Talking All Things Butter, featuring Dorie Greenspan

Episode Transcript

Jessica: And what he's sculpting are the busts of the winners and finalists of the Princess Kay of the Milky Way contest.  

David: Don't know what that is, but I'm obsessed with it.  

Jessica: David. We're back baby. Things Bakers Know back for a second season, which means we must not have screwed it up too bad the first time around. 

And this second season is twice as long as season one. 10 episodes, starting today for all the bakers in America who have been missing us. We have been missing you too. 

David: Have you been getting letters from bakers saying, where are you? Where are you? Actually, we actually have gotten some comments on the podcast saying, where are you? Come back. Come back. I'm like, chill baby. We're gonna be back soon. And here we are with season two. They said we'd be one hit wonders. 

And we're back. I wanna take this moment, actually, Jessica, to thank everybody who listened because we got a lot of love for the podcast in the first season, the very short first season. I loved reading the comments, we love, and I just want everyone to know, leave those comments. Leave those reviews, because we do read them and it gives us a little boost, and we do take constructive criticism. Kind of. 

Jessica: I actually don't read them. I let our producers read them and just tell me if they're good because you know, I don't wanna get too deeply in the weeds.  

David: That’s, that is good advice. Never read the comments.  

Jessica: Never read the comments. And you know, I feel like I have, actually, during the summer break, I've really missed talking to you. I mean, I say that like we don't talk to one another like three times a day as is, but I've missed these moments to, you know, share these conversations about baking. I've really missed all the listener questions and just hearing what people are wondering about. So I'm just, like, eager to get to get back into it, and I'm especially excited because, you know, you like to start with a bang. And so, this first episode of season two I think is, is especially a good one. But before we get into the topic, I wanted to ask you, David, what, how did you spend your summer vacation?  

David: I spent my summer traveling a lot and I did bake. Everywhere I went, I baked and I basically carried a nine by 13 pan with me. 

And anything you can make in a nine by 13 pan, I made it. So it was like lots of brownies, lots of bars, lots of blondies. Uh, I made my favorite rhubarb bars from the site, which was, I started doing that in spring and then kept it going as long as my frozen rhubarb stash kept up.  

Jessica: Those are the swirled rhubarb blondies? 

David: Yes. Swirled rhubarb blondies. And they have some white chocolate in it, which is really good. They have, did get great caramelized crunchy edges, and I swapped in some other fruit when the rhubarb ran out, so it was really a nine by 13 summer for me.  

Jessica: It was a hot bar, summer. 

David: Hot bar summer. Yes.  

Jessica: I have the opposite situation. 'Cause you know, I live in Portland, Maine and I like, you know, I never wanna leave Maine in the summer because I feel like ...  

David: You have a rule actually, don't you?  

Jessica: I have a rule because we work pretty hard for these three months. We have a lot of summer birthdays in my household, so end of June, my older son had his birthday, August my wife has her birthday. My dad turned 80 in late August, which was like, was a real milestone. So I did actually a lot of cake baking. And the cake that I was gravitating to the most is also baked in a nine by 13 pan. It's like a ... 

David: We've gone over this. You love a sheet cake for a birthday cake. 

Jessica: I love a sheet cake, party cake. So I made a bunch of those and maybe the highlight was the chocolate one that I made with a toasted marshmallow whipped cream in between the layers. I borrowed the toasted marshmallow whipped cream from our s'mores icebox cake recipe, which is on the website.  

David: Mm-hmm.  

Jessica: And then, you know, put lots of chocolate frosting on it. 

David: Did you torch it?  

Jessica: I, well, for the toasted marshmallow whipped cream, you broil the marshmallows till they're toasty and then you just fold them into whipped cream. So you get that like campfire, you know, without the campfire. You could do it when it's not outdoor cookout season, like now. But you know, the thing that all of these baked goods have in common, just to get us to the point of today's episode, the topic of today's episode is well,  

David: Anxiety.  

Jessica: Yes. And it's not flour, although that is true. And it's not sugar, although that's true. It is ... 

David: Am I supposed to guess?  

Jessica: Yes. I, well, like I've given you some very significant hints now.  

David: You've really narrowed it down. 

Jessica: I really narrowed it down.  

David: Plus, spoiler alert, I have a script in front of me so I know the answer. And the through line between all these bakes is butter. 

Jessica: Butter. Glorious butter. I mean, I already feel like one episode devoted to butter is not going to be enough.  

David: No. 

Jessica: But today's episode is all about magical, wonderful, creamy, delicious B-U-T-T-E-R, butter.  

David: The core ingredient. I mean, one of the most crucial ingredients in baking. I mean, you could say that about a few things, but really, especially in American baking, it's really hard to bake without butter. And why would you even want to, you know?  

Jessica: Yeah. Why would you even want to, I mean, and all the best things, like from croissants to kouign aman to pie crust, to just your everyday cookie. You know, it's built on butter baby.  

You know, last year one of our colleagues got a hold of like a giant amount of butter from our friends at Vermont Creamery, which is also a B Corp based in, um, Northern Vermont, and she sent out a message, does anyone want butter. And I was like, yes, I do. 

And I think she gave me like 20 pounds of butter that I put in my chest freezer. Humble brag. I have a chest freezer. Um, I hope it comes up a million times in this podcast. And I, I just felt such a sense of like safety and security with my chest freezer full of butter. You know, I was like, I've made it. 

Mm-hmm. Like I've got like, whatever happens and a lot is happening in the world. I've got, you know, I've got the stockpile of butter. It was a little alarming when I got down to like the final pound and I was like, oh.  

David: Oh, you've already gone through it?  

Jessica: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, it didn't take nearly ... 

David: Oh, how many months did that take?  

Jessica: I don't wanna tell people. It wasn't as long as, it wasn't as long as you'd hope. 

