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And when you use code H R N for a new subscription, you get $20 off, and we at HRN get $10. Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from Lower Manhattan. Well, Matt's in Rhode Island and John's in Murray Hill and Jackson, Brooklyn, and we have a special guest, Angela, who'll get to is in Lincoln, Nebraska. Not Roberta's Peteria, because none of us are open and no one's in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Welcome. Welcome to the show. Oh, the uh blue angels, I guess, are outside, so there's some fighter jets going over my uh going over my house. You know. Burning up.
To pay the respects for your work on cooking issues, Dave. That's right. That's right. That's right. Because there's nothing I want more than to be trapped inside and to hear thunderous jets overhead and not actually get to see them.
You know what I mean? You're welcome. Yeah. I got I got once uh um buzzed by a uh what was it? Was it a Hornet?
Like an F 18 or something in the Panament Mountains on my way to uh Death Valley, because there was no one else in the entire valley where we were, and this jet was like, there's something moving. I'll buzz it. And it was like right over the car, and I was like, dang, that stuff's impressive. Like, you know, fighter jets is impressive. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, they are. Yeah. So uh we are uh stashless today. We have no Nastasia Lopez because she's working with uh, you know, one of those Jose Andres uh you know COVID-related uh charities today, doing um coordination or something like that, helping helping people help each other. So whatever.
We'll give her a pass. I won't even ribber about it because she's doing the right thing. But in the place of uh Nastasia, we have wacky Jackie Shram, head bartender of the currently closed, but you know, hopefully soon to reopen existing conditions. How you doing? I'm doing all right, how are you?
Doing well, doing well, and of course, we got uh you know, new new regular on the show, John from uh from uh Booker and Dax, the new Spinzall and Sears all customer service guru. How you doing? And special, special, special guest today, and we have her for the whole time, uh long time you know friend of mine from back all the way back to my French Culinary Institute days, and I've never pronounced her last name twice the same way, so we'll do it and and I'll have her pronounce it. I think uh well, I'll tell you, I'll try to do it the way I think she pronounces it, and then we'll so Angela Garbitz. Did I is that the way you pronounce it?
That's uh actually perfect, yeah. Yeah, because we because we used to just call her like G botch, garbage, anything, anything other than her actual name. But Angela just wrote, she's the owner founder of uh Goldenrod Um Pastries in Lincoln, Nebraska, correct? Correct, yes. Yeah.
And uh one of my super favorite people, and uh we can get into the kind of the story. Although you've been on their show before, right? Yep, I have. Yeah. Um, but she just came out with her very first book called Perfectly Golden.
Now, uh, you want me to give the the 30-second spiel on uh how we got to where we are? You want to do it, yeah. All right, all right. So I first what year did you go to the FCI? 2008.
Okay, so I first met you in 2008. You came to do pastry. So I used to have this intern program at um at the French Culinary Institute, and anyone who was coming in either in the pastry or the culinary programs in the six weeks per six month professional program, um, they could come and we would work on kind of fun new techniques and technologies. And right away, you know, Angela came and I guess you had taken a break from from college, or had you finished? You took a break, right?
Um, I did a culinary science program, and so we had to go, we had to get X number of culinary school credits, and so that was kind of I really didn't want to go to college, and I wanted to go to pastry school, and this was kind of my in to do both. And I had actually, I don't know if you remember this, but I couldn't choose a pastry school. And then a friend of mine showed me an article featuring new and popular science in the fall of 2007. Oh my god. And I was like, oh my god, this guy, this guy's so cool.
This guy's doing such cool stuff, and he's at this school. Little did I know. And so I went and did a tour at FCI. And I think you I was like, this guy's a you know, you are also one of my super favorite people. And I remember the first time that we met, you were in the amphitheater doing an interview with the New York Times.
And I was doing my uh tour. I think Jock was taking me around, and he's like, Oh, and this is Dave. I know you wanted to do that internship. And you like totally halted your interview with the New York Times. And you're like, hey, what's up?
What are you doing? Who are you? What do you want to do? And I was like, Oh my gosh, this guy's cool. He just shut down the New York Times.
Well, you know, look, honestly, like, say what you want. People can say what they want about uh like you know, educate culinary school education, but I know I was, and I think the entire school, especially back then, I haven't been back in a little while, but like we were pretty student focused. We wanted people to feel, you know, well, we actually did care. I thought we cared. I felt like we could yeah, for sure, and it really felt that way.
So I yeah, I ended up going to French Culinary Culinary Institute just because of the internship with you, and that's how I met some of my my best buds, actually. Oh man, well, it will I was I was super glad that you did. We were, you know, any time it was super rare for us to have someone in with any sort of um any sort of uh kind of science background or any even kind of affinity for it. I mean, it's it's it's a it's a funny thing. Like cooking schools are funny because they are an incredible cross-section of people, and they they only really sh mostly share.
And we had some people in who, you know, the whatever their parents were paying and they just wanted to be shoemakers, whatever, fine. But uh which is I don't really understand. Why why install shoemakers? Not an easy thing to make well. Shoes not an easy thing to make well.
Why do we install shoemakers? What is that? Who is we? Who is insulting shoemakers? Chefs.
Chefs insult suits it was like, hey, is this guy a good cook? Ah, they're a shoemaker. You know what I mean? I would rather I would rather learn how to make food than make shoes. That sounds really hard.
I think the implication is that they're turning food into shoes, like overcooking a steak. No, no, no, no. I don't think they're insulting a shoemaker. No, no, no, no, no, no. The insult was that they were merely a craftsperson and not an artiste.
So like a shoemaker was someone who like showed up at work and like just did what they were gonna do, and they did a good, you know, you know, work work work, you know, person's like job at it. They were okay at it, you know what I mean? But there was no inspiration, you know what I mean? There was nothing like there was nothing. They're the lifeblood of the entire industry, the people who show up and do the work well every day.
Yeah, yeah. But when you love that person, you're like, they're a monster, they're a crank, they're sick. And then but when they're just kind of like when you want them to be a leader and all they're doing is that stuff, you're like, meh, hey, shoemaker, you know what I mean? But again, I I think it's a false because making shoes not easy, making good shoes not easy, in the same way that making good food's not easy. Anyway, so I don't even know how I got on that.
So, anyway, so so yeah, you you come in, you do the internship, we had an amazing group of uh people at the time, and then you go, and by the way, uh you worked at like some amazing kitchens here in in New York while you were here. I mean, and like worked like a dog. You worked like a dog. You went directly, you went from either in class to like the internship and then off to work. I mean, you I don't did you sleep ever?
What was your deal? So that yeah, it's funny that you ask. It was a wild time. I mean, I was there and I knew that like I wouldn't be able to afford to stay after, so I was like, I just I'll just do everything I can right now. So we were at school really late doing the the internship, and I started doing a bread internship for a short time before I started class in the morning.
So I was doing either your internship or um at Jean-George until like you know, usually Jean-George was later until like midnight or one, and then I'd show up for the bread at like six and then do a day of class and do the internship. It was like five days a week, and then I worked at Jean-George on Saturday. So I would go home, and I don't know if you ever knew this. My the only thing I had to eat in my apartment, because I was eating everywhere else, was um kilbasa from a great um Ukrainian butcher in the lower east side, and I had beer, and so I would go home every night and have open a beer and boil one sausage while I got ready for bed, and I would lay in bed and eat half a sausage while I passed out. That's incredible.
