SHE’S MY CHERRY PIE: DORIE GREENSPAN TRANSCRIPT
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi peeps, you're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, a baking show from the Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and author of three baking books. Each Saturday I'm hanging out with the sweetest bakers around and taking a deep dive into their signature bakes. Today I'm talking all things choux pastry with the utterly delightful Dorie Greenspan. Dorie is the author of 14 cookbooks, including her latest, Baking With Dorie. Dorie's baking books were some of the first I ever purchased and baked from. She's someone I look up to, as do so many professional bakers. It's no surprise, Dorie loves choux pastry. After all, it’s as magical as she is. This transformative dough is used to make cream puffs, eclairs, gougère, even homemade Pocky sticks. We talk scooping the dough versus piping it, our shared love for vanilla, the return of the hand mixer, and what the craquelin craze is all about. Stay tuned for Dorie and be sure to check out her recipe for her cream puffs with crackle and cream in our show notes. Today's show is presented by Le Creuset and California Prunes.
A little housekeeping. Cherry Bombe's Jubilee Conference is less than two months away. I've been to Jubilee several times and it's an amazing day for catching up with your friends, making new pals, and hearing from your heroes. There's also lots of great things to eat, drink, and discover. To snag a ticket, click on the link in our show notes or head to cherrybombe.com to learn more.
Here's a word about Le Creuset. For nearly a century, Le Creuset has been creating joy in the kitchen and beyond as the first in colorful cookware, the finest in quality and design, and the favorite of generations of cooks and bakers. Here, on She's My Cherry Pie, there's a reason I always ask our guests about the tools and equipment they rely on. You can have the best ingredients around and be one of the world's top culinary talents, but you also need cookware and bakeware you can depend on. Professionally, I've relied on Le Creuset for years, when I'm developing recipes, testing new treats for my cookbooks, or making something precise like caramel. And personally, I use my Le Creuset pieces all the time when cooking for myself or my family. If you need a special gift for any upcoming college graduations or weddings, you can't go wrong with a classic Le Creuset Dutch Oven, which you can use for almost everything. You can make individual molten chocolate cakes or berry crumbles in them, or even use them for your mise en place. Head over to lecreuset.com to browse their gorgeous colors, find other gift ideas, and snag some recipes.
Let’s check in with today’s guest. Dorie! So happy to have you here on She's My Cherry Pie, and so excited to talk about choux pastry, cream puffs, and more with you.
Dorie Greenspan:
You know how happy I am to be here. I'm hugging you across the table.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yay! So my introduction to you and your books was your ninth book. For those who don't know, Dorie has written 14. The 2006, Baking: From My Home To Yours, and there are two cakes in that book that were my gateway to your fabulous sweet world. It's the Devil's Food White-out Cake and Bill's Big Carrot Cake. And even though this is a little bit of a throwback, I wondered if you could describe those cakes for the listeners.
Dorie Greenspan:
It's funny. Yeah, they're throwbacks, but I still love them. So my book, Baking: From My Home To Yours was done, and then a friend of mine was talking about the Ebinger's Blackout Cake. Ebinger's is the legendary bakery in Brooklyn, Brooklyn girl. And I thought, "I'll just play with it." There was a recipe that I saw, and it was terrible. For those of you who did not grow up in Brooklyn with Ebinger's, it's dark, dark, dark, dark, dark. The color is dark, cocoa colored. It's layers of chocolate cake. That chocolate was almost like pudding.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Dorie Greenspan:
Did you ever have it?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Dorie Greenspan:
Okay.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
So almost like pudding, and then it was frosted. And then cake crumbs, so cocoa cake crumbs all over it. And so I had found this recipe, I made it, didn't like it and thought, this is the story of my life, "If I were to play around with this a little bit." And I don't remember how many iterations I went through, but at some point I thought it would be funny if it were a black and white cake. And so I made this almost like a seven-minute frosting. The cake was the very last thing I sent. I think I'd already sent my manuscript and I said, "You know what? Wait, let's just put this in," and it became the cover cake.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know. I know. Okay, now onto your most recent book, the 14th, Baking With Dorie, which includes the cream puff recipe which we'll be talking about today. It's a New York Times bestseller. I love the book so much. Your photographer Mark Weinberg and your stylist Samantha Seneviratne, two of my faves.
Dorie Greenspan:
Mine as well, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh, what a team.
Dorie Greenspan:
They're so talented. What a team. I'm so lucky.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I know that you had to do the photoshoot virtually. They were there and you had to watch them.
Dorie Greenspan:
So the shoot was done in 2021 in full COVID. They worked in a studio, there were just three people where there might have been more at another time, and we were on Zoom together 10, 12 hours a day as they were making it. They're just crazy talented.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. I love them both. Now, some people may have heard this story before, but can you tell us how the book came to be considering, I think you thought you were done writing cookbooks in 2018 when you wrote your baker's dozen, Everyday Dorie?
Dorie Greenspan:
My husband will probably tell you that every time I write a book I say, "This is the last one, I'm never doing it again. I'm never doing it again." But I really had thought, "Done." And then our whole family was in Santa Barbara for a wedding, and I had gone to a coffee place and they had the most beautiful cheddar scones with almost like a stem of scallion which it was just so pretty and it was delicious. And I thought, ”Cheddar… scallion… scone.” I took a picture of it because one does, and I put it on Instagram and the author wrote back immediately and said, "You should do a savory baking book." And I got… do you get this? When you get a good idea, you get a tingle that's really physical? Yeah, I tingled.
Jessie Sheehan:
Obviously, the book didn't quite end up that way. It ended up being a little sweeter than just savory.
Dorie Greenspan:
I really thought it was going to be a savory book.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
And in fact, I think that's what I proposed. I proposed an all savory book. Yes, and then as I was working, I kept getting sweeter and sweeter. And I kept calling my editor and saying, "Just a few sweets… just a few more."
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's love.
Dorie Greenspan:
It's more sweet than it is savory.
Jessie Sheehan:
And what I learned when I was doing little research about you that I didn't already know is a little bit more about your writing process, which is obviously fascinating to me since I write cookbooks and fascinating I'm sure to some of our listeners. When I am thinking about a cookbook, you have your proposal, and often in a proposal you have to submit a table of contents. And that for me is a great way to organize my recipe thoughts. I have the idea for every single recipe written down, a name for it, I just haven't developed it yet. And I learned that is not the way you do it.
