How to Make a Salty Nut Tart with Claire Saffitz and Natasha Pickowicz

i know there's so many claire fans out there and a lot of you have already gotten a copy of her beautiful book and have been cooking from it and i'm thrilled that we're going to be demoing one of the recipes from dessert person today uh so without further ado i would like to welcome natasha picowitz hi natasha how are you hi carrie oh my god it's so great we i just feel we are so lucky to have you and claire today i mean what two baking superstars um for those of you who don't know natasha she is a world-class pastry chef um she is also are you the founder or co-founder of in good taste i actually co-founded it with three of my best girlfriends including um susan corn of susan alexandra the fashion designer and kelsey shaw and emily eisen so it was really a labor of love kind of group of girlfriends um really nice so in good taste if you're not following it they have their own instagram account and it's a fantastic program to raise money for different charities so natasha can you just take a minute and tell us a little bit more about it yeah i'd love to um i especially because i feel like there's so much heavy crossover with all of the cherry bomb favorites of all the people that we featured but we basically asked 25 of our friends you know people that we looked up to admire respect think are doing interesting cool things have great taste so um we asked them to put together their dream starter pack you know kind of eight to ten items of things they can't live without you know coming from independent local businesses because we really want to also support the people that are working really hard throughout this period to kind of encourage people to kind of shop small think locally um i am thrilled to say that claire was one of our taste makers actually um yeah and she um put together this you know beautiful pack that was like full of all these baking things like her favorite apron her favorite rolling pin if you're in new york city she called out jb prince for some of her favorite kitchen tools and that's a great that's a great shop to kind of stock up on but yeah we were raised over twenty six thousand dollars and a hundred percent of the pros and cons yeah are going to um kind of grassroots non-profits that are really doing critical work here in new york city um in terms of like covet relief um unemployment relief um and yeah it's been a really you know energizing thing to be able to work on something like that um you know while kind of adjusting to life at home and baking at home and stuff yeah well thank you for all the work that you've done that's really amazing natasha i'm going to pass it over to you and claire um are you ready yeah there's claire hi claire hi hello hi carrie hi natasha good to see you you too how's it going thank you for having me um we all got we got a sneak peek at claire's cat earlier my cat made a little guest appearance and natasha just adopted a rescue kitten um who we may or may not see the rescue kitten uh during the program but you didn't name the kitten yet right yeah i have a few working names obviously they're all food and drink related um but i i'm gonna kind of wait to see what she becomes okay um but yeah i think this winner for so many people is about kind of creating your coziest best home situation you know and carrie and i were joking earlier about the like would love to see that overlap of you know pastry baking freaks with all the cat ladies that are out there cuddling with their pets right now at home and i was like this is missing from my life um okay it's wonderful seeing you both i'm so excited to listen to this conversation and i'll see you all at the end of the demo okay have fun thank you thanks carrie um i'm gonna like take the driving wheel on this for a second yes yes wait but natasha i can i just say one thing really fast i also just adopted uh like a rescue kitten which is now our third cat which is like a little insane but i we did not pick a name for like four or five days like you have to really let them i totally agree you have to sort of like try them on and see what fits and then and then it just it just happens thank you i i really agree you know the last cat i had she actually i called her lady for like the first month that i had her and then i kind of was like figured out who she was but right congratulations i saw you like a little orange ball of fluff or something like that yeah yeah a little orange ginger cat i'm obsessed i adopted through whiskers a go-go which is a rescue shelter in brooklyn so if people are thinking about adopting this you know so many people i feel like are are investing in rescues and shelter animals right now because we're all home so much more so um definitely you want to go through kind of a local organization like that wherever you happen to live oh my gosh someone saying yuzu is a great name okay that is that's such a good one thank you miso oh my gosh okay this is great anyway just to get it back to pastry for a second claire this book is so phenomenal i you know i'm so lucky to have a copy here i literally have read the entire thing um um but i like so congratulations first of all you have dedicated this book to your mother so i was wondering if you could share a little bit about kind of what what's her wheelhouse what's her baking wheelhouse like what if you you know what is your relationship with her like in terms of learning about baking and pastry i you know my mom is a phenomenal cook but you know when it comes to baking you know i feel like that's not really so much her passion so i'm really curious to know yeah um yeah so i grew up in a house with lots of cooking and baking happening all the time and i it wasn't really until i became an adult and i had a wider frame of reference that i sort of looked back on my experience growing up and realized that it was a house that really privileged and foregrounded food and cooking and baking um so my mom has always been a baker um and growing up it was just a very normal part of what was happening in our house my mom but and all very simple things all you know she would make brownies and cookies and um a lot of quick breads like she was kind of known for her quick breads and just had sort of like this incredible arsenal of of recipes and always a very curious cook and baker was kind of kind of always trying new things um and so it was just sort of a part it was just like wallpaper in our house like my mom baking and she made a lot of fresh bread and everything um so i it wasn't so much something i was aware of at the time but it is it was such sort of a just a part of my upbringing was having seeing my mom in the kitchen baking and so yeah the book is dedicated to her because because of that but also because she helped me so much with this book i spent a month last summer no no i summer 2019 um like living at their house i called up my sabbatical but really i like moved in with my parents um and she and i were in the kitchen every day baking together and she has both my parents having an amazing palette and um my mom gave me not just like actual help in the kitchen but such great feedback and so after that point i was like i can't really i can't dedicate this book to anyone else um i love them so much so i want to just get started on this i can multitask and we can chat while i'm doing this but i want to just sort of start by saying that what i'm going to demo is this um actually i think a really lovely holiday recipe from the book the salty nut tart which is right here um and so i want to get started just on the crust we know i know we have enough time because the filling itself is super straightforward the crust is a basic um sweet tart crust and i want to just get that in the pan so that can start baking um and i