ON THIS WEEK’S episode of Dinner SOS, we’re handing the feed back over to senior test kitchen editors Shilpa and Jesse to tell us about everything that went into this month’s Bake Club recipe— Coffee Cake Scones.
It’s time to put on the kettle, grab your finest Earl Grey, and join us on this month’s Bake Club journey: a foray into the land of Coffee Cake Scones. In this episode, Jesse and Shilpa introduce us to the recipe that was the result of many bakes and countless ruminations. They answer tough questions like, well, what even is a scone? What makes it different from, say, a shortcake or biscuit? And can a scone be too tender? After many attempts and tastings, the duo tell you what they learned.
They go on to answer questions from our Bake Clubbers, like why does this recipe call for room-temperature butter and not cold butter like most scone recipes? Or what can I use as a sour cream substitute? And is there a trick to keeping these scones upright? Jesse and Shilpa tackle them all! And finally as a delicious treat, Jesse and Shilpa introduce listeners to New Orleans–based recipe developer and pastry chef Bronwen Wyatt, who also recently developed a coffee cake scone.
Listen now to hear all the tips and tricks for your coffee cake scone dreams!
Shilpa Uskokovic: I am Shilpa Uskokovic.
Jesse Szewczyk: And I'm Jesse Szewczyk.
SU: We're both senior test kitchen editors at Bon Appetit.
JS: And this is BA Bake Club.
SU: Bake Club is Bon Appetit's book club, but for baking.
JS: And we're here creating the nerdiest and I'd say most wholesome corner of the baking internet.
SU: It is a very wholesome corner. And every month we publish a recipe on bonappetit.com, which introduces a baking concept that we think you should know.
JS: And then you'll go bake, send us any questions that you might have or pictures of your finished creations.
SU: And then we come together here again on the podcast and we dive deep into the recipe and answer some of your questions as well.
JS: So the June Bake Club recipe, which is for hummingbird cake, is live now on bonappetit.com. But today we're actually going to look back and dive deep into Mays bake, our coffee cake scones.
SU: The ones that we baked many.
JS: Many, many scones, yes. But before we get into our wonderful listener questions and talk about that development process, Shilpa, could you quickly describe the method for making these scones?
SU: Absolutely. There are three distinct components to the scones. One is the scone dough itself. Then to make the scones into the coffee cake version of themselves, we have a cinnamon sugar ribbon and a cinnamon streusel that goes on top. To make the dough you rub cool, but not cold, butter into the dry ingredients, which are flour, sugar, and baking powder. Then to bring this dough together we mix sour cream, which is slightly unusual for scones, and also an egg yolk. And once that dough comes together, it's split in half and then one half is sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, and then you sandwich the top back on. And the dough round then gets topped off with the streusel before cutting into wedges and baking it off.
JS: So, Shilpa, I feel like in order to talk about this development process, we kind of have to tell our bake clubbers about this existential journey or maybe crisis that we went on.
SU: It came to a point where we said, "Oh, we don't know what a scone is anymore."
JS: Yeah. What is a scone? What is a shortcake?
SU: Yes. What is a biscuit? What is a British scone?
JS: Yes.
SU: And we figured out the answer, of course. We do host the baking podcast, come on now. But essentially, I think first thing we were able to answer the distinction between an American and British scone, in that the British scone is much more lean.
JS: Yes.
SU: It's more like a vehicle for the clotted cream and the jam.
JS: And the shape is different-
SU: And the shape is-
JS: ... usually. Yeah.
SU: It's usually round, no?
JS: Yeah. And American is almost always a little triangle.
SU: Like a wedge.
JS: Yeah.
SU: Yeah. And an American scone, I think, is designed to be eaten on its own. Perhaps with a beverage like a tea or a coffee, but maybe butter sometimes but it isn't necessary. An American scone, I feel, can stand on its own. Okay. So that was a little bit easier to define, but then it became what is the difference between an American scone and an American biscuit or a shortcake, as you said?
JS: Yeah. Well, our first jumping off point was Mary O's.
SU: Yes.
JS: Which if people don't know, it's an east village in New York, which is the super viral popular scone-
SU: Yeah.
JS: …that they call, I think they call a soda bread scones.
SU: Yes.
JS: And they're baked in a muffin tin.
SU: Yep.
JS: And we kind of thought this was a great idea because then you can really overload the dough with fat and tenderize it so much because then it won't spread. Because there's kind of this inverse relationship between when you add more fat, oftentimes it's more tender, but also it means that it melts in the oven and it spreads. So this keeps its shape while allowing it to just have a ton of fat in it. So we're like, oh, maybe this is the secret to a super tender scone.
SU: Yes.
JS: And we did just that for a while.
SU: And mind you, neither Jesse or I had tasted this viral Mary O's scone at this point.
JS: Yeah.
SU: We were simply going off of the shape.
