small suburban town where everyone got college degrees and my parents wanted to make sure I was suited for a separate career as opposed to just working in restaurants my whole life.
Jessie Sheehan:
So while in pastry school in Rhode Island, did you find yourself yearning for cooking?
Kelly Mencin:
No.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. So you were totally satisfied by what you were learning.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then after school, you moved to California to work at Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery, which I want to hear all about. And it sounds like at the bakery you were making stuff for the bistro, which was his sort of savory cafe situation, like breads and desserts. But tell us about working, I don't know if he was around, but tell us about working there and learning that he would not let you make your favorite, chocolate blueberry brownies.
Kelly Mencin:
Working at Bouchon was probably the best experience I could have had.
Jessie Sheehan:
Really.
Kelly Mencin:
Getting out of college.
Jessie Sheehan:
Wow, why so good?
Kelly Mencin:
Because one, they made everything homemade, in-house. Two, it was a machine, organized, recipes, three, so many different areas of expert, bread, plated desserts, viennoiserie, entremets, so many different-
Jessie Sheehan:
What's entremets?
Kelly Mencin:
It's cake and creams. Creamy cakes, very French. It was a small space, but a workhorse of a space. And I remember I had fell in love with it because my dad for work would go to San Francisco and I would go out there with him and my mom and travel and Bouchon just was like the army for pastry, very strict but done right, and the recipes are just so delicious and I fell in love with it. They put all new people on the bake, so you start and you bake the cookies and the muffins and stuff, and I picked it up like that, and then they started moving me through the stations. I worked lamination there. I worked the 4:00 A.M. shift where you finished the pastries before they opened, and then I got moved to the bistro station where you made the plated desserts that you then ran over to the bistro every day.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you switched over, I found this so interesting, you switched over to the savory side of the kitchen and joined the team at the bistro. So why?
Kelly Mencin:
I made a few friends there and they were so connected. The bakery and the bistro, they literally shared an alley. Everyone was running back and forth, and I became friends with one of the sous chefs there, Gretchen, and we would hang out and as part of the job of my station as making the desserts to the bistro, I'd have to go over to the bistro and use the salamander to brulee the Lemon Tart.
And so I'd be on the first course station and bruleeing these tarts and just watching everyone, the hustle and bustle and the prep, and I missed it. The bakery was a push every day, but for some reason I wanted to be pushed even more, but I was like, "I can do this. I worked at a restaurant in high school and I know how to cook." And my friend was like, "Yeah, come on over, let's get you into it." And I mean, I've done a lot of hard things in my life, but also boot camp, I also worked through every station there. I made sandwiches first and then I worked garmagé, and then first course making omelets to order, and then fish course and then meat. It was a lot. It was a lot. And I didn't miss baking. I fully immersed myself. It was also very pivotal in that that's how I learned to season things with acid and to make recipes and learn other techniques that I still use in pastry today.
Jessie Sheehan:
I can't imagine that your savory background doesn't influence your incredible flavor combos, whether it's the Earl Grey morning bun or it's the, I mean, this is a theme, obviously, you didn't invent it obviously, but this idea of bringing in things from the elements from the savory kitchen over to the pastry side.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah. The biggest thing, and I know I've said this before, is seasoning with salt and acid. That's not very common in pastry. Even our stone fruit croissant on the menu right now, it has a sherry glaze on it, where we season it with sherry vinegar and a good amount of salt and béchamels and mornay sauces and stuff like that really unlocked when it came to pastry, gougere, all of that I had made in kitchens, and I was like, "Why aren't people using these things in pastries?" And so our tomato croissant right now uses a soufflé filling, but in a different way. And so it has helped immensely, and I'm very proud of that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. So you left California to move to New York with the goal of working the savory side, not with Miro Uskokovic at Gramercy Tavern. You went to Gramercy to work savory, not pastry. This is sort of a quote that I found, but it's exactly what you were just saying. You thought cooking would push you harder, and so you wanted to embrace it, I guess, in a fancy New York City restaurant. This is hilarious. You worked as a line cook there, but you were always kind of peeking over at the pastry side of things, checking in with Miro, chatting to him. I have to ask, we recently had Lauren Tran on the podcast and we were talking about the pie contest, and I was actually at the pie contest the year that she won. Did you ever get involved in the pie contest?
