Claire Saffitz Answers Subscribers’ Baking Questions | Ask Me Anything | Claire-ified

Claire Saffitz Answers Subscribers’ Baking Questions | Ask Me Anything | Claire-ified
In this engaging YouTube session, culinary expert Claire Saffitz takes on the challenge of answering her subscribers’ most pressing baking questions. Join her as she shares valuable insights, expert tips, and practical advice, turning the video into an interactive and informative baking Q&A experience. Whether you’re a seasoned baker or just starting out, Claire’s expertise promises to unravel the mysteries behind your top baking queries, making this session a must-watch for anyone looking to enhance their baking skills.

#clairesaffitz #baking #interview

00:00 Intro
00:29 Regret / revise / republish
01:24 How To Bake From Frozen
02:25 Who keeps the leftovers?
03:03 Claire Saffitz Homemade Jam
03:44 Where To Start Baking
04:48 Recipe development defeat
05:49 A half-sized cake
07:13 Favorite recipes
07:56 Too scared to bake
08:33 Sliding Danishes
09:57 Cat cam

What’s for Dessert by Claire Saffitz is out now: https://geni.us/WjcIbfp
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Claire Merchandise: https://www.dessertperson.com/buystuff
Penguin Random House Books: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/

Video Series:
Producer/Director: Vincent Cross
Camera Operator: Calvin Robertson
Editor/Motion Graphics: Hal McFall

Animation Credits:
Character Designer/Animator/Backgrounds: Jack Sherry
Character Rigger: Johara Dutton