JS: Vibes. Yeah.
SU: No, it was really a vibes only scone. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The shape was intriguing. And as you said, Jesse, we were like, oh, we're putting it in a muffin tin, we can really make it the most tender scone ever.
JS: Totally.
SU: And we did.
JS: We did. We made a delicious object, this item.
SU: And we thought we snapped.
JS: We still have this formula in our email.
SU: This is true. But when we put it up for tasting, that's when we started having these discussions about what is a scone? Because the feedback we got.
JS: What is this?
SU: Yeah. People were shocked at how tender it was. They said, "No, a scone has to be a little bit terrible."
JS: That was a quote by somebody.
SU: It was. We shan't name you, we'll protect your identity.
JS: And to further confuse them, the shape also just threw them off too.
SU: That's true. And in retrospect, I agree. The first couple batches, we worked really hard to convince people that this was really revolutionary and they just had to get behind it. But by the third one, I think we saw for ourselves.
JS: Yeah.
SU: I mean, it looked maybe nice on Instagram, but you only see a top-down view for the most part. But when you looked at it from all directions, it was a little confusing to-
JS: Yeah.
SU: ... see a muffin shaped scone.
JS: Yeah. It looked almost like a corn muffin or something.
SU: Yes.
JS: Yeah.
SU: And I think ours was so tender that it made sense why people were confused. They were like, "Is it a muffin?" And that's when I was like, I'm going to cry and leave. I did.
JS: Yeah. Well, this went on a long time actually.
SU: Yes.
JS: Yeah.
SU: We went on for a very long time. And Jesse even took a vacation in the middle of all of this.
JS: I left. I said, "I'm out."
SU: And when he got back, I was like, "These are the scones and just kind of have to accept them." And he said, "Great."
JS: Yeah. I came back to coffee cake scones.
SU: Yeah.
JS: So like we said at the beginning of this episode, we had to define what we thought made a scone a scone.
SU: Yeah.
JS: And I think one of the main things was this exterior contrast from the tender interior. The whole thing can't be tender. There needs to be almost like this crust.
SU: It was like a craggy outside.
JS: Yes.
SU: And then the inside was tender.
JS: Yes.
SU: And we toned down how tender we made those scones. But it felt imperative, I think, to both of us that these cones are tender and they remain tender for a few hours, if not until the next day-
JS: Totally.
SU:... after baking. Something which, I think, is rare for a scone. Scones usually tend to be very good right out of the oven. I mean, as is any baked good when it's warm to be fair. But they quickly go downhill from there.
JS: Yeah. They turn into little rocks.
SU: Yeah.
JS: Yeah.
SU: They're very dry and hard. And that's something I think we wanted to stay away from and we succeeded. I think our final scone was wonderfully tender on the inside. It had texture, not just because of the streusel that we eventually landed on, because we did make versions that were just plain scones once we locked in the formula. But it was craggy on the outside, as Jessie said. It was tender. It wasn't too sweet that some jam on top would push it into overly sweet territory. It felt really well-balanced, and it stayed nice and tender for a day.
JS: So before we talk about the coffee cake of it all, I want to talk about kind of the base recipe and why it gets to a scone that isn't a little bit terrible but still honors that critique. So there are two things here that I think differentiate it from most doughs. First is how you incorporate the butter.
SU: In this one, we rubbed in the butter.
JS: Completely.
SU: Completely. First of all, the temperature of the butter was interesting. We don't really use cold butter, which is quite common in making scones or even pie. But in this, we ended up using just out of the fridge butter. So it wasn't quite room temperature, but it wasn't cold either, I would say cool room temperature butter. And that was the first big deviation. I think the second thing was we completely rub the butter into the flour until the mixture looked like cornmeal.
JS: Or like kinetic sand. Like the toy. Yeah.
SU: The poet speaks.
JS: Well, someone in our class talked about that. But that's for later.
SU: Oh. Got it, got it, got it. And this was because we realized that to us a scone isn't meant to be flaky, it's meant to be tender. And I think going back to when we talked about what are the differences between a scone versus a biscuit, I think that's a big difference. Biscuits usually can wear into a flaky territory while a scone is almost always tender, similar to our shortcake. So that's why we rub the butter in rather than leaving it in larger pieces, which some scone recipes tend to prescribe. And by doing so, there were two things that happen. The butter then coats all of the flour molecules and restricts the amount of gluten formation, which meant that we got that tender scone that we were chasing, Jesse, you and I. And then we were also, because of this tenderizing effect, we were sort of able to work the dough a little bit more than a regular scone recipe might without the risk of making it too tough. It gave us a little bit of leeway, I think, in how a reader could handle this dough.
JS: And then the secondary component is sour cream whereas most scone recipes use something like heavy cream or buttermilk. So why did you end up there?
SU: We did try that-
JS: Yeah, that's true.