Kelly Mencin:
Oh yeah. I mean, I made pies two years in a row. I never won.
Jessie Sheehan:
Dammit.
Kelly Mencin:
No, but it was so fun.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, we talked about this in Lauren's episode, but if you haven't listened to it, listeners, Miro would always have this pie contest. Maybe it continued since Miro has left, but a pie contest where all of the staff and the kitchen, et cetera, at Gramercy would make pies and compete against each other, and then he would have outside chefs come in, but that's so interesting. What kind of things were you looking at when you were going to peek over at Miro's side of things?
Kelly Mencin:
Oh God, everything. I remember his ice cream, his marshmallow ice cream. I remember at the end of the night they would have half-full pans that you'd get to eat and just being like, “What? How did he make this? What is in here?” The marshmallow ice cream, any of the pies or doughnuts he was making, cakes that he was testing, just anything and everything. I was so immediately drawn. I mean, I went to Gramercy to work the savory line, but I guess reminded of my love for, because it opened up a whole 'nother world. It was very different than Bouchon, right? Bouchon was very classic French, extremely simple. The cooks had to plate all the desserts at Bouchon, whereas at Gramercy Tavern, they had a whole pastry line of these eloquently built desserts.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now I want to talk about Rolo's, which I love, and hilariously, honey, the first time I was there was with Miro and Shilpa when Miro went for the first time.
Kelly Mencin:
Really?
Jessie Sheehan:
So it was a few years ago, obviously.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah. But it was so funny for it to come full circle.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Some peeps from Gramercy Tavern started Rolo's. Please describe the Rolo's concept, restaurant in Queens kind of during the pandemic, right?
Kelly Mencin:
So Howard Kalachnikoff was the CDC of Gramercy Tavern for a long time. He opened it with Ben Howell, who was at one point, I believe the beverage director, Ben Howell was front of the house managing it, Gramercy Tavern. So Howard, Rafiq, Ben, Steven, they opened Rolo's, actually it was supposed to open in 2020. I reached out to them in January of 2020 on a whim looking for a pastry chef job. And they were like, "You know pastry?" And I was like, "I do." And I still remember Rafiq. The only question they asked, he was like, "Do you know how to make ice cream?" And I was like, "Yes." So the plan was for it to be like a wood-fired restaurant with a great beverage program, but simple, delicious cooking, very tavern-esque like Gramercy Tavern.
Obviously when the pandemic hit, we had to pivot. And so we decided to open in January of 2021 as a basically grocery store bakery. And so I spent the summer of 2020 recipe testing ice creams that we sold by the pint, bread, focaccias, cookies, all of that. And so we opened in 2021, basically selling house-made charcuterie and roasted vegetables and little takeout containers and sandwiches, and this basically built the foundation for Radio Bakery. It took off. We still weren't making any money because that was the pandemic. And then basically once outdoor dining and everything was allowed to come back in, that kind of fell away, and I was very happy. I moved to plated desserts and more ice cream, and it was my dream job. I never ever imagined I could be so happy at where I was.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell us about the simple desserts that were at Rolo's? Maybe there was a chocolate situation, something fruity, something Pavlova.
Kelly Mencin:
Yes, exactly. So it's a theme for me and with my partners is that everything is very intentional. So when we built the plated dessert menu at Rolo's, everything had its place. So I knew we wanted a chocolate dessert. I'm a chocoholic myself. I knew I wanted a fudgy chocolate cake. We had a very simple, we called it a twice-baked chocolate cake. Because it was, it was one layer baked longer, and then the second layer put on halfway through and baked hot and fast. It was a little fudgy, so a flourless chocolate cake. We always had a Pavlova fruity situation that would change throughout the seasons where it was usually a sorbet or sherbet fresh fruit and meringue. That was always a big hitter. And then we usually had a tart, and for the longest time there was the brown butter sour cherry tart, which now we use that in different iterations at Radio. And then ice cream was a big part of the menu. There's always a sweet cream, and then a couple classic flavors. And then usually a sherbet or a sorbet.
