Pooja Bavishi 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 Pooja Bavishi. Pooja is an entrepreneur, ice cream innovator, and now cookbook author. Pooja is the founder of Malai Ice Cream, a Brooklyn-based brand that's become beloved for its bold, beautiful flavors inspired by South Asian ingredients. Think ginger, rose petal, cardamom, fennel, and saffron. Personally, I love their spiced peanut crunch ice cream, which is a flavor we'll be discussing in this episode. Pooja's debut cookbook, “Malai: Recipes Celebrating Indian Flavors and Ice Cream,” was released this spring, and it's just as vibrant and inviting as her pints. It's filled with recipes for ice cream, but also for cookies, cakes, and desserts featuring ice cream that draw from her heritage, her travels, and her love of nostalgic sweets. Pooja and I talk about her chai-inspired hybrid identity, her lifelong passion for experimenting with aromatic spices and unconventional flavor pairings, and the ginger and star anise ice creams Pooja made for a Friendsgiving many years ago that literally served as the inspiration for Malai. Finally, we dive into her Malai Drumsticks recipe, which incorporates the aforementioned spiced peanut crunch ice cream, jaggery cones, peanut chikki, and magic shell. It's a delicious conversation, and I hope you love it as much as I did. Stay tuned for our chat. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.com.
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. This is Kerry Diamond, host of Radio Cherry Bombe. Today's show is presented by Ladurée. Some gifts whisper, a Ladurée gift speaks in fluent French. Whether you choose Ladurée as the perfect companion to a graduation bouquet, as a hostess gift for that sun-drenched Memorial Day soiree, or as a delicate surprise slipped into a picnic basket, celebrate each moment with Ladurée. With its heritage rooted in 19th-century Paris, Ladurée has long been the authority on the art of sweet indulgence. Their macarons with the crisp shells and soft whisper-light ganache filling are more than a delight, they're a gesture. Some of you know how much I love Ladurée, and especially their famous macarons. My favorites, the vanilla rose and caramel macarons, as well as the Marie Antoinette Tea flavor. Trust me on that one. A box of Ladurée macarons is really one of the chicest gifts around. Another thing I love is the Ladurée boutique and cafe in SoHo, right here in New York City. It has a beautiful walled courtyard that's like a secret garden right in the middle of the neighborhood. Stop by for breakfast, lunch, or afternoon tea. Then pick up some macarons or other gorgeous Ladurée patisserie on the way out. Whether it's birthday, an engagement, or just a Tuesday, there's always a reason to gift beautifully. This season, make your gifts as memorable as your moments with Ladurée. Visit laduree.us, or any Ladurée boutique for more.
Jessie Sheehan:
Peeps, did you know that we have a free She's My Cherry Pie newsletter that coincides with each new episode? It comes out every Saturday morning, and shares insights about the guest, their recipe, and other fun tidbits and baking news, like our Cake of the Week. To sign up, head to cherrybombe.substack.com, or click the link in our show notes.
Let's chat with today's guest. Pooja, so excited to have you on She's my Cherry Pie, and to talk Malai Drumsticks with you, and so much more.
Pooja Bavishi:
Yay! Thank you so much for having me, Jessie.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, first I would love you to tell us about an early baking memory, or just a sweet eating memory. So, it can be something you baked or just a sweet you remember eating, please share.
Pooja Bavishi:
Well, I would say my first earliest baking memory of me baking on my own was this white chocolate cheesecake. I had caught Mrs. Fields, from Mrs. Fields Cookies on a TV show, on a cooking TV show, and she was making a white chocolate cheesecake, and it just looked so delicious. I wanted to be a part of that in some way, and so I asked my mom to take me to the grocery store to make it. She's like, "Yeah, of course. Try it on your own." From beginning to end, I completely made, I was 10 years old, I completely made this white chocolate cheesecake on my own without any help.
And cheesecake is a difficult endeavor to take on as your first baking project. I cut it too soon, there was this filling and topping. It didn't work, and it was basically this extremely soft version of a cheesecake with crust scattered all over. And I had given a piece, if you want to call it that, to my parents and my sister, and they just loved it. I don't know, obviously I was 10 years old, so I didn't really put two and two together.
What I remember from that time is that, "Oh, cool, I made something and it made them happy. That's cool. That's a good feeling." I love the hospitality behind it. As I've thought about this, I love the idea of providing that happiness, providing joy. You can do that through desserts. You can do that through offering something to someone you love or something you love, and so I love that feeling.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think you have a recipe from childhood that your mom used to make for you that you've described as your ultimate comfort food.
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah. The last meal I would ever eat.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I believe it involved some roasted millet bread, and some yogurt, and maybe some heavy cream. Can you describe this deliciousness to us?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah, sure. The region where my family is from in India, it's called Gujarat. It's in the western part of India, above the state where Bombay is, and the food is, it's not really in the states. It's not in restaurants, it's not really marketed as Indian food, in the Western sense. So, it's very homey, it's not flashy at all. It just feels like simple, good home cooking that that is just my comfort food that as any child, never appreciated it as a young person, but this is my ultimate comfort food now.
There's this one dish. The type of bread is called rotla, and it's this millet bread that is super simple. Even the ingredients, it's just water and this flour, this millet flour. And the traditional way of making it, you don't even roll it out, you hand pat it. And you put it on a dry skillet, and you roast it on both sides. And then, my mom roasts it even further to make it crisp, directly on an open flame, and then smothers it in yogurt, but not just yogurt. It's whole milk yogurt with a splash of heavy cream. It's really decadent yogurt, and then it soaks in and it becomes, I want to say soggy, but that's not really, that's not-
Jessie Sheehan:
Almost like tres leches vibes.
Pooja Bavishi:
It's soaked. It's just the bread becomes soaked, and it's very savory, very dairy forward, and just so delicious. There's the exact optimal time that you soak it. It's about an hour and 37 minutes. It's something like that, that I love. It is my ultimate comfort food. I love it so much.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Now that we've talked about baking and sweets memories and comfort food memories, I wanted to talk to you about spice memories. I've read about your lifelong passion for experimenting with aromatic spices and unconventional flavor pairings, and I think there's an early chai-drinking or smelling memory that maybe got this all going. Can you tell us about your parents drinking their chai, and what little baby Pooja was doing?
