Melissa Weller 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 the author of four baking books. Each Saturday I'm hanging out with the sweetest bakers around and taking a deep dive into their signature bakes.
This week we are revisiting our episode with Melissa Weller, one of the top bakers in New York City, known for her delicious sticky buns, bagels, and babka. Melissa originally worked as a chemical engineer before following her heart to culinary school. In this episode, we talk all about her time running the pastry kitchens at beloved New York restaurants, including Per Se and Roberta's. She also guides me through how to get her chocolate babka recipe just right. Stay tuned for our chat and keep an eye out for Melissa's new cookbook, “Very Good Bread” hitting shelves this November. If you'd like to follow along, you can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.com.
Today's episode is presented by King Arthur Baking Company. Whether you're a serious baker or just a newbie, King Arthur is here to help you be the best baker you can be. Their flowers are some of the most coveted in the industry as you've heard from many of my guests. With the holiday season fast approaching, might I suggest tapping into King Arthur's host of resources to help you level up your baking game. With ingredients and tools for every baking occasion, over 2,000 recipes, and virtual and on-demand classes, King Arthur will guide you every step of the way. Did you know they also have a baker's hotline where you can speak to a professional baker seven days a week? I mean, peeps, how cool is that? No matter your question or concern, King Arthur is here to help this holiday season and beyond. Head to kingarthurbaking.com to learn more and call 1-855-371-BAKE. That's 1-855-371-BAKE to try the hotline for yourself.
I have big news for you. My new cookbook, “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes” is now available. This is my first savory baking book and I'm so excited to share it with all of you. It features a hundred easy-peasy baking recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and of course snacking, from sage butter scones to smash burger hand pies and tomato za'tar galette. You'll also find six of my essential savory baking hacks, including how to make my magic melted butter pie dough and the quickest and easiest caramelized onions. My cookbook tour is underway and tickets are on sale right now at cherrybombe.com. Thanks to everyone who joined me in New York. I'll be in San Francisco on Tuesday, October 8th, Chicago on Tuesday, October 15th, and Boston on Wednesday, October 23rd. I can't wait to see you. Thank you to Kerrygold and King Arthur Flour for supporting my tour. You can click the link in the show notes of this episode to order the book or pick up a copy at your favorite local bookstore. I hope you love “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes” as much as I loved writing it.
Let's check in with today's guest. Melissa, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk chocolate babka with you and so much more.
Melissa Weller:
Thank you. So exciting to be here.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yay. You are frequently described as a master baker and are known for your incredible old world baked goods like babka and bagels and sticky buns and more. And I think it's fair to say that your mastery is born in part from the circuitous route you took to baking.
And so first I was hoping you could explain what it means to be a master baker and then tell us a little bit about the journey you took to being one, which notably includes both chemical engineering and an Easy-Bake Oven.
Melissa Weller:
I guess I should say I don't consider myself a master baker. I think that's because I'm such a perfectionist and also I think that there's a formal test that you take to become a master baker, which I have not done. Just like if you're an engineer, there's a test to become a certified engineer. So I never really think, "Oh, I'm a master baker," but I do think that because of my background, I am very precise and exacting about how I approach my baking.
My background is, I studied chemical engineering in college, and I think that relates to my personality or maybe my personality was shaped and my baking was shaped by studying engineering where you start out and you're always doing some kind of lab work, lab testing. And so when you're testing something, it's like testing something when you're trying to figure out a baking recipe, you start out with, "Okay, I think this is the formula that I'm going to use to make the babka. I'm going to see how it works. I'm going to go through all of the steps." And maybe we all do this as bakers go back and say, "Hey, oh, that didn't work, and why not?" Or, "It's too doughy in the center. Did I bake it to the right temperature?" And I think because of that, that has shaped my path towards wanting to perfect things and get them right according to my palate and my vision of what I want to make.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know the baking came later in life post-chemical engineering. But tell us about the Easy-Bake Oven and your mom and baking cookies-
Melissa Weller:
Ah, my mom was a elementary school teacher, super-duper creative, was always doing crafts, sewing, gardening, cooking and baking at home. And so she always had me get involved in everything. I learned how to sew in elementary school. I really gravitated towards the baking part of it. And so she set me up with an Easy-Bake Oven. And do they exist today? I don't know-
Jessie Sheehan:
I don't even know.
Melissa Weller:
But all I remember were you took the cookie dough, it was always sugar cookie dough, cut out thin and you put it on this little tray and you pushed it through the oven and I think it had a light bulb that heated up and then it came out the other side. It had to have baked it all the way through. But I don't think I cared as a kid how it came out. I was just happy to bake, eat the cookies after I baked them. What's more rewarding than that?
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And I was hoping you could describe your dessert style.
