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Hi everyone, I'm Claire Saffitz. Welcome to my home kitchen today. I'm sitting down. I got my laptop out. We're changing it up for another episode of Clarified, which we have not done in a very long time. But that just means that we have lots of really good questions to choose from. So I'll be answering all of your baking and cooking questions. Let's get into it. Just wanted you to know I'd like to ask a question. Something's bugging me. Been on my mind. Sure would be great if you clarified.
Ivan FR3776 asks, "Are most gooey and fudgy cookies just raw dough? Sometimes they just don't look right. How do I tell raw cookies from moist and fudgy [snorts] cookies?" Good question. I do think in a lot of cases the like gooey center is just under baked. And that's not necessarily bad. If they're really shiny coming out of the oven and like super soft and like you can if you press on them like your finger goes straight through or it comes off, like that's raw dough. That's dough that hasn't been fully cooked. If they are puffed and matte looking, that means they're fully cooked. What contributes to something being gooey and fudgy when fully baked through is like a lot of different factors. It's like a lot of
like fat and sugar content. So you can tweak recipes to get it to be fudgy and moist without under baking it. But like a little bit under baking I think is fine. Always Happy Pastry asks, "Best practices for reducing sugar and or butter while still maintaining texture and structure. I mostly like to make things a lot less sweet and also try to stretch out my butter as much as possible. Haha." In my recipes, when it comes to sugar, if you're baking, like sugar is a functional ingredient. It is making stuff sweet. It's maintaining moisture. It is doing a lot. It's doing browning. It's doing a lot. And so in my recipes, I design them to use just the optimal amount of sugar and no more and no less really. It's like the sugar is there to give it just
enough sweetness to enhance the flavor of everything. Bingo, but not to make it more sweet than it needs to be. So, I'm like in my recipes, I don't actually recommend reducing sugar. Maybe here or there like a little bit you can. In other recipes, I would say it just has to be kind of trial and error. And it when it comes to reducing butter, you could always like replace a little bit of butter with oil depending on what you're making. If you're making a butter a cake, that's fine. So, like replacing it with another fat is generally fine up to maybe 25% and but beyond that, I wouldn't reduce the overall amount of fat.
I would replace it with something else. Sarah Rodriguez 2281 asks, "I'm struggling with rolling dough and making it a consistent thickness throughout. I currently use a rolling pin with handles and I'm debating on getting a new one. Struggling if it is a me problem or if I should get another rolling pin. Help, please." I also struggle with rolling pins with handles too for even dough thickness. I don't really think it's a you problem. Definitely think that a dowel style rolling pin, one without handles, it's just like a straight rolling pin works better. I think it really helps you to feel the dough. It's also just something that comes with practice, but
like definitely a dowel style rolling pin is going to help, I think. Thea Caban, Thea Caban. "Hi Claire, do you have a go-to dessert you like to make for gatherings? I always struggle narrowing it down to one tried and true that's a crowd-pleaser." Really good question. I make my chocolate chip cookies a lot and bring them places cuz they're so portable. I will also bring a flourless chocolate cake a lot of times because like if there's ever like a gluten-free person, it satisfies a lot of it checks a lot of boxes for as far as desserts. I bake this flourless chocolate meringue cake. Ooh, I love meringue. From this amazing book by this woman Claire Saffitz. hard.
Yeah. Oh, shut up. You know what movie I watched recently that forgot how good it was? It's Zodiac. With Jake Gyllenhaal, such a good movie. I mean, I generally cook really, really simple stuff. Sometimes if I'm feeling like I'll I'll make that effort, I'll make a pie. Cuz it's like it's just really fun. Pies are just fun. People get excited. Sometimes I'll just make brownies. Like everyone loves brownies. Just again, like the simple stuff, truly. ChessPlayer6632, what are your recommendations for someone who has never really done any baking before, but is interested in giving it a try?
What are the tools / ingredients to get first? Any beginner recipes that won't scare me off of baking altogether? Really good question. I would say pick two or three recipes that you really want to learn and kind of and get good at. So it could be like could be a brownie, could be pie dough, you know, could be a basic butter cake or, you know, yellow cake with chocolate frosting, that kind of thing. In terms of tools and ingredients to get, I kind of feel like you know, there's a handful things. Get a bench scraper, get an offset spatula, get a couple good cake pans, and start there. And then build as you go. I don't really think it makes sense to like stock a kitchen initially before
you really get into baking. It's like add pieces as you go, as you need them, but depending on what you want to make. And good luck. Have fun. Naturalist 10,000. What's a baking ingredient that you find difficult to work with? For me, it's mango, but I'm curious what you find difficult to use. So at first I was like, oh, is it difficult from a technical standpoint? And then I thought, but then if hearing mango, I'm like, oh, maybe it's difficult from a more subjective standpoint. You know what's really difficult? Grapefruit. Grapefruit is really challenging, cuz I love grapefruit. The flavor is I just think it's so delicious. I love eating grapefruit, but it's so hard to bake with. It just it heat kills the flavor.
