Will Baking Make You Happy?
Pastry Chef Tanya Bush's quest to find out! Learn more on today's She's My Cherry Pie episode.
Life is cruller
“I had this idea that baking was a hobby I would use to claw my way to happiness.”
Tanya Bush, like a lot of us, was searching for something at the bottom of a bowl of cake batter. But sometimes, cake alone is enough.
The Little Egg pastry chef and Cake Zine co-founder talks to host Jessie Sheehan this week about her new memoir/cookbook, Will This Make You Happy: Stories & Recipes from a Year of Baking, out this Tuesday. It’s a beautifully told coming-of-age “story of desire and dessert” per Tanya, interspersed with recipes and kitchen learnings that inspire you to bake for the joy of it.
The book began as an anonymous Instagram account where she shared narrative captions with recent bakes, including all the messy failures—in life, and in the kitchen. The premise for her book would be to do just the same. Where most of today’s glossy cookbooks portray cooking in its most perfect, idealized form, she wanted to write a cookbook where mistakes, regrets, and heartbreak lead you to the recipes. Cooking, she shows, is just as much about transforming simple ingredients into something great as it is “a transformation of the self.”
Tanya speaks with natural poetry, even when she’s telling Jessie how to replicate the famous crullers at Little Egg. The choux dough is “a sleepy dough,” she explains. If it’s slumping off the stand mixer paddle, you’re good. Doesn’t the image of a slumping, snoozing dough make you want crullers that much more? Good news: We have the recipe.
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Shop the show & more
Tanya reminds us of the hilarious brilliance of Fancy Desserts by Brooks Headley
The cookbook that inspired her as a kid? The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (coconut cake!)
You’ll need a set of piping bags and tips to fill your crullers
… or, Tanya’s great tip is that squeeze bottles are terrific piping bag substitutes
Everyone needs a cute hair clip! We love this lemon one.
“Sometimes the best things for you are not going to be that fun while it's happening, you know?”
–Tanya Bush
Tip of the week
For the crunchiest exterior and custardy interior, freeze your crullers before frying.
Okay one more: for lemon curd with a “pizzazz-y spike,” add citric acid (then lick from your fingers; it’s what Sour Patch Kids are coated in).
Fresh baked news
Bob Red Mill’s Little Free Bakeries
Dear Saturdays’ take on the giant strawberry from Wuthering Heights
We love a beautiful butter dish
Justine Snacks & Ella Quittner make the ultimate CCC
Community bake sale for human rights, 3/14, Atlanta
Detour Doughnut’s Bridgerton-inspired treats (who’s watching?!) ⬇️
The cherry on top
Members and paid subscribers! Our next meeting is Wednesday, 3/4, with the food stylist from Wuthering Heights. Register here.
If you own a business and are interested in attending our Jubilee conference, click here for a special ticket offer
Print is always in fashion—don’t miss our new Mom’s the Bombe issue!
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I am enjoying this book immensely 🫶🏻