Melissa Weller:
Yes. Finished culinary school in 2004 at The French Culinary Institute, and I immediately started working at Babbo. I liked the dessert menu that Gina DePalma had created at Babbo and it had some savory components. And back in 2004, it was hard to find savory components, even like olive oil in desserts, herbs like thyme and rosemary, that was all savory at that point. And so I gravitated towards her menu. I liked what she did, it was unfussy. It was unfussy, it was very simple components put together in a very elegant way. And it was about the taste. It was less about the presentation. The presentation was rustic. It wasn't this precise plated dessert, but I mostly liked the flavor combinations that she created.
Then I went on to primarily focus on baking bread and doing things with yeast. And so Sullivan Street Bakery was essentially learning how to bake bread, learning all of the steps in a professional bakery, how to go from A to B.
And then at Per Se, I was the head baker. That was a very intense time for me to focus on learning a lot of new recipes. Again, all with yeast and flavor components, and the breads had to be specific for a specific dish, like the cheese bread had to complement the cheeses. It couldn't have an ingredient that overshadowed the cheeses or that was anywhere else on the menu.
And I think after those three experiences, and I believed in working for a while before I tried my own thing, so I got to try my own thing at Roberta's, and that was the first time where I could do whatever I wanted to do and I had all of these ideas and visions of what I wanted to do.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you're known for creating these highly sought after artisan breads and bagels, and you've said that it was maybe your love of hard sourdough pretzels from childhood that may have at least led to the bagel making. But how about the babka and the sticky buns and the other old world baked goods? What led you to them? I've read that it might be an obsession with breakfast pastries.
Melissa Weller:
Oh, that's great. That's an excellent question. When I left Roberta's, I was ready to open my own bakery. The Williamsburg Smorgasburg outdoor market was happening, and I thought, "I'll just do this until I open my own bakery." And a friend told me, "Oh, you have to have something that's signature there. You can't just get in selling all sorts of things." So I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to sell bagels." I love to make bagels, but I felt that I didn't really know enough... There's a big part of history that is around bagels and I didn't know as much as I wanted to. And so I was thinking when I had that stand, "What else can I make that would go with the bagels?" And now I started curing my own locks, making bagel sandwiches and schmears, but then when I left... I did the Smorgasburg for the summer of, I think it was 2013 and and that-
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell people, just in case they don't know what the Smorgasburg is?
Melissa Weller:
Yes. It's an outdoor market in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, my neighborhood in Brooklyn. It's like a food bonanza of different entrepreneurial spirits trying to get started in the food industry, and it's a great way for them to first get started and get their name out there. And so I thought that was a good idea for me at the time with the bagels, and I think it was a good idea because I met my partners through the Williamsburg Smorgasburg, together we formed a partnership and we started working on it literally 10 years ago in the fall of 2013. And we started to talk about what goes with bagels. We're going to open up this bagel bakery restaurant, what will go with the bagels? And I had done enough research at that point to think, "Okay, well, babka could goes with bagels because it's old world, it's Jewish. And you could say Jewish inspired too." And I'm like, "Well, what else goes with bagels?"
And I just kept going down the list of all of the things in my head that I had been reading about and dreaming of and visiting. I think I went to Russ & Daughters to see what they had at the time, and I brought home their cinnamon babka and I was like, "How did they make this? This is very interesting. I want to sort of figure out how they made it." And that's where it got started.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back.
This episode is presented by Kerrygold, makers of the most beloved butter around. I've hosted more than 75 episodes of this podcast, so I've become an expert on what the best bakers in this country love when it comes to ingredients. And it's fair to say that Kerrygold butter is at the top of their lists and mine too. After all this time, as a professional baker and recipe developer, I've gotten pretty picky about the ingredients I keep in my pantry and my fridge. So it should come as no surprise that Kerrygold is a must for lots of my bakes. I use it when making the cheddar old bay butter swim biscuits for my new book. Yes, the biscuit dough literally swims in a pool of butter as it bakes, and in my, dare I say, genius melted butter pie dough. I also use it in my epic snickerdoodles and in the marshmallow frosting for my devil's food cake. I think I might need to get in the kitchen after this recording session. Why is Kerrygold butter so special? It's made with milk from Irish grass fed cows and has a rich flavor and creamy texture thanks to its naturally higher butterfat percentage. This also gives Kerrygold butter that beautiful natural gold and yellow color we all know and love. If you haven't baked with Kerrygold butter yet, now is the perfect time to try and taste the difference for yourself. Head to kerrygoldusa.com to learn more and DM me your bakes, I'd love to see what you're up to.
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Let's talk a little bit about chocolate babka background. Just in case people don't know, can you tell us what a babka is?
