Valerie Gordon Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and author of four baking books, including “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes.” On each episode, I hang out with the sweetest bakers around and take a deep dive into their signature bakes.
Today's guest is Valerie Gordon. Valerie is the pastry chef and owner of Valerie Confections in Los Angeles, and the author of the 2013 cookbook, “Sweet.” She got her start in the industry working at the Hollywood hotspot Les Deux Café, and stayed there until it closed in 2004. That same year she launched her luxury chocolate brand. Today all sorts of chocolates, caramels, petits fours, and even cake and pies are on offer. Valerie and her team operate a boutique in Glendale and a cafe and Echo Park, as well as a robust online business.
Valerie joins me to talk about her baking journey and her incredible career, including the fact that by third grade she'd already developed a serious "baking habit." Then she walks me through her recipe for rose petal petits fours. They are the most impossibly charming, perfect little layer cakes, and I loved learning what goes into each component and how to assemble them. Chatting with Valerie was such a treat, so stay tuned for our convo. Listeners, please know that Valerie and I chatted before the devastating wildfires happened in L.A. Thankfully, Valerie and her team are safe, and they've been doing various fundraising efforts for their city. I'm sending my love to everyone affected by these fires.
Cherry Bombe's next issue is all about love, and I think you're going to love the cover. It features Ilona, Olivia, and Adrianna Maher, the sister trio that has won everyone's hearts for their positive message of confidence and self-love. The issue is full of joyful stories and recipes. To snag a copy, head to cherrybombe.com, or click the link in our show notes, or visit your favorite bookstore or culinary shop to pick up an issue.
Let's chat with today's guest. Valerie, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk petits four with you and so much more. I love starting conversations with guests about early baking memories, and you have a plethora of amazing ones. Can you tell us about Gung Gung and Paw Paw and the lesson that Gung Gung taught you when you were six, which arguably impacted your illustrious professional path?
Valerie Gordon:
It truly is my philosophical North Star. What I was taught was, "Never go empty-handed." Because we were going to visit his lawyer. This is my Chinese grandfather who didn't speak English, and my mother was the translator, which was often the relationship that happened. And for whatever reason I was home from school and they were bringing a box of See's chocolates.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell people who don't know about See's, because that's pretty special.
Valerie Gordon:
See's is my other North Star. It is the most, I think, and I don't mean to downgrade my work. I think it's the most important chocolate company in California, and if you were raised in California, you know See's chocolates, it is in a white box with black graphics. The Nuts & Chews are arguably the most celebrated collection of chocolate, and you walk into a See's and you get a sample. And there's nothing better than walking into a chocolate shop and getting a sample. See's was my favorite growing up, our family always had it. We were going off to Gung Gung's lawyer and he had a box of See's chocolate, and there my life's philosophy was gifted to me, which was, "Never go empty-handed."
Jessie Sheehan:
He said that to you when you asked him, "Why are we giving the lawyer See's?"
Valerie Gordon:
He said it in Chinese and my mother translated. I said, "Why are we bringing chocolates?" I was so jealous. I was like, "I want the chocolate." Right?
Jessie Sheehan:
So, you were not a kid with an Easy-Bake Oven. Instead, you were using grown-up equipment from the start, and by third grade you developed a serious baking habit. So, please unpack all of this. This is so exciting. What kinds of things were you baking, and where were you seeking inspiration?
Valerie Gordon:
I was baking things in our family kitchen. I was raised in the '70s. I'm 53 years old now, so this will shock people who are young parents in today's society. I was left home alone at age seven. I would take the bus home and I had a key, but I was scared. I was scared being home alone, I really didn't like it very much, which is probably why we don't leave seven-year-olds home alone anymore. But anyways, back to baking. I loved food and I loved going into bakeries, and I would always get that really visceral thrill from walking into a bakery where you would get that almost tangling, heartfelt sense of anticipation. And I always felt that around sweets and particularly in a bakery. And I found when I baked at home I got that same feeling. I couldn't wait for something to get out of the oven. You know what I mean?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Valerie Gordon:
It just like every moment was Christmas, and I realized as I was home alone that I had already learned how to make chocolate chip cookies, that was my first kind of cookie. That I could just bake something, and by the time my baking project was done, other people were coming home, and then I could relax and feel joy. Then I got really addicted to it, because I started bringing cookies to school and I saw the reaction from people who received cookies that I passed to them from my desk.
Jessie Sheehan:
Were you also cooking dinner for the family? I feel like there was maybe baking and cooking going on?
