Samantha Seneviratne 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 three baking books, including my latest, “Snackable Bakes.” Each Saturday I'm hanging out with the sweetest bakers around and taking a deep dive into their signature bakes.
Today's guest is Samantha Seneviratne, the food stylist, recipe developer, New York Times cooking contributor and baker, who some of you know from “Everyday Cooking” on the Magnolia Network. Sam is also the author of three baking books, including her latest “Bake Smart: Sweets and Secrets from my Oven to Yours,” which is out November 7th. Sam joins me to talk about her baking life and she walks me through her sticky banana monkey bread recipe, which you can find in Bake Smart. If you'd like to catch them at one of the launch events for Bake Smart, be sure to visit samanthaseneviratne.com. We'll be right back to talk monkey bread and more.
Thank you to Plugrà Premium European style butter for supporting today's show. Get ready to savor the season with Plugrà butter. With a holidays right around the corner, I know so many of you are planning what baked goods you'll be making. Maybe you're thinking about a pumpkin chiffon pie with an all butter crust for Thanksgiving, or buttery sugar cookies decorated with royal icing for that next cookie swap, or some light air gougères for New Year's Eve. The pastry chefs and bakers I interview for this podcast are the best in the business and they all agree on one thing when it comes to baking, ingredients matter. Plugrà Premium European style butter is the perfect butter for your next baking project because it contains 82% butter fat. Also, it's slow churned making Plugrà more pliable and easy to work with. I've been using Plugrà ever since my first professional baking job. My go-to are the unsalted sticks. I get to control the amount of salt in the recipes and the sticks come individually wrapped perfect for precise measurements. Sticks or solid, salted or unsalted, whichever you prefer, Plugrà Premium European style butter is the ultimate choice. Ask for Plugrà at your favorite grocery store or dash over to plugra.com for a store locator and some delicious holiday recipes. That's plugra.com.
Today's episode is also presented by California Prunes. I'm a California Prunes fan when it comes to smart snacking. Funnily enough, at the same time we started this podcast, my doctor told me how good prunes are for your gut, your heart, and even your bones. Prunes contain dietary fiber and other nutrients to support good gut health, potassium to support heart health, and vitamin K, copper and antioxidants to support healthy bones. So prunes became a daily snack of mine. I have them in my cabinet at home, I put them in smoothies, and I bring them with me when I'm on the go because they're perfectly portable. Now let's talk about my true love, baking. California prunes are a great addition to baked goods, especially this time of year. They work beautifully in recipes with rich and complex flavors like espresso, olives, and chilies. And they enhance the flavor of warm spices, toffee, caramel and chocolate. Consider adding prunes to scones, gingerbread, coffee cake, or any baked good that calls for dried fruit. If you're looking to make some holiday showstoppers like a fruit cake you make ahead of time, keep prunes in mind when you're assembling the dried fruit you need. They adjust the right texture and flavor. Be sure to check out the California Prunes website at californiaprunes.org for recipes and more. That's californiaprunes.org.
I'm so excited to see everyone at République on November 6th for our live She's My Cherry Pie podcast event. Tickets are sold out, but be sure to check Cherry Bombe's Instagram for the highlights. Thank you to Plugrà Premium European style butter, California prunes and Ghirardelli for supporting our event. I can't wait to see you in Los Angeles.
Let's check in with today's guest. Sam! So excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk monkey bread with you and so much more.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Oh, Jessie, I'm so happy to be here.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yay. So I think it's fair to say that you wear many hats and many sweet hats to boot. And you're a cookbook author with your fourth book “Bake Smart,” a New York Times recipe contributor. And I think you've even told me that you were actually one of the first contributors?
Samantha Seneviratne:
I'm maybe the longest running contributor.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. You're a TV host, a crazy talented food stylist. Check out Sam's website to see all the beauty that is Sam's creations. A mom to the adorable rascal that is Artie. And prior to this, you worked as a food editor and stylist in the sexy, at least to me, magazine world. Can you tell us about your baking style and how you've honed it while wearing all these hats?
Samantha Seneviratne:
Ooh, what a good question. What's my baking style? I think I like to make things that are knowable, and comforting, and accessible, but then give them a little bit of an update, or a twist, or something special that makes it new and maybe a little more interesting.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I've read that there are two early childhood baking memories, one that began in a bathtub and one that involves a little blue bench. And I'm hoping you will share each with us because they're both such sweet, sweet pun intended, great little stories and insights into you.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Oh, Jessie, you did a real good deep dive, didn't you? The bathtub. My dad and I used to watch PBS cooking shows when we were little. There was no Food Network or anything like that, so we were really into the PBS cooking shows. I remember watching somebody make blancmange. I don't even really know what that is. Do you know what that is?
Jessie Sheehan:
No.
Samantha Seneviratne:
It's some kind of-
Jessie Sheehan:
And I'm supposed to be a baking professional.