Pooja Bavishi:
This is just a weird thing that children do. I don't know if this is just me or everyone else. My mom has made chai every single day for as long as I can remember, and she still does. It is fact, it is just true, this is what I believe that her chai is the best in the world. I started drinking chai young, but we wouldn't have straight up chai. My mom would dilute it with milk, and so me and my sister would have chai and milk.
I just loved the smell of chai. You couldn't get that smell with the dilution of milk, and so my parents would sit around the table eating breakfast, and they would pour themselves a cup of chai, and they would make this milk chai concoction for me and my sister, and then I would get up out of my chair and go over to my parents and just stick my nose in their cup of tea, and they just would look at me. They'll just be like, "All right, this is what you're doing Pooja." I loved it.
I honestly did this with coffee too. There's something about comforting drinks that I would want to smell it. I would want to smell it and get the full sensation of it. Honestly, this is a total true story, but I would do this every single morning. I didn't know how much that shaped how I thought about flavor, and the nose about it all. I don't know. It's something I did from a very, very young age. It was very weird, and I still smell my chai to this day.
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, I love, first of all, that you've said that your life would be very different without chai, and that you developed your hybrid identity through chai. Can you unpack that, a hybrid identity?
Pooja Bavishi:
I think everyone lives hybrid identities, first of all. No one is just one thing. Everyone's hyphenated in some way. That early memory, that's way before the cooking shows and all of that, that I would do that, and it just felt so homey to me. It just felt like home. Chai, in general, is something that I have been fascinated by since I was a child. Not only when I smell it, but when I would go to India. This is not when I was super young, I was a little bit older, but I would ask all of my aunts how they would make their chai recipe. My extended family all makes it the same way, but everyone's tastes a little different. I would just sit there and watch them. And chai is so ubiquitous in India, it's so common that they would look at me as if I were insane when I would ask to watch them do it. They're just like, "It's just chai." But it's so special.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us, just for people that don't know, maybe including me, what are the components? What's going into chai?
Pooja Bavishi:
So, this is controversial, please know that. That in my family's chai recipe, you boil water with sugar and the chai spices, our blend of chai spices, our family's blend of chai spices, which is actually the same blend that we use at Malai's Masala Chai ice cream. Is very ginger heavy and it's very black pepper heavy, and then there's also cardamom, cinnamon and cloves, and if it's available, then some long pepper as well. And so, those spices, plus sugar, plus pieces of ginger root, fresh ginger, and well, depending on who's making it, if I'm making it, I don't add my mint in now, but my mom would add in her mint at this point too.
Let that boil. Then take about the amount of water that you have, take about a third of that, and that's how much milk you need, is either whole milk or 2%, and you pour that in and let that come to a boil. At this point, I would add in my mint leaves, but my mom would've already done it, and you let that come to a boil. And then, when that comes to a boil, you add in your tea, and it's black CTC tea. It's very specific, and you let that boil two or three times until you've achieved this color.
It's a very simple process, but it's also very regimented. This is how you make chai, and that doesn't vary from one aunt to the other. Every aunt felt that way, but they also were, just every single one of them, they were just like, "Pooja, you're a little crazy."
Jessie Sheehan:
I think it's fair to say that you have a food-focused family. That's my way of getting out of saying foodie, because I hate that expression, but food-focused family. There was varied food in your childhood home. And you've said that your mom wasn't a dessert maker, but she did make cheesecake and granola chocolate chip cookies from the back of her favorite cereal box, which I love. She was making Indian food-
Pooja Bavishi:
Two to three times a week. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
She was making at home. You guys were not going to an Indian restaurant?
Pooja Bavishi:
We would occasionally, but on a regular basis she made home food at home.
Jessie Sheehan:
And did she have lots of cookbooks around? Was little Pooja also nose in the cookbooks or no?
Pooja Bavishi:
No. There was this one cookbook that she had from India that she would only consult when she wasn't making Gujarati food, but when it was Gujarati food, it was all her and her memories. But she also would call my grandmother or she would call my aunt in India and be like, "Do you remember we used to make this? How do we make this again?" That kind of thing, or her own sister who lives here, she still does that actually. Now, it's sprinkled in with a little bit of Instagram videos, and a little bit of YouTube videos as well. Again, how we consume food is so different.
What I most remember is that she has this notebook where she would write down recipes, including this granola chocolate chip cookie recipe, including that where she found or heard of, or knew these very specific that weren't in her head, these very specific recipes, and that she would consult more than anything else in terms of a cookbook. I started getting cookbooks. That's when we started getting cookbooks in the house. I just love cookbooks so much.
Jessie Sheehan:
But how old were you?
Pooja Bavishi:
Probably, starting in high school is when I started.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. But this whole time it wasn't like you were like, "I think I want a career in food."
Pooja Bavishi:
Well, it's not like I was actively thinking what my career in food was or if I want a career in food. What I did know is that for as long as I remember, I would say, "I want to explore this career. I want to explore that career, but I eventually want my own dessert business." And I would always say that. Because it was always in the future, it was never in the present, I never had to get to it. If that makes sense.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, it's right.
Pooja Bavishi:
It's like, "Oh yeah, I'll get to that, I think. It's still in the future."
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back. Cherry Bombe's summer issue will be out in early June. Stay tuned for the cover announcement, but I did hear that there will be multiple covers, and I can't wait to see who's on them. To get this issue, subscribe to Cherry Bombe Magazine, so you'll be the first to receive it when it's released. Subscribe at cherrybombe.com, or click the link in our show notes.
Peeps, have you tuned into Radio Cherry Bombe? It's the flagship podcast from Cherry Bombe hosted by founder, Kerry Diamond. Every Monday, Kerry sits down with the most fascinating folks in food, drink and hospitality from icons to rising stars. Don't miss her conversations with Ina Garten, Alice Waters, Padma Lakshmi, “The Bears'” Liza Colón-Zayas, and so many more. Listen to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Now, back to our guest.
So, I thought this was interesting. I read that you feel like, or you are, always nostalgic for the heritage and culture of your parents, and almost longed for their childhood. And I thought that was so interesting, because you went to high school, I think you said it was you and maybe one other Indian kid in the whole school, and a lot of people have these experiences they think that they've shared with me or I've just read about, where they feel othered.
