[music]

Alison Stewart:  This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studio 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. First, congratulations to everybody who ran the marathon yesterday. Before we get into today's show, we want to acknowledge a little history was made in Brooklyn over the weekend.

Male Speaker: [foreign language]

[MUSIC - Missy Elliott: Get Ur Freak On]

Head banga, hit me

Hit me, hit me

Hit me, hit me

Yeah, hit me

Gimme some new shit, yeah

Gimme some new shit, yeah

Gimme some new shit, yeah

Gimme some new shit

Missy be puttin' it down

I'm the hottest 'round

I told y'all mother-ooh

Y'all can't stop me now

Listen to me now

I'm lasting twenty rounds

And if you want me (nigga)

Then come on, get me now

Is you with me now?

Then biggie-biggie-bounce

I know you dig the way I sw-sw-switch my style

(Holla) People sing around

Now people gather 'round

Now people jump around

Go, get your freak on

Go, get your freak on

Go, get your freak on

Go, get your freak on

Alison Stewart: Brooklyn's very own Barclays Center got its freak on over the weekend as host of the 2023 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, and Missy Elliott, who you just heard, became the first female hip hop artist to join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, cementing her place alongside the likes of Jay Z, Eminem, Tupac, and other male rappers. Queen Latifah did the honors in a speech celebrating Elliott as a musical futurist.

The 2023 inductees also included DJ Kool Herc, who was credited with creating hip-hop. He was honored in the musical influence category alongside roots rock guitarist, Link Wray. The other inductees this year included legend, Willie Nelson, who was honored with a performance from fellow 2023 inductee, Sheryl Crow, plus Chris Stapleton, and Dave Matthews. Crow was busy on Friday night after opening the show in a duet with Olivia Rodrigo and then performing with Stevie Nicks and Peter Frampton, art pop singer who enjoyed a new legion of fans because of Stranger Things.

Kate Bush was also inducted and honored with a performance by St. Vincent and a fitting speech from rapper Big Boi. The rest of the inductees included pop hero, George Michael, R&B band, The Spinners, and hard rockers, Rage Against the Machine guitarist and a recent All Of It guest, Tom Morello, made this acceptance speech.

Tom Morello: Throughout history, the spark of rebellion has come from unexpected quarters, authors, economists, carpenters, but as Salvador Allende said, "There is no revolution without songs." Who's to say what musicians might or might not be able to achieve with revolutionary intent when the bouncing crowd makes the Richter scale shape?

Alison Stewart: Beyond the main Rock and Roll Hall categories, Friday's honorees in the Musical Excellence category also included funk queen, Chaka Khan, Elton John's lyric writer, Bernie Taupin, and songwriter, producer, and Blood, Sweat & Tears co-founder, Al Kooper. The non-performing Ahmet Ertegun Award went to the late Soul Train presenter, the Don Cornelius.

[MUSIC - Soul Train theme song]

Alison Stewart: It's a good way to start a Monday on All Of It. Days are getting shorter and holidays are on the horizon. Diwali is in six days, Thanksgiving in 17. Hanukkah starts in 31 days and Christmas is exactly 7 weeks away. It is the perfect time to start thinking about your baking plans. While baking is fun, and comforting, and tasty, for some, it can be a little challenging, all that chemistry. Maybe your cakes don't rise, you haven't figured out the way to make your caramel without burning it. Maybe you'd like to bake but it all really just seems time-consuming. Samantha Seneviratne understands those anxieties and it's the driving force behind her new book, Bake Smart: Sweets and Secrets from My Oven to Yours.

Seneviratne has been a food writer and editor. Her book, The Joys of Baking, was selected as one of the best baking cookbooks of 2019 by the New York Times. She's a contributor there to the Times cooking YouTube channel. In her videos, she tries to demystify baking and bring a little relaxed and fun approach to it. With recipes like cinnamon, and cardamom spiced churros, and fried blueberry mini pies, Bake Smart contains recipes that even the most apprehensive home baker can try. It is out tomorrow and we are lucky to have Samantha in studio today. Hi, Samantha.