Dorie Greenspan:
In my next life. Yeah. Yes. That's the way it's meant to be done. And I would be a calmer… Oh, my life would be completely different. So I have been known to write lists, but I haven't been known to follow them. So my kitchen and my desk are all in one place and I'll be working on something and think, "Oh, I have those bananas. What would they be like with coffee?" And I'll get up and I'll start doing something.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
And I really never know what I've got until... Which is ridiculous. But I don't know what I've got until the end.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. The other part of your writing process or your testing and recipe development process that I wanted to just flag is Mary Dodd.
Dorie Greenspan:
Mary Dodd. The wonderful Mary Dodd.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because I was lucky enough to have a recipe from my book, Snackable Bakes, in your newsletter. And I know that Mary had helped test it, or photograph it or something. And then she and I started following each other and I just love her. And I want to hear the scoop about how Mary Dodd came in your life.
Dorie Greenspan:
I'm so glad she did. Mary and I have been working together, I think since 2011, and she stopped me at a farmer's market in Connecticut. She lives 20 minutes away from where I live. And she had her two little sons with her and they were really little. And she said, "I live in the neighborhood. If ever you need help, call." And I said, "Thank you." And I thought, "Oh, you know what? I'm okay." And I was wearing something that had a pocket, she said, "Here's my telephone number," and she put it in my pocket.
And about a week or two later, I was filming for something, and the person who was supposed to help in the kitchen didn't show up. And I reached in my pocket and I called Mary Dodd. And what I didn't know was the gymnastics she had to do to find a babysitter, everything. But she showed up, she worked every day with us for two weeks. And when it was over, it was clear we couldn't live without one another, or I couldn't live without her, for sure.
Jessie Sheehan:
Amazing, amazing.
Dorie Greenspan:
And so I do all the testing and retail. And so I get it to where I want it, and then it goes to Mary.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's amazing.
Dorie Greenspan:
At this point, if I were to do the coffee banana cake and send it to Mary, she'd be the one to say, "You've done that."
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what we need.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
So she's been my tester for all these years and I just... Yeah, I'm really lucky. I'm so lucky.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I had, in my first two books, worked with a variety of people, friends and family. And then this last book I worked, oh, with Stephanie Whitten. Yes.
Dorie Greenspan:
The wonderful Stephanie Whitten.
Jessie Sheehan:
Stephanie, I just have to tell the listeners, is a founding part of a group of bloggers who bake Dorie's recipes every Tuesday called Tuesdays with Dorie.
Dorie Greenspan:
And she's been doing it… This started with Baking: From My Home To Yours. So it's a lot of years.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
Isn't it wonderful to have one person you trust, who tests thoroughly and-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, and she's smarter than me. She has a better palate than me. So I know, because I sometimes have simple taste. And I know I can bring it to her and say, "Do I need zhuzh this up?" And she'll say, “Yeah,” she'll say, “No,” she'll do this… Incredible. Oh, I forgot. I love that connection.
Dorie Greenspan:
And I love the recipe that we put in the newsletter. I had made it, loved it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Sweet and salty fudge with pretzels and potatoes.
Dorie Greenspan:
With pretzels and potato chips.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
Pretzels and potato chips. It was so great. So I made it a few times, not because it needed so many tests, but because I loved it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. And then Mary made it and Mary photographed it.
Jessie Sheehan:
I loved her, loved that. And then finally, one last question before we get to choux pastry. So Dorie, I know the story about your delicious granddaughter, Gemma [Tao Greenspan], not loving her first birthday cake that had the strawberry in it, but I'm assuming she now has had a second birthday.
Dorie Greenspan:
She has had a second birthday and she has a sister.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know about the sister, oh my God.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah, she's so cute.
Jessie Sheehan:
But I want to know how cake, strawberries…Is it all still what she likes?
Dorie Greenspan:
So she...
Jessie Sheehan:
Maybe tell the story of the first birthday cake because the listeners don't know.
Dorie Greenspan:
So for her first birthday, I made these tiny little cakes and she loved strawberries at the time. And so they were white and they had a little strawberry inside of them and they were iced, and I gave it to her, and she didn't like that. It was 94 degrees and we were outside. So I gave it to her and the icing had melted and it stuck to her fingers, and she didn't love them. It really broke my heart. But for her second birthday, she had the most gorgeous cake that I had nothing to do with. Katherine Yang from Gigi Blue, who makes the most phenomenal cakes, made her birthday cake. It did have strawberries and she did love it. And I made cookies.
Jessie Sheehan:
Did she like them?
Dorie Greenspan:
Loved them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, good.
Dorie Greenspan:
Thank goodness.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know. Actually, I've seen on Instagram that you two have started to bake together a little bit.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes. Yes, we're going to be making waffles next.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Let's talk pâte à choux. Am I pronouncing it right?
Dorie Greenspan:
Pâte à choux. Pâte à choux.
Jessie Sheehan:
Pâte à choux, or cream puffs. And I love that this is a sweetheart recipe. This is from your new book. Can you explain what a sweetheart recipe is in the new book?
Dorie Greenspan:
I had been working away. I've finished Baking With Dorie, and I was trying to make chapters because I knew some things were breakfast and I knew some things were savory, but I was trying to organize, and this happens all the time. So I make little index cards, I do this with Mary, make little index cards and write the title on each one. And then we shuffle, "Okay, what chapter does this... Where should this go?" And I looked at what I had baked and what I had written, and realized that I had clusters of recipes that were their own little category that I had, I say I played favorites. And so I had a cluster of chocolate chip cookies. I had a cluster of things to make with brioche. So there's like a gaggle of geese. I had a something of crusts. I had so many crusts. I had meringues and I had cream puffs. And so I made them their own little... Oh, I had layer cakes too, and things with apples. And we called them sweethearts and gave them their own little sections in the book.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. And if you're reading Dorie's book, you can see the sections with the little hearts next to the recipes that are her fave, and I just love that. One more thing I wanted to ask you about, Dorie, tell everyone about the newsletter, which I am an extremely happy subscriber to.