I like that. I like that. That's which which which butcher. I can't remember the name. It was like U R D Z is what it started with.
Though is that the one that was on the west side of um the street. That's all on Second Avenue, yeah. I don't know if that's the one. Yeah, the East Village Meat Market. Yeah, that's a good one.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh is that still there, Jack? Yeah. I used I the Kalbasa is excellent.
It's the best Kalasa. It's so good. It's especially a lot of Kobasas. I'm well, thank you. How are you?
Good. You know, today with the book launch. I was supposed to be in New York, and I was actually going to have a party at existing conditions tonight. Well, that was like my dream. That was the plan.
And it's nice that we can kind of still catch up together somehow. So let me let me just let me let me finish this though. The best kilbasa, Angela, is the one you have at two in the morning in your house. Yeah. That's always the best killbasa.
Yeah. You can't have the kiobasa you love Angela. Love the kilbasa you're with. Although I hate the, I hate the actually, I hate the premise of that song. I really hate the premise of that song.
Don't you hate the premise of that song? If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with. Yes, we'll just song. Yeah. It's fine.
P dee tee tee did anyway. Uh doesn't make any sense to me. So anyway, so then you go back and then you develop now. By the way, for those of you that have never met Angela, like, what you know, not a picky bone in Angela's body. No pickiness, no, no nothing, right?
So when I learned that she had just like developed uh an allergy to dairy, first I thought she was kidding. I thought she was kidding me. You know what I mean? And then um she's like, no, I really have to change my my life around it. It kind of put you on this road that brought you where you are now.
You want to talk about that at all? Yeah, so I started a blog that I called Goldenrod Pastries in like 2013, 2014, because you know, I went to the French Culinary Institute. I'd been baking for myself my whole life. Everything was with butter, milk, cream, whatever. And like I love to eat and I love cake.
I love having dessert with every meal. It's how I was raised, believe it or not. And so I just realized that I had to start developing recipes that I could eat that didn't make me sick. Correct. So I started my blog and I started posting these recipes, posting pictures and pretty soon people started reaching out to me and saying like oh my gosh, well I can't have dairy either.
I can't have eggs or I'm gluten free. I'm 35 years old. I haven't had a donut since I was six years old. I was like oh my God, there's all these people who are totally being left out of like the food conversation. And as a chef like first and foremost like I want to feed people.
And so I started developing recipes and they started asking for birthday cakes and donuts and all these things that I had no idea how to make with their dietary restrictions but I just kind of started going and trying to figure it out because when you love to feed people there's nothing worse than not being able to feed them. And so I just kind of started and within a year of launching the blog I opened my first storefront um in May of 2015 and we are I would say 95% dairy free gluten free or vegan gluten free and I think what's really really cool about that is that most of our customers do not need or choose to eat that way. So we're making food that I think and I hope is really really good just because it's good. Like we use sorghum flour for our cookies and I think that makes like to me a better cookie than an I was eating with all-purpose flour, or like we use a rice flour blend in our pound cakes, and I think that makes a super tender pound cake. And you know, that I just found that there's a way to make food actually taste as good if not better, um, and still be able to feed more people.
Yo, Matt, was Bob's Red Mill still a sponsor of the rig? Not I know not our program, but are they still on the on the rate on the heritage at all? No, no, not currently they should pay Angela money because people don't know how to rep stuff like sorghum flour properly. You know why? This is why I love Angela so much, because right, she's got a a mission to to use it like or to not use or to be able to not use a certain subset of ingredients, but she always comes from a point of what's gonna make this thing more delicious.
It's never, it's never like some sort of goofy like BS like pseudo health mumbo jumbo. It's just like here are the givens of what I can work with. How can I make the best possible most delicious product? Not, you know, like and that like to have someone whose guiding principle is the delicious, but then also a kind of take on like this subset of of ingredients or take on certain constraints, I think is a really great attitude for today. And someone like Bob's Redmill, who you bring up in your book, should pay you some money.
That's all I'm saying. Yeah, we're we're working on that. Um, but I think like what's really interesting in like the interviews that I've been having about the book with different people is they're like, oh, so why did you choose like this health focus? And I was like, it's not about health. Like, if you look through this book and you eat our food, it has like a lot of fat and a lot of sugar in it.
And as like a dairy-free fat, I really like shortening for a lot of different things and a lot of different reasons. It doesn't have off-flavors like a lot of vegan butters do. And a lot of people just when they're making food for dietary restrictions or dietary preferences, they leave out the fat and sugar, and like that is when it starts getting a bad reputation. Yeah, that sounds terrible. Right.
Everyone's always known that shortening makes very good textures on things like biscuits and pie crust. But I guess the gripe, there's two gripes, right? There's the health gripe, which I don't care about me, whatever. You know what I mean? You know me.
Yeah. And then there is the neutrality argument, whereas like if you can have the flavor of butter, I would choose the flavor of butter over the some argue superior texture of shortening in some of those things. Where do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think that butter has a better flavor than shortening, but if you take butter out of the equation, what you're left with is either shortening or butter alternatives, like vegan butter alternatives. And I personally haven't found any that don't create like a really intense off flavor.
And like when I started um baking dairy free and vegan, it was just awful. All I could taste was just like plastic. Well, and you specifically say don't use fake butter space, like don't use spray that has fake butter flavor. Yeah. Because it's terrible.
That's the reason why not to use it. It's terrible, and sometimes it has dairy products in it. Um that's another reason. But even if you know, spray in the non-stick space. But yeah, like those vegan butters for me, I just haven't found one that's like, I mean, both you're looking at also like cost effectiveness and accessibility.
And that's another thing with this book that I really think is important, which is like so relevant right now, is like financial accessibility for people. We have to get more people in the kitchen. Like, I think that we have so many people in the kitchen right now, and if we give them financially accessible and um and technique accessible recipes, that's like so great. Why are we trying to create recipes that leave people out of the conversation as far as baking? Like get in the kitchen.
Everybody wants to bake, make recipes, develop recipes that people can make with what they have, and with you know, hopefully an economic situation that you know it doesn't require the most money. For saying that, that's incredible. It's an epidemic in the cocktail world right now with people posting these recipes that are like, oh, you know, fat washed this, like all of these techniques that no home bartenders are ever going to use. It's like just give people simple drinks right now. Well, that's the other thing, but that's what we do for a living, Jack.
So then we're not going to be able to do that. I have two livings, but yes, yeah. Or we're not going to be able to do that. Like, I even know at the bakery, there's some stuff that we do that like technique wise or economically, it makes a lot more sense to do in a commercial setting. And while I was writing this book and talking to my editor and just thinking about like actually, would I feel comfortable as Angela Garbitz giving these recipes to somebody and saying, Oh, yeah, go ahead and figure that out.