Samantha Seneviratne:
I think it's a really old-fashioned dessert. My grandmother used to talk about it too. I think it's some kind of pressed cheese or sweet cheese, something, something, something. But there was cheesecloth involved and it looked, I just remember they pressed this beautiful white mixture into cheesecloth, into a mold, folded it over so gorgeously and then set it aside to chill for later. And so I used to always pretend I was doing my own cooking shows in the bathtub, as you do.
Jessie Sheehan:
As one does.
Samantha Seneviratne:
And used the suds in the bathtub bubbles as my cheese blancmange mixture. And take a washcloth, and I had a little bowl that I would play with in the bathtub, and press and fold my little soap and talk. I just would talk all the time to the faux camera that was the spigot of my bathtub.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my God, I love that. What about that little blue bench?
Samantha Seneviratne:
My parents grew up in Sri Lanka. I was born here in the United States. But when I was little, we went back to Sri Lanka all the time to visit my family there. I spent most of my time in the kitchen there just watching either my grandmother or her cooks make food in an open fire hearth. It was just the most magical way to prepare food. I'd never seen anybody make food like that. And there was a little blue bench and I just sat there all day every day. And I remember her cook that she had for the longest time, her name was Tikiti, and she didn't speak any English and I don't speak Sinhalese. But we would just communicate with food and smiles. And I learned a lot about all the ways that you can take things from the garden, and make good food and make it so fresh. And I mean, it was magical. It was just a special way to get into cooking.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love both of those images, the bath, the bench.
So I am basically absolutely in love with your new book, “Bake Smart.” I own and love all of your books, but I really think this one is my favorite. But what I love the most is in every single recipe there are these tips in green with little arrows pointing to the location in each recipe where the tip is applicable. Please unpack the book's premise for us and talk about the genius that is those tips.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Oh, thanks, Jessie. That means so much to me. Like you said before, I've worked for a long time in magazines and television. I've worked with so many different teams of people. And I've worked on my own recipes, I've worked on other people's recipes. So through all of that, I have learned all of these wonderful little tips and tricks, just ways to finesse your baking, ways to make it a little more beautiful, make it a little bit easier.
And I wanted to find a way to put that in. And you don't have room when you're writing just the recipe itself to add all those little details. It's like all the things you would say to someone if you were baking and standing right next to them. And so this is my way of trying to include that. I mean, the first drafts of this book had probably 10 times the amount of tips, but we just couldn't figure out a way to include them in a clear, direct way. So we had to edit them down a little bit.
But I just want to make it all more approachable. I want to make it easier. I want to tell you all the things that I've learned from all the brilliant people I've worked with over the past 15 years. That's what it is. It's just me in the kitchen with you trying to give you all of my secrets.
Jessie Sheehan:
And how would you describe the way the book looks? Those gorgeous textiles in the book by Aicha Kalicholo, they were so beautiful and they added so much to the book.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Aren't they so lovely?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Samantha Seneviratne:
So there's these beautiful textiles that were designed by a woman, I think she's based in San Francisco. And so she found them and said, "I know you're going to love these," because I love patterns. I wear patterns all the time. My house is full of patterns. I love beautiful patterns. So she found these gorgeous textiles and she sort of weaved them into the photos here and there. And then we loved them so much that I asked the designer if we could use them in the actual design of the book. So if you see, it's kind of like you see them in textile form in some of the images, and then you also see them as graphics in the book. And I think it sort of ties the whole thing together. I mean, it looks like my home. My home is painted that teal color. I have tons of patterns everywhere. I wanted the book to really feel like me.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back.
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If you're going to be in New York on Saturday, November 11th, I'd love for you to join me at Cherry Bombe's third annual Cooks and Books conference at Ace Hotel Brooklyn. I'm moderating a live She's My Cherry Pie episode with three wonderful bakers and cookbook authors, Samantha Seneviratne, Rose Wilde and Yossy Arefi. We'll talk about their new books, their favorite bakes and what they're making this holiday season. Following our panel, there's a special demo and talk with Abi Balingit of The Dusky Kitchen. Abi will be making the adobo chocolate chip cookies from her book Mayumu. Tickets for all sessions are $20 and on sale now. Check out cherrybombe.com for the full schedule. Now, back to our guest.
Okay, so now we're going to do a deep dive into your sticky banana monkey bread, a recipe from your yeast chapter in “Bake Smart.” So first, tell us what a monkey bread is, just for those that aren't sure.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Sure. So my understanding, I mean you know baking, there's millions of varieties of every single thing, but my understanding is a monkey bread is a yeasted sweet dough, a yeasted enriched dough that you form into little balls, roll in cinnamon sugar or some sort of spice and sugar, mixture and then layer into a tube pan or a Bundt pan. So it bakes into one beautiful cake, but you can pick out the balls of dough by hand if you'd like to.
Jessie Sheehan:
So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to prepare our yeasted dough. So we're going to have in the bowl of our stand mixer, which is going to be fitted with a dough hook.
