Victoria Granof 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 Victoria Granof, a legendary food stylist and cookbook writer. She's the author of several cookbooks, including her latest, “Sicily, My Sweet: Love Note to an Island, with Recipes for Cakes, Cookies, Puddings, and Preserves.” I just love this subtitle. It's a serious love letter to Sicily and all the Italian desserts that Victoria adores. If you've ever drooled over a cookbook photo or an iconic ad campaign, there is a good chance Victoria was behind the scenes making it look effortlessly fabulous. She's a classically trained chef, food stylist, and creative director who's worked in restaurants and on numerous cookbooks and projects. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, and Vogue, just to name a few, and she has a fantastic Substack called Delicious Tangents. She joins me to discuss her culinary journey, her deep affection for Sicily, and the unusual item her grandmother used when rolling out pie dough and wrapping it for the refrigerator. Spoiler alert, it's a shower curtain. We also walk through her crostata recipe from “Sicily, My Sweet.” She shares how the press and pastry differs from a French galette and American pie, and we explore all the different fillings you can use from sweetened ricotta cream to chocolate custard to sun-cooked peach preserves. Yes, you cook these preserves outside in the sun, preferably on the dashboard of your car. I know you're going to love hearing from Victoria, so stay tuned for our chat. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.com.
Today's episode is presented by California Prunes. Just this morning, I made my go-to smoothie of kale, blueberries, and prunes, and I couldn't have had a better morning. It's so good. I've been snacking on California Prunes since forever, and I love knowing how good they are for your gut, your heart, and particularly for your bones. They contain dietary fiber and other nutrients to support good gut health and vitamin K, copper, and antioxidants to support healthy bones. If you're trying to find ways to swap in natural sugars into your diet, like I did in my smoothie, prunes are there for you. I have a feeling there are some bakers listening. You guys probably already know how classic prunes are in French baking. I love baking a prune clafoutis because not only do the deep purple prunes look so beautiful in the light custard batter, but the fruit plumps up and gets even juicier when baked. And when I'm not baking with them, I'm snacking. I stash a container of prunes in my pantry for a sweet treat whenever I need it, and I pack a little bag of them to take on planes, usually paired with some salty almonds. For more info and recipes that range from prune cocktails to cakes, check out the California Prunes website at californiaprunes.org. That's californiaprunes.org.
Peeps, did you hear the news? Cherry Bombe's Jubilee conference is headed to Los Angeles this fall, and tickets are now on sale. It's taking place Sunday, September 28th at Hudson Loft in downtown L.A. It'll be a full day of inspiring conversations, delicious food and drink, and incredible community. Since 2014, this one-of-a-kind gathering has celebrated the voices and talents of women across the world of food, drink, restaurants, and hospitality. Now it's L.A.'s turn, and we can't wait to give the city the love it deserves. Head to cherrybombe.com to learn more and get your tickets.
Let's chat with today's guest. Victoria. So excited to have you on. She's My Cherry Pie, and to talk Crostata with you and so much more.
Victoria Granof:
Well, I'm so happy to be had. Thank you Jessie.
Jessie Sheehan:
First, do you think you could share an early baking or sweet memory, whether it's an actual memory of making something or an early baked good, sweet eating memory?
Victoria Granof:
Well, I hope my mother's not listening. I started baking with the “Betty Crocker’s Cookbook For Boys And Girls” that I can't remember who gave it to me, but someone gave to, and there's a recipe in there for branded pancakes, and what you do is you take a little bit of the batter and you make a little backwards design with it, or letter or whatever it is. Let that cook for a few seconds, and then pour the rest of the batter over it so that when you flip it over, the part that you would put in first is darker, and whatever design you make out of that is his name. And so I made a series of silver dollar pancakes for my mother. Each one had a letter on it, and it spelled ‘mommy is a witch.’
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my God.
Victoria Granof:
And I also autographed the underside of her original Eero-Saarinen egg table with ‘mommy is a witch’ and signed and dated it even. What an artwork.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.
I wanted you to tell us about your Nonna, who I think was instrumental in your baking early on. I loved reading that she measured with the tip of her finger or a teacup and had, I love this expression, knowledgeable hands.
Victoria Granof:
So can you tell us about Nonna? It's funny. A friend of mine who's an artist without ever seeing a picture of her made a drawing for me, and it was this little Nonna drawing with a little babushka thing. And I looked at and I went, oh, I didn't describe her well enough. My Nonna wore full face makeup when she baked, she had nail polish that she took off when she was working with dough. She would remove the nail polish. She had her hair done once a week, and she never wore pants. She always wore a dress and kind of a little twin set or something. She was completely unlike anybody else's Nonna, but when she baked, she would bring out a big bowl, take off that nail polish and dig in her effort at assimilation. And that being a cultured American woman was really belied by the fact that when she got into that dough or she got into the kitchen, her roots were showing.
So I didn't bake with her when I was little. It was when I started baking, when I left home, really, I would call her up and say, “How do you make the…” and she'd say, “Well, you have to watch me do it. I don't have a recipe.” Or she would say what you just said. She'd say, well, one time, “How much olive oil do I put in?” “Three times around the bowl.” I went, “Well, what if I'm making for 10 people?” She goes, “Well, then you'll have a bigger bowl and proportionally it'll still be three times around.” I went, “That's genius.”
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.
Victoria Granof:
If you're cooking for one person, you have a tiny bowl, and that one time around the bowl is perfect. It's fractal geometry or something.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love that. I also love that she wasn't, I thought this was so funny. And this is not the first time that Stella D'oro has come up in this podcast because Paola has a story about Stella D'oro too, but I loved that your Nonna was not afraid of something, and she would feed you Stella D'oro cookies that you thought she made.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah. Well, she would decant things. She would decant them. So if she had something embarrassing, she would put it in a nice container. She would decant it. And so she had this kind of apothecary jar-looking cookie jar thing. My son remembers it too. She would put these cookies in, but she never said, and my mother does it too. She would never give you the full truth. So if you said, “Oh, did you make these?” She'd go, so you knew if she said that meant no, and if she said yes, that meant yes, she'd gotten somehow that was not a lie.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right, right, right. Yeah, I love that. And then finally, tell us about her Sicilian biscotto in your freezer.
