I'm Just Here for More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking

I’m Just Here For MORE FOOD

Alton Brown

In I’m Just Here For the Food, his James Beard Award–winning first book, Alton Brown, producer, writer, and host of Food Network’s Good Eats, explained what happens when food meets heat. In this new title, he explores the second part of the cooking equation: foods that we make or, as Brown describes them, the wet works. Breads, cakes, cookies, pies, custards, ice creams—Brown explores the science of mixing and baking and explains it in his own inimitable style.

The book opens with a complete encyclopedia of the core ingredients or the Parts Department—what they are, what they do, and how they play together (or don’t). The main part of the book is divided by mixing method: Muffin, Biscuit, Creaming, Straight Dough, Egg Foam, Custards, and a special section on such anomalies as popovers and crepes.

I’m Just Here For More Food brings more than 80 new recipes to the table. From Everyday Bread to make-yourown Saltine Crackers, there’s a full range of foods to expand the repertoires of cooks at every level of skill.

Along the way there’s a healthy dose of food science, history, trivia—this is, after all, an Alton Brown book—and I’m Just Here For More Food is the one that his fans have been waiting for.

My own personal onramp to the craft of baking began with my grandmother’s biscuits (that’s me and her grinding up a squirrel or something below). My decade-long journey to re-create those little knobs of goodness was my first real expression of culinary curiosity and this book is a continuation of that exploration.

The problem is that you can’t learn to bake from a book any more than you can learn kung fu from a book. That’s because baking requires the transmission of a type of understanding that can only travel the biological bandwidth of personal contact. The reason Americans are, by and large, lousy bakers stems from the fact that while we promote the idea of eating as families, we don’t seem too concerned with cooking as families. I, for one, find this odd since eating requires so little skill and cooking requires so much.

So if baking can’t be taught by a book, why bother reading a baking book? Well, I didn’t say that a book couldn’t help you learn to bake. Writing this one has certainly made me a better baker, so maybe—just maybe—reading it will help you become one, too.

Contents

Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.

—Albert Einstein

INTRODUCTION

THE PARTS DEPARTMENT

THE MUFFIN METHOD

Old-School Muffins

Chocolate Muffins #7

Chocolate Chip Cookie #10

Banana Bread

Nutty As A…

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Buttermilk Pancakes

Whole Wheat Pancakes

Luft-Waffle

Piña Colada Waffles

Dutch Baby Bunnies

Cheesy Poof

Herb Loaf

Cornbread No Chaser

Jalapeño Hush Puppies

Seedy Crisps

18-Carrot Cake

Ricotta Clouds

THE BISCUIT METHOD

A Better Biscuit

Phase III Biscuit

Pesto Dinner Biscuits

Dried Cherry Scones

Blueberry Shortcake

Blackberry Grunt

Chicken and Dumplings

Grandmom’s Dumplings

A Superior Saltine

Whole Wheat Crackers

Straightforward Streusel

AND THE PIE VARIATION

Basic Pie Dough

Free-Form Apple Pie

Savory Pie Crust

Peach and Rhubarb Cobbler

Apple, Fennel, and Onion Pie

THE CREAMING METHOD

Apple Cake

Fudge Cake

Plain Ole Brownies

Bran Muffins

Orange Cranberry Muffins

Ginger Cookies

Peanut Butter Cookies

Oatmeal Cookies

Dried Fig Hazelnut Bread

Pop Goes the Tart

Chocolate Pound Cake

Pound Cake

THE STRAIGHT DOUGH METHOD

Pizza Dough

From Pizza to Brioche

Potato Rolls

Everyday Bread

Pillow Bread

Multigrain Loaf Bread

Whole Wheat Morning-After Bread

Focaccia

THE EGG FOAM METHOD

Baked Meringue Pie Crust

Spiced Angel Food Cake

Cheesy Soufflé

Gritty Soufflé

Ridiculously Easy Mushroom Soufflé

THE CUSTARDS

A Tale of Two Custards

Pancetta, Goat Cheese, and Chive Quiche

Crème Caramel

Hasty Pudding

Orange Curd

Zabaglione

Zab Mousse

Halloween Mousse

Cheesecake

Savory Cheesecake

AS WELL AS…

Blender Batter 1.0

Funnel Cake

Pâte à Choux

Index of Search Terms

The Devil’s Food Is in the Details

Before we get started, I’d like to take a moment to speak of details. Baking is all about sweating the small stuff. Many of the people I speak with who insist that baking is difficult or tedious are actually reflecting upon the precision that is necessary to create consistent results. Cooks who enjoy facing a pan and tossing in a bit of this and a bit of that usually get away with it as long as they don’t burn the meat or forget to put water in the rice. Standard everyday cooking is relatively forgiving. Baking is rarely so. In fact, baked goods are a great deal like cars: You can change the wheel covers, put in new mats, and change out the stereo, but if you’re going to mess around under the hood, you’d better know what you’re doing or you may wind up taking the bus.