Melissa Weller:
A babka is a sweet yeasted cake, essentially. It's related to, and this may be a far out cake too, a Kugelhupf. It's all a family that comes from Europe, most likely Eastern Europe of sweet yeasted doughs usually filled with something, and it was one of those yeasted sweet breads that would be made at home.
Jessie Sheehan:
We should mention that this incredible chocolate babka is also the cover of “A Good Bake” and it's this incredible picture with this Johnny Miller, right? Who was your photographer.
Melissa Weller:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible.
Melissa Weller:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
With this thick chocolate glaze dripping off of it. Is that traditional to have a glazed babka-
Melissa Weller:
Ah-ha, that's a good question too. I think up until that point, there was no glaze on babka. It was like cookie crumbs. It was like a crumble, like a streusel. It was like a thick streusel. And I remember with my partners for Sadelle's, we tried streusel, but the streusel would crumble and we decided that is there another more elegant way we said to ourselves, and I think we came up with the idea of doing a glaze on the babka instead of streusel.
And I remember this goes back before I even started my culinary career babka in the city. I just remember out on Long Island, it was streusel on the top. And so the magic for the cover of the cookbook, it was Johnny Miller's idea. He's like, "Just glaze it and I'll take a bunch of shots as you're glazing it and the glaze is going to fall down the sides." And so that was fun.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to talk about the recipe, do a deep dive. So first things first, we're going to make the dough. So we're going to whisk some all-purpose flour and some sugar and some instant yeast. And I had a couple of questions.
First of all, is there a style of whisk that you like?
Melissa Weller:
I like one that's not too much of a piano whisk where the metal tongs or tines are so tight together that things get stuck in the middle like a balloon whisk or just an all-purpose whisk is usually fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
Mm-hmm. Is there a brand of all-purpose flour that you always turn to?
Melissa Weller:
I always go to King Arthur All-Purpose Flour, I do.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're whisking some all-purpose flour, a little bit of sugar, and we have some instant yeast. And I have two questions.
First of all, why instant versus active? And then also, are you always like an instant person?
Melissa Weller:
I'm always an instant person unless it's not available. At Per Se, we only used fresh yeast. At Sullivan Street Bakery, we used instant yeast. When I left Per Se, it was like, "Well what..." and I was doing sourdough, so then that wasn't yeast, "What choice?" And so at Roberta's it was more efficient to use instant yeast. You could buy a case, you could keep it in your walk-in until you needed it. And then we would make some things like the sticky bun logs and we'd freeze them and we'd pull them out as we needed. And what we learned was that over time the instant yeast will not hold up in the freezer. The sticky bun log wouldn't last for us more than like six days, just regular instant yeast. And so I had taken a baking class through, it was The Bread Bakers Guild, it was in Minnesota. And I had learned that the osmotolerant instant yeast SAF Gold is the brand that I like to go with. And SAF makes two different types of instant yeast. They make Gold, which is osmotolerant and they make the Red regular-
Jessie Sheehan:
I didn't know.
Melissa Weller:
The osmotolerant yeast doesn't react with the sugar in the dough the way that the regular instant yeast does. It proofs better. You get a better, bigger proof because the regular instant yeast gets hung up on all the sugar in the dough. So if you were just using regular instant yeast, which I have used interchangeably with active dry, but if you're using that, it affects the rate of the loaf proofing. Because I thought I could get away with it for a challah or I was trying different yeasts at one point and I'm like, "It's not proofing the same way-"
Jessie Sheehan:
I've never even seen the Gold. Can anyone get-
Melissa Weller:
I usually-
Jessie Sheehan:
The gold?
Melissa Weller:
You can't find it in a grocery store as far as I've noticed, a lot of bakeries will have it. When it's just me baking at home, I generally order it online.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is it the Gold that you ended up using to be able to freeze things?
Melissa Weller:
Yeah-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, fascinating-
Melissa Weller:
I always go with the Gold because it can be used interchangeably with the Red, and then also, if you're an active dry yeast person where you have to bloom it, that's because the dead yeast coating, the active yeast is pretty thick on the active dry, I usually use those and replace one-to-one. These strange formulas in my head for replacing yeast, if it's fresh yeast, there's more water content in the yeast, so I think I pretty much have or multiply the amount of fresh yeast by 0.4, which is a little less than half to get the instant yeast amount. And then if I just have active dry yeast, I bloom it in the water and I use it one for one with the instant.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're whisking our flour, our sugar, our instant yeast, our fine sea salt.
Melissa Weller:
I use the French Baleine in the blue cylinder. I use the fine sea salt because that's generally the way bakeries order salt. They order them in the fifty-pound bag, so kosher salt comes in the boxes. And so for a baker who's using a lot of salt in their large bakery, it's more efficient to just get a fifty-pound bag of salt, which is usually like refined sea salt.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to whisk all of these ingredients together in a large bowl. So then in a bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook, and I assume it's a KitchenAid mixer you have at home.
