My publisher, Bulfinch Press, asked me to write a short essay about what I learned while putting my book together. It’s available on their website , but here it is:

About two years ago, during the time when I was first contemplating writing The Sweet Life, I was in the process of rolling pate sucree, sweet tart dough, on a stainless steel worktable while simultaneously trying to explain to a pastry intern at Chanterelle how to whip egg whites for a batch of Goat Cheese and Basil Souffles. Standing right next to her, but admittedly with my attention somewhat divided, I was walking her through the process of whipping egg whites, as she looked into the mixer’s bowl, cream of tartar in one hand, sugar in the other. What I wanted her to produce was a shiny, voluminous, smooth meringue with stiff peaks. To get them to that stage you need to add acid and sugar at specific moments. I thought I’d be able to explain to her, without peeking into the bowl, what to look for: how to know when to add the cream of tartar, when to add the numerous teaspoons of sugar, at what speed to whip the eggs, and, most importantly, when to stop.

It didn’t work. What I got instead was a bowl full of chunky, mealy egg whites that were leaking liquid: classic overbeaten egg whites, which, if I tried to use for the soufflés, would produce a dessert with big white hunks in a barely risen soufflé that would be runny and unpleasant. So we did it again, and I stood next to her, looking into the bowl.

This experience stayed with me when I set out to write The Sweet Life. If I wasn’t able to verbally explain the steps needed to whip up egg whites, how would I manage to instruct a reader whose bowl I certainly wouldn’t be able to look into?

I recognized that, when I whip a bowl of egg whites, I’m looking for subtle visual and sensual clues that key me into coaxing a meringue to take shape with maximum volume, a lustrous shine, a homogenous texture, and a stiff mountain of peaks. But these clues are not explicit; they’re experiential and ephemeral, and almost impossible to write down without a broader context. That context, I realized, was what is actually happening to the egg white proteins on a chemical level. If I could better understand why egg whites whip - and why acid and sugar and the right agitating tool used at the right speed are needed - maybe I could really teach a far away reader how to do it without needing to check on her results.

So, I began studying some of the chemistry of the pastry kitchen. I had a lot of help, from classic books like Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking and Shirley Corriher’s CookWise, as well as from Kirsten Hubbard, a culinary student of mine who turned out to be a physicist with a burgeoning interest in food science. It was in the process of writing this all down, making it explicit and clear in decent English, that I really came to understand what has always been happening in my stainless steel bowls when I’m whipping egg whites.

Writing this book has made me an immeasurably better pastry chef: it’s aroused so much curiosity and desire to explicate the experiences I have in the pastry kitchen. Really, it’s the people who’ll cook from my book that I have to thank for this, and I hope that by reading The Sweet Life they’ll sense me standing next to them, looking into their bowls, watching for the clues that hopefully are no longer so mysterious.

Copyright © 2006 by Kate Zuckerman

I haven’t had much time to post to the blog in the last week, since there have been a lot of live promotional events for the book, including a 45 minute demo at the wildly well-attended Chocolate Show here in New York this past Sunday.

But catching up on what’s happening on-line, I found this lovely post about my book and my Apple and Quince Tart recipe, filled with absolutely beautiful photos, by Bea, proprietress of La Tartine Gourmande.

Your greatest hope when you write a book like The Sweet Life is that your readers will actually make and enjoy your recipes. Seeing my tarts brought to life by one of my readers is a truly wonderful feeling, and I’m so grateful to Bea and to all my other readers for welcoming me into their kitchens.

Here’s one of Bea’s gorgeous photos of the Apple and Quince Tarts:

Thanks, Bea!

Tuesday’s Women’s Wear Daily ran a very nice profile of me. Here it is:

Just Desserts
By Emily Holt
NEW YORK — When she’s not picking figs and quinces from the trees in her Brooklyn yard, pastry chef Kate Zuckerman is whipping up sophisticated desserts like raspberry lemon verbena napolean for the refined palettes at Chanterelle in TriBeCa.

And she traces a similar path in her first cookbook, “The Sweet Life,” out now from Bulfinch Press. Alongside recipes for passion fruit glacés and hazelnut cake, Zuckerman, a former anthropology student, offers helpful scientific and horticultural tips on ingredients and how they react with other foods in the baking process. “I enjoy researching topics that are very familiar to people,” she says. “It’s what I like to do with food — talk about things you use every day and sort of dig them up a little.”

