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All Of It with Alison Stewart
'Sweet Treats:' A New Cookbook from Mel Asseraf
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A new cookbook from pastry chef Mel Asseraf.
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Kusha Navadar
All right, Unc.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order, miss?
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McDonald's Promoter
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Listener support WNYC Studios.
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Kusha Navadar
This is all of It on WNYC. I'm Kusha Navadar in for Alison Stewart. It's Thursday, which means means that yet again it's time to talk about treats that tickle our taste buds. Yeah, that sentence was a mouthful, but hey. So is this week's installment of our Food for Thought series. Today we've got a two time champion of the reality competition show Chopped joining us to talk about her new cookbook. In the introduction to the book, which is called Sweet Treats From Brownies to Brioches, Chef Mel Oseroff describes herself as your butter half and your new kitchen bestie. She's got a hundred recipes that orbit around just 10 basic ingredients with with plenty of room for variations. You've got sugar, flour, eggs, liquid dairy, butter, baking powder, baking soda, yeast, and what baking would be complete without vanilla and chocolate. So let's get into it. Chef Melody Ossaroff is holding an event tonight in the Chelsea area at French Wink Boutique. It's called French Spring Celebration, Crepes shopping and joie de vivre with Chef Mel. That's tonight from 5:30 to 8:30. But now she's here us to talk about her cookbook, Sweet Treats From Brownies to Brioche. Hi Chef Mel, welcome to all of it.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
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Kusha Navadar
Absolutely. And hey all of it listeners. We are here to take all of your baking related questions like what tools you need in your kitchen or what ingredients you need in your pantry to make the best baked goods or hey, maybe you need some help Perfecting your signature cake or your experimental meringues. Call us with your questions. We're at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212 9692. Or you can hit us up on X or on Instagram. We're lyc. So, Mel, there's a lot of French technique found in these recipes and a bit of Italian as well, I thought. Can you tell us a bit about your baking influences and how you thought about synthesizing them into this cookbook?
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Yes, of course. So I'm a classically trained pastry chef, born in Paris, so already French recipes were always very important to me and kind of the basis for gastronomy, I would say. So after I studied at the French Culinary Institute, I went back to Paris to kind of study under what I consider to be the pastry icons, like Pierre, to learn about French macarons, working for several different chocolatiers, and then ended up opening a bakery over there for several years where I kind of combined my love for American desserts with a little bit of a French twist. And being back in the U.S. now, it's kind of a little bit the opposite, where it's frenching it up and using French fundamental techniques to kind of ameliorate your recipes, whether you're making brownies or fancy brioche.
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Kusha Navadar
You know, in your introduction, you encourage folks not to be intimidated by French techniques. What are some of those techniques that you think people should embrace that maybe at first glance, might seem a little beyond those who consider themselves casual or beginner bakers?
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
So I would say the number one, even before going into any complex techniques, I would say, is using a baking scale. Measuring everything out in grams really allows you to have more flexibility with your recipe and understand why the cookie is going to be chewy versus why it's crispy because of the brown sugar versus granulated sugar. And so having that kind of precision already gives you much more control over your recipe. And I would say. The second one.
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Kusha Navadar
Yeah, sorry, the second one.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Yeah. The second one would be what we call mise en place and mep, which stands for basically in its place place. So I would say that 80% of the mistakes that people can make in baking can quickly be eliminated by just taking the proper time to read through the full recipe, weighing out all of your ingredients, preheating your oven, prepping your baking pans, setting up a little music, and really not trying to multitask 50 different things while baking.
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Kusha Navadar
It sounds like it's all about prep the Two things that you talk about is, one, make sure you have the right weights, and then two, make sure everything is in its place, which is really interesting that it's the preparation. I gotta ask, you mentioned music. What music do you play when you're baking?
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
I actually love French cafe music. Is that cliche?
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Kusha Navadar
Not at all. I mean, hey, you said French. Ify it up. It's. It's wonderful. It's. It's also very good music. I'm, I'm a fan of it myself. Do you remember the recipe or the experiences in the kitchen you had as a young person that really made you feel like you wanted to pursue the art of baking? Is there one memory that sticks out for you?