Jessie Sheehan:
Was the Pavlova thing, you were not making a huge Pavlova, you were making individual meringues sort of with marshmallow-y centers as opposed to full on crispy.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then serving with some fruity thing.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. All right, so now let's talk about Radio. I think when you were developing its vibe or coming up with what it was going to be about, you knew it wanted to be this croissant, it's not fair to say croissant-focused, then people will think it's just croissant. It's a croissant dough-focused bakery.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, laminated.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. So it's laminated dough. But why?
Kelly Mencin:
New York City obviously is filled with so many bakeries. We knew no cakes. I'm not a cake person. My partners hate cakes, but that was just a little bit too much of a narrow lane. And then we knew we wanted savory and sweet. With laminated doughs, you can have that. And we knew we wanted to do sandwiches, and so it came down to being very, again, intentional. The first iteration of the bakery, we wanted to do ice cream. It's a shame, but we have learned that sometimes staying in your lane is beneficial. We stay in the laminated and focaccia lane and do it exceptionally well instead of doing 30 different products mediocre. So we don't have scones, we don't have quick breads, we don't have muffins. We stick to a couple of base doughs, a couple of base bread recipes, and then make very intentional, specific items with those products.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, no, I love how streamlined the menu is if you look at it online, I mean, I'm sure it's always changing, but it's like croissant or croissant shapes like danishes or buns, not croissants, like a tiny section of croissant, a breakfast sandwich, focaccia bread, late morning focaccia, focaccia sandwiches, done.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I think that's brilliant. One thing I wanted to mention before we jump into the recipe, because you can't not. You have this tomato croissant, which kind of looks like a Danish for what it's worth, even though I didn't really get Danish vibes from it, but that's how it's described online. You can't tell it's croissant dough necessarily, but it is kind of responsible for your bakery's virality and these insanely long lines. So tell us about that. I think it was TikTok, but I'm not positive. And then also how do you feel about that, besides the obvious that it's frigging amazing to sell out every day? What happened-
Kelly Mencin:
So I don't go on TikTok, I just stay away from it. But I think the virality, I think Radio really got noticed a lot more was last summer when we put this tomato croissant on the menu. Again, it's nothing new. I was inspired by Lune Bakery in Australia, but we did it our way. But I think it was the fact that we were doing, we placed an emphasis on savory croissants, right?
We're not just a sweet bakery, it's savory and sweet. And Bloomberg, I believe, was it Bloomberg or Washington Post, someone did a big spread on savory pastries and the tomato croissant was in the article. And not only is it delicious, but it's stunning to look at. And so I think that's why it took off, and I think it also captured an audience because it is so of the seasonal moment, like juicy, ripe, beautiful tomatoes on a perfect cheesy custard, baked in a flaky shell. It is just so epitomes of summer, but also strikes the nostalgia. It kind of tastes like pizza and it takes you to France. And so I think that is what led to, I don't know, us getting very popular.
Jessie Sheehan:
So there wasn't a TikTok component?
Kelly Mencin:
No, I mean, not that I know of.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Kelly Mencin:
I stay off of TikTok. I understand that Radio Bakery is on TikTok. Of course, I understand that. But I do our own Instagram, and so I see a lot, but I am very specific about what we choose to post and not post.
Jessie Sheehan:
I guess that is to say it feels great to have these really long lines. And since it sounds like maybe it didn't even have a social media moment, it kind of feels good. I mean, you just came from the Wall Street Journal. That's pretty good.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, I mean, it feels great. It's still a pinch-me moment every day that we have these lines, but people will line up for what is good. And I firmly believe that we are making exceptional product. We're not making it for the viral moment. We're not making it for TikTok, right?
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course not.
Kelly Mencin:
We're making it so that it tastes fucking delicious, but it's also beautiful. There are two components to that, and I think that's what keeps people coming back, is just the deliciousness.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right, so before we jump into the recipe, tell us about the New York City Bakery run.