Valerie Gordon:
I always cooked, yes, I always cooked, and I've always been sort of fearless around cooking. And I think in part it's because of how I was raised. I was very much raised of, if there's something you want to know, figure it out. And I did, and I read from a very young age, and my mom always had a few cookbooks, and I would just sit there and pour over the joy of cooking. And I would pour over whatever cookbook was there. I always made my own lunch from the time I was in kindergarten, and then I started doing family meals also. I learned how to make sushi when I was 12 years old, because I said to my mom, "Sushi's my favorite food." And she said, "Well, you better learn how to make it, because I'm not buying you sushi every day." And so I did. I got a sushi book, took, what was it? The 43 bus over to the Japanese market, got the ingredients I wanted, went back home and learned how to make it all. That's just how my whole culinary education has gone.
Jessie Sheehan:
There were two bakeries that played a big role in your childhood. Tell us about Fantasia, where I think it's fair to say you might have been introduced to petits fours.
Valerie Gordon:
Absolutely.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then also tell us about Tassajara, which also impacted baking and making that you do today.
Valerie Gordon:
Huge. So Fantasia was this amazing bakery that was in Laurel Village, which is sort of on the edge of Pacific Heights in San Francisco. And the lead baker there was the baker from Blum's Bakery. So, he then left Blum's Bakery, Ernest Weil was his name, and he opened Fantasia. At Fantasia they had the most magnificent cakes, they had bags of cookies, they had all forms of confections, and they had petits fours, which I really was just so seduced and enraptured by these little one inch bites of beautifully covered cake. And I loved the decor on them and I would just stare at them. And for whatever reason they were something that my parents felt were too frivolous to purchase. There was some reason they were never purchased, and I just found them to be just like the most beautiful things in the world. And so, I always wanted to taste a petits four and I would just look at them every time we went there and we would, for whatever reason, we would only get cookies or pastries or whatever and never the petits fours.
And then the Swiss Colony Catalog came out and Gen Xers who listened to this will know the Swiss Colony Catalog. Starting in October these commercials would air about the Swiss Colony Catalog and they were somewhat animated and there was this very charming mouse that looks sort of like a fire ball from that cartoon. And there were petits fours in the catalog. And one would come in the mail, and again, I would just go, "One day I'm getting petits fours." And they were, again, these perfect little covered cakes that were in the catalog, and it was just embedded in my head. And it was something that I always looked at as the penultimate of decadence, of enjoyment. It's a chocolate, but more, because it has cake. Once I got older and I had my own money I bought petits fours, and I was always sort of conflicted with them. Because I never found them as delicious as I wanted them to be. And so, that became a big goal of mine.
Jessie Sheehan:
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everybody. It's Kerry Diamond, founder of Cherry Bombe and host of Radio Cherry Bombe. Have you dreamed of visiting Las Vegas? Join me and Team Cherry Bombe on Friday, March 7th and Saturday, March 8th for a special series of events in Vegas. We're hosting a fun party in the Arts District at the acclaimed Velveteen Rabbit Bar. Think terrific cocktails and mocktails, tarot card readings, I will be first in line for that, and the city's best food trucks. Then Saturday at the Wynn, we have a special networking breakfast and panel conversations with some of the women shaking up the culinary scene. Then Saturday night, there's dinner at the brand new Gjelina at The Venetian. Tickets are on sale at cherrybombe.com right now. You can buy tickets to the individual events or a weekend pass. We'd love to see you there.
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Now, back to our guest. Tell us about Tassajara?
Valerie Gordon:
Tassajara was the opposite of Fantasia, so Fantasia was in this pretty fancy neighborhood. Some fancy folks would go there, and Tassajara was in the Haight-Ashbury District. And it was two blocks away from my grammar school. And The Tassajara bread book is an iconic baking book, and they were, I think a little culty at a certain point. But then they baked, and so they were fabulous. And San Francisco in the 1970s really embraced all sorts of left-leaning boho style lifestyles. And so, the Tassajara Bakery was two blocks from my grammar school, and they had, I want to say their dessert style was fairly similar to a Chez Panisse dessert style in that era. And they had a wonderful almond chocolate flourless cake with a chocolate glaze. But they had large rustic pastries, the bear claw, the palmier, their croissants. I can taste these things today, I can taste them. And it really showed me a different look, a different feel, a different approach to the world of pastry and dessert. And so between these two establishments, I was really getting a nice breath.
Jessie Sheehan:
Also, you had me at the word large, because I love it when I go to a bakery.
Valerie Gordon:
Oh my God, that palmier was literally like two of my eight-year-old hands. You know what I mean? Just incredible.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now, despite all this you did not pursue going to culinary school or professional work in a kitchen for college or around those years or beyond, and instead you wanted to be an actor. Was the acting bug, and interestingly enough, so was I. I think there's a weird acting backing phenomenon going on, but anyway. Was the acting bug just stronger in you at that point in time, or was it that there was no, you couldn't even imagine that you could make petits fours as a job?
