Lauren Tran 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 Lauren Tran, the pastry chef and creative force behind Bánh by Lauren, a Vietnamese-American and French pastry shop in New York City. Lauren's dreamy creations, from lychee raspberry macarons to steamed rice cakes to pandan coconut chiffon cake, are deeply rooted in tradition but always full of surprise. She started her bakery concept as a pop-up during the pandemic after she was let go from her pastry chef job at Gramercy Tavern. She opened her brick-and-mortar last year in Chinatown, and it's one of the city's hottest bakeries. Lauren's work draws on her family's heritage, her upbringing in Seattle, including her visits with her dad to Vietnamese bakeries as a little girl, and preparing for the Lunar New Year with her mom, and her fine dining pastry background, and the result is a menu that's personal, playful, and packed with flavor. In our chat, Lauren shares the story behind the bakery, including the pie contest she won and the pie she baked for it, which I actually tasted, and how she's building community through baked goods. Plus, she walks me through her pandan honeycomb cake recipe, one of the bakery's signature items. Lauren brought me a slice. Okay, she brought me a lot of slices when we recorded this episode, and the cake is truly mind-bogglingly delish. I think I ate four of the slices. I loved chatting with Lauren, so stay tuned for our convo.
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Let's chat with today's guest. Lauren, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk pandan honeycomb cake with you and so much more.
Lauren Tran:
Thank you. Excited to be here.
Jessie Sheehan:
I like to begin interviews having my guests share an early baking or sweet memory. Can you share a memory with us?
Lauren Tran:
Ever since I was little, I would go with my dad to Chinatown, like on the weekends. I always loved shopping and running errands with him. I always knew that if I went on these trips, I'm the youngest of three, I have two older sisters, and so my sisters were always kind of busy and I would go shopping, and I knew that if I did, I would be able to pick out whatever sweet treat I wanted.
I would always choose these sesame balls and it was just really special, because they're fried fresh and it was like the Vietnamese version kind of a donut and has mung bean and coconut in it. But every so often my dad would be like, "Do you want to try something else?" And I feel like that's kind of the foundation of the Vietnamese desserts and my background of ... Even though I didn't make them, I just grew up every weekend getting to try a new one because there was a lot of variety in Seattle. And so, when I think of my childhood and running errands with my dad, I always wanted to go because I knew there was dessert.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. That will motivate anyone. You credit your dad with introducing you to the French pastries of his childhood in Vietnam, and to the abundant Vietnamese bakeries around Washington State's capital, where you grew up, and you credit your mom. I feel like your mom can recall every single ingredient from her upbringing in North Vietnam. It seems to me from those two kind of influences from each parent, is it fair to say that you grew up in a food-focused family, or at least your focus was very food?
Lauren Tran:
Absolutely. Yeah, it was very… food was everything that I learned about, that was the Vietnamese culture to me. Food brought our family together, and for me it was the closest thing, besides my family, that made me feel really connected to ... Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now, I didn't know you had two sisters. I thought there was only one, but I did read about one of your sisters maybe asking you about a chiffon cake and suggesting, or you suggested ... She got you thinking about including pandan in some of your desserts, and so it sounded like she too was a food person, or interested in food enough to be talking to you about chiffon cakes?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, I think everyone in my family really loves food, but yeah, my sister Annie, me, Annie, and my dad, have the biggest sweet teeth. So, she was asking me during COVID, like, "Have you made a chiffon cake?" And I was like, "Yeah, I've made one in pastry school." And then that kind of, yeah, just led me to be like, yeah, why don't I do more? It all kind of led to another where she was like, "Oh, I really like pandan. Can you make a pandan one?" And then from there it was like, oh, what filling do I add? What mousse should I make?
Jessie Sheehan:
Were you interested in the Food Network or anything like that?
Lauren Tran:
I have a really big family, and so I was basically the youngest of all my cousins too. And so, my cousins would be watching Food Network, watching Ina, watching Martha Stewart, so that's what I kind of grew up watching, I guess, as I got a little older, “Top Chef” and things like that. Yeah, it was always just a hobby, or something I knew that I loved eating out, eating pastries, but I didn't really dip my toe into baking, I think, from scratch until maybe end of high school or maybe college.
Jessie Sheehan:
I also read this and I wasn't exactly sure where it was sort of in the trajectory of your life and career, but that you had spent years working in upscale restaurants in Seattle, both front and back of house. And I wondered, was that more like a high school job, or was that after college when you moved back and you were getting ready to go to pastry school?
Lauren Tran:
Well, my first job was at Olive Garden, right after high school into college. But after college and when I was trying to decide whether I was going to apply to med schools or not, I was working on my applications and then I realized, just kidding, I want to go to pastry school, I think.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll talk about that. Yeah.