Kelly Mencin:
So the New York City Bakery run was started by Tipster, which is a guide to food and beverage, originally from Copenhagen, but is now operating in New York. Radio Bakery was featured in their magazine this past year, The Rise of New York Bakeries. And so they had done a run like this in Copenhagen, I believe last year. This is their first time trying it out in New York City. And it's a half-marathon. So 13 miles of 100 people chosen by lottery going to the best bakeries that they chose for their magazine. They've already got over 6,000 people signed up for this lottery. L'Appartement 4F, Elbow Bread. It's going to be-
Jessie Sheehan:
La Brea.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, La Brea is in there. La Cabra.
Jessie Sheehan:
La Cabra.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, which is also based in Copenhagen. So I think it's going to be really fun. 100 people doesn't seem like a lot, but I think we're planning on making maybe the tomato croissant.
Jessie Sheehan:
So people run to each bakery.
Kelly Mencin:
Correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
And they get the thing.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, they get a little treat.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then they go to the next thing.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah. Then they run to the next thing. The last stop, I believe is L'Appartement 4F in the West Village.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And they don't pay anything.
Kelly Mencin:
I don't know. I don't even think there's an entry fee.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, that's incredible.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, it's just like community and fun.
Jessie Sheehan:
So cool.
Kelly Mencin:
And eating pastries. I mean, I love it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, so cool. I love that. If you're in New York City, peeps. Okay, so now we're going to talk about the cheesy pretzel bear claws at Radio. I know this is a staff favorite, and I think I know why it's a staff favorite based on the name alone. But tell us why your staff loves it.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, so I think the staff loves it so much because it's extra crispy and crunchy, malty from the lye, and then the inside is gooey and soft and filled with the pop of mustard seeds and cheese and a little gooey from the béchamel. It's very savory, but it has a hint of sweetness and it's just the perfect snack.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love, love. So it's literally a bear claw-shaped croissant. A bear claw is a pastry or a baked good on its own.
Kelly Mencin:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Bear claw-shaped croissant filled with this grainy mustard and béchamel, cheddar cheese, gets proofed and dipped in a lye solution to pretzelize it, which I don't even know if that's a verb, but I love it.
Kelly Mencin:
We're making it a verb.
Jessie Sheehan:
Topped with Maldon salt, baked until crispy. How did the idea of a bear claw-shaped croissant come to be?
Kelly Mencin:
During my recipe testing at Rolo's, it was kind of like a spur-of-the-moment product that I made. I was just making a lot of things and throwing them at the wall. The pretzel version came from one, I love pretzels, but two, it's kind of an ode to City Bakery.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course, City Bakery.
Kelly Mencin:
I know. I wanted to do some kind of pretzel croissant, but I didn't want to obviously do anything too similar to theirs. But I wanted to make it our own and do something savory. And so cheese and cheddar, classic combo, and then mustard, dipping a pretzel and mustard. And I remember making it and testing it at Rolo's and people trying it for the first time and being like, "Yep, that's it. That's all it needs. That's it." Because it's salty, savory, crunchy, malty. It hits all of-
Jessie Sheehan:
Cheesy.
Kelly Mencin:
Cheesy. It hits all of those notes that inflame your brain and you're like, "Yes, I want more."
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. First things first, when you make this recipe, we're going to make a sponge, also called a pre-ferment, which is going to help us develop flavor, kind of the equivalent of a sourdough starter, but this isn't a sourdough situation. So two nights before we want to make our bear claws, we're going to combine all of the ingredients for the sponge in a stand mixer, and I'll go through what those ingredients are, paddle attachment. So we're going to start with cold water. Two questions. Why is it important to start with the water, and why does it need to be cold?
Kelly Mencin:
So we always like to start with water in the mixer first as opposed to drys, because the water is going to keep the drys from sticking to the bottom of the bowl. Cold water, whenever you make any laminated dough, you want to really make sure that you are, the whole point of lamination is keeping fermentation in check. So we're using cold water so that we're not getting that sponge too proofy.
Jessie Sheehan:
I got you.
Kelly Mencin:
Too active.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep, I got you. So we're going to start with cold water. Now we know why. Then we're going to add gold or osmotolerant yeast, which is just yeast that's resistant to salt and sugar. And the gold is a reference to the package of the SAF.
