- Hi, my name is Bill Yosses
and I was lucky enough to be the Pastry Chef for two Presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. And I'm going to be making
President George W. Bush's favorite cake, the seven
layer chocolate cake. (soft music) This was a cake that the President, President Bush asked for his birthday. His birthday is actually July 6th but we used to celebrate
it on the 4th of July. It starts out with butter and
sugar that we blend together in the electric mixer. I like to start with soft butter. You can either leave it out for a few hours on the kitchen counter. You don't want it to melt because when butter is
melted, it separates into what's called the
milk solids and the fats. And then we're gonna add our sugar and we're going to put it on medium speed. So I'll tell you a story
about my first impression of President Bush was when
I went for my interview and I was not aware that
it would be face-to-face. So you're invited to make a cake and a dessert sort of like a,
you know, test, which I did. And then I was invited to
go up to meet the President. And so it was the
President, the first lady and Stephen Hadley the
National Security Advisor and Condoleezza Rice. So these were people that I had read about
for years and admired. And so obviously I was
a little bit starstruck kind of stumble is sort of stuttered out both honored to be here, sir. And without missing a beat, he just said look me in the eye and very
humbly said it is for me too. That was the first impression that I got of being there face-to-face with him. And it's not the kind of impression that maybe a person would get from reading news stories
about how the man was. But anyway, that was a great start. And I certainly learned how
to make a cake that he enjoyed for his birthday and I got the job. We're gonna alternate liquids and dries. You slowly add the dry
ingredients, which is flour more flour and the baking
powder, cocoa powder. And then the liquids are
whole eggs and buttermilk. And these are gonna go
in here, alternately. So it all comes together
into a smooth mess. (soft music) So now that the cake
batter is mixed together we're going to put it into our mold. (soft music) Now we have the cake in its cake mold, we're gonna bake it at 350
degrees for 30 minutes. What I mentioned before
is that President Bush really loved desserts yet he was very fit. He could still outrun the
young secret service members who were with him when he
used to do weekend rides in Camp David, he did mountain biking and they could not keep up with him. He used to say to me you're the reason I have
to exercise so much. But one funny story happened
while I was at the White House. So I had overheard people talking that the President said,
oh, I have to eat healthy or I have to lose some
weight, something like that. So for dessert that night I thought I would do the right thing and I would make a delicious apple salad. So we served the apple salad. The Butler's take it into the President and right away the Butler
comes back with the plate. Sets it down on the counter
in the kitchen and says, "Don't ever make that again." And I said, "Why? "I thought that I thought I heard "That he wanted to have
a healthy dessert." And he goes, "What happened
was I put the dessert down, And the President said, "What's that?" And he said, "That's apple salad, sir." And the President said, "Apple salad? "Apple salad is not a dessert. "Apple salad is a salad,"
and got up and walked away. Believe me, there was no
more apple salad served at the White House. And while we're letting this cool we're gonna make the icing
that goes on top of it starts out with butter, we'll
put that on double broiler which means water boiling
under this to melt the butter. At the same time, we're
gonna add our chocolates. We'll let that get started and start to melt before
we add anything else. So there's a number of
things that you learn when you start to work at the White House. And they're not really written down. Obviously there's a
few things which become evident right away. You always refer to the
President as Mr. President, if he enters the room, you stand likewise for the first lady,
the prestige of the office the honor of the office
obviously requires a lot of respect as kitchen personnel,
we always had to be ready. We used to say on time is 15 minutes late. Like you always have
to be there 15 minutes before ready to serve. And it's so happens that George W. Bush was a fairly quick eater. He did everything with sort
of deliberation and intent. And he just liked to get things
done and including dinner. But if a guest was not
accustomed to being served at the White House, they
may not have been aware of a very old tradition,
which probably dates back to England and the Kings
and Queens of England. And that is that when the Head of State is finished eating your finished eating. So in the case of George Bush he would sometimes get through
his plate and the Butlers and service staff would clear his plate and everybody else's. So if you were a talkative person you might not have very much
to eat out of state debt. The amazing thing is
he was very, very fit. President Bush was, but I think
most nights he ate dessert and I think it was something
he looked forward to after a hard day, like, well
at least I have a dessert to look forward to. (soft music) Sort of the epitome of