And I'd like to say like, sometimes you make justifications for like, oh, but I used it for X or I, you know. No, we just, you know, one cake at a time. Just got through.  

David: Well, you did have a lot of birthdays.   

Jessica: I had a lot of birthdays. I mean, and we're heading into prime butter season.  

David: Absolutely. The holidays, the fall, not just the holidays, but fall baking. 

I mean, it's funny, like we're so used to calling this season that, that we're entering Fall Bake because that's how we refer to it here at King Arthur internally. But I think it's a very useful term for everybody to know. 'Cause we all experienced it. We just have not all known that there's a name for it, but the name is Fall Bake and we're about to enter it. 

And butter is crucial for it. It's crucial for everything. I mean, it, it's, it was interesting to research this episode a little bit. Not that I need to do a lot of research about butter 'cause I'm pretty familiar, you know, but I wasn't familiar with some of the history of it and it was sort of shocking to see just how long butter has been a part of our lives on this planet. 9,000 years. I didn't even know the planet was that old?  

Jessica: What is this, like yak butter?  

David: Buffalo butter was, was huge. And then you know of, of course now it's cow butter.  

Jessica: Butter was used for ceremonial purposes. It was used to be eaten, probably like skincare, you know, just slathering, slicking your hair back with butter. 

I mean, when there were very few readily available other fats butter had such value, right? Like you have a diet that like is animal fats and that’s it. That's all you got.  

David: And even used in religious practices and for art. 'Cause one of the tidbits that, you know, we pulled in prep for this episode was about how Tibetan Buddhist still do elaborate butter carvings called tormas and used in their practices. 

Jessica: We may talk more about butter carving later in this episode too. 'Cause you know, not just for Tibetans. Nope. Also for American state fairs. Well, when I was researching, I didn't get into the history, but I did reach out to our test kitchen director, Sarah, and I, you know, our test kitchen develops like 200 original recipes every year, which by the way, are all available for free on our website. We're just giving away the farm. And I was like, just out of curiosity, how many pounds of butter do you think the test kitchen uses in a year? And she was actually able to pull out the invoices and it's 1100 pounds. 

David: Wow.  

Jessica: Of butter.   

David: Oh my gosh.  

Jessica: In the service of developing these recipes  

David: And just let the record show that none of that butter goes to waste. Even as we're, we always give away the bakes, all that stuff, all that butter gets eaten.  

Jessica: All that butter gets eaten. That's why our hair is so nice. Our skin's so shiny. 

And I also think butter has, as you said, it's been around for 9,000 years. Butter based baked goods have been around for a very long time, but there's still a lot of innovation that happens with the use of butter and baked goods. And I think one of the things that caught our eyes, Nicole Rucker, friend of King Arthur, put out her book Fat and Flour, her baking cookbook, which is great. 

And in it she sort of, you know, makes a case for something that she calls the cold butter method.  

David: Cold butter method. C-B-M  

Jessica: Yeah.  

David: I love it. Nicole's a genius. I love the cold butter method now.  

Jessica: Well, and you've been baking a bunch from the book, so will you tell our listeners what the, what CBM is and why it's so interesting? 

David: Yeah, so the cold butter method as Nicole calls it is not necessarily a new thing, but it is sort of new the way that she's approaching it, and it sort of goes against expectations. So to take a step back, when we think about a lot of baked goods, the first step is often creaming room temperature butter with sugar. 

So. Like birthday cakes, you made probably involve that step. A lot of cookies involve that step. And the purpose of creaming is to incorporate a little bit of air into the butter so that when the baked good goes into the oven, there's some air to help it rise.  

Jessica: Yeah. Helps with structure, helps insulate it from the hot baking sheet. 

David: Mm-hmm.  

Jessica: Keeps it from spreading as much. So it's sort of a, it's um, it's functional. There's a functional reason that you cream butter and sugar.  

David: Absolutely. Yeah. But it's also sort of the most annoying part of baking because you have to wait for the butter to reach room temperature, which we're gonna put a pin in that too, and circle back to that later. 

We're doing a lot of circling back in this podcast.  

Jessica: Yeah, it's stay tuned, circling back and around.  

David: It's like a board meeting in here. So the cold butter method is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of using room temperature butter for the creaming step, Nicole uses cold butter straight from the fridge, cuts it into the chunks, throws it in there with the sugar and the dry ingredients, and that's crucial too. 

It's not, she doesn't just cream it with the sugar, she creams it with the flour, the leavener and the sugar. This is very similar to a method that we talked about in the first season of reverse creaming. That's basically what, what the cold butter method is. It's reverse creaming.  

Jessica: Yeah.  

David: The thing that interests me about what Nicole was doing is that she uses the cold butter method in almost every recipe in her book, and her book spans, you know, pie dough where CBM cold butter method is very common. 

Anything you, where you want, like a kind of a short texture, biscuits, pie, you usually start with cold butter because you're trying to retain little pockets of intact butter that then turn into steam in the oven and create flakes. Whereas with a cake and a cookie, you know, you're trying to have a more even distribution of butter. 

But she applies it to, so she applies the cold butter method to pie, but also to a whole chapter of banana breads, a whole chapter of cookies. A whole chapter of brownies and bars. And so what I think was interesting here is that it really goes against people's expectations. So people who have been baking for years, like you and myself, and a lot of our listeners, we're so trained to start with room temperature butter, and cream, and think that like, oh no, no, the butter of the temperature matters and we can't mess with that. 

And it does. It truly does. Mm-hmm. But what Nicole's book shows that there's a way to also formulate a recipe that uses cold butter and it's very convenient and the recipes are really great. I mean, I've made her her chocolate chip cookie, her kind of classic chocolate chip cookie with the cold butter method. 

You mix it for a while, you mix the butter, the cold butter, and the dry ingredients for about five minutes, which is, which is still long time to cream something. But the resulting cookie. You know, you have cookies in like 30 minutes and they're good. They're really crispy around the edges. 