Lauren Tran:
I decided if I'm going to do this, I want to make sure that this is the right move, because pastry school is so expensive. So, I was lucky enough that one of my friends worked at Canlis, which is a fine dining restaurant in Seattle, and so I decided to apply. And then once I got that job, because it's one of very few fine dining restaurants in Seattle, I was like, this is a great opportunity and I love hospitality. I love being in the front of house, I love back of house, but this is just a great way if, in the future, I'm ... ever open anything, I'll get to know front and back. I'll know both aspects.
And so while I was there, I think in my cover letter I wrote, like, "I'm going to go to New York to go to pastry school, but I would love to learn as much as I can and be a part of this team." They let me trail or stage every week with the pastry department. Once a week or twice a week, I would do something pastry-related.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible. This is just so interesting to me. Your work with pastry is not only incredibly delicious, and I know this because I just had a slice of honeycomb pandan cake, but also so beautiful and so artistic. Were you an artistic kid? You weren't even making beautiful drawings? But did you know you had it in you?
Lauren Tran:
See, that's the thing. I don't think I am that artistic.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know, but your stuff is so beautiful. I mean, you have... Listeners, please check out Lauren's Instagram and the website for the bakery. I mean, it's so beautiful.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, I think that comes from working in fine dining restaurants. I think it's like there's intentionality in everything that I do, and it's those tiny details. And I think that's part of my personality, but something that I was really able to hone as I was working in these fine dining restaurants that were like, "Hey, focus on every little detail. Every little detail counts," or be intentional about what things look like and-
Jessie Sheehan:
So, so interesting. We'll be right back.
Today's episode is presented by California Prunes. Just this morning I made my go-to smoothie of kale, blueberries, and prunes, and I couldn't have had a better morning. It's so good. I've been snacking on California Prunes since forever, and I love knowing how good they are for your gut, your heart, and particularly for your bones. They contain dietary fiber and other nutrients to support good gut health, and vitamin K, copper, and antioxidants to support healthy bones. If you're trying to find ways to swap in natural sugars into your diet like I did in my smoothie, prunes are there for you. I have a feeling there are some bakers listening. You guys probably already know how classic prunes are in French baking. I love baking a prune clafoutis, because not only do the deep purple prunes look so beautiful in the light custard batter, but the fruit plumps up and gets even juicier when baked. And when I'm not baking with them, I'm snacking. I stash a container of prunes in my pantry for a sweet treat whenever I need it, and I pack a little bag of them to take on planes, usually paired with some salty almonds. For more info and recipes that range from prune cocktails to cakes, check out the California Prunes website at californiaprunes.org. That's californiaprunes.org.
Kerry Diamond:
Hi everyone, it's Kerry Diamond, host of Radio Cherry Bombe. A big thank you to everyone who joined us in Oregon's Willamette Valley at The Ground for our latest stop on the Summer Tastemaker Tour, presented by the Visa Dining Collection by OpenTable and Visa. We shared an incredible dinner, listened to an inspiring panel, and spent time with some of our favorite folks in food. It was a gorgeous evening filled with community, conversation, and great food and drink.
The final stop on our Summer Tastemaker Tour is Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday, August 15th. Join us for a fun evening at the Frist Art Museum. We'll be celebrating food, culture, and music with an all-star panel featuring chefs Julia Sullivan, Margot McCormack, and Crystal De Luna-Bogan, plus a special live performance from singer-songwriter Jessie Baylin. It's going to be a magical summer night in Music City. Tickets are currently sold out, but you can still join the wait-list at cherrybombe.com. The link is in our show notes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now, back to our guest. Before you ended up working in this fine dining place in Seattle, pre-going to pastry school, you went to Wash U, Washington University, and you studied Poli Sci, and also took science and lab classes, even though you didn't end up going to medical school. But you have said those science and lab classes actually connected to some degree in how you bake today. Can you unpack that?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, absolutely. I loved the labs classes for my science classes. I loved the precision. I loved weighing everything out. If you go over one gram, something's going to happen, and that's I think why I am a baker and not a savory person, because I need to know. I love exact measurements, but also, yeah, I want to figure out why something happened the way that it did. And most of the time, because everything's exact, you can kind of pinpoint what happened here.
Jessie Sheehan:
In addition to those classes kind of influencing how you bake today, I also read that your time spent studying in coffee shops while you were in college and trying all the croissants at every single bakery also influenced your baking today, in terms of flavor. Can you talk about that?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, definitely, took my car all over over Seattle, and I was always that friend that was like, "Oh, we have to go try this coffee shop. We have to go try this bakery. Oh, this one has this. We have to go try this item." And then it was all under the guise of, oh, I'm going to be studying there, though.
Jessie Sheehan:
Exactly.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah. I think being in a place in Seattle, there's a lot of diversity, and especially now, there's so many different coffee shops and bakeries that are popping up with so many different flavors. I think that kind of opened up my door, and I think being in a city that has a lot of food in general, not just bakeries but savory food, like ethnic food, you're able to try a bunch of different flavors, different fruits. And all of that has given me a different experience and made me grow in, actually, that sounds really interesting. These flavors are really cool. What if it was added to this, or what if I took that flavor and put it into a cake? I take a lot of inspiration from bubble tea drinks. That sounds really funny, but I'm like, "Oh, I taste lychee and I taste oolong. I wonder if this would taste good in a cake?"