just want to say that i pre-made the crust so it's in this i chilled it like you know like you would pie dough and it's in this block um and i have you packed it in plastic in advance and yes i made it last night i wrapped it in plastic and i chilled it and it's butter base so i actually i used kerrygold's our sponsor to make the crust which i would have done anyway had carry gold knot in this sponsor because this actually is my go-to butter at home i like love the texture and flavor and also it's so yellow which is really pretty um so i'm just i start by so this is a pressing crust i'm not gonna roll it out because it's too sort of it gets too soft so what i actually do is i use my bench scraper and i i flattened it into sort of a square shape and i take my bench scraper and i just like cut strips of it sort of thin strips i use sneak so much because sometimes you're kind of rolling out the dough and it sticks to your counter it's hard to get that even thickness and it's online especially kind of these fluted tart rings it can get really fussy and it can kind of get really frustrating so this is that and this is demoed in the book i think it's page 339 yep um so are you greasing that with like a non-stick spray or anything first or no so it's not grease there's plenty of butter where the um i've i've really never had it stick um it kind of like greases itself so i just like take those strips of dough like this and i simply just press them against the sides of the pan and then i go in once i have this ring all the way around and i do it to the bottom but i always i don't know if you do this too but i always start with the sides just because i think it's it's easier to get that application all the way around um and so i just did you let this dough is it chilled is it tempered i mean what are you looking for with the kind of temp of this dough it is chilled um but because of the high proportion of butter it sort of immediately starts to soften a little bit and becomes malleable like it's not brittle the way that um like some cookie dough or even some pastry dough would be um it's pretty flexible and so then i go in once i have and i'm not like smoothing it or anything i just have these strips positioned around the sides of this and this is a nine inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom super important love that just pop it right yes and then i take the rest of the dough that i've also cut into the same strips and i just lay them all into the bottom like this and like haphazard you know it doesn't have to be you don't have to have full coverage oh genius and i was at first i had different instructions for how to line the um any kind of you could do this with a spring form too it doesn't have to be fluted but of course fluted makes like a nice pattern and i had different kind of instructions and then i found myself doing it this way and i was like why would i give instructions different from how i would just do it myself you know um so it's a little bit atypical but i just think it's sort of makes the quickest work out of it and then also gives you a really even application so now i have just like random strips in the bottom and all the way around the sides and now i just go in and i hope people are kind of baking along at home too this is such a great sometimes you know baking is so visual also it's like you could you really want to be able to see kind of feel the dough kind of see how it spreads are the flecks in that dough from the almond flour are you is that yes yeah so this tart dough it's pretty straightforward but there's one sort of atypical step something that is you know it's sort of like in the style of a pat breeze or a pet sucre which is just a basic sweet um tart dough uh it does have some almond flour added that i toast just for extra flavor and this almond flour that i'm using is unblanched so it has those flecks from the skin of almonds i love technique so much actually at restaurants where i've worked i've we toast almost all flowers and that kind of helps heighten their flat their flavors so like nut flowers you know kind of non-wheat flowers like buckwheat um right all of these things really kind of come to life you want to make sure and i've done this before if you're toasting flour in an oven if you have convection to do it at a very low fan setting otherwise and i've done this you know with the hyphen blew it everywhere i have done that before as well low heat but if you can kind of watch it and stir it around a bit too but i i love that trick though really helps kind of take it to the next level with depth of flavor yeah yeah and sometimes taco is like pretty boring and doesn't have a lot of flavor so i wanted to just add that step because i wanted it to taste good on its own um so now i've just with my fingertips i flattened the bottom into an even layer and now i'm using this is also one of my favorite little tools it's just a straight sided measuring cup like this and i use that to even out the thickness of the sides and press it up to the very top of that fluted edge um beautiful i i think also it's not even it's not sticking either um but if it is you can just throw a little flower on it sorry what were you saying well that's really smart to kind of use a cool tool like that because you know whenever you are touching dough with your hands you're also applying heat and and sometimes you know it can kind of make a dough kind of tougher and this is a much more delicate way of kind of respecting the dough by using this kind of cooler tool instead of you know you direct pressure with your fingers yeah and if your measuring cups are a different shape and don't have that straight side you could use like a glass you could really use anything to help you get that sharp edge between the bottom and the side and so i want to press it in just so that it's kind of at the top of the fluted edge and like there's a part where it's thicker so i can kind of pinch off a little piece and like throw it over here um and i'm kind of rushing i would normally probably sit here and like zone out and get like really even or something um but just make sure that you don't have any cracks or anything um and so then you can go in with i use a parry knife you could use like a mini offset spatula i'm saying this to you like obviously you know all this really i'm saying this to anyone that's faking along um or anyone that's planning on making i was gonna say this for the holidays or just any tart ever um and so where it's kind of gone over the top of the edge i just use i use a paring knife like this and i sort of hold it parallel to the surface and you just sort of slice against the line of the pan and then you get this nice clean edge you could leave the edge raw though if you would like that's really up to you that's satisfying i i i love that though you want that nice kind of clean professional sharp edge that's what really helps make it gives it that clean kind of look i've also seen that like a rolling pin kind of just rolling a pin over the edge of the tart to kind of snip it off the excess yep and this this recipe really does not shrink very much you'll get like it'll sort of naturally pull away from the sides of the pan on its own um but it's nice that it doesn't shrink and by not shrinking so much it also is less prone to cracking but that said in terms of cracking sometimes it happens no matter what because like as something bakes it loses moisture and the dough itself is kind of contracting and then you sometimes get these natural cracks so just i hold on to like a little bit of the dough like this this is you know like a teaspoon size um and i set it off to the side and then my cat's in the background sorry guys yeah yeah um just keep that aside for patching later on and now normally i would freeze this but