Twenty-Five: Profiles and Recipes from America's Essential Bakery and Pastry Artisans

By Editors of Bake Magazine

Twentyfive: Profiles and Recipes from America's Essential Bakery and Pastry Artisans, is a beautiful food arts book with 25 recipes and profiles of our most celebrated bakers including Chad Robertson of Tartine Bakery, Dominique Ansel of Dominique Ansel Bakery, Amy Scherber of Amy's Bread, Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar, Dana Cree of Blackbird and many more. These are agents of change and essential to the growth of the industry. They all come from different worlds and different backgrounds, but found their way into bakery and pastry because of love. They love to put smiles on the faces of their customers, they love to push the limits of their imaginations.

We'll leave it to you to rank them if you must!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781449484446

Book preview

Dominique

Ansel

the cronut maker

Patience matters with pastries. Dominique Ansel learned this lesson well from his six years in France when he perfected lamination techniques during his early career in pastry arts. One of the best ways to get a job in France was to say on your resumé that you do lamination. Anyone who has dined in Paris understands how the French celebrate excellence in food. The French take their time to enjoy each and every morsel.

Many an American wanting to quickly dash from a Parisian restaurant has encountered the icy stare from a wait staff member who has been flagged down by the Americans asking for their check in haste. No, when in France, do as the French do. Relax and enjoy your dessert. For this same reason, years later, once Ansel opened his own New York City bakery, he saw what was happening with America’s donut business and responded with a stroke of brilliant originality, born from experience and advanced through innovation.

Approaching new product development with care and caution, Ansel pondered how a pastry that is part donut and part croissant might go over in America. He would not fry his delicacy in donut shortening. Instead, he imagined the delicate taste of croissant dough lightly fried in grapeseed oil, then rolled in sugar, filled with cream, and topped with unique flavors of glaze. Thus, the Cronut was born.

After his new product launched on May 10, 2013, Cronut fans spanned the world from Berlin to Singapore, making it the most virally talked about dessert item of 2013.

an instant hit

I never thought it was going to go that big, Ansel says, acknowledging that the Cronut was simply a replacement item for another product on the menu. The second day we made 100 Cronuts and we sold out in one hour. Now, we make several hundred every day and still don’t often have enough. We open the door at 8 a.m., and we have 100 people waiting outside the door. It’s been amazing.

Other Ansel inventions, including his Frozen S’more and Magic Soufflé, have fast become popular treats with international fame. He has expanded his bakery’s menu to feature signature cakes and tarts, made exclusively with premium chocolates and the ripest seasonal fruits, including Pink Grapefruit Honey & Lavender Tart and Hazelnut Caramelia Cake.

The New York Post dubbed Ansel the Willy Wonka of NYC in 2013, quoting Bon Appétit editor Christine Mulhke, who stated: Dominique is definitely the top pastry chef in New York, noting his solid French basis and unstoppable imagination.

From the very start, Cronut mania took the country by storm, leading to appearances by Ansel on Martha Stewart’s Sirius radio program, CNN, and Live with Kelly Ripa & Michael Strahan. Said Ripa of her experience witnessing the two-hour lines waiting to taste Ansel’s Cronut: I thought it was the line to the Apple store.

To this date, Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York City is the only place that sells the Cronut, a specific product that is not to be confused with any other croissant-donut hybrid. The Cronut brand and product is trademarked by Dominique Ansel Bakery both in the US and internationally. Made with a laminated dough and using a proprietary recipe, the Cronut is first proofed and then fried. Cronuts are made fresh daily, and completely done in-house. The entire process takes up to three days. Selling for $5.50 apiece, the Cronut comes in seasonal flavors that vary each month. In July 2015, he introduced Rum Caramelized Banana Brown Sugar. In September, while transitioning to fall, the Cronut flavor of the month switched to Bergamot and Earl Grey.

a new take on nostalgic sweets

Like many of today’s experienced and award-winning chefs, this 2014 James Beard Award winner for Outstanding Pastry Chef in the US tinkers with creative flavor combinations. Interestingly, Ansel admits that he does not have a sweet tooth. For this and other reasons related to consumers seeking out not-so-sweet products, he uses less sugar and butter in his signature DKA—or Dominique’s Kouign-Amann, a specialty pastry born out of 1860s Brittany in France.