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
I would say I had grandmothers who both really liked to bake. And so growing up, both French and Jewish kind of food was always really important in the family. And kind of having that smell of either warm cookies or usually butter, I would say, in a French household. And my mom would also make crepes, like religiously every Saturday morning. We got an hour of cartoon time and a whole stack of crepes, and the whole house smelled like butter for several hours. And so all of that kind of really stuck with me from a young age. But being in a family where we don't have any chefs actually, or anyone who works in culinary, my parents both were like, well, you're going to college first, and if you still want to go to culinary school, we'll make that happen afterwards. So true to myself, as soon as I graduated from college, I came back and I was like, well, now can I go? So they were like, okay, now you can go. So that's kind of how I started my culinary journey. I wish I had started a little bit sooner because most of the apprentices in Paris who make it, you know, in this industry start when they are, you know, 14, 15 years old, working as an apprentice and working your way up. So I would definitely say experience is just huge in this industry.
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Kusha Navadar
Yeah, absolutely. Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're talking to Mel Ossarov, who's the baker and cook author and two time Chopped winner. Her new cookbook is called Sweet Treats From Brownies to Brioches. And we are here to take all of your baking related questions. Like, you know, what tools do you need in your kitchen? What ingredients you need in your pantry to make the best baked meringues? Do you have a question for Chef Mel? Give us a call, send us a text. We're at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. We're also on social. We're all of it. WNYC. You can definitely hit us up there. Chef Mel, you know, before we get to some of the recipes, you explain the 10 main ingredients needed in baking. Eight of them are kind of structural. You've got flour, baking soda, sugar, eggs, dairy, and then there's the more flavorful necessities. I'm thinking of vanilla and chocolate. So can we start with those two, the vanilla and chocolate? How can people elevate their baking by paying special attention with how they're using vanilla and chocolate?
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Such a good question. So I always say that you can't make high quality and high quality desserts without high quality ingredients. And with the price of ingredients being what they are today, my rule is kind of you want to highlight the main ingredient in that recipe. So if I'm making a chocolate brownie, for example, I'm going to invest in a high quality chocolate, high quality cocoa powder to really elevate all of the flavors of the chocolate. And if I'm making, for example, a bundt cake, which is like a vanilla with a vanilla loaf and a vanilla glaze, I'm going to actually splurge and buy vanilla beans versus using the cheaper vanilla extract. But in the brownies, I'll add in the vanilla extract because that's not the highlight ingredient. So I would say, first and foremost, kind of knowing what ingredient and flavor you're trying to put forward in your dessert, whether it's vanilla or whether it's chocolate, and making sure that you invest in a high quality product. And when you talk about vanilla, there's so many different options from, you know, five or six different types of beans from Madagascar to Mexico to Tahiti. We even have Ugandan beans now. I mean, they're really kind of being grown all over compared to even 10 years ago. And you can find vanilla in bean form, in powder form, in vanilla sugar, in vanilla extracts, in vanilla paste. So just kind of using the appropriate one for that recipe I think is really important.
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Kusha Navadar
You know, I hear you talk about sometimes it's worth it to splurge on the kind of vanilla, the kind of chocolate. How about on the other side with more structural elements like, is it worth it to splurge on, I don't know, fancy, eg, eggs for a recipe or a specific kind of flour?
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Yes. So absolutely, I would say it's the same thing if I'm going to be making a flan or an ice cream or a creme brulee where the eggs are really important and I want to have a nice yolky color. Right. If I use like less expensive white eggs that are, you're really on the cheaper side. They're not going to be very yolky and very yellow. And so that also plays on the color and the texture of your dessert. So I would say it's the same as I don't know about mentioning brands, but King Arthur is kind of my go to for all purpose flour. And in the book I mentioned that I only keep all purpose flour in the pantry because that's the most commonly used in recipes. And then when you have to momentarily use, you know, self rising flour or pastry flour, I actually include all of those hacks in my cookbook on how to make all of those flour variations from just all purpose flour. And it's kind of the same thing with dairy. I'll usually keep heavy cream in the refrigerator because with that I can make butter, sour cream, cream cheese, buttermilk, butter, creme fraiche, milk, half and half. So just knowing what your ingredients are made of to kind of create yourself a staple pantry I think is really important because that eliminates also like, oh, I want to make these brownies, but I have to go shopping. I'm missing this, I'm missing that. But having them in your pantry, kind of like a staple items is I think also really helpful.