Dorie Greenspan:
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. So I started it about 18 months ago. It's called XOXO Dorie. It's just a great way for me to be in touch with readers, and bakers, and cooks, and it gives me a chance to play around with recipes. More like being able to tell people about new books, tell people about new recipes, have the feedback with them. I love doing the newsletter. I started a blog when blogs first started, and I loved that. And I let it go, I don't remember why. And then when I started the newsletter, I thought, "Oh, I remember this. I get to write to friends and get to hear from them."
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, it's wonderful also because you share your travels, so we get to see what you're eating when you go to Paris. I love that.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. And I love being able to do that, and I love that there's a real back and forth with what I'm saying and what readers are saying.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
It's great to be in touch that way.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. No, and I know that when you write books and when you're someone that people love, it is such an amazing opportunity to connect with you.
Dorie Greenspan:
Oh, thank you. Thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
I would say most people don't feel like... You can love a cookbook, doesn't mean you're going to be getting a newsletter from its author. So it's pretty amazing.
Dorie Greenspan:
I really enjoy doing it. Aren't bakers the best people?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, 100%.
Dorie Greenspan:
I love my readers.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Thank you to California Prunes for sponsoring this episode of She's My Cherry Pie. It's a funny coincidence that California Prunes is our sponsor, because I love prunes. Last year, my doctor told me I should eat six a day for healthy bones, and I've been hooked ever since. Prunes are also good for your heart and your gut, and they're loaded with nutrients like vitamin K, dietary fiber, potassium and antioxidants. And moreover, they're delicious. They're 100% my go-to smart snack. Snacking aside, I didn't realize how versatile California prunes are for cooking and baking. But it makes perfect sense, they're sweet but complex with a rich, jammy flavor that compliments so many ingredients from chocolate to cheese.
You can use chopped California prunes in baked goods like muffins and scones the same way you would any other dried fruit. California prunes are a lush and healthy addition to any of these treats. You can also make prune puree, which is prunes and water blended together, and swap that into certain recipes in place of eggs or oil, or to reduce the amount of sugar. For more on prune puree and great recipes that include prunes, head over to californiaprunes.org.
Now back to our guest. Okay. So the recipe we're going to talk about first is the cream puffs with, I love this name, cream puffs with crackle and cream, which is cream puffs topped with a crackly cookie dough. And you call it the, “Crown is a cloak of cookie crackle.” First of all, for those that don't know, please read all of Dorie's head notes in all of her articles online. Besides being an incredible baker, she is an amazing writer. I love the way you write.
Dorie Greenspan:
Thank you, Jessie.
Jessie Sheehan:
And these particular cream puffs are filled with a vanilla whipped cream. Can you tell us a little bit about craquelin?
Dorie Greenspan:
So yes, I can tell you about it. What I can't tell you is where it came from and when people started using it. I asked Pierre Hermé, I asked, I think... Did I talk to Daniel Schenik from Lafayette about this? Nobody seems to know. It seemed to just appear, and thank goodness it did. It's so wonderful. So what it is, it’s a cookie. It's like a brown sugar cookie. And you make the cookie, you roll it out, you get it really cold, you cut it out so it's the size of your cream puff, and you put it on top. So it looks like a little beret on top of it, or like a little, what are the hats called when you graduate?
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I know what you mean even though I couldn't tell you the name. Yes, it does look like a graduation cap.
Dorie Greenspan:
Right? On a little round cream puff. You can put it on anything. And when it bakes, it melts, and yes it cloaks, right? It's like, you know those chocolate cookies that you-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. At Christmas.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. Only Christmas?
Jessie Sheehan:
Because those are Christmas cookies.
Dorie Greenspan:
It's like that. So it's like earthquakey. It cracks. I don't know the science behind it, but I watch it in my oven window. So the cream puffs grows, and the cookie melts, and then it cracks. And it is so beautiful. And I love anything that is gorgeous and you had nothing to do with it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
You didn't have to pipe a design on it. You didn't have to make a frosting. It's just naturally beautiful.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I don't know if this is helpful in terms of when craquelin may have come on the scene.
Dorie Greenspan:
Don't you know?
Jessie Sheehan:
No. When Baking Chez Moi came out, in the head note, you said that craquelin was something that was all over Paris patisseries at that point. You didn't even know why, but they were replacing glazes and fondants. So maybe it was around.
Dorie Greenspan:
I don't know.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
But I even saw it on top of brioche, and it was beautiful, actually. So it was like brioche bun, hold it in your hand bun size, and there was craquelin on top. And some of it was pink, and sometimes the craquelin was brown or gold dusted. It's just once you make it, it's so much fun to make it and to see what happens.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.
Dorie Greenspan:
You just want to have it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. I love it. I love it. So for the craquelin topping, which is almost like a cookie, you call for all-purpose flour. Do you have a favorite brand of flour?
Dorie Greenspan:
So, I use King Arthur.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Dorie Greenspan:
I always, from the time that I started writing cookbooks, bought my ingredients from the supermarket, because I wanted everybody to be able to have exactly what I had. And I used supermarket flour. And now King Arthur, which I love their products, King Arthur is in the supermarket.
Jessie Sheehan:
So great.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So easy.
Dorie Greenspan:
King Arthur.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yay. There's brown sugar in the cookie. Could you use light or dark? Could you use granulated?
Dorie Greenspan:
No. It should be brown sugar, but it can be light or dark.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Dorie Greenspan:
I usually bake with light brown. What do you bake with?
Jessie Sheehan:
I do too, unless I'm specifying that I want it to be dark. Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
So I have light brown.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Perfect.
Dorie Greenspan:
That's what I use.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect. There's unsalted butter, which is chilled and cubed, and then sea salt. Do you ever use kosher in your baking?
Dorie Greenspan:
Salt. This is-
Jessie Sheehan:
It's tricky.
Dorie Greenspan:
I don't use kosher salt in my baking, I use fine sea salt. I have a closet full of salt, right? So I love fleur de sel. I use that in the World Peace Cookies. And I like it as a finishing salt. I love Maldon sea salt, the flake salt. Just a couple of shards of salt on something. But my everyday salt-
Jessie Sheehan:
Fine sea salt.
Dorie Greenspan:
Fine sea salt. What do you bake with?
Jessie Sheehan:
I love kosher.
Dorie Greenspan:
Kosher.