Like people think the food they're eating is strange or whatever. I don't want to put words in your mouth or anyone's mouth, but it almost sounds like you never felt that way. You loved everything that you came from and almost were not jealous of your parents, but longed for that. Did you have that experience in school, though, where your mom packed you something and you were like, "I don't want this in my lunchbox?"
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah. Honestly, the truth of the matter is I don't have the greatest memory in the world. I don't have these distinct memories of feeling othered or otherized, or any of that. In fact, I always just knew who I was. That said, it's almost the opposite. The reason why I longed so much from my parents' culture is that outside of my home, I didn't really have exposure to Indian culture. We didn't have a community where we were, and the only other Indian people was really my extended family. I had my cousins, and I had my aunts and uncles, and that was really it. And so, it was almost like I felt a little bit more self-conscious and othered when I was in Indian communities.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's so interesting.
Pooja Bavishi:
I wanted to get closer to the culture because I wanted to feel accepted, but not the other way around. It wasn't like I didn't feel accepted in a non-Indian community. It was the other way around. It was all in my head, honestly. I think that Malai came about because it was a way for me to tell the story of who I am and really own it. This is who I am, and I'm showcasing it through these products that are loved by all, not just an Indian community or not just... It's universally loved, and I'm able to tell my story through it, and that's cool. I think that that's what I was honestly waiting for when I was always wanting that dessert business. I was waiting to tell my story.
Jessie Sheehan:
And it's such a good one. So, Malai, which means cream of the crop, which I loved. You've said that you always knew in your head, "I'm going to have a dessert business one day," even though you didn't know it was going to be ice cream. Did you always know what would be called Malai?
Pooja Bavishi:
No.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, did Malai come from your ice cream business?
Pooja Bavishi:
Once I knew that it was an ice cream business, it was always Malai.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it.
Pooja Bavishi:
There was no other names that I considered.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right, so I know that concept came from a Friendsgiving dinner party in 2014. Were you at NYU's Business School then?
Pooja Bavishi:
I was, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's what I thought. And it was the first time you'd ever made ice cream with Indian spices for this Friendsgiving. So, you were the dessert person? They were going to, of course, have you bring dessert to Friendsgiving. Tell us, I know the flavors, but I hope you'll share them with us. First of all, ice cream's ambitious. Were you always making ice cream? Or was it literally your first time making ice cream and your first time putting Indian spices in?
Pooja Bavishi:
It wasn't my first time making ice cream. I had made ice cream a couple of times before. It was a handful of times. I didn't really make ice cream, but I had made a sticky toffee pudding and an apple crostata for Friendsgiving that year. Every year I hosted a vegetarian Friendsgiving. Those were really great times, and I should really bring it back, but I always made the dessert. And I was like, "I have this ice cream maker, why don't I just make some ice creams to go along with it?"
Just like everyone, I'm assuming, I won't speak for everyone, but I'm not separating my kitchen or my pantry to be like, "These are all of the Indian spices. This is my Indian side, and this isn't." And so, I just had a spice rack, and pulled two spices, and I was like, "I think that these flavors would go really well with the two desserts that I made." So, I made a ginger root ice cream, using fresh ginger root. Very simple, still on Malai's menu in the cookbook, and then I also made a star anise ice cream. Did not even know star anise very well. I had the spice. I just thought it was so beautiful, and I knew that I had used it sporadically before, and I thought it would just go so well in a dairy-based ice cream.
Jessie Sheehan:
Honey, whose recipes were you using?
Pooja Bavishi:
I wasn't using... I was definitely using someone's recipe, I can't even remember. But I was definitely using someone's recipe for a base, and then just was experimenting with these mix-ins. And then made these ice creams, served it alongside the dessert, and I would always get feedback from my friends because I made dessert all the time, and I would have them over for dessert all the time. "This is so good. This is amazing."
But the feedback I got for this ice cream was, "Oh, I've never had anything like this before. I don't think that this exists." That's what triggered this thought in my head that, "Oh, this doesn't exist in the mainstream market." Star anise and ginger ice cream didn't exist even in an Indian store. It made me think that I so naturally pulled these spices, that were so familiar to me, and put it in something very accessible, really fun, really approachable, like ice cream. Then maybe there is a market out there, maybe we do want to change the way that ice cream is perceived. And so, that's what started all of this.
Jessie Sheehan:
I also thought to myself, and maybe you've said this, and so I'm just copying you, but I also thought to myself, "It gives me the chai-vibe," because one of the things you loved about chai was the dairy with the Indian flavors. And this is just cold dairy with Indian flavors, right?
Pooja Bavishi:
Absolutely.
Jessie Sheehan:
It came full circle.
Pooja Bavishi:
There's something so comforting about dairy mixed with sugar, mixed with spices, and that is what I would literally inhale from my parents' cup. There's nothing that feels more like home then that combination of things. And so, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I also always say, "Fat carries flavor." So really, when you're making a recipe and you have vanilla in it or any kind of extract, you should really be adding it with your butter or your oil. It's the same idea, the fat in the ice cream is a great carrier. Talk about a way to get a bold flavor, it's with fat.
Pooja Bavishi:
Butter fat's such a conduit.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it.
Pooja Bavishi:
And so, it carried spice so beautifully.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I know this is just probably because you're Pooja, but it's so impressive to me and confusing that you knew, "Oh, I'm going to do ginger. Oh, I'm going to do star anise." You just knew to combine Indian spices and flavors that didn't maybe normally go together, just because you have this acute-
Pooja Bavishi:
Well, these ice creams were not... They're delicious, but they weren't Malai 2.0. We weren't doing raspberry cumin yet. I wasn't doing that. It was a single star anise ice cream, and it was a single spice star anise ice cream and a ginger root ice cream. But that's the thing, when you have a beautiful spice, a beautiful add-in like that, and you're flavoring it well and you're letting that spice shine through, it's enough.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to segue into talking about your incredible book, which I love that it's purple, because my latest book is purple too.