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. How did Lauren get from, I love going to each of these bakeries and trying all the different flavors of bubble tea and the best croissant in town, how you got from there to, actually, I want to go to pastry school. Was there a friend? How did you even know pastry school existed?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, so actually, one of my best friends, Alison, she was-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my best friend's named Alison. Oh.
Lauren Tran:
Really? She was the baker in our friend group. She loved baking-
Jessie Sheehan:
And she's from school or college?
Lauren Tran:
I've known her since elementary school.
Jessie Sheehan:
I met my friend Alison in fourth grade, my best friend Alison in fourth grade.
Lauren Tran:
Mine in third grade.
Jessie Sheehan:
Aw.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, she always loved baking, but she actually doesn't love the precise measurements of weighing on a scale. She'll do the cups and everything, but she's always loved baking. She's always been the one to bake everything, coming to me with Smitten Kitchen recipes, and then like, "Okay, if you want to bake, Lauren, we can try this." And then, yeah, I think I did my first couple of recipes baking from scratch with her, because everything else was from a box before.
And then I was like, "Wow, I really love this," and I got the “Bouchon Bakery” cookbook, and that was actually my first real cookbook that had weighing out in a scale, and I was just like, "What? This is crazy. I didn't know that people did this." And I was like, "This is for me. This type of weighing everything on a scale in grams is for me." So, I just was baking out of that.
And my friends started getting married. Some of my friends got married a little younger, and so they were like, "Oh, Lauren, we know you love baking. Do you want to bake my cake?" And they're like, "It's not a big deal. You can make it from box. You can do whatever." My friend Inkyoung, she was like, "Yeah, it's a small cake. There's only going to be 30 of us, but I think it'd be really special if you made the cake." From there, I was like, "Okay, I can't just make a box cake. For your wedding, it has to be special."
So that was my first time R&Ding and I made five cakes and I loved it, and I was just like, oh, this is so fun changing the buttercream, because I didn't like the buttercream that I tried before. Adding more strawberries, making a compote, it was so much fun. And then another friend was like, "Hey, I saw that you made Inkyoung's wedding cake. Do you want to make my dessert table?" "Oh, I saw you can ..." And then it started kind of word of mouth, and I did five friends' dessert tables, and I was baking all of this at 1:00 to 2:00 A.M. Yeah, sorry, parents. I was making macarons at 1:00 A.M., banging pans, because I was studying during the day and working on my applications, and at night I was working on these wedding orders.
And I realized at 1:00 to 2:00 A.M. in the morning, that was when I was the happiest. I was so happy being this night baker, and during the day I was stressed out and not happy, and my friends were like, "Lauren, I don't know if medicine is what you really want to do. You've been working in a lab for a couple years, you've been ready to apply, but you're not doing it, and that's just not who you are, because you're a go-getter." And I was just like, "But I'm ready. I'm almost there." And they're like, "But do you really want to do this?" And I took some time and I was like, "You know what? I actually think I want to go to pastry school."
Jessie Sheehan:
You did go to pastry school, you graduated, and you really wanted to work under my friend and your friend, Miro Uskokovic. You really wanted to work under him. I love that. He was the pastry chef at Gramercy Tavern in New York City. You started there, and soon after it was Thanksgiving time, and Gramercy Tavern historically has always had this kind of pie contest, where employees at Gramercy Tavern make pies, and then Miro brings in outside judges. Listeners, I was a judge once, and they bring in outside judges to judge the employees' pies, and then the winning pie gets on the Gramercy Tavern menu. Okay. Tell us when Miro came up to you and said, "Are you going to be entering a pie, Lauren?"
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, it was actually more than that. He had a group. He had, I don't know, a staff meeting for all of pastry, because there was a sign-up sheet and no one had signed up at that point, and so he was like, "Hey, everyone is making a pie. I want someone on the pastry team to win this pie contest this year," because I think the person who won before was a server. And so, he was like, "We need pastry team representation." And so I had just started a month before. I was like, "I'm not making anything. I'm brand new." I was the last person to join the team, and so he was like, "Lauren, what are you making?" And I just froze and I was like, "What?" And he was like, "You're on the team. You're in pastry. You're going to make something, right?" And I was like, "Okay."
And so I went home and told Garland, my husband. I was like, "Oh, my God, I have to make something for this pie contest," and I have no idea what I wanted to do. And then yeah, kind of had to think back on some flavor combinations of what I thought would be really fun, and I came back to my husband and I had just gone ... Right before I started at Gramercy, we went to Nice and there was a gelato shop, and they had a coconut and lemongrass gelato that was incredible. And the store person was like ... We had asked her what her favorite one was, and she was like, "It's actually this coconut lemongrass one, but no one likes it here." And I was like, "This is great." And I just remember that flavor combination and then decided to add pandan in with the Vietnamese with my background.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible, because I think you said that at first you were like, "Maybe I should make a pumpkin pie."
