Ann Reardon - How to Cook That

Praise for Ann Reardon
and How to Cook That

Ann Reardon is one of the sweetest bakers on YouTube. Her experience as a food scientist takes her confections to the next levelthey are as creative as they are delicious. You will thoroughly enjoy every mouth-watering page of her first cookbook.

Rosanna Pansino (Nerdy Nummies)

Ann Reardon was a food scientist and a dietician before creating her massively popular channel called How to Cook That. Reardon focuses mainly on desserts, including novelty cakes and complicated baking techniques. She also teaches people how to fix baking fails and turn them into beautiful dessert creations.

Vogue

How to Cook That is the most popular Australian cooking channel in all the world, and its not hard to see why. Any sweet tooth would be entranced by Anns videos documenting her creations, which cover all things dessert, from cake to chocolate.

Popsugar

Ann Reardon is a food scientist, which is sort of like being a chef who knows not only how to cook but why the things youre doing in the kitchen happen the way they do.

The Blemish

Australias Queen of Desserts.

The Sydney Morning Herald

Contents

The top shelf of my studio pantry is just for chocolate! The one below has containers brimming with sweet confections, then theres a range of flours, sugars, cocoa powder and on the bottom shelffondant, sprinkles, edible gold and gel food colors for cake d ecorating.

This may all seem rather strange for a dietician! But I always remember my university lecturers advice: if youre going to have chocolate, then make sure its only a small amount and top quality, rather than lots of cheap junk. In other words, you can still enjoy good health without completely sacrificing dessert. But because you can only have a small amount, ensure that your occasional sweet treat is truly delicious!

That idea set me off on a quest to find the best-tasting desserts, many of which now grace the pages of this book. An unexpected bonus is that Ive found beautiful baking also builds a sense of community, as family and friends are always excited to pop over for a slice of my latest sweet creation. (Although in the case of a Giant Ice Cream Sandwich, youll probably need a party.)

Sweet food and baking have always interested me far more than savory dishes. I think they appeal to my creative side, my sweet tooth, and the food scientist in me. Little changes in baking recipes can have a huge effect on flavor and texture. Some people see that as a difficulty but I see it as a challenge. How much can I bend the rules, tweak the ingredients and experiment to make a better version of the recipeor create something compl etely new?

Some time ago, I was looking through my mums bookshelf and found a two-hundred-year-old cookbook. I gently held this piece of culinary history; its pages were stained with age and the cover was falling apart. I have since made many desserts from that book, including a fruit mince pie with meat in it and strawberry ice cream with bugs! As I began researching old cookbooks and their authors, I found myself inspired to write my own. Yes, I have a website and a YouTube channel with hundreds of episodes, but there is something special about a bookthe permanency of print. A website can be hacked, and YouTube may be long gone in two hundred years. But a bookthis bookwell, Id love to think that it is a small slice of history to be enjoyed right now, shared with friends and eventually passed on to the next g eneration.

Whether youre an expert or a beginner in the kitchen, we all need a handful of simple but impressive dishes in our repertoire. These are guaranteed crowd-pleasers; it doesnt require a lot of baking experience to create somethi ng lovely.

Over the years, Ive come to realize that my recipes are enjoyed by people with a wide range of culinary skills, from qualified chefs to mums, dads, and eager children who often send pictures of their amazing cakes and desserts.

I believe that baking should be accessible and enjoyed by all. So if you are a beginner then this chapter is a good place to start. Perhaps next, you can go through and choose to make just one element of a more complex dessert, like the chocolate mousse in the spiral chocolate caramel domes (page 58) or the caramel sauce in the melting chocolate 'n' peanut ball (page 62).

Dont give up if you make a mistake. As Thomas Edison once said of his long journey to inventing the light bulb, we dont fail, we just learn one more way not to do it. Ive certainly learnt plenty of ways not to do things. I have seized chocolate, burnt caramel, and forgotten to add baking powder to a cake. I have messed up my microwave and smoked out my kitchen, and Ive even watched sadly as I defrosted an elaborate 3D cake and the fondant slowly melted before my eyes. (My takeaway lesson from that occasion: dont freeze fondant covered cakes!) Just keep trying and youll become a better bak er for it.

A delightful dessert served in mini ceramic plant pots, creating a fresh and fun garden vibe. Dig in, literally, and enjoy the Mint Chocolate Mousse below the Oreo soil.

Makes 6.

Mousse

12 Oreos (133 g / 4.7 oz)

1 cups (400 mL / 13.5 fl oz) heavy cream (35 percent fat)

A few drops of peppermint essence

Decoration

6 Oreos (65 g / 2.3 oz)

6 sprigs of mint

Mousse

Place the Oreos and cream into a bowl, ensuring the cookies are completely covered. Seal the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Using an electric mixer, whip on high speed to form a thick mousse. Stir in the peppermint essence and spoon the mousse into 6 small serving dishes, flattening the top of each one.

Decoration

Place the Oreos into a Ziploc bag and crush them using a rolling pin until the powder resembles soil. (Dont remove the Oreos filling beforehand as it helps make a moist soil texture.) You can use a food processor for this step if y ou prefer.

Top each mousse with crushed Oreos and add a sprig of mint to the center of each just befor e serving.

Video tutorial for this recipe can be found at howtocookthat.net/cookbook

After a shaky start, Aussie-born Freakshakes have now taken the world by storm! The brainchild of Anna Petridis of Caf Patissez in Canberra, these over-the-top shakes were very nearly cut from the menu after the caf sold only one in their first month. Thankfully, someone shared their shake online and the rest is history. In the following months, extreme shakes went viral on social media, attracting long queues of eager customers. I filmed an episode about the trend and shared recipes for my own versions of extreme shakes. Since then, bigger and even more extravagant shakes have popped up in cafes all around the globe, from Mumbai to New York.