Pooja Bavishi:
I know, and I told you that when your book came out.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And also, Paola's book-
Pooja Bavishi:
I know.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is purple too. So, purple-
Pooja Bavishi:
We're trendsetters.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, first I wanted you just to describe the ice cream, because it doesn't have any egg, it's hand crafted and churned with very little air. So, I just had all these questions. Why is it eggless? Why is the lack of air important?
Pooja Bavishi:
The ice cream's eggless. So, going back to your question of what ice cream base were you using for Friendsgiving. Like I said, I don't remember exactly what that was, but because that started the whole, "Maybe I should start this ice cream business," I started researching a lot of different ice cream bases. And obviously, there's so many out there. I knew that I wanted to create my own, I wanted Malai to have its own ice cream base. Experimented with a lot of different kinds, including ones with egg yolks. Egg yolks, first of all, have a flavor, and I really wanted the spice or the ingredient that I'm flavoring the ice cream with to be the star. So, that was one aspect of it.
And then the second aspect of it was I'm pulling from my culture here, and there's a lot of Gujaratis that are traditionally vegetarian and don't consider eggs to be vegetarian, and I didn't want to pull from my culture and then make this exact product be an inaccessible to so many people of that population. And so, I made a decision, it was alongside the fact that I was trying all of these different ice cream bases, that everything out of Malai would be eggless. And so correspondingly, everything in the “Malai” cookbook is also eggless, which I'm really proud of. It's worked out.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. We're going to talk about it in a little bit, but the ice cream recipes are so unbelievably easy, it seems like that can't be ice cream. Because you think of ice cream as tempering eggs, and this, and that, and cooking the base on the stove until when you lift up your spoon, you can draw a line in it with your... So, I'm excited for the listeners to hear about your ice cream.
Pooja Bavishi:
Well, also, I want this cookbook to not be intimidating. There are certainly some flavors that require an ice cream machine, or some recipes, I should say, that require an ice cream machine, but there's so many recipes. I was so cognizant about the fact that I don't want people to not get this book because they don't have a certain piece of equipment. So, there's so many recipes that are condensed milk-based ice creams, or you literally go and buy the ice cream to make this fabulous ice cream dessert. I hope that it doesn't seem like it's just an ice cream maker cookbook.
Jessie Sheehan:
It does not.
Pooja Bavishi:
Great.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, the cookbook. So, the book highlights your first-generation experience, and celebrates ingredients and spices of your background. Tell us what that means.
Pooja Bavishi:
I always say that these flavors and these products are authentic to me and to my story. I'm not trying to represent anyone or anything else, but that said, I had this goal from the very beginning of when I started Malai, and it's true in the cookbook and it's true now for the company, which is I want to change the way that ice cream is perceived in this country. These are South Asian flavor profiles. Obviously, that's the angle at which we're coming from, but these are American flavors, and they should be accepted as such. It's not like, "I want to get an Indian ice cream cookbook." I'm getting an ice cream cookbook, and these should be pantry staples, and these are ingredients that should be known, and we should be experimenting with them and playing around with them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love the ice cream we're going to talk about today. Why are some of the recipes vegan? Are they vegan because they're better if you're using a non-dairy product, or are some ice creams vegan at Malai because you just want to make sure that everyone gets an opportunity to taste a Malai ice cream?
Pooja Bavishi:
Honestly, it's the latter.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Pooja Bavishi:
I understand the need for vegan ice cream, and we want to be as inclusive as possible. But all of our sorbets are so satisfying and so refreshing in the summer. It's not like we're trying to just appease a population, that's not at all what we're doing. With our vegan ice creams and our sorbets, we're making a really good product, and they happen to be vegan, and we want to make sure that our vegan customers have choice, number one. But also, they're as good as our dairy product. That's the other thing that's really important to me, which I think we've succeeded on.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right, so the recipe we're going to talk about is for Malai Drumsticks. And drumsticks are an ice cream cone that you get, that's wrapped in paper, and you get it from the ice cream truck. Correct?
Pooja Bavishi:
So delicious.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you please, on the off chance people think we're talking about a chicken, can you please just describe a drumstick for us-
Pooja Bavishi:
I would love to.
Jessie Sheehan:
From the ice cream truck, from Mister Softee.
Pooja Bavishi:
So, a drumstick is a waffle cone, and it has a little chocolate nugget on the bottom of the waffle cone. It's then filled with vanilla ice cream, and then it's dunked in a chocolate magic shell, so it has a chocolate coating. And then it's sprinkled with peanuts on top. It is so good. So sad, I would eat one right now.
Jessie Sheehan:
Me too.
Pooja Bavishi:
It is delicious.
Jessie Sheehan:
Me too. So, this is the Malai version of the Mister Softee Drumstick. Okay. So the recipe is very easy, but labor-intensive.
Pooja Bavishi:
Correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
There are many components, but that's okay. And you almost didn't even want to put it in the book because you didn't want people to freak out and be like, "Oh my God." But you had such a personal experience with these drumsticks during the pandemic with your sister that you felt like you had to, and can you just tell us a little bit about?
Pooja Bavishi:
So, Malai in Brooklyn, our scoop shop in Brooklyn, opened in March of 2019. We had our first year there, and then in March of 2020 we had this big first year anniversary party. It was so fun, and we made all of these different treats, including this drum... A mini version of this drumstick, and we were sharing them. I remember that we had heard about this thing called coronavirus, and we had bottles of hand sanitizer.
Properly, a week later, we were forced to shut down. Obviously, we all remember that time. It was so crazy. It's so crazy to think about that time, but I obviously had to close down Malai, and we had all of these leftover treats from the party that I brought over. Me and my sister were living together at the time, I brought over to our apartment. We had all of these leftover ones. We had a few leftover, but then we also made some more, and they're super labor-intensive, but they filled the time with joy.
At a time when all we could hear were ambulances outside, and we couldn't leave the apartment, drive to Malai, which usually takes 20 minutes, and I would get there in three because there was just no one on the road. All of that stuff that if I think about now is just so insane. But we made more, and we would have one together every single... It was like our happy hour. We would have one every day until they ran out. We actually never made more.
Everyone remembers that lockdown period, that beginning, and I just feel like these drumsticks got us through.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. I love that. So, these call for a spiced peanut crunch ice cream, which was the ice cream when I did a dessert collab with you at Malai. That was the ice cream. I'm like, "Oh, gosh."