I really was into those cookies. So I think that it's not necessarily a new technique that Nicole has invented, but she's contextualized it in a new way that I think is exciting.  

Jessica: Well, and I love it because, as you said, circling back, I am a very lazy baker, and so softening butter for, having room temperature butter is often a pain point for me. 

And so the idea, I feel set free by the idea of just like, yeah, tossing some cold butter, you know? And actually our test kitchen director, Sarah, you know, she wrote something at one point saying that it's the rule of butter that no matter what you wanna bake, butter will never be at the right temperature. 

And I totally feel that. It's like, oh, you wanna make pie crust in the summer? Like your butter's melting. Like, oh, you wanna make cookies in the winter? Forget about it. You gotta wait three days for your butter to get softened. So I think there is something really interesting about this idea of like making the butter work for you. Right. I also think like there's a lot of potential in going the opposite route and you know, baking with melted butter.  

David: Yeah.  

Jessica: For the same reason. And that reason is laziness. When I read a recipe that's like melted butter, I'm like, hallelujah. Like we can get this, like, I mean, this is gonna be on the table. 

David: Turning on my stove now.  

Jessica: And our friend Jesse Szewczyk, wrote a blog for us a couple of years ago about using melted butter in baked goods, which I took to be sort of like the gospel. And similar to using cold butter, you know, it prevents too much air from being introduced into the mixture, uh, via creaming. 

So you get in terms of cookies, like a denser fudgier cookie, which can be a really desirable texture. And then you can introduce like another layer of flavor through browning that melted butter too. So like the versatility of butters from both sides of the spectrum is great. And you think about like other ingredients like flour, sugar, you know, sort of the, the cornerstones of baking. Like you can't really manipulate those very much. Like you can use brown sugar. You use, you can use white sugar, you know, you can vary the type of flour you use or you could toast your flour. But in general, there's not such a sea change in what you can do to those ingredients um, that will affect your baked goods in the way that like manipulating your butter will. 

I mean, I feel like we've barely scratched the surface, but I did want to, I mean, we have a, we have a really special guest. Dorie Greenspan.  

David: Dorie. Yeah. We're in for a real treat, like we are blessed by the presence of my friend Dorie Greenspan. Dorie doesn't really need an introduction, but I'm gonna give her one anyway. 

She's written 14 cookbooks, her 15th, Anytime Cakes is coming out in just a few weeks on October 21^st. She's won five James Beard Awards and one of her books was a little pamphlet in the short stack series, which, you wrote the corn one? 

Jessica: I wrote the corn one. Yeah. 

David: Yeah. It was a great little series of cookbooks. 

Dorie wrote the butter one. So she's a great one to talk to. She's just a master home baker. She knows cookies, cakes, pies, everything. And we're gonna talk to her about all of it. Dorie divides her time between New York City, Connecticut, and Paris, which some people call the city of light. We call the city of butter. 

Jessica: I mean, Dorie, if, if our test kitchen has used 1100 pounds of butter in the last year, like Dorie can't be far behind. 

David: Let’s ask her. 

Dorie Greenspan, welcome to Things Baker's Know. It's so fabulous to see you. I always love talking to you.  

Dorie G: It's the way I feel about you. Thank you, Dorie.  

David: First things first, since we're talking about butter, I want to ask you a very important question, which is how much butter is in your fridge right now, and what types? 

Dorie G: So right now, um, I counted 'cause, because I counted. Um, I had a feeling, I had a feeling this was coming up. I have a baker's dozen worth of pounds of butter. So I've got 13, 13 pounds of butter.  

David: Oh, I thought you were gonna say 13 sticks. That's not 13 sticks. 13 pounds.  

Dorie G: 13 pounds of butter. You know, a girl can never be, you know, you need it. 

I, I buy butter. I buy butter in bulk. I buy butter when it's on sale. I buy butter when somebody lends me their card to Restaurant Depot.  

David: And is it all the same type? Is it in your new book, Dorie’s Anytime Cakes, you call for American unsalted butter, is that what you have stocked?  

Dorie G: Yeah, so I made this decision a long, long time ago. 

I wanted all of my recipes to be as accessible, as doable, as easy. I mean, there are times when there are ingredients that you know, somebody's gonna have to go out and get them, but butter should be the basic. And so I always test with American supermarket butter.  

David: Yeah.  

Dorie G: Um, however, among, well, I, I didn't count this in my butter stash. Um, when I come back from Paris, I bring butter with me.  

David: What kind of butter do you bring? 

Dorie G: So I bring salted butter, demi sel. Um, so it's got crystals of salt in it, the kind of salt that it's so present. You just know it's there. I never bake with it. You can actually, you know, feel the crystals. 

I always bake with unsalted butter and add as much salt as I think the recipe needs.  

David: We won't stick with French butter too, too long because we're here to talk about, I guess we're here to talk about American butter. 

Dorie G: May I just tell you two butter stories?  

Dorie: Yeah.  

Dorie G: Okay, I'll make it fast. So the first was, it was my first trip to Paris by myself. 

I'm in my twenties and a woman invites me, I must have looked so lost. She invited me to come home and have dinner at her apartment with her niece who was my age, and she made a chicken in a pot. And it was that, that really inspired me to have that recipe on the cover of around my French table, but she's showing me the chicken. 

She's showing me what she's doing, and she took butter and she handed it to me on a spoon. She said, this is good butter. And I closed my eyes and concentrated on it, and I had never thought that butter could be a major food group, that it was that that important  

David: Was that this a random woman on the street who pulled you out of the grocery store? 

Dorie G: Yeah, I know. It sounds very strange. So I was sitting in a cafe writing a letter to Michael. I must have looked really lonely. And she was sitting next to me, and we started to talk and she said, what are you doing for dinner? I'm making a chicken. Would you like to come?  

David: Mm-hmm.  