i'm going to kind of move it along i don't weight the crust when i bake it but i often just put this is in the book as well i just line it with foil like this and i press it into all of that space between the sides and the bottom and this keeps this just helps to keep it from like slumping and it helps to maintain that straight edge along the side so and this was something that i picked up in the chai penis book which was like something that i saw in some lindsay sheer recipes where i was like oh she's not waiting it it's just oh that is that your copy well i saw that you mentioned lindsay share in this recipe and you know when i was looking at this um at your at your nut tart recipe and i was like this sounds so delicious it really reminded me of you know the chapanese almond tart yes it is inspired by that recipe yes it is totally so tired by that kind of a kissing cousin um but it has that kind of like almond praline filling instead of this pine nut uh walnut kind of hybrid right right you know what i what i love at the end of that recipe actually is that lindsay also suggests that the tart is delicious with a saturn which is like a fortified wine or a glass of champagne and you also suggest these delicious cheeses that would pair so well but you know i love a dessert that can kind of mix and match with savory too so yes i am never tell me if you agree or disagree with this i never want i i'm happy to have a ch i'm like always thrilled about a cheese course at the end of any meal but i don't want that instead of dessert i would like dessert in addition to the cheese course you know like right obviously so so that's like her or both together like wow right right it's not either or it's both so i love the idea of like being able to kind of do them simultaneously and obviously like this is a caramelly honey you know nutty tart and buttery and all of those flavors go well with various cheeses so in the like you know kind of a mild blue cheese is really lovely like really i mean an aged cheddar is you know all super delicious so i'm picking rosemary because the tart has a little bit of rosemary in it and it it does kind of help it lean a little bit savory which i love um but yeah i love that you sort of like picked up on the shape of these almond tart which is totally like an inspiration for this um and it's so important to note also because um i've made that almond tart and a place where this recipe can go sideways is if your tart is not patched properly like if it has cracks and isn't patched which is why it's so smart to save that little clump of dough um the filling will kind of seep out the shell and could glue it kind of to your yeah um so that's that's a smart kind of like tip hold on to that that is a very technical recipe and this recipe is not as technical i think mostly the oven doesn't work i don't know if i'm like blocking the view with this but um but the same thing it is a rather liquid filling so hold on to that dough if you for whatever reason you don't have any dough to patch it you can also just like mix together some flour and water into a soft dough of the same texture and just use that like it's not all it's not lost if you forgot to save a little bit yeah great idea yeah you just need a little kind of glue yeah yeah it's just like spackle um so okay so i lined it with foil i didn't have to wait it i put that in the oven it's at 350 um and that'll go for i'm probably going to pull it out after 10 minutes and then take off the foil and put it back in just so i want the tart to get a little golden brown because we bake it again obviously with the filling in it so i'm gonna then start on the filling and this is like this is basically like i'm cooking together this filling to bring all the ingredients together and emulsify them but really it's the oven that turns it into caramel so i'm just like boiling everything together and driving off a little bit of liquid and that's it so it's not technical you know it's not like you're cooking caramel or trying to reach a temperature yeah i love that because i think you know caramels can be a little bit fussy um they can be a little bit you know you need a candy thermometer you got to hit the right temperature and you know you and i love that this kind of um kind of sidesteps all of those concerns because right for example like you know there's a little bit of corn syrup in this and that yeah what does that do what what's the function of that in a caramel like this yeah i don't bake a lot with corn syrup but there are certain certain applications for it where it works so well and it's really i feel like you know i'm not trying to use it to make things sweet or to obviously add any flavor but i'm there because it helps keep the filling really soft and chewy and it doesn't get you know hard and like stick in your teeth so i think there's a time and a place for corn syrup and this it might be the only place in the book where i even have it but it it the app this is a really good application for it so it's just two tablespoons i have a quarter cup of sugar this is heavy cream i put olive oil in it because i like that flavor combination with the nuts and then of course you're getting the butter fat yeah are you just using like um you're kind of cooking all-purpose olive oil or should people be busting yeah olive oils don't use the finishing oil use i this is like you know california brand use your like sort of everyday olive oil um and then i measured out the olive oil and then into the same container that's where i do my honey and uh corn syrup because those are so sticky and when you have oil in the container already it like greases it and so the sticky thing slips right out i love this tip i do this all the time i will knees out my ingredients in the order for like how to easily release the sticky thing at the end yes and you know and honey also here um you know any somebody is asking again oh can you repeat what you're saying about corn syrup i just want to say that any kind of like inverted sugar which is you know in this kind of gel liquid syrupy state is going to help prevent crystallization with your caramels is going to give it that kind of bouncy gooey texture like once it's combined with other things so you know honey corn syrup you know in restaurants i've used glucose tremoline you know texture and often they'll be also you know have a slightly different sweet level than the sucrose that you find in granulated sugar so yes to play around with yeah yeah i mean sucrose like you said um sorry glucose and trimling those are much more common in professional kitchens and so like for me the best and i often try to not use corn syrup if i can help it but it really is the best sort of easily accessible at home ingredient to sort of mimic that um that texture and also preventing that crystallization and like an invert sugar is sort of is a is a sugar where like you know the molecules are sugar but it's liquid or or you know um i don't i don't know how to best describe it but um so yes and it's not again like it's really just there to keep everything kind of soft and and chewy and not brittle or um or grainy so i have all those ingredients and i'm just cooking them together and bringing it to a boil i just also will smooth out people are saying they can't find corn syrup i also like golden syrup or like the lyles brand of golden syrup um that kind of is a similar flavor to corn syrup um but i've seen it in grocery store aisles and in outside of the united states as well um so there are definitely different directions that you can go in so you're just adding everything in all together at once i love that too no add in your you know cream after off the heat you know it's all in it right right so there's a couple things that i'm holding back initially just a little i don't feel like