Dorie Greenspan - Baking with Dorie

Copyright 2021 by Dorie Greenspan

Photographs 2021 by Mark Weinberg

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhbooks.com

Book and cover design by Mia Johnson

Cover and author photography by Mark Weinberg

Food styling by Samantha Seneviratne

Prop styling by Brooke Dionarine

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Greenspan, Dorie, author. | Weinberg, Mark, other.

Title: Baking with Dorie : sweet, salty & simple / Dorie Greenspan ; photographs by Mark Weinberg.

Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021013014 (print) | LCCN 2021013015 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358223580 (hardback) | ISBN 9780358613336 (hardback) | ISBN 9780358212416 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Baking. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

Classification: LCC TX763 .G6539 2021 (print) | LCC TX763 (ebook) | DDC 641.81/5dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021013014

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021013015

v1.0921

FOR GEMMA, OF COURSE.

Contents

W hen the printers bind the covers to this book, Ill celebrate thirty years of cookbookery, as Julia Child used to call what we do. And, yes, therell be cake. And therell be toasts to all the people whove encouraged and inspired me and made my work better over the decades, and to the group that did so much to bring this book to life.

Im fortunate beyond measure to be surrounded, once again, by people whose talents are matched only by their willingness to share them with me. For years now, Rux Martin, my editor; David Black, my agent; Mary Dodd, my recipe tester; Judith Sutton, who has copyedited thirteen of my fourteen books; and Carrie Bachman, publicist, and I have been together. Its rare to have a great team, rarer to have one that endures, and Im grateful to each of you. And Im delighted to now count Sarah Kwak among us. Sarah, who worked with Rux on my last two books, has now taken the reins on this one.

I loved working with the extraordinary artists who made the images for this book: Mark Weinberg, photographer; Samantha Seneviratne, food stylist; Brooke Deonarine, prop stylist; and Laura Manzano, assistant food stylist. I loved their commitment to the book and to each otherevery voice was heard, every idea considered, then reconsidered and then looked at once more to be sure each photograph was the best it could possibly be. Thank you for being so open, so eager and so generous.

And how wonderful it was to once again have Melissa Lotfy as the art director on my book. She and designer Mia Johnson created a book that made the spirit of my recipes real. Theyre both geniuses and mindreaders.

When you work on a cookbook, especially when youre lucky enough to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, youre never alonethere is a battalion of experts behind you. Thank you, Deb Brody and Karen Murgolo, for believing in me and my ideas. Thank you to Marina Padakis Lowry, for being the ghostbuster of errors. To Crystal Paquette, for keeping the production wheels rolling. To Andrea DeWerd, for marketing, and Bridget Nocera, for publicity.

Creating recipes, baking them and writing about them is pretty sweet, but its not without a bump here and there. It touches me deeply that my friends have stuck with me whether the times were as smooth as chocolate glaze, as knotty as Twist Bread or as bumpy as a Chunklet. A bundle of bisous to my friend, the writer Nina Brickman, whose timing is impeccablejust when you need counsel most, she appears like a good fairy offering equal parts wisdom and hilarity. Love and wonder to Louise Penny, whose gift for friendship is as great as her gift for writingIm not sure how she managed to write two stunningly good novels while sending hundreds of smart, funny, insightful and perfectly punctuated emails to me, but Im so glad that she did. And bushels of hugs to my generous friends Leslie Gill, Ellen Madere, Priscilla Martel and Meg Zimbeckit means everything to me to have you in my life. Special thanks to my friend Ann Mah, who casually suggested I write a cookbook with some savories in ityour short message was the seed.

My endless thanks to the countless home bakers who find happiness in the kitchen. Special thanks to the members of Tuesdays with Dorie, who have baked through many of my cookbookswhat you do is remarkable. Hugs to Laurie Woodward, who started the group so long ago, and to Stephanie Whitten and Julie Schaeffer, who keep it going. And an extra cookie to Mardi Michels, who hasnt missed a recipe in over a decade, and to Mary French Fridays with Dorie Hirsch.

As alwaysand for alwaysits my family that sustains me. They are my world. First there was Michael, my husband. Then Joshua, our son. And Linling Tao, our daughter-in-law. And now, theres Gemma, sparkling Gemma, the sweetest sweet ever.

T he idea for this book was born on a family trip to Santa Barbara. The first morning I was there, I got up early, drove to a nearby caf and got a cappuccino and a wedge-shaped cheddar scone, studded with bits of scallion and fragrant from butter and warm cheese. That was more than three years and 150 recipes ago, the first of which was my version of that scone, followed by a band of breads and muffins, biscuits, more scones and some morning cakes to keep it company.

Over those years, I worked on the kinds of recipes I love most, recipes that are simple, rely on basic techniques and have deep flavors and complex textures. I created recipes that are flexible, that allow you to play with them, swap ingredients, fancy them up with icing or leave them bare, their natural color their own decoration. And, since I love surprises, I built them into lots of the recipes. Im happiest when a recipe that looks familiar harbors something unexpected, which is why, for example, I tucked the sassy brightness of fresh cranberries into spice bars reminiscent of gingerbread. And if almost everything about a recipe is surprising, so much the better. Thats the story with the . Its big, tall, ready for a crowd and birthday candles; it has three flavors of ice cream and the usual graham crackers, but it also has frozen hot fudge sauce and a peanut butter and marshmallow fluff that would steal the show if the rest of the cake werent so spectacular.

As I worked, one recipe inspired another, or one brought back a memory of another, and a few sparked questions that sent me skittering down paths that often led to revelations. Can there really be something new when it comes to chocolate chip cookies? Yes! Try with chocolate and poppy seeds or my take on the latest trend in Paris: cookies with extravagant toppings. Must babka, that rich yeasted loaf usually swirled around a chocolaty filling, be sweet? No! It can be made with cheese and a salty streusel thats so good it can be a snack on its own. Can you bake muesli into a Bundt cake? Yesits great! Can the dough that we use for cream puffs, clairs and profiterolesone of my favorite doughsbe stretched out long and thin, like breadsticks? And can they be sweet or salty? And will they look and taste like something completely new? Yes, yes and yes.