Dorie G: And it was, that evening was a revelation, the chicken. The butter and her passion for it, and just her giving me this taste and wanting me to taste it, just stayed with me for decades.  

David: Yeah, how could it not? It's a wonderful story. Thank you, Dorie. I wanna talk to you a little bit about some of the recipes in your new book. And one recipe that I think we have to talk about since we're talking about butter, are the extra buttery madeleines. 

And first of all, that's how I did I say that like in American? Madeleine? Madeleine.  

Dorie G: Madeleine. Madeleine. Madeleine.  

David: Um, you have an extra buttery vanilla version in your book, and I'm just so interested to know how you landed on the right amount of butter in that recipe.  

Dorie G: So this one is a combination of, of all the madeleines I've made between the last time I published a madeleine recipe and this one. 

So madeleines are those beautiful shell shaped little cakes, known to have a bump in the middle of them. They're based on a genoise, so a sponge cake. And with a genoise you're beating whole eggs and, and sugar, and you're folding in flour, and the last thing you fold in is butter.  

David: Mm-hmm.  

Dorie G: I was happy with more butter. Um, my, I wanted the madeleines to be really a cake, and so for this recipe I used more butter than I usually do, and it turns out, this will not surprise you, more butter is better. It's just, it was just delicious.  

David: I wanna move on from cake. I know, I know you're in a cake mode. And I, by the way, I love your new book and I was just spending some time with my mom and she said, David, you've given me so many great cookbooks over the years. 

I love them. Then she just said sort of quietly, she said like, I haven't received many this year. So, uh, very Jewish mother. 

Dorie G: Such a Jewish mother.  

David: So I'm planning to send her Dorie’s Anytime Cakes, you know, the minute I can.  

Dorie G: Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you.  

David: Okay, let's do a little lightning round 'cause we are getting close to the end of our time here. Favorite butter recipe? Can you even choose?  

Dorie G: What a funny question. So sables. So French, you know, butter cookies. Or a crust.  

David: Yeah. Which, I mean, I don't know what you think, but those two things are not so different from each other.   

Dorie G: Not at all. Yeah, not at all. They're very, very similar. Love them.  

David: This is a controversial one for me. I don't know if this is controversial for you. What is your position on keeping room temperature butter out on the counter at all times?  

Dorie G: I don't. Michael does. My husband does.  

David: Well, he's a bread baker.  

Dorie G: He keeps it for slathering on bread,  

David: Right? Yeah.  

Dorie G: Yeah. But when you are mixing creaming the butter and sugar together, if it's too soft, you're not going to get the air that you want. And so butter that's been sitting out, especially in a warm room, it's between melted and solid. 

David: Room temp.  

Dorie G: Yeah. Pushable, I like to think, should be able to put your thumb on the butter and have your thumbprint remain.  

David: Dorie, is there anything else about butter that you wanna talk about? Anything? Is there anything else you need to say about butter? 

Dorie, this is your opportunity.   

Dorie G: I won't tell you about winter butter because we don't have time. 

David: Oh, wait, no, wait. What is that? 'Cause this is coming out in the fall, so let's, what is winter butter?  

Dorie G: Well, so two things. We're back in France.  

David: Yes.  

Dorie G: When I go to the market in Paris, I guess in about April you start hearing people say, look at the butter. It's spring butter. And when I was first starting to work with Pierre Herme, he said to me, do you use winter butter for your puff pastry? And, and I said, I, I've I've never heard of winter butter. And so that's the butter that comes from when, when the cows are eating hay and it's a drier butter. It's very rich but drier and very good for laminated doughs. 

David: That's so fascinating.  

Dorie G: Depends, you know, it depends on the, on the butter. But I could imagine, 'cause I get so excited by the color and the people around me saying, look, look, look at the butter that it's a treat.  

David: There are so many things in this conversation that are making me a little jealous, honestly. 

Like, I wanna be whipped away by a French woman in a cafe and have her feed me butter. Uh, I want to know what time of year it is by the color of the butter. I mean, that is so special. I, I love that. 

Dorie G: Ooh, maybe we can make a butter clock or a butter calendar. A butter calendar. Oh, David, we just don't have time. I mean, the amount of salt that goes into the butter. Mm. But you, you know, just to make you feel like you're not missing out on everything in France. As I said, some of the butter can just be pretty ordinary.  

David: I think you're saying that just to be nice to me, and I appreciate that. I love that. 

Dorie, it's a pleasure to talk to you about butter and to talk to you about cakes. Congratulations on your new book, and thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I hope you'll come back.  

Dorie G: Thank you. Thank you, thank you. I love spending time with you. Thanks. 

Jessica: This episode is brought to you by our golden wheat flour. This is a super special flour that used to go by the name white whole wheat flour. It's a whole grain flour milled from hard white spring wheat, and it's a lighter colored grain than traditional red wheat, so it yields a milder tasting baked good. 

David: I love this flour. It has all the benefits of whole wheat flour, but it bakes up like all-purpose flour. And it's sustainably grown with regenerative practices, which is really just icing on the cake.  

Jessica: You can use golden wheat flour for bread, of course, but also for cakes, cookies, and more. You can find golden wheat flour in stores or on our website at kingarthurbaking.com 

Okay people, it's time for our next segment, Ask The Bakers. For Ask the Bakers, we want to hear from you. If you have a baking question for us, head to kingarthurbaking.com/podcast to record a voice message, and we may end up using it on the show. That's KingArthurbaking.com/podcast.  

David: And of course, if you have a baking question that simply cannot wait, you can always reach out to our Bakers Hotline via phone, email, or online chat. 

Just go to kingarthurbaking.com/bakers-hotline. That's king arthubaking.com/bakers-hotline. Or call us at (855) 371-2253. That's 2 2 5 3 as in BAKE.  

Jessica: I love these listener questions, so please call in. I think it's the, uh, you know, it's the bread and butter, pardon the pun, of Things Bakers Know, so no question too big. Well, probably some questions too big. Yeah, yeah, no question too small.  