service at the White House in terms of food is the state dinner. And actually it's also
political high point. The state dinner is sort of
everything that the presidency tries to achieve rolled up into
a two or three day ceremony. So for example, the Head of
State of the country arrives there's been months and
months of preparation. At the White House,
we're trying to present the best of America, the best ingredients, everything the best we can. So we want America to
be represented there, but at the same time, we
want to honor the visitor. So I might include for
example, ingredients from that person's country
or a technique kind of dessert that they love in that country. Now that the cake is cool we're going to start cutting
it with about three fingers. You'll get seven layers. And in order to be sure
that our cake is even all the way up, we use
the same piece of cake to guide our knife on the other layers. So now we're gonna build
the cake and the filling is this beautiful chocolate icing. This cake is sort of like what the French might call it terrain or it's a rectangular
cake rectangular and high. Working at the White House, there was some very interesting
things that I learned about entertaining heads of state things which don't always make
it into the newspaper but the state dinner is
kind of the ultimate. The ultimate entertaining
at the White House the ultimate of kind of everything. It's statecraft, diplomacy, politics everything important, all rolled into one. So for example, one of
the last state dinners that the Bush's gave was
for the President of Ghana the West African country, every
state dinner, it's the same there's a morning ceremony they arrive, there is a military parade. There's a Fife and Drum Corps, sort of like a revolutionary war style part is part of the army. They, perform on the South lawn. That's where the President gives a speech welcoming the Head of State. And after that, they go in for lunch and then they break up the Head of State along goes into the Oval
Office with the President. There's a lot of tradition
going back decades or centuries even about how to receive
a foreign Head of State. And just to give you an
example of how precise this is one of the very
interesting departments in the White House
located in the East Wing, the First Lady's Wing is
the Calligraphy Department. So for a true state dinner,
each menu is hand written in calligraphy by a member of this team. It's all not only drawn
out in perfect script on these beautiful paper,
but even more important than that each country
has besides its flag they also have what you might call I think heraldry or sort of coat of arms. And that's usually a very
intricate sort of, you know it has dragons or lions or
whatever each country uses. But in this case the calligraphers had
to draw that heraldry on the top of the menu
card, the size of a quarter. Think about that. I mean, they're using like, you know a mouse whisker to draw some of these like very intricate details. And they did it perfectly
times 200 times 300 however many people were
invited to a state dinner. You know, it's one of the
things I like to talk about because there's this whole
team of people who work at the White House who
really don't get credit and they don't want to get credit. They don't want a lot of this
sort of news to be out there because it's private to the family. But I always sing their praises because they're really like the unsung American heroes, I think. And many of them have been there for President after President
many administrations. In fact, I can tell you one story, one man when I started working there said, "Remember don't throw the leftovers away "Because many Eisenhower told me that." And I thought he was joking. This man was not joking. He was in his 70s when I
started to work there in 2007. And he had started working for Eisenhower. And as a young man, a very
young man who was Afro-American started working like 20
years old in the White House and he was still there. Imagine all, he had seen the
American history he had seen and he was devoted to his job. Basically these are, you
know, personal member inces of families, but a real American treasure. So we've said, let our
cake set up in the fridge. So it has a nice and firm surface. And now it's gonna get
the secondary glaze. At this point, we kind of overdo it. We kind of over pour this
chocolate glaze on it. The beauty of this cake is its simplicity. And we just top it with
a little chopped walnuts and it's ready to slice and serve. (soft music) This delicious cake to me is a symbol of the very straightforward
and simple pleasures of desserts and food. And, in a way how food brings us together because you have to remember that when the President
and Mrs. Bush hired me they knew that I was a New
Yorker, liberal Democrat. I mean, it's sort of saying the same thing and yet they still hired me
those extra considerations about political party didn't
come into the conversation. And it's something that
I admire about them. I'm grateful to them for
giving me the chance to serve and I'm proud of having worked for them. It's okay (Bill laughing) No, the reason I say that, so
I once remember Julia Child interviewing a chef famous New York chef who tasted his own dish
and said, "Delicious." And she of course said, "If you do say so
yourself," (Bill laughing) so I'm always leery about
praising my own food too much. (soft music)