Melissa Weller:
That's what-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah-
Melissa Weller:
I have at home, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to add whole milk. We're going to add an egg and an egg yolk.
Is the yolk there for a little moisture for extra fat?
Melissa Weller:
Richness-
Jessie Sheehan:
Richness-
Melissa Weller:
Extra fat.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. We're going to add the dry ingredients and then we're going to mix on low speed for three minutes to create a homogenous dough. Then we're going to increase the speed to medium, mix for five to eight minutes until the dough completely wraps around the hook and cleans the side of the bowl.
And I was struck by this because I feel so frequently it doesn't exactly clean. It's still clinging. And is this dough the way that you've created it, is it one that really will, that'll be on your hook when it's ready?
Melissa Weller:
I think it does wrap around. I think because this is before you add the butter.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Melissa Weller:
Before you add the butter, it should wrap around. It should be dry enough that it wraps around the hook, but if it doesn't, don't worry, just keep moving on to the next step.
Jessie Sheehan:
So with the mixer still running on medium, we're going to add some super soft unsalted butter-
Melissa Weller:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us about that. You don't want just room temp, right? It has to-
Melissa Weller:
It has to be really soft. And I've had different assistants in the bakery and the butter's not soft enough and then it never really melts into the dough and I'm like, "Ugh." And so sometimes, and this isn't how the recipe is written, but this is what I've done in different bakeries, I'll have them add the butter at the beginning, which is counterintuitive because you're always like, "Don't you need to develop the gluten?" But it develops plenty so that you could add the soft butter with all of the other ingredients and mix it that way also.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, that's a nice tip.
Melissa Weller:
It helps a lot whenever, if you left... I can't tell you the number of times there've been chunks in the dough of the butter that doesn't quite go into the dough and now the dough is too soft, it doesn't want to mix in, this way it gets rid of that problem.
Jessie Sheehan:
And that's a great tip. So we're going to add our super soft unsalted butter, mix until the butter is mixed in, no butter chunks, five to 10 minutes, and then we're going to stop to wipe down the dough hook and clean it once or twice with a wet hand, which I love that tip. I've never done that. That's such a good idea. You just soak your hand and then pull off the dough-
Melissa Weller:
Yeah, I think it's a baker thing. Anytime you don't want... Because if you're working in a professional bakery, the number of times that dough is going to stick to your hands and you have to rinse it off, it gets to be too much. I had a dermatologist look at my hands once and she's like, "Oh my God, what are you doing?" Because your hands just get dried and crack. So if you wet your hand with water, things don't stick to it. And that goes with shaping dough too. It's like a great way to not get dough to stick to your hands-
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. So now we're going to ferment the dough and you have a great explanation for why the, or I don't know if it's an explanation, but you label that first rest the fermentation and the second one, the proofing. Can you explain that difference to people?
Melissa Weller:
The yeast is doing the same thing during the two steps. During the fermentation step, it's fermenting the dough. The dough is in bulk. I guess it comes from my background. We've always called that the fermentation.
And then once the dough is shaped, the yeast is still doing the same thing. It's just been redistributed in the shape and it's still munching on the damaged starches and producing carbon dioxide and raising the finished product. And I've just always called that proofing.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we remove the bowl from the mixer, we're going to wipe the dough hook clean with our wet hand. We're going to cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel or a plastic wrap and set it in a warm place to ferment for two hours.
I thought this was an interesting... we're going to turn the dough after about an hour by using a wet hand to fold the top edge down two-thirds of the way, then fold the bottom edge up to meet the top edge. That's a traditional way to make for a topped ball of dough, but I wondered two things. Do we flip it over after we make that shape in the bowl and why do we do it at this one hour point?
Melissa Weller:
One hour point, it's good to do it halfway through the fermentation so it ferments for two hours. That's pretty standard. So it's nice to redistribute the yeast halfway through. And I'll be honest, I can't remember if I called for flipping it upside down-
Jessie Sheehan:
You don't. And I wondered-
Melissa Weller:
Ah-
Jessie Sheehan:
If that was a choice or I know sometimes-
Melissa Weller:
It's a choice. It's a choice for this type of dough because I don't think it needs it. If it was 100% sourdough, I definitely would do that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, good to know.
Melissa Weller:
Because it needs that extra help. But this has the commercial yeast in it and it's already folding. You're already helping the gluten out that it doesn't necessarily need to be flipped upside down.
Jessie Sheehan:
Once it's fermented for those two hours we're going to place the dough on a sprayed parchment lined baking sheet.