SU: …heavy cream. We tried the buttermilk. We tried the whole milk. And I think we landed on sour cream because the thing about sour cream is because of its natural acidity it complements this scone really well, and it sort of cuts through the richness of all that butter and sugar in it.
JS: And also acid in doughs has a slight tenderizing effect.
SU: Yeah, that's true.
JS: Yeah. So there might be something going on there too.
SU: Yes, it definitely helped. In certain pie crust recipes you will see vinegar being called for in the wet ingredients. And that's partly why, because some people do believe that acid shortens the gluten strands.
JS: Okay. So we have sour cream scones now. So then from there, how did we leap to coffee cake scones?
SU: It sounds wild, but it wasn't that big a leap because-
JS: Sure.
SU: …once we put sour cream in them... And then I remember we were thinking about what shape to make them. And we started off with the muffin tin, quickly realized that perhaps it wasn't resonating with our tasters in the kitchen. Then the question became what is the other shape? I think both of us knew right away that we didn't want it to be circles because that's annoying.
JS: Yeah. And their scraps, what do you do with them? Yeah,
SU: Yeah. Nobody wants scraps. So we decided right away not to do a circle, and I ended up cutting them into squares.
JS: I remember that, yeah.
SU: And bake them off just like that. And there was something about when you gaze at something too long, everything just becomes one big spiral in your head. So there was something about, as you mentioned, calling them sour cream scones, seeing that square sort of shape, it really suddenly brought to mind coffee cake. And I was like, oh, this is the scone. It's a coffee cake scone.
JS: Yeah. Because we originally set out to do a choose your own adventure scone where you can make the base and then you add, say, chocolate chips or you add fruit or you add nuts or whatever. And then the more we thought about it we're like, "This is complicated because if you add a wet fruit, what do we tell people?"
SU: It was just too much variability. See, Jesse and I are uncomfortable with that-
JS: Yeah.
SU: …in terms of recipe development. We wanted to be like, here's this recipe. Follow these instructions.
JS: There's chill here.
SU: This is your result.
JS: Yeah. Zero chill.
SU: It's okay. Everybody who's listening to Bake Club also has no chill.
JS: Yeah, probably.
SU: I'm just making assumptions here.
JS: Probably though. So it makes sense that we ended up here.
SU: Yeah.
JS: But if people did want to use this sour cream dough, do you think they could add in various add-ins and kind of tailor it to whatever they want? She's looking at me. She's mad.
SU: I was like, why are you asking this question, Jesse?
JS: She's mad.
SU: You know the answer. I think yes to certain things, effortlessly.
JS: Sure.
SU: I think you'll agree with me. You could use a citrus zest, for instance.
JS: Totally.
SU: A lemon zest, lime, orange zest. You easily just grate a bunch of it into the dry ingredients with the flour, sugar.
JS: Totally.
SU: Mix it up. It's going to be great. You could use dry spices.
JS: Totally. Or even dried fruit.
SU: Yeah.
JS: Yeah.
SU: You can use dried fruit as well. I think as long as it's a dry inclusion-
JS: I agree.
SU: ... to some extent. Scary territory is when we start using-
JS: Fresh fruit.
SU: …fresh fruit. Thank you. I was going to say wet fruit-
JS: Wet fruit.
SU: …and I was like, ew. Okay, thanks.
JS: Well, all fruit's a little wet.
SU: Yeah.
JS: Yeah. It gets gummy. It creates little steamy pockets.
SU: Yes.
JS: Yes. So it acts different.
SU: Yeah. Something like a blueberry, like a fresh blueberry might still work because blueberries have that little skin. So all of that juice is self-contained in a way. And yeah, they can be an occasional pop, but it works. So that would be probably the-
JS: The lowest risk, high risk fruit.
SU: Yes. Yes, that's true. Is a fresh blueberry.
JS: I agree. I agree.
SU: But a strawberry-
JS: Scary.
SU: …absolutely never. Never. Actually, strawberries in baking almost never work-
JS: They're tough.
SU: …to be honest.
JS: They get also kind of weird color.
SU: Yeah. Strawberries are really weird. So it was just too inconsistent. So I would say citrus dust, great. Dried spices, great. Dried fruit, totally okay. Just make sure they're like, what would you say, Jessie? Like pinkie-nail-sized pieces.
JS: Yeah. Don't throw a whole dried apricot in there.
SU: Yeah, exactly. So chop up your dried fruit if it isn't already in bits into smaller pieces. And then you can incorporate it with the dry ingredients. And I would probably not do more than, let's say a cup-
JS: Yeah, I agree.
SU: …for this recipe.
JS: Totally. We're going to take a quick break.
SU: When we get back, we'll answer some questions from our community of Bake Clubbers and tell you all about our very first Bake Club live event that we had in the BA test kitchen. Welcome back to BA Bake Club.