Samantha Seneviratne:
I use a KitchenAid, it's what I have. You can absolutely make this dough by hand too.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Samantha Seneviratne:
You do not need to have a KitchenAid, it just makes the job a little bit easier.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to stir together some warm whole milk. We're going to have some active dry yeast. And one of your tips actually is about why you prefer active dry to instant. Can you tell us why? Because I'm a big instant person.
Samantha Seneviratne:
I find, and this is personal preference, that my baked goods come out better when I use active dry. Instant yeast has been milled down a little finer so that it happens faster, it blooms faster. And supposedly the reason that they made it that way is so that you could add it directly to your dry ingredients. You don't need to proof it before you add it in. I find that active dry yeast, you can just add it in. You don't need to proof it before. I add the proofing step just to give people a little extra time to make sure that their yeast is active, and healthy, and happy, but you don't have to do it that way. I also find that I can retard the dough if I need to better with active dry yeast.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you explain retarding?
Samantha Seneviratne:
If you're rising a dough over one day and it has three rises, then you're going to be waiting a long time. If you want to slow down that process and break it down over a few days just to make it more convenient for yourself, you can do that and I find that the results are better with active dry. I think maybe instant sort of uses all its punch a little too fast to do that. And active dry, you can sort of slow it down and spread it out. I don't know why.
And I also think I find the flavor to be a little bit better with active dry. I just think the slower process, you can use a little bit less active dry yeast so the yeasty-ness is not as sharp. You know what I mean? It sort of has time. It can develop slowly and build flavor versus just being like a blast of yeasty-ness.
Jessie Sheehan:
I find that fascinating that you would use active dry without proofing it. I know you didn't want to put it in the book because as a writer you want to hold people's hands, you don't want to throw too much at them. But if you were making this monkey bread at home, would you not proof the yeast?
Samantha Seneviratne:
I don't always proof the yeast.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love.
Samantha Seneviratne:
And in fact, in some of my other books I didn't do it. And then I realized that maybe it would be helpful just to have that step so people could see what's happening.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right.
Samantha Seneviratne:
But I don't do it always. I just throw it in with the dry ingredients.
Jessie Sheehan:
Fascinating.
Samantha Seneviratne:
There are different brands. I prefer Red Star yeast. Red Star yeast seems to dissolve more completely. Sometimes with other brands, if you're just throwing it into the flour, you'll see little pieces of it in the surface of your breads. It's not going to hurt anything. It's not going to matter at all. It's just a visual thing. Red Star dissolves.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm so interested to try, because I know what you mean. That if we all know that fermentation, the longer that your bread is fermenting and all of that's where we're getting our flavor.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Right.
Jessie Sheehan:
So if you're using a yeast that takes a little bit longer, you're probably going to get a slightly better flavor.
Samantha Seneviratne:
That's my experience. That's more of a feeling than a fact.
Jessie Sheehan:
Hello, feelings over facts. That's what we're here for.
Samantha Seneviratne:
That's my whole vibe.
Jessie Sheehan:
So again, we're doing that. We're kind of warming that yeast and letting it sit till it's foamy. That's our proofing. We're kind of activating it. Maybe not activating because it might be activated anyway, but we're making sure we're good to go with our yeast.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Making sure. Giving it a little headstart.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to add some more sugar. We just added a teeny bit before along with that yeast. And now we're going to add more sugar. We're going to add all-purpose flour. And I wondered why not bread flour or why not a mixture? Because people often, myself included, will add a little bread flour.
Samantha Seneviratne:
If I were doing this at home, I probably would add bare flour or a mixture. I use King Arthur all-purpose flour pretty much all the time. The unbleached, enriched King Arthur all-purpose flour. And actually their bread flour and their all-purpose flour, the protein content is very, very close. And so I kind of find that they're somewhat interchangeable. I think if you're using a different all-purpose flour that has a lower protein content, the discrepancy between bread and all-purpose is going to be bigger. But because I use King Arthur and it's such a small difference, I don't find the difference to be that big. And I think people have all-purpose flour more readily so I just thought it would make things a little bit easier for people.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. I've never looked at the percentages. I know King Arthur's all-purpose has a high protein, but I didn't realize how close it was.
Samantha Seneviratne:
It's close to their bread.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's good to know. So we're going to add this sugar and this all-purpose flour to our yeast mixture. We're going to mix on low. We still are using our hook. Do you ever change to a paddle when you're making a yeasted dough?
Samantha Seneviratne:
Sometimes. And it's funny, all my recipes sort of, don't your recipes sort of evolve over time?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Samantha Seneviratne:
So in the past, I used to start with the paddle and then switch to the dough hook. But then I thought, we're just going to mess up two different things now. So I started just using the paddle and it's fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we have our dough hook still in our machine. We're going to have the mixer on low. We're going to mix in a mashed, overripe banana. And you have a great overripe banana tip in the book.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Oh, do I?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Samantha Seneviratne:
I think I know what it is.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us what you think it is.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Well, I freeze, doesn't everybody? I mean, it's so hard to eat a whole bunch of bananas in one sitting so you freeze them, but I always peel them before I freeze them. When you thaw them, they tend to release a lot of liquid and so it looks kind of scary and you're wondering what should I do? How should I measure this? I say use all of that liquid. I sort of stir that slurry up in the bag before I measure it and get that all back in because all of that liquid is essentially delicious, sweet banana juice and you want that in your baked good. So stir that up before you measure it and go that way.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to add an egg, kosher salt.