In baking, the engine parts are: flour, eggs, water or milk, sugar, fat, salt, leavening, time, and temperature. Change from nuts to chocolate chips and your cookie probably won’t mind. Change from three eggs to a cup of oil and you’re on your own. This whole precision thing also applies to the steps by which you assemble a baked good. How a dough, batter, foam, or custard is mixed together often makes the difference between ending up with a cake or a muffin.

Consider my grandmother’s biscuits. For years I tried to clone the tender little jewels of goodness that came out of her oven. At first I assumed that all I had to do was to implement the same hardware and software and follow the same recipe. The resulting biscuits were good, but they weren’t quite hers—a fact that everyone in my family made a point of commenting on.

I hypothesized that the secret must lie in her kitchen. I checked elevation data, weather data, and took the temperature in her kitchen, but found no variable that could explain the anomaly. I thought I’d hit pay dirt when I tested her oven (which hadn’t been calibrated in my lifetime) and found it ran 50 degrees hot. Alas, adjusting my oven up did no good whatsoever. The biscuits were good, but they just weren’t hers.

At this point, I gave up. To heck with biscuits, I’ve never much liked them anyway. Upon my next visit, I simply slouched at her kitchen table with a cup of coffee, resigned to watch her make her freakishly good and annoyingly unrepeatable biscuits. I watched her remove her rings, slowly twisting them over her arthritic knuckles…a ritual she undertook whenever she thought she might get her hands dirty. Since her hands were always at their stiffest in the morning she rarely made biscuits for breakfast because… hey, wait a minute! The very affliction that caused her so much pain was also the secret to her biscuits. Because she could barely bend her fingers she handled the dough without really kneading it at all. She simply patted it. This is a small detail, yes…but in the end it’s the detail that made all the difference in the world.

Details: Don’t turn your back on them.

The following pages are pretty much about details—sorting them out and defining them. There are details about ingredients, details about molecules, and lots of details about procedures. But as tedious as all that sounds, I think that—when it comes to baking—details are the truth and I believe I remember someone famous saying that the truth shall set you free.

A Quick Word about Classification

To my mind, the greatest analytical tool in the world is classification. Classifying things leads to enlightenment, and enlightenment to deeper meaning. For instance, I used to make really lousy cheesecake until I realized that cheesecake is not a cake, it is a custard pie. Now I treat cheesecake like a custard pie and everything is fine. There was a time when I did not enjoy Steven Seagal movies. Then a friend pointed out that they are all post-modern Jerry Lewis movies. Now I just can’t wait for Glimmer Man III to hit DVD. That’s classification at work.

In order to understand baked goods I had to figure out a system of classification that not only made sense to me but also brought me to a higher plane of understanding. After doing a lot of reading, a lot of eating, a lot of baking, and a lot of looking at torn up muffins with a magnifying glass, I have come to the conclusion that the best way (for me) to classify baked goods is by mixing method. (I realize the accepted method of classification—the one used in most cookbooks—is nomenclature-based: pancakes, muffins, rolls, and so on. I don’t think this is any more a system than sorting books by color. Names just don’t mean that much.) Not only does this system make sense, it has made me a better baker. So a great deal of this book, including the cute little flaps, are all about grasping the primary mixing methods that make baked goods what they are. Mixing is more important than ingredients and even cooking method (which with baked goods is rather limited). As you read you may find yourself disagreeing with my position that a carrot cake is a muffin or that pie dough is a biscuit, but hopefully you will be stimulated into serious thought about what some might consider trivial.

A Quick Word about the Recipes

The recipes in this book don’t look like regular old recipes. They look a little more like the formulas that professional bakers use, except that they don’t include bakers’ percentages (a method by which all ingredients are expressed as a percentage of the total flour) and they do include volumetric measurements for things that really ought to be weighed. In most cases, the instructions refer back to one of the primary mix methods, which you will commit to memory! Lots of recipe books basically repeat the same instructions over and over. They do this because it’s traditional and because they assume that you are not learning anything. I’m going to assume that you will.

In the assembly and cooking of a baked good, there are many things that are beyond your control. Barometric pressure, for one thing. Here are some other things that you might think are in your control, but they’re actually a little out of control: the temperature of your oven, the temperature of your kitchen, the age of your flour, and the hardness of your water. To counteract that which you can’t control, you need to control every single thing that you can.

For starters, buy good ingredients (We’ll go over these later, one at a time.) and store them properly. Then, measure those ingredients carefully. Take a look at any recipe in this book and you’ll notice that most ingredients are represented both by weight and volume. Were it entirely up to me, I wouldn’t include volume measurements at all—except perhaps for trace elements like baking soda. But I was advised that no one (No one … not even my mom.) would buy a baking book without cups and tablespoons, so I gave in. But I want to say right up front that if you’re going to bake, you had better get a scale, two if possible. Please. Do it for your food, do it for your loved ones, do it for me.