JS: And, Shilpa, before we get into these listener questions, I just want to take a second to thank all the people who came out to our very first live baking event.
SU: Oh my gosh. Isn't that crazy? I feel like we were talking about it for so long.
JS: And then it happened.
SU: And then it happened and it was here. And for those of you who are listening, just to give you a little background, we have been wanting to have a live event to meet some of our bake clubbers in the flesh for a while now. Because really that was the whole point of Bake Club.
JS: Yeah.
SU: We wanted to hang out with people who love to bake and talk about, just be nerdy about baking essentially. And what better way to do it than in-person. And we had people visiting us, some of us from outside of New York.
JS: Some flying in, yeah.
SU: Yeah. That's crazy. Somebody flew in. We had somebody from Florida.
JS: Yes.
SU: We had someone from Texas-
JS: Yes.
SU: …who was flying back that same night.
JS: Yes.
SU: It was just so nice.
JS: No, it was really sweet. Everyone was so sweet, and it was so fun to with everyone. And it was fun to hear everyone's stories of baking.
SU: Yeah.
JS: And it's so real to hear them say that they listened to us too.
SU: I know. It was really wonderful. Yeah, it was surreal. That was the word I would use too. It was lovely.
JS: It was very sweet. Yeah, it was very sweet.
SU: Thanks to every single one of you who came out and hung out with Jesse and myself.
JS: That was very fun.
SU: Yeah. We loved it. And we hope to do many more.
JS: Okay. So now onto the listener questions. First from Kuglet. "I'm curious, most scone recipes I've used have called for cold butter. So why room temp in this one?"
SU: Primarily because I didn't want to work as hard to rub the butter in.
JS: Fair enough.
SU: In the recipe, the aim is to rub the butter between your fingers and run it through the flour until it sort of becomes very, very tiny pieces, almost one with the flour. So in my head I was like, why not just start with the cool room temperature butter that would yield more quickly to the heat of your hands than to start with cold butter, which you're going to exert more energy like squishing down on anyway.
JS: Yeah.
SU: So start with cool room temp butter. Just be cognizant of how quickly you're working. And if you ever think things are getting too warm, just pop it back in the fridge.
JS: That makes sense. Next is from Nikki. "When it says to cut the butter into small pieces, so this is before rubbing it into the dry ingredients, is pea size about right or can they be cut bigger than that?"
SU: They can be cut bigger. It really doesn't matter what size you cut the butter because eventually you simply going to rub it in. So it doesn't matter what size you start with. I think it helps to keep it about, let's say the size of a dime I would say. Nothing bigger because then it just gets faster. If it's dime sized or smaller, it's just faster to-
JS: Just easier, yeah.
SU: …yeah, rub it in. And you can keep going before your butter melts. But it doesn't matter the starting size of the butter.
JS: That makes sense. Yeah. Next is from Roberto. "I live in Central America. Sour cream is non-existent here, so I'm wondering if I can sub with yogurt or crema with lemon."
SU: I like this question because I grew up in India and we also don't have sour cream. So in thinking about this, I was like what would I do if I was in India or Central America like Roberto is? I like the suggestion that he has of crema because that is also a fermented product. Well, so is yogurt. But I think I prefer the crema suggestion because it has a little bit more fat than yogurt, and I think that would be a great substitute for the sour cream. I think my point here is you can substitute something else as long as it's fermented.
So it could be yogurt, it could be crema. And then the second thing I would pay attention to is the texture of that cultured product. If it's yogurt, I would look for something like Greek yogurt, I think. Which is almost as thick as sour cream, if not slightly more. But I don't think I would have a kefir-
JS: Yeah. It's loose.
SU: Because, yeah, it's so loose that it might change up. Especially if you using an equivalent quantity to the sour cream, it's just going to change up the consistency of your dough. And your dough is going to be too soft and wet.
JS: Sure.
SU: So use a cultured dairy and make sure it's about the same texture as sour cream, which is it can stand on the spoon. And if it's not, if it's thinner, then I would say start with slightly less. Start with maybe, what do you feel, Jessie, like 10 to 15% less if it's thinner?
JS: Yeah. Do you think you need the lemon with the crema?
SU: Oh, that's a good…I don't think so.
JS: I don't think so either.
SU: Yeah.
JS: I think crema has a significant amount of acid in it.
SU: Yeah. And I think both you and me, we've spoken about this in another episode where we, oh, I think when we talk about buttermilk substitutes-
JS: Oh, yeah.
SU: …where we don't...
JS: We freak out.
SU: Yeah. We don't like acidifying something with lemon juice or vinegar because it's a different kind of acid than lactic acid, which is what you're getting from cultured dairy. So, yeah, either good work. Either yogurt or crema without the lemon-
JS: I agree.
SU: …will work really well.
JS: I agree. Next is from Sarah. "How much of a difference does it make using dark brown sugar? Could I use light brown?"