Samantha Seneviratne:
I always use Diamond Crystal. It's what I use for cooking so it's what I use for baking
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to mix that until the dough forms. And what shape are we looking for? Should it be coming off the sides of the bowl? Is it stuck around the hook?
Samantha Seneviratne:
So at this point you haven't added your butter yet, so it is going to be stiff, it's going to look stiffer than you think it should be. But we're just trying to build up some gluten and mix it together. Don't have to be too fussy about it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. And it's going to become kind of elastic-y and it's going to take us about five minutes.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Yes, exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to start to add our room temp butter. And there are a lot of tips, some science that you are dropping about butter in this book. So first of all, tell us why to you it doesn't matter if the butter is salted or unsalted.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Again, it's more of a feeling than a fact, but I just don't see the difference as being that exceptional frankly. I know my mother always buys salted butter. I think a lot of people always buy salted butter and I don't want to ask you to buy something that you don't need to. I think that baked goods can take a lot of salt. I think baked goods can take more salt than people think they can. Usually it just makes the whole thing even more delicious when there's a little more salt in it. So I just say use whatever you have, it's going to be good.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you still, when developing a recipe, even though you're saying you can use either one, salted or unsalted, you're not modifying that salt? You're not like, "Oh, shoot, people might use salted so I better use three quarters of the teaspoon rather than one"?
Samantha Seneviratne:
If you want to get that scientific, you probably could. But I just felt like more fuss than it was worth honestly.
Jessie Sheehan:
You have blown my mind.
Samantha Seneviratne:
I mean, do you think that's true?
Jessie Sheehan:
It's funny, when you say it and when I read it, I was like, oh my God, I bet she's right.
Samantha Seneviratne:
I mean, in six tablespoons of butter or whatever it is, I can't imagine that there's... I don't know the exact amount of salt in six tablespoons but-
Jessie Sheehan:
I think it's like a quarter teaspoon per stick.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
So it's tiny.
Samantha Seneviratne:
It's a tiny amount. It's not going to make a significant difference. When I tested the recipes, and when we shot them for the book, and when I've made them at home, I have both salted and unsalted in my fridge and I just grab whatever I grab. And it's always fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
And also you have something else interesting about butter, the difference between room temperature and softened, which I often think of that as the same thing. Can you tell us the difference and also tell us why we want room temperature here rather than softened?
Samantha Seneviratne:
Room temperature is a little bit colder than softened, in my world. That's how I've defined it. I think softened is a little bit greasier. You can see that it's a little bit greasier In this case, I think you could use either one and it would be just fine. I think sometimes when you use softened butter in a dough like this, the finished product is much stickier. So the softer the butter, the stickier the dough is going to be even if you use the same exact amount of butter.
And so then, I think people see a sticky dough like that and get nervous and have a tendency to add a little bit more flour at the end because you think, oh, I want it to clear the sides of the bowl. I'm nervous it's too wet. But it's not. And so I suggest you use room temperature butter, which is just a little bit warmer so that the dough is a little bit cooler so that it incorporates easily because you do need it not to be cold better. It needs to incorporate fully. But then the final product is sticky, but it still releases. If you hold the dough in your hand, you can pass it from hand-to-hand because it's sticky, but it will release. But if you use softened butter, it's going to be gooey in a way that's going to be scary.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. But the idea being that textually at the end, you're going to get the same product-
Samantha Seneviratne:
Totally.
Jessie Sheehan:
... whether you started with softened or room temp. So start with room temp so you're not tempted-
Samantha Seneviratne:
So it's not stressful later.
Jessie Sheehan:
... to add the flour. I love that. I love that. So now we're going to add our room temp, unsalted or salted butter, and we're going to mix until incorporated. Are we still on low speed at this point?
Samantha Seneviratne:
At this point you can knock it up just a tiny bit.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to knead until smooth, about five minutes. The dough will be sticky but not too sticky, and resist the urge to add more flour. We're going to scrape down the sides of our bowl. What do you like to use? Do you have a flexible bench scraper?
Samantha Seneviratne:
That's what I use. Also, if you're doing this dough by hand and you're doing it, I would keep it in the bowl and use the flexible bench scraper to sort of knead and flip the dough in the bowl so that the butter gets incorporated. It's hard to do it by hand without another tool because it's sort of hard to get everything to come in because it's so soft. A flexible dough scraper is a very useful tool in this case.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you just describe it for people in case they don't know?