Victoria Granof:
Well, when she passed away, I was here in New York and she was in L.A., and she passed away, and I had brought back from my last trip there, which just weeks before, I had brought back some of her biscottos, as she called them. That's a whole other story. I had a couple of them left, and I realized these were the last ones that I was ever going to have that were made with her hands. So I ate one, and then I froze one. I wrapped it up and I froze, and I wrapped it up in a little napkin and then in a Ziploc bag, and then I put in the freezer. And then we had a blackout during the summer, and we went to stay at Hilton for a couple of days, and we came back. Of course, everything was defrosted in the freezer, and I just threw, I took a big contractor bag and just threw every single thing out. And then I realized afterwards, oh, that was in there. So yeah, it was in there. It went to the landfill.
Jessie Sheehan:
It went to the landfill, but it was there at first.
Victoria Granof:
It was there. It was
Jessie Sheehan:
There for a while.
Victoria Granof:
It was there.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back. Cherry Bombe's next print magazine is the Italy issue. And trust me, you're going to want to copy. This dreamy issue is all about la dolce vita with delicious recipes, beautiful photography, and stories that will transport you straight to the trattorias, bakeries, and gelato stands. The Italy issue will be out this September, and the only way to guarantee your copy is to subscribe at cherrybombe.com. I know you're going to love the cover star too. Or cover stars. My lips are sealed for now, so head to cherrybombe.com or click the link in our show notes to subscribe.
Kerry Diamond:
Hi everyone, it's Kerry Diamond, host of Radio Cherry Bombe. A big thank you to everyone who joined us in Oregon's Willamette Valley at the ground for our latest stop on the Summer Tastemaker Tour, presented by the Visa Dining Collection by OpenTable and Visa. We shared an incredible dinner, listened to an inspiring panel, and spent time with some of our favorite folks and food. It was a gorgeous evening filled with community, conversation, and great food and drink. The final stop on our Summer Tastemaker Tour is Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday, August 15th. Join us for a fun evening at the Frist Art Museum. We'll be celebrating food, culture, and music with an all-star panel featuring chefs, Julia Sullivan, Margot McCormack, and Crystal De Luna-Bogan, plus a special live performance from singer-songwriter Jessie Baylin. It's going to be a magical summer night in Music City. Tickets are currently sold out, but you can still join the waitlist at cherrybombe.com. The link is in our show notes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now, back to our guest. So your mom was a judge and a lawyer and not a great cook.
Victoria Granof:
Correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
In fact, when you told her that that's what you wanted to be, she was like, no.
Victoria Granof:
No, no, no. She said, "I worked so hard trying to get out of the kitchen and have a career and everything." She went back to law school and we were in high school.
Jessie Sheehan:
Wow.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah. Dreams delayed. So when I said I wanted to do it, first of all, she laughed. She didn't think I was serious. That was for starters, and I said, "No, no, no, I'm serious about doing this." She goes, "Well, you'll go to college and get a degree." I'm like, "Did you just hear what I said?" She goes, "No. Well, you'll go to college. You'll get a degree." And it wasn't even part of the discussion at all. So I had to back into it when she wasn't paying attention.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Would you say that food, even though she wasn't necessarily a great cook, that food was like a big focus of your family?
Victoria Granof:
Not at all.
Jessie Sheehan:
Interesting.
Victoria Granof:
Not at all. It became that because I was missing that, I felt that that was missing. And so I learned to cook, and I learned to bake, and I would do things. I mean, my mother would make fancy things that she would find once for dinner parties. She'd put out some apps, so I would be making rumaki and stuffing prunes with certain canned water chestnuts and wrapping them in bacon.
Jessie Sheehan:
Did your sort of love of food come when you were older, when you were little? Were you watching food TV?
Victoria Granof:
We didn't have food TV. We had Julia Child.
Jessie Sheehan:
Would you have watched that?
Victoria Granof:
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you were interested, even if it was-
Victoria Granof:
Oh, yeah, yeah. But I didn't realize that it was a career. My parents were both lawyers, so it wasn't in our general scope of awareness at all. And it was men. Men were doing it, and they had the big hats and the white…it wasn't really accessible.
Jessie Sheehan:
And so cookbook-wise, it was really just “Betty Crocker's Cookbook For Boys And Girls,” at least when you were younger.
Victoria Granof:
And it was also “The French Chef,” the “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” and it was “Joy of Cooking.” That was a big one. I decided I wanted to make sugar cookies. I had a thing that I had to make.
Jessie Sheehan:
How old were you?
Victoria Granof:
Maybe eight or nine. And I wanted to make sugar cookies, so I opened up “Joy of Cooking,” and we didn't have butter in the house. We had oil. We did not have butter. I remember thinking, okay, well, I'll just make it with oil. And I made this one. It was horrible, horrible. But I didn't give up. And then we didn't have enough flour once, so I used baking powder. It was like a science experience. These things just, and it was just by process of elimination that I went, “Okay, I think I have to follow the recipe first.”
Jessie Sheehan:
You didn't have anyone telling you?
Victoria Granof:
No, these are epic fails here.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you have a visual arts degree from FIT, from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and you only went because your parents bribed you with a trip to Italy if you went to college. So would you have never, if they hadn't bribed you-
Victoria Granof:
How did you even find that?
Jessie Sheehan:
But I just loved reading that. Would you have gone at all if they hadn't bribed you?
Victoria Granof:
Probably not.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Victoria Granof:
I don't think so.
Jessie Sheehan:
And they knew that Italy was your thing, so that if they promised you, so already by college age, you were like, "I need to get there."