Melissa Weller:
Ah, I think it's aluminum sheet tray with the rim all around the side. It's pretty standard in any restaurant or bakery. And so that's what I have at home.
And spraying the parchment is because the dough is really sticky that it will stick to the parchment if you don't spray the parchment.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. And we're going to use our hands to gently coax or pat the mound of dough into a square, put the baking sheet in the refrigerator to chill for at least two hours.
Could we leave it on the counter for these two hours or you want it chilled?
Melissa Weller:
It should be chilled. There's enough yeast in it, it doesn't need to be left out longer. It needs to be cold because the cold is what's going to help you roll it out. If you don't make it cold, it's going to be really challenging to roll out and then you're going to end up using more flour and then if you use more flour, it's going to make the end product dry.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Oh, and I thought this was a great tip. Even if you're not going to make it right away, wrap after it's chilled because then the dough won't stick to the plastic wrap.
Melissa Weller:
Yes. Yes-
Jessie Sheehan:
I thought that was a great tip. And this time in the fridge for this additional two hours is still our fermenting period.
Melissa Weller:
Yeah, it's still doing stuff and gluten's still forming, which is why if you're not flipping it upside down over this long period of time, gluten is still doing something. Fermentation is still happening.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. While the dough is fermenting, we're going to make the filling. I love all of this. I'm too excited. But anyway, we're going to process some homemade chocolate shortbread, which is actually a recipe in your book into crumbs. Or you can use store-bought chocolate cookies.
But I wondered, I don't know if you've heard the news, but Nabisco is no longer making its chocolate cookies.
Melissa Weller:
Oh, I didn't know that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. Is there another cookie that you would recommend?
Melissa Weller:
I think it's just about what you can find. Maybe the Archway Dutch chocolate soft sugar cookies-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep, something like that-
Melissa Weller:
Those could probably work.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great.
Melissa Weller:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great. And I assume, I mean it might change the flavor, but in a pinch you probably could use a regular shortbread-
Melissa Weller:
Yeah, totally-
Jessie Sheehan:
Cookie, like a Walker's or something or make your own.
So we're going to process the chocolate shortbread into crumbs in a food processor, Cuisinart or a Robot-coupe or...
Melissa Weller:
I think a Cuisinart's just fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And it's fitted with a metal blade. We got our crumbs and then we're going to make a double boiler using a small soft pan. We're going to fit a bowl on top. Make sure the water's not touching the bottom. Basically bring the water to a gentle simmer.
You're going to place milk chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, chopped if in bar form or chunks, and unsalted cubed butter in the bowl of the double boiler and melt. Why two different types of chocolate?
Melissa Weller:
When I work in a bakery, I try not to have too many different chocolates on hand at one time. It brings your ingredient costs up. If you have 10 different types of chocolate, that's probably not necessary. So usually I have milk chocolate, a bittersweet chocolate, and I usually don't bake with semi-sweet chocolate. But I was thinking, "Well if that's what you have at home, doesn't milk chocolate plus bittersweet chocolate equal semi-sweet chocolate?" So it probably does. If you wanted to substitute, I'm sure it would be fine and delicious.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's good to know. With this butter we're going to simmer until everything has melted, stirring occasionally with a heatproof rubber spatula.
Melissa Weller:
I like the ones with the more graduate, it tapers to a finer point at the end where you can really get around the bowl. So as long as it's heatproof, you're good.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to scrape down the chocolate on the sides of the bowl to make sure it melts evenly and doesn't burn. Turn off the heat. We'll remove the bowl from the double boiler and we're wiping the bottom to make sure no water drips.
Are we still worried about seizing our chocolate or is it just keeping it clean in the kitchen? What's the-
Melissa Weller:
I think it's just keeping it clean in the kitchen. If you take off the bowl and you're walking barefoot and then the hot water drips, you're like, "Ouch."
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, smart. So now we're going to add our cookie crumbs and some mild flavored honey to our chocolate.
Melissa Weller:
Buy 100% pure honey and look for the best price. Because it's pretty expensive these days.
Jessie Sheehan:
And why honey? Since we already have something sweet from the chocolate, what does the honey do for our filling?
Melissa Weller:
Honey is an inverted sugar. It will not crystallize and it will stay lucid, if you will. So it helps contribute to the filling not getting too set up and like a brownie.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we'll stir to combine. We'll set our filling aside to cool. When we use it, we're going to want to make sure it's still warm and spreadable.
So now we're going to take out our dough from the refrigerator and we're going to roll it. We're going to spray either a nine by four inch Pullman.
Just in case people don't know, can you describe what a Pullman pan is?
Melissa Weller:
The Pullman has straight sides. I think I'm enamored by it because of the straight sides. It doesn't have tapered outsides. They're straight and even. And you know me, precise and straight even are all things that I love. And so I like to bake it in the Pullman loaf pan, but not everybody has one. I've definitely baked them in like a nine by five loaf pan, like the same loaf pan you would bake a banana bread in. That works fine.