Samantha Seneviratne: Hi, Alison. Thank you so much for having me.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want you to know if you know your way around the kitchen, maybe you have a baking question for Sam. Do you need something to make for the holidays or a dinner party? Do you want to get your kids off the phones and in the kitchen to help out and need ideas of fun things to make, or maybe you want to try something new and you're a little nervous about it and you need a little assistance? You can give us a call or you can text to us, the number is 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. You can join us on air and ask a question. You can also text to that number if that's more convenient for you. You can reach out to us via our social medias, @allofitwnyc.

This is your fourth cookbook, Sam. The first one was about bold baking, and then there was gluten-free work cooking. Then what about The Joys of Baking? Then this one is Bake Smart. What falls into the category of Bake Smart? What makes something a smart recipe?

Samantha Seneviratne: My goal is to help people bake smarter, not harder, so I just want to share all the things I've learned. I've been working in food media for about 15 years now. I've worked on my own recipes, other people's recipes, my books, other people's books, so I've had a ton of experience. I just want to share all that information and help people make it a little easier for themselves.

Alison Stewart: What is a classic myth you would like to dispel, something you don't want to see written about baking again, you don't want to hear about baking again?

Samantha Seneviratne: I don't believe in sifting flour. I never, ever, ever do that even a recipe tells me to. [chuckles] Ever.

Alison Stewart: Why not? Okay. There's people who just caught people's ears and so who are bakers like, "What do you mean I don't have to sift?"

Samantha Seneviratne: I think it might be just an old rule that stayed around. Maybe milling practices have changed and flour is much more consistent now than it was before and I just don't think it's necessary. You do need to whisk your dry ingredients together. It's important to evenly disperse all your leaveners and things like that, but sifting is for the birds.

Alison Stewart: So funny you should say that because I was like, sifting? I went down a sifting rabbit hole and I found a ChatGPT answer to why you should sift.

Samantha Seneviratne: Oh, yes?

Alison Stewart: You want to hear it?

Samantha Seneviratne: I want to hear what it is.

Alison Stewart: Sifting flour helps to aerate it and remove any lumps. This results in a lighter and fluffier final product, as well as a more even distribution of ingredients. I feel like I have to read it with my voice.

Samantha Seneviratne: I like how you're reading it too.

Alison Stewart: Additionally, sifting flour can also help to remove any debris or small stones that may have ended up in the flour during the milling process. Overall, sifting flour is an important step in ensuring that your baked goods turn out light, fluffy, and with a consistent texture.

Samantha Seneviratne: When was the last time you found a stone in your flour? I think that's just the outdated advice.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: So no sifting. What is one of those old wives' tales that you found absolutely is true?

Samantha Seneviratne: Ooh, that's a great question. There's a lot of things that are true. You have to be really careful with yeast. I think giving it a little bit of love and a little bit of extra care makes sense. Consider the temperature of the milk that you're blooming it in. Consider the temperature of your house as you rise it. Those kinds of things are definitely true.

Alison Stewart: What's something that you've had to try over and over again to perfect?

Samantha Seneviratne: Oh my gosh, yeast-

Alison Stewart: Yeast.

Samantha Seneviratne: -for sure. [laughs] She's a beast, that one. I think she takes a little bit of time just to get to know a little bit. All it takes is a little bit of practice and then it's just so masterable, I promise.

Alison Stewart: What makes yeast so finicky?

Samantha Seneviratne: Temperature, honestly. I think it's easy to kill it if you bloom it in your milk that's a little too hot. The other thing I think that happens a lot and definitely happened to me is that sometimes a recipe will say, "Let it proof for an hour," and that's all the information they'll give you. The truth is, sometimes it takes more than an hour. It just depends on the temperature of your house. It depends on the temperature of the ingredients you started with. You have to watch the dough and not the clock, and just get a little more comfortable with that.

Alison Stewart: You said twice your temperature of your house. I never thought about that. How does the temperature of house factor in?

Samantha Seneviratne: Yes, well, if your house is really cold, my apartment is super duper drafty, so sometimes it just takes things a little bit longer to warm up and get jazzed. In the summertime, your bread, if you're making yeasted bread in the summertime, it's going to rise a lot faster because the ambient temperature of your home is going to warm that dough.