Lauren Tran:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Pumpkin to pandan, lemongrass and coconut. There's a large distance between that.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah. I thought that it needed to be kind of Thanksgiving-themed, and then I was like, if I'm going to make something and I get this chance to be creative, why not make something that are flavors that I've never really gotten to work with before?
Jessie Sheehan:
The pie was on the menu, which is so exciting, and then right away, was that Thanksgiving of 2019?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And so, by March of 2020, you'd gotten laid off, and you were noticing on Instagram that a lot of your friends and colleagues in the pastry world were starting to do pop-ups, were starting to kind of advertising, in quotes, what they were selling and making on Instagram. And I think you had been going through your culinary schools, like the French pastry curriculum, and just for fun?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, for fun, because that's what Lauren does. And so, you were a little inspired by that and you're like, "Oh, maybe I should start a little pop-up of both some French items, but maybe some Vietnamese items as well." And so you made bánh boxes.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us about your bánh boxes and tell us about what was in the first few boxes.
Lauren Tran:
Yes, so COVID happened, and a lot of pastry cooks and chefs started making these pastry boxes. I was like, okay, I'm just going to make croissants every day. And then as I started seeing these boxes, I was just like, you know what? Maybe there's something that I can do for me to keep doing something, because COVID dragged on for a bit. I found myself just watching TV on the couch for a really long time, and so the bánh boxes were a way for me to start making Vietnamese desserts, traditional ones, because I couldn't find them anywhere.
I lived in Chinatown during COVID, and so there were still a couple of bakeries open, but it wasn't what I wanted. I was kind of homesick. I couldn't travel back to Seattle or California or Texas, and then couldn't find what I was looking for, so I decided, you know what? I work in pastry. I feel like I can figure this out, and relied really heavily on my childhood memories to be like, oh, this is what it's supposed to taste like. This is what it's supposed to look like. And then tweaked it to, this is what I want it to taste like now.
So, the first couple boxes, I always thought one of my things would be French macarons. It was one of the first items that I really loved making, very love-hate relationship with macarons. So, I would do one macaron flavor that would be a classic flavor, Western flavor, like French vanilla, and then there'd be one that was Asian influence, so a red oolong or a pandan or lychee. The rest of the box kind of went that way too, so there'd be, I don't know, a pommier, a regular one, and then there was a black sesame one, and then there was a chiffon cake, and then one Vietnamese dessert that was traditional that I didn't make it fusion or make it French, just kept it the way that it was. So it was just a slice of the bánh bo nuong, but just made how I would want to eat it today.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And now I want to talk about the bakery, Bánh by Lauren, which is in Chinatown in New York City, yes?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you're doing these at home, you end up having to go back to Seattle for a health scare with your dad, and while in Seattle, he gets better and you realize you can do your boxes and pop-ups, and all of that are wildly successful in Seattle. You kind of didn't expect that, I guess?
Lauren Tran:
Yes. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
That was sort of the beginning of the inspiration to maybe get a brick-and-mortar, like, I think we can actually do this?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah. Garland has a really funny timeline where he was like ... Well, there was one, he ran out of his PTO to help me with these pop-ups. So, I mean, he's just like, "You're going to have to figure something out to do these pop-ups, or we just go all in." Yeah, it really was Seattle where I was like, "There are Vietnamese bakeries here, and people are coming to get the pastries that I'm making, so if-
Jessie Sheehan:
If that happens here-
Lauren Tran:
If that happens here, then-
Jessie Sheehan:
In New York, there's no question. Was there ever a moment where you're like, "Maybe we should open the bakery here?"
Lauren Tran:
In Seattle? I mean, it definitely crossed my mind, because that was home for me, but Garland's an only child, and so when we got married it was like, we're going to stay close to his family, because-
Jessie Sheehan:
Are they in New York?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, and they're in here.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Will you tell us about the name, Bánh by Lauren?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah. I actually have no idea. I cannot recall how I came up with it. I do remember calling my dad and being like, "Dad, can I call it bánh?" In Vietnamese, bánh is not a word on its own. There's always something-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I thought it meant cake or something.
Lauren Tran:
It always precedes something, and I don't really know how to explain it really well, other than the fact that bánh means, and then the word after it, what it describes, the dish, it means anything made with flour, basically, and any type of flour. So, that's why you'll see people say, "Bánh cake is like cake, bánh mi like bread."