But you have to go ahead, like, yes, you do have to like go out of your way to get some of these gluten free ingredients, but I I actually recommend to people commercially available GF flour mixes as opposed to buying like a ton of different ingredients because it is financially so inaccessible for a lot of people. So I think you have to like when you're giving the general public information about your your skill and your art, like what what can we do to to make more people part of the conversation and make them comfortable? And like we can use those really cool techniques and the really expensive products at home for ourselves. Well, also I I I noticed on on your things, and I was making a note of it to myself that you know you say that you've made all these recipes with commercial mixes, and so just you know, like your your go-to's that you do, you you use more one than the other, one of Bob Redmill's um flowers, and see New Life, Pamela's, and for a few things, King Arthur. But what I love about your book here is is that you're you say exactly why you use a particular flower for a particular application, and then you give the main ingredients in case somebody wants to do a knockoff or figure out kind of what is in those flowers to use them, which I thought was a great you know thing in the book.
But I was curious because you say you actually use them at the at the shop, and are those things still cost effective when you're doing it professionally, more so than just like trying to womp that stuff yourself, or is it that you like the consistency of the mixes or what? Um, for the most part, it is more cost effective right now. Um starting at the end of February and definitely going into March, we actually started making our own mixes because it became so much more expensive to buy these blends, so we did have to start making our own. But for the most part, like buying in the ingredients, and what you know, we have a super small space, which I know you guys can relate to, and it actually was like cost effective for us to just buy these already made. But as things change, as supply chains change, like we're definitely gonna have to look at that a little differently.
I know places like King Arthur do 50 pound sacks, but I didn't know Bob's Redmill did 50 pound sacks. Yeah, we get 25 pounds from Bob's Redmill. Um, and yeah, it's great. We go through so much of it, but um also, yeah, like the main ingredient list I think is really important because if you're looking at your local co-op, like I know my local co-op has like some brands like I can't find elsewhere, but if I'm some somebody looking at this book and I see this this blend at my co-op, I can look back in the book and say, okay, well, it primarily has this in it. And now I know that if Xanthan gum is third on the list of ingredients, then that's gonna be like a pretty gummy flour.
So maybe I should find something else. So I hope that it can be like a good guide for people and like teach them how to use what's available to them as well. Yeah, and so I like all of your recipes, you write down kind of which one of the flowers you use, and um, you know, I just would tell people I think it's a very good way to do things is to like let people know why you're using a particular kind of flour. I thought that was a nice, nice touch. One thing I have a question about is you write, and I've never used it before, uh Pamela's gluten-free, all-purpose baking flour, and you write in it that it's the hardest one of the ones to use that it can actually overmix.
And then I looked at the ingredient list. Over mix meaning you can overwork the because one of the advantages of gluten-free that you point out is that you know, there's no gluten to either over or underwork. So, you know, in a way, you know, it kind of frees you up in in in for some recipes in terms of worrying about it, uh, I know just toughening something like a cake or et cetera. But you write uh that this particular flour can be overworked. And I've looked at the ingredients: brown rice flour, tapioca starch, white rice flour, potato starch, sorghum, guar gum, and guar gum.
So, what is it that overworks in that? Like, I'm wondering what it is about that particular mix. It's the gum. The guar? It's the gum, and I don't know if it's how the gums take up the the liquid, and if they like I assume they just keep absorbing more liquid, um, but it just becomes a completely gummy mass.
So we use Pamelas mostly for like cake batters. It makes really nice like layer cakes. Um, but if you you know, you're trying to work out the the clumps in your batter, for example. If you don't like add your your dry and wet and dry and wet, like just right with Pamelas, that guar gum is gonna just like really kind of seize up. Guar is uh yeah, guar is an awesome word, by the way.
Guar. This episode brought to you by Bend to Table, a monthly food subscription service for avid home cooks focused on delicious and sustainable pantry items. I recently received the essentials box, and one of my favorite items in that box was the Jimmy Red Grits from Geechee Boy Mill. And these Jimmy Red grits are, first of all, it would be hard to overstate how delicious these grits are, especially. I mean, a lot of you out there might never have even made grits in your life.
You know, if you come from somewhere that's not a uh a grit place. And uh, and if you have, you're probably used to just kind of buying grits in those kind of ground paper sleeves in the supermarket. And this is really not a comparable product, just the kind of punch corn flavor you're gonna get out of these grits, uh, is kind of out of this world. And uh, I did these in a rice cooker. I did them with milk, and then after they had cooked out, I folded in a little bit of grated cheese, some shrimp that I had cooked with uh with bacon.
So I crisped up the bacon, took it aside, cooked the shrimp up in the bacon grease, then took that, folded it in with some cheese, and uh a little bit of uh garlic and good to go. That was my kind of lighter version of shrimp shrimp and grits made with uh Jimmy Red Grits delicious. Go to Bend to Table.com to start your own monthly subscription. Use the discount code HRN to get $20 off a new subscription, and Bend a Table will donate $10 to support cooking issues and all of HRN's programming. Uh so one thing that uh we'll go back, we'll go back a little bit because we got into the weeds on flour and we didn't even get to talk about the kind of the basics of the book or this the stuff beforehand.
But in the very introduction, I think you have the the kind of pull out quote at the very beginning that kind of shows your attitude, which is the same attitude actually that we have at uh existing conditions, I hope, is that I want, and this is your quote, I want you to have a seat at our table. In other words, you want everyone to be able to come in to Goldenrod and enjoy what you're doing, kind of no matter what. Inclusive baking, which is I guess did you come up with that term? Um, I didn't hear it before me, but maybe some yeah, I think I did. So and I love that because that's kind of the same mentality that you know we have, at least this go around you know, now at XCON with terms of non-alcoholic drinks, is just why would you why would you not want someone to feel welcome, right?
For sure. It's like, you know, there's always gonna be some allergy or some restriction or preference that like you can't meet, which is so frustrating. But for the most part, it's like you don't want to turn people away, and like the joy that somebody uh feels and that you can see when they're like, oh man, you have something not non-alcoholic, and like who cares what their reasons are for not drinking alcohol? And it's like the same thing with dietary stuff. I always hear people say, Oh, well, you know, they're probably just faking it or making it up, and it's like, I don't really care.
Like, that's a person's choice. Like, if they choose not to drink alcohol, if they choose not to eat gluten or dairy or whatever, that's like totally cool. And that's none of my business. And my only goal is to make food pastries more inclusive for people. And I don't care what your reasons are of why you don't eat these things.
And that's your choice. And I want, I don't want food to feel so exclusive. I want it to be more welcoming. Yeah. I think that is uh everyone should feel that way.
Um that's wonderful. So, and then uh another thing it's uh, you know, I think it's kind of cool is that the you write predominantly, but is it all like you you have a woman-powered baking, right? And like most of the staff, or I don't know, maybe at this point, all of your staff, I know at one point I think all your staff was was women. You want to talk about that kind of that kind of business. My wife is the same way with our architecture business.
She has like runs an all of women's architecture business and she loves it. Yeah, so we were all um all women until about a year ago, and now we have a couple of guys working for us, which is super awesome. Um, I actually doubled my staff at the beginning of March, right before I opened my second location this year. Um, great month to open a second location. Um, and like the woman power thing, like I just woke up one day and realized that you know, I was in a kitchen setting, I was in a life setting where I was surrounded by all women, and not only did I feel comfortable, but I felt empowered and I felt um like these women were there to support me and not I, you know, as women talking to a group of guys here, but like as women, I think that you know, for a long time the idea was there was only room at the table for you know, one woman in each field to be doing well.