I have Pullman loaf pans. I think I have USA brand Pullman loaf pans, one of the easiest ones you can buy online.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I like their pans.
Melissa Weller:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I'm the same way despite not being a chemical engineer, I love when I use a loaf pan, I hate it if it has slopey sides. I even like an eight and a half by four and a half inch better-
Melissa Weller:
Me too.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because I just love the way the baked loaf looks.
Melissa Weller:
Me too. And I like the taller. It gets taller that way-
Jessie Sheehan:
Me too.
Melissa Weller:
It doesn't spread out.
Jessie Sheehan:
Me too. So we're going to remove our fermented dough and quickly so it doesn't get too warm. Roll it with a floured pin.
Melissa Weller:
French rolling pin, not with tapered sides with straight sides. That works best for me. Others would be comfortable with one of those ball bearing rolling pins. That's fine too. Whatever works best for you. I find I get more pressure when I use the French rolling pin.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. We're going to roll it into a 16-inch square on a floured work surface.
But I did read this about you and I feel we're connected this way. What do you think about rolling out on a silicone rolling mat? Like a-
Melissa Weller:
Oh, yeah-
Jessie Sheehan:
Am I pronouncing it right, a Roul'pat?
Melissa Weller:
Yeah, I think that's what it's called.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Because I use those kinds of mats all the time to keep my kitchen clean and because you use less flour.
Can you tell people what that is? Because it's a great tool.
Melissa Weller:
It's a great tool. Just things don't stick to it. Not as much. You still need to use a little flour, but they don't stick like they would on your regular surface and it's easy to clean up afterwards. I just brush it and then roll it up.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, these mats are fabulous.
Rotating your dough as you roll. You're rolling from the center outwards. And then at this point are we refrigerating again for about 30 minutes before spreading the filling? Maybe only if the dough is a little too warm at this point.
Melissa Weller:
For me, I can roll it out really fast so I wouldn't refrigerate it. But when I've taught somebody, it takes a while to get that precision to get it out to 16 by 16. So usually the length of time it takes to roll out is longer. And so the dough does get warmed up. Because once you put the filling on, you have to roll it and pick it up and if it's already soft, it's going to be difficult to handle. So I would recommend refrigerating it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Now, either refrigerate it or not, depending on our kitchen and how fast we work, we're going to fill the babka. We're going to use an offset spatula-
Melissa Weller:
Whatever you have-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Melissa Weller:
Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
Use an offset spatula to-
Melissa Weller:
Big or small, whatever you have at home. I found I'm like, "Oh, I only see the little one. I'm going to use the little one today." That's okay.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love the little one-
Melissa Weller:
Yeah, me too-
Jessie Sheehan:
Better than the big one. It just-
Melissa Weller:
Yeah...
Jessie Sheehan:
I like the way it fits in my hand.
Melissa Weller:
Me too-
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to use an offset to spread two-thirds of the warm filling over the dough, taking care to spread to the edges, right? We're not really interested in a perimeter.
Melissa Weller:
No.
Jessie Sheehan:
Spreading a little bit at a time. Now we're going to shape the babka. So we'll gently roll the dough or the square away from us to form a fat roll. And there's something fun about saying, form fat roll. I don't know. I love the way it rolls off the tongue. And then we'll pick up our roll and we will with two hands gently pull it apart to elongate it, set it down and cut it in half. Do you use a chef's knife, a bench scraper-
Melissa Weller:
Chef's knife-
Jessie Sheehan:
Chef's knife-
Melissa Weller:
Or bench scraper would work.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you're cutting it, each piece approximately 10 inches. Now up to this point that's very traditional with a babka, right?
Melissa Weller:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And that's how we're getting our two strips or the strips that we use to make our braid.
So now we're going to spread... This is so interesting and a little confusing. So I hope I do it justice-
Melissa Weller:
This is my obsessive compulsiveness coming out.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I think it's genius, but basically at this point we're going to spread the remaining third of the filling across... Now I wasn't sure if it was just the top or also the sides of one half of the babka and then place the second, I'm calling it the naked half, on top of the filling covered one to form an X.
Melissa Weller:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. So we're going to twist the ends. So I'm picturing my X. We're now going to take the V and then the inverted V and twist those two ends together. I just wrote in my notes, "Is this some genius babka making technique." And you've written that adding that layer of filling between the rolled babka dough helps keep the layers separate.
Melissa Weller:
Oh, that's right. That's the obsessiveness coming out-
Jessie Sheehan:
When the babka bakes resulting in the more layered babka. Is that how you get your incredible interior?
