Category: food

Introduction

This recipe is very similar to the babkallah recipe from Dessert Person in terms of technique. This challah, however, is much more traditional as it uses primarily oil instead of butter. The tahini is a unique, yet great addition. The sesame flavor it imparts is very subtle and it makes the dough very rich and silky.

Recipe Outline

Recipe: Honey Tahini Challah	Special Equipment: None
Source: Dessert Person	Time: 6 hours
Author: Claire Saffitz	Difficulty: 3/5
Type: Dessert (Baking)	Score: ★★★☆☆

Making The Dough

Tip 1: This dough can take a while to rise the first time. Wait until it is about double in size, even if it takes 3 hours.

Tip 2: If you like a kick then consider adding more cayenne than rTip 2: If you know you have fresh yeast (i.e. you used a brand new packet of active dry yeast) and the yeast doesn’t appear to proof very well – then don’t fret. As noted above, the process can take longer than 10 minutes depending on a variety of conditions. In fact, if you have fresh active dry yeast then you don’t need to proof or dissolve the yeast at all. Claire has confirmed this herself in several of her videos on her YouTube channel. The King Arthur blog concurs.

Braiding The Challah

Tip: Much like the babkallah the second proofing was not particularly dramatic and took much longer than suggested. Don’t worry, it’ll still come out great.

Baking The Challah

Final Product

Key Takeaways

• The proofing can be finicky – so make sure to go by the indicators and not the listed times.
• The recipe is enough to make 2 challahs. So you’ll get two shots to get the braiding right.
• Final Score: 3/5 – A great take on challah. The tahini isn’t just a gimmick – it really made a difference. The slight sesame flavor and the added richness is a nice touch.

Introduction

This recipe is a great introduction to making your own pie crust because the filling itself is very little work – it’s all about making the crust. The caramelized honey is a nice touch and a good way to easily elevate a relatively simple pie. Note that the linked recipe doesn’t contain the exact recipe for the pie dough itself.

Recipe Outline

Recipe: Caramelized Honey Pumpkin Pie	Special Equipment: 9 Inch Pie Plate
Source: Dessert Person	Time: 3.5 hours
Author: Claire Saffitz	Difficulty: 3/5
Type: Dessert (Baking)	Score: ★★★☆☆

Making The Pie Dough

Tip 1: Makes sure to crimp the edges firmly or they will lose their shape. Consider exaggerating them as they will diminish as it bakes.

Tip 2: Make sure the dough comes up past the edges of the pie dish slightly as it will shrink as it bakes.

Making The Filling

Baking The Pie

Final Product

Key Takeaways

• Be very precise when making the pie crust. The hardest part is the crimping of the edges. Be firm with the edges, but gentle with the overall pie crust itself.
• Final Score: 3/5 – This recipe was a great introduction to making our own pie crust. The caramelized honey was a nice touch as well. The added caramelized honey wasn’t “mind-blowing”, but was definitely a nice touch.

Introduction

This is a quick and easy recipe for delicious cornbread. There’s not much else to say other than this is definitely the right technique for loaded cornbread. Do keep in mind that this isn’t 100% traditional southern corn bread given the 2:1 ratio of flour to corn meal.

Recipe Outline

Recipe: Loaded Corn Bread	Special Equipment: None
Source: Dessert Person	Time: 1 hour
Author: Claire Saffitz	Difficulty: 1/5
Type: Dessert (Baking)	Score: ★★★☆☆

Making The Aromatic Filling

Tip 1: We left out cilantro as we’re naturally disposed toward disliking it.

Tip 2: If you like a kick then consider adding more cayenne than recommended.

Mixing The Wet, Dry, And Filling

Baking The Cornbread

Tip: Consider using a bit more baking powder and baking soda than specified for more of a rise. On a related note, don’t over-mix and let your mixture sit out for too long.

Final Product

Key Takeaways

• Do all of the prep work ahead of time so that all you need to do is combine ingredients and go.
• Final Score: 3/5 – This is definitely the best “gourmet” cornbread that we’ve had – and it doesn’t take that much extra effort!

Introduction

This recipe looks intimidating, but is surprisingly accessible because it is broken up into distinct parts. There are three main parts to this recipe: making the lemon curd, making the sweet tart dough, and assembly. If you are a reasonably skilled baker you can multitask and work on the components in parallel to reduce the total time. However, if you’re still learning, I’d recommend doing the parts in series. This recipe can be done with regular lemons instead of Meyer lemons, but the Meyer lemons really made the taste pop (more than we thought they would). Use Meyer lemons if you can. Lastly, it’s worth noting that the tart tastes much better after completely chilling it. It can take several hours to chill through, but the wait is worth it.