Kelly Mencin:
Correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. That's what I thought. But I was like, gold, how come I don't have gold? I realized, oh, I do. So the next morning we're going to make the dough, which you say is sort of on the saltier rather than the sweeter side, which I'm sure is from your savory background. We're going to combine some whole milk, some water, which will be cold or icy depending on the temp in our kitchen. If it's a warm kitchen, obviously it'll be colder. That osmotolerant yeast, again, the sponge pre-ferment that we made from the night before, a little bit more of that small valley milling flour that we used in our pre-ferment. And then we're also adding King Arthur's special patent bread flour. Is it a flour none of us can buy because it's just for professionals? And then the second is how is it different from the King Arthur baking flour that I buy to bake at home?
Kelly Mencin:
Sure. So great question. You can buy this flour at the grocery store. It's just the King Arthur bread flour.
Jessie Sheehan:
It is just King-
Kelly Mencin:
It is.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah. But in the grand scheme of their large wholesale, they call it a special name.
Jessie Sheehan:
I got you.
Kelly Mencin:
But the grocery is yes, the special patent bread flour, because I, during the pandemic, that was literally the flour that we were recipe testing with. So yes, you can make all of this at home if you buy that flour.
Jessie Sheehan:
Why do you want a mixture?
Kelly Mencin:
So the Small Valley Milling white bread flour is for flavor, whereas the King Arthur special patent bread flour is for consistency and strength.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're also going to add a pot ferment, which is a portion of dough that was used in a previous bake, but we're going to add it into this new bake. So this would've been something that you guys, when you made the bear claws the day before, you would've taken a little piece of that, put it away in the fridge, and now you're going to add it here.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, exactly. So when you're laminating, when you're folding in the butter to the dough, you have offcuts, right? You have pieces that don't have butter in them, or there's too much dough. And so this is one, a way to decrease waste is that you're using those offcuts, but two, it's another way of increasing flavor and it adds extensibility into the dough. I hate waste. Most bakeries hate waste, and so it's a big one for us.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, it's literally when you're making your pâtons, which is like the dough-covered butter that we'll talk about, you are slicing off the tiny little edges when you're making your sharp edges and those are your offsets.
Kelly Mencin:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Which I've always thought of an offset as a spatula, so I'm so happy that now on Jeopardy, I will definitely win. Because I will know that there's another meaning for offset. And just out of curiosity, if one was baking bread at home as a home baker and you had made a loaf the night before, just grab a teeny bit of it, like a couple of tablespoons and throw it in, or is it more...
Kelly Mencin:
So bread is different.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Let's say laminated. Let's just pretend.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, laminated dough, absolutely. You can add in, yeah. Laminated dough or even white bread dough. Yes. Sourdough bread, a little bit different. Any type of enriched doughs, any leftover pieces you have, add it in, and it'll give you flavor and more extensibility and a better product.
Jessie Sheehan:
Like something from cinnamon buns?
Kelly Mencin:
Yes, exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love. And then we're also going to add sea salt, and I was curious, why not kosher?
Kelly Mencin:
So we use sea salt because it's a little bit finer.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to mix this in the stand mixer on speed one for about four minutes. Speed two for about six minutes, so 10 minutes total. Then we're going to divide and shape the dough into pâtons. That's pâtons peeps, and this is just going to be our dough. We have not put any butter in it, and we're going to place it in the freezer overnight. I don't know why I've never asked a guest this, but sometimes at home, when I am making cinnamon buns, I make a lot of yeasted things, but a lot of cinnamon buns, I am always scared to put them in the freezer. I always worry that the yeast can't handle it. Is that not true?
Kelly Mencin:
Not true.
Jessie Sheehan:
Really?
Kelly Mencin:
The freezer is the pastry chef's secret weapon.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. It doesn't kill...
Kelly Mencin:
Bakeries wouldn't exist if they couldn't freeze some items. You just can't keep up.
Jessie Sheehan:
So it doesn't, yeast does not kill.
Kelly Mencin:
It will eventually, longer than seven days, it'll start.
Jessie Sheehan:
But I could make cinnamon buns ahead of time and three days later, pull them, bring them to room temp, final proof, and then bake them up.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Wow.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Gold more than...