Victoria Granof:
Oh yeah, I need to get there. I need to get there. And I had a friend, they just celebrated, I think their 35th wedding anniversary, and we were waitresses together at Coco's Coffee Shop in college, and she ended up doing a semester abroad in Rome and in the Mensa, in their little cafeteria, she met this Roman guy. He didn't speak any English, she didn't speak any Italian. So she came back and she was obsessed with Italy, and she wanted me to come with her to all these places. And so we would go to Sarno's in L.A. and we would listen to the opera and eat cannolis.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. I love that. I love that. Yeah. So eventually you ended up at Le Cordon Bleu and came after a period of time where you were baking in a coffee shop, where you kind of lied your way in pretending that you knew what you were doing. What made you decide, “Gosh, I think I need to go to cooking school?”
Victoria Granof:
So I was working with a commercial architect, interior design firm, and this was in Los Angeles. And then at night, this little coffee house opened up called the Blue Mouse Coffee House. I don't know. I had fire in the belly for baking. I just did. I don't know where. I just did. And so I just went in there and said, "I'll bake for you and I'll deliver every morning and whatever." And so I did. I would go home and do this, and then I think I brought something, some party or something, and some guy was there who owned a restaurant, and he said, "Oh, I need something." And so I was doing that kind of thing. I decided that I wanted to actually work in a restaurant, restaurant and learn. That's what, I lied my way into, that one. And it was after working there and after realizing how much I didn't know.
Jessie Sheehan:
That you decided school.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah. I decided school.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I loved reading and learning about your entry into the world of food styling, because I know you were at one of your first restaurant jobs, you met one of the investors who was a photographer. You went on a job with him, and you were like, "What's that person doing?" And they were like, "Oh, that's a food stylist."
Victoria Granof:
Yeah. Well, first I went on a date with him.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Victoria Granof:
First I went on a date with him, and I had been doing staging, so I'd been boning salmon all day long. And I went home and scrubbed and scrubbed, and we went to a pasta restaurant and he sat there. First thing he says is, "Do you smell salmon?" I went, "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God, this has got to stop." In pastry, you don't have that. "Something smells like vanilla. How fabulous." But I wanted to know the whole kitchen.
Anyway, then I went into his studio and he was doing that, and I was like, who is this woman? And she looked so composed. He goes, "That's a food stylist." And I said, "Well, how do you become a food stylist?" He said, "Well, you have to assist somebody." I said, "Well, tell me who. Give me a list, please." And gives me a list. I said, "Who's the best one?" He gave me his name, and I called the guy up and I said, "Look, I hear from Jerry Fruchtman that you are the best.” And I said, “I want to learn from you. Whatever you need, I will support you and I'll work for free. I just need to learn from you.” And I mean, I loved it at the beginning.
Jessie Sheehan:
Your food styling style, I think you described it this way as perfect imperfection, crumbs and drips, et cetera. Would you say that that styling style also influences your baking and dessert style? Are they connected in some way?
Victoria Granof:
Well, I think I kind of let the ingredients, or what I'm styling or something, tell me what it wants to be. If styling something, I just think, “What's its shape? What's its form? What's its color? How's it going to live with this thing?” And when I'm baking, I think, “Well, what will this flower do for me? What are the properties of this rhubarb?” I just inherited a big, huge bag of rhubarb the other day. How am I going to work with the rhubarb? What will… It's just kind of becoming really close to what this wants to be and not trying to push up against anything's properties. And sometimes it's ugly. That's the other thing. Sometimes it's not pretty, and you have to just let it be not pretty, and embrace that.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right. Now I want to talk about your love of Sicily, your love affair with Sicily. You're a food stylist, but you've also written several cookbooks, including a Sicilian sweets book almost 25 years ago. And so clearly, your love of Sicily runs deep. Tell us about, I think it was an issue of Gourmet Magazine that focused on Sicily that you discovered in a pastry kitchen that you were working in, I think in 1995, and about, am I saying her name right, Maria?
Victoria Granof:
Gosh, how do you know this? Where did you find all this?
Jessie Sheehan:
Maria Grammatico?
Victoria Granof:
Yes, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. A pastry chef in Sicily. Tell us about that.
Victoria Granof:
It was written by Mary Taylor Simeti, who I adore her writing, and I adore her. And it was this woman who had been raised in a Sicilian convent. The tradition of pastry making is very strong in the convent, or has been. It's not so much anymore. And so this woman was kind of lamenting the fact that she was getting older. I mean, at the time, maybe she was 60, but she was getting older, and the next generation wasn't interested in picking up the art of pastry or the tradition really, of pastry making. And she was wondering who would do it.
I thought, “Oh, I'll do it. I'll do it.” And so I took a circuitous route. I finally did get to her, but that's what first inspired it. And also that, I mean, I have a different immigrant story than most people of Sicilian descent because we're Jewish and we were kicked out during the Inquisition. But I think it was just kind of always there. Our family always said, "Oh, we're Sicilian." We had our food. Some of the language, some of the everything still, stuff dies hard. It takes more than a few generations to breed that out of us. And so I was always drawn to it. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Before we jump into the recipe, can you just tell us something exciting that you're working on that you want to share with us? Maybe that retreat that I read about?
Victoria Granof:
Yes, yes, yes. Well, we just came back from one in May, and I have a partner in crime. She's got a company called Soulful Sicilian Retreats. And so we partner to host a group of 12 people in this beautiful little renovated 18th-century country home of some friends, and they've got a nice big stone kitchen and a pool, and everybody has their own little casita and oh, it's just they have donkeys. It's wonderful. They have bay leaf trees and bushes and can go out and we go out and grab lemon leaves and put them in our cake. Oh, it's just wonderful. And then we go and we visit Modica, which is the chocolate capital there. We go. We have a buffalo farm where we can go. Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Mozzarella is literally my favorite food.
Victoria Granof:
Yes. Oh, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.
Victoria Granof:
And that's not something that Sicilian, it's an old family. They've come in and they've started. It is something that's more companion. And we do that. We cook together, we bake together. And the fun part of this is that Zoë François, Natasha Pickowicz, and I are all doing baking retreats at the same time. I'm doing the first one, then they're doing later. And so in the middle of April, the three of us are getting together and we're going to have a little cake camp. A little cake party.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. So that's something else to look forward to if people are interested?
