The Chef Show

- - I don't know.

-There we go. Chefs everywhere. - It says, "everything."

-Yeah. -Roy likes it.

Like, you took my words too literally.

I heard you were here before they even opened.

I grew up right here in this area. This store here--

-This was my Baskin-Robbins. Yeah. -This was his Baskin-Robbins.

-Bittersweet. -I have mixed feelings.

But no, this was my Baskin-Robbins, but I'm so happy she's here.

I've been involved with Christina for a long time.

I mean, her first book tour, we did at Chego.

You have this book. The publisher's like,

"How are you gonna promote it?"

And you're like, "I have this one friend in LA.

-Maybe I can call him and see." -That's great.

So I'm like, "Roy." And he's like,

-"We'll do old-school bake-sale style." -Sale.

"I got a folding table. We'll put you out on the street."

It's like, if you're gonna learn how to cook for a bake sale,

-who would you want as your secret weapon? - Yeah.

-For you to get perspective-- -I grew up on bake sales.

- I know, that's your whole-- -It is my tried-and-true.

I will pull over the side of the road

to go to a bake sale and spend $20 and get baked goods that run the gamut.

So we wanted to use this to, like--

Take back the bake sale.

Take back the bake sale, and also offer something.

You know what? Just pause, and then let's try to make a good cookie,

make a good brownie.

-My favorite cookie… - Uh-huh.

has been my favorite cookie at Milk Bar since the very beginning.

It was the cornflake, chocolate chip, marshmallow cookie.

It's really good.

Look at how much cornflake crunch goes into this cookie.

-Goes into this. Yes. -Yeah.

This is caramelized cornflakes. It's cornflakes.

There's some sugar, some salt, some milk powder.

You know, people are always really scared of salt in their baked goods.

-You need salt and you need acid. -Yeah.

But making anything taste good requires that balance.

-This is cultured butter. - That gives you acid, the culture?

It gives you a bit of acid, but the thing a lot of home cooks don't think about is

that your baking powder and baking soda, which are what you use for leavener,

that's where you get the acid.

I don't understand. Wait.

Baking powder and baking soda. Can you tell me the difference?

Okay, so baking powder is a leavener.

It gives acid.

- Okay. -It also helps with texture.

And baking powder is typically double-acting,

so it activates as a leavener when it hits heat the first time.

If it hits another acid, it will react again.

-As a leavener? - It'll lift again.

So what would you add to baking powder to make it lift?

This is a good one! You know the science fair?

-And you build the volcano? -Yes, the volcano.

-Right. -Baking powder, vinegar.

-Vinegar in there because it's acid. - Yeah.

I gotcha. Mentos and Diet Coke.

-Same. Similar. -Same thing.

-You can feel it happening in here. -Yes.

So we add the light brown sugar and granulated sugar.

The secret to any great chocolate chip cookie is the dark vanilla extract.

But you'll also use the white vanilla for other things.

-Look at--I like that you came in ready. - Yeah. Yeah.

-That creamy vanilla is birthday vibe. - Yeah.

-It's the fake vanilla. Yeah, okay. -That's dreamy, fake vanilla,

which I would never use, baking these cookies.

But we cream this sucker in total for ten minutes, which is unheard of.

So in your style of baking, are you using metric? Are you using pounds?

We're using metric. We use weight to the gram.

- Yeah. -If it's a small amount,

to the tenth of the 100th of a gram.

But most home-baking recipes are by cups and teaspoons.

-They are. -Is it part of the problem?

It's always part of the problem.

-With the bread, it's all… Like with-- -Yeah.

-Bread is all grams and weighed in metric. -Has to be weighed in metric.

You don't need a crazy gem scale. You just need something.

If all three of us made a cup of flour,

-it'd weigh different across the board. -That's right.

When we write our cookbooks, the publishers maybe hate me a little bit,

but I'm like, "No, we're gonna give it to them in grams

'cause that's how we do it, and we're not going to be a part of the bad bake sales.

Yeah.

-All right, where did you put my egg? - I got it here.

Amazing.

So we want it to aerate for sure

because the second you add that egg yolk, it forces the emulsification

-of the butter and the sugar. -Yeah.

It strengthens that bond. And we need this to be super strong

because you know when your cookies… Some of it bakes out lacy and flat

-and you can see the butter baking out? -Yeah, yeah.

It's because you didn't take enough time here.

Yeah.

Speaking of lacy cookies, there are good lacy cookies.

-The chocolate chip ones that are-- -Oh, yeah.