Alison Stewart: Why is it important to go ahead and make mistakes, not to be afraid of them?

Samantha Seneviratne: Well, the truth about baking, for me, I think that baking is just a joy. It's really just for pleasure. It's for sharing, and for eating, and for pleasure. You don't need cake. Nobody needs cake. We're not going to die without it, so we can just take the pressure off and find the fun in it.

Alison Stewart: We are discussing the new cookbook out tomorrow, so we're getting a preview, everybody, Bake Smart: Sweets and Secrets from My Oven to Yours. My guest is Samantha Seneviratne. Listeners, we know that you know your way around kitchens. Maybe you have a baking question for Sam. Do you need something to make for the holidays or a dinner party? Do you want to get an idea for maybe a way to get the kids in the kitchen and off their phones, or maybe you want to try something new something that you've been wanting to bake and you just need a little guidance or assistance. We are at 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC, you can call in and join us on air, or you can send us a text message. Also, our social media is available @allofitwnyc. We have a text for you, Sam. It says, "Do we have to always use proper measuring cups and spoons when baking or are there times when it's okay to eyeball it?"

Samantha Seneviratna: I think there are definitely times you can eyeball it. I think you want to use measuring cups and spoons when you're looking at the flour, the leavener. Then things like vanilla, salt, spices, you can definitely just throw things in the way that you would with cooking. It's going to be a little harder to tell midstream if you've gone off track with baking the way you do with cooking, but once you get a feel for it, the more you do it, the more you can just throw it in. I never measure vanilla or salt, for example. I rarely measure spices. It's fun to just go with it.

Alison Stewart: I got a text, "I came home yesterday with about 70 apples after picking upstate. Need some not-too-sweet ideas."

Samantha Seneviratna: Love it. There's a million apple cakes. I think Dorie Greenspan has an apple cake online that is just perfection. It takes a lot of apples and not a lot of flour, so it's really apple-forward. I'm trying to think, I got to promote my own book, right?

Alison Stewart: Yes, you keep talking about apples and I'll find your apple recipe.

Samantha Seneviratna: I have an apple galette in the book, and it has a buckwheat crust, which is really fun. It's nutty and a little more earthy than just a flower crust, which goes really nicely with the apples. I top it with fresh honeycomb pieces, which is not only beautiful but also pretty delicious.

Alison Stewart: What are these apple hand pies you have in you?

Samantha Seneviratna: Those have membrillo inside. Those are really easy too because all you have to do basically is make the pie crust. Then the membrillo is just store-bought quince paste, slices of that. I think I put a little bit of mascarpone or something like that in there, too with the apples. It's a really simple filling, doesn't take a lot of work, but all those things together create a really nice pie.

Alison Stewart: Another text for you, "Chewy versus crispy. My Toll House cookies came out soft and chewy once. I like chewy, but instead, they always come out crispy. What mistake did I make and can I make again to get chewy?"

Samantha Seneviratna: Well, first of all, I don't think you made any mistakes. I think there's a place for all of the things. If you want chewy cookies, I would up the brown sugar. Brown sugar seems to make things a little bit softer. There's a little more moisture with the molasses. You can change the ratio that's in the recipe and just up the brown sugar a little bit. I think resting your cookies also resting the dough also contributes to a nice, even, chewy center's crisp edges, which is my favorite cookie. Rest your dough, that always helps. Rest your dough, people.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Janet, calling in from Fair Haven, New Jersey on line one. Can we get to Janet? I don't know. We'll see. Well, while we're waiting for Janet, let me ask you this. When you look at a recipe and it looks challenging and you're trying to figure out, can I do this? What is the best way to approach it as a baker?

Samantha Seneviratna: Well, they always say read the recipe fully first and just break it down into pieces. Make sure that you have enough time to do everything that you need to do. Make sure you have all the ingredients ready to go before you start. That always, for me, if I'm starting something new, that takes the anxiety way down. You can also prep things out and look at them before you get started. I think that's a really easy way to make it all seem a little more manageable.