Zuckerman started cooking for her two older brothers. “They’re both very tall and have endless appetites, so when they were in high school, I made my way through Maida Heatter’s ‘Great Book of Desserts,’ recipe by recipe.”

The petite mother of two has now moved on to baking for her own children — and sweets are on the menu, despite the current vogue to put children on strict sugar-free diets. “My son loves these malted meringues with gooey milk chocolate, sort of glorified Whoppers,” she says. “He’s really picky and only likes chocolate. But my four-year-old daughter surprises me” in terms of what she’ll try.

The kids aren’t just willing taste testers, they’re also hands-on. “We just made an apple tart this weekend, with brown butter and vanilla bean and fig and apples,” she says. “I usually lay out the apples in beautiful rows, but they wanted to do something, so I just let them. It looked terrible.”

And, of course, Zuckerman is still learning herself. “If I went back to college now, I’d study chemistry,” she says. “I know I have to beat egg whites on the first day that I crack them open to get panna cotta to set….Cooking to me is about doing things over and over again and seeing subtleties. A home cook doesn’t have that opportunity, so you really need to give them an idea of what you’re experiencing as a chef.”

One tip she can offer for the layman or -woman: In case of a disaster, like the all-too-common fallen soufflé, there’s nothing to be done but to eat it. “It still tastes good,” she swears. “A lot of people serve fallen soufflé. It’s just like a warm pudding.”

Holly Brubach wrote the loveliest review of The Sweet Life in today’s New York Times T Style Magazine, along with reviews of Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours and Rose Carrarini’s Breakfast, Lunch, Tea.

One highlight: “The acclaimed pastry chef for a renowned culinary destination, Zuckerman proves a remarkably patient and thoughtful mentor when it comes to shepherding us perennial amateurs through processes that to her are surely second nature. … Fascinating and informative.”

The article also includes a version of my Apple and Quince Tart from the book.

Thanks, Holly!

One thing I’d hoping to do with the blog is to post new recipes here exclusively from time to time. Everyone likes the flavor of pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, but I prefer the texture of this chiffon pie in a cookie crumb crust as opposed to the traditional heavy, eggy pumpkin custard pie with a plain crust, often underbaked and gluey.

The pumpkin mousse in this pie is light, creamy, spicy, full of pumpkin flavor. It’s lightness is particularly appealing after a big, heavy Thanksgiving meal. I make this one every year, along with an apple pie cooked with figs and vanilla, the same flavors as the Roasted Apples from the book.

I’ve included a recipe for delicious gingersnap cookies if you want to go whole hog and make your own cookies for the crumb crust, but feel free to buy any crunchy cookie — chocolate or vanilla wafers, ginger cookies, pecan sandies, or graham crackers, as examples — and use instead of making the gingersnaps.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Pumpkin Chiffon Pie

Yield: Two 9-inch pies

For the crumb crust

3 1/2 cups ground Gingersnap cookie crumbs (recipe below) or any crisp cookie crumbs
8 tablespoons melted butter

Make the crumb crust
Spray or butter two nine inch pie pans. Grind the cookies in a food processor as finely as possible. Toss the crumbs with the melted butter and press them into the greased pie pans. (If you are making only one pie crust, you need 1 3/4 cup crumbs combined with 4 tablespoons melted butter.) Bake the crusts in a 350 degree oven for 18 minutes. Allow the crusts to cool.

For the pumpkin mousse filling

1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons powdered gelatin
7 egg yolks
3/4 cup maple syrup
3 tablespoons rum
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground clove
3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups pumpkin puree
4 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 cup sugar
3 1/2 cups heavy cream

Soak the gelatin
In a small bowl dissolve the powdered gelatin in 1/3 cup of cold water.

Make a rum spiced sabayon mousse base
Place a pot of water (1” deep) on the stove over medium-high heat. Whisk yolks with maple syrup in a medium stainless steel bowl that will fit over the boiling water, functioning as a double boiler. Whisk in rum, salt and spices and place the bowl over the double boiler. Whisk briskly for about five to ten minutes until the mixture has thickened, tripled in volume and holds the lines of the whisk for 10 seconds. Remove bowl from heat.

Dissolve the gelatin and add the pumpkin puree
Add the moistened gelatin and whisk until the gelatin melts into the mousse base. Whisk in the pumpkin puree.