Jessie Sheehan:
I've moved into kosher, and I feel like for the most part, people don't complain when they see that in a recipe. But it's just what I always have.
Dorie Greenspan:
I see it more and more now.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
I see lots of magazines using kosher and specifying Diamond Crystal.
Jessie Sheehan:
As opposed to Morton's, right?
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And that, folks, is because they are different fineness. Because the grains of salt are different sizes, I would say all recipes are written for Diamond Crystal and not Morton because it's a finer-
Dorie Greenspan:
The Morton is salty. If only we would all weigh our ingredients.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know. And there would be no problems.
Dorie Greenspan:
The world could be a better place.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then vanilla, Dorie, do you have a fave?
Dorie Greenspan:
I love Sonoma Syrup Co.'s Crush, which is a mix of vanillas, but I use several vanillas. They should be pure vanilla and never, never, never imitation. I find myself using, this is off topic, but if I look back, I used to use a little vanilla.
Jessie Sheehan:
Mm-hmm.
Dorie Greenspan:
When I started baking, the vanilla came in a little jar, right, and you measured a cap full. And the cap was teensy. Then we got pure, wonderful vanilla. And I find I'm using more vanilla than I used to. Where I might have used a half teaspoon years ago, I'm into a teaspoon or two teaspoons. The flavor, what it does, the way it smooths the edges of anything with egg. The way it brings out the flavor of-
Jessie Sheehan:
Chocolate.
Dorie Greenspan:
Of chocolate, yeah. Of butter. So yeah, I'm using more vanilla.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love hearing that because I always joke, and I think I've probably said it about five times on this podcast, but I am very vanilla forward. People are like, "Why so much vanilla?" I'm like, "Vanilla is delicious." But I try to say, "You can always pull back if you want to," but I-
Dorie Greenspan:
Because you can.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Dorie Greenspan:
But if you're using a really good vanilla, the kind of vanilla that you can't decide if you want to put in a cake or dab on like perfume.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Dorie Greenspan:
If it's that kind of vanilla, then yeah, you really want to taste it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now in the dough, it calls for milk. Should it be whole milk? Could you use-
Dorie Greenspan:
It should be whole milk, but...
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. I always keep whole milk in the, I try to, in the refrigerator for baking, but it's not what I use in my coffee.
Jessie Sheehan:
Me too.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. Other milk works.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm just thinking of this off the cuff, but do you think almond milk or a different...
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes. And I'll tell you why.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Dorie Greenspan:
Okay. I haven't tried it, but I think you can try this at home. If it's a nut milk, and I don't know the nut milks well enough. If it's a milk that can be boiled and not separate or anything, then you can use it. Because the original recipe for pâte à choux, which by the way, the name is a corruption of pâte à choux, “hot dough,” because it was... “Chaud” means hot.
Jessie Sheehan:
“Chaud” means hot in French.
Dorie Greenspan:
Because it was a cooked dough, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Ah, I love that.
Dorie Greenspan:
The original recipe didn't have milk, it was water. The full quantity of liquid was water. So why wouldn't?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, that's just adding some richness, but you really just want something that boils.
Dorie Greenspan:
I think it would work.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
Interesting.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then as Dorie said, there's water in the recipe. Unsalted butter, I assume unsalted?
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. Unsalted.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
If it were salted, it'd be fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
It would be fine. And there it says small pieces, does it need to be-
Dorie Greenspan:
No. You could really just put the... Because you're going to melt it. So you could even put the whole stick in.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And then sugar, which is so interesting, optional.
Dorie Greenspan:
Optional.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
So sugar, again, is not part of the original recipe. It's a very neutral dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
I like to add sugar if I know I'm going to make something sweet. And also because it's nice for browning.
Jessie Sheehan:
I was just going to ask if it's-
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. It's going to brown beautifully without it, but yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And it's just a tiny bit of sugar. And then there's salt, which I think I also read when you were describing the recipe that the original didn't have sugar or salt.
Dorie Greenspan:
Right.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Which is so interesting.
Dorie Greenspan:
Mm-hmm.
Jessie Sheehan:
The last thing is the cream filling, which is, for your particular recipe is just a whipped cream. Although I know you said you could put curd in it, you could put-
Dorie Greenspan:
Or pastry cream.
Jessie Sheehan:
Or pastry cream.
Dorie Greenspan:
Which is traditional and delicious.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love though the lightness of the whipped cream, it sounds really nice. Which it's just heavy cream. It's says sugar. Do you like granulated? Do you like confectioner's sugar?
Dorie Greenspan:
I like confectioner's sugar, but it could be either.
Jessie Sheehan:
For whipped cream.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then vanilla. So making the craquelin, stand mixer with the paddle attachment? Yes. So this is just making me think of all kinds of things.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So I have my trusted stand mixer. I keep it out at all times because one never knows. But I was talking to Claire Saffitz, and I was looking at Claire's new book, and she doesn't call for a stand mixer, she uses a hand mixer all the time.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
I just bought myself a new hand mixer. I told you I'm suggestible.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah, exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. But you can make the craquelin by hand.
Dorie Greenspan:
Okay.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you're mixing it up until you have moist clumps and curds.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Again, I love the way... I said read Dorie's head notes and her front matter in her books and her articles, but also her recipes have wonderful descriptions, because we're always, as recipe writers, trying to come up with the right words so that people will be able to understand what we're talking about.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes. So I'm always... Exactly, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's our job.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's our mission. But I'm always trying to imagine that I'm standing next to the person and we're sitting on their shoulder, encouraging them and saying, "Okay, look for this clue." I think the visual clues are really important.
Dorie Greenspan:
Me too. Me too.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then basically, you know it's ready if you can squeeze it together a little bit and it holds together in your hand. And then this part would be hard for me because you're putting it on the counter between two pieces of parchment, which I love, and I love rolling out anything that way. I don't know, listeners, if you guys do that, but it's just a great way when you're rolling out something thin and maybe fragile or delicate to put it on parchment and then another piece on top, and then you roll.
Dorie Greenspan:
But you want it so thin.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's really thin.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is that hard to do, Dorie?
Dorie Greenspan:
No, not with this dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Dorie Greenspan:
Because you're taking it right out of the bowl.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Dorie Greenspan:
So it's soft, it's malleable.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Dorie Greenspan:
It'll do anything you want.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Okay, good.