Pooja Bavishi:
I know. I know.
Jessie Sheehan:
Which I love. But you have always loved peanut butter ice cream.
Pooja Bavishi:
Oh, my God.
Jessie Sheehan:
I need you to tell us about your go-to order at TCBY.
Pooja Bavishi:
So, TCBY is like my childhood ice cream spot, and I would get the parfait, it would be golden vanilla yogurt. Actually, I think they would put a sauce on the bottom. Anyway, I would alternate between chocolate and peanut butter sauce, and I would alternate between Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Reese's Pieces, and it was this really decadent sundae that I would get every single week, and I loved it. I probably would love it still today, but I do love anything peanut butter flavored, and so I love the spiced peanut crunch ice cream.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it too. Okay, so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to make our ice cream, and it's vegan ice cream. So, in a saucepan, we're going to combine coconut milk, and then we're going to add cane sugar. And I wanted to know how is cane sugar different from granulated sugar?
Pooja Bavishi:
It's just an edit my editor made.
Jessie Sheehan:
Interesting.
Pooja Bavishi:
She made that specific note.
Jessie Sheehan:
Interesting. But it just-
Pooja Bavishi:
All cane sugar is granulated sugar in my cookbook.
Jessie Sheehan:
Thank you for sharing. So, I was going to ask brand, but I don't think I need to ask what the brand is.
Pooja Bavishi:
Domino's.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then we're going to add some corn syrup, and I know that's an invert sugar, so I am assuming it's there to reduce iciness, et cetera.
Pooja Bavishi:
Exactly. Invert sugar is needed for scoopability, to keep ice cream nice and soft and become that brick.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is that a tip? Not that anybody would ever make any recipe for ice cream, except from the “Malai” cookbook, but if they were not, is that a tip? Like, "Add a teeny bit of corn syrup"?
Pooja Bavishi:
You won't actually find an ice cream recipe, a good ice cream recipe-
Jessie Sheehan:
Always has it.
Pooja Bavishi:
Always will have it. You need the invert sugar. Otherwise, it's just, you know how if you were to freeze milk and it's just hard and icy?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Pooja Bavishi:
That's what it would be.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Would you use corn syrup with a no-churn and ice cream, or does the sweetened condensed milk take the roll of the-
Pooja Bavishi:
Exactly. Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Just to continue that. With no-churn ice cream, you have sweetened condensed milk and whipped cream, and we don't need the corn syrup there because that sweetened condensed milk is doing that for us. We're also going to add creamy natural peanut butter. So, we're talking unsweetened and we're talking with the oil?
Pooja Bavishi:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
And the oil isn't tricky to-
Pooja Bavishi:
No, it's not. Actually, it adds... The stabilization is weird when you use the no-stir kind, so you want the natural peanut butter, and then the fat from the coconut milk, and that will-
Jessie Sheehan:
So, basically, we want to stir our natural peanut butter if the oil's on the top?
Pooja Bavishi:
Exactly. Just like you would for any kind of use. You don't want to add the excess oil-
Jessie Sheehan:
I got you.
Pooja Bavishi:
But you don't want the no-stir.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Then we're going to add star anise. You buy it whole and grind it in a spice grinder or a coffee grinder. We're going to add salt. Are you a kosher salt person?
Pooja Bavishi:
Mm-hmm.
Jessie Sheehan:
So when I see salt, I know it's kosher?
Pooja Bavishi:
Correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
Awesome. And then-
Pooja Bavishi:
I'll call out when it's table salt.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, perfect. And then we're going to add a little bit of, or not a little bit, we're going to add some cayenne pepper.
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah, it is just a touch, actually.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. And we're going to heat all of this over medium heat, and we're going to be whisking occasionally. Is there a type of whisk or brand of whisk? I know it's different in a kitchen at work versus home.
Pooja Bavishi:
If you can... You know those flat whisks that you can get?
Jessie Sheehan:
Mm-hmm.
Pooja Bavishi:
It's nice to get that, because of the syrup and the peanut butter and the sticky substances to make sure you're getting the edges of the pot. But if you can't, it's not a big deal. You can also alternate between a whisk and a rubber spatula.
Jessie Sheehan:
And so, we're going to be whisking occasionally until everything is melted and well incorporated. We're not bringing to a boil. Are we looking for a simmer?
Pooja Bavishi:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
A few tiny bubbles are okay, but we don't want to boil. But once it's homogenous, we're going to remove it from the heat and let it cool to room temp. And I just wrote, "How can this be so easy?" That's amazing. I love that that is the ice cream base.
Pooja Bavishi:
That is ice cream.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to transfer the cooled base, once it's cool, to our ice cream maker. I wondered if you had a favorite brand for people at home.
Pooja Bavishi:
Honestly, when I started Malai, I just use the attachment on a KitchenAid. Ice cream makers are not created equal, so you can use a freezer bowl attachment for any ice cream maker. The only thing with that is that you have to freeze the bowl beforehand, and you often have to freeze it overnight. So, you have to prepare, you have to have that advanced preparation. You can also get compressor ice cream makers, which makes ice cream in an instant. You don't need to do any kind of preparation.
Jessie Sheehan:
That was my wedding present from my parents, so I still have one. They're incredible.
Pooja Bavishi:
That's amazing. They're so incredible.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my God.
Pooja Bavishi:
But they're also cost prohibitive.
Jessie Sheehan:
And they're huge.
Pooja Bavishi:
And they're huge and they're heavy. Literally, I started Malai on a freezer bowl attachment, so I feel like that's plenty.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Great. So, we're going to transfer our cooled base to our ice cream maker, churn according to the manufacturer's instructions. We're going to add some chopped raw peanuts. So, two questions, brand, source?
Pooja Bavishi:
Honestly, I get my peanuts from the Indian store. They're raw peanuts that also have the-
Jessie Sheehan:
Red-
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah, and then you'd have to rub to get a-
Jessie Sheehan:
What am I thinking? The skin, almost.
Pooja Bavishi:
The skin.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah, exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to add those chopped peanuts during the last five minutes of the churning. Then we're going to place this in the freezer to freeze completely while we go and make some other components, but that was so easy.