Valerie Gordon:
From the time I was very young everyone would say, "You need to open a bakery. You need to open a bakery. Valerie, you need to do this for a job." And I would always sort of bristle at the idea, because it really was my safe space. It was the thing I did for absolute joy, and I just always had a fear that if it was my job it would take away the joy. And acting, I've always had a fairly large personality, and I'm not super shy. In grammar school I was also the kid who gave speeches at the winter fair and things like that. And I would write my speeches and I was really into being sort of a public-facing person. And what seemed natural was to get into acting. Because I liked being on stage, I liked speaking in front of people. I'd never felt fear around that. I felt very empowered in that medium.
Jessie Sheehan:
You've said that your culinary school, as it were, was actually the years you spent working in restaurants supporting your acting career, I assume. Tell us a little bit about that? One of your jobs was in the nineties at Les Deux Café. Tell us about what you were learning because you weren't actually in the kitchen.
Valerie Gordon:
No, so I would say the most influential culinary experience ... Well, there was two actually. There was two great restaurants that I worked at in San Francisco. One was called Cava 555, and I was in college at the time, and I walked in the door and it was this lovely little supper club in the south of market. And I want to say I worked there in '93 and '94. This is how the economy was then, they served tete-à-couvées by the glass, hi, that doesn't happen anymore. Can you imagine? I mean, and table-side caviar and all of it. And I knew nothing. I knew nothing about wine and fine food and spirits. And that's what I mean by knowing nothing. And this was a huge thing in this teeny restaurant where I think the check average in 1993 was probably like $125. It was a lot. There was a sommelier there who quickly saw what was going on and just said, "All right, well Valerie, you're here. Let's go through this menu."
And explained an aperitif and a digestif to me and talked through all different varietals of wine and was such a great education. And the chef there was the same way where at line-up and I would just ask a lot of questions, because no matter what I do, and I'm sure you're the same way, I want to know as much as I can about it. I don't want to be a dilettante in anything. I take things seriously and I want to do the best that I can possibly do at everything. And it just really started opening up everything around food. And this is when a lot of chefs in San Francisco were really starting to get everything from the farmer's market. And the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market was really becoming a thing. I left Cava and went to LULUs, which was a very hot restaurant at the time, and I was there for three years and started as a lunch server.
And by the time I left I was the maitre d. I really learned all the ins and outs of running a restaurant there and all the customer engagement, all the service points, and I learned so much about food. I do look at that time as really establishing my approach to food, which is very much I like things done very simply. I like to see the origin of, if you're doing a chocolate chip cookie, I want to see those chocolate chips. There's so many forms of very esoteric ways of expressing a chocolate chip cookie. I like the tried and true done perfectly. That's how I approach everything. And that really was how the food at LULUs was. Great pork loin on polenta, hot mussels on a skillet with drawn butter. So, I really got into the food part of the restaurant there, but I also saw very clearly the huge pay difference between front of house and back of house there.
And people would always say, "Valerie, you bake all the time." And I would bring treats for people all the time. "Why aren't you in the pastry department?" I'd be like, "No way." I knew that I made more than double what the people in the pastry department made, which was a problem. I knew it. And from there I moved to Los Angeles and immediately was the manager for Les Deux, which again was just this amazing place that couldn't exist today. This is a pre-social media kind of establishment where we had private events for Madonna, Lenny Kravitz, Joni Mitchell used to get up on stage impromptu and perform in the Cabaret bar. It was an exceptional place run by an exceptional human who is Michelle Lamy who is now, my God, she's such a fashion icon. It's wild. These back-to-back experiences, and I really dug in at both places too. I was at Les Deux for five years and I was with the LULU world for three years. It really gave me foundational education to create something unique and exciting and to create something of quality.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you describe your dessert style? I know you've said that you're a self-taught home baker and you don't consider yourself a chef. Tell us about that hybrid dessert style or perspective on sweets, which I think evolved from window shopping or bakery case gazing at Fantasia and Tassajara?
Valerie Gordon:
Our first tagline for Valerie Confections was for gifts and personal indulgence. I think that that still stands true. I think you can gift yourself or gift someone else. I do believe that an excellent dessert, or for that matter, an excellent bite of any food can really change the course of your day. I'm highly idealistic around food and particularly dessert. Because dessert is a treat, right? Is it necessary for a livelihood as far as nutrition goes? No, it's not. And so when you get a lovely box of chocolate, it needs to be beautiful and perfect and delicious, and the visual and the taste have to be in alignment in order for that glorious sense memory to be embedded.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now I want to talk about petits fours. Can you first just describe them for people in case people are a little unsure of what a petits four is?
Valerie Gordon:
Sure. The name is French, and what it references is little oven. Because in the olden olden days when these huge brick ovens were being used, there would be residual heat at the end of the bake and little treats were made in there, and that's where the term petits four comes from. And petits fours might mean a bunch of little bites of things, whereas in America how that has translated are little layer cakes that are coated, and they're generally coated in a fondant or a marzipan or a variety of different coatings. And they're fairly shelf stable. They frequently have a Genoise cake, a little layer of jam, again, more marzipan, and they tend to be very small. They're intended to be one to two bites and that's it.
