Baking with Success

By Gail Sokol

Baking delicious treats does not have to be an intimidating process. In fact, it can be easier and less mystifying than many home bakers think.

Chef Gail Sokol breaks down the art of baking into easy and understandable steps while encouraging home bakers to create an array of spectacular treats. Together with her delicious recipes that include photographs and links to YouTube how-to videos, Sokol delves into the science of baking, shares common sense tips, and offers lessons drawn from her own experiences. Home bakers will learn the most important ingredients in baking, the proper tools, and how to make scrumptious treats such as chocolate cream pie with brled marshmallow topping, ricotta zeppole with salted caramel sauce, chocolate babka, ice cream-filled cream puffs, and nutty praline tuiles.

Baking with Success teaches home bakers how to execute tasty desserts, have fun in the kitchen, and embark on a rewarding lifelong baking journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: May 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781489711762

Gail Sokol

Gail Sokol has been an award-winning chef / educator for over sixteen years. She is author of About Professional Baking as well as an instructor in Schenectady County Community College’s culinary department and The Sage Colleges’ nutrition department. Chef Sokol has been featured on television, radio, and currently manages a YouTube channel and website featuring recipes, videos, and tips.

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Copyright © 2017 Gail Sokol.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Photography by Rebekah B. Sokol.

LifeRich Publishing is a registered trademark of The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

LifeRich Publishing

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.liferichpublishing.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4897-1177-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-1175-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-1176-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017906580

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 5/10/2017

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To HMS—

the Paul to my Julia.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Tips for Using This Book

The Most Important Ingredients in Baking

The Electric Mixer: the Best Tool

To Measure Properly by Volume

Preparing a Cake Pan for Baking

How to Make a Parchment Cake Circle

Chapter 1 Cakes and Frostings

Almond Cake

Lemon Pound Cake

St. Germain Bundtlette Cakes

Passover Sponge Cake with Whipped Cream and Yogurt Frosting

Chocolate Java Cake

Molten Chocolate Cakes

Chocolate Caramel Pecan Torte

Black and White Nutella Cheesecake

Chapter 2: Pies, Tarts, and Fruit Desserts

Lattice-Topped Peach Pie

Chocolate Cream Pie with Brûléed Marshmallow Topping

Free-Form Apple Walnut Tart

Heirloom Tomato Tart

Chocolate Peanut Butter Tart

Linzer Torte

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumbles

Pavlova

Chapter 3: Quick Breads

Spicy Mini Pumpkin Breads

Healthy Granola Bars

Strawberry Lemon Muffins

Confetti Corn Muffins

Double-Cheese Cherry Danish

Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake

Double-Chocolate Sour Cream Shortcakes with Mixed Berries and Cream

Ricotta Zeppole with Salted Caramel Sauce

Chapter 4: Yeast Breads

Spiral Bread

Scallion Chive Rolls

Onion Leek Bialys

Knotted Challah Rolls

Starburst Challah Braid

Potted Boule

Chocolate Babka

Chapter 5: Cookies

Coconut Macaroons

Chewy Almond Macaroon Horseshoes

Macarons (French Macaroons)

Meringue Mushrooms

Pistachio Shortbread Cookies

Hamantaschen

Chocolate-Filled Oatmeal Almond Florentines

Raspberry Swirl Brownies

Nutty Fudge Cookies

Chocolate Cherry Walnut Rugalach

Homemade S’more Cookie Sandwiches

Chapter 6: Steam-Leavened Pastries

Puff Pastry in a Hurry

Crispy Pesto and Parmesan Pastry Twists

Pecan Praline Sticky Buns

Frangipane-Filled Puff Pastry Braids

Cream Puff Dough

Éclairs

Ice Cream-Filled Cream Puffs (Pâte à Choux)

Sky-High Popovers

Chapter 7: Garnishing with Tuiles

Nutty Praline Tuiles

Tuiles or Decorative Wafer Cookies

Chapter 8: Ice Cream and Frozen Desserts

Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Earl Grey Ice Cream

Rich Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Vanilla Bean Cookies-and-Cream Ice Cream

Pumpkin Ice Cream

Chocolate Malted Milk Ball Ice Cream with Salted Chocolate Malted Crumbs

Salted Chocolate Malted Crumbs

Mini Baked Alaskas

Preface

My philosophy about baking is quite simple. I believe that the art of baking is not difficult as many people think. It is actually quite simple and enjoyable. There is an order to it.

I have been teaching people of all ages, kids to adults, how to bake for over sixteen years. There is nothing I would rather do than teach. That is why I wrote this second book. My first book, About Professional Baking, is really a textbook. Baking with Success is specifically for the home baker who wants to get started with baking or wishes to improve as a baker by having the art of baking demystified.