SU: Oh. Yeah, yeah. You can really substitute either light or dark brown. We've done both in this recipe. I think eventually we settled on dark brown because it provided a nice contrast-
JS: Yeah.
SU: …to the scone.
JS: It looks toasty. Yeah.
SU: Yeah. It baked up a little bit darker. So the ribbon of cinnamon sugar and then the streusel on top was just more defined. But you can certainly use light brown sugar. The one thing I would say not to use is-
JS: We're going to say the same thing.
SU: Yes.
JS: Yeah.
SU: The one thing I would say not to use is organic.
JS: Organic. The worst product. Okay. It's not the worst product.
SU: No, Jesse.
JS: First of all, the crystal size is different.
SU: Oh, yes.
JS: And just the texture and how it acts, everything's different.
SU: So when you say crystal size, the organic sugar is-
JS: Is big.
SU: …is larger than regular.
JS: Yes.
SU: Yeah.
JS: In my book I say don't use organic brown sugar. Yes.
SU: It is important. And there's a reason why Jesse is saying that, because I'm sure as you evidence in your book and otherwise when you do use, it just works very differently.
JS: It's totally different.
SU: It doesn't cream the same.
JS: No. It's very gritty.
SU: Very gritty.
JS: Yeah.
SU: Let's say you're making a cake and it needs to be creamed. If it isn't well creamed, then it just isn't trapping as much air and it isn't dissolving in the same way that regular brown sugar is. And it's just going to change up the texture.
JS: You feel it on your teeth. Yeah.
SU: Yeah, you do. I mean, it's lovely on its own. I think the flavor of organic brown sugar is very nuanced.
JS: It's kind of robust too.
SU: Very.
JS: Yeah.
SU: I always feel like the regular dark brown sugar is the equivalent of organic light brown sugar.
JS: I know what you mean. Yeah.
SU: That's how intense it is-
JS: It is.
SU: …both in color and flavor.
JS: It's caramelly, kind of funky.
SU: Yes.
JS: Yes.
SU: I think it would be excellent in a place that you heat up the sugar and dissolve it fully.
JS: Sure.
SU: Like let's say an ice cream base for instance.
JS: Yeah. Or sort of in a coffee or something.
SU: Yeah.
JS: Yeah.
SU: Perfectly lovely. But I wouldn't substitute organic versions of brown sugar, either light or dark, in this recipe.
JS: I agree.
SU: Or any recipe.
JS: Yeah, I agree. And from Meg, "Is there a trick for keeping the scones upright? They're so delicious, no one is complaining in my house. But I'd like for my next attempt to be prettier." Yeah, we get it. We get it.
SU: We get this, yes. And we ran into this a lot ourselves.
JS: Yeah. Basically what happens is the line in the middle, the two pieces just kind of slip.
SU: Yeah. Because of the cinnamon sugar in between.
JS: Yeah. So it happens to some of them.
SU: And you found out when we were making a bunch of scones ahead of our live class, we wanted to have scones for our guests to taste when they came in. You found something out that was interesting, Jesse.
JS: Yeah. I was sitting in bed and it came to me. You know a drywall anchor? I was like, what if I just poke with a chopstick right through the top to the bottom of one of the scones, and it kind of creates this channel of dough. And then when it bakes, that channel sets in place like an anchor. And it worked.
SU: It worked. It worked. Thanks to Home Depot for the inspiration.
JS: Yeah.
SU: But it really worked. There is a hole on top of them, but-
JS: But the streusel's there.
SU: Exactly.
JS: So just like, I don't know, put it on top of the hole.
SU: Exactly. Strategically shift the streusel around to cover one of the little dents.
JS: Our producer is literally taunting us right now. She said, "Shocked that museum gloves Jesse endorses." Okay. Well, desperate times. But, yeah, I just take little pebbles and put it on top.
SU: Though we did discover, Jesse, that there's also an alternative that worked quite well.
JS: Yes.
SU: And we discovered it thanks to a batch of scones that we left in the fridge and forgot about for the weekend, to be very frank with you. And then Jesse baked them off this morning and we discovered that if the dough is well chilled.
JS: Yes. Very chilled. Like chilled to its core, it will hold its shape completely.
SU:It holds its shape. So maybe somebody could do that too.
JS: Yeah.
SU: Make the scones, cut them into wedges.
JS: I'd say like an hour in the fridge.
SU: Yeah. I wonder if you can freeze them too.
JS: Yeah, I'm sure.
SU: I think in the recipe when we were developing it, I hesitated to write that in because I was worried that the sugar might kind of melt away.
JS: Yeah, because it does that.
SU: Yeah.
JS: Yeah. It's like goopy.
SU: The sugar would dissolve and melt away. But actually it didn't, and it's held the shape really well. The sugars ribbon was quite prominent. So chilling or chop sticking are great solutions.
