Michael Ruhlman » Desserts

Rhubarb Walnut Crumble Pie

Michael Ruhlman — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:28:09 +0000

Lisa Ludwinski, 29, is a baker and cook living in Ferndale, Michigan. She recently returned to the Great Lakes State after a six-year stint eating bagels, nannying, and mixing many pounds of cookie dough in Brooklyn, finishing with stints at Momofuku Milk Bar and Four and Twenty Blackbirds. Now she is the owner of Sister Pie, a from-scratch home bakery serving the Detroit area via the Facebook page, and aims to celebrate the seasons with pie and other sweets through unique interpretations and natural ingredients. For now, she's able to bake pies from home for sale under Michigan's Cottage Food Law, but her goal is to open a full-service breakfast/lunch/pie shop. Here she offers her take on one of my favorite pies. I like to make a lattice top, which allows all of the moisture to escape efficiently (and ...

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Final Word on Battle of the Spoons(with Crème Anglaise)

Michael Ruhlman — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:13:41 +0000

A perfect crème anglaise. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.
The television personality and cookbook author Ted Allen stirred up a shit storm this week by calling me out on my hatred of the round wooden spoon, which he apparently has the hots for. He happened to mention our exchange at a City Harvest event to Eric Ripert, executive chef of Le Bernardin, one of the finest restaurants in the country, with whom I’ve worked closely, who added a little more caca to the pot by tweeting "Crème anglaise? Since the days of Escoffier, stir with a wood spoon, Ruhlman." He then phoned me to further faire caca into my cell phone until he conceded that it was the wood, not a round wood spoon, then was evasive, said a client ...
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Bread Pudding

Michael Ruhlman — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:11:09 +0000

Cinnamon raisin bread pudding
Still recovering from 10 days of Key West fine food and postprandial debauchery, I’m giving my site over today to my friend Stephanie Stiavetti (@sstiavetti), who writes The Culinary Life blog, and whose first book, Melt, will be published next year by Little, Brown (a fine book to which I happily contributed the introduction). I'll be back on Friday with a Key West–inspired cocktail to combat the winter grays. Take it away, Steph, and thanks for keeping it simple and discussing a critical cooking technique!—M.R. by Stephanie Stiavetti Bread pudding needn't be complicated. At its core, custard is a straightforward dish consisting of cream and egg yolks. For a sweet custard you add sugar, alongside tiny, fragrant vanilla beans (usually), and that's about as fussy as it gets. The best bread puddings ...
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Cookies for the Holidays!

Michael Ruhlman — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:47:43 +0000

Holiday cookie time. Photo by Emilia Juocys
I'm a cook, not a baker. There are few professional chefs who are both. Cory Barrett, formerly of Cleveland's Lola, was its pastry chef and then its chef de cuisine, very rare. Michel Richard is an anomaly in being both a world-class pastry chef and a dazzlingly ingenious savory cook, as his book Happy in the Kitchen shows (I highly recommend this book, by the way, and his restaurants). That savory cooks and pastry cooks are different creatures is also why writing the new best-selling Thomas Keller book, the Bouchon Bakery Cookbook—stunning in its recipes, photography, and design—was both so hard and so exciting for me, as I tried to understand the whys behind the craft of baking and pastries and write about them through executive ...
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Snickerdoodle: The Perfect Cookie (Almost Always)

Michael Ruhlman — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:04:47 +0000

Snickerdoodles/photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman
Dear Mr. Ruhlman, the email read. It was the very first one waiting for me this morning. And glancing quickly down and seeing a single word, my stomach turned. I have been a fan since Ratio, the writer continued. It is my first stop on the cookbook train. I got Ruhlman's Twenty for a gift and was over the moon, have read it cover to cover. And what's more I have tried several of the recipes with success. But seriously, the Snickerdoodles? One of the best cookies of all time and got my kids all worked up into a lather to make some tonight . . . but I have to say, yuck. Sugar bomb! We doubled the recipe because you can never have enough Snickerdoodles . . . 3 cups of sugar to ...
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Salted Caramel