sorry guys felix he's very attention starved right now i've ignored him all day um i have i'm holding back a few of the filling ingredients so i have well this is coming up i'll tell you everything else so this is two cups total of nuts i have one cup it's one cup each of pine nuts and walnuts the walnuts are kind of coarsely chopped i really actually just stood there and like broke them up with my hands they don't even really need to use a knife um and pine nuts i lightly toasted them in a 350 oven for like you know maybe i get i tossed them a few times i toasted them together they you know the pine that's just a little bit faster but the walnuts are in pieces so maybe like seven to ten minutes um now pine nuts are obviously really expensive if you don't want to use pine nuts you could use all walnuts and it'll be delicious but you could also use like marcona almonds you could use hazelnuts just make sure whatever it is it's really well toasted um so i have and this is the filling and then i have a little vanilla a little bit of kosher salt and then while this comes up to a boil i'm going to chop up my rosemary because i add that to the filling at the end and it's not very much it's only just it's the rosemary is pretty strong and i don't want it to overpower everything else that's going on so i just i think it's a half teaspoon total now for how you kind of release the oils in the rosemary with the flaky salt at the end um you i kind of do this with sugar too i'll sort of rub zest or vanilla bean into sugar to kind of like release kind of the aromas and the flavors but you're right salt right yeah i mean rosemary has these these oils in it and like just chopping it up here it releases all sorts of um of aromas so half of this amount that i chopped up which is again just a half teaspoon you can see it's like really coarse you know it doesn't i don't want it to be fine half of that gets mixed with some flaky salt i use jacobson's flaky salt you could use mauldin like you could use a flour to sell or whatever you want um and then like the jacobs and salt is really big you get like huge huge crystals like this um and then i just kind of as i break up the salt like the crystals of you know the salt is a crystal it has these sharp edges and it kind of like softens and like just you know bruises the rosemary a little bit and brings out some of those flavors now i feel like it must smell incredible already so yeah so now this is just like rosemary salt and then that goes off to the side to go on top of the tart um and so this mixture is coming up to a boil is it possible for us to get a little peak inside of that pot or is it i think it's let me bring it over to you rather than hover my laptop over my spoiling filling i've learned my lesson of doing something like that um but i'll show you it all smoothes out like in the beginning the oil will be kind of separated you'll have all these different ingredients and then when it comes to a boil it'll all smooth out the sugar dissolves and it kind of emulsifies and that act of boiling of those bubbles like helps to incorporate everything together right so i'm on like medium whisk to kind of bring it all together you just have that spatula right and because of the corn syrup in there i don't worry about stirring you know this is not going to crystallize like if this were a caramel with just sugar maybe a little water i would really not want to be stirring it once it comes to a boil um okay so and again like you're not there's not really an end point here it's not like oh you're cooking it to you softball or you're you know golden brown or anything like that i just want to drive off some of the liquid so i'll show you what it looks like now that it's at a boil tell me if you can see what that looks like oh yeah okay so we've got kind of like a pale golden it's not a super dark caramel probably because of the cream that's in there it's kind of giving it a little clearer look great yeah it's um golden brown and it dribble off your spat yes let me let me show you what i want to get an actual spoon for you um and so you know it's all bubbly sorry can't actually see that can you see that yeah definitely okay great so it looks a little viscous looks thickened but yeah still pretty yeah and here's a good tip for like when you're boiling [Music] any kind of sugar solution it's kind of hard especially if you're like i can't rely on a color change here because one i'm not driving off all the liquid and two like it already is brown from the honey and everything um one thing i look for is like the way that i know it's thickening is the bubbles in the mixture like you know what bubbles look like in boiling water like they're rapid they pop really fast and when you're cooking a sugar solution and as the water is driven off those bubbles will get slower to pop and that's how i know that the mixture is really thickening so they won't look like boiling water bubbles so that's what i look for here um you know it's kind of a similar uh you know principle applies to you know a lot of things with jam making or making preserves you know often those big water bubbles as the water evaporates and you're really cooking the sugar and like mixture the bubbles get smaller tighter together they kind of get a almost like a sheen to them like a rainbow gloss to them so you know i find pastry yes it's all about following instructions having that road map which i love as a phrase that you use you know the the the recipe is the road map but what you really want to do is engage all of your senses to kind of be able to you know kind of be present with the recipe so what are your eyes seeing what are you smelling what does the texture of something look like you know you have to engage all of your senses and that's why i feel like baking is so rewarding you know yeah and natasha this is something that you probably experience a lot is like as a professional there's probably things that you're noticing that like you're not even necessarily conscious of that you're picking up on and so it's a fun exercise to sort of think like okay i think that this is done but like why do i think it's done and then to realize oh it's because it looks different and so like because when i'm writing a recipe i'm trying to think like what are those cues that i can give people to let them know when something is done when it's not you know it's not something super concrete it's not like a tester comes out clean or you hit a certain temperature it's like a little bit more qualitative exactly and so it's fun to sort of be like oh it's because the bubbles are slower you know like that's that's such a concrete way to sort of a cube but it's not necessarily always you're not always conscious of it you know as you're baking it's yeah it's really empowering to kind of understand not just what is happening but why it's happening you know like right making that tart shell earlier you're like the tart shell may shrink a little bit but you know why it's doing that you know there's an actual you know process that's happening with chemical reaction with heat and with pastry that explains why it does it so it really can help you with the troubleshooting later to know how to do it differently perhaps right so speaking of the tart shell i'm going to pull it out and remove that foil i love and not not even pricking the crust or anything just right in yeah i'm not i'm not pricking because i don't want to introduce any cracks um into the crust of course um and so because we're gonna bake this again and like this one was a little bit imprecise but you can see it didn't like so far so good it didn't really puff up too much it didn't even really slump yet i'll show you a little closer way from here okay good i won't get too close but um the side is nice and dry the bottom is a