JS: I agree. I remember we also got an interesting question from one of our members during the live event. They asked if you could make the dough in a food processor.
SU: Yeah.
JS: Yeah.
SU: I think you can.
JS: Yeah.
SU: I think it would work really well.
JS: I think the rubbing of the butter into the flour would be totally fine because you just kind of let it go.
SU: Yeah, exactly. Though I think if I was using the food processor, I would then start with cold butter.
JS: Yeah.
SU: Because the food processor generates so much heat that if you start with more room temp butter you might risk it completely melting. So start with cold butter if you're using a food processor.
JS: I agree.
SU: And I would start by making the streusel first in the food processor, then dump that out and do the scone dough in that same bowl.
JS: Yeah, I agree. Because the little bits left over are kind of nice anyways.
SU: Yeah.
JS: We're going to take another break.
SU: And when we get back, a baker you should know.
JS: Welcome back to BA Bake Club.
SU: Every so often we like to highlight someone in the baking and recipe development community who we absolutely love and who we think our listeners should know about.
JS: And this month we have a guest who has been a pastry chef for more than 20 years. During the pandemic, she struck out on her own with her cake business, Bayou Saint Cake in New Orleans. Her cakes are characterized by their naturalistic style, and she's now a writer and recipe developer. Bronwen Wyatt, welcome to The Bake Club.
Bronwen Wyatt: Thank you so much for having me.
JS: We are so excited to have you. Thank you.
SU: Yeah, we are really, really excited. I've been such a fan of yours for so many years. As I'm sure many people have discovered you, it was through Instagram where your cakes were all over my feed at least. And they were stunning. But do you want to tell listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do in your own words?
BW: Oh, sure. Of course. So I am the kind of mythological pastry chef who finally was able to successfully exit the restaurant industry and no longer has to work on my feet all day, which I'm so grateful for. But yeah, these days, instead of full-time baking, I'm doing recipe development. I work for brands and occasionally develop recipes for my own newsletter. So that's what I do these days.
SU: Wow, amazing. One of the reasons we wanted to have you on the show today is because you also recently developed a coffee cakes scone.
JS: Identical in appearance-
SU: Identical.
JS: …truly
SU: Could not have been more similar. Yours were developed for Nicola Lamb's Kitchen Projects newsletter. And, listeners, we promise we did not coordinate. I wish we had actually. But it seems like our recipe development process was happening in parallel, Bronwen.
BW: It's true. And I think it's really remarkable because I honestly think that happens more often than people realize.
SU: Totally, yes.
BW: I genuinely believe there's kind of a mind meld moment culturally that sometimes happens where multiple people work on similar projects at the same time, just because we're all kind of thinking through things in a similar way. If that makes sense.
JS: It's like in the ethos and the zeitgeist-
SU: Yes.
JS: …of baking.
BW: Exactly, yeah.
SU: Do you feel, I think I'm dating myself here, but do you feel it's more prevalent now that we are all kind of, as the algorithm of our social feeds changes to almost kind of be an echo chamber sometimes, do you think it's more prevalent now or have you noticed this throughout your career?
BW: Oh, I think it's absolutely more prevalent now, especially because we're all looking at the same social media. And it's gotten to the point where, honestly, sometimes I'll text colleagues and be like, "I want to develop this recipe, but I can't remember if this is something that you've already done."
JS: Totally.
BW: "Can you warn me or let me know?"
JS: When I'm brainstorming I'm like, "Did I make this up? Or is it subconscious memory of something I scrolled upon?"
BW: Yes, 100%.
JS: Bronwen, I'm curious, did you run into this existential question of what is the texture of a scone versus a shortcake or a biscuit or something?
BW: I really do. And so part of the work that I do for Nicola is I kind of interpret American bakes for her newsletter, which has an international audience, but I think the majority of her readers are based in the UK. So a lot of times when I'm developing recipes for her, I'm not only thinking about the existential question of what is a scone versus a shortcake, but also how is my American perspective influencing this and how might this recipe read to a UK audience? Which has been such a learning curve for me.
JS: Yeah. Because also the regional differences between scones is a whole other thing.
BW: Absolutely. Yeah. Or scone, as you might say if you were over there.
SU: What kind of language did you use to relay an American scone to a British audience?
BW: So, yeah, I think in the recipe I label them as American style scones. Because ours are, a, much larger and they tend, I think, to have more of a mix in quality. Whereas in the UK, they tend to just be plain and served with fruit or cream. And then the texture, I think, with ours tends to be a little more crumbly versus flaky is my interpretation.
SU: Yeah. We had very similar thoughts. How did you arrive at coffee cake version of scones?
BW: So as part of my American baking journey with Nicola, I developed a coffee cake recipe because-
JS: That post was great.
