"BakeWise" Has Landed!
Everyone who knows Shirley Corriher and her work adores her. Gracious, kind, endearing, loving, generous, lively, often hilariously funny, and passionately devoted to sharing her culinary scientific discoveries and expertise, first with CookWise (William Morrow) and now with BakeWise (Scribner). Shirley has solved culinary conundrums for people all over the world from Julia Child to Proctor and Gamble.
Shirley’s invaluable uniqueness, beyond what I already mentioned, is that she is a balanced bridge between the theoretical and the empirical, i.e. she knows and loves the theory and she also knows and loves great food and how to make it that way. Which is how we became best friends over 25 years ago!
While the food world at large seemed fairly indifferent to scientific theories, Shirley and I were squealing with delight over discoveries that could make cooking and especially baking better. An example: on a visit to Shirley in Atlanta, after a swim at the nearby Cherokee Country Club, Shirley, in her soft adorably southern-accented voice shared her latest discover: “Rose…!” she began in a hushed voice and with great excitement, as if about to impart the secret to immortality (and in a way it was if you consider one’s work to be the one way to achieve it!) “Ah read in a scientific journal” she went on to confide “just wah bleached flowah makes a betta cake.” (If you don’t already know by now and are interested to find out read our books or do a search on this blog!) And then we laughed uproariously when we considered the probability that we were the only two ladies sitting by the pool having a discussion of this nature as opposed to perhaps the best brand of nail polish.
This week, over 80 people, some chefs, others professional or home bakers, filled the room at the Institute of Culinary Education, for an event organized by our esteemed colleague cookbook author Nick Malgieri to hear Shirley talk about her latest book BakeWise for which we have all eagerly been awaiting over 10 years. She highlighted some of the discoveries and theories in the book and of course there were baked samples as well. Shirley explained about balancing cake formulas and how ingredients like baking soda and corn syrup cause browning and can be counterbalanced by acid ingredients. She also gave a great deal of time to the all important ingredient flour. (By the way, our beloved Better for Bread/aka Harvest King is listed throughout the book but appears as Harvest King. It is the same flour repackaged and with a new name.) She explained how a higher protein flour makes loftier popovers and that the most important factor for these popovers is to have the batter hot when added to the preheated pan. I can’t wait to try this! She ensures that the batter is hot by holding back some of the liquid (cream in her recipe but it could be milk), bringing it almost to a boil, and then adding it to the batter right before baking. This is a perfect example of Shirley’s unique perspective and active imagination.
Another important gem is that Shirley adds a pinch of salt to most everything because it suppresses bitterness. She shared that her dear husband Arch, sitting in the audience, often adds a pinch of salt to Starbucks’ coffee when it is over-roasted (when isn’t it!) and I can tell you that my dear husband Elliott was actually advised by an employee at Starbucks to do the same! (It does work!) And how about this little nugget: “Holes in cake are caused by uneven distribution of the leavening. Be sure to mix the baking powder and/or baking soda very well with the flour!” How logical and obvious so why didn’t anyone else ever think of it?!
In the face of conventional wisdom, which dictates adding vanilla and other volatile flavorings at the end of mixing, Shirley advises adding them to the fat in the recipe explaining that fat is the best distributor of flavor. No doubt it also encapsulates and protects it.
As any scientist worth her salt (or sugar!), Shirley offers an extensive and well-researched and documented bibliography.There are many fabulous looking and sounding recipes in CookWise but even if you never made a single one (and you really had better at least make the gorgeous and crispy/fudgy Chocolate Crinkle Cookies on page 395) you will find this book invaluable on the path to becoming the baker of your dreams.