Recipe Outline

Recipe: Meyer Lemon Tart	Special Equipment: 9 Inch Removable-Bottom Tart Pan
Source: Dessert Person	Time: 6 hours
Author: Claire Saffitz	Difficulty: 3/5
Type: Dessert (Baking)	Score: ★★★★☆

Making The Lemon Curd

Tip 1: Note that Meyer lemons are smaller than regular lemons and as a result you may need about 10 Meyer lemons compared to the 6 lemons needed for the regular version.

Tip 2: It will be very clear when the curd is done cooking. Starting around 160° curd will noticeably thicken. Don’t stop whisking.

Making The Dough

Creating The Pie Crust

Tip: Save all of your extra dough. You’ll need it for patching! Consider making a bit extra of the recipe just in case if you trust your ability to get ratios right. If it’s your first time making sweet tart dough, then consider making two pie crusts. Our first (pictured above) didn’t turn out well and we started over.

Parbaking The Pie Crust

Tip 1: After baking don’t forget to patch the holes, including any larger holes from docking.

Tip 2: Be very careful when removing the foil. The pie crust is extremely fragile!

Assembling The Components

Tip: The jam layer may look thin prior to baking; but it will come out properly. That being said, if you like a thick jam layer then consider doubling the amount of jam (or increasing it by 50%).

Baking The Pie

Tip 1: After cooling completely, remove the pie ring by placing a sturdy object below the tart pan and setting the tart pan down atop it gently.

Tip 2: Let the pie chill for a few hours before serving. It tastes notably better when chilled completely and helps balance out the Meyer lemons.

Final Product

Key Takeaways

• Don’t be afraid to redo the curd of pie crust if necessary.
• Don’t worry, the curd will thicken. Use a thermometer and go by the indicators – not the listed time.
• Claire’s instructions for the sweet tart dough are particularly well-written.
• Final Score: 4/5 – The pie looked stunning and tasted delicious. The recipe’s modular nature made it very forgiving as each component could be redone if necessary without destroying the entire pie.

Introduction

This recipe is 80% about making the dough — the remaining 20% is forming the curled palmier shape. As a result, this is a great recipe to practice making puff pastry because the puff pastry is the star. Technically this recipe can be made using puff pastry or pie dough. While either is delicious, puff pastry is the way to go. The Palmier really showcases the buttery layers of puff pastry (it’s also how it’s traditionally made). Dessert Person provides a “rough” puff pastry method that greatly simplifies the process of forming puff pastry. It’s a fantastic recipe that maintains 95% of the quality and taste of puff pastry with about 50% of the work.

Recipe Outline

Recipe: Cinnamon Sugar Palmiers	Special Equipment: None
Source: Dessert Person	Time: 5 hours
Author: Claire Saffitz	Difficulty: 3.5/5
Type: Dessert (Baking)	Score: ★★★☆☆

Creating The Dough

Tip 1: Constantly refrigerate as you go to prevent the butter from warming. If you feel the butter warming at any point – just toss everything in the refrigerator. If you really want to go a step beyond that (which almost certainly isn’t necessary) then use a chilled bowl and chilled gloves while you work the dough.

Tip 2: As you grate the butter, toss the shreds with flour mixture. Don’t wait until all of the butter is shredded to toss them all together. This will prevent all of the butter from clumping together and slow down any melting.

Rolling and Folding The Dough

Shaping the Palmier

Tip 1: If you can’t find Demerara sugar to top with, then Turbinado is a good substitute.

Tip 2: Consider rolling out the dough a bit further than specified to help give you more “wiggle room” to get a proper roll. Don’t roll it out too much more though.

Tip 3: It is a bit difficult to roll it sufficiently many times. Consider taping down the other side of the parchment paper to help get a good grip.

Baking the Palmier

Tip: We tried out using a toothpick to help hold the spiral together. It may have helped slightly, but not definitively.

Final Product

Key Takeaways

• Don’t be afraid to refrigerate periodically when things the butter starts to lose its chill.
• Be very precise when rolling. Run through the process in your head before attempting.
• Final Score: 3/5 – The cookies were great, but fell a bit short of the other cookies in Dessert Person. The recipe was, however, a great way to learn Claire’s “rough” puff pastry recipe. I highly recommend this recipe just to learn Claire’s technique. Once you learn to make puff pastry using her technique, you’ll never want to go back to the old way.