little bit wet still so i'm gonna pop it back in the oven for a few minutes um and then we'll go right into filling it and then i'll finish the filling which is basically done so i've i can see that it has thickened a little bit and also i always regret when i try to bake something not on a baking sheet like sometimes i'm like i don't need to do that and then i'm like do it like put it on just put on a baking sheet i was just gonna say like you know i i was gonna point out that you have parchment and a big half sheet tray there to hold it this is something that i've done before too you know you kind of just get excited and you put the tart in the shell and then you get the overflow and yeah sticks but also you know if you you know if maybe if your oven runs a little bit on the cool side um i'll you could put the tray almost like underneath the on like a lower rack too if you want that air to circulate underneath the tart shell itself but you really want that barrier i think that's that's important kind of yeah i regret it every time i don't do it um and like the worst for me is slab pies which are already in a half sheet and then it's hard to find something bigger than that to put under it and then it because it's so flat it just i've had so many like disasters of like smoke and burning fruit juices and like it's it's a nightmare so um but i think um i remember you made slap pie for the planned parenthood bake sale in 2019 oh yes you know i that was such a wonderful day and so much fun and i remember thinking like wow slap high is such a good idea like i can make these large format things and obviously the bake sale was in the spring and like that's a lovely time of year and i was so excited and like damn slam pie is a lot of work i sort of forgot how much work it was but it was a true labor of love and so great and like what a fun day that was and i look forward to the next one somehow in some way we're gonna make it happen yes um all right so i'm gonna finish the filling so i'm adding a half teaspoon of just regular kosher um because the flaky salt is for on top and then that little bit of remaining rosemary beautiful uh a little bit of vanilla i'm sure that in all of your restaurant making you guys go through a ton of vanilla bean right so i imagine that you're doing something with the pods oh yeah okay so does that mean what's happening here i see you just did you make your own extract yes so this is i because i i love vanilla bean i know that you're also a fan of halal vanilla which is like the most incredible vanilla women owned just the best um so i i am not like a big diyer in the kitchen but i just cannot but i also hate throwing stuff out and so i save all the pods and i put them in this jar and i started it with some vodka this is probably a couple years old um but then i also when i have store-bought vanilla extract i throw it in like i fortified it's like there's no reason to keep it separate from what's in here it's just gonna enrich it further so it's a mixture of vodka and store-bought vanilla extract and then all the pots so um definitely want to save all your pods always i know that if you go to a grocery store a vanilla bean is a luxury product it's not it's something that we should be taking for granted like you know it is also an industry that's fraught with kind of a lot of bad environmental and labor practices because the process of growing and curing these vanilla beans takes so so so long so you know just to go back to halal again um you know they're growing and curing vanilla pods in tonga the flavor is extraordinary but it's also the way that they're doing it right that's really important because there's a lot of kind of sketchier vanilla products out there but if you really want to have a great product in your home like that you want to do a little bit of research on the back end first yeah and hey lala is not more expensive than the more than sort of more commercially available vanilla products and they do a lot of like community investment in in tonga where that's grown and and also it's a product that's really affected by climate change as well because it can only be grown i think within 50 miles of the equator in either direction so um and and the women the ladies that run hila are like the best so i love i love using their products they absolutely agree but you know and they also have really fun flavored extracts like coffee and mocha and yeah i have i have one of their i also um i have their cocoa vanilla extract which is great for anything involving chocolate or where you want a little of that cocoa flavor so um it's good i'm just going to stir in the toasted nuts by the way i love it i always get some filling pine nuts because they can turn on a dime you really want to keep your eye on those things not really walk away doing it they'll go from perfectly toasted and the oils in them will go bitter just like you won't even know what happened so yes and and on that note in terms of storing pine nuts because of all of those oils keep them in the freezer they're just like much less likely to go rancid if you keep them in the freezer 100 i um you know i i'm used to having like giant walk-ins for storage and restaurants and having everything and now i'm kind of like adjusting to like where am i going to keep everything in my studio apartment like where is it i find that all of my pastry stuff lives in my freezer i keep flour in there i keep sugars in there nuts i keep butter in there if i find butter if kerrygold is you know on sale i'll like buy eight or ten pounds at a time and i'll keep yeah so totally i have yeah all my nuts all my seeds like poppy seeds go rancid so fast sesame seeds all of that um our kona almonds it's basically that and like cookie dough and like frozen dumplings the greatest food ever yeah my my my freezer has become my pastry walk-in that's yeah in terms of keeping things yeah well like when you don't have the pantry storage it's like you gotta use the space um all right so i'm just gonna fill this really fast so you can see i'll bring it a little closer it pulled away from the sides a little bit but like in a way that'll make it easier to um you know like release from the ring around and it didn't really crack i imagine that if i par baked this a little bit longer it probably would just that natural kind of shrinkage that happens but like let's say you have some cracks in the surface of your pastry i have i pinched off a little bit of dough i just dropped like a tiny little bit and i like i just basically try to roll it or mush it into the shape of the crack and then you i don't bake it again i just like mush it into the crack literally like spackle i ended up having it into place right that's good smear it like blend it into the rest of the pastry i say spackling like i've spatkled before but i haven't really but i've actually like find it very pleasing to watch um and then that's it you don't have to bake it again it will basically dry out and fuse to the to the tart you won't even know that it's there so then i just want to scrape in my rosemary honey filling a question that kind of keeps popping up um with nut substitutions so you know you mentioned marcona almonds can you what were the other let's see hazelnuts would be great you could use all walnuts you could do pistachios i mean really like any nut that you like you could use pecans you could do a mix of all of those there's no reason why you couldn't also do some seeds you could like throw in a little bit of sesame seeds which kind of reminds me of those honey sesame candies that i really really love um and anything really like anything where you want to eat something kind of caramelly with it you know that that then you're good like heart and i love how these recipes can take the substitutions too um if people are