BW: Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. And so we'll often also develop companion recipes for her newsletter. So it might be a riff off the original recipe, or it might be like a companion piece. And so in this case, I decided to riff off the idea of coffee cake with an American style scone. Just how I kind of came to that place.
JS: It's funny that you started with coffee cake and then got to scones-
BW: Yeah.
JS: …because we started with scones and then got to coffee cake.
BW: Oh, that's so funny.
JS: Yeah. The same endpoint.
SU: I would say, Jessie, for you and I, I think the biggest pain point was how to get that sugar swirl in the center of the dough.
JS: Yes.
SU: And how to make these two halves, after we sandwich them, how do we get them to stick together?
JS: Yeah, they kept sliding.
SU: Yeah.
BW: Oh, yeah.
SU: I was curious if you ran into the same problem or some other problems in these coffee cake scones.
BW: I think for me, my biggest pain point was the streusel because I'm very picky about my streusel texture. And to develop a streusel that works on both a coffee cake and a scone is a little bit of.… Because they have different bake times and different qualities as they bake. So I was trying to bring my idealized streusel texture from the coffee cake to the scone in a way that it would kind of maintain its character. As far as the filling. I think just coming from a professional baking background, I approached the scone, and not to say that of course, but the way that we were taught to make scones in large-scale bakeries is you pack them into a cake pan and freeze them, and then slice them from frozen and bake them from frozen. Which I think really helps the slip and slide of keeping that center filling in there. So I think just coming from it, from that perspective, I didn't have that issue. But I think I had a whole other set of issues from trying to bring it from the perspective of turning a coffee cake into a scone.
SU: Yeah.
JS: That makes sense.
SU: That's so funny. And it's interesting that you started off by using that restaurant background to shape it in the tin. Because in restaurants, it does make sense. You could make a bunch of them shape them, freeze them, and cut them as you need them.
BW: Exactly.
SU: For us, on the other hand, both Jesse and I are professionally trained, but we had to approach it for the home cook, and then we were like, oh, what if chilling is a step too far?
JS: Yeah. And then we left a batch in the fridge over the weekend by accident.
SU: Yeah.
JS: And we baked it and we're like, wait-
SU: It was perfect.
JS: …yeah. This is perfect.
SU: Not a single one slid.
JS: Yeah.
BW: Oh, that's so funny.
SU: Bronwen, I have to say, you had a recipe for an apple hazelnut rye cake on bonappetite.com. I was the food editor on that back in 2021.
BW: I think I remember that. Maybe that's where I saw your name for the first time.
SU: Oh, yes. I was freelancing at BA back then, and I remember that cake being so different from any other cake I've made. You start off with making a batter, and then you add big chunks of apple, right?
BW: Yeah. And it's a very thick, thick batter, too.
SU: Very thick batter. You had to pack it in. It was almost a dough, to be honest. And it bakes for a long time. But it was super delicious. And I remember I was freelancing, and of course, I wanted a full-time job after that. So I was really wanting to impress Chris over here. Your signature style is having floral decorations on top of the cake, so I was trying to do my best to imitate the style. So I remember running around my neighborhood picking some random flowers, which I didn't know what they were, just to put them on the cake and take a reference picture.
JS: You're poisoning yourself here.
SU: No, truly. I was like, "Nobody touched those flowers."
BW: Oh, that's so funny.
SU: But that was my first introduction to you. And a spectacular cake, and I still make it sometimes. And I think it's a very unusual, lovely cake, especially in the fall.
BW: Oh, I love that. Thank you so much. Yeah. I think where I came from as far as the texture of that cake is I'm a huge fan of really dense, sticky cakes, like fruit cakes for instance. So I think that that cake almost more veers into that territory, especially because with that longer bake time, you get that kind of almost dense fudgy center and then the crisper crust, which I really love. Oh gosh, that recipe is such a trip because it feels like it came out a million years ago. And I was actually thinking recently, do you ever look back at recipes you've developed and think what would you do if you were printing that recipe now and how might it be different?
JS: I cannot look at my recipes from even six months ago.
BW: Absolutely.
JS: Yeah. Speaking of fruit cake, so we were looking at your work and we saw that you really have an interest in fruit cake in an unusual way, do you want to tell us about your fruit cake journey on this podcast?
BW: Of course. Yeah. I've always loved fruit cake and I think it kind of stems from this sort of obstinate quality I have where if somebody really doesn't like something in a cultural way, I really want to explore it and see why. I'm big fan of black licorice as well.
JS: I am too. I love black licorice.
SU: Me too.
BW: Yeah. I think a lot about fruit cake from that perspective is just this kind of almost universally despised thing that I think is unjustly cast aside by our culture. And as I've thought and read about fruit cake over the years, I found out this sort of fascinating side history of it. At one point, I was even trying to think if I could turn this into a book length project, but the secret history of fruit cake over the years.
But, yeah, recently I worked on a podcast where I researched a story about the history of fruit cake with NASA's space program.