Kelly Mencin:
Gold yeast will really help benefit that, for sure.
Jessie Sheehan:
The package of red SAFs might be a teeny bit harder.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah. Yeah. You might have a harder time with that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because I just moved to gold recently, so that's so good. Thank you. Thank you for that quick aside. Then on the following morning, we're going to remove that dough from the freezer, and we're going to remove our Tourage butter from Brittany. I won't lie, I had to research this, but Tourage is basically a dry butter, unsalted, already in thin sheets, designed for lamination, great for layers. So I had never heard of this before. I assume this is a product that if you are running a bakery, you have on hand.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah. So some people make their own butter blocks, and some people buy them. I never wanted to spend the time making the butter blocks. I think it's a lot of effort for not a lot of return. The butter from France is the most delicious-tasting butter. I know a lot of places in the U.S. right now, and even I am looking into more places in the U.S. that can make butter sheets using local cultured butter, but it's hard to find. And so the prices are going up, but we love this butter from France, and it already comes in pre-made blocks and just makes our life a whole lot easier.
Jessie Sheehan:
I get it, 100%. And at this point, the dough is frozen, and the butter is just room temp. And are you bringing them both to room temp?
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah. We're bringing the dough to room temp or colder. The most important thing with lamination is that your butter and your dough are the same temp. The point of lamination and making croissants is, like I said earlier, to make sure you're controlling the fermentation. If your dough gets too warm, it's going to start fermenting. I mean, we had this problem the whole summer at our Greenpoint Bakery because the AC wasn't working because it was 100 degrees outside, and it means your butter breaks or they're not as proofed as they can be because they were expelling their gas earlier in the process. And so yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to laminate them. We're going to roll out, which I'm not going to get into all the details of lamination, but basically we're taking our butter block, we are wrapping it in our pâtons, rolling it out, et cetera, et cetera.
Kelly Mencin:
Correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
You guys have a laminate...
Kelly Mencin:
We have a sheeter.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. You have a sheeter.
Kelly Mencin:
Big sheeter. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
You have a sheeter. Once it's laminated, you'll roll out a pâton so it's relaxed. You'll divide it into four portions. When you guys are rolling out the pâtons, do you have a favorite rolling pin or at least a favorite type of rolling pin? You don't like tapered edges?
Kelly Mencin:
No tapered edges.
Jessie Sheehan:
I got you.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, just the blunt, good quality wood.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I was going to ask if they're wooden.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then this is so interesting. I hope that people can visualize this. I was able to see a picture, which helps so much. But moving horizontally, does that mean the portion is facing you as a rectangle with the long side facing you?
Kelly Mencin:
The width of the piece of dough is going to be five-inch.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right?
Kelly Mencin:
Think of a five-inch piece of dough taking up the entire table.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. So many, many inches by five.
Kelly Mencin:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. And then, moving horizontally, pipe an even layer of this grainy mustard béchamel. Just quickly remind us what a béchamel is.
Kelly Mencin:
Béchamel is milk, butter, and flour.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to pipe an even line of this grainy mustard bechamel all along this five-inch by many inch pâton that's been rolled out, directly in the middle of each strip. And then we're going to place pre-cut cheddar buttons. I love that they're pâtons and batons directly on top of the mustard. Just out of curiosity, what kind of cheddar? Should we picture, is it extra sharp? Where are you getting your cheddar for the bear claws?
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, so we didn't really want anything too fancy. We wanted to be very nostalgic. We use a very straightforward Cabot yellow cheddar that we know and love, and it gives us that flavor and look that is very distinct.
Jessie Sheehan:
And very nostalgic.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, very nostalgic.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Love that. And then once each portion is filled, we're going to very gently fold the top of the portion over the filling to meet the bottom, aligning the edges, but just use the side of our hand to kind of press against almost the filling.
Kelly Mencin:
Correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because we don't want to press against the edge of the dough because we'll screw up the lamination.
Kelly Mencin:
Correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
If it's many, many inches, do you ever have more than one person or you just go down the line-
Kelly Mencin:
You go down the line.