Victoria Granof:
Uh-huh. We don't know how we're going to really organize it or how many people.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. So are Zoë and Natasha working with the same company that you're working?
Victoria Granof:
No, we're all working with different companies.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. And when does your retreat take place?
Victoria Granof:
Mine is Easter week, so we're going to be able to do all of the...
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. So you'll-
Victoria Granof:
Processions.
Jessie Sheehan:
All be there in April and then you'll all meet up.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. Natasha and Zoë have both been guests on the podcast.
Victoria Granof:
I know.
Jessie Sheehan:
And are both dear friends.
Victoria Granof:
I know. We met while we were doing the Cherry Bombe-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, you met them for the baking covers.
Victoria Granof:
Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
It was Zoë and Natasha and Amanda Mack and Fanny and Claire.
Victoria Granof:
And Claire.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love that. I remember those covers.
Victoria Granof:
It was so much fun.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, we met, and I styled the covers with them.
Victoria Granof:
That's amazing. That's amazing. Oh, well where can people sign up for the retreat?
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, you can go to my Substack, which is Delicious Tangents at Substack.
Victoria Granof:
Great.
Jessie Sheehan:
You can go to victoriagranof.com.
Victoria Granof:
Soulful Sicilian Retreats.
Jessie Sheehan:
Amazing. Now I want to talk about the book “Sicily, My Sweet: Love Notes to an Island with Recipes for Cakes, Cookies, Puddings, and Preserves.” Love that subtitle.
Victoria Granof:
Thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you've said the book is about the present, past, and foreseeable future of Sicilian sweets. Can you unpack that for us?
Victoria Granof:
Mm-hmm. Yes. When I decided to go back and do this book, part two, it wasn't part two, it was more of a redo of the book. What I had found the last time was people who were kind of aging out, who were getting older in the pastry trade, craft, art. And there was not anybody in the next generation that was interested in taking it on. And you have to understand that these people were kind of toiling away in obscurity, and they were doing things that just had been done the exact same way forever and ever and ever. And they were a lot of times in small towns, and there was a world out there, and they were becoming exposed to it. The internet had just started. It was on the horizon, and globalization was, anyway, when I went back, what I found, I've done trips in between, but when I went back and really started codifying this and researching it, I realized that internet and the digital age, it's turned everything around there.
It has made it very appealing to be a pastry chef, to make pastries, to bake there, because you can have 2 million viewers and people who are interacting with you on social media, and people who may not have known about Sicilian pastries all over the world now have an appreciation for it. They have a reverence for it. They understand the art and the tradition and the techniques and all of that, and they want to know more. I said in the book that Sicily's been through, I don't know, what did I say? The Bronze Age, the something else age, and now it's the digital age.
Jessie Sheehan:
The book is absolutely gorgeous, from the cover to the paper to the photos.
Victoria Granof:
Thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
You're welcome.
Victoria Granof:
Thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
And now we get to talk about a recipe from it. The recipe title, if you translate it from the Italian, a rustic tart at your whim, which is crostada capricciosa, which means capricious. I know I had to Google it, so I love that. Just do what you will, which is, Victoria and I were chatting a teeny bit right before we started recording, and we both agreed. Galettes are great, but they get all the attention.
Victoria Granof:
They get all the attention.
Jessie Sheehan:
Crostata's are a great, easy, can be fruit, can be anything filled, treat as well. Now as you've said, it's not especially Sicilian because you'll find crostata all over Italy, and maybe they're most often made with a fruit preserve that you might have on hand. But as we are going to talk about, you can fill it with pastry cream, chocolate pastry cream, sweetened ricotta cream. I love this because I'm an easy-peasy baker. It is not fussy. You do not fuss over a crostata.
Victoria Granof:
No.
Jessie Sheehan:
You don't even roll out the dough.
Victoria Granof:
Nope.
Jessie Sheehan:
You press it.
Victoria Granof:
Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to, first, I thought the best way to do this, because we have four fillings, which maybe to go through our fillings first and then we'll do the dough. Does that work for you?
Victoria Granof:
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Jessie Sheehan:
So filling number one, chocolate custard filling, crema al cioccolata, thick, rich eggless custard. Almost like a cornstarch.
Victoria Granof:
Like a pudding.
Jessie Sheehan:
Cornstarch pudding. Set pudding.
Victoria Granof:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
You describe it being served by itself in little cups with unsweetened whipped cream. That's what I want right now. Or use it as a filling or a topping or a spread. Or also this way, you talked about folding it into softly whipped cream. I also want that right now. So, first things first, in a saucepan, and is there a certain type of saucepan? Are we talking like a Le Creuset or something, metal or copper?
Victoria Granof:
I just have a heavy-bottomed saucepan. And I also do use, I have a three-quart Le Creuset that sometimes I use that. Just nothing that's aluminum.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. So in a saucepan, we're going to whisk together sugar. Is it granulated sugar?
Victoria Granof:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jessie Sheehan:
Granulated sugar. Cocoa powder. Is it Dutch processed, or doesn't matter?
Victoria Granof:
No. Honestly, when you're in Italy, it's like whatever you get in the supermarket is what you get. It's what you use.
Jessie Sheehan:
Cornstarch. And then we're going to add milk. Whole milk?
Victoria Granof:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. And we're going to add whole milk, and we're going to gradually whisk until smooth. Place it over medium heat. We're going to cook the mixture, whisking constantly. And do you have a favorite kind of whisk?
Victoria Granof:
Well, my Danish dough whisk is my favorite tool. Also, I just started carving spoons. I just did that this weekend. I took a spoon carving retreat. Anyway, so I'm going to start carving some things, some different tools.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, amazing.
Victoria Granof:
That follows the contours of my pans.
Jessie Sheehan:
Brilliant.
Victoria Granof:
The bottom of my pans.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because that's the thing, it's always how to get in the corners of the pan, particularly when you're making a pastry cream or something to make sure that you're moving everything in the corners all the time.