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Kusha Navadar
Right? Good to be prepared. Listen, we have to take a quick break, but listeners, we want to hear from you. We see some calls coming in right now. We're going to get to them after the break. If you have questions for Chef Mel about baking tools you need in your kitchen, ingredients in your pantry like she was just talking about to make you the best prepared, give us a call, send us a text. We're at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll get some of your calls in and we're going to talk about some of the recipes from the book. We'll be right back. This is all of it from wnyc. I'm Kusha Navadar and we are talking to Chef Mel Ossarov, the bake cookbook author and two time Chopped winner. Her new cookbook, Sweet Treats From Brownies to Brioches. Listeners, we're taking your calls about everything baking related. Give us a call, send us a text. We're at 212433, WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. And Chef, we got a couple callers. I'd love to go to Dee in Manhattan. Hey, Dee, welcome to the show.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Thank you.
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Kusha Navadar
Dee, what's your question?
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
I asked when do you use baking powder and when do you use baking soda?
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Kusha Navadar
Oh, wonderful question. Thanks so much.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Are they all used? Can they both be used at the same time?
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Kusha Navadar
Also wonderful. So, Chef Mel, what do you think? When do you use baking powder versus baking soda?
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Complicated question, and it's not a black and white one. I would say so in order to answer it accurately, generally baking soda, you want to use it when there's going to be a liquid that's going to activate it, something like either acidic, like a lemon juice, or if you want to use buttermilk, for example, which also has acidity, and you want to create kind of like a light and airy texture in your baked goods, versus if you want to create something a little bit more dense with a little bit more bite and chewy and a nice rise, you would use the baking powder.
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Kusha Navadar
Got it. And Dee, thank you so much for that call. We really appreciate it. I'm sure a lot of folks have that question on their minds. Chef Mel, I'd love to get into some of your recipes and listeners. When we upload this conversation to our website, you'll be able to find Chef Mel's recipe for homemade chocolate chip cookie cereal. So, Mel, out of all the recipes you put together, why did you want to share this recipes, this recipe with our listeners today?
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
So the cookie cereal.
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Kusha Navadar
Yeah, that's right.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Is actually one of my favorite recipes because it is very simple, but yet it's very nostalgic. And being a 90s baby, I grew up kind of having the cookie crisp cereal cereal and always loved having the milk at the end of that, of course. And so I wanted to create kind of a gourmet version of that that you could either snack on without milk or have for cereal in the morning. And it is a labor of love because you have to pipe every single little cookie. So you want to make kind of a big batch and keep those in a nice container for a few weeks. But this one I thought was really a nostalgic, fun recipe that I think could also be great for kids to enjoy making. And it was kind of like close to me because it's one of the, you know, the cereals I grew up having.
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Kusha Navadar
Can you go ahead and walk us through the process of making your cookie cereal?
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Yes. So the cookie cereal is exactly the same process as you would make your cream butter method, which means your recipe starts with soft butter and you're creaming in your sugar, followed by your eggs, followed by your dry ingredients. So that's a cream butter method base. So it's very similar to your, you know, average chocolate chip cookie. The only thing is, we also want to use mini chocolate chips so that they really come out teeny tiny in these cookies. And once you cream together the butter and the sugar, you add in your eggs one at a time, followed by your flour and your baking powder and your mini chocolate chips. And then once you have your cookie dough, the great tip here is actually loading it into a piping bag so that you can pipe out little teeny tiny cookies and then just bake them off on a sheet pan. I recommend on a silicone mat versus parchment paper just for a more even browning and a little bit more of caramelization.
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Kusha Navadar
You know, when I first saw the picture of the cereal in your book, the first thing that I did think of was Kooky Crisp. Which 90s babies will definitely get that for everyone listening right now. Yeah, absolutely. Dead on. We have a text for you. Question for Chef Mel. How about if you want to avoid dairy, can you make a decent substitute without using milk or butter? That's a text from a listener.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
You're asking a French trained pastry chef not to use butter. I feel like butter runs through my veins, so that's such a. That's. That's hard for me. I would say in the gluten free area, all of my recipes do work with a one to one substitute ratio flour to make them gluten free. I would not recommend making these with a substitute for butter.
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Kusha Navadar
All right.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Just because I can't, it wouldn't come out the same.
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Kusha Navadar
I can respect that. And hey, there's options for gluten free. And thank you still for that text from listeners. You were talking about French techniques that might scare some people away. And you wanted to talk about your recipe for chocolate souffle, which can be quite intimidating. What do people need to know about how souffles work in order to be comfortable with the process before they start the recipe?