sensitive to rosemary i for example i'm like super sensitive to rosemary i think a lifetime oh okay food that has too much rosemary in it i kind of you know i'm very i'm like my pastry cooks like to tease me that whenever i like play around with rosemary they're like we thought you hated it um what would be some other herbs that you think would work with this kind of nut um tart i think sage could be a really nice one um how would you do like a little chiffonade of that or what's the best way to incorporate sage i think i would really really finely chop it because it's so furry like you know it's not um you don't want a big piece of it because it's like the texture is a little off-putting so i would really finely chop it and i would do the same amount like sage rosemary these hearty herbs are really strong and so you want to use them carefully and sort of thoughtfully i am the same way natasha with certain ingredients like i'm so sensitive to nutmeg and i think it's the same thing where it's like i just had like overly nutmeggy things exactly and i'm like ah talking to somebody about nutmeg i was like i i'm yeah it's a lot it can be a lot so i i totally get it and i do off like you know big a big sort of um a big part of the book for me was always trying to give those substitutions where i could because people have these sensitivities and like i totally get it so you smooth the filling just with your spatula yeah you and it looks like it's a little bit short from the top of the crust um bubbling over yes it definitely so it bubbles up quite a bit in the oven um and it's also a pretty intense filling there it's like really you know get the fatty nuts and the honey it's intense so it's not a super thick tart you know this is like a thinner tart where i have a more equal proportion of crust to filling so this is going to go and i just smoothed out i didn't really smooth it out but i just tried to like distribute the nuts evenly around the tart and then the carrot the filling sort of the liquid kind of distributes itself and and evens out condensing all the steps right now but would you let that tart shell cool before you add the kind of nut filling or could you do it you can you can add it hot you can i mean either way you can make the entire tart shell in advance and let it cool you know you could make it the night before whatever that's totally fine but there's there's no adverse effects from from putting the filling in hot and just throwing it back in the oven wow i love that because i feel like sometimes with like a flakier dough like a paper say or a puff pastry it's like you want to let it cool and kind of crisp up before you add a kind of wet feeling to it right right yes totally right like this does not the evaporation that happens when something cools is not super crucial for this for this question it's a very adaptable crust okay so here's the finished one i made this one last night so what happens in the oven is more moisture is driven off of that filling it starts to bubble up and caramelize and it really creates this kind of chewy uh you know like honeyed caramelized not filling and it also reduces quite a bit you can see that really there's no liquid it's just these caramelized nuts um and then the finishing touch is that flaky rosemary salt that i put together before and then it just goes right on top and you can see how like with all these flavors it is really lovely with some savory like this doesn't have to be dessert this could be i mean it would be like very um luxurious and rich but you could serve this like little teeny tiny wedges of it on a cheese platter or something if you've got like kind of this serving suggested serving size here um so just to you know make sure that the people who are there's so many great questions that are coming in um yeah you kind of addressed some of them but people are kind of talking about what kind of pan size you know when i was looking at this dough i was like this would also be so cute as like a mini tartlet if you have like you know you could probably divide up your dough into kind of like little individual forms but you mentioned ring form so that would work too well right yeah this it was a nine inch removable bottom tart pan you could use a nine inch spring form the tart dough does make enough to cover a ten inch but you will have a thinner layer of dough so if you are not confident if you're not super confident in your like press-in crust abilities you could make a little bit extra you could make one and a half times the recipe and just have a little bit more to work with exactly yeah i just want to point out that another thing about this book that i love and i've kind of seen more in modern cookbooks these days is that you have kind of traditional american volume measurements and i remember going through this with you when we were recipe testing my layer cake stuff for uh ba back in 2017 claire by the way one of the most detail-oriented fastidious thorough recipe testers i've worked with ever i was completely blown away but what she's done in her book here is provides not only american volume measurements but also ounces and also metric so this is really important um if you want to scale your recipe up and down um like she was saying times one and a half what does that even mean you know you could take all of the metric measurements here take out a calculator and just multiply everything by 1.5 right right amount for a 10 or 12 inch tart for example yeah and i'm constantly when i'm not when i'm trying to scale up or down for that matter um with any recipe and i'm trying to do it by volume that's when i make mistakes go ahead and do it by weights that's a much much more reliable way to do it um yeah this is like where i gently remind everybody to buy a scale for all their baking right as a characteristic of a dessert person is you know you got a little scale in addition to all of your normal kind of cup and teaspoon measurements right but oh wow so you got a little what kind of knife did you just the same oh this is like i don't know this is like a cheap little utility knife that i just sort of grab constantly and find it very useful for smaller things um it's thin bladed that's really helpful is when you are slicing something and you want clean slices don't use a really like you know hefty fat knife um so this has a little bit of sticking on the bottom because the caramel seeped through like we talked about so there was a crack or something but um it also easily releases so i have i can just snap on these little crush but it has sort of a candy bar vibe like it is really sturdy and it holds its shape in these nice tight slices so there you can see it where that proportion of filling to crust which is really nice and then you can just kind of like through it like that can i come over i'm ready i'm about to have two tarts um okay wait so what so let's talk a little bit about some other accompaniments besides cheese because i feel like i look at heart like that and i want you okay you also say in your book your favorite thing in the world to eat is whipped cream you laugh that's like the cutest thing i've ever heard but i feel like some great whipped cream would be so nice with that too yes i think like a little unsweetened whipped cream would be delicious um creme fraiche with a little bit of tang would be super delicious when i was a kid and my parents would have friends over or guests or dinner party my mom made dessert and there was usually whipped cream and i would like be i would like clear the table and i would be in the kitchen with the bowl whipped cream like licking the bowl i was just it's been like my favorite food for ever and i love it so much and i find it such an underrated accompaniment to anything it's like the perfect um also like can you explain what is