David: Definitely not too small. 

Jessica: Not too small. Probably too big, but we can always phone a friend. Um, but with that preamble, let's listen to our first question for today's episode.  

Caller: Hi. I really like the idea of using milk powder when you brown butter in the rice krispies treats on your website. I'm wondering if you can do this with all baked goods when you brown butter. I'm also wondering how malt milk powder would work in place of the whole milk powder. I really appreciate this and love all of the tips and everything on your website.  

Jessica: She loves everything on our website. 

David: And she was recording from a bird sanctuary, sounded like.   

Jessica: Sounds so peaceful. So the recipe that she's referencing is one of my personal favorites that was developed by our colleague Lydia Fournier, for the ultimate rice krispies treat. And I think the brief for Lydia was like, you, you know, there are no shortage of rice krispies treat recipes in the world, but how can we sort of like next level a rice krispies treat? 

And Lydia had a lot of really smart additions to, you know, sort of the classic recipes. Critically, and since this is what the caller is, is asking about, she, you know, rice krispies always start with melting butter. Then you add the marshmallows, you melt that matrix together, you add your cereal. So Lydia was sort of thinking about this and she was thinking about the delicious flavor of brown butter. 

So brown butter is like you melt butter till the milk solid sink to the bottom of the pan, and then the milk solids start to brown and toast, and it gives the butter like just such a good, nutty, delicious flavor. And what's sinking to the bottom and browning are the protein solids in in the butter, right? 

So Lydia, genius that she is thought like, okay, if we like brown butter, what would happen if we added milk powder, which is essentially just more protein to the melted butter and we toast it along with melted butter. Like would you get extra nutty brown butter? And the answer is yes. And so that's the recipe that this caller is asking about. 

So that's a little bit of background and everyone should make these 'cause they're outrageous. So I reached out to Lydia. Because honestly, I, I didn't know, and I, I figured she had done some experimentation and the first thing that she said is that she would not recommend swapping in malted milk powder. 

Um, she said that some of our, um, readers had tried that and left a comment on the recipe that it didn't work. You know, malted milk powder has other things in it, besides just milk powder. So she said, if you wanna add malted milk powder to a baked good, specifically to these rice krispies treats, she would add it like with the dry ingredients or with the cereal. 

But then to answer the second part of the question, you know, could you add milk powder to any recipe that calls for brown butter? Um, and Lydia thought yes, that you could. She advised that you start with a small amount of additional milk powder. Um, and she did caution that you shouldn't, you shouldn't swap melted butter in for any old recipe. 

Like start with a recipe that calls for, you know, melted butter or brown butter and then experiment by adding a small amount of additional milk powder and sort of working up from there. But I think it's like a really, a trick for the ages. So yes, with Lydia's blessing toast on, um, but, but don't, don't sub in malted milk powder. 

David: It's always great when someone calls in and asks if they can do something and we can say yes, because I feel like we often say no.  

Jessica: You know? I knew that if I asked Lydia, she would have tried things, you know, because there's so much rigor in our test kitchen that often when I have a question about something like, oh, did you try this? The answer is like, yes, we did. We tried baking it on our heads. We tried baking it in this pan and this pan and with, you know, gluten-free flour.   

David: How do you think they get through 1100 pounds of butter every year?   

Jessica: The testing, test, and retest. I mean, and I do think, not to toot our own horns, but like, isn't that what distinguishes like random online recipe that might fail you from our recipes, like they have been tested to the point that nobody in the test kitchen wants to bake them ever again, and then they're set free into the world. But you know, they're gonna work.  

David: Let's solve another problem.  

Caller: Hi. Um, I'm wondering if you guys could just talk a little bit about how to tell when butter is properly creamed? Thank you.  

Jessica: I thought we might get this one. You know, it's fundamental. I think it stresses people out. Not you? 

David: It’s like the one thing on earth that doesn't stress me out. So lemme talk about it. Um, so there are a lot of ways to tell, well, not a lot, but there are a few ways to tell when butter is properly creamed. 

And one of the easiest is just to look at the color. It's one of the things that I love most. I love the color of butter, and I love seeing it lighten as it creams. So once you cream butter, uh, you can kind of tell that it's been properly creamed when it's turned a shade whiter. Did you have something to say about that now? 

Jessica: I did. I, I had something to say, which of course, I had something to say. The thing I wanted say is getting back to what we were talking about earlier, which is like temperature, right? You'd want truly room temperature butter for proper creaming.   

David: People start with, too soft butter often.  

Jessica: Oh I, and I do the opposite 'cause I am impatient. 

So I'm like trying to, you know, rush it along and then I'm like, I'm sure it's fine. And then what I do, this is don't do this at home. I throw the butter, the cold butter in, and I, I put my hands around the mixer bowl as though like, I'm like around a campfire or something like as if the heat of my hands is going to make that big of a difference. 

Um, and you should be able to press your finger into it. And it should feel sort of like modeling clay, right? Like you should press into it, but not be able to like jam your finger all the way through it. That's too soft.  

David: Your finger should not fall through the butter.  

Jessica: Your finger should not fall through the butter, and your finger should not like, not be able to make an indentation,  

David: Right? You should be able to easily make an indentation into your butter.  

Jessica: But I mean, you can say like, suppose you start with butter that's too cold. Well, you could just stop and let it warm up and then you can beat it again. Like you can save it.  

David: Yeah.  

Jessica: But I think you're right, David. The Goldilocks zone  

David: Mm-hmm. 

Jessica: Is when you have room temperature butter and you beat it with a sugar and it gets like really, it changes in color. It becomes like pale. It's like looks fluffy and I think it's sort of like it sits tall in the mixing bowl, right? Like, it's almost like it's got peaks to it, which I think, um, is another tell that you've beaten it properly.  