Whip the cream and the egg whites
Whip 1 1/2 cups of cream until it has soft peaks. Set it aside. In a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, begin whipping the egg whites on a medium high speed until the whites have become frothed and are no longer liquid. Add the cream of tartar. Whip for another minute and then begin adding the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time. After each addition of sugar, whip on this same medium high speed for one to one and a half minutes. After you have added all the sugar, whip until the egg whites are shiny, smooth, voluminous and holds firm but not dry and stiff peaks.

Incorporate the cream and egg whites into the mousse base
Scrape the lightly whipped cream over the spiced egg yolk and pumpkin sabayon. Fold these two mixtures together with a spatula or bowl scraper. Make sure you place your spatula in the center of the bowl, scrape the bottom and bring the bottom over the top. Rotate the bowl 45 degrees and repeat this motion. Continue folding mixture together until all the cream is incorporated. Repeat this process with the whipped egg whites. Fold the egg whites into the mousse until it is completely incorporated.

Finish the pies
Divide the finished mousse evenly between the two crumb crusts. Refrigerate and allow the mousse to set. Before serving the pies, whip two cups of cream. Spread the cream over the two pies with a spatula. Garnish the pies with a tablespoon of crushed cookie crumbs, some sifted cinnamon, some shaved chocolate or some cocoa powder.

Gingersnap Cookies

9 tablespoons. butter
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup + 2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground clove
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons molasses
1/2 cup sugar in the raw

Cream the butter and incorporate the eggs
Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or a hand mixer, beat the butter on a medium speed for one minute. Add the brown sugar, and cream the butter with the sugar until it lightens in color significantly and increases in volume (6-8 minutes). Add the egg and beat it until incorporated.

Add the dry ingredients and molasses
Put all your dry ingredients in a bowl and toss them together with a dry whisk. Using a rubber spatula, fold the dry ingredients, in one or two turns, into egg-butter mixture. Once the mixture is partially folded together, turn the machine on and mix on a slow speed for one minute until all the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Add the molasses and mix on a low speed until the syrup is incorporated. Cover or wrap the dough and refrigerate it.

Bake the cookies
A half hour before baking the cookies, preheat your oven to 350.

Place the raw sugar in a small bowl. Pinch off 1 1/2 inch pieces from the batter, and roll into balls. Drop the balls into the sugar and roll each ball around in the sugar until they are covered in sugar. Place the cookies on the prepared sheet two inches apart and press your thumb in the center of each cookie to flatten them a bit.

Bake these cookies for 20 minutes at 350. The cookies should spread, rise, fall, crack a bit and take on a dark golden brown color. The cookies for this crumb crust should be crisp all the way through. If you are making only one pie crust and you are baking some cookies to eat, bake them for 12-15 minutes, yielding a chewy center and a lighter color.

© Kate Zuckerman 2006

Over at Savory Tidbits, Melody Lan has a play-by-play of my recent workshop at PastryScoop’s 2006 conference, along with write-ups of Alex Stupak’s and Johnny Iuzzini’s events. She’s also posted my Caramel Mousse recipe and had some nice words to say about the whole day. Glad you had such a good time, Melody!

Over at Taste Everything Once, they took a crack at making my Spiced Apple and Sour Cream Cake. The results were tasty but explosive according to the blog.

If you’re baking these as muffins or mini-cakes, I would recommend making sure not to fill the molds more than 1/2 way. In the book, I suggest dividing evenly among a dozen molds, but it’s quite possible that some molds are bigger than others. So long as you’re not filling past the midpoint of a mold, you shouldn’t end up with apple cake on everything, a problem I’ve had before myself.

Most of the books were shipped with an important errata notice concerning the Honey-Glazed Roasted Pears (featured on the front cover of the book). Here’s the errata notice, in case your copy didn’t have it.

Errata

Page 176

Honey-Glazed Roasted Pears

Please note a missing ingredient in the Prepare the pears step, listed here in bold:

Place the pears in a roasting pan and add the remaining ingredients, including the lemon zest and 2 ½ cups of water.

Here’s a link to my first ever live national TV appearance, on the CBS Early Show.

Thanks to Hannah Storm for making it so easy and being such a gracious host! And thanks as well to the whole team at the show.

They’ve also put up a mini-site with some recipes from the book.

Meg Hourihan over at Megnut has just posted a lovely review of The Sweet Life. Her conclusion: “‘The Sweet Life’ will no doubt become the go-to dessert guide whenever I want to cook up something sweet.” Thanks, Meg!