Introduction

The babkallah combines the best of challah and babka into a single recipe. It’s also a surprisingly accessible recipe in that it requires almost no special equipment (although an instant read thermometer will help). The assembly looks complicated, but in practice it was fairly straightforward. Claire also provides many instructive pictures. Note that the recipe linked above varies slightly from the one in the book (in particular the yeast step). A more detailed version of the recipe is also available here – note that it too is slightly different from the book version.

Recipe Outline

Recipe: Babkallah	Special Equipment: None
Source: Dessert Person	Time: 5 hours
Author: Claire Saffitz	Difficulty: 2.5/5
Type: Dessert (Baking)	Score: ★★★★☆

Making The Dough

Tip 1: We had better luck warming the milk to 110° for proofing the yeast. It also took us more than 10 minutes to notice much frothiness (the smell was far more noticeable than the frothiness).

Tip 2: If you know you have fresh yeast (i.e. you used a brand new packet of active dry yeast) and the yeast doesn’t appear to proof very well – then don’t fret. As noted above, the process can take longer than 10 minutes depending on a variety of conditions. In fact, if you have fresh active dry yeast then you don’t need to proof or dissolve the yeast at all. Claire has confirmed this herself in several of her videos on her YouTube channel. The King Arthur blog concurs.

Tip 3: This recipe rises particularly slowly due to all of the enriching ingredients (confirmed by the King Arthur blog – see their replies in the comment section here). Make sure to wait until the dough has approximately doubled in size instead of just the recommended time. Always go by the indicators – not the time. The time is just an approximation of how to achieve the indicators in an average environment – chances are your environment varies slightly.

Assembling the Babkallah

Tip: The dough may not get to quite 1.5 times its size during the second proofing. This is fine and it will likely still turn out fine in our experience.

Baking The Babkallah

Tip: If you can’t find Demerara sugar to top with, then Turbinado is a good substitute.

Final Product

Key Takeaways

• Be patient with proofing and always follow the indicators.
• Be very precise with this recipe. Use exact measurements and make sure you refrigerate the dough for long enough. Do not attempt without a food scale and regular-sized food processor.
• Final Score: 4/5 – The recipe was well-written and the photos make the assembly easy. The babkallah was much better than any challah or bobka that we’ve had before – the sum is indeed greater than its parts in this case.

Introduction

This was the very first recipe I attempted baking with my partner. It was also the first recipe we did from Dessert Person. Despite being a moderately difficult recipe, we managed to do fairly well. We were immediately impressed by the instructive quality of Dessert Person. This recipe in particular had many helpful photos.

Recipe Outline

Recipe: Pistachio Pinwheels	Special Equipment: Food Processor
Source: Dessert Person	Time: 2.5 hours
Author: Claire Saffitz	Difficulty: 3/5
Type: Dessert (Baking)	Score: ★★★★☆

Preparing The Pistachios

Tip: If you can’t find blanched pistachios, you’ll probably need to make them yourself. Make sure you start with raw pistachios that are uncooked. After removing the shells, blanch them. In short, let them sit in cold water in a skillet for 5 minutes, warm them until barely steaming (not simmering), and afterwards the skins should be easy to remove. This whole process can take an additional 20 minutes.

Making The Dough

Tip 1: The dough should form into a nice ball (or two) in the food processor.

Tip 2: Once the dough is rolled to approximately the specified thickness, wrap the sheets of parchment paper about the dough to form a 12” x 8” rectangle. Afterwards, use the rolling pin to redistribute the dough within the parchment paper to get a slab of the desired size.

Forming the Log

Tip: Make sure to refrigerate the slab long enough. If you don’t wait long enough the slab will start to break/crack as the log is formed.

Baking The Cookies

Final Product

Key Takeaways

• Make sure you buy blanched pistachios or raw pistachios and then blanch them yourself. Removing the skin is key to getting a green color. If you can’t get a good color, then green food dye is a viable alternative. I’ve done this once when retrying this recipe.
• Be very precise with this recipe. Use exact measurements and make sure you refrigerate the dough for long enough. Do not attempt without a food scale and regular-sized food processor.
• Final Score: 4/5 – The recipe was well-written and very instructive. The cookies themselves were delicious. One of the best cookie recipes in Dessert Person.