Melissa Weller:
Yeah, you don't have to. Now I've seen an old school where they don't cut it in half and they just fold it and twist it and put it in the pan and that turns out fine. But I think for me, I'm like... well I first started making it just twisting it, cutting it, and looking at it and I kept thinking, "Well that doesn't look like the babka that I was looking at in photos. That's not the one that Russ & Daughters has or it's all those thin layers." And I'm like, "How can I get layers to pop out more?" And I think I started putting some of the filling between the layers because if you're just rolling it up and you've got dough on dough, then that gets lost as it's proofing. And I'm like, "What if I just covered some of it more with the filling and then twisted it up and then you don't have dough on dough, you have dough, chocolate, dough," and I just kept thinking, "More layers the better."
Jessie Sheehan:
It's so smart and it does give you just what you said, you don't have dough on dough.
Does the filling, because we're going to put an egg wash on this, dry out? Is it a messy business trying to roll up something that you just spread-
Melissa Weller:
No, usually and if you work quickly and you've had your babka dough in the refrigerator, usually when you put the warm chocolate on it, it doesn't seize up, but it sets up. It's not this messy oozy chocolate thing anymore.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. I thought that was so brilliant. But anyway, now we're going to pick up our babka with two hands, place it into our prepared... I love that you say two hands in case someone thought, "Whoops," and then they drop it on the ground. And now it proofs. So we'll cover the babka with a clean kitchen towel or a plastic wrap. Set it in a warm place to proof for two to three hours until the loaf doubles in size. Bake it at around 350. Make an egg wash, and I love that I make an egg wash the same as you with egg and salt, in a small bowl and then brush the wash generously over the surface, which is going to give us-
Melissa Weller:
Shine and browning.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Place the babka loaf on the center rack, bake for about 45 to 50 minutes until deeply golden brown.
And you have us rotate halfway through the baking time. I always rotate, which I learned when I worked in a professional bakery. Do you always rotate? At home, do you rotate?
Melissa Weller:
No.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Melissa Weller:
I'm sorry.
Jessie Sheehan:
No, that's okay.
Melissa Weller:
Sometimes I don't. Sometimes too if I think it's too, especially professionally if it's too heavy of a pan where rotating is going to be almost hazardous. Like think if you have this pan of really heavy loaves and you have a baker who's lifting it up high and they have to pull it out, then they have to find a flat surface to lay it on. And I'm talking like a full-size sheet tray, which is 20-
Jessie Sheehan:
Filled with 12 loaves on it or something.
Melissa Weller:
Yeah. I'm like, it gets too heavy and it's too hot and I feel it's too dangerous. I usually don't. And maybe the back is browned a little bit more than the front ones, but I feel that's a safety call and an efficiency call and I'm like, "It's not worth it. It's not that much of a difference." But I usually do rotate as much as I can.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I have to do it at home just because of hot spots in my oven and it's just not worth it. But it feels so liberating when I don't.
Melissa Weller:
I know-
Jessie Sheehan:
I can't believe I put it in-
Melissa Weller:
It's true-
Jessie Sheehan:
And I never took it out or never open-
Melissa Weller:
Yeah, I'm not going to rotate this time-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, exactly. It feels like I'm being a radical.
So we'll make the glaze while the babka bakes and then glaze it. The glaze is similar to the filling. It's milk chocolate, it's bittersweet chocolate, double boiler, adding butter and honey until melted.
So it's basically the filling, except with some butter added?
Melissa Weller:
Yeah. And it sets up like fudge.
Jessie Sheehan:
Remove the babka from the oven, set aside to cool for five to 10 minutes until cool enough to touch. Place a clean kitchen towel on the counter. We're going to flip our babka out. Place right side up. And it slides out pretty easily?
Melissa Weller:
Yeah, usually I think I line my pan with the parchment paper and just so the parchment paper is an inch up the long sides on either side-
Jessie Sheehan:
Safety-
Melissa Weller:
And then I use that to pull up the babka and put it down on the cooling rack.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And it should sound hollow.
Melissa Weller:
It should definitely sound hollow.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do we spoon the warm glaze on right away or do we let it... That's what-
Melissa Weller:
Usually let it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Melissa Weller:
Yeah, usually spoon it on right away.
Jessie Sheehan:
Spoon the warm glaze over the top of the babka while still warm. Wait for glaze to set before slicing, about 20 minutes.
Melissa Weller:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I wanted to ask you just about a couple of other recipes from the book that I like.
Melissa Weller:
Oh, yes-
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm just curious about, I feel you have to tell us about your salted caramel sticky buns, which you first made at Roberta's, which The New York Times loved. And at least when you wrote “A Good Bake,” you described it as an item that you were most known for.