We do have a blog all about creaming butter and sugar, and it has a lot of step-by-step photos, which is helpful. So we can link that blog in the show notes so that people can see what we're talking about when we say, you know, nice peaks and pale in color. You get some visual indicators there, but I think we have some more questions, so let's move on to the next one. 

Caller: Hello. Um, I have a question about how to soften butter quickly. Sometimes I will be reading a recipe and I will realize that it says room temperature butter, and I've forgotten to take it out of the fridge. And was curious if you had any tips and tricks about how to get it soft as quickly as possible. 

Jessica: Well, this is relatable as we've been saying,  

David: It's never happened to me. Never. No, I'm so organized. I always think three years ahead.   

Jessica: I would like to say like, just pivot to like, you know, the CBM method or, you know, melted butter. But of course not every recipe is durable enough to have you just like swapping the form of, of the butter. 

David: And there are plenty of easy ways to do this. So what is your ...   

Jessica: Well, for me, it's just laying on my hands. No kidding.  

David: Just, just press your hands on the butter and wait an hour.  

Jessica: Yeah, just put it in your bra and wait. I don't know. Um, what is your, uh, what's your go-to method?  

David: Well, I live in a microwave-less home, so I don't have a microwave. 

Um, so my method, I cut the butter into like tablespoon size pieces. So about eight pieces. Um. And I spread the pieces out on a plate. And honestly it happens so much faster than you think. Like 20 minutes, the, the, uh, depending of course on is it cold or outside in the house, whatever. But usually within 20 minutes, I'm good to go. 

Jessica: That's amazing. I mean, I think, I don't know if I've mentioned on the podcast before. I know I've talked to like every one of my colleagues about how we keep our home at like meat locker temperatures. I don't know. I don't know. Is it like our Yankee thrift or is it? 

David: It’s always austerity measures in the Battilana household. 

Jessica: So 20 minutes would not do it for me. But I do have a microwave and you know, our producer Rossi did a blog last year where she tested all these different methods like putting a stick of butter in a Ziploc bag and you know, submerging it in warm water, like leaving, you know, all these different things. 

And the method that she thought worked the best, which is now the method that I have adopted is you take a stick of butter and you stand it on its end in the microwave. And you microwave it.  

David: So it stand, it looks like the Washington Monument.  

Jessica: Exactly. And you microwave it for, in my microwave, I know every microwave is a little different, for like 10 seconds. Then you flip it over, 10 seconds, and that seems to work great. Like you don't get the pool, you know, if you lay it down, it's always like a slick of butter underneath it.  

David: Mm-hmm.  

Jessica: It's not foolproof. I've definitely gone too far. And then you're like, oh no, like, and once you've melted butter, even if it's resolidified in the fridge, it's never the same. Like you've gotta save that for something else. 

David: That's actually scientifically true. Like it changes the composition of the butter.  

Jessica: I like that you just thought, I just was saying it for like conjecture. 

David: That's not fake news. Like everything else on this show, that that thing is true. I guess I said that 'cause it surprised me when I found out. I was like, really? I mean, yeah, yeah. But it's really, it's very interesting.  

Jessica: But I think the microwave works pretty well and I will say as we head into the holidays, I just keep pounds of butter. Pounds, plural. Like I just keep them on my counter because my house is not, you know, not so warm that there's gonna be any spoilage situations. So I just leave them there and then they're just ready at a moment's notice.  

David: Right. That's one of my favorite things about the King Arthur test kitchen. When you walk into the King Arthur test kitchen, every station has a big block of butter that's at the perfect temperature. It's, and they just keep it out. Because why wouldn’t they?  

Jessica: I know people wonder, you know, they wonder like they, I think people are curious about the test kitchen and they're like, is it really, is it amazing as it sounds? And I'm like, yeah, it is. Like not only is there steady supply of like cakes and cookies and you know, everything to, for us to taste, but also, yeah, just these blocks of room temperature, like spreadable butter. I think that's, I'm sure that's what exists in heaven. Heaven would be a place where the butter is always the right temperature.  

David: I am so close to singing that song right now. Heaven is a place on earth. I'm not going to. But I'm so close. 

Jessica: I know that's, I mean we're, we are dating ourselves by, some people out there will know the song you're referring to. I bet our producers will not. 

David: Rossi, our producer, is definitely not gonna know that song. What was it that she didn't know? She didn't know? Like who like Michael Jackson was or something.   

Jessica: Annie Lennox. 

David: Annie Lennox, same thing.  

Jessica: It made me feel like I was a hundred years old. Oh, she says she does know that song. She just pinged me on our chat to say.  

David: Oh no. Okay. Well, you know, those re those comments that we have solicited now we're gonna get comments that we're abusing our producer, which, yeah, exactly. 

Um, which we probably are. Sorry, Rossi. I think we have one, maybe two more questions. Okay. People had a lot to ask, ask us about butter. I was just happy to just keep on talking, but that's fine. We can go to the questions.  

Caller: Hello. I was wondering what the best vegan butter substitute is, or if you guys have any tips with baking with vegan butter or baking with dairy free butter. 

David: No. Next question.  

Jessica: You're terrible.  

David: Well, I just don't have experience with it.  

Jessica: But I do feel like if perhaps some vegan listeners have gotten to this point in the podcast when we've been like talking nonstop about how much we love butter, I'm very pleased to say that we did a very rigorous blog post about this a couple of years ago, which we'll put in the show notes. 

And one of our longtime bakers and former employee owners, PJ Hamel, like she went for it. So she got several brands of, she got several brands of vegan butter and she made pie crust with it. She also baked it into like these thin and crispy cookies. She did puff pastry with it, like she put it through its paces to see side by side what would happen. 

And so she used earth balance, their vegan buttery sticks. And then she used the Miyoko’s European-style vegan butter. Then just Land O'Lakes butter next to it. Worth noting, the earth balance is all oil based. The Miyoko’s has cashews in it. That's sort of what it gives it that cultured taste. So not appropriate if you have a nut allergy. 