So it's made with flour, and bánh xeo and a lot of other savory dishes like a pancake, they'll also all use bánh.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. It's almost like bánh Lauren...and by Lauren.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I never thought about that. But in slang in Vietnam, a lot of younger folks will say "bánh," and it means dessert. I called my dad and he was like, "That name doesn't make sense," and I called my other friend who's Vietnamese, and I was like, "Tuan, can I do this?" And Tuan was like, "Yeah, yeah. Young people call bánh like dessert all the time." And I was like, "Okay, sure." I want it to be-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, that's so cute, so it's like dessert by Lauren, but kind of slang. Oh, I love that.
Lauren Tran:
Yes. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us about some of the signature bakery items that you have there, like some of the Vietnamese classics.
Lauren Tran:
Right now, I mean, I'm hoping to continue to incorporate more as I try to figure out this production schedule. The main ones are the bánh bo nuong, which is the honeycomb cake, and we make bánh cam on the weekends, which is the sesame balls with the mung bean.
Jessie Sheehan:
Sesame balls. Yup.
Lauren Tran:
And then-
Jessie Sheehan:
I really want to try one of those.
Lauren Tran:
You should.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum.
Lauren Tran:
You should definitely.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm coming. Don't worry. I'm coming.
Lauren Tran:
And then the cassava cake, which is bánh khoai mi nuong. And something that I don't advertise, which I definitely should, is that a lot of the Vietnamese desserts are gluten-free.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right, because it's tapioca and rice flour, yeah.
Lauren Tran:
And then two of them are actually vegan.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible. Then the pandan coconut chiffon cake, do you consider that a regular?
Lauren Tran:
Yes, that's definitely ... That and the honeycomb cake are our best-sellers.
Jessie Sheehan:
Are like your two ... Yeah, that's incredible. Oh, I can't wait to talk about the honeycomb cake. I wanted to start already, but I'm going to resist. And then the chiffon cake, when I was reading about it, obviously it's chiffon, so it's kind of airy and the layers are pandan-flavored?
Lauren Tran:
Mm-hmm.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then the cream in the middle is coconut?
Lauren Tran:
Yes, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Ah.
Lauren Tran:
And there is coconut in the pandan.
Jessie Sheehan:
In the cake itself?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, in the cake itself too.
Jessie Sheehan:
As well. And chiffon cake, is that all-purpose flour?
Lauren Tran:
I use all-purpose, but yeah, you can use anything, but I was like-
Jessie Sheehan:
But that's one where you're not incorporating tapioca or rice flour?
Lauren Tran:
No. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then the macaron are still on the menu?
Lauren Tran:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you still play with those?
Lauren Tran:
Mm-hmm.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you still try to do something traditional and something a little bit more unique? Tell me how you think about the flavors now for the macarons.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, I think both. I like to keep the classics on.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, classic is the word I meant, not traditional.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah. No. Keep our classics on, which continue to be ... My favorite is French vanilla, and everyone's like, "What? That's your favorite one?" I'm like, "Yes, I love the lychee raspberry, and I love the pandan and the red oolong, but I love a good French vanilla macaron." And then I'll change out some of the flavors. We've had coconut lime and lotus tea and jasmine, and so kind of just whatever feels fun.
Jessie Sheehan:
I mean, the restaurant is a baby, so you're still there all of the time. It's not like you're like, "Oh, I don't go in on Saturday." You live there, 3:00 A.M.?
Lauren Tran:
No. Luckily we're not doing bread yet. 6:00 A.M. is the in time.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great. Great, which isn't horrible.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah. It was 5:00, and then we're like, "Actually, I think 6:00 A.M.-
Jessie Sheehan:
6:00 will still work.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And is it open every day?
Lauren Tran:
It's open Wednesday through Sunday right now.
Jessie Sheehan:
Wednesday through Sunday.
Lauren Tran:
But Monday we're still there prep.
Jessie Sheehan:
Monday, yeah.
Lauren Tran:
So, the only day we're not there is Tuesday.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Okay. One last thing before we jump into the recipe. I read that once you started the business, and I think you mean this more globally business, not the actual brick-and-mortar, but I could be wrong. You'll tell me if I'm wrong. You started thinking more about being Asian American, about being Vietnamese American, and wanting to know more than you did before. Can you unpack that for us and also maybe place it in time?
Lauren Tran:
There was definitely a point of opening this where I was like, "Am I the right person to be doing this?" Because I don't speak Vietnamese fluently. I mean, I'm conversational and I can understand way more than-
Jessie Sheehan:
Is that the language that your parents spoke to you guys when you were little?
Lauren Tran:
Yes. Yeah, but I grew up in Federal Way, which is a suburb in Seattle, and didn't have that many Vietnamese friends. I just had a huge Vietnamese family. Being Vietnamese to me was eating the Vietnamese food and being with my family. That was the two pillars. So, when it came to being someone showcasing it or being a representative almost, I definitely had doubts.
