[MUSIC- Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming, or on demand, I'm grateful you are here. I'm especially grateful if you've made a contribution to WNYC for our spring pledge drive. Your support truly matters.

Later in the hour, we will speak with host, Jennifer Romolini. That's it. Jennifer Romolini, the host of the new podcast, Stiffed. It's about what happened in the 1970s when feminists teamed up with Bob Guccione, yes, of Penthouse, to create an erotica magazine for straight women. That's going to happen in about 30 minutes. Plus a documentary about the great Donna Summer next hour. Right now, let's get things started with Natasha Pickowicz and More Than a Cake.

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Let's start off the All Of It portion of the pledge drive on a sweet note by talking cakes. James Beard-nominated pastry chef, Natasha Pickowicz, came on the show last month to talk about her debut cookbook, More Than Cake 100 Baking Recipes Built for Pleasure and Community. We ended up taking so many of your great calls that we didn't even get to a bunch of questions about how to make a showstopping cake.

Whether she's teaching you how to master a chiffon cake or create the perfect flan to wow your friends, Natasha's recipes are sure to delight and impress. Natasha Pickowicz runs the pastry pop-up shop, Never Ending Taste, here in New York City, and her debut cookbook, More Than A Cake, is out now. Natasha, welcome back to All Of It.

Natasha Pickowicz: Thank you so much for having me, Allison. I'm thrilled to be back.

Alison Stewart: Natasha is taking your calls. Listeners, what questions do you have about baking? Maybe you want a suggestion for a recipe to wow your friends. Natasha has plenty of those. Natasha Pickowicz is taking all your baking comments and concerns. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. We are talking about her debut cookbook, More Than Cake. You can also reach out on social media at All Of It WNYC.

Last time we talked cookies and single-layer cakes, but now I want to talk about the big guys, the layered cakes. That might sound really intimidating to some people. A layered cake, a multi-layer cake. Why shouldn't we be afraid of making a multi-layer cake?

Natasha Pickowicz: I see a layer cake as just sort of a series of smaller, manageable tasks that all come together. If you can make a lasagna with a bechamel and a meat ragu, you can make a layer cake. I think when we see the whole big picture, it tends to feel overwhelming. I'm here to be like, "Actually, it's just a couple of little things. Let's put it all together and the sum is greater than the parts."

Alison Stewart: How do you keep a layer cake from drying out, though?

Natasha Pickowicz: Oh, I love to make cake layers with tender super absorbent sponge cakes. I'm actually applying another layer of flavor with really intense soaks, and that adds to the hydration and you're getting that really moist, flavorful crumb through the soaks.

Alison Stewart: You don't use frosting to bind your layers together ever, which is really interesting. Why not?

Natasha Pickowicz: I'm a pastry chef that doesn't actually love sugar all that much. I'm into talking about all these other great flavors that can happen, so buttercream to get that great stability to buttress the outside of the cake but I don't need it for the inside. The inside is where I'm putting ultra-flavorful mousses, curds, jams. That's where you have a great opportunity to add other things that maybe are too soft to be on the outside. I just leave the buttercream just for the outside part.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk about those fillings. What are three of your favorite cake fillings?

Natasha Pickowicz: Oh my God. Well, I'm a California girl. I'm from San Diego. I love my citrus, so I love a super tart, tangy, citrus curd. Instead of butter, I actually like to mount it with olive oil, which I think is a really elegant way to create rich flavor. I love a simple fruit-forward jam. Rhubarb is in season now. I love a tangy fruit filling. Of course, I love my creamy mousses. I think cream cheese, mascarpone, creme fresh, these are great ways to add tons of rich flavor without adding extra sweetness.

Alison Stewart: I like that you give your cookbook reader agency. You tell us that we can decide what order, what combination we want. That could be a little bit daunting. First of all, why did you want to take that approach? Can you give us a few examples of some mix-and-match combinations that really work that maybe you wouldn't think at first they would work?

Natasha Pickowicz: Yes. I think a layer cake is such a great way for you to say, "This is who I am. This is my identity. These are the things I love." I actually worked on kind of a layer cake equation of sorts. I'm saying if you have a cake plus a flavorful soak, plus a creamy filling, plus a great rich buttercream, I want people to mix and match and really make it their own. I made this formula, this equation where if you have one thing from each category, you're going to have a showstopping cake every time.