Dorie Greenspan:
And then you're going into the freezer, so you don't have to worry about peeling away the paper, which you won't be able to do.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right.
Dorie Greenspan:
Then, once you're trying to cut it out a little later in the recipe, you're cutting it out from frozen. It's easy peasy. And you're going to get your beret graduation cap look, because it's like a frozen piece of cookie dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that so much. And just so peeps understand, you're putting the dough within the two pieces of parchment on a sheet pan, a baking sheet, and then slipping it right into your freezer while you make your puffs. First things first for puffs, take your piece of parchment and draw your circles.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes. So I do things in so many different ways. If you want 12 beautiful puffs, yes, you should make a template. So just draw the circles on the parchment sheet. I often just scoop things out, in which case, you don't need to do it. You don't need to do it. But I'm so proud of myself when I do it. There's something so very lovely about doing things in a very traditional manner.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Dorie Greenspan:
So making the circles on the parchment, flipping the parchment over.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell people why you do that?
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. So you don't get pencil marks on the bottom of it, yeah. I know from experience.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. Yes.
Dorie Greenspan:
And then piping them.
Jessie Sheehan:
And yeah, you do say, have a pastry bag maybe with a plain three quarter inch tip.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you have a favorite pastry bag brand or tip brand that you have at home?
Dorie Greenspan:
My tips must be Ateco.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep.
Dorie Greenspan:
Does anybody else even make tips?
Jessie Sheehan:
I know.
Dorie Greenspan:
Right?
Jessie Sheehan:
Good question.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah, I think they're Ateco. My bags, I don't know who makes them. I've had them for... So I have old canvas bags from when I first started, but I have…They almost feel like silk, but they're some kind of nylon. I don't know what they are.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
And I bought them in Paris, so.
Jessie Sheehan:
I have a roll of plastic.
Dorie Greenspan:
I have those ones too.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. But do you recommend those silk ones? That sounds nice.
Dorie Greenspan:
They're not silk, they're, what are they? I like them, you can wash them, they dry easily.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Those are good to know.
Dorie Greenspan:
And then there's, of course, the plastic bag.
Jessie Sheehan:
The Ziploc bag, just snip the tip. But I love this idea. When you talk about scooping, could you just take a little, like a two tablespoon or maybe smaller cookie scoop?
Dorie Greenspan:
So I don't know when I started scooping pate a choux, but that was a lifesaver for me, because I'm not a great piper. It just changed the game for me.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
And when I realized that you can just take a scoop the way you do for a cookie and put the dough down that way, it's what I do for gougère. These are the cream puffs with the craquelin top are bigger and I don't have the right scoop.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
But if you do, go for it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Go for it. Okay.
Dorie Greenspan:
I have a friend who makes beautiful gougère, but she makes them with spoons.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, that kind when you take one and-
Dorie Greenspan:
Not like a quenelle, but hers are beautiful. Mine never looked that good from a spoon, but a scoop, a cookie scoop, it's a game changer.
Jessie Sheehan:
Game changer. Couldn't agree more. I'm wondering what size scoop that would be, because it's like a two and a quarter to two and a half inch round that you're trying to get. Would it be as much as a half? No. Quarter cup, maybe.
Dorie Greenspan:
I use a half cup scoop for the-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, the...
Dorie Greenspan:
Filling.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. This is a unique recipe and that it's cooked, and then baked. We're going to cook in a medium sauce pan, the milk, the water, the butter, the sugar, if you're using until it just boils, right?
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. It has to be hot.
Jessie Sheehan:
You want it hot, and the butter needs to be melted, that's really important.
Dorie Greenspan:
Right.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then you add all of your flour all at once and grab your sturdy, flexible spatula. Do you have a favorite sturdy, flexible...
Dorie Greenspan:
I don't know the name of it, but I think of it as being a onesie, maybe that's because I now have a granddaughter. It's all one piece of silicone, so there isn't a handle where something can get crummy and it's-
Jessie Sheehan:
And also break. I've had those break.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. When they're one piece-
Dorie Greenspan:
So a onesie.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep.
Dorie Greenspan:
And sturdy. I'm in my kitchen alone, but I find it dramatic and fun to do this part of the cream puff because the water is bubbling. You're checking that the butter is melted. You're putting the flower and boom! All at once. Just all at once. And then you're stirring, stirring, stirring, stirring.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
I don't know. I find it so much fun. It makes me giggle as I'm working on it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Almost like you're a mad scientist.
Dorie Greenspan:
Well, and you're checking. Okay, now we have non-stick pans. So you don't get this as much, but the sign for done used to be that there'd be a film on the bottom of the pan that the flower would film slightly. And I just, I don't know, I love baking. Can you tell?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, I can.
Dorie Greenspan:
But yeah. And it's about four minutes until you see-
Jessie Sheehan:
Until you see that film.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. You've got the bubbling liquid and the flower, kaboom, right in there. And then you're stirring, and it falls apart sometimes, so it doesn't look all that pretty. But you keep stirring and stirring over heat, and it comes together in a ball. And so you're watching it change, and you've got it right when you've got that little bit of film and the dough comes.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think I forgot to say that you're adding in the flour on the heat.
Dorie Greenspan:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you're still cooking.
Dorie Greenspan:
It looks like mashed potatoes in a way.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
It's that good.
Jessie Sheehan:
You described it as you literally need to dry the dough out, and you're doing that with the flour and the heat.
Dorie Greenspan:
Right. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then once you have your film, you're going to transfer the dough to a stand mixer bowl or my new hand mixer. Thank you, Claire.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Or you can do it by hand.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yep. The thing to remember is that everything used to be done by hand, and everything can be done. I would not like to make brioche by hand, but yeah, all of this can be done by hand.
Jessie Sheehan:
But you can do this by hand. What speed would you want the mixer at when you were adding those eggs?
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. So I usually work... It's so funny, I don't really look, I just pull the lever in there and it is... It's four or five.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
Medium-ish.
Jessie Sheehan:
And the dough doesn't need to be cooled before you add the eggs?