Alison Stewart: Janet from Fair Haven can join us now. Hi, Janet, you're on the air.

Janet: Hi, how are you? Thanks for taking my call. I just have a quick question because my mother always told us never to make loud noises when there was a cake in the oven. I wanted to know if that's a myth or if that's really true.

Samantha Seneviratna: That's such a good question, Janet. I'm going to say that's a myth. I have a six-year-old son and there's a lot of loud noises in my house and I have never experienced that as a problem.

Alison Stewart: My mother used to tell me that, too. I wonder if there's something, it's a--

Samantha Seneviratna: I do think sometimes--

Janet: A way to keep your kids quiet.

Alison Stewart: Possibly. Janet, I think you hit right on it.

Samantha Seneviratna: Exactly. That's what it is. That's exactly what it is.

Alison Stewart: Janet, thank you for calling in. My guest is Samantha Seneviratne. The name of her book is Bake Smart: Sweets and Secrets from My Oven to Yours. We talked about flour. Let's talk about butter. When a recipe calls for cold butter versus when it calls for softened or melted butter, what is it that the recipe is trying to achieve?

Samantha Seneviratna: Oftentimes when you're making something like a pastry dough, you want cold butter because that butter, you keep it intact as you make the dough. Then when it goes into the oven, it melts and creates steam and gives your dough little pockets of lift, and that's what creates flaky dough. When you are using room temperature or softened butter, that's often you're trying to incorporate it more fully. Sometimes that means you're trying to coat the flour with butter so that you don't develop a lot of gluten, or maybe you're trying to incorporate the butter fully into a yeasted dough so that it is all fully incorporated. That's just a quick definition of why.

Alison Stewart: Eggs, you suggest using room temperature eggs?

Samantha Seneviratna: Most of the time. I have to be honest, I don't always do it. I'm going to tell you to do the best thing for the recipe, but occasionally you don't have time to let your eggs get to room temperature. You can always throw them in a little bit of warm water to heat them up. If you crack them and put them in a bowl at room temperature, they're also going to heat up a little bit faster. That said, sometimes I'm making a cookie or a cake, and I don't let them get to room temperature and it's usually just fine.

Alison Stewart: Let's say I'm supposed to separate my eggs and only use one part of them, the yolk or the white, what can I do with say if I have a lot of egg white left over?

Samantha Seneviratna: A delicious frittata would be nice. Also, if you're going in the baking direction, meringue. I have really come around to meringue. Meringue is just whipped egg whites with a little bit of cornstarch or cream of tartar and sugar, and they turn into this wonderful simple cookie that's crisp on the outside and marshmallowy on the inside. It's a great way to use up a lot of egg whites.

Alison Stewart: Jeff is calling us from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Hi, Jeff.

Jeff: Hi, there. I've been late to the sourdough thing. I didn't do it at all during COVID and stuff like that, but I've been doing it now, and I can't get that last little bit of rise out of my sourdough so it pops like when you see good commercial or good artisan bakeries where it pops and breaks open. I just can't get that. What do I do for my sourdough bread?

Samantha Seneviratna: Jeff, that's a really good question. I am not a sourdough expert. I have to say, I've had some great successes and a lot of failures with sourdough. I don't have a great answer for you, unfortunately.

Alison Stewart: Jeff, if you ever find out-

Samantha Seneviratna: I'm sorry.

Alison Stewart: -reach out to us on social media.

Samantha Seneviratna: I can do some research if you contact me later or we can ask an expert, I can find the answer for you. I just don't have it now.

Jeff: Thanks. I appreciate it.

Alison Stewart: Jeff, what an amazing, generous offer from our guest, Samantha Seneviratna. The name of the book is Bake Smart: Sweets and Secrets from My Oven to Yours. If you want to call in and get some advice from Samantha.

Samantha Seneviratna: Not about sourdough. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: No, to be fair, the book is about sweets and sweet stuff. We will discuss caramel, we'll discuss custard, as well as things to do with pumpkin that doesn't involve pie. That's after the break.