JS: Wow.
SU: Wow.
BW: Yeah. So fruit cake was developed as an emergency ration for astronauts by a military research facility in Massachusetts during the Apollo era. So the 1960s when we were first going to the moon. And NASA asked them to develop a ration, the ration had to remain edible for up to three years and be a single item emergency ration for astronauts. So the military research facility developed a nutrient fortified fruit cake to fill that niche. And it actually flew to space, it was on Skylab during the '70s. So, yeah, it's just such a weird, interesting thing and I'm so obsessed with it.
JS: And were the astronauts happy about this?
SU: Yeah.
BW: So part of the testing that NASA does with all of its food is quality, and they call it the hedonic scale. So all astronaut candidates try the food and rate it on this one through nine hedonic scale as to whether they find it palatable.
SU: Wow.
BW: Because astronauts have to enjoy the food or they lose too much weight. So it's actually really important.
JS: And you made this into a podcast, right?
BW: I did, yeah. I published it through the Southern Foodways Alliance. So, yeah, you can listen to all about it if you're finding this as a tantalizing intro.
JS: I am.
SU: And what is the name of the podcast that listeners can find this?
BW: Oh, thank you. It's called Fruitcake in Space.
SU: Oh, fun.
JS: Love it. There's not much SEO competition there.
SU: And I love the picture that you had of the slice of fruitcake.
JS: Yeah, that's great.
SU: It is so fun.
BW: Thank you.
SU: This has been such a great conversation. I mean, we've never met, but I'm so happy that we're finally talking to you.
JS: Yeah, same.
SU: I've really, really admired your work for so long. And it felt like a fateful moment when I saw your Instagram post and saw your coffee cake scone. And I said, "Jesse, it's the exact same thing. We need to have Bronwen on."
BW: I'm so glad, and I can't wait to try your version of the recipe.
SU: Oh my gosh. Please tell us.
JS: Yeah, give us notes.
SU: Yeah. And before we let you go, we want to know where our listeners can find you on the internet.
BW: Thank you. Yeah. So I'm on Instagram @bayousaintcake. I have a newsletter, the Bayou Saint News, that you can find on Substack. And, yeah, I'm also publishing work for brands and for Nicola Lamb and all sorts of people.
JS: Nice. Bronwen, thank you so much for joining us. This was so lovely.
SU: We loved it.
BW: Thank you so much.
SU: That's it for this month's edition of BA Bake Club.
JS: Shilpa, can you tell our bakers about the June Bake Club recipe?
SU: June's Bake Club recipe is another cake, the Hummingbird cake. The Hummingbird cake is a very classic iconic cake, especially in the south. It's essentially a pineapple banana cake mashup.
JS: Yeah, it's like a banana cake went on a vacation.
SU: Yes.
JS: Yes.
SU: And it's almost always layered. And it always has cream cheese frosting, which our cake does. But yeah, that's the Hummingbird cake, a banana, pineapple layer cake with lots of cream cheese frosting and pecans.
JS: I really loved eating this, every iteration you made. It's a very fun cake.
SU: Yeah, it's beautiful. It looks beautiful.
JS: Yeah, it's very pretty. Is there any special equipment or ingredients that bakers should stock up on?
SU: I did find it helpful to have a rotating cake stand.
JS: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.
SU: We're making two layers of cake. We're slicing each in half then we're putting filling and frosting in between, stacking, piping, all of these things. And I found a cake turntable to be indispensable. And if you don't have one, you could also get a lazy Susan from-
JS: Totally.
SU: …a home improvement store.
JS: Or take the thing out of your microwave. Yes, I've done that.
SU: Oh, because in the little wheelie.
JS: Yes, exactly.
SU: I never thought about that.
JS: Yeah.
SU: Oh my God, that's so clever. Or use the plate on your microwave.
JS: Well, Bake Clubbers, once you bake through the hummingbird cake, you can send us your pictures and any questions you might have. And there are so many different ways to get in touch with us.
SU: You can comment on the recipe, on the Epicurious app or on the Bon Appetit website. Or you can email us at bakeclub@bonappetit.com. And if you've made it and loved it, please rate and review the recipe on our site. We're your hosts, Shilpa Uskokovic.
JS: And Jesse Szewczyk.
SU: Michele O'Brien is our senior producer.
JS: Jake Lummus is our studio engineer.
SU: Research editing by Ryan Harrington.
JS: This episode was mixed by Amar Lal and Macro-sound.
SU: Our executive producer is Jordan Bell.
JS: Chris Bannon is Condé Nast's head of Global Audio.
SU: If you like the show, leave us a rating and review and hit that follow button so you never miss an episode.
JS: And if you're not already part of the club, head to bonappetit.com/bakeclub to find all the information you need to join.
SU: Thank you for listening to BA Bake Club. We'll see you next month.