Emilia — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:19:02 +0000

Salt on Caramel = Heaven/Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman
Originally posted on June 29, 2011 Been so busy recently have scarcely had time to post. Just got back from taking James to camp :( My chief videographer and dessert innovator. I was in Boston talking salt on Simply Ming. I was in NYC working on confections with Bouchon Bakery head chef Sebastien Rouxel and putting together a pitch for a chef drama with some friends. I came home to find agreat new ice cream book from Ohio's own Jeni Britton Bauer! Salt, sweets, ice cream, and an unused photo donna shot for the new book due out in fall: salted-caramel! Of course. Caramel is one of those awesome no brainer dessert sauces that more people ought to do at home. Takes 10 minutes tops, uses inexpensive ingredients, ...
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Guest Post: Carri’s Bacon Truffles

Michael Ruhlman — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 21:21:01 +0000

Bacon truffle presented two ways. Photo by Carri Thurman
Carri Thurman has been a friend since she traveled from her home in Homer, Alaska, to visit her fellow Homerian, Daniel Coyle, author and journalist who'd moved to Cleveland with his Cleveland-born wife—bless you, Dan! (His last book was The Talent Code, fascinating look into how talent is developed.) Carri runs Two Sisters Bakery in Homer, and she offers here some fabulous confections for the holidays, right up our alley, proving once again that chocolate, like life, is better with bacon. James and I will be making these as soon as school lets out. Thanks for sharing, Carri, and for all the helpful step-by-step pix! —MR by Carri Thurman Bacon and chocolate may be a passing fad ...
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Holiday Cookie Time

Emilia — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:13:31 +0000

My collection of holiday cookies. Photo by E. Juocys
Guest post from My Girl Friday, who loves loves loves cookies—M.R. by Emilia Juocys December is here and it is time to bake cookies. It is not as easy of a task as one might think it is. I spend about two days thinking of the combination of cookies that I will be baking and presenting for Christmas. I review classic cookies that I make year round, seasonal cookies, and ones that take a bit longer to make. My labor of love are these cookies. The two dozen that make it in the box to share with friends, loved ones, and co-workers. This is my way to share my skill and love of baking with those around me. This year will be a more meaningful Christmas baking season since my mentor has ...
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Chicago, XOCO & Chocolate

Michael Ruhlman — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:05:08 +0000

I'm such a homebody, I dread book tour trips and typically stress about them, and I nearly always return thrilled to have gone and surprised and amazed by what I encountered. Last week was Chicago and the schedule was so tight that I took a taxi from O'Hare straight to the Chicago Tribune's test kitchen where Monica Eng, formerly a food reporter now on the investigative beat, reverted to her former purview to join me in making an easy Coq au Vin from Ruhlman's Twenty (I forgot how good it was till I tasted it—haven't made it since Donna took the pix). I had time for a quick lunch after across the street at The Purple Pig (pig ears and the artichokes), excellent casual place recommended by a twitter friend. That night there was ...
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Snickerdoodle Fix

Michael Ruhlman — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:22:38 +0000

Snickerdoodles/photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman
It turns the stomach, the kind of email Marlene sent me over the weekend. Marlene who runs the cooking site CooksKorner said that one of Ruhlman's Twenty recipe testers, Matthew Kayahara, had done a 4x recipe of the cookies in the book (page 161), the basic cinnamon-sugar cookie, and it was badly out of whack. Indeed, when Marlene checked what was in the book, she found that the published recipe contained three times the amount of granulated sugar it should have. It's a book writer's nightmare. It also reminds me what a great thing an ebook is or an app that updates on your device automatically. But there is some small recourse. I can announce the error here and publish a correction. Here it is, the tested and true snickerdoodle recipe, based ...
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Salted Caramel