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Yes. So in the book, I actually break down the recipe so that it's not intimidating. And it's actually very easy to make with very few ingredients. And the process is about creating basically a chocolate thick mixture that then gets folded into some whipped egg whites. At the beginning of the book, I explain all of the fundamental techniques I would say, honestly, the first, first 60 pages of the book are like my favorite because that's where I go through, like, all the different types of meringues. For example, French meringue, Swiss meringue, Italian meringue. And so you're already familiar with that by the time you get to the souffles, which is at the end of the book. And you can actually prepare your mixture in advance and then just whip up your egg whites last minute, fold everything together and then pipe them and bake right away. Now, for I don't know what the word is, but I would say souffle means a breath or wind. So the key here is that you want to serve them the second they come out of the oven because they will collapse, which is why they are called souffles.
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Kusha Navadar
Oh, that's so interesting. I didn't know that that's such a wonderful word to apply to food. Hey, listeners, if you're just joining us, we're talking to chef Mel Ossaroff, Baker, cookbook author, two time Chopped winner. Her new cookbook is Sweet Treats From Brownies to Brioches. And we're taking your baking calls. We're at 212-433-9692. We've got another caller here. I want to bring up Annette from the Upper west side. Hi, Annette. Welcome to the show. What's your question? Hey, Annette, you with us? I think we might have lost Annette, but I have her info right here. And chef, she's saying that she's 92, she still likes to bake, but she's running out of simple recipes. Are there any suggest of simple, approachable recipes you might have for somebody who's been who's been baking for a while?
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Oh, my God, yes, of course. I'm all about simplicity. And the whole first chapter of this book is just making great little cookies to have on standby by your coffee machine ready to go for when impromptu guests come over, like biscotti, French shortbread cookies, and just really using these simple techniques that I discuss throughout the book to keep those cookies either nice and soft or nice and crispy for weeks at a time. So I would say that this book is jam packed with a lot of very simple recipes. And also it has an entire chapter of what's called master recipes, like for frangipan or almond cream or things like that that if you learn how to make, you can then turn those into your own desserts because they are master recipes with proper baker's ratios and baker's percentages that allow you to Kind of manipulate those and make them into your own recipes, any flavor combination that you like. So the almond cream, for example, you can use to fill. My mom one does this one all the time where she buys pre made croissants. I know it hurts me, but go with me.
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Kusha Navadar
All right.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
And she makes the almond, the almond cream from the book. She fills the croissants with that makes the simple syrup from the book, and then serves the perfect almond croissants just by using those master recipe kind of sections. So I would say that that's where a lot of the flexibility in this book lies. And that's where kind of the magic is. The first 60, 70 pages.
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Kusha Navadar
Oh, wonderful. And you know, we just got this caller. I can't go to the caller right now, but Bill in Trenton, New Jersey, was asking, is there a video that parallels the cookbook? Do you have anything like that?
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
I wouldn't say that there's a video that parallels the cookbook, but there's something better. I actually started a subscription club called Baking Unwrapped where I bake with my bakers every month featuring new fundamental recipes from the book. And those are all then saved on their portal online to reference over and over when they're practicing the recipes. So I would say that, that that's maybe even better than a video where we could bake live together every month.
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Kusha Navadar
Oh, that's lovely.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Have unlimited access to that.
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Kusha Navadar
And Bill, I just want to say thanks for that call. And Annette, before forgot to call you out, thanks so much for that. You know, Chef Mel, before we let you go, and very quickly, we're moving into spring and then the warmer months, what's the next thing you're going to bake? To really embrace the warm weather and maybe some summery flavors. Just one recipe, if you had it from the cookbook, anything that's on your mind.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
So I would definitely go with the citrus sunset cake with a honey glaze featuring blood oranges, tangerines, lemons, and orange slices. And it looks like a sunset over the top.
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Kusha Navadar
Oh, wow.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Because I kind of organized the the fruits to kind of gradiently go from, you know, the darker red to the yellow of the lemon. And I would say that one is very refreshing with the kind of citrus aspect and a little sweet from the honey.
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Kusha Navadar
It is lovely. We'll have to leave it there. Chef Melody Ossaroff is holding an event tonight in the Chelsea area at French Wink Boutique called French Spring Celebration. Crepes shopping and joie de vivre with Chef Mel. That's tonight from 5:30 to 8:30. And the book is called Sweet Treats from Brownies to Brioche. Chef Mel, thanks so much for joining us.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Thank you so much for having me.
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Kusha Navadar
All right, unc.
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Chef Mel Ossaroff
Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order miss?
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McDonald's Promoter
I've been hitting up McDonald's for years. Now it's back. We need snack wraps. What's a snack wrap? It's the return of something great. Snack wrap is back.