And then it was a ton of pressure because people are always like, "Oh, well, this isn't how my mom made it," or "This isn't ..." you know. And it's like, yes, you're right. This is how I'm making it, and it's because I am Vietnamese American, and my experiences are totally different than someone who was born in Vietnam and other Vietnamese Americans. It was kind of just like, this is my viewpoint. And everything that I've done, going to all these coffee shops and eating out all these different restaurants and getting exposure to different flavors, yeah, just kind of made me think about how everyone's experience is so different based on where you live and what opportunities you're afforded to, and how lucky you can be to be able to try a bunch of new things that you haven't tried before.
And that was kind of one of the things that pushed me in this mission of, yeah, let's get more people talking about Vietnamese desserts. Because everybody knows about pho and bánh mi, but people don't know about bánh bo nuong. I don't know why some Asian desserts are revered as high class or can have a higher price point when there are other Asian desserts, or not even Asian, but there are other desserts that require so much labor, and we expect them to be so much less. So, I feel proud to be Vietnamese American and to have my own distinct viewpoint, but always want to keep learning. And what's really fun is that a lot of these Vietnamese desserts, there are very similar desserts in other parts of Asia, and so people are like, "Oh, in India, this is what this tastes like," and in Malaysia and in Singapore, and so it's been really cool for everyone to tell me where the desserts that I'm making bring them back to and how they see it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to talk about pandan honeycomb cake. So, one thing I wanted to ask you about just in general is, I read that a lot of Vietnamese baking is about texture and about getting the texture right?
Lauren Tran:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
To begin to talk about this cake, tell us about this cake's texture.
Lauren Tran:
Oh, yeah. It's a really fun texture. It's chewy, but it's not dense. It's airy because of the striations from the baking powder. But what's nice, so nuong, the last word, means that it's baked in the oven, so there's actually kind of two variations for bánh bao. You can do a steamed one, which is actually vegan. You use yeast and proof it and then steam it. And then there's this version, the bánh bo nuong, the one that goes in the oven, has eggs in it, and you get a really nice, fun, crisp edge that you don't get when you steam it. And so, this has always been the one that I have always preferred, because I actually really like crust in pieces.
Jessie Sheehan:
I was going to say, since you brought me a piece, the textural contrast and even the flavor contrast, because the outside tastes slightly sweeter, maybe the caramelizing in the pan, the contrast of that. I mean, I would not kick a steamed one out of bed, but I love the contrast of the kind of crispiness of the outside and slight sweeter taste versus the middle. It's this bright green, which is really exciting to look at, and that's the pandan. Can you describe the flavor of pandan? I think I read that you said, well, at least in terms of popularity, it's like vanilla to us.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah. The analogy that I use is that it's so hard to describe the flavor because it's so distinct, I say that how we use vanilla is how pandan is used in Southeast Asia.
Jessie Sheehan:
Maybe that's a better way, yup, yup.
Lauren Tran:
It's just like a-
Jessie Sheehan:
A background flavor that pops everything else.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, it's super aromatic. It's earthy, because it's a leaf. It's got a little bit of that nutty, kind of toasty components to it. I did read that there are components of vanillin. It doesn't exactly taste like vanilla, but there are some similarities, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
When you were developing the recipe, where were you looking for other recipes for honeycomb cake that you could play with or get a sense of, oh, I've looked at 12 recipes. They all use these same ingredients and this same technique, but that person does something interesting. I might look into that. Where were you finding those recipes?
Lauren Tran:
YouTube.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love it. Love it.
Lauren Tran:
Vietnamese home cooks love YouTube.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love that. So interesting.
Lauren Tran:
And there are some who are so ... Their recipes are incredible and they have a huge following, but there are so many.
Jessie Sheehan:
Wow, so interesting.
Lauren Tran:
And they're in Vietnam, they're in Germany, they're all over, and they're all just posting on YouTube and you can watch. I think that's the really nice thing about the YouTube videos is that you can kind of watch and see where they do things, and I made so many different recipes. But yeah, I think YouTube was an incredible one for finding Vietnamese recipes.
Jessie Sheehan:
YouTube university. So interesting. And then before we jump into the recipe, the final question, which ingredient, or which part of the technique, and we're going to get into both of those things, all of the technique and the ingredients, creates that really unique honeycomb look? Is that the tapioca flour?
Lauren Tran:
That's also the baking powder, yeah, the striations for the rise. There's a lot that goes into it and it needs surface area, the batter, to climb, which is why you'll see a lot of people use Bundt pans.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yup. So first things first, we're going to make a syrup. We're going to mix together some coconut milk, and is there a brand of coconut milk that you guys use?