Michael Ruhlman — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:14:56 +0000

Salt on Caramel = Heaven/Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman
Been so busy recently have scarcely had time to post. Just got back from taking James to camp :( My chief videographer and dessert innovator. I was in Boston talking salt on Simply Ming. I was in NYC working on confections with Bouchon Bakery head chef Sebastien Rouxel and putting together a pitch for a chef drama with some friends. I came home to find a great new ice cream book from Ohio's own Jeni Britton Bauer! Salt, sweets, ice cream, and an unused photo donna shot for the new book due out in fall: salted-caramel! Of course. Caramel is one of those awesome no brainer dessert sauces that more people ought to do at home. Takes 10 minutes tops, uses inexpensive ingredients, and ...
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Update: Bouchon Bakery Cookbook

Michael Ruhlman — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:31:39 +0000

I've spent nearly a week in the Napa Valley working on the Bouchon Bakery Cookbook. This will be the fifth book in a series led by Thomas Keller that began with The French Laundry Cookbook which is one of the best chef-restaurant cookbooks ever (do we need full dislosure here?). Forget the words I write—these books are truly fine and costly productions, and I think it's important for people to know what goes into books of this magnitude, because so often people don't know. A team of people, from the many at Artisan, an imprint of Workman Publishing, who make beautiful books, to the commis at the restaurants who scale out the mise en place for the recipes for the chefs, and all those in between, including myself. In 1997, I flew out here to have dinner at the French Laundry and meet Chef Keller, ...
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Cookulus

Michael Ruhlman — Tue, 31 May 2011 13:41:51 +0000

Two cookies made from the same recipe app/Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman
Last week I asked what makes a great app? Andrew Schloss, a cook, teacher and author of numerous books, offers his answer below. Andrew has created a truly innovative cooking app, called Cookulus. His plans are to create a series of interactive recipes that can be used by Cookulus but for now, he and his collaborators have started smart and small, applying the Cookulus algorithm to the chocolate chip cookie. I recommend this app even if you don't actually bake a cookie from it, just for the fascination of watching the recipe adjust itself as you slide your fingers along the bars (I bought it for $2.99, but he and his collaborator, Max Minkoff, reduced the price to a ridiculous ...
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NYC Notes: Bouchon Bakery Cookbook Begins

Michael Ruhlman — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:11:02 +0000

Bouchon Bakery croissants, all photos by my iPhone
I spent the first week of March in Manhattan digging into the work of writing The Bouchon Bakery Cookbook with Thomas Keller and executive chef Sebastien Rouxel, whom Keller calls "easily one of the 10 best pastry chefs in the country." This project is especially exciting to me because I've spent my whole culinary career on the savory side and in hot kitchens and my knowledge of pastry is rudimentary. It's very exciting to be able to explore a whole knew culinary world, and to do it with someone as knowledgeable as Sebastien and his team. Get ready for the opening of their stand alone bakery next month at Rockefeller Center—it's frigging gorgeous, design of course by Tihany. In addition to the interviews and discussions with I had about the ...
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A New Ratio: Biscotti

Michael Ruhlman — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:16:19 +0000

Biscotti, photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman
Biscotti is the perfect accompaniment mid-morning when I'm into my fifth or sixth cup of coffee. I drink coffee all morning long and I'm able to do so because I don't use one of those horrible drip machines, but rather what I think of as my personal 1956 Lincoln Continental of a coffee machine. The problem has always been that I've never really liked biscotti. Maybe because I've only ever had the stuff that comes in a gift basket from Gallucci's (a store I adore). Or the one time I tried to make it myself. It was rock hard and tasteless, so I figured I'd done a perfect job. But a while back, someone asked for a biscotti recipe, perhaps even a ratio. My able colleague Emilia Juocys was ...
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Holiday Cookie Challenge Results

Michael Ruhlman — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:48:24 +0000