And I think that conversation is changing, and it's a really damaging and hurtful sort of commentary. But I think that you know, for me, feeling empowered by this group of women I was working with really allowed me to like be more creative and be more ambitious with what I was doing with my business. And so I try to talk about that in the book because I hope that you know, some people who read this, some young women who feel you know, a little bit lost or you know, hurt by other people in their lives or for whatever reason are looking for a little bit of inspiration and hope, they can sit down with perfectly golden and it can be something that really inspires them to uh not only invest in other women but also feel like they deserve that as well. But yeah, that's that's something that's pretty important to me. Yeah, I mean, and but yeah, I should.
I mean, I know she's not in the food industry is why she hasn't come on, but Jen, my wife, has like uh, you know, voiced a lot of the same thing. It's just kind of a different what she says, it's like a different feel to the to the business, and it you know, it's something that she thinks is super valuable. And I, you know, so I have to agree with her because she's right about 99.9% of the things. I think Jenny said I think that um I think Jen's pretty much right about it all. I mean, yes, I mean, she's maybe a little conservative on what she wants me to do with my phys physical human flesh sack because she's worried I'm gonna break it.
But um, you know, like I'm still upset, I'm still upset she didn't let you deep fry yourself. I know it. Well, the thing is, if if I hadn't lit myself on fire so badly with the St. George piece, I think she would have let me deep fry myself. But the fact that I so badly misjudged uh what it was gonna be like to catch on fire, um I think kind of you know, poisoned the well a little bit on um trusting my quote unquote engineering skills when it came to the safety of of my human form.
So I mean, I can see where she's coming from on that one. But I mean, I can't think of a more horrible demise than yeah, the fire suit the fryer suit failing. Like, can you imagine? No, that would be real bad. A leak spring and just having the vessel that you're inside of slowly fill with boiling oil.
It would be real bad. So, I mean, you know, Angela, you'll you'll sympathize with this. So I was using my I was using my super duper, you know, like ridiculously expensive waffle iron, also not a good time to have bought that waffle iron. But anyway, so like in a liege waffle, there's always melted sugar and butter in the waffle iron, and you just let it ride, and so like you know, last the waffle and waffle n minus one contributes its melted sugar to waffle N and waffle N plus one, along with extra butter that's leaking out of the double butter briotchi dough as you're making it, anyways. So I was trying to get something out, and I missed and dipped my pinky into the molten sugar well of the thing.
Oh nothing's more fun than a molten sugar burn. Am I right? That is not a good burn. They the first thing you always want to do with a sugar burn is like they told us in school, I always remember this. The first if you get a sugar burn on your finger, the first thing you want to do is like put it in your mouth, and that's the last thing you want to do.
Because your mouth is warm, you mean you should like I don't know, just a weird reflex. But you know what I did? I cursed. Yeah, I cursed myself. It was my fault.
I should not have done it. You know, I really think that honestly, you invested in that waffle iron at the perfect time because now you have Liege waffles whenever you want. Um, I think I ruined three just like cuisinar Belgian waffle makers making Liege waffles over the years because I just never wanted to like fork over the cash for a real one. Like that sugar is no joke. Yeah, but you know what though?
You like I would love for you to figure out the goldenrod version of the Liege waffle and get you one of them Liege waffle irons. Because first of all, like the things that they sell in the US as Belgian waffle make, it's an insult to the entire country of Belgium. Now, Belgium does now, John Matt kicked John off the radio program today. So, you know, he can't sit here and defend his Belgian self. But like, in the way that Canadian bacon that they serve here is an insult to Canadians and their what they call bacon.
Like uh Belgian waffle as we make it is a freaking it's a freaking insult, man. Well, when you come back to New York, you know, you can um I'll get the extra butter out of my iron and you you can we'll we'll run through some stuff. Sounds great. Uh now one bone to pick before I go further. You use cup measurements at the shop.
Oh, yeah. That is a bone that a lot of people picked with me in the process of writing this book. Um, yeah, I don't know. So sue me. Good answer.
I mean, I don't want to sue you, but I mean, I mean, I'm just saying, I'm just saying I I know you have at least one of the medium-sized hobarts, and you're showing up there with a cup measure and like leveling off and like whipping your flower bucket of so that you can get the loft exactly the same way each time and doing the roop dupa scoop drop and level in the real life, or do you have like a cup measure the size of my head? Um, well, we have obvious for sure converted some to just like you know, we use like some 25 quart containers, and so I know how many cups are in there. Or not 25 quart, 25 cup containers. Um, but you know, we're not doing a lot of leveling off. Um, we're just really kind of it's the wild west.
Well, you know what they say about Nebraska. It's the wild west. Possibilities. Yeah, the possibilities are endless. Endless.
I wish you guys had kept that motto. The earlier that motto is so much better than your new model. Here's a good Nebraska story Dave connection. He actually went to school with the mayor of Lincoln, Nebraska. That's true.
Lyrian, Mayor Lyrian, yeah, yeah. Yeah. How's she doing over there? She's killing it. She we have a really conservative uh state government who is uh really just going ahead and opening the state back up starting next week when our cases are like I mean, just really out of there, it's out of control.
Um, and so obviously not a good time to open the up the state, but Lyrian's holding strong and really trying to like keep her control over our city at least and um keep it as safe as possible. Well, she's uh she's good peeply. Say howdy for me when you when you see her. I will. One quick question.
On the same page where you say that you use cup measurements, I'm still picking that bone. You also say something about um on your yeast doughs that they should be impossibly fluffy before they go in the oven. And my question is on proofing in general. When you're doing gluten-free, do you proof differently from when you're doing a recipe with gluten or not in terms of how much loft you get before you put it in to the oven? Yeah, so it's funny you pick out that term specifically because that was actually coined by Mindy Lavoff herself, one of uh the people who worked for Dave and was in the internship program when I was there.
Um, she coined the impossibly fluffy term. Um, so gluten-free for sure has a little bit in the recipes in the book, they have we don't do like a first proof, like you make the dough. For example, if you're making cinnamon rolls, you make the dough, and then you just immediately start um portioning it out and start rolling it out for buns. So like there's no first proof. Um, and then like what we do at the bakery is we put them in the freezer and we take them out and proof them as we as we need them before we bake them.
So it's definitely a similar process in the sense that you know we want to get some good rise. If you don't get good rise from your yeast products that are gluten-free before they go in the oven, that's when you're gonna end up with like a a hockey puck. And so I end up using a little bit more yeast than a lot of gluten-free yeast buns that I have uh recipes that I've looked at because you really have to make sure that you get that rise. And with a little bit of extra yeast in your gluten-free products, you're gonna you're gonna see that. So we still do the the rise before it bakes, but there's not a first proof.