Jessie Sheehan:
So interesting. Okay, in about 2006 you sort of began an eight month petits four testing journey. You wanted to put your signature on what you had eaten when you were little at Fantasia, those tiny cakes that you were not permitted to purchase. At the time that you wrote your book “Sweet,” these were the most popular items at Valerie Confections. Is that still true today?
Valerie Gordon:
Today it's probably all pretty even between our chocolates, our chocolate bars, our petits fours, I think it's all pretty even. Something happened in 2011 that really jettisoned the petits fours in a crazy way. It was mid-2006 when I started the petits four journey, and it took almost a year. And I was also pregnant with our first child at the time. And I always say in 2007 I birthed August and petits fours. Because it was the longest development process I've ever done.
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, they're truly incredible. I was lucky enough to eat one Valerie brought me. First things first, we're going to make the vanilla bean cake. So, we're going to a rack in the center of the oven. We're going to heat it to 350 degrees. We're going to grease the bottoms and sides of three 9 X 13 inch pans. I assume that's probably restaurant supply at work, but is there a brand of pan that you are particularly fond of?
Valerie Gordon:
Sheet pans we just use basic restaurant supply. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, we're going to grease the bottom and sides of these three pans with non-stick baking spray or butter. Do you have a preference in the bakery spray or butter?
Valerie Gordon:
We use spray and parchment. Yeah, we double it up.
Jessie Sheehan:
I was getting to the parchment part. Yeah, because of my bakery training, I did air quotes peeps, I use spray too. And you're going to line the bottoms with the parchment, but you don't make a sling. You're not trying to be where you can have the parchment sort of come up the two long sides of the pan and then you can lift out the cake. You guys are just covering the bottom.
Valerie Gordon:
We actually do now, because we use different pans that are exactly 12 by 12 that fit a guitar. So it's all changed a little bit.
Jessie Sheehan:
I understand.
Valerie Gordon:
So now we have a sling that we use at that time 10 years ago. And this was also for a home baker, the way I changed this. But no, we didn't because it lifts out very easily.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. Great. So we're going to sift some all-purpose flour, some baking powder, some salt. And I had a couple of questions. First of all, is it kosher salt? Is it regular salt?
Valerie Gordon:
Kosher salt, important.
Jessie Sheehan:
Kosher salt. And I wondered about the sifting, because often people think, "Oh, unless it's cake flour, we don't need to sift." How come you like to sift for this?
Valerie Gordon:
It distributes the ingredients better.
Jessie Sheehan:
And now we're going to sift the flour, the baking powder of the salt into a medium bowl. I assume at work you're probably using metal. Do you ever use glass? What's your bowl?
Valerie Gordon:
All metal.
Jessie Sheehan:
All metal.
Valerie Gordon:
Stacks and stacks of stainless steel bowls. Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll set aside our dry ingredients and then in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, or you can use a large bowl and a handheld mixer. We're going to cream softened unsalted butter and some corn syrup and sugar. I loved reading about why you're using corn syrup. I thought it was so interesting. So, can you tell us why you like to put a little bit of corn syrup in this cake?
Valerie Gordon:
It keeps it moist. And to me, moist cake is very important. I think I'm always on a journey to figure out how do we keep cake moist for as long as possible? What adjustments to ingredients can we do for that? Because again, it's a treat, and there's something really sad about taking a bite of dry cake.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think it's also really interesting, because I will often make cakes with oil, because they tend to be moist and they last longer on the counter. But this is sort of a nice, almost like a hack, like you can use the butter, but if you add a little bit of corn syrup, you almost get that shelf life and that moistness from the corn syrup that you usually would get with the oil. I love that.
Valerie Gordon:
Additionally, the petits four cake is extremely thin. It's extremely thin. And so adding that little bit of corn syrup gives you sort of a crutch, if you will, in case you leave it in a minute or two too long.
Jessie Sheehan:
And the sugar that we're mixing together right now, is that granulated?
Valerie Gordon:
It is.
Jessie Sheehan:
So then on medium speed, we're going to mix together the butter, the corn syrup, and the sugar until light and fluffy, about four minutes. Then we're going to whisk together some eggs, some crème fraîche. I know we can substitute sour cream if we want, but what about crème fraîche? What does that, what's that contributing to this cake?
Valerie Gordon:
Crème fraîche has more fat than sour cream, and fat is very important to a delicious cake.
Jessie Sheehan:
Fat equals flavor. So we're going to whisk together the eggs, the crème fraîche, some vanilla paste as well as vanilla. Two questions. What brand is your favorite of vanilla paste and vanilla? And also, why are we using both?