Congratulations on the holiday cookie recipe challenge to Bryony DuPont of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, whose spice cookies wins the drop cookie category, and to Robin Cohen of Arlington, Massachusetts, author of the dovesandfigs blog, who's Rugalach wins the cut cookie category. I assure you that my affection for Cleveland Heights and my affection for people who cook with goosefat (see Robin's current post), did not weigh into the verdict (cookies above, photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman, thanks Donna!). The cookies were executed and evaluated by Marlene Newell and several bakers at her site CooksKorner: Dana Noffsinger, Kim Shook (she has public virtual recipe book here), Kerry Beal, aka The Chocolate Doctor, and Anna Serginson. Thank you all! My able assistant Emilia Juocys, also a primary tester, tabulated all results on a spread sheet. ...
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Holiday Cookie Challenge

Michael Ruhlman — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 20:18:41 +0000

Two important introductions today, the first is a contest, a Holiday Cookie Challenge (more about Gourmet's newly published book below). And the second is an introduction to a culinary colleague who has begun helping me out, keeping me organized, preventing my brain from exploding all over my computer screen. Emilia Juocys (pronounced YO-chess, Lithuanian background), graduated from Schoolcraft College's culinary arts program and proved so valuable in helping Brian Polcyn (her former chef instructor at Schoolcraft) and me with the new Salumi book that I've asked her to spend part of her work week helping me. While Ratio has gone a long way in making me understand the baking kitchen, I'm still a savory guy at heart, but I'm thrilled to introduce Emilia's love of cookies and her challenge to bakers with ...
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Scottish Shortbread

Michael Ruhlman — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:14:21 +0000

Shortbread, photo by Donna
Seventeen years ago, my friend Stephanie began a Burns' night celebration, in honor of her Scottish heritage, and we carry it on still, an occasion to gather a group, once all in Cleveland but now half dispersed. We tour the highlands, as it were, and I address the haggis— "Fair fa your honest soncie face/Great chieftan o' the puddin race" —thrusting the knife in at the appropriate "warm-reeking" moment. But Stephanie had arrived as well with her grandmother's shortbread, and the book from which it comes. Having coincidentally been making various versions of shortbread for a current project, I was particularly interested in hers. Shortbread is the simplest of preparations, flour, butter and sugar and in that simplicity is its deliciousness. Also, it couldn't be easier or faster. Boxed pancake mix ...
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Vanilla Sugar

Michael Ruhlman — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:26:44 +0000

Vanilla pods, packed in sugar, photo by Donna
James and I made popovers Sunday morning and sprinkled them with vanilla sugar, and this sugar made the popovers appealing in a surprisingly effective way. Like fleur de sel on caramel. It brought the flavors and textures together without overtly calling attention to itself. When I’d posted a while ago in a recipe to discard the vanilla bean, I got what amounted to a scolding from Shuna, who found it appalling that one could so easily waste an opportunity for the pleasures of vanilla sugar. She was right to scold. I had never really taken the time to appreciate the wonderful aromatic flavor of sugar but now I always will. It deserves a place in the spice rack. That it is ...
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Creme Anglaise: Cream or No Cream?

Michael Ruhlman — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:21:30 +0000

David Lebovitz's chocolate cake with milk-only creme Anglaise, photo by Donna
“There’s no cream in anglaise sauce,” the beachcomber said. He spoke with what sounded like genuine disdain. “What do you mean there’s no cream?” said I, waves lapping at my ankles, cold mojito in hand. “There’s no cream.” “How do you know?” The man paused as if this were self-evident. “Alice told me.” The man was David Lebovitz, for many years a chef at Chez Panisse. (David just emailed to clarify: Alice did not say cream was verboten, but rather that she liked a very thin Anglaise.) Our conversation did not devolve into a Thomas-said, Alice-said schoolboy spat, though it did make clear that vanilla sauce, crème Anglaise, deserved another post. I wrote Vanilla Sauce In Black ...
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