But she tried them all and functionally they actually performed quite similarly, which I was surprised by. Um, she noted that the baked goods across the board that were made with the dairy butter, uh, brown better, which does not surprise me because you know, the milk proteins and the sugars in milk are going to, you know, encourage that browning. 

But in terms of like the behavior of them, they were actually quite similar. And she did note a flavor difference, obviously, like that's not gonna be shocking. But she did say that the Miyoko's, which is sort of billed as a cultured butter, and so she said that that was actually a flavor that you could detect in the finished baked good. 

And the earth balance, um you know, has sort of a more neutral flavor because it is all oil. Um, but basically, she just was swapping it, you know, one for one. And of course, like if you're baking things that have other dairy products in them, you know, like eggs as well as like you're gonna have to make additional swaps. 

But she explores that in the blog too. And I mean, the great news is, yes, it's totally possible. To make vegan baked goods that taste good and that behave in a similar fashion to, you know, to traditional baked goods. And, and in particular when it's a baked good that doesn't have eggs in it, because of course eggs have their, you know, play their own role. 

But, uh, I was, I was impressed. So that blog will link in the show notes 'cause it's quite comprehensive and we also have quite a few vegan recipes on the site that are also quite good. So totally possible. And that was news to me. 'Cause like you, David, I don't bake with any, any vegan butter, but it's nice to know it's an option for people. 

David: Yeah. And you know, I I, I joke about not being vegan. Well that's no joke. I'm not vegan. But, you know, there are good reasons to bake with dairy alternatives, even if you're not vegan. I mean, the fact is cows, which give us all the delicious dairy products we eat are a huge contributor to climate change. So anytime we bake with, you know, an alt ingredient with non-dairy substitutes for dairy, we're doing a little tiny thing for the climate, which is a notable thing, a noble thing I should say.  

So I take back any sarcasm I had about baking with vegan butters and just on on the PJ note. You know, PJ Hamel is a legend here at King Arthur. There's so many of our listeners and our readers know that name and have followed her work for so long, and if you don't know her, it's really worth, you know, clicking on her name on the website and searching, you know, reading through her archives. Because what she did for this alt butter piece, she does for everything. She goes so deep, she tests every angle. Uh, I really think we should like coin a new term for it. Like, like she PJ’d it. You like It's been PJ’d.  

Jessica: I think that's all of our questions for today. As always, if you have a baking question, kingarthurbaking.com/podcast, you can record it and you may be featured on a future episode. 

We love your questions. Keep 'em coming. 

Well, David, have I got a treat for you today?  

David: Always. You always have treats for me.  

Jessica: You know, whenever we are working on an episode about a particular topic, usually for a period of weeks or months before we record, I go like down a bit of a rabbit hole. That is what has led me in recent weeks to learn all about the art of butter carving. 

So, I mean, eating butter is all well and good, but have you ever seen a person carve a 90 pound block of butter into the bust of a dairy princess?  

David: Nope. And I don't even know what half those words mean, honestly,  

Jessica: Because I have, and now my life has been forever altered. It's fair culture, right? This is the time of year where there's all the big ag fairs, but one of the best known is the Minnesota State Fair, and at the Minnesota State Fair, as there is the case at many state fairs, there's a dairy barn and at the Minnesota State Fair, this barn, it's, you know, they talk about butter, they talk about ice cream, yogurt, all these things. 

But in the middle of the dairy barn, there is a 10 foot refrigerated glass booth called the Butter Booth. That rotates very slowly. So inside that booth is a man named Gerry Kulzer.  

David: Oh, it's always the same guy?  

Jessica: Yes. He's the butter carver in residence at the Minnesota State Fair. And that was news.  

David: Does he ever leave the booth or is he there year round and just people come visit him? 

Jessica: He carves you round, but this is like his big thing. He actually is a sculptor by trade. He's an art teacher. He sculpts in things other than butter because really they're the same sort of techniques and tools that you would use on clay. So butter carving had been part of the Minnesota State Fair since 1965. 

Of course, I had like a million questions for, for poor Gerry, and he was, he was so patient, you know, he is a mid-westerner, so kind, so patient. And so what I learned is that he spends 10 days at the fair inside this rotating butter booth, which is refrigerated. It's kept at about 40 degrees. So he's like wearing winter clothes. 

And he's sculpting these nine, he starts with a 90 pound block of butter that's donated by Minnesota Dairy Association and what he's sculpting are the busts of the winners and finalists of the Princess Kay of the Milky Way contest.  

David: Don't know what that is, but I'm obsessed with it. I am also Princess Kay of the Milky Way? 

Jessica: Yes. And the title of of Princess is bestowed to the winner of a statewide Minnesota Dairy Princess program. 

David: And he's sculpting from a photo?  

Jessica: No. Oh, he is sculpting from life. So in the booth with him is each finalist and the winner of the Princess Kay competition, and it takes him about six hours to carve each bust. 

So he says, you know, like he is, they get cold, right? He's like, oh, my hands stop working. The princesses get cold. You know, princesses. So high maintenance, and he says as he works, you know, he's carving off butter from this big block. And then at the end of the day, the, um, the subject gets to take home like a pail of the butter trimmings. 

David: Ugh. I love it.  

Jessica: Which honestly sounds like a great goodie bag.  

David: Yeah.  

Jessica: And then at the end of the fair, they get to take their bust home. You know, he said they, like a lot of people do like parties where they have like a big corn boil and they serve the bust, the butter bust along with boiled corn. And he told me that some people keep their busts for years in their chest freezers and sometimes like there, the mother may have also been a Princess Kay of the Milky Way. And so they have like the mother's butter bust and then the daughter's butter bust. Sort of like wedding cake, right?   

David: Like a wedding cake. Except that this time you're opening the freezer and seeing the bust of your mother every time you go, like to get some ice. 