As someone who taught herself how to bake as a kid, and even as a professional baker, I have sometimes made mistakes when I baked. In this book, I hope to give you the skills you need to bake with success by passing on an understanding of exactly how the ingredients react to each other to create the most wonderful baked goods. A little baking science, some common sense, and some hard-earned lessons I have experienced during my journey of learning how to bake will set you up for your own successful journey and love of baking as well.

It is so satisfying when I can show someone a method of mixing or of shaping dough or even of frosting a cake. My student watches spellbound as the thing that appeared so hard is made simple with a quick demonstration or lesson.

Over the years, I have had many baking failures. I have also improved my baking skills because of those failures. When a student messes up a recipe, I secretly enjoy it, because it inevitably leads to a teaching moment. Students never make the same mistake again once they know why it happened.

My favorite story comes from a class I taught on yeast breads. A few months later, a woman from the class wrote and told me she won a local baking competition using the techniques I had taught her. She got the ribbon, but I was the true winner. The knowledge I imparted to her gave her the courage to enter a competition she never thought she could win. I taught her something worthwhile and sustainable during that class that she can use for the rest of her life.

Not only does baking taste good once the item you are making is baked and finished, but it is so wonderful to share the creation you made with your own two hands with those you love. When I ready the kitchen for baking—maybe taking some butter out of the fridge to get it to room temperature or whisking together my dry ingredients or getting out my KitchenAid electric mixer—there is an excitement in the air. My family knows that something wonderful is coming.

Baking with success is easy and attainable, and is what I am all about. The recipes in this book are some of my most favorite. There are recipes I always go back to and have relied on throughout my career, and there are some newer recipes that I’ve developed as well. They are all tried-and-true and always get rave reviews. I hope you enjoy using this book as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Many of these recipes have links to my YouTube videos. Since my baking is constantly in evolution, I have improved on some of the recipes since the videos were shot. The recipes in this book are the most up-to-date.

Acknowledgments

To Drue, my youngest daughter: thank you for all of your valuable input, feedback on recipes, and never-ending support in all of my endeavors.

To Rebekah, my eldest daughter, who devoted many hours to painstakingly photographing my baked goods, always adding her own creative spin.

You are both loved and appreciated so much!

Tips for Using This Book

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Refer to the sections on measuring properly by volume and weight as needed when measuring your ingredients.

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All recipes in this book use large eggs.

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Eggs should always be cracked open into a measuring cup or bowl and never broken over an electric mixer, where pieces of eggshell can fall into the moving bowl.

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I use only unsalted butter to control the amount of sodium in the recipe.

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High-quality baked goods can be made from semisweet chocolate chips from Nestlé or Hershey as well as more expensive brands like Ghirardelli, Lindt, Callebaut, and Guittard.

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King Arthur Flour is the only brand of flour I use, including all-purpose, white whole-wheat, and cake flours.

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The flour is never sifted, but dry ingredients are almost always whisked together to thoroughly combine them and prevent any clumping.

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Any milk can be used in recipes calling for milk. I’ve successfully used whole milk, 2 percent, 1 percent, fat-free, and lactose-free milks with high-quality results.

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I use fast-rising yeast, which can be blended directly in with the dry ingredients.

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Refer to the section on The Most Important Ingredients in Baking to understand how ingredients interact in the baking process.

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If there is a special way to make sure that a recipe comes out right, I will give you some of my tricks in what I call Tips for Success, which follow the recipe.

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If a recipe’s direction states to grease a pan, nonstick cooking spray, butter, or oil may also be used.

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All temperatures are in Fahrenheit.

The Most Important Ingredients in Baking

Flour

Flour, especially flour from the wheat plant, contains two important proteins: gliadin and glutenin. When combined with water, they form a protein matrix (think of a cross-section of a cut-open sponge) known as gluten. Gluten gives strength and structure to all baked goods, keeping them from collapsing and breaking down.

There are other substances in wheat flour that are important to the baking process as well, such as starch. There are wheat flours with more starch and less protein in them, and there are wheat flours with less starch and more protein in them.

When baking, the type of flour you choose depends on the type of baked good you are making. For example, flour best-suited for a pie crust ideally should have less protein and more starch, and pastry flour fits that profile. Pastry flour produces a baked good with a more tender crumb. Bread flour, on the other hand, has more protein in it than pastry, cake, or all-purpose flours. It is best used to make a hearty bread or pizza dough, which has a chewy texture and a less tender crumb.

All-purpose flour is formulated to be just that: appropriate for almost any purpose. It can be used for all kinds of baked goods, including cookies, cakes, pies, breads, and even pizza dough.

Whole-wheat flour contains all three parts of the wheat berry: the endosperm, the germ, and the bran. Whole-wheat flour contains many healthy nutrients. It adds a brownish color to baked goods and can taste particularly wheaty.

White whole-wheat flour, which is used in certain recipes in this book, adds a wonderful nutty quality to baked goods, and it is also a great source of fiber and other nutrients.