Samantha Seneviratne:
Sure. So there's a stiff dough scraper, bench scraper, which is sort of a flat metal piece with a handle. And that's good for sort of cutting butter into pastry or dividing dough. Actually you probably use one later when we divide the dough into pieces. A flexible one is essentially, I use it like a rubber spatula where it's the bottom of the rubber spatula and my arm is the top of the rubber spatula. Does that make sense?
Jessie Sheehan:
100%.
Samantha Seneviratne:
It's sort of like a rubber spatula that you have more control over. So it's just a piece of flexible plastic essentially.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's such a good tool, I have to say. And I just have a question. When you are a recipe writing and you don't tell us the tool, is that because it doesn't matter whether it's a flexible bench scraper, a spatula, your hand? You're basically saying, "Use whatever you've got. I'm not going to tell you what to use."
Samantha Seneviratne:
I want to give you all the information you need and nothing extra so it's not stressful.
Jessie Sheehan:
I hear you. So we're going to remove the bowl from the stand mixer. We're going to shape the dough into a neat ball. Can you explain the 12, 3, 6, 9 fold?
Samantha Seneviratne:
Oh, yeah. So how do I explain this? So it's like the face of a clock, right?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Samantha Seneviratne:
And you fold the top of the dough down at 12 o'clock, and then over at three o'clock, and then up at six o'clock, and then over at nine o'clock. And then flip it over. And essentially we're trying to create a nice, taut surface so that the gases are more effectively trapped in there. It's also, once you make the dough really nice and taut and a nice tight ball, it's easier to tell that it's risen properly. It's easier to tell when you're ready to move on to the next step. And I find that the yeast likes it better.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Feelings.
Jessie Sheehan:
I've had a really hard time describing that to people and I wish I'd thought of the clock. I think that is such a good, I usually say, "Take the top and fold it down, take the side..." But when it's a blob, it doesn't have tops and sides.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to cover with plastic wrap, set aside in a warm place to rise until doubled, which is one to two hours depending on the temp of your kitchen. And after the dough doubles, we're ready to go with the assembly of the monkey bread or you can punch it down, wrap it, and refrigerate for two days.
Can you tell us about why we punch before we would retard the rising of the dough at this point?
Samantha Seneviratne:
We're just trying to expel that gas. If you want to hold it for longer, you want to just let that gas go out so that the yeast can just do that job all over again.
Jessie Sheehan:
I got you. So we're going to use a pastry brush. We're going to generously butter our 12 cup Bundt pan. And I have two questions. I assume the butter is softened at this point?
Samantha Seneviratne:
Yeah, soft or room temperature.
Jessie Sheehan:
Probably a little easier than the-
Samantha Seneviratne:
And I know this is a nitpicky little thing, but I really think using a brush to get into all the grooves of your bunt pan is important. You're creating a caramel essentially with all that butter and sugar, so you don't want it to stick. It's so sad when Bundts stick. And I think a pastry brush is the best tool to get into all of those grooves.
Jessie Sheehan:
Would you ever use cooking spray or it's just not your jam?
Samantha Seneviratne:
I am all for it. I think it's my food stylist brain that makes me not want to use a cooking spray because sometimes when you use cooking spray on a cake for example, I think in this case it would probably be fine, but for a cake it does this weird thing where it sort of grows up on the sides. Have you ever noticed this? Especially with baker's spray like Baker's Joy, it grows on the side into a weird brown ring and then the center is fine. But which would taste perfectly fine. But basically, if you're looking for a cake that looks perfectly finished, baker's spray always ruins the sides for some reason.
Jessie Sheehan:
Interesting. I'm going to have to try. I don't use baker's spray, I just use straight up Pam.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Or Pam.
Jessie Sheehan:
But I'm intrigued by that, I'm going to say.
Samantha Seneviratne:
I just find the edges. I mean, for something like this I think it would probably be fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. And you said that if you don't have a Bundt pan you could also use a tube pan, just don't use one with a removable clasp.
Samantha Seneviratne:
It might leak. In fact, you could use it if you just bake it on a sheet pan.
Jessie Sheehan:
Sheet pan. Now we're going to make the coating, which we're going to be coating the little pieces of yeasted dough in. So in a small bowl… And I wonder, do you have bowls that you particularly like for mixing? Either a type, glass or not?
Samantha Seneviratne:
I use a lot of just stainless steel kitchen bowls that you get at the kitchen supply store. They can take a beating.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to mix together in our small beating bowl, we're going to mix together, it could be a whisk, it could be a fork. As we said before-
Samantha Seneviratne:
Whatever.
Jessie Sheehan:
... it doesn't really matter. Light brown sugar and cinnamon.
Samantha Seneviratne:
My family, I told you, is from Sri Lanka so I try to always buy Ceylon cinnamon. There's Ceylon cinnamon versus Saigon cinnamon. Both are delicious and don't worry about it, but I always buy Ceylon cinnamon.