Victoria Granof:
Yes. And I also have a flat whisk that I use for that too.
Jessie Sheehan:
Nice, nice.
Victoria Granof:
I have both of those.
Jessie Sheehan:
Nice. So we're placing over medium heat. We're cooking the mixture, whisking constantly until bubbles form it thickens. Becomes glossy. About five minutes. Off the heat. We're going to immediately add some finely chopped dark chocolate or chocolate chips, whisking gently until the chocolate is melted and the mixture's smooth. We're going to scrape into a small bowl and place a round of parchment paper or plastic wrap directly on the surface to prevent the skin from forming. Although you are a skin lover.
Victoria Granof:
I was just going to say, I hope I wrote in there that I'm a skin lover.
Jessie Sheehan:
You did. You did. I also loved the idea of parchment paper, because I'm such a plastic wrap person. Parchment paper is so much better for the environment. I love the idea that you could just use a little bit of parchment.
Victoria Granof:
May I share something to that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Please.
Victoria Granof:
Okay. So my grandmother had a shower curtain, a plastic shower curtain that she used, not in the shower, but she used and reused that plastic shower curtain to cover things and to roll things out. And it was big. So you could roll your dough out and then roll it in the shower curtain and put it in the fridge.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.
Victoria Granof:
A shower curtain.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is that Nonna? The one we were discussing?
Victoria Granof:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
With her fancy hair and her-
Victoria Granof:
Shower curtain.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh, Victoria, I love that so much.
Victoria Granof:
Yes. And IKEA has good shower curtains that are cheap too, and they don't have stuff all over them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, good to know.
And now we're going to chill completely before using. So this listeners, just so you understand, this is one of the fillings that you could put into your crostata filling. Number two is sweetened ricotta cream. You've said something like there's no Sicily without ricotta.
Victoria Granof:
Yes, correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
The two are married.
Victoria Granof:
Correct.
Jessie Sheehan:
Deeply married. And you've said ricotta cream as one of the backbones of Sicilian pastry, filling cannolis, et cetera.
Victoria Granof:
But also, it should be noted that in the southeastern part of the island, there is a particular cow, Modicana cow, that produces prized milk. And so in that area, in that zone, you'll find that the ricotta is made with cow's milk.
Jessie Sheehan:
Interesting.
Victoria Granof:
Ricotta vaccina. Most of the rest of the island is sheep's milk.
Jessie Sheehan:
So interesting. I was going to say, it's most often made with sheep's milk ricotta. I love this, and we'll see this in the recipe, but to approximate the taste of Sicilian ricotta, which is so different from what we have here. You have us mix some unflavored fresh goat cheese with our cow's milk ricotta, which is what's more common here, right? Cow's milk opposed to sheep. And you've said that if it's commercial ricotta, and by that you just mean not homemade. Something that we bought in the store?
Victoria Granof:
Yeah, something in a plastic container.
Jessie Sheehan:
That we're probably going to find here. We want to make sure no emulsifiers or gelatin, and we're going to drain it. This is part of the recipe. We're going to drain it overnight in a strainer lined with a paper towel or a coffee filter or a cheesecloth, not a shower curtain, before we use it. So we're going to start our sweetened ricotta cream for one of the fillings for our crostata. We'll start it the day before we plan to use it, which I love knowing that I feel like those kinds of directions are so important for people who are like start to make it and like, what? I can't eat this now for another 12 hours?
We're going to line a strainer with cheesecloth, paper towels, or a paper coffee filter, place that inside a bowl, and then we'll place our whole milk ricotta. Is there a brand here that you would recommend?
Victoria Granof:
And I think it does have a few emulsifiers in it, but Galbani and Palio, but the whole milk.
Jessie Sheehan:
Whole milk Palio.
Victoria Granof:
But you know what I've found out from working with it is if you upend the whole undisturbed freshly open thing in there, that whatever emulsifiers or gelatin are intact don't seep out and drain. It's like with yogurt, when you dip into your yogurt the next day, you'll find that the whey has separated. The same thing happens with the ricotta. So even if you have one, this is a new discovery. Even if you do use one that has emulsifiers or something in it, as long as you break that seal a little bit and stir it up before you strain it will drain.
Jessie Sheehan:
I wasn't sure if the trick was not to disturb it. Great tip. That's a great tip. So we're going to place the ricotta in the strainer, cover it with a plate, and chill for at least two hours up to eight hours. Then we're going to scrape our drained ricotta into a medium bowl. Is there a Victoria bowl? Is there something that you love?
Victoria Granof:
Glass Arcoroc or my vintage Pyrex with the little blue dots on the outside.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love Pyrex. So we're going to scrape it into our medium bowl. We're going to add some goat cheese. Is there a brand you love?
Victoria Granof:
Something very fresh, very unflavored. Neutral.
Jessie Sheehan:
Nice. We're going to add our goat cheese, some powdered sugar, some fine sea salt. I wonder, do you ever use kosher or are you just a fine sea…?
Victoria Granof:
I do use kosher salt. Yeah, I do. But you know what, I wanted to give a shout out for my Sicilian sea salt there. Yep. Fine. Sea salt, fine Sicilian. Sea salt. Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
Cinnamon. Is there a brand that you like?
Victoria Granof:
No, but what I do like to do is grind it from the stick because it's very fresh tasting there. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Freshly ground cinnamon. And then Fiore di Sicilia. Can you describe that?
Victoria Granof:
I do not know why everybody does not use that. I don't know why it's such an outlier. It means flowers of Sicily, and the flavor is a mixture of vanilla, tangerine, and probably a little orange blossom or rose water. But that doesn't come at you at all. And so the mixture of those is just this beautiful…A little floral, a little citrus, very mellow, and vanilla. Oh, it's so good.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can we find it easily? Is there a brand?
Victoria Granof:
Oh, you can order it. I think King Arthur has it. Oh, great.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think you're right. Pretty sure they have it. I think you're right. I actually think I have a little bottle of it. I need to use it. Or you can add vanilla if you do not have it. That's our ricotta bowl. Now, in a separate bowl, we're going to whip some heavy cream until billowy, nearly stiff, and fold gently. I love this: fold gently, but with authority.