Pooja Bavishi:
That's so easy.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now, we're going to make the peanut chikki, which we will end up once we have some magic shell in our cones. We're going to coat that magic shell in this peanut chikki. But first, we need you to tell us what it is, and when during the year, and where you are snacking on it.
Pooja Bavishi:
So, peanut chikki is a brittle, it's peanut brittle, and the only difference between the peanut brittle we get here and peanut chikki, which is a very Gujarati food actually, is that peanut chikki is made with jaggery instead of sugar. Jaggery is a South Asian sugar that's a little bit softer. It's brown sugar and molasses-y, and it's made with ghee instead of butter. So, the clarified butter inside.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is light or dark brown sugar actually a good substitute for jaggery?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah, there's this deep molasses flavor that you get with jaggery that you don't get with brown sugar. It's a little bit more complex than brown sugar, but absolutely. If you can't find... You can find anything online these days, so you can get jaggery. If you don't want to get it or if you can't find it, dark brown sugar is a good substitute.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you've said that jaggery can be either a block that you're shaving off-
Pooja Bavishi:
Shaving. Mm-hmm.
Jessie Sheehan:
But maybe a little bit easier for folks might be, also comes in, you described it as a powdered form. But did I-
Pooja Bavishi:
Powdered form, meaning that is what it's called. It's called powdered jaggery, but it actually is like brown sugar.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, so powdered makes me think 10X or confection sugar, but it's not?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah, exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Pooja Bavishi:
Powdered jaggery is actually a newer thing, probably in the past 10 to 15 years. Otherwise, you only got jaggery in this block form.
Jessie Sheehan:
I got you. Particularly, you're eating peanut chikki-
Pooja Bavishi:
Uttarayan. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's an Uttarayan festival in January that you were often out with your family when you were little or maybe still go, and that was peanut chikki?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah, I was there last year for Uttarayan. So, it's this kite flying festival in Gujarat where it's starting to become spring. Everyone's on their rooftops flying kites. It's super fun. But chikki is... And there's different kinds of chikki. There's peanut chikki, but there's also sesame seed chikki, and then there's rice puff chikki, like Rice Krispies Treats. So many different kinds, but you have it only in the winter. It's a winter treat, and so you munch on it while you're flying your kite.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to talk about how to make it, but I did have a question. Why not crush chikki and put it in the ice cream?
Pooja Bavishi:
So, at Malai, that's what we do. But the reason why, I just felt the drumstick recipe was so overly complicated, and so I actually changed the spice peanut crunch recipe because of the drumstick recipe. I didn't want people to feel like... You can avoid, you don't necessarily have to dip your drumstick into the chikki if you don't want to. You can also do crushed peanuts. You can make it for yourself.
Jessie Sheehan:
Which means you wouldn't have to make it at all?
Pooja Bavishi:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
But if it was a component of the ice cream-
Pooja Bavishi:
Then you would've had to make it.
Jessie Sheehan:
I got you.
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right, so to make it, we're going to line a sheet pan with parchment paper. We're going to spray the parchment with cooking spray. And then I thought, this is such a brilliant brittle tip that I did not know about and have never made brittle this way. But then we're going to tear off an equal sized sheet of parchment, spray it on one side and set it aside, and that is going to be what we're going to place on top of the chikki when we're ready to roll it out.
Pooja Bavishi:
I think this is honestly me not having, coming from a cooking background, I didn't know how fast you have to make candy. Just everything moves at such lightning speed, and so I just needed it to be faster for myself and not burn myself in the process. And so, I had a kitchen manager who showed me this, and she was like, "Oh my god, Pooja, for you to do it, just put it on top and let's just roll it out quickly."
Jessie Sheehan:
It's so great. I think I usually pour it out. And you're right, it starts to set almost immediately, and then you're trying to hold the parchment down, and use a spatula to spread it, and it's too thick in the center
Pooja Bavishi:
And it sticks to the spatula. It's too much.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. No, I think that's so brilliant. Okay, so now in a saucepan, same kind of saucepan we used when we made our ice cream-
Pooja Bavishi:
This is very important to make sure it's heavy bottomed.
Jessie Sheehan:
Heavy bottomed?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Heavy bottomed saucepan. We're going to combine the jaggery, which we just talked about, which we could find it in Indian grocery store or we can buy it online.
Pooja Bavishi:
Correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
If we can find the powdered, which we probably can, teeny bit easier, but if you want to go old school, Pooja style, get your block.
Pooja Bavishi:
In this particular recipe, and I know where powdered jaggery should be used, but in this particular recipe, the block just tastes better.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, good to know. Good to know. Love. So, get your blocks, peeps. We're going to combine the jaggery with some ghee. Is there a brand?
Pooja Bavishi:
So, I make homemade ghee, but there's obviously so many different kind of brands of ghee. Any one of them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. And ghee is clarified butter?
Pooja Bavishi:
It's a little bit more of a process than just clarifying, but you can buy this at whole foods. You can buy it anywhere.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great. So, we're going to combine the jaggery, the ghee, kosher salt, and we're going to place over medium high heat, and we're going to whisk the mixture constantly until it registers 300 degrees Fahrenheit on our instant read thermometer. Do you have a preference?
Pooja Bavishi:
I don't. I don't have a preference on instant read thermometers. I do like the digital ones a lot better.
Jessie Sheehan:
The probe ones are great.
Pooja Bavishi:
The probe ones is what I tested everything on, just in case anyone has that one. But obviously, there's much more chance of variation here.
Jessie Sheehan:
I feel you. Okay, so we're going to move quickly. We're going to stir in some skinless raw peanuts, finely chopped. We bought them at the Indian store, and then we're going to carefully transfer the mixture to the prepared sheet pan, put that sprayed piece of paper on top, cooking side down, and then using a rolling pin and working swiftly, we're going to spread that peanut mixture evenly over the sheet pan, because it's hot and it's going to harden quickly. Type of rolling pin that you like?
Pooja Bavishi:
I would say that thicker one, a big one with-
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you like handles, as opposed to a dowel that narrows at the end?
Pooja Bavishi:
So, the only thing I would suggest is that if you have the one with handles, that it doesn't hit the side of the baking sheet, that can often be a hindrance. So, if you have a more compact one, it's easier to get to the corner.