Jessie Sheehan:
Nice. And we're going to put melted butter in another small bowl. And it's funny, now I could imagine this would be an incredible moment for salted butter.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Exactly. Salty butter caramel, it's going to be great.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum. Okay, now we're going to dunk our balls in this coating. We're we're going to pat our dough out into a large square. Sounded so easy and simple. So we are not really measuring our square and we don't need to use a rolling pin?
Samantha Seneviratne:
I don't think so. I mean, once this dough has time to chill, the butter will harden a little bit and it becomes very easy to work with. You don't need to flour your work surface and also, doesn't have to be perfect. These are just random, little balls. So you don't need flour. You can just pat it out onto a work surface and then cut it with a bench scraper.
Jessie Sheehan:
If you didn't refrigerate it because you just wanted to move through the recipe, would you still be okay?
Samantha Seneviratne:
I think you would still be okay because the thing is, when you add flour to your work surface, then that flour is going to get incorporated into the dough, and then your final bread is going to be ever so slightly drier. So I always err on the side of less flour on my work surface. So you might have to pull and stretch the dough a tiny bit more if it were warm, but in the end you're just rolling it into little balls so it can be casual.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love this. So we pat our dough into our large square and we're going to use a large knife. Chef's knife?
Samantha Seneviratne:
Chef's knife. I mean, if you're worried about your kitchen counters and don't want to use a knife directly on the counter, then you can use your bench scraper.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. You also say a pastry wheel. Can you tell people what a pastry wheel is?
Samantha Seneviratne:
Oh, yeah. I have an Ateco one. I use it all the time for cutting dough, for cutting cookies. If you're cutting square cookies, it's like the best thing to just zip through.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is it like a pizza cutter?
Samantha Seneviratne:
It's a pizza wheel, yes. Same, same.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because I feel like my pastry wheel has the crimped edges.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Yeah, for like pie pastry.
Jessie Sheehan:
Exactly, exactly. So either a knife, a bench scraper, a pastry wheel, and we're going to cut into 36 equal pieces. I'm assuming, because I just thinking of myself and how bad I'm at stuff like this, if they're not equal, it's not the end of the world?
Samantha Seneviratne:
Doesn't matter at all.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love you. Then we're going to roll our pieces into little balls in our hands. And again, I'm sure at this point I can imagine the dough in my mind's eye. We don't need to flour anything.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Nope.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's good to go.
Samantha Seneviratne:
It's going to be a little buttery.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right, but that like-
Samantha Seneviratne:
But I mean, moisturizer.
Jessie Sheehan:
... yum. Hello? Dry skin. We're going to roll the pieces into balls. We're going to dip them in the butter and then toss lightly in the sugar cinnamon, and then place in our prepared pan. Now again, you don't tell us, so I'm assuming, do you like to use a fork to kind of move the ball around? Are you using your fingers?
Samantha Seneviratne:
I just use my hands.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love the hand thing. This is my only thing, because I make a lot of those, you know how you can make little, tiny muffins or cupcakes in a mini muffin tin, and then dunk them in melted butter and roll them in cinnamon sugar? And they taste like they're little fried-
Samantha Seneviratne:
Donut.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. I find that if I use my fingers, all of the buttery fingers are covered in these huge-
Samantha Seneviratne:
Clumps.
Jessie Sheehan:
... balls of cinnamon sugar, which is not a bad thing. So we're going to place them in the prepared pan and kind of stack the balls one on top of the other. I wondered, do you think you could distribute little coins of banana throughout the bread?
Samantha Seneviratne:
Ooh.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because I was wondering about even more, but I tend to be a little too extra sometimes in my baking where I'm trying to put the kitchen sink in. Did you think like I'm getting enough banana from the dough itself? I don't really need anything more.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Yeah, that was my initial thought, but I mean, yum. The only thing is you'd want to make sure that all the banana that you add is fully encased in the dough so that it wouldn't oxidize.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Samantha Seneviratne:
But that's it. I mean, that sounds delish.
Jessie Sheehan:
And oxidize it would mean that it turned black.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to cover our pan lightly with plastic wrap, set aside until the dough is puffed and jiggles when shaken. I love, love, love, first of all, I love the word jiggle, who doesn't? But tell us about the jiggle tip because I feel like you mention it in the book.
Samantha Seneviratne:
It's the way to know that your dough has properly risen. There's a couple ways. You can also tap it gently, and if the indentation springs back but doesn't spring back quickly, then you know it's properly risen. I think the jiggle test is even easier to tell. Essentially it just looks like jello, right? I mean, if you wiggle it a little, it'll just sort of move, I'm doing it in my seat. It'll move like jello and then you know it's ready to go.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell us just in case people don't know the different stages of something being properly proofed in terms of when you use the finger test?