[music]

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Samantha Seneviratna. The name of her new book, which is out tomorrow, Bake Smart: Sweets and Secrets from My Oven to Yours. We got a text and then it's a nice segue into some of your recipes. "For Thanksgiving, I have to make dessert on Tuesday. Which can last longer? Pies, cakes, tarts. What's a good make-ahead dessert?"

Samantha Seneviratna: I think cakes. I think pies and tarts tend to sog out a little bit if you keep them in the fridge too long. I think a cake is your best bet. A lot of cakes you can even freeze pieces of. You can unfrost it, you can freeze layer cakes, and then bring them to room temperature and frost them, and finish them right before you need to serve them.

Alison Stewart: All right. Cakes are good for making ahead. This is our segue into your downy pumpkin bundt cake with maple cream. We're talking about different things to do with pumpkin, and you have a great video about this. Rather than just a pumpkin pie, how did you develop this recipe? Downy pumpkin bundt cake with maple cream.

Samantha Seneviratna: This is a fun one because instead of using granulated sugar in this cake, I used a box of confectioner sugar. It's milled 10 times finer than granulated sugar. That's why we call it 10X. In confectioner sugar, there's a little bit of corn starch. The two of those things together make this cake really soft and pillowy, and it's a really special pumpkin cake. It's a little more delicate and lovely than a classic.

Alison Stewart: There's all these arrows in your recipes, which are great. They're like, "Hey, by the way here's an arrow to a little bit of information." For example, in that one, it says arrow takes us down to the best way to butter a bund pan is with a pastry brush and soft butter. Make sure to get it in every ridge.

Samantha Seneviratna: I've seen so many people knock out bundt pans and then half of it's still in the cake pan. I highly recommend you use a pastry brush. It's the easiest way to get into all those little nooks and crannies.

Alison Stewart: What are some other pumpkin recipes or harvesty recipes that aren't necessarily pie?

Samantha Seneviratne: Oh, wow. Well, I have a really nice pumpkin, actually, a couple of pumpkin rolls on New York Times cooking and those are fun and easy to make and they look very special even though they don't take that much work to make. Also, a pumpkin blondie which takes no time at all. That one is super duper easy and easy to make with your kids and things like that. Also, freeze as well and can make a nice breakfast.

Alison Stewart: There you go. Let's talk to Bob on line one calling in from Brooklyn, who has something he wants to shout out. Hi, Bob.

Bob: Hi. How are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing Great.

Bob: I might, if I remember correctly this is going back a few decades now, be able to help Jeff out.

Samantha Seneviratne: Oh, good.

Bob: If I recall, when you get through your sourdough recipe and you've risen it, you throw it in the oven, throw in an ice cube in the bottom in the oven, and then slam it shut and have at it. Evidently, the steam helps form the crust on the outside of the loaf and the crust helps make that nice crackle pop as you carve into it at the end.

Alison Stewart: Oh, there you go.

Bob: That's a possibility. I also have a little tip that might help your kids get started baking. It's a five-minute chocolate cake. You make it in a small bowl, a large coffee mug, what have you, and it's fairly simple. It's about-- I'm trying to cut out the excesses in improvements that I make on my own, but roughly it's six to eight tablespoons of flour. You want about, oh, a tablespoon and a half of cocoa powder chocolate cake. You'll want, oh, four tablespoons of sugar or so about the same in vegetable oil, three or four tablespoons of-- oi.

Alison Stewart: You forgot your recipe. The idea is you put--

Bob: See you in a moment.

Alison Stewart: That's okay. The idea is you put everything into the mug and then you pop it into the oven. We love that idea. Bob, thank you so much for calling in. What's a recipe in your book, Samantha, that's really good for kids?

Samantha Seneviratne: I think the cookies are a really fun way. My son loves making cookies and there's a toasted coconut oat cookie that I think is really, really special and very easy to make. He loves to portion and roll dough. That's his favorite thing to do, so cookies.

Alison Stewart: Cookies. We've got a lot of people on the sifting bandwagon. We're getting saying it increases the volume a little bit so we have to be concerned about that, especially when cakes.