Jessica: Honestly, I didn't know it was a life goal to have a butter bust made of myself. And I asked him, I was like, well, do you ever take butter home? And he was like, oh no, it's not really my butter to take. And sometimes the princesses will give me some. It's also sort of nice because I was asking like, oh, does all that butter get wasted? 

And he's like, no. You know, people end up using it. Like some people donate the butter, some people take it home and just like chip off parts of the bust and use it for cooking or baking.  

David: Yep.  

Jessica: Anyway, it was really fun to talk to Gerry. He's a very cool guy. He has a website. I'm gonna put a link to the website in the show notes. 

We also have a video of him carving butter at the fair, which I'm gonna put in the show notes so you could see him in his revolving booth. But I thought you'd like that one.  

David: I do like that one. I think, you know, the more attention we can give to the idiosyncrasies of the Midwest the better, so thank you. 

Every episode, we'd like to check in with Jessica to see what wildly surprising and full-throated ideas are in her head. A segment we lovingly call Jess-opinions. Jessica, what is your first Jess-opinion of season two?  

Jessica: Well, this week I know we have talked so much about how delicious butter is, how I always keep butter on my counter during this baking season. 

Um, so a surprising thing that I'm gonna share with you is that I actually think the best pie crusts are made with a combination of butter, yes, but also shortening.  

David: Okay. Hot on the heels of that vegan butter conversation we just had.  

Jessica: And you know, the thing is, because in addition to the pain point for me of having room temperature butter, the other pain point for me is pie crust shrinkage. 

Like I have tried all of the tricks. You know, I chill my pie crust before I bake it. I fill it to the brim with pie weights. But I feel like no matter what I do, no matter how much overhang I have on my pie, no matter how much I chill it, like how much I fill it, it still shrinks. And that is such a bummer. 

Like you put it in the oven, it looks great, and then you take out your par-baked pie shell and it's half the pie it used to be, you're like, oh, I guess I'll just put like one ounce of pumpkin pie filling into this. Like, that'll be fine.  

David: You find that a pie crust with a combination of fats shrinks less. 

Jessica: Yes. I think an all-butter pie crust shrinks more, you know, and we're gonna, we're gonna talk about pies later in the season, so you know, we'll get into this in greater detail, so, you know, come back for that. But yes, I think all butter pie crust shrink more. I also think, you know, if you add shortening to the flour in a pie crust, like shortening is gonna get coated with every, like, with all the flour, um, granules, right? And butter, as we said earlier, like you wanna maintain it in chunks so that you get the steam. So I feel like by using combination, you kind of get the best of both worlds. Like you get the tenderness that shortening contributes by the being coated in flour and distributing throughout, plus the flake and the flavor of butter. I mean, this is not like revolutionary. There are plenty of pie bakers out there that recommend this like hybrid approach, but I just felt like in our butter episode, I would be lying to our listeners if I didn't come forth with this confession slash opinion that I think the best pie crusts are made with a combination of shortening and butter.  

And that's what we have for this week's episode, our butter episode, our first episode of season two.  

David: Yeah. But before we go, Jessica, what are you baking this week?  

Jessica: Oh, I forgot about that. 

Uh, this week I'm gonna try making, I haven't made them yet, our apple pie bars, which is a new recipe to the site, it is a butter centric recipe. And so I just talked about pie crust. If you're listening to that and you're like, pie crust, so annoying, I would never, I've got a recipe for you because these have a lot of the elements of an apple pie, but much easier. 

It's got like a shortbread like, press-in crust, and then the apples get cooked on the stove top until they're like partially cooked through all that good stuff, that goes on top of the baked crust. And then on top of it, a streusel topping, sort of like a Dutch style apple pie. You know, apple pie with a lot less fuss, much more shareable, much lower stakes. 

You know, it's, it's apple time here. So that's what I'm gonna try this week. What about you?  

David: I'm also entering the fall baking season. The fall, the fall baking vibes are all around me. And so I'm just gonna go straight for the jugular and I'm going to be making pumpkin bread.  

Jessica: Oh yeah.  

David: Uh, Sarah Jampel's most pumpkiny pumpkin bread. 

That's not exactly the title of the recipe, but I'm gonna, we'll put in the show notes. But it's a great pumpkin bread. It starts with reducing a can of pumpkin to really concentrate those flavors. And crucially, it has chocolate chips in it. I'm a big, big believer that most quick breads, including banana bread, is improved with chocolate chips. 

Jessica: I agree. I also love that recipe because it calls for a full can of pumpkin. You know, a lot of them are like, uh, third of a cup of pumpkin, and then you're like, well, what do I do? I feed it to my dog, actually, I make dog pumpkin pops for her. Because that's the kind of loving pet mother I am. Well, I look forward to hearing about your pumpkin bread next week when we are back here. 

David: I'll report back.  

Jessica: For another episode, report back. Uh, we'll be back next week with an episode all about Chinatown baking, which I'm really excited about, and we have a special guest for that one. 

David: Yeah. Until then, remember to like and subscribe Things Bakers Know on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Jessica: And leave us a review, which our producer will read, and then tell me if it's good. Um. Uh, but also share an episode with a friend because baking is more fun together. 

David: We'll see you back here next week. In the meantime, don't forget, follow the recipe people.  

Jessica: Follow the recipe. 

David: Things Bakers Know is hosted and executive produced by me, David Tamarkin. 

Jessica: And me, Jessica Battilana.  

David: Ross Anastopoulo is our senior producer. Chad Chenail is our producer and Marcus Bagala is our engineer. 

Original music by Megan and Marcus Bagala.  

Jessica: This episode featured the legendary queen of baking, Dorie Greenspan. You can learn more about her work and her upcoming book about cakes at her website, doriegreenspan.com.  

David: Things Bakers Know is a King Arthur Baking Company podcast.