At Dominique Ansel Bakery, pastries reign supreme. For me, it’s important to have one signature item in different categories, Ansel says. It’s good to have one item that you’re known for. Beyond the DKA and the Cronut, there are other signatures at Dominique Ansel Bakery, such as The Paris-NY. This is a fun twist on the Paris-Brest, a dessert made from a large ring of pâte à choux dough and filled with praline cream named after the bicycle race from Paris to Brest. This is chef Ansel’s version for Paris–New York, his two favorite cities.

It features chocolate, caramel, and peanut butter flavors inspired by the Snickers, the chef’s favorite candy bar. Other signatures include the Mini-Me, lightly sweetened miniature meringues, each with their own flavor, and made-to-order madeleines, which are light and fluffy treats that are baked to order in 4 minutes.

The DKA (Dominique’s Kouign-Amman) is a classic French viennoiserie, made using a recipe from the chef’s days working in the Paris pastry institution Fauchon. The year that Dominique was in charge of the kouign-amman production, French newspaper Le Figaro had deemed it to be the best in Paris. Later in his career in New York City, where Ansel worked as executive pastry chef at Daniel, Daniel Boulud’s flagship French restaurant, kouign-amman was a favorite among the Daniel employees whenever Ansel had time to make it for a late-night snack.

Now we’ve had people come here [Dominique Ansel Bakery] from Brittany to try our DKA, Ansel says. They eat it and come back and say it’s the best they’ve ever had. Our DKA started as our best seller; we make five to six batches every day [that translates to daily sales of 360 DKAs at $5.25 apiece], he says at his place in Soho.

Our DKA is a much lighter version with less sugar and less butter. I’ve seen a hundred ways to do it. We do four folds, and we sprinkle sugar through the last two folds. Everything is more caramelized in layers. It’s very flaky on the inside and crunchy on the outside. The proportion of butter and sugar is very well balanced.

training for Excellence

Ansel began his formal culinary training at age sixteen, taking a break for compulsory military training and later joining the ranks of the legendary Fauchon. At the French pastry institution, he spent seven years traveling the world to open shops in places ranging from Egypt to Russia to Kuwait. This global experience has taught him well.

He arrived on the American scene in 2006, five years prior to opening Dominique Ansel Bakery. During Ansel’s near six-year tenure as executive pastry chef at Daniel, the restaurant won its first three-star Michelin rating, a four-star New York Times review, and James Beard’s Outstanding Restaurant of the Year Award in 2010.

Looking forward, Ansel has no interest in oily flavored, sugar-laden pastries. He’s striving to reinvent the category. As the Cronut and other new creations prove, he’s on to something big.

Mini Madeleines

Makes 100

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter (84% butterfat)

1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons honey

½ cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted

½ teaspoon baking powder

3 large eggs, at room temperature

Finely grated zest from ½ lemon, about 1½ teaspoons

Finely grated zest from ½ orange, about 1 tablespoon

Nonstick cooking spray

Confectioners’ sugar, for serving

SPECIAL TOOLS

Nonstick mini madeleine pans

One day before serving, make the batter. Melt the butter, brown sugar, and honey in a medium pot over low heat. (Using different types of honey, especially acacia and wildflower, is a great way to naturally flavor madeleines.) Stir constantly with a heatproof spatula to prevent burning. Keep the mixture warm over very low heat, or reheat if necessary.

Whisk the granulated sugar, salt, flour, and baking powder in a large bowl. Form a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the eggs one by one, whisking after each addition to incorporate. Use room-temperature eggs to avoid cooling down the batter. If the batter is too cold, the butter may congeal when you add it.

When the eggs are fully incorporated and the batter is smooth, slowly whisk in the butter mixture. Whisk in the lemon and orange zests. The batter will still be runny and similar in consistency to cake batter. Cover with plastic wrap pressed directly onto the surface of the batter to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate overnight to rest. Many recipes containing baking powder do well to rest overnight. This helps with rising, which is especially important for the madeleine, a pastry that puffs up in the center when it bakes.