And so the only time I've really successfully used grapefruit is when it's unbaked. So I have like a really great um like champagne jelly and grapefruit dessert, but it's like served cold and you don't cook the fruit. Grapefruit is just really hard. And I've seen other pastry chefs use it and I haven't tasted the results and I'm like, I wonder I really wonder how it tastes because it's the freshness that's so important. Container thought GG. What advice would you have I think from this is I think for. What advice would you have for someone who just graduated pastry school? My advice would be to specialize and try to figure out what you want to do. So in a way
like I think the best way to figure out how you want to pursue pastry is like try a bunch of different things. It's like really important to know what you don't want versus it's as important to know what you don't want as it is to know what you do want. So it's like go work in a bakery or work in a restaurant and it decide if it's for you or not. Like there's a lot of different ways. Maybe it's like starting your own pastry business, so you know, out of your home kitchen like little micro bakery. I don't know. I can't really speak to the economics of that. So that side like big disclaimer cuz obviously you have to make money, but figure out what you want to do, but that can look like trying a bunch of
different things. So that's my advice. Louboutin Davie asks, what's your favorite dish to bake and eat? Do you have any dishes that you like to bake but not eat? This is something I thought about so much cuz I think there is such a difference between like cooking and eating are not the same thing at all. In fact, sometimes they're not even really related. It's like there's a lot of things that I like to eat that I don't really want to cook for myself and vice versa. Like I love making cassoulet. It's so fun. I love cooking the beans and braising the meats and the ragout and all this, but it's like is that my favorite thing to eat? No. It's like really heavy. In terms of things I love both to bake and to eat, I do love
bread. I love bread. I love eating bread. I love having bread around and I do baking it. But, good point. I feel like cooking something cuz you like something doesn't mean you like eating it in equal measure. Leana solo 005, tips for knowing when something is perfectly proofed. With proofing in general, I feel like most people will probably under proof rather than over proof. So, if you're in doubt, let it go a little bit longer. Generally, it's you're going to poke it, and that's going to help you test if it's fully proofed. It should spring back only a little bit. Like it should be feel like it's really filled with air and be relaxed and spring back
maybe halfway. That's kind of the poke test. If it springs back all the way, it's you're you're not even close. And if it springs back not at all, you've gone too far, basically. Amy Voj 9280, any tips for how to make a recipe your own? I always feel inspired to add my own twist to a recipe, spices, flavorings added, etc. But, I'm always nervous about affecting the integrity of the bake. Okay, really good question. In general, like adding spices to something, like you're not going to change you're not going to add so much that's going to throw anything off. Feel free to add spices. You can add zest, stuff like that. You could add an extract. All of that is that you're adding such small quantities of these
things that you're not going to really throw it off. If you're ever adding a ton of liquid, that's when you're probably going to throw it off. Any additional like liquid or like dry ingredient beyond like a small quantity of spices can throw it off. Anything that absorbs moisture or adds moisture can really throw a recipe. But, if you're just doing these like small tweaks or like if it calls for frozen blueberries and you're swapping in frozen raspberries, like the these are things that are kind of one-to-one. They're really not going to throw it off. So, I think you're fine. I would say experiment, and yeah, just know that in stuff like cakes and cookies, it's really the risk is really in adding
a lot of liquid. Koogley Puff asks, when creating recipes for your cookbooks, how many variations and revisions do you usually make before finalizing the recipe? Do you ever struggle to let a recipe go or does it feel natural to move on?" There isn't really a good answer because it depends. Sometimes it's a lot. Sometimes it's a one or two. Like the other night cuz I'm working on a savory book now, which is so different than a baking book. And so sometimes like you just nail it. It doesn't happen that often, but I made one last night and Harrison's like, "This is amazing. Like don't change a thing." I was like, "Awesome." And sometimes you're spinning your wheels for like four, five, six tests. As long as I'm seeing improvement
from test to test, like I'm getting closer to my desired outcome, I'll keep going. If it's getting worse or it's not getting better and I'm changing stuff, like I've learned to not get too attached to an idea because like it's just not worth the time and the ingredients to test it that many times. Sometimes it's like it just doesn't want to be a thing. So yeah, I've learned to let it go. But sometimes it's hard cuz like sometimes you really like an idea. But I always feel like I'll come back to it. Like it might not work this time, but I'll like I always keep all my cut recipes ideas somewhere. And I can revisit it. All right, that's it. I've always enjoyed reading and answering your questions on Dessert Person. It's
been a long time since I clarified, but these this is a great round of questions. So keep them coming. We're always interested to know like what are you wondering? What's tripping you up? What do you need help with? So thank you so much for watching and don't forget to like and subscribe. We'll see you next time.