Dorie Greenspan:
Okay. You should wait a minute or two.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Dorie Greenspan:
I always feel like by the time I get the dough scraped out, and it's in my mixer bowl, which is room temperature, my room temperature can be cool in Connecticut, it's fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then you're going to do your eggs. This is actually a good little tip. You say that if you're mixing by hand with two or less eggs, you're 100% fine. Maybe if it's three or four...
Dorie Greenspan:
Well, I'm a weakling.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yah. No, I know. But also, I would prefer my mixer for this. And I love this, "Beat with conviction."
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. Because you've got to get that egg in. And just like the flour that didn't look so pretty before it came into its mashed potato ball, it's what happens with the eggs. You put the egg in and it looks like it's coming together and it might fall apart again. So you really need to beat it to get it in.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I love that. As you're doing this, you want to do one egg, and you have to mix until that's incorporated before you add the next.
Dorie Greenspan:
A professional pastry chef said to me, "You don't have to do that. You could do two of them at a time." And I thought, "You could. I want to see what's going on."
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. And then you add that egg white after those, and the dough should be shiny at this point.
Dorie Greenspan:
The dough is so beautiful. It almost looks velvety, and it's got a little sheen on it. It's really beautiful.
Jessie Sheehan:
I can't wait to make them. And then you say that it's important to shape pretty fast because it's-
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. Because if you leave it, it's going to firm up. You're not going to get the same shape. It's going to be harder to shape. So do it all at once.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect. Like you and I just discussed, you can transfer it to a pastry bag and pipe on those circles, or you could spoon it or you could scoop it. Oh, and then the moist and fingertip. Can you share that?
Dorie Greenspan:
Oh. So if you're putting craquelin, it's not that important. But it was fun because when I learned to make them, I was told that you weren't supposed to have little points on them. And if you pipe and you're not an excellent piper, and I am not an excellent pipe, right, you do get points. And so you just wet your finger and tamp each one down.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect.
Dorie Greenspan:
And then you're going to remove your craquelin from the freezer and with a cookie cutter, cut it into rounds. Do you have a favorite cookie cutter or you just have a bunch of them?
Jessie Sheehan:
I have a bunch of cookie cutters. I have cookie cutters I love. They're more dough cutters than cookie cutters that come in, I don't know, 10 of them in-
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes, I have them. They're almost like biscuit cutters.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
And they go all the way down to a tiny little hole.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. To a little, like, what would I use it for? Taking out the center of a Linzer cookie or something. We're cutting out our craquelin. We're going to balance them as Dorie and I discussed on each puff, bake for a few minutes, then lower the temp, bake for some more minutes. And then-
Dorie Greenspan:
And sit by that window and watch them. They're so beautiful. There's always a moment, even though I've made, I don't know how many of them, where I look at them and think, "Oh, they're not going to puff." They started, but shouldn't they be higher by now? They always puff.
Jessie Sheehan:
They always work. Oh my God, I love that. It is so magic. But if someone wanted to freeze.
Dorie Greenspan:
The moment to freeze is after they're shaped. So when I'm making-
Jessie Sheehan:
But before craquelin.
Dorie Greenspan:
Before. You don't put the craquelin.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes. The craquelin can be sitting in the freezer side by side.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep.
Dorie Greenspan:
So when I'm making gougère, I'll often double the recipe because they freeze so well and I use a cookie scoop for gougère. I'll scoop them out onto a parchment line baking sheet, and I'll scoop them really close together because it doesn't make any difference. And then put them in the freezer, and as soon as they're frozen, just break them apart and put them in-
Jessie Sheehan:
Like a Ziploc.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Love that. So with these, after they're baked, you said there are two ways to do it. You could cut them straight in half. Well wait till they cool, then cut them straight. This is for filling them. Cut them straight in half, or cut off the top third if you-
Dorie Greenspan:
And there's a third way that I didn't write about.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, tell me.
Dorie Greenspan:
Well, you can just poke a hole, right? Of course.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
Why didn't I think of that?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
Just poke a hole in the cream puff, either on the side or the bottom, and-
Jessie Sheehan:
Fill them that way. Although I love that look where it's almost like a little lid.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes. So do I.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
So do I.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think that would be pretty.
Dorie Greenspan:
And you get to see the little tease of that chocolate filling.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And then I didn't ask earlier, although we've talked about scoops a lot, because we're going to scoop our whipped cream or our whatever pastry cream with a half cup scoop. Do you have a favorite scoop brand?
Dorie Greenspan:
I use mostly OXO scoops.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, me too. And then serve or refrigerate at this point, right?
Dorie Greenspan:
Right.
Jessie Sheehan:
Or do you like them a little chilled when you serve them?
Dorie Greenspan:
If I were organized, I would chill them, but not for too long.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
One of the great things about being able to bake at home is to have a cream puff when it's still crunchy on top and has the cream inside. So you can wait but if you don't have to.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Because once you put them in the fridge, it's going to soften a bit.
Dorie Greenspan:
A little bit, yeah sure, time will...
Jessie Sheehan:
This other fabulous way or suggestion Dorie has is to make profiteroles for them with ice cream and hot fudge, which is beyond. So what's lovely about Dorie's book in this particular chapter, if you have not seen it and if you have not, you'd need to get your hands on a copy. But there are a few recipes using the same dough. So we did our cream puffs, but we're going to talk about a few more. Yay! And this is called a chouquette, and it is a one-bite cinnamon puff. I love it, it's chouquette in French and in Dorie language, it's a one-bite cinnamon puff, which I love. But these are mini cream puffs without the filling.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. Teensy, teensy little baby.
Jessie Sheehan:
Studded with a little crunchy sugar. And I love this, Dorie. I'm not kidding about her writing. She describes them as the popcorn of the sweet world. And you can imagine why, because you'd eat it addictively like popcorn. Tell us a teeny bit about them.
Dorie Greenspan:
So the cinnamon is not traditional, but I think it's so nice in there. The chouquette, it's really a tiny, as you said, just a tiny little cream puff, and it's an afterschool snack for kids. So you can go into a pastry shop in Paris where I live part time. So that's why I'm always saying in Paris, also because I love Paris. But you can go into a pastry shop and there might be a big bowl, like a popcorn bowl filled with chouquette and a scoop, and you just ask for chouquette and they'll be scooped into a little paper bag, and you can munch them on the way back home.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. And the sugar is traditional.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Dorie Greenspan:
The crunchy sugar.