Samantha Seneviratne: I think if you cream your butter and sugar effectively and your ingredients are at the right temperature and you've used your leavener and whisked it properly, you shouldn't have a problem.

Alison Stewart: There you go. I love it. You are holding tight to no sifting. Here's something, Earl Gray cream Danish buns, what inspired this recipe?

Samantha Seneviratne: I love baking with Earl Gray. I love drinking it and I also love using it in my baked goods. I think it goes really nicely with dairy, so it makes like a really nice custard. These buns are Danish, sort of a shorthand Danish. I don't do a traditional dough. It's a rough Danish pastry dough that you wrap around this really luscious Earl Gray cream.

Alison Stewart: Ooh, now that seems to me like something that you need to know how to manipulate the cream well.

Samantha Seneviratne: The cream itself is very easy to make. If you properly chill it, it stiff enough to put into the dough. The dough itself takes a little bit of work. You have to make a rough pastry and then fold it a few times in order to create nice layers and then you have to cut it and then fill it. This one's a little on the more time-consuming end of things, but satisfying and delicious [unintelligible 00:24:09].

Alison Stewart: Our phone lines are open. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can call and join us on air if you have a baking question for Samantha Seneviratne. The name of her book is Bake Smart: Sweets and Secrets from My Oven to Yours. This is her fourth book on baking so I think she can answer a few questions, especially the ones about pies and treats. Everything in this book looks so delicious.

Alison Stewart: Caramel is something you tackle in the book and also in your latest New York Times video. What is challenging about caramel? Where do people run into issues?

Samantha Seneviratne: There's been a campaign against caramel I think. People are really scared of it for some reason and I don't think it's warranted. In small batches, caramel is very easy to make and the number one key is just to let it do its thing. I think you get into problems when you start stirring the water and the sugar together. If you just let it sit and get brown and then swirl the pan, I promise it's going to be okay.

The worst thing that can happen is that it will crystallize. That happens sometimes. You can throw in a little bit of water, it'll smooth right out. Supposedly under a microscope, it's going to be slightly different once it's crystallized, but I don't think anyone will know when they're eating it on their ice cream.

Alison Stewart: Where does caramel make an appearance in your book?

Samantha Seneviratne: Oh, there's a basque cheesecake that I put some salted caramel into which is really nice.

Alison Stewart: What about custard? I'm going for like, all of the things that people think I just you know it's, I don't know if I can make it. Custard is one of those when I see it I think, how did they do this?

Samantha Seneviratne: Custard, there used to be a way that you had to temper your eggs with the hot liquid and then move them back and forth and make sure that nothing was going to curdle. I think, and I've had a lot of success doing this, you can just dump all the things in one pan. That means your sugar, your eggs, your dairy, your butter, everything into the pan. Cook it all together and just watch it. You don't want to blast it, but just watch it and that way everything comes out smooth. It's a lot less work. You can run it through a sieve at the end if you need to and it's much easier than anyone thinks. It's just pudding.

Alison Stewart: It's just pudding. Let's go to line two and talk to Arlene. Calling in from my hometown, Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Hi, Arlene.

Arlene: Hi. How are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing great.

Arlene: Good. I have a question about the use of a bundt pan. I have one or two and I've given them as a gift to my daughter. She loves them and we have a good quality one, if I could say from Nordic Ware. I prep it properly and I try to be very careful about the timing when it's in the oven. Take it out when the cake is right but when I remove the cake from the pan it always seems that every time the outside of the cake is just overcooked, it's too brown. The inside might be fine, but you're left with this outer crust that's too dark and I'm wondering what am I doing wrong? Is it the coating that they put on the inside of the pan? The non-stick coating? Is there a way that I can get around this?

Samantha Seneviratne: I don't think you're doing anything wrong. I think that some recipes are probably-- it comes down to the recipe in some cases. I also think that darker-colored pans sometimes will give you edges that cook too fast.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's true. I've heard that before.

Samantha Seneviratne: If you try it with a lighter color pan-- I even think sometimes, I use Nordic Ware bundt pans too I think they're great. I think the lighter pans even physically they're not as heavy. The lighter ones are just a little gentler with your baked goods so that might help a little bit.