Samantha Seneviratne:
Sure. So if you press it and it bounces back super quick and it feels really tight, then it's not ready. If you press it and it sort of just slumps in and doesn't come up, then it's probably a little bit over risen. And if you do it right in the middle, then it's perfect. But the thing with that is, if you've pushed it down, a dough that's already been flavored and shaped and everything, you don't really have anywhere to go from here. Just bake it. It's still going to taste good. It's just going to be slightly over risen, no big deal.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that tip. But I also think sometimes it's like you press too hard and then you're like, what? It's never going to come back up. And then you're like, maybe it was my finger pressure. I think the jiggle could be my-
Samantha Seneviratne:
I think jiggle is a little easier to understand.
Jessie Sheehan:
Totally. It reminds me of when you pull a cream pie or a pecan pie and you still want a teeny bit of jiggle in the center.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Otherwise, you've gone too far. I love that. I love a jiggle. Now we're going to bake our monkey bread. We're going to heat the oven to 350, obviously uncover the pan and bake until puffed and set, about 35 minutes.
You direct us or suggest that we use an instant-read thermometer and it should read at least 190. Do you always do that with yeasted bread?
Samantha Seneviratne:
I think that it's the easiest way and the most surefire way to know because I don't know about you, but I've definitely pulled out a bread and had the very center be a little bit still doughy and that's a bummer. So a thermometer is the best and clearest way to know that you've gotten to that point. That's the only way I ever do it. If you don't have one, you sort of can feel in the center of your thing and sort of wiggle it around a little-
Jessie Sheehan:
With a cake tester?
Samantha Seneviratne:
A cake tester and try to feel it, if it's stiff.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you may, if it's really still underdone-
Samantha Seneviratne:
Oh, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
... it may even come out a teeny bit gooey. I mean not gooey, cinnamon sugary but gooey, doughy. And is 190 always the temp? I feel like sometimes recipes will say like 210.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Is it more?
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, I don't know.
Samantha Seneviratne:
That's a good question.
Jessie Sheehan:
I feel like that can be tricky. I think 100% I'm going with 190. But I always wonder if there's like a, this is the temperature at which bread is done, or if it has a little bit more wiggle room.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Well, they're different. And enriched bread, a dough that has butter and sugar and eggs, is going to have a different temperature than like a baguette or something like that.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's true.
Samantha Seneviratne:
I learned that number somewhere. I don't know where. But also, sometimes I pull it and it's like 199 and I'm like, all right, whatever. It's fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's still fine. So now we're going to immediately and carefully, once we've taken our bread out, flip it out onto a plate and let it cool slightly. And we're doing this immediately because we don't want the cinnamon sugary, buttery yummy-ness to stick to the pan. Correct?
Samantha Seneviratne:
If that gets cold, it's going to be much harder to take it out of the pan.
Jessie Sheehan:
And now we're going to glaze. In a small bowl, we're going to whisk some room temp cream cheese. Philadelphia?
Samantha Seneviratne:
That's my favorite.
Jessie Sheehan:
Mine too. Some confectioners' sugar, some warm whole milk and some bourbon. And I wondered why the milk should be warm?
Samantha Seneviratne:
I just think it's easier to mix the mixture if the milk is warm. I learned that, I think in my first book. I was doing a glaze. And you don't have to worry so much if your cream cheese is the right temperature if your milk is a little bit warmer.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can I just say, again, brilliant? I don't know why I haven't been warming the liquid in my-
Samantha Seneviratne:
Right?
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, I love a confectioners' sugar glaze. I make them all the time. Of course it should be slightly warm.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Because if your cream cheese is not cold enough, it's going to get lumpy. And that's so annoying and it takes so long for the cream cheese to get the right temperature. But what if we just warm the milk?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. I love, love, love, love, love that. And we're basically whisking until… Well, I guess I should ask, is there a favorite whisk?
Samantha Seneviratne:
I have to say I'm in love with my sauce whisk. Do you have a sauce whisk, Jessie?
Jessie Sheehan:
No.
Samantha Seneviratne:
You should get, I just love a sauce whisk.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you explain?
Samantha Seneviratne:
So it's a flat whisk. And it's made for sauces so you can scrape a roux while you're adding broth and make a gravy. It's small. It gets in all the corners in a beautiful way. I use it all the time.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can I just say, I'm really embarrassed? I think I have one. I did not know it had a name.
Samantha Seneviratne:
I mean, I think.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's just literally a whisk that's flat.
Samantha Seneviratne:
It's a flat whisk.
Jessie Sheehan:
I do love that.
Samantha Seneviratne:
But the other thing is, when you're mixing things, you know how sometimes when you're mixing with a small, not a balloon whisk but just a small, regular whisk, you get clumps of things in the center of the whisk?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. And it's hard sometimes if the bowl is small to even get the whisk in there.
Samantha Seneviratne:
But the sauce whisk is flexible and you never get that clump of unmixed stuff in the center of the whisk. I love a sauce whisk. I use it all the time.
Jessie Sheehan:
Sauce whisk for the win. So in a small bowl with our sauce whisk, we're going to be whisking until drizzle-able?