Valerie Gordon:
Tahitian Gold is my favorite brand of vanilla paste and vanilla extract. So there's a couple of reasons why we use both. I am such a fan of vanilla paste, and I use it over and over and over in many recipes, because I love a true vanilla flavor. And I love seeing those little specks of vanilla bean in something that is vanilla flavored, and it really tastes like the interior of a vanilla bean pod. It really does. And I just love it and I love how it just sort of floats in that little sugar base. It's so great. Then you've got vanilla extract. So, there's two things happening here. What is a cost issue? Because vanilla paste is extremely expensive. All vanilla is crazy expensive, but vanilla paste is particularly expensive, and vanilla extract also has a lot of alcohol in it. The vanilla paste doesn't really, it's more of a sugar syrup that it's floating in.
And so, I found by using both, again, that alcohol keeps the cake nice and moist. This cake batter is quite dense, and so adding the liquid of the vanilla extract into this cake makes it a little more spreadable. And then that evaporates while it's baking. And vanilla paste, it was a cost thing and also a texture thing.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to whisk together the eggs, the crème fraîche, the vanilla, the vanilla paste together. And then we're going to add that mixture into the creamed butter mixture. I thought this was interesting. Why are we mixing our eggs with our liquid ingredient or our crème fraîche rather than often in a cake recipe you'll beat the sugar and the butter together, and then the next step is to add the eggs. How come you're adding the eggs with the crème fraîche and adding that all together?
Valerie Gordon:
I don't know. I've never really thought about that honestly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you ever make cakes where you add the eggs separately?
Valerie Gordon:
Totally. Yeah. Totally, frequently? Yeah, I just found it, because then you've really got your wet and your dry, and because again, this is a dense cake, so going back and forth in it is sort of easier. And you get that full emulsion. That's really nice.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl and the paddle mix for 30 seconds. And then on low speed we're going to add our dry ingredients in three batches mixing for 30 seconds after each addition. And I also thought this was interesting, because often you'll see, you'll add those eggs along with your sugar and your butter, then you'll have your dry and whatever your liquid is, and you'll do each one one at a time. I kind of loved this. We don't-
Valerie Gordon:
Go, go, go. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. And then we'll scrape the bowl again and mix for 15 seconds. And now we're going to spread the batter evenly between the three prepared cake pans. And as you've said, it's going to be very thin, because essentially this is like a cake batter for a single nine-inch cake, and we're putting it between three larger pans. Love that. We'll bake for seven minutes. We'll rotate our cakes, bake for an additional three to four until the cake appears firm, has a matte finish, toothpick comes out clean. So, we don't want moist crumbs here. Sometimes I always think if I don't want a dry cake, because I am like you, there is nothing worse than dry cake. I always want to see a moist crumb, because I'm worried otherwise I've overbaked. But here probably because it's so thin.
Valerie Gordon:
It's so thin. And one other thing that's very important for listeners who choose to go down the path of the petits four, it's really, really important to not have any butter chunks in your batter. And that's why the instruction is to scrape, beat, scrape, beat over and over and over. Because if you have any butter chunks that result in a butter blast in the batter where you actually, it can create holes in the cake if you see little chunks of butter. So you really have to make sure that that batter is completely smooth.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to let the cakes cool completely in the pans on a cooling rack for 30 minutes, and then we're going to put them in the fridge for 30 minutes, because cold cake is essential for building petits fours. Question, why aren't we releasing them from the pans and letting them cool that way? Why do you keep them in the pans?
Valerie Gordon:
So this was something that came about. We do move them in our kitchen with my recipe tester. She had a lot of fear about moving that extremely thin, hot cake. And I was like, "Right, of course." So it's really, it's about giving people confidence and knowing that that cake is set, because that is sad to do it. And then, oh my god, it tears. And then you've got to start over and then you don't have enough butter and then you just pour a glass of wine and call it. So, that's why, it's to make sure that the cake is really set up, and it's easier to move.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to make the passion fruit ganache. We're going to sprinkle some powdered gelatin. Is there a brand of gelatin?
Valerie Gordon:
Knox, Knox.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to sprinkle powdered gelatin over cold water in a small bowl. Let it set for 10 minutes until the gelatin softens. Why are we adding gelatin to our ganache?
Valerie Gordon:
Okay, we are adding gelatin to the ganache so that it's firmer. Because as we move along this and we get to the coating, we really need to make sure that that ganache is super stable. And that it's not pulling as you cut your layers, that it really is straight up and down and holds firm.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to put some, it could be white chocolate chips, it could be Feve, it could be a bar. We're going to put our white chocolate into a medium bowl and then we're going to heat some creme fraiche. And I loved this, but I wanted to ask about it. Why are we putting crème fraîche as well as heavy cream in our ganache?
Valerie Gordon:
Again, it's the fat.
Jessie Sheehan:
The fat.
Valerie Gordon:
It's the flavor and the fat.