the what is the perfect whipped cream texture and look look like to you know because i have a lot of feelings on this i think there's a time and a place for all different whipped cream textures like there are certain when i was in culinary school um in paris there was this famous hot chocolate place in the fifth arrondis mall and they served like really bitter hot chocolate like almost completely unsweetened and um they would put this huge heaping mound of extremely overwhipped whipped cream on it it was like nearly butter but it was like perfect it was like i i know that like to me this is quote-unquote wrong you know but it's still perfect and i love that and i think i've since like relaxed my ideas about that you know i don't want to be any like tyranny around what whipped cream has to be but i prefer a soft peak and a peak that's soft enough that like it will hold its shape but when you dollop it on to a slice of something it will kind of gently fall down the side and droop you know yeah that's that's my ideal but like i'm not i don't care if it's over whipped under whipped i'm still like into eating it so that's fine with me um okay wait so i also this question from sarah barker about freezing so at what at what point here could this be frozen could the tart shell before after you bake it be frozen what what are your recommendations for storage you can freeze the tart shell before or after baking certainly you could also make the filling stir in the toasted nuts throw it in the fridge like there's no eggs in it you know there's that mixture is mostly sugar it'll keep indefinitely in your fridge um the nuts will kind of hydrate so if you are going to hold it in your kitchen for more than a few hours i would actually just keep the nuts separate you can toast them throw those in the freezer um i wouldn't freeze the finished tart it would probably be fine but often with freezing with things with high sugar content like caramel they'll pull moisture and then when you thaw them they'll get kind of like wet and weepy um and sticky which you don't necessarily want um but all of the components can be made ahead of time you can freeze the unbaked dough you could freeze it unbaked in the shell you could freeze the shell bake there's all sorts of places to start and stop in this recipe if you want to break it up yep and and i i wanted to ask this earlier too because you say specifically to use kosher salt so like everywhere i've ever worked in restaurants i've always used the diamond brand kosher salt it's kind of like my de facto my mom asked me recently why kosher why not you know can you explain like a little bit why why you like to use kosher for your baking but yeah it's hard for people to get that how would you substitute a different kind of salt you know yeah so yeah so kosher salt i also use diamond it's much more common here but i'm from st louis and i've had friends write to me saying like all i can find is morton and so morton and diamond are the two most um sort of widely available brands uh so morton is great you can use morton it's also kosher but so this is diamond that i have right here this the the one reason i like it is the um the salt crystals they're very flaky and they're sort of flat and i really like the kind of feeling of it in my fingers and i have an easy time seasoning with it it's like i can i know how much a pinch is you know i know i know how it is going to distribute morton is a little more pebbly and a little bit denser so and this is sort of gets back to our conversation about weights of ingredients like it's a denser salt and so the same volume of morton compared to uh diamond is will make something saltier so if you're using morton go ahead and have the salt quantities in the book so if it calls for a teaspoon of kosher i always say diamond but if you're using morton use a half teaspoon now in general i always bake with kosher because it is a very reliable salt that has maintained some of its mineral content and that's supposed to like an iodized table salt which to me is like bitter you know there's sort of a tinniness to it and also like makes things very very susceptible to over-salting because it's so fine um but if you can't find kosher you can use a sea salt and that would be fine too um and in general like i make i don't make that like this is a salty dessert intentionally so um i don't make my desserts salty but i make them well seasoned you know there are like generous amounts of salt and i think that that's because they're not overly like salt and sugar are both flavor enhancers and i don't add more sugar than i need to for the recipe and so it just needs that salt to like taste that's what it is you know desserts just like your savory food need to be seasoned properly right like you know that's kind of what can take sometimes like a memorable restaurant dessert kind of over the edge and i think that's what a lot of these desserts do here too is like if you're thoughtful with how you season it you're not going to taste the salt you're going to taste wow rosemary whoa nuts suspended in honey like it just it makes everything sing and kind of feel a little bit you know bigger than it is and also like i also want to say that you know while you provide all these great measurements and everything you know you're talking about how great of a palette your mom has you know the way that you develop your palette is through tasting so you know something that we do in restaurants too is you know we're tasting all day long you know taste the caramel before you stir the nuts in taste a bit of the nut before you pour the filling into the tart crust taste the raw dough before you bake the tart shell i'm always checking in over and over and over you know you feel like you want to brush your teeth after like an hour it's really the only way to develop your palate which is like a muscle you know right right right totally and this like it's a good example of like and that's also why i tell people to make something over and over again like i think it's so tempting to want to keep trying different recipes and bounce around but it's only by making the same thing many many times and picking up on those variations that you start to train your palate also like if you're making caramel or you're making a tartar tent and like one one day you're making it and you bring you make the caramel super dark you know and then you're you're noticing oh it's darker this came out different than last time you're tasting it and you're picking up on all these sort of nuances and bittersweet notes and everything you're like that's then you know okay i'm gonna this is the color that the caramel should be you know it's really only through repetition and also and then constant tasting and comparison that's how you develop that yeah that palette you know exactly i mean that being said where would where does this recipe live on your kind of matrix of difficulty like how would you good question um this i think is rated a this is in the pies and tarts chapter let me let me look it's rated a look it's a word you know which beginner recipes you know you love from your book yes so this recipe is a two and there and like i tried that's not necessarily it's not arbitrary it's like there are certain things that a two rating means it's not just sort of like oh i think this is a two um and i want to tell you what that means and it's somewhere in the intro of the book uh but two is a rating that's easy one is very easy um so two means uh yes it's the two yeah right in the middle so it's a recipe that involves a series of steps and may require some special equipment but uses no finicky techniques and it's doable for beginners so i i am confident that this is a two so like i think it's that pressing in of the crust where it's like you you want to take