Arlene: All right, we'll give that a try.

Alison Stewart: Good luck, Arlene.

Arlene: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: Someone has texted us dairy allergy here. What's the best substitute if something calls for dairy in cookies?

Samantha Seneviratne: Dairy. Does that include eggs or is that just milk and butter?

Alison Stewart: Let's just go with milk and butter.

Samantha Seneviratne: I have a very dear vegan friend and when I bake for her, we use a lot of margarine honestly and you can use flax instead of eggs if you need to. I bake with a lot of almond milk and alternative milks, I think they most of the time are very good substitute.

Alison Stewart: How does flax substitute for eggs?

Samantha Seneviratne: It's really crazy, but you just have to blend it and then hydrate it with a little bit of water. There's a formula. I don't know what it is exactly, I think it's like a tablespoon of flax to two tablespoons of water or something like that and that does a pretty good approximation of eggs.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Alan calling in from Brooklyn. Hi, Alan. Thanks for calling All Of It. You're on with Samantha.

Alan: Hi. I make a cheesecake that is really delicious but the scent never really congeals like I want it to. How do you get it to do that without cooking it too long and burning the outside?

Samantha Seneviratne: That's a great question. Are you cooking your cheesecake in a water bath? That's a great way to--

Alan: I don't know, but if that's the answer I'll do it.

[laughter]

Samantha Seneviratne: You have to wrap the bottom and make sure that none of the water's going to leak into your pan. You are going to wrap it with foil and set it in a couple inches of water in a larger roasting pan and that usually will regulate the temperature a little bit so that you can cook your cheesecake longer without overcooking it.

Alan: All right. Great. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: All right, Alan, I think you'll know next time if you're cooking in a water bath. We talked about some of the flavors right now that are pumpkin and the one thing whenever I'm walking through the green market and I just see maple syrup. I always want to grab it and I like it in coffee sometimes.

Samantha Seneviratne: Me too.

Alison Stewart: I know it's really expensive and everything. What is a great way to use maple syrup? What kind of recipe can I if I got maple syrup?

Samantha Seneviratne: Maple syrup is really good. When you bake it into things, it's hard to capture that flavor. I like to use it in glazes and things like that. Pumpkin cake you mentioned before has a nice maple glaze. I also use it in custards, and my last book actually has a really great recipe for a maple custard tart. You cook the maple down just a little bit just to concentrate it and then you put that into your custard and then fill your pie crust with it. It's maple forward and it's wonderful.

Alison Stewart: What is your recipe in this book that is always a winner? That's always a showstopper when you bring it. That's just always it's your go-to. You have to make a good impression, you go to this recipe.

Alison Stewart: I think cookies always nail it because they get everybody, people who don't like custard or whatever. People with a lot of preferences. Everybody loves cookies. There's some really good ones in the book. I just made all the chocolate cookies this weekend. We had a block party in my neighborhood, and they were a big hit. They're dark chocolate cookies, they're really fudgy and wonderful, and then they have milk dark and white chocolate inside. They're very special.

Alison Stewart: I was going to wrap with that question, but we have somebody with a very specific question and you wrote about it so I did want to take it. Edith from the Upper West Side. Hi, Edith real quick.

Edith: Yes. I have the gluten-free question. I'm gluten intolerant and I'm wondering if you have any recipes that you know that are good without wheat flour.

Samantha Seneviratne: I do. Actually my second book, it's called Gluten-Free for Good. I wrote a whole book about gluten-free recipes. Most of it is savory food, but there are some baking recipes in there. Can you eat almonds? Because almond flour is a really wonderful substitute. I think you can make excellent cakes with almond flour. It's a great way to go gluten-free.

Alison Stewart: That's a great first step.

Edith: Okay.

Alison Stewart: Edith, thank you for calling in. The book that's out tomorrow is called Bake Smart: Sweets and Secrets from My Oven to Yours. My guest has been Samantha Seneviratne. Thank you so much for coming in and taking our so many listener calls.

Samantha Seneviratne: It's been such a pleasure. Thank you, Alison.

 

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