Lauren Tran:
I use either Aroy-D or Chaokoh, from Thailand.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to mix together coconut milk, water, and sugar. Is the sugar granulated? And I read somewhere that you use organic sugar?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, I use organic sugar. If you use white sugar, I would probably use less. It's going to be sweeter.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's much sweeter. So we're going to mix those things together. When you say mix, what tool are we using? Are we whisking them together? Are you-
Lauren Tran:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, we're going to mix together, maybe whisking, coconut milk, water, organic sugar in a pot, a heavy-bottomed pot, I assume, over low heat until the sugar dissolves, and then we'll remove from the heat to cool. We're not boiling it. We're not-
Lauren Tran:
Yeah. No, you're just cooking it until all the sugar's gone, the sugar's dissolved.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, and we're going to set that aside to cool, because one note for this recipe is that you really want all of your ingredients to be room temperature. Though the only other ingredient that has fluctuation really are the eggs, but still, we definitely want our syrup that we just made to be room temp.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, so now we're going to make the cake. We're going to heat the oven to 360 degrees. That sounded like a number that was maybe ... Is that based off of a Celsius number? Why wouldn't it be 350? Or, you're like a trained restaurant chef, so it's probably so different for me, writing cookbooks and reading cookbooks, it's usually 350. So, I just wondered about-
Lauren Tran:
Or 375.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, for me, I think, I did 375 and I thought it was a little too hot.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you went down a little bit.
Lauren Tran:
So I just went down.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, makes sense. Yep. And it's convection?
Lauren Tran:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For in a regular oven, it might even be 325, something like that.
Lauren Tran:
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to confirm now that we've heated our oven. We're now going to confirm that our syrup is room temperature, because we're going to need it to be, and we're going to grease our pan. So, two questions. First, what's the pan that we're using or the pans, because I think we're making many small tea loaves?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, so I think that was another thing that I was like, I could make bánh bo nuong in a Bundt pan, but I can't fit that many Bundt pans in my oven. So I was like, "You know what else is going to give me that service area?" And so I was like, "I wonder if I just make it in loaf pans?" And so I just take some loaf pans that you would make banana bread in.
Jessie Sheehan:
So like 8-1/2" by 5", or 9" by 5"? 8-1/2"-
Lauren Tran:
I think it's 8-1/2" by 4".
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, the smaller ones, yup, yup. What do you grease them with?
Lauren Tran:
Canola oil.
Jessie Sheehan:
Canola oil? Like a spray, or you're rubbing the inside with-
Lauren Tran:
I just rub the inside with a paper towel.
Jessie Sheehan:
With oil. And why that instead of cooking spray or instead of butter?
Lauren Tran:
I wouldn't use the butter, because that would change the taste. But for spraying the pan, I just wanted something that I could have more control over to make it even, and-
Jessie Sheehan:
I know, the spray pools in the corners.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, the spray pools, and sometimes you don't spray evenly, so yeah, I would just-
Jessie Sheehan:
With paper towel?
Lauren Tran:
A paper towel, yeah, just dip it in the oil and just make sure it goes all the way.
Jessie Sheehan:
So now we're going to combine room temp eggs, canola oil, and it's also nice for reusing the ingredients, so we already have it anyway, vanilla extract. I wondered if there was a brand of vanilla?
Lauren Tran:
I mean, I just use Nielsen-Massey.
Jessie Sheehan:
In a large bowl, and I'm sure at the restaurant it's restaurant supply metal bowls, but is there ... At home, do you like a glass bowl, or are you a metal bowl girl through-and-through?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, I'm a metal bowl girl.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yup, yup. In a large metal bowl, we're going to pierce the egg yolks with a whisk, and then gently whisk the eggs, oil, and vanilla together. We don't want to overmix, and I want to know why. What do we gain by under-mixing, and what would happen if we overmix?
Lauren Tran:
It's a great question. If you happen to go and look at a lot of these recipes, because this cake is apparently super finicky, and apparently it is very finicky, you'll read the craziest things where it's like, "Pierce each egg yolk with a fork. Pierce each egg yolk with a paring knife." And I used to do that, and then we started making these big batches and I'm like, "I can't pierce all of these." So, I think it kind of just depends. I think I left that in there just because it was something that I did when I was making it in smaller batches.
We're not trying to incorporate air into this batter, so you're just trying to make it homogenous. The more air that you will incorporate actually makes the crust a little bit more flaky, and so it'll just go everywhere, and you won't have as nice of a crisp edge. That's just what I've learned from, and I'm not exactly sure why that happens, but every time I've over-mixed the egg yolks and the oil and the batter, the crust just tends to be a lot thinner and kind of flaky. Still good, but yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to place our greased pans in the oven, and this reminds me of when I make popovers or a Dutch baby, because I guess now that you've said about climbing the sides of the pan, it's the same idea with an eggy batter, as it were. We want it to climb up the sides of the pan, and it will do so more quickly if the pan is hot when the batter goes in. But I find at least with popovers, and maybe that's because it's 450 and not 360, but I find that sometimes I have to grease after I've heated the pan because it burns?
Lauren Tran:
Oh. Mm-hmm.