When you are ready to bake the madeleines, preheat the oven to 375°F for conventional or 350°F for convection. For baking pastries, set your oven to convection if possible. This allows the heat to flow more evenly and helps pastries bake evenly on all sides.

Using a rubber spatula, place 2 large scoops of batter in a disposable piping bag so that it is one-third full. Push the batter down toward the tip of the bag. As an alternative, you can use a large resealable plastic bag.

Cut an opening about ½ inch (1.25 cm) straight across the tip of the bag.

Hold the nonstick cooking spray about 4 inches (10 cm) away from a nonstick mini madeleine pan and spray evenly in all the cavities.

Holding the piping bag at a 90-degree angle about ½ inch above the pan, pipe the madeleine batter into the cavities so that it fills each about three-quarters of the way to the top.

Bake the madeleines for 2 to 2½ minutes on the center rack. When you see the batter puff up in the center, rotate the pan 180 degrees. Bake for 2 to 2½ minutes more, until the sides of the madeleines are golden blond and the centers have set.

Unmold immediately. Bang the corner or sides of the madeleine pan against your work surface so that the fresh madeleines drop out. If you find that the madeleines stick to the mold, for the next batch, try spraying a bit more cooking spray. Keeping the mold clean and washing it thoroughly with a soft sponge after use will also prevent the madeleines from sticking.

Repeat with the remaining batter. If you do not want to bake all the madeleines at the same time, you can refrigerate the batter in an airtight container, with plastic wrap pressed onto the surface, for up to 3 days.

Use a small sieve to sprinkle confectioners’ sugar evenly over the freshly baked madeleines. and serve immediately. (Do not wait more than a few minutes!) Madeleines are best when freshly baked and do not store well.

Jory

Downer

Connected by family

In the bread world, the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie in Paris stands as the crowning event for bakers around the globe. Team USA has won it twice, the latest in 2005, when Jory Downer competed for the US in viennoiserie (laminated dough). For many bakers, such an achievement easily would rank at the top of any career highlight. Not so for Jory Downer. Working with my father for almost forty years, and two of my three children joining me in our business, is my greatest success, says the Chicago native, whose father, Guy, bought Bennison’s Bakery in 1967 and continues to work there. Guy Downer recalls one grueling day at the family bakery in Evanston, Illinois, located in the northern Chicago suburbs, when Jory was in his twenties, and he turned to his son to apologize. I’m sorry I got you into this, Guy told his son with a compassionate tone. Jory replied immediately: Are you kidding? This is the greatest day.

And so it has been this way throughout a four-decade-long career for Jory, age fifty-eight, an only child who married his high-school love, Patti, and together they raised three children, Guy II, Jordana, and Deanne. Guy and Jordana work for Bennison’s. Jordana studied at the acclaimed French Pastry School in Chicago, in part because Jory felt the future of the retail bakery business is in pastry. Other bakers describe Jory as extremely talented and diligent in every detail.

When Jory is asked to list his mentors and inspirations, the list begins, of course, with his father, who worked as a sales representative for Fleischmann's baking ingredients before purchasing Bennison’s. Most importantly my father, who taught me how to persevere and don’t ask anybody to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. Didier Rosada taught me about fermentation, understanding the variance in flour, and to respect the baking process. Philippe Le Corre taught me lamination, and to start with the best ingredients. John Roeser III, from Roeser’s Bakery, taught me the separation between being a businessman and being a baker. I have unlimited respect for these men.

embracing the holiday spirit

Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1957, Downer grew up immersed in the baker’s life. His father, while working for Fleischmann's, sold to Chicago bakeries for twenty-five years. His mother was a homemaker until they bought the bakery. Jory recalls his first memories of baking being all about Christmas. The fruitcake, the gingerbread houses, cookies, the gingerbread boys. It has a very special place in me. I love baking for Christmas.

Jory decided to become a baker the moment his dad bought the bakery. He was ten years old. It was instant attraction. The only career other than