Jessie Sheehan:
Like a 12-inch one, or something is easiest?
Pooja Bavishi:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Okay. Good to know.
Pooja Bavishi:
This is going to take a little bit of effort and strength, and so you just want to make sure that it has enough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Or I bet you could turn the sheet pan so that the long side is facing you, because I'm picturing it the wrong way.
Pooja Bavishi:
Absolutely. You can do it that way too.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect. Now, we're going to set the pan aside to cool. We'll remove that top sheet of parchment. Once the chikki's cooled, we'll lift it off the pan and break and chop it into pieces. Do we want it pretty tiny, since we're dipping the cone?
Pooja Bavishi:
You actually want to crush it a little bit, because you're dipping the chocolate shell.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you do that with your hand? Usually brittle's-
Pooja Bavishi:
No. So, you want small pieces with your hands, and then you just pound it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Next, we're going to make our jaggery cones. You almost didn't include the recipe in the book. It has a lot of steps, for that reason, maybe. But also because you worried that readers would not have a waffle cone maker or a cone mold. But the flavor was so delicious that you were like, "We have to include it." And people can do this in a frying pan, and they can mold the waffles around bowls and make waffle cone bowls.
Pooja Bavishi:
They sure can.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yay! So, peeps, do not worry if you do not have your waffle cone maker and your cone mold. In a saucepan, we're going to whisk together some jaggery, some granulated sugar, yes, or cane sugar. Cornstarch, why?
Pooja Bavishi:
Usually, cones have egg whites in them, and so this is going to replace that stabilization.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, nice. Nice. I have an egg substitute that is cornstarch plus water. I know it's an egg substitute, but I didn't think about the cornstarch being the stabilizer the way an egg white is stable. Pooja is dropping science. Okay, so in the saucepan, we're whisking together jaggery, sugar, cornstarch, kosher salt, unsalted butter, and water. And we're going to place all of that over medium heat. We're going to whisk constantly until thickened, two to three minutes. At this point, still you like that flat whisk or less important here?
Pooja Bavishi:
Less important here.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. It's almost like we're making a pancake batter or something.
Pooja Bavishi:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to whisk until it's thickened, about two to three minutes then we'll remove from heat. We're going to whisk in some all-purpose flour with some baking powder until smooth, and then the batter should be like pancake batter, and we'll add a little water if it's too thick. First, I'm going to go through what we would do if we had a waffle cone maker, but do not fret, because then I'm going to go through what we'll do with a frying pan. So, we're going to preheat our waffle cone maker, if we have one, to the color setting of around four. I don't have a waffle cone maker. So, is there this big one to 10, how dark do you want your cone?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah, actually, the one that I have is one to five.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, great. Okay.
Pooja Bavishi:
So, we'd want it pretty dark.
Jessie Sheehan:
Want it dark. To color setting around four. We're going to lightly brush both the grids with some oil. Is your preference grapeseed?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Why?
Pooja Bavishi:
Neutral oil. Just because that's what we've always had at Malai, and so we don't want to differ from that.
Jessie Sheehan:
I remember Christina Tosi always talking about grapeseed oil when she was on the pod, so-
Pooja Bavishi:
Really?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I actually now have it. But sometimes I'm still using up some vegetable oil, but I need to change over to just grapeseed. People seem to love it.
Pooja Bavishi:
I don't have a reason.
Jessie Sheehan:
Interesting. So, we're going to spoon two tablespoons of batter onto the center of the bottom grid, close the lid, bake for about one and a half minutes. Open the maker, and then with a fork, we'll carefully lift the waffle from the grid. Or, if you do not have a waffle cone maker, we're just going to heat a frying pan over medium high heat, lightly brush with the grapeseed oil, spoon two tablespoons of batter onto the pan, and then using the back of a wooden spoon, spread it probably into as thin a circle as we can get.
Pooja Bavishi:
Exactly. So, the difference between that waffle cone maker and a frying pan is that because you're not only spreading it on the waffle cone maker and then also pressing it, you can get it really, really crisp. You also have heat on both sides so you get it really crisp. With the frying pan, you're not going to get it as crisp. So, what's really important is spreading it as thin as possible, so at least one side, you will flip it, but at least one side is going to immediately hit that heat and get as crisp as possible.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, now we're going to let fry until brown on the underside about one and a half minutes, then we'll flip and cook on the second side until lightly browned. So, three minutes total. And like you said, it's not going to be as thin and crispy a cone, but that's okay. So, now, if we have a waffle cone mold or a cone mold, we're going to use a clean dish towel to protect our fingers from the heat. And we're going to roll the waffle cone around the mold, pinching the bottom, and then you hold it to set it, and then side the cone free of the mold, set aside to cool. Or, we're going to make waffle cone bowls. So, this is my question. If I want a waffle cone bowl, am I just grabbing a bowl and placing it inside of that?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah, you're basically tucking this pancake waffle into a bowl, and the bowl itself is becoming the mold. So, you're just tucking it in and letting it come evenly around the size, of whatever size bowl you want, and then letting it cool it directly in that bowl.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, it's the same thing, let it cool about 10 seconds or so, and then take it out to cool completely?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love. You can make tiny ones and little ramekins.
Pooja Bavishi:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
They'd be so cute. I love a drumstick. Okay, now we're going to make magic shell. So first, I don't think we have ever discussed magic shell on the podcast, so please us what magic shell is.
Pooja Bavishi:
So magic shell, I'm sure a lot of people had this as a kid, but it's basically the sauce that you pour over ice cream. As soon as it hits the ice cream, it hardens, and it becomes the shell for the ice cream. And it's really satisfying when you bite into it, it's crunchy. But what's really cool is that you can make it at home with two ingredients that you likely already have. Any kind of flavored chips, chocolate chips, but butterscotch chips, peanut butter chips, anything, and coconut oil, and you just melt the two together.
Jessie Sheehan:
What's so great about magic shell is that it's coconut oil and it's chocolate, and both behave similarly when they're heated up or when they're at room temp.
Pooja Bavishi:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
And so, it's the perfect magic shell combo.