- That are crispy on the edges. -Oh, yeah.

How do you get that cookie versus just a regular chocolate chip cookie?

So when you're making that kind of cookie,

-and you want it to be purposefully lacy-- -Almost a palmiers texture, right?

You're not playing this crazy whipping game.

It's not about giving it aeration.

It's just about the ratio of flour to sugar to butter.

And it'll naturally bake out.

-Yeah. Because the melted-- -What are those Pepperidge Farm ones

-that they dip in chocolate? -Yeah. Oh!

-Those are really good. - Why can't I bake those?

The most ones you see at bakeries are the chocolate chip, but then it…

-I grew up on the iced oatmeal ones. -Yes.

-Remember those? -Yes.

Those were so good.

I used to load Pepperidge Farm cookies onto trucks in Queens.

-Stop it. - We were kids in school.

The drivers would tip us.

-We'd wait by the distribution center. -That's a dream job.

And we would go pick out their boxes and load up their trucks.

- And load it up. -Yeah. That was it.

- - I love that.

This is flour, salt, baking powder,

-baking soda. - Right.

We know we need to add this, so the secret to this mixing is

that we want to mix this part of it as little as possible.

Right.

That's it.

Is that all you would mix right there?

- I'll mix this other stuff in. - Because you'll do that too.

- These are sea salt bars. -What are the biggest flaws you see

in just everyday home-baking cookies? What I see is, it's either too chalky--

- Mm-hmm. Yes. -and hard as a rock.

No one creams their butter and their sugar long enough.

-Yup. -Ever.

It's like two seconds, zoom, zoom, zoom, we're done.

Yeah. They're probably doing the first phase that long.

They're doing the second phase as long as we did the first phase--

-They're doing this. -you gotta swap them.

They overmix it, which is why you get the chalky, hard cookie.

-Once you add the flour-- -Like, the gluten forms?

-Yes. -You've taught him so well.

You're really getting…

I don't ever tell anyone this stuff because it feels very…

-Nerdy? -Well, no, I like being a nerd,

but the details of it are overbearing in the spirit of something

-that should be pure unadulterated joy. -No, you don't understand. It helps

because once I understand the principles, I can apply it to other things.

Yes. It is funny if you think about that. You go to culinary school

because you have to learn the basic technique.

-Yes. -But the instinct is something

that you pick up word-of-mouth

-along the way. Trial and error. -Yeah.

You have to learn how other people do it to figure out what your palate wants.

-Yes. -How someone seasons their cookie dough

is probably totally different than the way I do it.

-Yes. -But I also bake like I'm a cook

because I liked hanging out with the savory cooks on my way up.

You tasted, you went.

So all of this ridiculous mass goes in.

That's so cool.

Chocolate.

Marshmallows.

And then, for here, I'm pulsing like…

- You're keeping it… - That's it.

…as short as you can, yeah? As far as…

- Wow, that was fast. - Oh, wow.

If you look at this dough, it's a very light-colored dough.

Yes.

This looks like a Halloween cookie almost. You could add Reese's Pieces, orange--

You could add so many different things into there.

I'm gonna put you on scooping duty.

- Yes. - You've done your homework.

Fill the whole scooper and then bottoms it off with the palm of your hand.

- Salmonella. - Please stop.

These nice, little mountain tops are perfect

because the cookie is largely butter.

And so the taller we can make them, the less flat they'll get.

They go into the fridge and we get 'em super cold before they go into the oven.

-They keep their shape longer? - Mm-hmm.

- Do they cook well-- -And we added so much extra butter in.

We wanna give that butter a fighting chance before the heat hits it.

- All right, we're coming in. - Hello. Wow.

Here we are.

- And that's it. - Let's go.

And what's this?

This is a super deepened graham pie shell.

As long as I can add butter, sugar, salt, a little bit of milk powder,

-anything can be a crust. - Wow.

So this was your first, kind of, attempt--

This is my first vehicle of dessert.

…to define the bridge between who you were and who you're becoming?

Yeah. I was a crazy home baker

before I moved to New York to go to culinary school and do all this stuff.

I never wanted to lose that piece of it

because I knew there was something there that was true to me.

-The home-baker side? Yeah. - The home-baker side.

When you're making a brownie at home, sometimes you swirl stuff in it.

Like, why can't you just put the batter of a brownie into a pie crust and bake it?

Oh!

Like, why not? The graham that's in the brownie batter will start to bridge

what will happen on your palate.

Going back to bake sales, the most flaws I usually encounter are,