Classifying the Results

A mad scientist attempting to make a marmot from scratch, may (in fact, probably will) slip up and create a horrible mutation that would break out of its cage and wreak havoc on the surrounding countryside. Chased by torch-bearing villagers, the marauding varmint would run home to the scientist, who would attempt to harbor his creation, which would repay him by biting his head off. It’s a story as old as science itself.

When attempting to create a muffin from scratch, odds are good that you will from time to time create a horrible mutation. Luckily, lacking a nervous system or even a bad attitude, the odds are good that this aberration will not try to eat your head. In fact, if you close your eyes and take a bite, you may find it to be perfectly serviceable food. I would implore you to not be satisfied. Edible is not good enough.

Classification is an important part of all the sciences, and we (bakers and eaters alike) are obliged to form a set of criteria for each baked good we attempt to produce. What is a good muffin like? What should sponge cake feel like? Does this crumb structure look like an angel food cake or focaccia?

Balancing the Equation

What this means is that, beyond a correct list of ingredients, a good, sound baking recipe must have instructions written in such a way that—if followed—they will produce the baked good as designed. Said baked good, when constructed as designed, must be what it’s supposed to be and taste the way it’s supposed taste.

This is not as easy as you may think.

For instance, if I give you a recipe for a chocolate muffin and you follow it exactly and it produces something that you like but wouldn’t classify as a muffin, I’ve failed. If the instructions are written so that, when followed, they produce a lumpy brown mess, I’ve failed. If you are unable to follow instructions and follow careful procedures in the kitchen, we’ve both failed. There is, in fact, a lot of potential for failure.

Most of the recipes herein are written as formulas using as few words as possible. I’m not doing this because I’m lazy and don’t want to write out every procedure every time. I’m doing it because if you get anything at all out of this book I’m hoping that it will be an understanding that most of the baked goods on Earth follow a mere handful of procedures. Once you see that, you’ll start to realize that, just as a man and a chimpanzee have almost 99 percent of their genetic material in common, an angel food cake is more like a soufflé than it isn’t. By the same token, once you’ve got biscuits licked, why not go ahead and apply those same skills to pie crust? They’re very similar. The same goes for quiche and cheesecake.

Let me say this right up front: if you’re just looking for a collection of baking recipes that you can open to any page and follow at will, keep looking. There are dozens, nay hundreds of tomes packed full of well-tested, reliable recipes that will render tasty results. I’m not saying that the recipes in this book won’t or don’t work, but you are going to have to actually read the darned thing to be able to use them. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.

If you will read this book, do some thinking, then do some cooking, keep some notes, (I like single-subject spirals, but that’s just me.) and then bake a little more, I promise that you will be a better baker. Ultimately I’m hoping that this book can dispense the kind of know-how that will help you to make all your baking better. You’ll be more familiar with procedures, have better baking habits, and you might even be able to alter recipes that don’t make you happy otherwise.

Occasionally, when we get to a dish that’s been especially enlightening to me in my checkered but improving bakery career, we’ll take our time talking through things…but I’ll try not to get too long-winded.

A Few Quick Words about Good Baking Habits

If baking is about details, you can instantly be a better cook and baker if you just take the time to adopt a few simple detail-oriented habits.

Measure better. This means weighing things like flour and shortening, yogurt, and anything else that cannot be accurately measured in a traditional volume measure. Baking applications are carefully balanced equations and accuracy here matters more than I can tell you.

Aerate your flour and leavening. I rarely add flour to a batter or dough that hasn’t been aerated by a food processor, which I use in place of sifting. I never sift. Sifting is for people who don’t have processors.

Mise en place. It’s French for everything in its place and it’s a dandy concept. Have all your ingredients measured and ready to go before you start cooking.

Use thermometers. I never bake without an instant-read thermometer. Temperatures matter not only at the end of the cooking but often at the beginning. For instance, the temperature of butter to be creamed, the temperature of eggs going into a batter, and so on.

A QUICK BUT HOPEFULLY SUFFICIENT NUTRITIONAL DISCLAIMER

The trend these days is for baking books containing recipes high in fat, sugar, and whatnot to give a certain amount of page space (usually a page and a half) to nutritional warnings. I suspect this is done in part out of a fear of being sued by someone who, having gorged themselves on the products of those recipes, finds themselves (shock, surprise) to have put on weight.

Instead of giving a page and a half to warnings and subtle apologies, I’ll simply state my personal food philosophy: there are no bad foods, only bad food habits. Butter is not wrong, eating a stick of it at one sitting is; sugar is not bad, eating a cup of it a day is; carbohydrates are not evil.