Jessie Sheehan:
Fat for glory. So we're going to heat our crème fraîche and we can sub sour cream if we need to. Some heavy cream, some passion fruit puree and light corn syrup. Here in the ganache it's for silkiness and pliability. And we're going to bring that all just until it boils in a small saucepan. We'll remove from the heat, we'll stir in our gelatin until completely dissolved. And then we're going to pour over the chocolate and let it sit for about one minute, we'll use a small rubber spatula. Is there a brand or is it just sort of a?
Valerie Gordon:
I love heatproof silicone tools. I love them so much. GIR is a company that I really like, G-I-R.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Valerie Gordon:
I love their whisks. I love their spatulas. I love their long skinny spatulas, I know. Jessie's mouth is open-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my gosh.
Valerie Gordon:
... with glee right now. It's an ecstatic tool. Oh, my God.
Jessie Sheehan:
All the mini one. Their mini whisk, their mini spatula, heaven.
Valerie Gordon:
Thrilling. I know.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're using our small rubber spatula that we adore and we're going to begin stirring our ganache in one direction, concentrating on the center, until smooth and glistening. So first of all, why one direction? And second of all, why are we concentrating on the center?
Valerie Gordon:
Because essentially the way any chocolate functions, I always equate it to how a magnet works. You take a magnet and then things are attracted to it, and it starts off with one or two little pieces of metal, and then it just goes and everything else gets attracted to the magnet. That's how chocolate is. When you're dealing with creating a ganache and dealing with that emulsification, if you get the scent, it's really almost like a little tornado that you're creating inside of your bowl with your spatula. And you want to stir really, really quickly until it glistens like a pudding or a frosting, and then everything else will start to come together. I find if you just say stir, if you watch someone who is a novice in the kitchen or a new home baker or something, they'll just stir in a random way and not in an ordered fashion. And so they're not going to get the same distribution of ingredients.
And particularly when you're making a ganache, you want to do that focus in the center so everything else responds in that magnet-like way so it all comes together. Because we're dealing with heat, ganache if you don't move quickly, it won't come together. You are pushing that chocolate, that cream, that butter to create one wonderful, smooth, textured medium. And so, that's what that does. But I always think of a magnet. So, you want one nail to attach and then the rest of the nails are going to come to the magnet.
Jessie Sheehan:
I totally, that makes perfect sense about starting in the center. And then that one direction is more like a tip for the home baker. Like we're not talking about a willy-nilly stirring situation. You don't go to the left and then change your mind.
Valerie Gordon:
If you take an immersion blender. We're creating a manual immersion blender by doing that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to add softened unsalted butter, and we're going to stir that in until it's completely melted about one minute. And now we're going to add crushed dried rose petals and we're going to stir until those are evenly distributed. And I had a couple of questions about that. Do the petals, and I think I now know the answer, because I've tasted it, but are the petals aren't adding anything textural? It's not a crunch, it's a flavor.
Valerie Gordon:
It's a flavor, and it's also optics. Because like the vanilla bean where I want to see those little dots of vanilla, with rose, when you bite into the petits four and you see those little specks of dried rose petals, you see these are natural ingredients that there's real heart to that, I think, where you connect the origin ingredient.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And where do you buy them and is there a brand?
Valerie Gordon:
They're all over. Okay. I mean, any baking supply store has dried rose petals. A lot of tea companies and spice companies also have dried rose petals. Any Persian store is going to have rose petals also.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to place the ganache in the coolest part of our kitchen. We'll let it set, stirring it occasionally until spreadable about an hour before we're going to be able to use it. Now we're going to assemble our petits four. We'll take our cakes out of the refrigerator. We're going to run a knife around the sides of the cake pans, and we're going to invert the cold cakes onto cooling racks. Then we're going to take one of the pans that we just used. We'll wash that, dry that, and then paper it. But we're not greasing it, we're just papering the bottom. We're going to lay one cake layer topside down into that pan we just prepped. Now, I'm assuming topside down, because the bottom is flatter and we want that flat surface.
Valerie Gordon:
Mm-hmm.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to peel off our parchment using an offset spatula. We're going to spread about one cup of the ganache evenly over the surface. So, is there a brand of offset that you like, and are we using a small one at this point?
Valerie Gordon:
I love a small tool the same way. I love a small bite, so I generally use ... As other people like a medium-sized spat. And some people will do just getting it sort of to all four corners of the baking sheet. And then you finesse it with a small one. I think Wilton has really good offset spatulas, but to all the bakers out there, you need all those offsets.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then we're going to top with a second layer of cake topside down, peel off the parchment spread with the remaining ganache. Then we're going to top with the third cake layer topside down. We're not removing the parchment from this one. And we are going to grab a heavy rolling pin and we are going to roll over that top cake. What type of rolling pin do you like?
Valerie Gordon:
I'm a handle person.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, nice.
Valerie Gordon:
Yeah, I'm a handle person. And we have all different weights in our kitchen, for sure, for different-sized projects.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then a question, should we picture those three layers with two layers of ganache inside? They're in our nine by 13 inch pan is the top layer kind of above the pan.