Samantha Seneviratne:
Uh-huh. And you can add a little bit more milk or just go slowly so you can sort of determine the-
Jessie Sheehan:
Or sugar. Determining-
Samantha Seneviratne:
... what your texture preference is.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then we're going to drizzle that glaze over the bread, and then we're going to serve warm or room temp. And do you just put it in the middle of the table and let people pull off?
Samantha Seneviratne:
Mm-hmm. And then you can pick off a ball and then swipe it in a little bit of extra glaze.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Samantha Seneviratne:
It's really good.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my God, I cannot wait to make that. I love monkey bread so much.
Now, I just want you to tell us about a few additional recipes and their tips from the book that I am in love with. First of all, duh, chewy chocolate chip cookies, because there are chocolate chip cookies on the cover of this book and there's also a recipe in the book. So there are a couple of things I love about this recipe. One is that you assemble with a wooden spoon even though it's not melted butter. And I also want you to tell us, we already talked about salted butter, but you actually have a preference for them in chocolate chip cookies.
So can you tell us about the wooden spoon and your preference for the salted butter?
Samantha Seneviratne:
I mean actually, my former mother-in-law told me that she always mixes her cookies with a wooden spoon because she thinks that they come out a little bit chewier and denser. And again, feelings, not facts, but I think that's right too. I think that when you mix it with a hand mixer or a stand mixer, you're kind of adding a lot of air and so then you get fluffier cookies. But I want my cookies to be sort of dense and chewy, and like that. So a wooden spoon, you just are creaming everything together but you're not adding a ton of air.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I don't have the recipe right in front of me. But is this a room temp butter situation or a softened butter?
Samantha Seneviratne:
This is a room temp or softened. It doesn't really matter.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, either one. Love, love, love. And then tell us about your preference for the salted butter in the chocolate chip cookies.
Samantha Seneviratne:
I think chocolate chip cookies can just take a lot of salt because also they're very sweet. There's a ton of sugar and there's chocolate, so they're very sweet. So I think the savory edge of a little bit of salted butter adds something really special.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love. Burnt caramel basque cheesecake. First of all, maybe just tell people what that is in case they don't know. But also, you have an incredible springform pan tip that you learned I think from Martha.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Oh, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And that you told me about when I made a Food52 video with Eric Kim like a billion years ago.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Oh, and I was the food stylist on that.
Jessie Sheehan:
You were the food... And you taught me that.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Yeah, Martha taught me that. So a basque cheesecake was invented in Spain. Once you go basque cheesecake, I think you never go back. Because you basically cook it at a really high temperature so you don't have to worry. You know how cheesecakes are full of water baths and cracking, and all the things you have to worry about? But you cook it at a really high temperature so then the outside sort of caramelizes and gets really dark, and the inside is sort of soufflé-y a little bit but it's warm. And it's just the best cheesecake. It's just has so much more dimension than your blonde cheesecake. So it's really special. And then this one, I just made a salted caramel and stirred that into the mixture because I thought the outside's burnt, so why not have a little bit of toasty sugar goodness on the inside too? So that's what that's all about.
And then the tip on the springform pan is basically, I don't know how to explain this, but there's two ways to put the bottom of your springform pan. So just do it the way that the lip of the springform pan is on the bottom, on the very bottom, so that when you bake your cheesecake and take off the rim, there's no lip to get in the way of the slices.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's brilliant.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Does that make sense?
Jessie Sheehan:
It totally does. And usually, peeps, when you're holding your springform pan in your hands, it seems logical to have that lip on the bottom, go up. The sides fit nicely into it, but they fit just as nicely if you flip it over. And once you start doing that, as Sam said, you can easily slice-
Samantha Seneviratne:
You can slice that, or you can sort of slip it off the base onto a serving plate very, very easily.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's the other thing, springform pans can be tricky with cheesecakes and other things like this because it's hard to get them off the bottom, which is why many recipes just tell you to leave it on. But you can take it off much more easily with this tip.
Also, I have never made a basque cheesecake. What is my problem?
Samantha Seneviratne:
You got to make one, Jessie.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know.
Samantha Seneviratne:
They're so good.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know.
Samantha Seneviratne:
And then you can't mess them up. You just cook the heck out of them and they're amazing.
Jessie Sheehan:
Also, don't tell anyone but I don't even like cheesecake that much.
Samantha Seneviratne:
You might like this one.
Jessie Sheehan:
But I feel like I'm really going to like this one.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Also, I don't know if you're supposed to, but I eat them warm sometimes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum.
Samantha Seneviratne:
And it's sort of lighter.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's like custard or something.
Samantha Seneviratne:
And custard-y.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my God.
Samantha Seneviratne:
And the flavor's just so rich and special.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Sam. And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Samantha Seneviratne:
Right back at you, Jessie.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Plugrà Premium European style butter, California Prunes and Ghirardelli for their support. Don't forget to subscribe to She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And tell your baking buddies about us. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network and is recorded at CityVox Studio in Manhattan. Our producer are Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu. And our editorial assistant is Londyn Crenshaw. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie and happy baking.