I love pulling in unexpected vegetables into my layer cakes. I'm saying instead of maybe a strawberry jam, what about a caramelized fennel jam? What about a delicious black sesame buttercream instead of peanut butter or almond butter? These are the unexpected flavors that I hope people will bring into these layer cakes that we think of as being more traditional, but really wanting to mix it up.

Alison Stewart: I love this, black sesame and cream cheese frosting is one of the recipes in here. Italian espresso, buttercream. I always want to ask this, what was one that was a fail, that you thought, "Oh, this is going to be a fantastic chef's kiss, and then just didn't work out?

Natasha Pickowicz: Oh my gosh, totally. I think that cakes that are delicious and made with butter, like a pound cake, these are delicious cakes on their own, but I found that they didn't work in my layer cake experiments because cakes with a butter crumb, when they get refrigerated, they tend to get a little bit dry and crumbly. I actually had to pivot away from those super delicious pound cake recipes and focus more on the Asian bakery-style chiffons that don't have butter in them and so the crumb stays super light and airy and absorbent, and they don't get dry in refrigeration. I love learning from my own mistakes. I love learning from experiments. This is how my repertoire gets stronger and better.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Natasha Pickowicz. The name of the book is More Than Cake: 100 Baking Recipes Built For Pleasure and Community. Listeners, if you have questions about baking, our number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Maybe you have a special occasion and you're looking for a cake that will truly wow. Natasha Pickowicz is here taking your calls. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC.

Last time you were on, we got a lot of callers asking about whole wheat recipes, and you have one that mixes what you were just talking about. It's a whole wheat and almond chiffon cake. Just for clarity, what is a chiffon cake?

Natasha Pickowicz: A chiffon cake is a kind of sponge. A chiffon cake usually has the egg that goes into it is separated. They do that so the egg yolk provides tons of richness. The egg white actually gets whipped into a frothy, airy meringue. That meringue, once it gets folded into the cake batter, actually lifts and loosens it so you get this great billowy open crumb. I love a not-too-dense cake.

A chiffon cake actually will also have a little bit of oil in it for richness and a little bit of chemical lavender, like a baking powder to also help create that extra light crumb. I love these for layer cakes. You can add a whole grain flour like whole wheat and still get that really tender light crumb if you do it in the chiffon style.

Alison Stewart: Do we need to make any accommodations for the whole wheat? Is there something we need to know about if we're using a whole wheat flour?

Natasha Pickowicz: I just love getting a great local freshly milled flour. That's where you're really getting tons of great flavor. Sometimes you can even sift your whole wheat flours to get a finer texture, more like a cake flour. I personally love the intensity of that whole wheat flour, so I almost skip that step, but if you are really aiming for something closer to an all-purpose white flour, you can even sift it to get that great texture.

Alison Stewart: One cake you say is popular at weddings, we're coming up on June, is passion fruit, coconut, and tequila layer cake. All right. What happens when you add tequila to this mix?

Natasha Pickowicz: [chuckles] Well, it creates a party, first of all. Everyone loves a little tropical party. This is one of my most popular cakes. I'm seeing people baking it all around the world. It's incredible to see. I find that it may seem intense to add alcohol like tequila to a cake, but what happens when you dab it into a cake layer or mix it into a simple syrup, is that initial burn of the alcohol really wears off. What it leaves behind are these great tropical notes of the agave plant and that tequila.

I say give the cake time. You give it a couple of days to rest, all those flavors are going to meld and mingle and marry like a great cocktail. The idea is balance. It's not harsh. It actually just feels fun and surprising.

Alison Stewart: What about someone who wants to decorate a cake but has never really gone down that road before? What are some good first steps?

Natasha Pickowicz: I love this question because this is the most fun part of doing those final touches on a layer cake is this is what people are going to see. This is what they're going to take photos of. I love looking just right in my own backyard, literally in my own pantry. I love working with natural ingredients.

Maybe I'm foraging a little lilac flower in my front yard. I'm clipping a fresh basil leaf and scattering them on top. In my opinion, I don't overthink it. You just want to create a loose, elegant, sexy thing, nothing too precious and arranged. I have all kinds of tips in my book for how to create that really elegant contemporary modern statement. I just think, look at what you have in your fridge. Is it a little tomato on a vine that you have? Is it branch of mint? Is it a lemon slice? Cut open? We can do so much with so little.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk about some of the summer desserts that people could make, especially if they're out at the farmers' market and they come upon, let's say rhubarb. Rhubarb's one of those things that everybody looks at, love the color. What do I do with this? Now rhubarb can be a little bit fussy or a little finicky if we want to [chuckle] give it a personality. When you're working with rhubarb specifically for your checkered rhubarb tart, what do we need to keep in mind?