Whip the cream into the ricotta mixture, and then we'll fold in some chopped chocolate or mini chocolate chips. Is there a percentage at this point? Are we looking for bittersweet?
Victoria Granof:
Oh, just not milk chocolate. Just something that's less sweet because you're going to put a lot
Jessie Sheehan:
In there. Perfect. Sort of maybe the same kind of dark chocolate that we used when we were making the chocolate pastry cream. And then we also were going to add a little bit of candied orange or candied watermelon peel. Yum.
Victoria Granof:
Ooh, yes. In Sicily, there are two things. There's a citron, and you candy the citron, but you don't candy the peel. It's actually the inside. It's like a pomelo where there's a lot of pith in there, but that is the part that you eat.
And sometimes you eat that with a little bit of salt in the summer, just a slice of that raw. And then there's a squash. It's called a cucuzza. And it's this hard kind of long trombone sort of squash, and it doesn't have much flavor and it's kind of hard, hard, hard. And so the nuns used to grow those in the cloister gardens. For what reason, I don't know. Maybe they just found them there. Kept them going. And so they have candied that. And so what I found was that the closest to either of those two things was watermelon rind, the white part of watermelon rind.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love. Love. And then we're going to set that ricotta aside, but we can use that right away at this point, correct?
Victoria Granof:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, great.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah, you can.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, great. Stick it in the fridge for now because we're going to continue with our different fillings. So now filling number three would be sort of a traditional pastry cream crema, pasticciata Sicilian pastry cream, very similar to crème patisserie. I thought this was interesting. Brought to Sicily by fancy French chefs who were employed in the kitchens of the Sicilian aristocracy in the late 18th century.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah, it was actually the sister of Marie Antoinette, was the queen of Sicily. The two Sicilies: it was Naples through Sicily. It was called the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
In a heavy saucepan sort of similar to what we used before.
Victoria Granof:
Yes, exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to whisk and we now know our whisk might end up being wooden tools that Victoria makes granulated sugar. Again, cornstarch, fine sea salt, yolks, and vanilla.
Victoria Granof:
It's a little powdered vanilla in a tiny sachet. I'm sure it's fake vanilla too. But it has such a distinct flavor that as soon as you open it up you go, “Ah, that's Italy.”
Jessie Sheehan:
And is that something we can find? Just order it online?
Victoria Granof:
Yeah, you can order it online.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Then we're going to whisk half of the milk, whole milk again into the cornstarch mixture and half into the yolk mixture. Place the saucepan over medium heat, cook the cornstarch mixture, whisking constantly until it thickens, becomes glossy. Then we'll take the pan off the… We're sort of tempering the eggs here.
Victoria Granof:
Right, right.
Jessie Sheehan:
Taking the pan off the heat, adding our yolk and milk mixture, whisking, returning the pan to the heat, and whisking until the mixture is thickened and smooth. We'll remove it. We'll immediately add cold butter, unsalted, I'm assuming?
Victoria Granof:
Unsalted, yup.
Jessie Sheehan:
And whisk until completely incorporated. We'll scrape our crema into a bowl. Again, we're using maybe one of our Pyrex bowls and place a round of parchment or plastic wrap, unless you like skins.
Victoria Granof:
Or a shower curtain.
Jessie Sheehan:
Or a shower curtain, directly on the surface. And we'll chill completely before using.
Victoria Granof:
This and the chocolate cream have to be completely chilled before using. Is that an overnight kind of thing?
Jessie Sheehan:
Just to room temperature really, I think.
Victoria Granof:
Okay. It's fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, that's fine. Because it's going to be baked again. So now we're going to do filling number four. This one is so exciting. So this is the late harvest, sun-cooked peach preserves. I'm not even going to, well, I am going to try and say it. Confecciora di peccia settembrina al sole. Something like that.
Victoria Granof:
Yes. It's a late harvest. September, settembrina is one of the words you use for late harvest in September. It's the September harvest.
Jessie Sheehan:
So in warm climates in the late summer, when the sun is hot enough to concentrate the fruit's juices into this softly set preserve while retaining, I mean just-picked flavors, sun cooking. Slow process, but only requires a few minutes of like hands-on tending a day. Is this something that everybody's doing that I had no idea about? I mean...
Victoria Granof:
No, I don't think, people are doing it in very hot climates. Of course, they've been doing it. I have a friend whose mother did it in Turkey.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Incredible.
Victoria Granof:
I mean, we have to use it, right? If we've got a lot of it now, we've got a lot of sun, we might as well harness the energy and use it.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to peel. Actually, if your peaches are very ripe, peeling is unnecessary.
Victoria Granof:
No, not necessary.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to have a lemon. We're going to squeeze the juice into a wide, shallow copper, stainless steel, or enameled pot. In this instance, am I picturing a Le Creuset?
Victoria Granof:
No, I think that's too heavy, really. When I say enameled, I mean like an enameled tin. Like an old enameled tin. You need the sun to be able to heat up the container as well. So it cooks from-
Jessie Sheehan:
So like a cake pan?
Victoria Granof:
A cake pan would be good. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, nice, nice, nice, nice.
Victoria Granof:
Something light, non-heavy.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to cut the peaches in half. We're going to remove and discard the pits. And then we're going to mash the peaches with a fork until we have this coarse puree. Then we're going to add the puree to the pot with the lemon juice, we're going to stir in some granulated sugar. What are we stirring with? One of our wooden spoons that we just made in our wooden spoon class?
Victoria Granof:
That would be great. Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, good. Okay, good. And then we're going to scrape some vanilla seeds into the pot. I assume we could use the extract if that's all we have.
Victoria Granof:
Sure. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Jessie Sheehan:
This is so crazy. We're going to cover the pot and let it sit for an hour until the peaches are starting to get, they're macerating, to get their juices. Then, get ready, listeners. We're going to transfer the contents of the pot to a large, shallow stainless steel pan or enameled tray. I love this. Like a photo developing tray.