Jessie Sheehan:
I just love that. Do you have a favorite cinnamon that you like to use when you're baking?
Dorie Greenspan:
I'm liking the Burlap & Barrel cinnamon. I love their spices.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I love their cinnamon. Basically, so you're following the cream puff recipe when you're making your one-bite cinnamon puff puffs.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
You're piping or scooping?
Dorie Greenspan:
I scoop.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
This is definitely a scoop.
Jessie Sheehan:
Could you also just use a little teaspoon, or would that be probably a little messy, but you could do that. And then sprinkled with this pearl sugar or Swedish sugar. And I think you say in the book, you like Lars brand.
Dorie Greenspan:
I live near Ikea.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
And you can buy the sugar there.
Jessie Sheehan:
Good to know.
Dorie Greenspan:
It's so great because it's really crunchy. That sugar is almost like those Pop Rocks or something.
Jessie Sheehan:
Mm-hmm.
Dorie Greenspan:
So you bite it, but it's not really as hard as you think it would be.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. It sounds so yummy.
Dorie Greenspan:
So you've got the sugar and then the soft cream puff. It's really nice. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's almost like the craquelin on the cream puff.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's like to have two textures is... And they're so cute looking. Oh my gosh. Two baking sheets. It makes a big batch, which is great. And you rotate the sheets because you have two of them?
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. These days I'm trying because I can, because I'm home working.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
I'm trying to bake things one at a time.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know. I always do that. But then I was talking to somebody. There are some things that I always do because it's the way I was taught in a bakery, which was my baking school, and I rotate everything. At the halfway mark, I rotate cookies, I rotate cakes. Am I the only person who's rotating?
Dorie Greenspan:
I was rotating and I pretty much stopped.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
In part because, it's just a short time when it's cookies. It could be 12 minutes.
Jessie Sheehan:
No, you're right.
Dorie Greenspan:
So you've preheated the oven. You've opened the oven and lost some heat to put the sheets in, now six minutes later, does it make sense to...
Jessie Sheehan:
Good point.
Dorie Greenspan:
But if your oven has hotspots.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know.
Dorie Greenspan:
Right.
Jessie Sheehan:
I wonder. I always put it into my recipes, rotate at the halfway point. But I wonder if instead I should have some note at the beginning of a cookbook that just says, "Look, I rotate because I don't trust my oven. I didn't write the recipes that way, but know that's something one can do."
Dorie Greenspan:
Oh, if only we could go back.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know. I'm imagining book four.
Dorie Greenspan:
We are waiting for book four.
Jessie Sheehan:
This next recipe using this same dough is so special and fabulous. It's a recipe for chocolate-tipped cream puff Pocky sticks. How did you ever come up with this?
Dorie Greenspan:
I don't know, but I was so excited. I was so excited.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.
Dorie Greenspan:
So I was just playing around with the dough, and I thought, "What if I were to change the shape and just go long?" And would the dough hold up? Because I wanted it to be long and thin. And what would it be like? And I have such faith in this dough, because it can be boiled, or fried or anything else.
Jessie Sheehan:
You write in the head note that there are these crisp cookies that are piped as long as grossini, which I kind of knew what grissini is, but I did google it. So can you just tell people what grissini-
Dorie Greenspan:
The long Italian breadsticks that are crunchy. In the end, we made some of them a little bit shorter, a little chubbier, because you've got to really be able to pipe all the way down the sheet to get them on. But they're so much fun. And then they get glazed, and what could be more fun than glaze.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. And sprinkled with sugar.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love it. Love it.
Dorie Greenspan:
Or they could have sprinkle sprinkles, which would be fun for a kid's party.
Jessie Sheehan:
And again, you can draw on the parchment if you want, the 12 long lines.
Dorie Greenspan:
I had to.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you're so cute. Again, Dorie writes she suggests the 12 long lines, or you can do six lines. But she says the 12 are the most stylish and fun. And if the most stylish baker there is, which is Dorie, tells you what she considers stylish, you follow suit, pun intended. So I loved that. And again, this time you probably need a pastry bag or a Ziploc bag.
Dorie Greenspan:
Or a Ziploc, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because you don't really need a tip.
Dorie Greenspan:
No, you don't need a tip.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
We need tips for, what are they called when... I call them crenelated, but that's not right.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, the fluted tip.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah, when they're spiky and you can get-
Jessie Sheehan:
I think it's fluted. Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. And you can get those beautiful lines down or something.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Dorie Greenspan:
But for something this simple, for the cream puffs, for the sticks, for just all you want is the size.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
So, you just snip.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. The glaze here is so simple, it's just chocolate.
Dorie Greenspan:
Mm-hmm.
Jessie Sheehan:
Though, I would love to know, do you have a favorite chocolate brand? You offer three, a milk, or a semi-sweet, or a dark. You have a favorite for all three?
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. So I love Valrhona chocolate. Very expensive, but wonderful. And always wonderful.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
And I use Guittard as well.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I also love the Valrhona cocoa powder.
Dorie Greenspan:
Oh, that's-
Jessie Sheehan:
The Dutch process.
Dorie Greenspan:
Oh my God, I could-
Jessie Sheehan:
Heaven.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. It is heaven, and the color of it. And it makes...
Jessie Sheehan:
It's extraordinary.
Dorie Greenspan:
So there's some things that I think are worth the splurge, that's one of them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Me too. I agree with you. So with this glaze, you're adding a tiny bit of oil, and I do that too. Can you tell everyone why a tiny bit of oil with some melted chocolate when you're glazing something is a good idea?
Dorie Greenspan:
So because I was taught that. Is that the reason? That's how I feel. That's why I'm asking you. First of all, it helps the viscosity of the glaze so that it will flow more evenly and more easily, but I think it also helps it set.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is it also a little bit shiny? I wonder if it-
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Maybe it adds to the shininess as well.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. Especially if you're going to chill it. Because you know how when you chill chocolate-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, it can get cloudy.
Dorie Greenspan:
But I could be making all of this up.