Natasha Pickowicz: Yes. You nailed it. Rhubarb is so finicky. It has such a high water content that as soon as you apply heat to it, the fruit- vegetable, actually, it collapses. It turns into mush. When I think about these really elegant, thin fruit gillettes or crostata, this open-faced fruit tart, I'm thinking, "How do I keep structure to the fruit?"

For me, high heat, like you're cooking something, it's super high heat, like a pizza. I'm cutting the rhubarb. I'm making incisions in it so that the steam and the moisture are evaporating evenly so it actually holds its shape in the tart and it doesn't turn into mush. Then you get that great look as well. I think, like any ingredient, if you know the tricks for how to handle it, you're going to get a great result every time.

Alison Stewart: Another thing you see this time of year and in the summer, cherries. What can I do with some fresh cherries?

Natasha Pickowicz: Oh, one of the best ingredients ever. I just love to eat them raw until I literally make myself sick. Those are great things. A pitted fruit, like a stone fruit, like a cherry, they love being swaddled in a nutty frangipane. I love to make this nutty paste that you can pile high into a tart and you-- I'll just pit the cherries, macerate them in a bit of lemon juice and just spoon them on top of that frangipane, and then the frangipane puffs and cradles the fruit and rises around it, and you get this great jammy nutty bite.

I think almond or seeds, like sunflower seeds with cherries, is so classic. It's just such a treat. The season is so short. You really want to highlight the cherry and make sure you're appreciating every single aspect of it.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Natasha Pickowicz. The name of the book is More Than Cake: 100 Baking Recipes Built for Pleasure and Community. More Than Cake. It's not only that, it's more than cake in terms of different recipes. We talked about this a little bit last time. It's about community. It's about sharing. When you think about hosting this time of year, people are starting to be able to get together there, especially people who don't want to be inside still and can be outside with their friends. What would you like people to keep in mind when they're hosting and what's a recipe someone could make and invite friends over?

Natasha Pickowicz: I think sometimes pastry or baking can seem intimidating to a home cook because they're so worried it won't be perfect. When I'm hosting, my whole mantra is, "Imperfect is beautiful, imperfect is great." Your friends don't care. Your family doesn't care. They're just blown away that you're hosting that you've made that special thing. I love to make things in advance so I'm not losing any time with my friends and family when I'm entertaining.

Again, not worrying about if things didn't come out perfectly. If the cookies are slightly over-baked if the cake is lopsided. Once you're all together laughing, enjoying having a good time, people truly don't matter. For some are entertaining I love a simple thing like a cheesecake that you can make in advance and chill and serve with great macerated nectarines or fresh strawberries.

Who doesn't love a giant plate of chocolate chip cookies with a little bit of ice cream? Fresh fruit tart with this a little bit of whipped cream? These are the, I think, easy beginner recipes in my book that actually truly exceed expectations once you make them.

Alison Stewart: All right. I have to ask because as we were setting up we had a guest appearance from your cat. You have a great picture at the end of the book of you with your cat.

Natasha Pickowicz: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Could you introduce us to your cat? Tell us a little bit about said kitty.

Natasha Pickowicz: I joke that my cookbook is secretly a cat book because I love cats so much. My cat's name is Martini. I adopted her through a nonprofit rescue in Brooklyn called Whiskers-a-GoGo. When I'm testing recipes at home, it just adds this other layer of warmth and comfort to have her racing between my ankles and keeping me company. She really was this spirit and guide throughout this whole cookbook process. I had to memorialize it with my official author photo is actually with my cat.

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] I did ask you this before but I think you didn't think you fully answered. Which one recipe would you make if you were having people over this weekend?

Natasha Pickowicz: This week? I love a savory bake and I think that I would be making-- I love these-- We're in early spring, the fresh zucchini is coming out. Those little baby squash that are as long as your finger. Those are so great, sliced into coins, sprinkled on top of some focaccia. I think that is just such a chic way to serve with a little bit of sparkling wine, put out some olives and some chips. Then you have these little zucchini [unitelligible 00:17:48] that's my-- I would do that in a heartbeat.

Alison Stewart: The name of the book is More Than Cake: 100 Baking Recipes Built for Pleasure and Community. My guest has been Natasha Pickowicz. Natasha, thank you so much, and thanks for Martini for making a guest appearance, your kitty cat. Thanks for being with us.

Natasha Pickowicz: Thank you so much.

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