some care there's some in and out of the oven you know it is a process there but it is not technical like that you know this is if you were to boil it a little too long or not quite long enough like it is very forgiving and i have a high degree of confidence that you'll get a good result even if you're a total novice you know um so yeah i think some of the other really good there's a lot of great options in the cookies chapter of things that are just super straightforward you don't need a stand mixer you don't really need any special electric you know no food processor like the chocolate chip cookies are stirred together um and it but it's still i think it's good like learning for someone that's an obvious because it tells you how to brown butter and um you know there's some uh like it's still i i guess i in my mind like every baking recipe is technical like there's nothing you can do that doesn't involve some kind of technique you know um it's true but it's just ones that are easier than others yeah i mean claire this is such a delight i wonder i wonder if maybe um as a way of kind of wrapping things up if you could share a little bit about you know holiday baking that you're doing over the next you know like for the last couple weeks looking into the new year um kind of what are some of your favorite you know things that you're doing for you know at home with your fam yes um what i what i'm taking away from this year is that like i'm i am sort of relishing in the lack of rules this year you know like i i there is nothing that i feel like i have to make this year which is so nice and liberating so i have um i've kind of pledged to myself that i'm going to tackle some recipes from melissa weller's new book um a good bake because she has a lot and i'm very excited to start baking from that but she has a lot of recipes for like enriched breads and things that use sourdough starter um so they're naturally leavened like a naturally lemon panettone and a brioche and i've never really ventured very far into that realm penetone i i was just having a conversation about panaton with some pastry chefs last night and they were like it is the most ambitious pro they're you know hanging them upside down for eight hours i mean they're all they're naturally leavened i mean these things are works of art i've never made anatom before it is frankly terrifying to me but i feel terrifying textbook yeah so hers is like hers goes for it you know and i'm very excited to try i'm a little intimidated but um but i also know that like she's such a technician and the recipe is so detailed so i'm very excited to try it and i've had the panatone by roy which is the most superlative panatone ever and it's just sort of like it is like a miracle of pastry sort of you don't really know how we can get something so rich also be so light um but it's a process i'll let you know how it goes um because you know most panettone is like not very good uh but but also but the proper pannatone is amazing if you're in new york or new jersey i should say rick easton's panettone at bread and salt bakery is it it like messed me up a little bit i was like how is it yeah like you were saying so rich but the crumb is i mean it's really to have a good one is a life-changing experience yes yes so i'm i'm going to try that i also want to try her um naturally loving brioche which looks phenomenal so i'm i'm excited to learn from melissa who's just like you know a superstar um can we show can we can we see your cat is that do you think that that's possible i so guys i i just yeah adopted this little rescue she's only nine months i really want to show you guys but um i feel like she's we're not quite at the stage where she's like in my arms i'm holding her even though we're doing what the shelter is calling socialization 101 which i feel like everyone needs right now is kind of like i would like lessons on re-socializing into society yeah um she's not a mush cat yet that's what i call like a lab cat it's like when you can push them down that's a must-have that's the goal that's the goal but if yeah felix are any any cat cameos is going to be welcome here for sure oh oh see i think i got out felix's treat and his head just popped up come here kitty oh now i feel like that was my that was my cue to join with dusty you get to see one cat oh and look hi all right everybody who's got a cat you can tell us your cat's name oh my god natasha i think we're gonna have to reschedule like a round two of this when we can all get to meet your kitten and some people suggested great names i think the winning name was earl brown earl grey oh the cute one yeah clara when are we going to do the like 48 hour long cherry bomb panatone class it's just like a marathon stream anytime you want any we'll have the cats in the mix at captain panaton i would like i will do that like tomorrow claire i wanted to make your um your fruitcake but then i saw don't even think about attempting this in december you need to make it in like october so no make it make it now for next year i'm going to be serving my fruitcake from last year which is 14 months old so it's never too early sometimes it's too late but it's never too early okay but it's never too early that sounds like that's advice that could apply to a lot of things in life okay um oh well listen you two were so dynamite i don't know how everybody who's watching feels but i just feel like we were so lucky to see two total pros uh talk through this recipe what what just what a delight to hear you both and i learned so oh my god i learned so much i've been taking like a million notes over here claire you blew our minds with that pie crust trick in the beginning so cool i dough that you broke up into little rectangles oh my gosh completely and natasha so good to see you thank you for narrating this and walking us through and asking such wonderful questions so great to see you guys so much fun truly you know normally we would all be kind of together in you know in new york kind of celebrating but this is such a wonderful way to kind of still generate those fuzzy warm fuzzy feelings so thank you thank you for having me yeah yeah absolutely well happy new year oh oh thank you sorry i just want to say it's such a privilege to have natasha here and to be able to talk to you because it's like natasha is someone i admire so much and i have like a pastry crush on her and just is the most lovely human being and so this is like a super treat for me and i hope that everyone else enjoyed it as much as i did so natasha and kerry so good to see both of you and i just want to say thank you for having me um it's so much fun and like i wish i could do this every day and we'll do the panettone thing okay um i would like to get the hashtag pastry crush trending i think that would be a fun one to see who everyone's pastry crush is well you two are my pastry crushes so thank you so much and happy holidays happy holidays happy holidays thank you

Channel: Cherry Bombe

Views: 5,608

Rating: 4.9543724 out of 5

Keywords: dessert, dessert person, claire saffitz, bon appetit, natasha pickowicz, recipe, dessert recipe, dessert ideas, how to make a tart, pine nuts, recipes with honey, recipes with rosemary, rosemary, cherry bombe, kerry diamond, holiday baking, pastry chefs, cherry bombe magazine, desserts with honey, baking, baking recipes, baking advice, tart recipes, best bakers

Id: c3Ufvfh65P0

Length: 64min 33sec (3873 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 19 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Haunting_Way_816]

I loved this stream. I’m such a fan of Natasha’s work. I’d never seen that technique for pressing pie dough into the pan before but I’m definitely going to try it. Also 100% yes to both cats and baking 😂.

[u/Emptymoleskine]

Thanks for posting this.