Uh, one other question on ingredients before we go on to main main sections of the book and and whatnot. Um because one one of the nice things about the book is that there's a little checkoff thing calling what's called you do you where you say you can either you can make this recipe completely traditionally and some you can't some only you know don't work traditionally and you but you can you say like kind of which which ones you can do so it's like a pick pick your own on the whole thing but in your ingredients section you say that when you're gonna put dairy milk back into a recipe that was formulated for either almond milk which is your typical one or coconut depending that you use one to two percent instead of regular whole is that because even though you know I find them execrable is is that because they more closely match the recipes that have been tested with the non-dairy milk. Yeah that is exactly it. So like a whole milk is gonna is not gonna have the same consistency as like an almond milk or an oat milk or um a coconut milk. Oh and by the way you know how I know we're the exactly the same about a lot of things I read one section uh I gotta gotta find the exact quote but oh here it is um you write um you'll know when you'll know when it's done to speak speaking about when employees first come in and start working for you and they're like how long is this how long is this guy a cook or how much you say they saw recipes at Goldenrod as they saw recipes that read simply salt or vanilla or even spices with no measurements listed.
They asked where to find working oven timers as the one in our convection oven had recently stopped working as they all do. You'll know when it's done is what you told them which at first they didn't believe and looked at me stunned. And so it's like, I think people don't understand, especially in in baking, or I know people always get on me about um get on me about like because like you know, my job theoretically is to be precise and scientific about everything. But like my standard amount is how much how much should I add? The right amount, you idiot.
Exactly. Some the correct amount. Exactly. How long am I supposed to bake it? Till it's done.
And like it's that's what makes it so hard. Like, I mean, what when you're writing a book, a baking book, for me, what's really challenging is like actually giving those precise times specifically or temperatures because I do not have your oven. I do not have your kitchen. And so I think what's really important, and what I really tried to do with this book was to give people the skills to understand what it looks like when it's done and what it feels like when it's done, because it is impossible for me to tell you exactly at what moment, at what minute, at which minute you should take it out of the oven, and that's why timers are irrelevant in the kitchen. So, like if it breaks, then it's like the sooner the better.
Um, but yeah, my my poor especially go ahead. Oh, and in home kitchens when most humans don't have oven thermometers and don't even know how hot their oven is to begin with, yeah. I mean, in most in most home kitchens, you can almost bake by smell because the kitchen, the extraction, the hoods are so bad in kitchens that you can pretty much smell when something's done, you know what I mean? And it's like I always tell my my bakers too, and and this is a little this is a little bit different in a home kitchen, but um, you should always kind of get in the mindset that something's in the oven. And I always kind of I I tell my bakers, like, we're not using timers because that's not really gonna help you, but just always be thinking like, oh, every five minutes, every however often, do I have anything in the oven?
Is there anything that I should check? And when you're at home, it's like once you start getting more comfortable, you'll get to that point where you're like, Oh yeah, I have something in the oven. And maybe that's just me, maybe I'm just kind of a freak, but you'll smell it and you'll start to get familiar and like it's a very sensory thing. Like, yes, you can use a timer, but when something is done, smell the air. Smell like um remember what it smells like.
And that way when you're just like kicking it on your couch, you can smell and be like, oh yeah, this is what it smells like when it's done. But like that that little genie with a baseball bat that hits you in the back of your head when you're cooking to ro like it's like, hey, you idiot, you haven't checked on the oven in a while. Can you teach someone to have that? Yes, you can. I have seen it be taught.
Huh. Huh. Yeah. I mean, and it comes from a lot of years and m or months of me being like, hey, you have stuff in the oven, because I'm always thinking about it. And so the last thing they want is for me to remind them again that they have something in the oven, so they start remembering before I remind them.
It's like sense of urgency. Yeah. It's difficult to teach, but it's possible. Some people have it more innately than others, but no one is just born with that, you know, I must continue to work at all times. You have to I also have really, really good bakers, so that might be part of it too.
Sure. I'm sure that uh no shortage of people want to work with you uh over there. Impossible to understate, yeah, ha the importance of having a good team. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
It's it's the best thing in the world. You know, I'm sure you're a very good leader, and so you can get a good team, which is half of it, you know. We try to, for sure. So then you write in the uh I keep on saying I'm gonna get into the meat of the book, and then I never do because I'm still on the like ingredients section. You use a tip that obviously I agree with, which is uh salt all the time, always salt.
But before you say anything, I have a specific question for you. And since you are the queen of making sure everyone has a place at the table, hopefully you can answer this question uh that came in on Twitter this morning for you from uh Darren Vengroff. Um any tips for baking uh for people on very low sodium diets. Potassium-based leaveners are available and are sort of okay if you adjust formulas based on the molecular weight of the salts, but it's hard to replace uh in yeast breads and also performs and yeast breads also perform differently without salt, though using uh long low temp proofing seems to help somewhat, but the flavor of the wheat doesn't come through in the same way. That is such a tough one.
I uh really feel for people who you know it's there's low sodium, and then there's what that guy just wrote in. And um that like I said a little bit ago, there's always gonna be something that we just can't I I we just can't figure out, and that's one thing that you know I don't have a good answer for. But is is it one of those things where it's always in the back of your mind and someday you'll you'll solve it? I mean what problems like that. One in particular is not.
Um we haven't had too many people come in with that, but um, I mean, now it's gonna be always in the back of my mind for sure, yeah. Well, when you solve it, you're gonna let us know. I'll let Darren know when I figure it out. Hey, how come banana bread takes so long to bake? It's just real wet, I guess.
But it's like impossibly long, right? It looks like it's done and it's not, and you just not even have to be. And I mean, it just gets so dark, too. And I think that like a lot of people are like, well, it's done, I guess I'll just take it out because it looks done. And it's really just mostly not ever done if it looks done.
I know. But it tastes so good and it's so theoretically easy, but it just gives me agita all the time how long it takes to cook. Huh. I mean, that little freaking loaf pan, 50 minutes, 50-something minutes. Like a joke, right?
Yeah, it's getting and after like 25 minutes, you're like, it's already risen all the way, it's done. And then I'm like, oh my god, it's gonna burn. So then I put aluminum foil over the top because it freaks me out. The whole thing freaks me out. So it gives me agida.
Hate it. The thing that really gets him is the banana bread. He can he can do just anything else, but it's the thing that gets him is the banana bread. Yeah, yeah. Light me on fire, toss me off a building, fine.
The banana bread, how long it takes to bake, kill me. Kill me. Yeah. Oh, by the way, another good another good tip you give, even for home people. A lot of times, people like uh, for instance, your Alton Brown and whatnot, they'll tell you not to buy kitchen equipment to have that they consider like unitasker or or whatnot.
But you write in making the cookie section, go get you a number 24 scoop. I would say get a range of dosing uh of uh dosing scoops in your house. No one's ever said to me, hey, you know what? I you know what pisses me off? That uh I can now dose out muffins and cookies accurately.
It's like a gift to have those at home. And I I actually don't up until recently, um up until the last month, I haven't been baking at home for like the past five years. And I'm so pissed I don't have my dosing mechanisms at home. It is the one thing I really, really want in my kitchen. And I go through the supplies section in detail and very clearly say you don't have to spend a ton of money on your supplies, but the things that I do encourage people to get are actually things that are going to make a difference.