Pooja Bavishi:
And frozen, clearly, because as soon as it hits something frozen, they both immediately harden.
Jessie Sheehan:
Totally, totally. So here, what I love is we're going to use some ground cardamom in our magic shell, but you make all these great suggestions, like fennel and butterscotch, rosewater and white chocolate. So, I loved that.
Pooja Bavishi:
They're so good.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, in a makeshift double boiler, is what I said. If you have a double boiler, great. But basically, Pooja wants you to have a pan of a little bit of simmering water on the bottom, and then a bowl that fits nicely on top of it.
Pooja Bavishi:
Correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to combine some coconut oil and some chocolate chips?
Pooja Bavishi:
With coconut oil, there's refined and unrefined. And with refined, you won't taste the coconuttiness of the coconut oil, and with unrefined you will. That's just a preference of what you would like.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you guys ever chop up chocolate, or you just tend to use chips?
Pooja Bavishi:
At Malai, we chop up chocolate.
Jessie Sheehan:
But for here you're saying chocolate chips?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And percentage, semi-sweet, dark?
Pooja Bavishi:
I think semi-sweet's always the easiest and most accessible.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, we're going to combine coconut oil, some semi-sweet chocolate chips in a bowl that's going to be over this pot of simmering water. So, it's either glass or metal. Do you have a preference?
Pooja Bavishi:
I usually do glass.
Jessie Sheehan:
Glass?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love glass bowls. And we're going to place over, but not touching simmering water. So, maybe we have it at medium heat?
Pooja Bavishi:
You just want to watch this. You don't want the water to evaporate. So, yeah, low, medium.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to stir occasionally, maybe with a spatula?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Just until the chocolate and oil have melted and the mixture is smooth. And we can also do this in the microwave, 30-second bursts on high, stirring after each, and then we're going to remove the heat, stir in the cardamom. Set the sauce aside for 10 minutes because you want it to cool slightly.
Pooja Bavishi:
You don't want it to be piping hot when you dip the ice cream into it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great. Still warm, but obviously still liquid?
Pooja Bavishi:
Melted. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
If you leave magic shell on the counter and you never put it on something cold, because it's chocolate-
Pooja Bavishi:
It will harden.
Jessie Sheehan:
It will harden.
Pooja Bavishi:
And if it does, you just need to pop it back in the microwave or on a double boiler.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. We've come to the moment where we assemble our drumsticks.
Pooja Bavishi:
We're finally here.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, we're going to play six short glasses in a 9-by-13-inch pan. Is this just so it's easier to transfer them to the freezer?
Pooja Bavishi:
Well, and to stabilize the cone. I just want to take one big tray in and out.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Smart. Smart. So, all these glasses, which will stabilize our cones, go into this 9-by-13-inch pan. Then we're going to place a jaggery cone in each, or bowl. Oh, so if we're doing bowls-
Pooja Bavishi:
So you can just put plates on for the shape.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect. We can just put the bowls right into the 9-by-13?
Pooja Bavishi:
Honestly, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
But let's pretend we had a waffle cone maker. So, we're going to place a jaggery cone in each glass, and we want to make sure that the top edge of the cone is two inches taller than the rim of the glass. And we're going to pour one tablespoon of our magic shell into the bottom of each cone. Why do we put it in the bottom of each cone? To mimic a drumstick?
Pooja Bavishi:
To mimic a drumstick?
Jessie Sheehan:
Love it.
Pooja Bavishi:
It's going to provide some insurance that the ice cream won't melt through.
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, it won't come out the bottom?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then using a spoon, this is to pack our ice cream inside our cones, like an ice cream scoop or just a regular kitchen spoon?
Pooja Bavishi:
I just use a kitchen spoon. I just find it's so disappointing when you have a cone of ice cream, and then you bite into the cone, and there's no ice cream in the cone.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. And you want to push it all the way to the bottom.
Pooja Bavishi:
You want to push it all the way down.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, do you want the ice cream to be a teeny bit less than frozen solid?
Pooja Bavishi:
Usually, the kitchen freezers are at a temperature where you can scoop right out of the freezer.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect.
Pooja Bavishi:
You actually don't want it to be too warm.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right, because you don't want it to be too messy. So, we're using a spoon, we're packing the ice cream inside the cones, making sure the ice cream touches the sauce on the bottom of the cone. And that's because we want to have every bite be an ice cream bite?
Pooja Bavishi:
Well, and also as soon as the ice cream touches that sauce, it's going to start hardening.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then it won't leak out the bottom?
Pooja Bavishi:
Correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
But after we pack it in, we'll form a dome scoop on top using an ice cream scoop?
Pooja Bavishi:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then we're going to place the filled cones in those, well, they're already in the glasses, in the freezer for 15 minutes. Then we're going to pour the remaining magic shell into a small, deep bowl or a glass wide enough to accommodate the cone that's now filled with ice cream. And then we're going to pour our peanut chikki into a shallow bowl. We'll remove the cones from the freezer, and we'll turn the cone upside down and dip it into the magic shell. So, this is my question, to cover the domed ice cream scoop on top, but are we also trying to cover the first part of the top of the cone or just the ice cream?
Pooja Bavishi:
This does not matter to me. We experimented in a variety of ways. It won't affect the recipe at all. You don't need the chocolate to seal it, but it's just about how much chocolate you want.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. So, you could go deep on that magic shell-
Pooja Bavishi:
You can just go all the way down if you want to.
Jessie Sheehan:
And get it on the beginning, on the top of the cone-
Pooja Bavishi:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Or it can... On the cone part.
Pooja Bavishi:
Just be at the top, like a hat.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love it. Love it. Okay, so we turned our cones upside down into our magic shell, and then immediately, before the shell hardens, we're going to roll that top of the cone that's covered in magic shell into our peanut chikki, coating the shell, and then set the cone back into the glass and repeat. Then we're going to send every single cone into the freezer for 30 minutes, and then it's going to be an incredible party.
Pooja Bavishi:
It's going to be so good.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my gosh, yum. Thank you so much for chatting with me today, Pooja-
Pooja Bavishi:
Thank you. This was so fun.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Pooja Bavishi:
Thanks, Jessie.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's 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. You can find today's recipe 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. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie, and happy baking.