Victoria Granof:
I was just going to say, did I put that in here?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes you did. Yes you did.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah. You can use that now.
Jessie Sheehan:
And put in, this is crazy. Put into the full summer sun, covered loosely with a piece of cheesecloth. And this is, tell us what your recommendation is, where you think we should put it. It's so great. It's so great, peeps.
Victoria Granof:
Oh my God. On the dashboard of a car.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible. So you put this pan on the dashboard of a closed car, parked in the full sun. And then every four or five hours, you go out to your car and you give the peaches a good stir and leave it in the full sunlight until the sun sets. I mean...
Victoria Granof:
You know how hot it is when you get into a car after that and you go, I can't even touch it.
Jessie Sheehan:
But it's also great because it takes away the bugs.
Victoria Granof:
The bugs don't get to it. Yeah. That's funny. I know.
Jessie Sheehan:
Did you discover that yourself or was that suggested to you?
Victoria Granof:
No, nobody did. No, it was in my head. I think it was one time where I got into the car and I got into a car and I had just been thinking about the sun cooking, and I went, it is so bloody hot in here. I bet you could put this on the dashboard of the car. You have to make sure it's balanced so it doesn't slosh.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then every four or five hours, you're going to give the peaches a good stir. You're going to leave it in the full sunlight until the sun sets. You're going to bring it inside at night. We're not refrigerating it at night. You put it in the counter in the kitchen and then you'll leave. Or actually you say you can leave it in the car.
Victoria Granof:
You can leave it in there. Yeah, you leave in there.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because you're using the dashboard method.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah. You can leave it in there.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then take it back out the next day if you didn't use the dashboard. And then continue with this operation until the preserves have thickened to the way...
Victoria Granof:
I mean, it's not like a two-hour operation.
Jessie Sheehan:
No, no. But it's brilliant. And then depending on your weather and the taste, it could take anywhere from three days to five days.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my god, I love it so much.
Victoria Granof:
All right. Now...
Jessie Sheehan:
Dashboard peach preserves.
Victoria Granof:
Oh God, you know somebody's going to pick that up when they hear this. And there's going to be a TikTok dashboard preserve.
Jessie Sheehan:
I hope there is, TikTokers, get ready.
Victoria Granof:
Good luck with it.
Jessie Sheehan:
So now those are all of our fillings. Now we're going to make our dough. So we're making a sweet pastry dough, a pasta, which is a sweet shortcut pastry used for tarts, pastries filled cookies, and is a building block of Sicilian baking. So in that sense, this crostata becomes very Sicilian because of the dough we're using. What's interesting about this dough is that it's part all-purpose or double O flour.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
What is double-zero flour, and is it interchangeable with all-purpose? Is it a hard winter wheat?
Victoria Granof:
It is. Yeah. It's confusing because in the United States, our flour is graded by the protein content. Whereas in Italy, the flour is graded by how finely.
Jessie Sheehan:
So is double-zero like a cake flour?
Victoria Granof:
No.
Jessie Sheehan:
Not as fine. Or a pastry flour?
Victoria Granof:
It's a pastry flour. It's more like a pastry flour because it's got a pretty high protein content. People use it to make pizza dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, wow. Oh, right. I knew that. I knew that. Interesting. But you could use that flower, basically for us, you're sort of saying you can use all-purpose or you can use pastry flour. Or if you have double-zero hanging around, you could do
Victoria Granof:
That. The double-zero does have a higher protein content.
Jessie Sheehan:
So the crust is not going to be-
Victoria Granof:
Yeah, it's a little more. And also in Sicily, they manhandle that dough. Wow. If you go to any YouTube video of any Sicilian, and they're not gently folding this dough and giving it a couple of turns, they are kneading this thing.
Jessie Sheehan:
And so it's not the same kind of texture that we think of when we think of a light.
Victoria Granof:
Like this light, kind of crumbly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Yep. And we're going to mix that either the double-zero or the all-purpose with some fine semolina flour, which gives us a little bit of texture. And the combination of these flours makes the pastry like this lovely, buttery golden color I love. And you said that you're nana baked up the scraps of the dough and sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar.
Victoria Granof:
Oh yeah, cinnamon sugar.
Jessie Sheehan:
It was a cook's treat for for granddaughter's hands.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah. That would be me.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. So in a large bowl, and now I know exactly what the bowl looks like. We're going to combine some butter. Is it unsalted and is it chilled or cubed?
Victoria Granof:
No, not chilled. Just room temperature.
Jessie Sheehan:
Room temperature butter.
Victoria Granof:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Cubed or it doesn't really matter?
Victoria Granof:
No, it's room temperature. Yep. Smooshing it.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to combine some room temp butter with granulated sugar, some fine sea salt. Again, a tribute to the sea salt of Sicily. And we're going to stir together until well combined. What tool are we using to kind of...
Victoria Granof:
Wooden spoon?
Jessie Sheehan:
Wooden spoon.
Victoria Granof:
Or my Danish dough whisk.
Jessie Sheehan:
Or your Danish dough whisk to kind of just press the butter into because it's soft butter and flour.
Victoria Granof:
You don't want to beat it because you don't want too much air in it. You just want it to be mixed.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think it's unusual in the sense of, usually when we think of pastry dough, we think of kind of smushing, technical term there peeps, smushing the cold butter into the flour with our fingertips. This time it's room temp butter, which is another reason that the dough is super easy to use. I'm very intrigued by this. I have a melted butter pie dough, which blows people's minds. And again, it's not going to taste exactly like the pie dough that you've foraged, et cetera, et cetera. But it's interesting that we can make pie dough or tart dough with butter at all different stages.
Victoria Granof:
Yes, we can. I mean, this is like a cookie recipe.
Jessie Sheehan:
Really? Yeah, it's like a cookie dough. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. But you don't want to put the air into it. So we're not using a stand mixer. We're doing this by hand.