Yeah, if you've never had the dosing scoops in your house and you do any kind of baking whatsoever, you're gonna you will thank Angela for this tip. By the way, don't use them on ice cream. They actually suck for untempered ice cream. No one in the world who's not a pastry chef tempers their freaking ice cream before they scoop it, and dosers are rancid. Rancid at going in because you always rip the little the little swipe doodle out when you're going through uh ice cream that's too hard.
Because guess what people that's not what they're for agree? Yeah. Um, so I will I will also uh I want I wanna because I don't want to forget this before before we make it that Angela has the greatest quote of all times in the book, and the quote is this there are many different kinds of muffin people. Yeah I want you to all think about that statement and ask yourself, what kind of muffin person are you? Because there are so many different kinds of muffins.
Can I if I can just quickly tell you about a kind of muffin person I met once at my store. Um, she came up to me at the counter, and there's you know the couple feet divider of the counter between us, and she said, So what kind of muffins do you have today? And I was like, Well, I mean, I think they were like blueberry and raspberry or something with crumble on top. And I told her, and she's like, so that's just like what you have today. And I was like, Yeah, that's what we have today.
And she's like, So what do you do? Do you just like wake up in the morning and just decide this is the kind of muffin you're gonna make today? And I was like, Yeah, it is, I guess. And she reached across the two or three foot counter and put a thumbs down inches away from my face. Wow.
Oh. Did you that's my muffin story? Did you ever find out what kind of muffin she was expecting? It's true. She sounds like a poppy seed person.
It's super hard to say. She for sure left. Um, and yeah, there's it's hard to know what kind of muffin people you're gonna run into. We have had tons of different kinds of muffin people in my store. Yeah.
I mean, everyone has in their mind what they want their muffin to be. Or like you know, crumble on top. Do they want like the crunchy sugar on top? Do they want like chunks in there? Do they want it to be smooth?
Like my bakers really don't like chunks in their muffins. I am a big chunk in my muffin person. Like I want to find different things throughout my muffin. And so that is like our muffin standard at the store. And they're always bummed when I'm like, oh wow, you went ahead and just like made those berries into like preserves for the muffins, huh?
And it's like fine, they can do that. There's different kinds of muffin people, but I just think it's so fun to find those little craters throughout your muffin. And there's also people who like different form factors. There's the there's the uh like in in paper, like almost like Italian looking muffin people. Then there's the the giant exploded mushroom cloud top.
I'm one of those people. You know what I mean? Yeah. I even have, I think I mentioned this on the air once. I have a Chicago metallic cheat muffin tin pan that has little indents for the giant exploded mushrooms so that they don't spread past where they're supposed to on the thing.
And if you dose your muffin batter just right, you can't tell that I've cheated because there's only a little bit of an up curve on the side of where the exploded mushroom head is. It's pretty, it's a pretty key invention. But I like I had I don't have my little doser at home, and I had to do I did a video shoot yesterday at home um for a recipe for for the muffin recipe from the book, and I used two spoons to scoop it in, and my muffins just were like insane, exploding in every direction. In a good way or a bad way? I didn't like it.
Uh, Jack, are you ready to have your mind blown by this tip that Angela gives in the book? Yeah, yeah, blow it. You get a cake. Someone gets you a cake, you make a cake. Alright?
This has happened. This is what has happened. What do you do? You s you slice it now and freeze frozen slices. Oh my god!
Such a good idea. Wow. Genius! That's the smartest. That's you were so correct about my mind being blown.
Wow. That can't be new information to you. It is. It that's brand new information. Incredible.
Oh come on. No, because you don't think about it. I just ordered a copy of the book and a friend tell you like this is this is the tip that I'm going to use to sell your book to the masses because wow, that's brilliant. I mean, it's like, what do you want to do? You have a leftover cake and you Especially in the time of COVID.
Yeah. Especially in a time of any time in your whole freaking life. If you want a slice of cake and you froze the rest of a birthday cake, and you're like, oh man, I really want to slice right now. Here are my options. Shave off a tiny piece and eat it frozen, or wait for hours.
What do you you don't want to do either of those? You want to eat a slice of cake right now. Oh my gosh. And uh it's a admission that keeps me from making cakes in the home. Because I'm like, oh well, geez, you know, if I bake this whole cake, I'm living alone right now.
I'm gonna have to eat the whole dang thing. This it's brilliant. I you're killing me. I I feel like an idiot. I feel so foolish for not having come up with this.
You're killing me. Wow. Yeah. No, you're I mean, you're keeping me alive. So hey, can I give you guys another can I give you give you guys another mind blow that's not from this book, but that I recently learned, and I can only mention it because it's from a future classics in the field that I didn't want to mention when Matt from Kitchen Arts and Letters was on last week.
But I I ordered a copy of the book, so I no longer have to worry about the three copies that are online now getting sold because I've already purchased my copy. You ready for a tip? Yeah. Tip away. Guy Guy's name was um uh was Monroe Boston Strauss, the pie king of Los Angeles, wrote a book called Pie Marches On that never got hugely popular because every recipe in the book is written for 10 pies or more because he was writing for commercial establishments and not for people cooking at home.
He was rediscovered by Shirley Corriher, who's also gonna have a classics in the field, uh, hopefully at some point soon. Anyways, maybe when Harold McGee comes on next, we'll we'll do Shirley Core here, which would be fun. But um, or maybe have her on because she's still around. I just don't know her that well. But get this tip.
So all my life I've been blind baking crusts, and I've been doing the weights, I've been doing the blah, the double panning, all this other stuff. The guy's like, no, no, no, no. What you do is is you turn the pie pan upside down and bake it on the outside of the freaking pie pan. Boom. That's crazy.
Right? That is wild, right? And he's like, listen, I'm a professional. Yeah, he's like, I have like I have so many different kinds of pie pans, so I have a slightly smaller one. I turn it upside down, I bake it, and then if I need it to have the structure of a pie pan later, I can always invert it into a bigger pie pan.
Dun dun dun dun dun dun, no shrink, no puff, no shrink, no puff. Because how many times in your life have you blind baked something and the and the and the freaking the freaking crust slides down into your pan. Oh a lot, or puffs up crazy. I mean, or I just choose not to blind bake and you want another you want another tip from my man uh Monroe Boston Strauss. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keep them coming. He's clearly uh yeah, yeah, yeah. So he did first of all, he Angela, like you you need to look up this dude's book because it's on the internet. Uh you can read the whole book on the internet, but like the the way this guy goes into depth on particular fruit fillings, crazy. But check this.
So his graham cracker crust was originally developed as a a moisture management problem. And you know I'm concerned about that for the Miracle of Moisture Management book, which I may or may not be writing. However, here's how he does it. He has two different main kinds of graham cracker crusts, and uh it depends on whether you want to do one side or both. And he has very particular things, but and you're like, what do you mean, one side or both?
Because what he does is he makes gram crackers, makes a traditional pie crust, and then rolls gra uses graham cracker as the flour on the board and rolls graham cracker into a traditional pie crust. But a little bit. Wouldn't that be delicious for so many different things? Yes, yes, you love this guy. I mean, he's long since dead, but I mean Oh, come on.
I mean, how do I not know about this? I am 49. I'm 49. How do I not know this stuff? Oh my god.