Valerie Gordon:
It's peaky toe at that point.
Jessie Sheehan:
And that's why we're doing the rolling pin because we want it flat with the surface of the pan.
Valerie Gordon:
And you also just want it even.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Valerie Gordon:
You want it even.
Jessie Sheehan:
I was worried that we had to have a tiny rolling pin inside the pan, but basically we're bringing the cake down to the top.
Valerie Gordon:
What you're doing is evening out the ganache layers. What you're also doing is removing any air pockets that might exist. That's really the main thing. Because you want those layers to really adhere pretty much. And you'll notice in a lot of French pastry, there's a lot of simple syrup use and there's none here. You're just going ganache cake, ganache cake, ganache cake, right? And so, even if you are a very, very well-trained person with that offset spatula and your layers are super straight, there's still going to be a little bit of imperfection. So that pressure on the top weights the entire thing, so it evens out. And then you get nice even layers of ganache between the layers of cake.
Jessie Sheehan:
So now we're going to wrap the pan and plastic wrap, and we're going to freeze it for about three hours until it's frozen solid. I feel this so much in so many different kinds of recipes. Usually more complicated ones, but it's so important to take advantage of your refrigerator and your freezer at different stages. These are not things we skip. I'm very impatient, so I understand the desire to skip, but I also understand really learning about this recipe from you how much easier it will be for you when it comes time to slice and dip if this is very cold. Now we're going to coat the petits fours. We're going to line a baking sheet with parchment paper. We're going to unwrap our baking pan. We're going to invert the cake onto a cutting board. So when we're inverting, are we going to pop it out and then pop it back up? You know how you can invert a cake so then the bottom of it is the top, or you can then move it again so the top is the top?
Valerie Gordon:
It doesn't matter that much with this.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great.
Valerie Gordon:
Yeah, great. It's pretty even.
Jessie Sheehan:
So our cake is on our cutting board. We're using a ruler to score the top of the cake, and we want 35 squares or 24 squares out of a-
Valerie Gordon:
Probably a 35.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, it might not be a relevant question. Because I know you guys are using a much larger pan, but let's say a home baker was doing it in a 9 X 13 pan, I'm thinking 35.
Valerie Gordon:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Using a ruler. Is there a type? Is there a brand? Is it like a kitchen ruler?
Valerie Gordon:
It's a culinary ruler. Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And what are those? I feel, I don't know.
Valerie Gordon:
They're metal.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Valerie Gordon:
They're always metal. They go down to the millimeter.
Jessie Sheehan:
I remember I use at home. I don't even know how I have these with these tiny little measuring tapes. So we're going to score the cake into about 35 inch squares. And then we're going to use a sharp chef's knife, not a serrated knife, to follow those score marks and cut out our squares. Place our petits fours on our lined baking sheet. And I assume even though it's frozen, you can still get your knife through?
Valerie Gordon:
Yeah. And it's quickly defrosting as you're there.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. So we're going to follow our score marks to cut into squares, place our petits fours on a lined baking sheet, and we're going to refrigerate. Are we just refrigerating long enough for us to make the coating, or is this another long period of time in the fridge?
Valerie Gordon:
It's not a very long period of time, it's just to keep it cool.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Valerie Gordon:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to stir some neutral oil. So I wondered if there's a type or a brand?
Valerie Gordon:
I really like when I wrote this, I talked about grapeseed oil and canola oil, which folks really are not into canola oil anymore, right? There is this really great Algae oil that's out now that's really interesting, and it really is completely neutral. It gives off no flavor at all, and it heats up really nicely. It's good stuff.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's funny, a lot of guests have talked about grapeseed oil, but no one has mentioned algae.
Valerie Gordon:
Yeah, it's really, really good.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love that. So, we're going to stir a neutral oil into some 31% white-tempered chocolate. And it's funny, I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't realize white chocolate had percentages. Until it's fully incorporated, no streaks, and we're using the oil. I thought this was interesting, because the oil will thin the chocolate, which will make it easier to dip. Can you give us a quick tempering tutorial, like any tips or just a little bit of troubleshooting? I realize we've never talked about it really on the podcast, and I read your instructions for doing so and you made it seem easy.
Valerie Gordon:
Yeah, I never talk about science when I talk about tempering chocolate, because it freaks people out. In general, when you're tempering chocolate, you are replicating the origin state of the chocolate. So say you have a white chocolate bar, all you're doing is you're melting it and you're making it into another shape. And if you think about it like that, it makes sense. So likewise, say you have an ice cube in your freezer and you want to make a circle ice cube, what do you have to do to that? You've got to melt it and pour that melted material into a different mold to change the shape. That's really all you're doing when you temper chocolate. And we're not talking about bean to bar and all of that conching business. We're not talking about any of that. We're talking about. So say you've got one pound of chocolate, you want to melt down three-quarters of the weight of the chocolate. That's it.