Victoria Granof:
No, no by hand.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to stir in again with that wooden spoon, stir in our eggs and our yolks. We will add our whole milk and then mix that together, and then okay. And make sure that's combined. Then we'll add our all-purpose or double-zero.
Victoria Granof:
Or double-zero.
Jessie Sheehan:
And our fine semolina flour, adding them all at once. We do not want to overmix, even though the Sicilian grandmothers on YouTube might be doing so. And we want the dough to come together, though with no floury bits remaining. And you can give it a couple of gentle turns. Perfect.
Victoria Granof:
To bring it together.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do we bring it together in the bowl and then put it out on the counter and knead it a bit? Or could do that? Do you do everything in the bowl?
Victoria Granof:
I just do everything in the bowl. I do it all in the bowl.
Jessie Sheehan:
And do you get your hands in there?
Victoria Granof:
Yeah. Hands are the best tools.
Jessie Sheehan:
Best tools in the kitchen. Particularly if they're knowledgeable.
Victoria Granof:
If they're knowledgeable hands, mani sapienti. Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Should we picture almost like cookie dough?
Victoria Granof:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Like a short pastry. We're going to turn the dough out into a lightly floured surface with a little bit of all-purpose or that double-zero flour, knead gently a few times. Divide the dough in half. Wrap each half in parchment paper, which I also love that we're using parchment. Again, I'm so used to wrapping in plastic. And we could also wrap in our shower curtain.
Victoria Granof:
In our shower curtain. You can cut the shower curtain in half actually.
Jessie Sheehan:
And it'd be perfect. Isn't that funny? And then we're going to refrigerate for up to three days, but what's our minimum? Could we use it in two hours or do you want it in there overnight?
Victoria Granof:
Honestly, the one that we're about to eat that I brought in for you.
Jessie Sheehan:
Victoria brought me some crostata.
Victoria Granof:
That wasn't refrigerated at all.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, great.
Victoria Granof:
I just went right to it.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. I mean, I wonder, is the refrigeration part of the recipe only because it gets better when it's cold? Or because otherwise as a-
Victoria Granof:
You could do it right away.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, a press in dough. If it's going to taste the same either way, why wait?
Victoria Granof:
Yeah, I don't know. That was an editorial decision actually.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, those are tricky. When you're ready.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah, because we were worried that people would leave it sitting out on their counter.
Jessie Sheehan:
While they went and made the filling.
Victoria Granof:
While they went and did all that other-
Jessie Sheehan:
I understand.
Victoria Granof:
You never know.
Jessie Sheehan:
I understand. But you can use it right away.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah, you can use it right away.
Jessie Sheehan:
You heard it here first.
Victoria Granof:
Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
So basically the minimum could be a half an hour, an hour, however long it took you, let's say, to make your ricotta creme. Then we're going to take the dough out of the fridge about 15 minutes before we want to use it. Heat our oven to 400. We're going to grease the sides of a nine or 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Or we could use a spring form. We're going to grease with butter, again, unsalted.
Victoria Granof:
Unsalted.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is the greasing necessary?
Victoria Granof:
I was just going to say it is not necessary. It's not necessary, but I'm so afraid that I'm going to get emails from people.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know. And it stuck.
Victoria Granof:
It stuck because you never know.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's so hard when you're writing recipes because you want to give people tons of insurance, because you want them to succeed. But there are so many things that you don't have to do.
Victoria Granof:
I know that you don't have to do.
Jessie Sheehan:
On a lightly floured surface, we're going to roll out two-thirds of the dough into an 11-inch round. What kind of rolling pin do you like?
Victoria Granof:
My great-grandmother's. It doesn't have ball bearings. It's just a plain rolling pin.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love. And it doesn't taper at the ends.
Victoria Granof:
No, it doesn't taper at the ends. But you know what? I was given one by Nikole Herriott. Do you know Herriott Grace? Her father whittles rolling pins and spoons up in Canada, and she gave me one as a gift. And it's wonderful. It's got really good weight and it's just straight across. It's really a nice one.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love. We're going to carefully wrap the dough around the rolling pin as a way to transfer and drape it over the prepared pan. And then we'll press gently into the bottom and up the sides. We're spooning the filling, whichever one we want. Chocolate, vanilla, peach, or ricotta. Spoon the filling onto the dough in the pan. Spread it evenly. And then I love this lattice top. It's super easy-peasy. We're dividing the remaining dough, that third of the dough, into sixths, six pieces. Rolling each just with our hands into a 10-inch rope, laying three ropes, equidistant apart across the tart in one direction. Do the same with the other ropes and say two, we're done.
Victoria Granof:
Yeah. That's it.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. I love it. Press the ropes down lightly onto the edges of the tart to adhere it. Trim off the overhang, both of the dough that went on the bottom and also the lattice. Or do we trim the dough for the bottom of the crust first?
Victoria Granof:
No, no. Do it all at once.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love it. We're going to beat an egg in a small bowl with a fork until it starts to become foamy. Brush this onto the dough, the edges, and the lattice. And that's interesting. So your egg wash is just an egg. You're not an add a little salt person or add a little milk or add a little cream.
Victoria Granof:
Nope.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to bake on the lower rack for 10 minutes. Then lower the oven to 350 and continue to bake for another 40 to 45 minutes until the crust is nicely browned and the filling is bubbly. This is interesting. Each one of those fillings will bake it around the same time. Or do the cream, amazing? I guess all of them are cooked. All of them are done.
Victoria Granof:
They're all cooked or done.
Jessie Sheehan:
So basically we're just cooking the crust.
Victoria Granof:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love. And filling is bubbly for the peach, probably for the pudding, et cetera. We're just going to go by what the crust looks like.
Victoria Granof:
By what the crust looks like. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect.
Victoria Granof:
I'm just trying to think. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
By what the crust looks like. And then we'll cool completely before removing from the pan. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Victoria.
Victoria Granof:
You're welcome. Thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Victoria Granof:
Oh, and you're the little stem on top of my cherry pie.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to California Prunes for supporting our show. Don't forget to follow She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and tell your pals about us. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.com. 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.