What year did this book come out? It was originally written in the 30s, it was reprinted in the or 30s or late late 30s, early 40s, and it was reprinted once, I believe, in the 50s, and maybe once again in the 60s, but they just never did a big run of it because it was only for uh commercial people. Literally, every recipe is like makes 10 pies. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Man, that is awesome. Amazing book. You should all look it up. That's such a a tip. Uh Dave, we gotta we gotta bounce.
Well no, I gotta well, first of all, I have questions. Obviously, I didn't get to. Let me ask one more reader question. Uh Eileen writes in, because this Angela will uh be good for this. I am typically pro egg, but my friend thinks she has an allergy and is anti-eg, but we're still friends, and she's trying to make a coconut bread that calls for five eggs.
That's all the information she gave me. Do you know of any substitutes she can use in that recipe that might yield something that's in the ballpark of delicious as opposed to gross? Would you use your flax eggs for that? Or I know some of your recipes you you say you can substitute eggs and some that you yeah, I don't know. It really, really depends.
Like you could give it a shot. Um, sometimes, yeah. I mean, I don't know. Does it have coconut flour? Is it just a regular quick bread that has coconut in it?
I think it's too hard to tell without actually seeing the recipe. Well, maybe she can write back in and I'll I'll send it to you. What if you did like a couple a couple flax eggs and then like a little more? I assume there's some kind of milk as a liquid in there, and then like, because if you did five flax eggs, it's just gonna be like a really gummy mess. So maybe do two instead of all five and then bulk it up with a little more milk.
Um Matt, could I have a couple minutes to ask some specific questions about the book? Because I don't get to talk to uh Angela that often. A little bit, come on, man. I want to ask her about somebody's recipes, man. Come on, man.
Five minutes. Yeah. All right. Peach coffee cake, your grandma's recipe that you redid and you and in like you said it was one of the last things that she ever had. Is this one of the recipes we need to make out of your out of your book?
You have to make the peach coffee cake. I mean, and I think that you will agree with me on this, Dave. You can only use canned peaches for this recipe. So it it is a yeast uh dough on the bottom, and then some canned peaches, and then a coconut oil crumble on top. It's kind of like an eastern European um style thing.
She was a Polish immigrant, and I don't know if she made this recipe up or if somebody gave it to her, but it is one of the best things. I have tried it with fresh peaches. I have tried canning my own peaches. It really really benefits from like an actual canned peach because what kind of like leaks out of those peaches makes like almost like a custardy sort of uh vibe with the dough. It's super good.
Jack, when is canned peach season? Always uh yeah, yeah, yeah. Um but this is what it points out one of the things I love about the the book is is that, and I you know, hopefully we're not gonna have time, I guess, to talk about it, but like it's it's a super interesting combination of what you would call kind of high concept. I mean, remember, like, you know, Angela was working at like three Michelin star restaurants, and like high concept and also really homey, like her past, like the future, like so. You'll have a recipe that was her grandma's, and then at the same time, you'll have a recipe for cardamom pistachios, strawberry, rose, uh, you know, you know, uh cake.
So it's like super interesting kind of combination of things, which I always enjoy to see how someone thinks on different levels and with different in different kinds of flavor regimes. All right, so since they're gonna get cut cut cut off quick. Turtle turtle cookies. So these are basically brown alloys that are cooked in a waffle iron for only like 60 seconds. Are they still kind of raw in the middle?
No, they're not raw at all. They're like fully cooked little, so it's like a brownie batter that you basically put into a standard waffle iron, not Belgian waffle iron. And um they just bake, they just cook in like 60 seconds, and it is one of the best things. And then you put peanut butter crossing on top. One of my favorite things that my mom made growing up.
All right, get this, people, because this is not something I would have thought was delicious, but you go out of your way to say it is, so I'm gonna ask you about it. Buckwheat chocolate chunk cookies. Oh yeah. See, it's not what I would think of buckwheat. What do you think, Jack?
How does that sound? I think it sounds delicious. What do you have against buckwheat? I like buckwheat. You know what I like buckwheat, except for when it's made into uh, you know, soba noodles, and then someone rinses all the flavor out of it so that it tastes like it's made with nothing.
That's the only time I don't like it. But uh, I mean, I love buckwheat, but I just you're not the only one who thinks that. So my husband was like not totally on board with them. My staff was not totally on board with them. It was one of the demos I did for um for Charleston wine and food last year, and I was like, this is gonna be perfect.
This is like such a cool thing. The grain is so delicious, and um, I started making it for my staff and made it for my husband. They're like, holy, you know, this is like very, very good. And I think I specifically say in the recipe that if you chop up chocolate like a chocolate bar or even chop up your chocolate chips, you're gonna kind of get that chocolate dust throughout the cookie as well. And I'm not like a chocolate chip person in my cookies, but this when the dust kind of goes throughout that really like nutty buckwheat, super soft cookie, it's it's super sweet.
Okay, chocolate thunder cake from the book thunder from the book Thundercake by Patricia Polacco. I've never heard of this book. You want to give me like a quick thing on this book and this, and do you like this recipe? Is this a good recipe, or is this just your childhood talking? Uh is it I made it my own from this childhood book.
So I used to read that book a lot with my grandma, my mom. So it's about a little girl who's the thunderstorm starts, she's super scared. And to distract her, her um her grandma says we have to go around the farm and get all the ingredients to make thunder cake, and we have to get all the ingredients and make the cake and get it in the oven before the rain starts. So it's like the grandma's way of distracting the little girl. And so they run around the whole farm and they get like tomatoes because there's tomato puree in the cake and eggs and all of this stuff.
It's just a very, very sweet story. And the recipe is just a really, really rich chocolate cake that I recommend with chocolate ganache. Could chocolate it up. Speaking of chocolate on chocolate on chocolate, what about your babe squares? That looks like death by chocolate.
That is definitely death by chocolate. That's something that's like a little too much chocolate for me, but it's a chocolate almond shortbread crust with chocolate ganache filling, and then a chocolate crumble on top. Sounds like that recipe could use some chocolate in it. What do you think? I think that it should just definitely have more chocolate.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, hey, since I'm on a time schedule here. So funerals and brownies. Talk to me about funerals and brownies. Um, this is just a great chocolate, is a great brownie recipe, a super fudgy if you're a fudgy brownie person, because there are different kinds of brownie people with walnuts in it.
And I made them for my grandma carriado's funeral, and they became the brownie for funerals. I made hundreds of them for this funeral. And my mom was like, yo, those funeral brownies were pretty good. And so we just started calling them funeral brownies. And my editor reached out recently and she was like, probably not the best time for that recipe.
Well, or the best time. Yeah. Yeah. Uh by the way, Matt, uh, nuts and brownies, yes or no? Uh, yeah, sure.
Why not? Hmm. I don't ever hear someone have such a what a jack, yes or no on the nuts. Sometimes. What is it with you people?
Usually people either like nuts or no nuts. Very rarely. I like a wide variety. I don't eat a lot of baked goods, but when I do, I eat them sort of broadly. Like I enjoy many, and I like a wide variety.
I think coffee is a bigger every time inclusion in brownies for me than nuts are. I have never put them in my own brownies, but yeah, I put I put coffee in cookies a bunch too. I I like where your head's out, Jack. Angela, you said that you hadn't heard of this cake till recently, and I haven't heard of this cake until yesterday when you sent me a copy of your book, Hummingbird Cake. Good recipe?
