5 Stories About Baking Cakes (And Bread!)

[Music] haven't you ever had those times in your life where you just feel all consumed with tasting something again that you haven't had in years and years that's really what i'm doing here is bringing back those incredible desserts those incredible experiences that have gone extinct i put myself through this process of resurrecting desserts because i truly feel that a good dessert can change the course of your day i'm valerie gordon owner of valerie confections and i'm also a dessert anthropologist the way this project of resurrecting historic desserts began was in 2009 the food editor from the los angeles times magazine asked me to create a blums coffee crunch cake for an article that she was doing and it was this amazing full circle moment because i grew up with that cake i know that cake and i missed that cake terribly blums was an incredible bakery and cafe in california there were eight locations the last one closed in the 80s when the article came out we literally received 125 phone calls from people going oh my god i want this cake so the desserts that i resurrected to date are of course the coffee crunch cake from plums i've brought back the banana shortcake from chasen's the brown derby grapefruit cake is another cake that i've resurrected and now is soon to be the coffiesta sundae as well [Music] the anthropology of the dessert resurrection is really one of the most interesting parts of all of this i start the research process at the central library there is a room and this is a very well-guarded room called the menu vault there are menus that date back for 150 years i find that looking at the actual menus is so much more gratifying than just pulling something up online because you're really getting to the heart and soul of the place you're almost transported into that place at that time by holding something that these people held you really are [Music] then i email a bunch of people or i call a bunch of people who were natives to los angeles or whatever city the bakery was in to find out hey do you remember this do you remember that we always used to call this the adult sunday because this is the one my mom would eat can they describe the texture of a whipped cream can they tell me whether there was vanilla in it or not i'm pretty sure they did one basic yeah recipe for whipped cream and then flavored accordingly right it was little kid whipped cream one cherry yes this is amazing like you have been indispensable i'm not particularly interested in retro it is about reliving those sense memories it's sort of like when you hear a song that was your favorite song from 1982 you're really thrown back into that moment it's become this very emotional very fulfilling part of my job to bring these cakes back for people [Music] siggy ron hillmarsson is an icelandic baker with an unconventional oven he bakes bread by burying it underground where it's heated for 24 hours by nearby hot springs it's very common to see hot springs here in iceland there is constant lava crawling under us this lava is heating up water and this water comes boiling up on the surface we could put it in the oven but this is much more fun iceland is one of the most volcanic regions in the world with 30 active volcanoes at any one time that helps create an abundance of hot springs some with boiling hot water and siggy uses them to his advantage he specializes in baking hoove abroad a traditional icelandic rye bread recipe that dates back hundreds of years i know for sure that in this village i can track it down as far as late 1800s something my grandmother taught my mother how to bake this bread and my mother taught me in the hot spring rye bread recipe we have rye flour sugar baking powder salt and milk we put this in a pot we put butter in the pot then we wrap it with plastic foil and we put it down in our hot spring hole for 24 hours it's very obvious to see if the ground is hot or not i never use a thermometer if i need to check the heat i just use this one our biggest challenge is rain if it rains a lot these holes that we are using can cool down and if they are not hot enough obviously the bread doesn't bake completely [Music] everybody eats our bread our visitors the locals hot spring rye bread has a unique taste that you don't get from ovens the texture of this bread is quite special it's quite heavy it's not the typical light bread when you show this to travelers that come to iceland and you see their faces they go wow then you start to think that this is quite amazing actually [Music] extra [Music] in the middle of the french pyrenees there's a cake that's been spinning and spinning and spinning for over two centuries joseph here has formed a society to keep the recipe going and he's in charge of a cake with quite the cake is a reminder that losing isn't always bad as napoleon soldiers retreated from russia they picked up the recipe from several eastern european countries and brought it all the way to the pyrenees where many people including joseph and his brotherhood have kept the baking going la [Music] [Music] [Music] my [Music] [Music] d cakes cookies and brownies no we're not going to show you how to make them because they can be made with ease thanks to betty crocker who was born in 1921 in minnesota well kind of [Music] in 1921 the washburn crosby company now known as general mills ran a contest for people to complete a puzzle for the most coveted prize a pincushion yes one of your very own surprisingly a lot of people wrote in to claim their prize but with a little ps how do i make my sponges they wanted baking advice so the customer service department began to reply and to make their tips seem more genuine they sign their letters betty crocker betty because it was a cheery all-around american-sounding name and cracker after a board member not being a real person didn't stop betty crocker from having a very successful radio show the betty crocker cooking school of the air with a different accent in every state [Music] betty crocker cooking [Music] but the lies don't stop there let's talk about that added ingredient the egg you don't need to add a fresh egg to powdered cake mix but science says it makes us feel like we aren't cheating and we're better providers so thanks betty crocker for making us all feel like we know how to bake [Music] these little custard tarts these eggy sugary treats are everywhere in portugal here here and here some say the prestige de belang is the original paste dinata or custard tart in this little factory through this kitchen there's a recipe that has been kept top secret for almost 200 years oh not this one guys i can't get in here i'm sorry [Music] okay i'm miguel clerini and i'm part of the management of prestige blind this special recipe you will only find here at this shop we sell an average of about 20 000 tarts a day in the summer maybe around 40 000 cakes a lot of cakes the stage the balleng as they call them here are simple tarts really egg yolk milk some flour sugar but it's how they make them in complete secrecy that makes these tarts a national treasure we have six people knowing the recipe in the family my father my cousin and myself miguel ferina the three chefs which is vitor dominguez eliseo jamiro and carlos martinez the recipe is so secret all the bakers sign non-disclosure agreements to keep the timeless tarts a true mystery staged blind is one of the earliest recipes at least here in lisbon we know that the recipe was invented in the monastery of geronimo in the early 19th century this one once they have the recipe the chefs now sworn to secrecy are giving keys to this door they work inside the factory uh in a separate room that we call the ofcena in portuguese it's like the secret shop or secret room they have to work in a separate room because the process can only be seen by them so today we haven't found anyone that uh explained the recipe as it is if it happened well we probably would have to lock him up in the basement and throw away the key no just kidding okay secret keeper what's the best way to eat one of these custard tarts usually i like it simple but that's just me most people like with a little bit of cinnamon on top this is the hard part of the job [Music] yeah this is super hard i don't know how you do it

Channel: Great Big Story

Views: 122,785

Keywords: great big story, gbs, lag, documentary, docs, flavors, new releases, human condition, cake, pastry, lava, desserts, cake on a spit, spit cake, weird & fun knowledge, great big reels, food & drink

Id: eUBseNtR_t4

Length: 13min 4sec (784 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 02 2019