You melt it down. And with white chocolate, you'll use your trusty thermometer, which also every baker needs a good digital thermometer. And you want to take that to 114 degrees. And then the 25% that you held onto, you slowly add that in and you stir, stir, stir. And that 25% will speak in modern times. That's your influencer. Everything in that bowl wants to be like the influencer. It wants to take on all the attributes of the influencer. So you break up little pieces and you stir, stir, stir until everything's molten, and you take your trusty digital thermometer. And once you've gotten that to about 90 degrees, 89, 90 degrees, you're pretty much tempered.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible. That was so easy. Brilliant.
Valerie Gordon:
So constant movement and all you're doing is reshaping it. That's all you're doing.
Jessie Sheehan:
Honey, you're a genius. So now we're going to remove the petits fours from the refrigerator. We're going to place the baking pan that the petits fours are on next to a bowl of our tempered chocolate. And we're using dipping forks. I know you say we need two. What is a dipping fork?
Valerie Gordon:
A chocolate dipping fork, they're really thin and they have long prongs. Dipping forks generally have two or three prongs and they're longer, and essentially they're so you can rest something on top of that fork, submerge it into a liquid fondant or a molten tempered chocolate and pull it out. That's what they're for. And they're very, very thin. If you were to use a normal fork, it's a little cumbersome. They're not flat. So, all dipping forks are flat, so you can slide something off of it really nicely. There's no circular shape to the tongs on the fork, which would keep it from falling off. Because we want the opposite with a fork that we use at dinner. We want food to hang onto that. With a dipping fork, ultimately, you want it to easily slide off, so it's very thin and very flat.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we do need two for this?
Valerie Gordon:
You do.
Jessie Sheehan:
So what should I picture? We have one underneath our petits four that we're putting into the-
Valerie Gordon:
Yep. Okay. I'm going to talk you through this. I'm right-handed. So I pick up one un-dipped petits four and I'm pantomiming in the studio because I've done hundreds and hundreds of thousands of these by hand. So you take one uncovered petits four and you place it on your left fork, and then you use your right fork as a support to the left fork. And you submerge the entire petits four into the chocolate. You lift it out and then you let it rest on your left fork. You take the right and you tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. What does that do? That is essentially a manual vibrating table. You'll see the chocolate start to pour down the sides and become an even coating on the sides of the petits four.
And then you continue holding that petits four. You're balancing it on the left fork. You take your right fork, you rotate it horizontally, so you can scrape the excess off the bottom. Then you transfer that petits four onto your right fork and slide it onto a parchment-covered sheet pan. And again, I am right-handed, so I'm going in that orientation. Whereas a left-handed person would work opposite.
Jessie Sheehan:
When you do your tap tap, you're tapping one fork on the other fork.
Valerie Gordon:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
You're not tapping your little cake?
Valerie Gordon:
Correct. You're tapping. And the point is to make that liquid state chocolate fall off so it's not too thick.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we'll use our two dipping forks. We'll do everything that Valerie just said. We'll dip one petits four into the chocolate, shake off the excess chocolate place back on the parchment-lined baking sheet. And I also read this, which I thought was a really great tip. You really want this coating to be smooth. So you kind of need to almost get down, bend down, and at eye level, look at the top of your petits fours to make sure that everything is smooth. Now we're going to top with candied rose petals. These are going to be uniform, organic rose petals. We're going to use either a small brush or our fingertips to brush a little egg white on each side. Then we'll sprinkle each side with sugar and let them set. That's how we would make them.
Valerie Gordon:
So, you take a rose petal and we generally trim them actually so they fit perfectly onto the petits four. And what you do is you want to make sure that you've completely coated both sides of the rose petal very thinly in egg white. And then you drop it into a bowl of sugar, and you want to make sure that again, you're completely covered. Essentially fossilizing, that rose petal, it's amazing. They last for a really long time. And you can do the same thing with mint, with basil, you can do this with any herb.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then you let them set, obviously before you place them on a petits four. But we are going to take one that's already been set and we're going to place it on top of our petits four. Okay. Now how long do we have to wait to eat them once you place that rose petal?
Valerie Gordon:
Yep. Until the chocolate is set. Firm. Five minutes.
Jessie Sheehan:
You gave me a delicious petits four today. It was not cold because I hate cold cake. Do you keep them cold until you serve them?
Valerie Gordon:
Yes. So we ship them with a coolant pack, a gel pack. We keep them refrigerated at our locations. That's a preservation thing. They last longer if they're refrigerated. I do think they're best enjoyed at room temperature, because they're a little too rigid when they're cold, cold, cold, cold. So we always say, let it sit out for a half hour, 45 minutes then eat it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Valerie. And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Valerie Gordon:
You're mine, 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. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Our producers are Kerry Diamond, Catherine Baker, and Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie, and happy baking.