Jessie Sheehan:
But you don't find at 360 if you brush the canola oil, it does not burn in the oven in the time that it's heating up before you add the batter?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah. So, it's very methodical, or intentional when I'm putting in the oven, because I've put in the pans earlier, I put them in later. You don't want to have it in long enough that the oil is going to burn, like you said. But you also want it in long enough for the oil to actually be heated up, because otherwise, it's a pain to get them out of the pan too, because they'll have stuck, but they're stuck. They're not coming out easily. There was a lot of trial and error of like, when am I going to put these pans into the oven, and when's the optimal time? And this I found was the best time. It's a 10-minute window where I have 10 minutes after I put in ... or five to 10 minutes after I put in the pans to finish the batter and strain it all.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, we're going to add our room temperature syrup mixture to our egg mixture, and we're going to whisk gently to combine, and then we're going mix in tapioca flour and rice flour. And I wondered, are we whisking those in, or are we folding them in with a spatula?
Lauren Tran:
Just whisking.
Jessie Sheehan:
Whisking them in.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then why do we want both?
Lauren Tran:
It depends on the texture that you want. Sometimes if it's a little too much tapioca flour, it's a little too chewy, and so the rice flour kind of evens it out a little bit. My preference is to have it a little bit chewier, so I definitely lowered the amount of rice flour, but I kind of just kept it in there because it's in all the recipes that have both. So, I think that it's just to balance out a little bit so that it's not too sticky.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yup, so we're going to whisk the tapioca and the rice flour into our liquid mixture in two to three additions, just whisking gently. Then we're going to add the pandan extract, and that the batter at this point will be lumpy because we're whisking, but we're doing so gently, so there are going to be lumps. Do not worry about them.
We're now going to add this Alsa baking powder, which is a single-acting French baking powder. I think it's interesting, and you've said that this baking powder is actually what contributes to the beautiful way that this cake looks. Since the thing about the single-acting baking powder is that it is activated by a liquid, so it begins being activated the second you add-
Lauren Tran:
As soon as, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Whereas with double-acting baking powder, which most of us use in the States, it activates with liquid, but it also activates again with heat, so you don't have to worry. You can make a tea loaf and keep the batter in the pan on the counter for a half an hour or longer while you heat up your oven and it will still rise. Talk to me about this, because you add the baking powder, it's immediately activated. Do you have to rush?
Lauren Tran:
A little bit, yeah. Not superfast, like, "Oh, my God, I'm off to the races," but it's definitely like, "Okay, baking powder's in. I got to strain this and then grab it out." You can't do anything else.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Lauren Tran:
You can't multitask. As soon as that baking powder is in, you're finishing this task.
Jessie Sheehan:
You were telling me that this baking powder can be found in Vietnamese grocery stores?
Lauren Tran:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, and we were talking about the fact that because it's French, it must be from the French influence in Vietnam that it's an ingredient that is called for in Vietnamese desserts. I find that so fascinating.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah. It's funny, because a lot of people will be like, "Oh, Alsa, oh, it's that pink envelope powder." And I'm like, "Yes, that's the one." They're like, "Oh, my mom has that in the pantry." And it's like a lot of Vietnamese households, that pink packet is iconic, because if they're going to make a pastry, they're going to use the Alsa over Clabber Girl.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. It's not just the honeycomb cake.
Lauren Tran:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then do you think if you're in France in pastry school, is that the baking powder that everyone's using? Or do the French now have a double-acting?
Lauren Tran:
What's funny is that during COVID, there was a moment where Alsa baking powder, I couldn't find it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Wow.
Lauren Tran:
And so, any of my friends who went to Paris, I'd be like, "Can you bring me Alsa baking powder?" And when we went to Paris, I also brought back baking powder. But that's the one that you find in the grocery stores, at all the markets.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, that's so interesting.
Lauren Tran:
So maybe it still is the one. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to make sure the batter is homogeneous, and we do that by straining it? Or you want it homogeneous before ... What are we looking for?
Lauren Tran:
Yeah, so once everything's mixed together, you're just going to strain it. And once you've strained it, the main part is you want to mix it and you want to mix it well. You're not mixing to incorporate air, but you want to mix it to make sure that everything, yeah, it's just-
Jessie Sheehan:
And are we straining because there might be little globs of tapioca?
Lauren Tran:
Of tapioca flour, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
There you go.
Lauren Tran:
A lot of tapioca globs.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to remove the hot pans from the oven, carefully. We're going to pour batter into the pans and bake them for about 20 minutes, then we're going to reduce the heat to about 345 for about 35 minutes, and then we're going to cool them. Do you cool them in the pan?
Lauren Tran:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And how long do you cool them for?
Lauren Tran:
I like to cool them for about an hour to two hours. The kind of funny thing is, for American and Western pastries, it tastes so great out of the oven, right? This one, it tastes really eggy. It tastes like an egg, hot, and so I actually like it to not taste like the egg, so I want it to completely cool down, and that's about two hours.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Lauren, and I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Lauren Tran:
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Nordic Ware and 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.