Jessie Sheehan:
Flipping it over.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're sealing in that cheddar and béchamel. As I said, we don't want to press too close to the edge because we don't want to screw up the lamination layers. Once the four portions are sealed, we'll arrange them next to each other, dust the tops with flour, and mark them with a bicycle. I have worked in a bakery, so I know what a bicycle is, but tell us what a bicycle is.
Kelly Mencin:
A bicycle is a piece of equipment that has anywhere from five to seven rounds of metal that are on wheels, and that can flow like a bicycle, and then you can expand, extend it, or contract it, and tighten it up to set it to the amount of inches that you want, and then it'll cut for you.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's almost like many, many pizza cutters attached to each other.
Kelly Mencin:
Yes, exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And we're going to cut them into three-inch pieces, and then with a paring knife or a bench knife, we're going to score the flat part of the dough at this point and sort of two times to create this-
Kelly Mencin:
The claw.
Jessie Sheehan:
The claw. Love. Cuts should just be touching the cheddar pâtons, and we want to cut all the way through. So after spreading the toes of the bear claw, so they're no longer touching, we'll arrange them on a sheet tray and freeze overnight again?
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. So this is many days.
Kelly Mencin:
I mean, they can be used fresh.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep.
Kelly Mencin:
They can go in the proofer and then be used the next day.
Jessie Sheehan:
When it's time to bake, we're going to proof the bear claws overnight at an ambient temperature, which basically means room temp on a covered rack. Once proofed, we'll place in the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes. Is that just to help them set so that they don't...
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah, it's to help the dough firm up before we dunk them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Oh, before you dunk them. Right. Now, we're going to prepare our lye solution. This is the pretzelization process. We're going to prepare the lye solution, which is lye powder and water. We're going to whisk to dissolve the lye powder.
Kelly Mencin:
And not breathe in while you do it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right, because it's so toxic, right.
Kelly Mencin:
It's so toxic.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Well I hope you're wearing a mask, peeps. So you're going to whisk to dissolve the lye powder immediately, or else it's going to clump and be impossible to dissolve. You have to wear gloves. Lye is corrosive and can burn your skin. Do you have to train all your employees in this?
Kelly Mencin:
Food safety, number one.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Yeah. We're going to line our sheet pans with Silpat mats. Why is that a good option here?
Kelly Mencin:
So Silpat mats are nonstick. With the lye solution, if you put anything covered in lye on parchment paper or on a sheet tray without spraying it with a nonstick spray, it'll stick. It'll stick immediately. So we want to use a nonstick. We used to spray sheet trays with a Vegalene solution, which is like an aerosol canola oil situation, but we have since moved over to Silpats and it has made it a joy to work with.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's amazing. So we're going to dip each bear claw into our lye solution, place on a cooling rack on top of a lined sheet tray before arranging on our prepped baking sheets. Now we're going to egg wash. Just out of curiosity, what's Kelly's egg wash recipe?
Kelly Mencin:
Our egg wash is, oh, the ratio off the top of my head, it's whole eggs, yolks, and a little bit of cream.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Okay.
Kelly Mencin:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's always so fun if you have a bakery, because then you can really go to, at home when you only want to use one egg. It's like, is it one egg and salt? Is it one egg and cream? Is it one egg and water? I like one egg and salt, for the record. And then we're going to sprinkle with Maldon salt. We're going to bake your oven, obviously in the bakery, has a croissant setting. At home, is this a 350 or is this more like a 400?
Kelly Mencin:
Higher. Yeah, you want to start high and then you can end low. So we typically start at 425, and the oven jumps down to anywhere between 360 and 380.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is that a croissant thing or a pretzelization thing?
Kelly Mencin:
It's a croissant thing. So you want to make sure that the butter doesn't, it's croissant and pie dough. You don't want the butter to leak out.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Yep. So you start high. Then we're going to use a fish spatula. I love the specificity of that. To remove the baked claws from the baking trays, arrange them on a wire rack that's placed on a fresh sheet tray. Yum.
Kelly Mencin:
Yum.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm coming in after this to go have one. Thank you so much for chatting with me today, Kelly.
Kelly Mencin:
Thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Kelly Mencin:
Oh, thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to California Prunes for supporting our show. 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.