Jessie Sheehan:
I also love this glaze, Dorie, a white chocolate matcha glaze.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes. So again, and this is something that I'd learned working in Paris with pastry chefs. The beauty of white chocolate. White chocolate, it's so easy to poo poo it, because first of all, many of the white chocolates we get are just not chocolate. So white chocolate is not considered really sophisticated chocolate, and people who love bittersweet chocolate feel that way about milk chocolate too. But white chocolate, it should be in a baker's bag of tricks, because it accepts color, so it accepts color beautifully. And it accepts flavors because it doesn't really have much flavor on its own. It's vanilla and it melts beautifully and sets beautifully. So it's something I feel like we should all have, so that we can play with it and make new combinations.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now, I also love, I just have to... We already did a shoutout to extra vanilla, but I'm also very microwave forward. And so I appreciate that you're just say to people, "Make the glaze in a little bowl in your microwave."
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. Just keep an eye on it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, 100%.
Dorie Greenspan:
Do you lower the power when you-
Jessie Sheehan:
I don't even know how to, I know I should. But I do every 20 seconds, open it, stir. Every 20 seconds and stir.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then as we said, you can decorate these beautiful glazed sticks with sanding sugar, pearl sugar, sprinkles, whatever floats your boat.
Dorie Greenspan:
Absolutely.
Jessie Sheehan:
And there's a beautiful Mark Weinberg photograph, all of Mark's photographs are beautiful, but-
Dorie Greenspan:
I love what he did in this one.
Jessie Sheehan:
But I love the one of these Pocky sticks. Chocolate eclairs, oh my gosh.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. So once again, it will let you do anything to it. So you can flavor it with cocoa.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible. Incredible. And is it the word in French means “flash of light”? Eclair means flash of lightning?
Dorie Greenspan:
Lightning, lightning.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Which I just thought that was so... I love the little things like little fun facts about the different pastry. Pastry cream is traditional in an eclair.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
But you said whipped cream is also really good.
Dorie Greenspan:
Could be whipped cream. I suggest a shortcake where you would use... So there's a pastry chef in Paris, Christophe Adam. He's made eclairs his life, and his are so beautiful. So he uses them as a container, the way somebody might use white bread to make sandwiches. Everything can be put in. He's got a cream cheese and smoked salmon eclair.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh.
Dorie Greenspan:
Because if you think about it, right, it's a neutral dough, the shape is so beautiful and lends itself to whatever you want to do. And then he'll decorate the top. So sometimes there'll be flowers, or it might be fruits, or...
Jessie Sheehan:
I love the idea of something savory in... Oh my God.
Dorie Greenspan:
So I come back to why I think this dough is just so extraordinary.
Jessie Sheehan:
And with the eclairs, do you recommend kind of making the shapes on the parchment for this? Or again, if you have, what would it be, like a large pastry tip, I think you said-
Dorie Greenspan:
You can go straight down.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
You can go straight down. This should be fun.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
If you get anxious thinking, “Am I going to be able to stay within?”
Jessie Sheehan:
Then yeah, yeah. I think you said a one inch opening, which makes sense.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I love this. You're using your pastry bag, you're squeezing out the amount of the length of the eclair, and then you use either a little pairing knife or a scissors to stop the pastry or dough.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah. Somebody who's really good with a pastry bag won't have to do that. But for me, it just was okay, done. Next, done. Next.
Jessie Sheehan:
And are you fussy with a wet finger or trying to smooth out any imperfections? Or does it bake up and you're fine?
Dorie Greenspan:
Depends on my mood.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Yeah. In Baking Chez Moi, can you talk about the bubble-shaped eclair?
Dorie Greenspan:
Oh, they're so cute.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my god, I love them.
Dorie Greenspan:
So I think I did that because I wasn't sure I could get a good eclair shape, and I thought other people probably have that problem as well.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
It's like taking three cream puffs and putting them together. It's three balls of pâte à choux that you pipe or scoop close together so that when bake, they connect with one another. And you have this adorable bubbly-
Jessie Sheehan:
Almost like a little snowman.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes. But a snowman-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. With all the same balls.
Dorie Greenspan:
All the same balls.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. So cute.
Dorie Greenspan:
All the same size. Adorable.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
I'm always excited no matter what I make when it finally works, when it matches what I had imagined. But some things are just more exciting than others. And bubbly eclair, that was fun.
Jessie Sheehan:
So fun. So fun. And then once you've let them cool, you're going to split them in half with a serrated knife, dip the tops in a glaze, again, like a microwave chocolate and oil and chill the tops.
Dorie Greenspan:
To set the-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep.
Dorie Greenspan:
Right.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then fill the bottoms. Put the top on top. And then again, back to, you could put them in the fridge or you could serve them right away.
Dorie Greenspan:
Just as we talked about with the cream puffs. You could just poke a hole right in and fill the...
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep.
Dorie Greenspan:
But I think they just look so pretty.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love them. I love them.
Dorie Greenspan:
When you see the eclair that I was talking about before, Christophe Adam's, you want to see everything that's there. You want to see what color his filling is. You want to see if the little berries stick out on the side.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I love that.
Dorie Greenspan:
You really can have fun with this.
Jessie Sheehan:
And also, it's not an imperfection at all, but it's the dessert I like where it's, whatever. There's a cliche word, but it's more rustic, when you can sort of have the top and see a little bit of the cream. And I just appreciate that.
Dorie Greenspan:
The older I get, the simpler my tastes have become.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
What I'm looking for in combinations, I'm trying to get more flavor out of fewer ingredients. The look of something, I don't want to fuss over it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
Part of that covers my… I'm not a great cake decorator, but I feel like I'm very happy to see the fingerprints on the dessert.
Jessie Sheehan:
And how it was assembled. How it came together. I agree.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
What the components are.
Dorie Greenspan:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Dorie Greenspan:
If I had a pastry shop, I couldn't do that. But if I'm serving something that I've made at home to friends, it doesn't have to be perfect. Once you have this dough, if you love making it the way I do, you'll start finding places for ingredients that you love to become part of it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I just wanted to thank you so much for chatting with me, Dorie.
Dorie Greenspan:
First of all, you know I love you. So getting to see you and have this time with you, thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, j'adore talking with you, and I just wanted to tell you that you are my cherry pie.
Dorie Greenspan:
Thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Le Creuset and California Prunes for sponsoring today's episode. Don't forget to subscribe to She's My Cherry Pie on your favorite podcast platform, 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 Studios in Manhattan. Our producers are Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker, and our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie. And happy baking.