Melissa Weller:
Yes. I think that's true.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Melissa Weller:
Definitely.
Jessie Sheehan:
Please, please, please tell us about that.
Melissa Weller:
They're this mommy thing happening and I don't think I intentionally set out to make them that way. That's just how they turned out. I think the first sticky bun recipe I tried at home was from the “Baking with Julia” cookbook that was written in the 90s, and I think it was-
Jessie Sheehan:
With Dorie, right?
Melissa Weller:
With Dorie Greenspan wrote the book. I think she got bakers to contribute to the book. I think it was Nancy Silverton's recipe. And I love the technique of laminating the dough with butter. I'm like, "Whoa." It's a sticky bun and it's brioche and you're laminating the brioche. I'm like, "That's brilliant."
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell people just in case they don't know. When you say, "Laminating the dough," what are we doing with it-
Melissa Weller:
You're taking dough, so it could be the babka dough where you've already got butter in the dough and that's what brioche is, and then you're chilling it down. You're rolling it out a little bit, then you're putting a piece of butter that you've rolled out on top of it and you're folding dough over it. So you're enveloping the butter with the dough, and then you keep rolling it and folding it and rolling it and folding it. So you have multiple layers like it's a croissant, multiple layers of yeasted dough and butter, and it lends to flakiness and deliciousness.
I was just enamored with that technique with the sticky bun, and I wanted to do that at Roberta's. I started playing around with different sizes. Then I had to play around with the topping. Because the topping at first came out too hard and I'm like, "This isn't good. It's too hard." And I think I finally settled on a right mix between how much dough to put into the cavity of each muffin tin. And then once they came out, what was the topping like? Was it setting up too hard or was it soft? And it set up so it wasn't too hard and it wasn't too soft.
Jessie Sheehan:
I wanted you to just tell us about your secret ingredient in chocolate chip cookies, which is powdered sugar.
Melissa Weller:
Oh, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I thought that was-
Melissa Weller:
Yeah, the cornstarch, I think it helps the dough have that crackly effect.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Well, it's funny that I've even done a recipe tip video about adding a little bit of cornstarch to a chocolate chip cookie for this chewiness that-
Melissa Weller:
Oh, yes-
Jessie Sheehan:
I think it imparts.
Melissa Weller:
Yes, I think so too-
Jessie Sheehan:
But I think that's so clever and maybe even easier for people to just use a little bit of confectioner's sugar, which has the cornstarch in it anyway, I thought that was really great.
And then, I know your brownie recipe is loosely based on an old Alice Medrich recipe, but I also love that you're baking at 400 degrees, which is a little high for brownies. Can you just tell us-
Melissa Weller:
That's from the Alice Medrich recipe, and I think she called it the Steve method.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Melissa Weller:
I don't know if you remember that in the recipe. And she had this little tiny book became my favorite, had all sorts of brownies and bar recipes in it. And this was the classic one. And she was describing her friend Steve, who baked it too hot one time, and I think it wasn't on purpose and pulled them out. And then he's like, "Oh," tried to cool them down fast in the bowl of ice water or the bottom of it. And I think I just started making that recipe, literally was making the recipe at home in the 90s and it just kept turning out. It was so good. And I'm like, "I think I might've done away with putting it in the thing with the ice water," but I kept the baking at 400 and I kept the baking time the same.
Jessie Sheehan:
I also wonder if you could in a half-assed-ish way, stick it in the freezer or stick it in the refrigerator when it's hot-
Melissa Weller:
Yeah, I tried different things. Yeah, I tried. I don't even know if I do that anymore. I think it still turns out just fine and good.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's interesting too because when I think of Alice's famous brownie recipe, I think probably via Food52, but it's her all-cocoa brownie.
Melissa Weller:
Okay.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is one that I feel people talk about and mimic because it's this interesting brownie.
Melissa Weller:
I don't think I've made that one. I should make-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, it's really good.
Melissa Weller:
Because I got stuck on this one and haven't veered away.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, it's really good. Without any melted chocolate. So-
Melissa Weller:
Oh, nice-
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it because I like things that are really easy.
Melissa Weller:
Yeah, that's easy-
Jessie Sheehan:
And fewer ingredients and no melting of... So I think it's-
Melissa Weller:
Yeah, you have to find the unsweetened chocolate to make these brownies.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Thank you so much for chatting with me today, Melissa. And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Melissa Weller:
Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to King Arthur Baking Company and Kerrygold for supporting this episode. Don't forget to follow She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and tell your pals about us. You can find today's recipe and more information about my book tour at cherrybombe.com. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network.
Thank you to CityVox studio in Manhattan. Our producers are Kerry Diamond, Catherine Baker, and Jenna Sadhu. And our content and partnerships manager is Londyn Crenshaw. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie, and happy baking.