So enjoy your cooking, enjoy eating (and I say savor licking the batter off those beaters), but do it responsibly and with moderation.

A Few Quick Words on Equipment

Each of the recipes in this book is accompanied by a hardware list of the basic equipment used for the application. Here’s a bit more background on what I used in developing the recipes and what I use day-to-day in my own kitchen.

Ovens. I own a GE Profile slide-in range—gas on top and an electric convection oven on the bottom. I don’t have a second oven because I don’t have room for one. This oven is loyal and trustworthy and friendly.

Please remember that ovens lie. They don’t mean to, it’s just their nature. They lie because they have to cycle on and off. Over time, they start swinging way off their target temperature. I keep a thermometer in my oven, though I have to say that there aren’t many that are easy to keep in position or to read once they’re in place. The oven thermometer that I like best is made by OXO Good Grips and features a frosted glass face that allows the light from the oven to pass through for easier reading.

Mixers. Although I keep a hand mixer around, I’ve come to depend on my electric stand mixer. I’ve worked and overworked just about everything on the market and have come to the conclusion that the best mixer for me is the KitchenAid Professional 6 (as in 6-quart). It’s a good size for the home and has enough torque to…well, let’s just say it has enough torque. This is the only stand mixer I have in my home.

THE MIXER ALTERNATIVE

If you’re an occasional baker, or if most of your baking involves mostly the Muffin and Creaming Methods, the Kitchen Aid Artisan mixer (with the tilt-back head) will take good care of you. But if you bake with great frequency and/or make a lot of yeast doughs that require kneading, then I’d break down and get the Pro 6. Its extra oomph is well worth the money.

Scales and measures. I have two scales, a Soehnle Futura and a Frieling Accu Balance. The latter is very precise and measures to the tenth of a gram, but only handles items up to 8 ounces. That’s why I have two scales.

Frieling also makes two of my favorite liquid measures, the tapered Perfect Beaker and the Duo Beaker, which has a mini-measure in the handle—very cool. For sticky or viscous stuff, I use my own push-cups, which are available from my web site (when we have them in stock, that is). To measure really tiny amounts of liquid, one of the syringes that we used to give my daughter medicine when she was a baby works well. They’re available at most drug stores.

Heating pad. While you’re at the drug store, pick up a heating pad. This has many uses and you’ll find them mentioned throughout this book. Here’s one more: Place the heating pad inside a metal bowl, then nestle a smaller bowl on top (so that the heating pad is sandwiched between them). Put chopped chocolate in the top bowl and the heating pad to medium (or high, if you have lots of chocolate and don’t mind stirring often). The chocolate melts in no time and almost never gets out of temper, which means you now have an easy chocolate coating that you didn’t have to jump through a lot of procedural hoops for.

Weight Versus Volume

CREATING CONSISTENT BAKED GOODS requires consistent measurement. Flour is compressible, as are brown sugar and confectioners’ sugar. Salt is equally tricky: a teaspoon of coarse sea salt does not contain as much salt as a teaspoon of kosher salt—which does not contain nearly as much salt as a teaspoon of table salt. It is impossible to measure these ingredients with consistent accuracy by avoir dupois—that is, volume. (The system of measuring liquids by volumetric ounces.) Heck, I’ve seen a cup of flour weigh anywhere from 3 to 6 ounces. If you want to measure flour, you have to do so by weight. End of story.

Types of Scales

There are three types of scales: balance, spring, and digital. Forget spring scales; even when they’re brand new, their accuracy is iffy. Balance scales are dead-on accurate, but tricky to operate, bulky, expensive, and there’s no tare function. (Meaning the ability to weigh in increments.) Still, their durability and accuracy make them the scale of choice for professional bakers. Me, I’ll stick with digital.

My scales easily switch back and forth between standard and metric. Ah, metric—don’t be afraid of it. Working with metric doesn’t mean you have to convert all your standard American recipes, but if you have a metric scale, you won’t have to shun European recipes. This is a good thing, because European baking recipes are generally better than ours because they’ve been devised under the metric system. And metric is just plain easier: a gram is a gram and a kilogram is a kilogram, and to go from one to the other you just move the decimal three places. There’s no dividing or multiplying by 16 and best of all no fractions—none…zip…zilch. For me, this means working in grams is more precise, because I make fewer mistakes.

Since I tend to weigh just about everything I bake with, including liquids, I don’t feel as warm and fuzzy about milliliters but I’m trying.

Other Reasons Why Scales Are Better

Precision. Meaning your ability to properly interpret what the measuring device is telling you. Even good measuring cups can make this iffy. Scales—especially digital scales—are quite easy to read.

Simplicity. One scale beats eight measuring cups. Modern digital scales have what is called a tare function, which means that after weighing an item (say 8 ounces of flour)