Interesting. Talk to me about hummingbird cake. It's a great recipe. It's like a banana cake that has pineapple, um, nuts, and coconut in it. How could that be a bad recipe?
Doesn't sound oh my god. You ready for this? B Boston Monroe Strauss, or Monroe Boston Strauss, but pie marches on. Remember this guy we're talking about? He he makes a banana cream, uh he makes a banana cream pie with pineapple juice as the liquid in the crust and a little bit of p pineapple in it.
So yeah, he has he's down with that pineapple banana action too. Yeah, that's brilliant. This is that guy who released a book in the 30s? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Wow. Um pie, king of pies. What? Everything about this.
Yeah. Banana cream pie is the king of pies, though. That's my my hot take. Okay, so this guy, Strauss, not because we're talking about Angela today, not about Strauss. Strauss literally invented the chiffon pie.
Whoa. I mean, crazy. Anyway, uh, cheesecake. I noticed you have the cheesecake recipe in, but you haven't figured out a way to undairy that sucker. Yeah, I mean, you could a lot of people use like tofu.
That's not really my jam. I would rather just make something that I necessarily can't necessarily eat that is just really delicious, but it satisfies the gluten-free crowd because it has um a nut crust. So, you know, sometimes things just are what they are. Yeah. Uh your coconut cake, pretty cake or prettiest cake?
Prettiest. Yeah, that cake is crazy. Um also, by the way, for people, uh, like a baller move ends the book with an essay from her mom. Sick move. Dude, did you read that essay?
Yeah. It's so good. But I've never seen that movie. Such a sick move. So my mom is a journalist and a technical writer by trade for 40 years or whatever.
And you can tell our writing styles are so different. I'm a very emotional, sentimental writer. Hers, it's just facts. And it is awesome. She talks about my grandma living through the Spanish flu epidemic.
Um, it's it's a really, especially with Mother's Day coming up and with everything that's going on right now, I feel like such a I feel really lucky to have that in there. No, it's definitely definitely very cool. Um next, like I know they're kicking me off here, but um, I didn't answer any of your questions that are cocktail-related people. We'll get it next time. Maybe Jack will come back on and and answer it.
I need someone tell you what, I got a lot of free time. I need someone in cooking issues land to help Milo's from Toronto who has uh wants to make a nochino. Now, those those green walnuts are coming into season now, so he probably needs, or soon, so he probably needs recommendations fairly soon. So if uh someone could uh send in um nochino uh suggestions, that would be uh appreciated. I feel like I could talk to you all day about this, uh about this book and oh what?
What about the fact that you bake your donuts though? One more bone to pick. Baked donuts? Come on, man. I know, but do you know how expensive it is to get another four feet on your hood to get a fryer underneath?
I will accept this as an answer. But uh rolling around in dollar bills, and I can add another four feet to my hood whenever I want. This is okay, okay. You're as usual. You are you are correct.
Um we see what what else? Oh, also one more. I love that you call out, see the thing is is like what's hilarious, she calls out biscotti. And for those of you that are my age, right? Biscotti was the 90s pastry like par excellence.
Like you could not like walk out of your the way that you walk out of your apartment now and you trip on somebody's spent mask and like glove and all sorts of medical waste all over the streets. That's the way it used to be at stores and biscotti. Everyone is everywhere, mostly really bad ones. And honestly, that was the one thing that my wife used to like to bake in the 90s was the old Cooks Illustrated, I believe it was, uh, Biscotti recipe, which was actually quite good. But I love like the little stories, how you point out like kind of how dated the bisc the biscotti is, and you're like, let's bring biscotti back.
I like that. There's nothing wrong with Biscotti. There is nothing wrong with it. Although, are you a dip or a not dip? I'm actually a not dip.
It kind of depends for me. Sometimes I don't I don't want all that stuff smearing on my face. If I'm gonna, if I'm gonna bite into it and it's gonna be hard as hell, and I'm gonna have that, right? I don't then also want a smear of chocolate around my face. I would rather just eat some chocolate and then crunch on the on the biscotti.
Yeah, it kind of depends what kind of biscotty you're eating, too. And if you're gonna dip the biscotti into something else. Yeah, you definitely don't want the chocolate if you're gonna do the coffee dip. Not that I have yeah, exactly. I'm not a coffee dip.
Because I like I like the whole teeth teeth crushed thing. Okay, listen, on your buns, I know you're known for your buns. You have two different bun recipes because in your mind, you can choose to either not have gluten or not have egg, but you may not choose both, right? Unfortunately, that is where we are right now. And you feel like you're gonna uh get past that at a certain point, or is that just not a problem you're focused on?
So now that we're doing you know, with everything going on in supply chains, we're gonna, I feel like have to make a lot of different decisions. So hopefully it will give us a little bit more time. And now that you know, I really thankfully got the um the PPP loan, so I'm able to bring some people back, and that's some testing that they can do before we're safe to open. Cool. Um, which recipes do you think are actually better gluten-free?
Which style of recipes? Banana bread is really great, gluten free. Um, the pound cake recipe that's in there, better gluten free. I prefer the cookies. Um, I I read your pound cake recipe.
You actually think it's better than the one with gluten because it does it get as in other words, like how's the density of it compared to like a regular glue one? It's a little lighter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So it also then it depends on what kind of pound cake person you are. It's also relative, you know? But I prefer it because it's a little bit um it's like you were talking about a little bit earlier, you're not gonna overmix it. So you're gonna have a really fine crumb. And and on yours, can you substitute because you use Crisco and then you put in uh I believe it was almond extract and I forget what the other thing, lemon?
Lemon was it? Yeah. And um, so is that one you could substitute the butter back for and do a standard sugar buttercream or what? 100%. And do you I don't I didn't remember the steps on that.
Do you cream the crisco with the sugar? Yes. And that's your tot basically most of your aeration right there. So it functions like a standard pound cake. Yes.
It okay, okay, okay. Yeah. Uh and is it hard to keep that one moist? What about I I would think some of the gluten free flours are actually moister, right? Like the ones with sorghum are probably gonna be more and tapioca, are gonna end up moister than their regular wheat counterparts, no?
Um, it kind of depends. I haven't baked with wheat for such a long time, but um, I think you're kind of like sometimes butter is a little bit has a more moisture, and so if you're taking away the so, like butter more moist, wheat less, but then Crisco less moist, gluten-free flour more moist. So it's kind of like a trade-off. All right, so listen, people get yourselves on the inclusive baking train. Go get perfectly golden by uh Angela Garbats.
She is one of my favorite people out of Lincoln, Nebraska, Nebraska, where the possibilities are endless. Thanks also to uh Jack Shram and John who got kicked off by Matt in the booth, even though his booth is Royal Island you kicked Matt off because it's not very nice, not very nice, and I'm gonna have to hear about it later. And uh I will end with this, which you have to uh you have to read the whole book. Uh is it, where is it? You have to read the whole book for this to make sense.
But, Angela, you are a party cake. Cooking issues! Cooking issues is powered by Simplecast. Thanks for listening to Heritage Radio Network. Food radio supported by you.
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