hi everyone I’m Claire saffitz welcome to my home kitchen today I don’t have a recipe for you we’re mixing it up a little bit I am going to be answering questions that were left on the community board on YouTube always love answering reader questions because troubleshooting is like a big part of what I do you know I’d like to ask a question something’s bugging me been on my mind be great if you clarify is is there a recipe that you look back on with regret how often do you revise SL republish recipes I mean I don’t really look on recipes with regret that sound that’s like too strong there are things that I would change about a lot of recipes sometimes I look back on recipes from the early part of my career and just feel like they’re too fussy like I would just like tone it down I think in the early part of my career it’s like oh I’m excited to like show off technique and knowledge and you know incorporate that into recipes and it’s just like not that important and doesn’t necessarily make it better so generally I would go back and make it a little simpler but no like specific regret because it all compounds and like makes you better so I couldn’t really have it be any other way um and I don’t really republish recipes unless there would be like a tremendous error but that’s never really happened I mean there’s errors definitely from you know cookbooks but they’re minor okay if you freeze cookie dough is it best to bake from Frozen but for longer than the listed time or let it thaw and come up to room temperature then bake as per recipe it’s up to you I think for ease just take it right out of the freezer put it on the baking sheet and bake it add another minute or two to the bake time there’s really no added benefit to thawing at first just keep it simple bake it straight from Frozen great question hi Claire I love your video so much thank you do you have any tips for transitioning into working in a professional Bakery with only home baking experience I would say just remain very open to instruction and to correction because in any kind of professional kitchen setting like there’s going to be a particular way that that place likes to do things and to sort of be trainable and be open be very oriented towards learning like be a sponge in the beginning and just go into it with the attitude that’s like I’m here to learn try to be less focused on like showing what you already know from your home baking experience and more just learn the ropes hi Claire I have a Baker’s etiquette question if you bring a whole cake or pie to someone’s home as a dinner guest who keeps any leftovers I feel like it’s nice to leave them with the host but I absolutely love some leftover pie for breakfast all right this one to me is clear you bring something to someone’s house that is for them that’s theirs that is the hosts that is your duty as the guest like you’re bringing something that belongs to them if it’s like a super super close friend maybe you could be like hey could I just like take a little piece of pie home in a in like a container to enjoy tomorrow but like if you like breakfast pie then like make a second pie sorry would you ever do videos on things like jam making SL canning I’m super interested in learning to preserve my own food preserving to me is like the next Frontier in my own learning because now we’re like growing food this is really more of like a thing in the summer for us because we like we have fruit trees and a garden and fruit bushes and so I love making Jam I have tried traditional canning in the past with a caner and the boiling water and everything there’s a lot to learn part of me is like do I want to really weighed into that mess because of all of the food safety rules around it and so there’s a lot of Education that I think I need to do but I love the idea and so I’m kind of slowly learning on my own and hopefully at some point we’ll have info to share but love Jam Love preserving in your opinion what is the best way for someone to start baking and what do you think is important for them to know I’m an novice baker having only baked things from a package for instance a cake mix but I want to try and make many of your recipes I just don’t know where to start I mean I wouldn’t start with something that you know is going to be extremely complicated I would maybe avoid like a yeasted recipe because that’s a variable that you have to control that is like not something you need to do as a beginner other than that I would just say start with the thing you want to eat pick a well you know a tested well-written recipe I would say one of my own um because that’s what I strive for and then make it a few times make it five times make it over and over again because that’s where you really do the learning that’s where you start to learn like what variable is different why does the cookie spread more you know in this oven versus that oven you know the temperature of your butter all these things so the way that you learn there’s no to me there’s no shortcut it’s about practice and doing it and often you get the benefit more when you’re doing the same thing over and over again versus picking a new recipe every time so number one piece of advice but love the question has there ever been a time during recipe development where you completely gave up and accepted defeat if so what was the food item and the problems you faced with it yes I have given up in recipe development but I wouldn’t say that it feels like accepting defeat it’s more of like you’re being humbled a little bit and it’s more about understanding that sometimes like if you you can’t put a square peg in a round hole sort of so sometimes when I’ve given up on a recipe it’s because I kind of realize like this doesn’t want to be a recipe it’s like my I had an idea there’s a conception and the execution it just doesn’t match the expectation and like I’m not going to be able to bridge that Gap so it’s like I I need to Pivot like my idea needs to change my expectation needs to change so that’s really kind of what happens like an example is like I tried to do a recipe for grapes jubile like a grapes flambe and it doesn’t work because grapes don’t behave the same way as like cherries when they’re cooked so it’s like it just it just didn’t want to be the recipe that I wanted it to be so to move on hey Claire if I’m baking a cake and want to cut the ingredients by half how do I calculate cooking time for a now half-sized cake if it’s smaller it should bake faster right really really good question and not the simple answer you might expect like you would think half the amount half the bake time it’s not always the case it depends a lot on the dimensions of the thing you’re baking so maybe you have like a layer cake recipe and you cut the recipe in half and you but you bake it in a loaf pan it’s not going to be half the time a lot of it depends on the volume of batter and the amount of like I want to say the words thermal Mass that’s not right but it’s like the amount of mass of batter that the heat from the oven needs to penetrate to get to the center to make sure it’s fully cooked that is the main determinant so if you you could be baking like a huge quantity of batter but in a super thin layer and it’s going to bake a lot faster than something even that’s half the size but that’s like in a much sort of taller vessel so it really depends probably not the simple answer you wanted but watch it I would say start with half the baked time but like be alert your nose like be on alert be looking at it have the oven light on and then as you gain experience you’ll know like oh if I’m only if I was going to bake two cake layers but I’m only baking one maybe it takes 2third of the time it’s that kind of thing it’s just like it’s physics what is your favorite Julia child/ barefit contesta SL other famous female Baker slf’s recipe oh my gosh great question I mean I have so many like favorite or like beloved figures like an AA or A Julie child I don’t cook a lot of the recipes cuz like so much of my life is developing my own thing and also just kind of more intuitive type of cooking or baking but Julie child has this really famous chocolate almond cake that I’ve made several times there’s a Barefoot Contessa like coconut cupcake recipe that I’ve made like this is going back like a long time but that’s like so delicious so there’s a lot but they’re super quirky because it’s like I’m not always trying a lot of their like recipes in their Library any tips for people who are too scared to make anything because if it comes out bad it’s a waste of food love your content Claire and crew thank you I will say that having chickens and composting does help to spin your idea of like food waste more positively but of course I understand the fear of sunken costs like time and money and ingredients like going to waste because something didn’t turn out try to like keep it simple keep manage your expectations start with one of those recipes on the internet that has like 10,000 F star reviews it would be relatively uncommon for something to be to turn out so badly using like a well tested recipe that you couldn’t even eat it so I hear you but I would just say like push through the fear hi Claire when I make your blueberry cream cheese danishes the layers often slide off of each other like a deck of cards in the oven what do I do to get them to stop sliding off yes I know what you’re referring to usually this is a problem when the butter is too warm the proofing is at room temperature because if it’s not at room temp and it’s too cold the yeast won’t actually do anything and you don’t get the proofing and puffing that you need one thing you can try is after you proof them put them back in the fridge or even the freezer if you have the space for like 10 minutes five if it’s in the freezer 10 in the fridge and that is going to help sort of set the butter and you will probably find that this doesn’t happen as much there that separation is normal some kind of like sliding around is normal but yeah it sounds like a butter temp issue oh that’s it okay actually it’s like an amazing group of questions love this round I love the mix of kind of like more theoretical questions and then like very practical troubleshooting for people’s baking woes Vinnie is working okay vny is working on a way to feature your baking video questions in the next episode I see so we can take a look at some of your baking fails although I mean it’s okay fails it’s fine sometimes they fails okay so share some of your questions in the comments below and thank you so much for watching and don’t forget to like And subscribe n [Music]