307: Yossy Arefi & Natasha's Kitchen

0:00This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. Resi is a digital platform that connects restaurants to restaurant lovers by elevating dining experiences, providing original industry content, and helping to fill some of the country's most exciting dining rooms. Because restaurants have always been more than just places to eat. The amazing world of restaurants is just a few taps away in the Resi app and at resi.com.

0:32I think learning how to make standard base recipes is a great place to kind of build your baking library. So like learn how to make a pie crust. And then when you learn how to make a pie crust, you can make a gullet or you can make a pie or you can make hand pies or you can make all different things with it. And those things can be sweet or savory. This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbanel.

1:20And also on the show, Matt catches up with Natasha Kravchuk, the creator of the popular website Natasha's Kitchen and the author of the New York Times bestseller of the same name. Through approachable budget-minded recipes and a sense of style and place, Natasha has won over millions of fans, and she's become one of the leading voices in food. But do you really know Natasha? On this episode, we answer many questions and get a sense of what inspires the Ukraine-born, Idaho-residing home cook, recipe developer, and entrepreneur. We hope you enjoy both these great conversations.

1:59yasi arefi this is taste thank you for coming on the podcast thank you so much for having me okay so we're here to talk about your new book snacking bakes and your first book snacking cakes was released during the first year of the pandemic which was such a big time for baking and now we're kind of in a different era for home cooking i'm curious if you thought at all about how the landscape the book is being released into has changed. Yeah, I think the pandemic made a lot of new bakers, like people who maybe weren't interested in cooking or baking before really explored it. And so I think that Snagging Bakes is just like a really great follow up for those people because it's still really easy recipes.

2:35There are tons of flavors represented. It's the same, you know, you need the same equipment, basically, just a bowl and a whisk and a spatula and just a couple of pans and you can make every recipe in the book. So it's like it definitely will be attractive to those people who love snacking cakes. And I think it'll be attractive to anyone who wants to bake something and just doesn't have a lot of time and doesn't want to make a big mess, which is, I think, most people. Yeah, probably everybody. Yeah. Everyone that doesn't have a dishwasher, at least. Yes, exactly. So like one of the benefits of being a recipe developer on Instagram, I think is that you have this direct line into people's kitchens, what they're making, definitely what they are sharing and want other people to know about.

3:20I'm curious, like a temperature check with snacking cakes, like what were recipes that people were baking the most and were they the ones that you expected? There were a few that I got tagged in so many times. One was the, there's a sesame cake that's made with tahini that people seem to really love. And then the next, another one was there's a pumpkin olive oil cake that I actually got to make with Claire Saffitz on Dessert Person. And so I think that that reach was just so wide. People loved that pumpkin olive oil cake. And then in the spring, I got tagged a lot in the strawberry cake. And in the summer, I get tagged a lot in the plum and almond cake.

3:57So it's like a little bit seasonal what people are going for. But those I think are the top four, for sure. Those make a lot of sense. I remember making your, I think I mixed and matched a chocolate cake recipe with the salted caramel glaze from another recipe in that book for my own birthday cake. And it was so delicious. And also the salted caramel glaze just looked so beautiful. I was taking, I was like a stage mom taking pictures of that glaze. So I'm surprised that's not a contender too, but it makes sense. Yeah. I love that you mix and match. That's like exactly what I wanted people to do with the book, just to like take the toppings and the glazes and mix them however sounded delicious to them.

4:38Well, it also is because I didn't own powdered sugar before. And then that's like what the main ingredient in a glaze is, I guess. So then once I had it, I was making glazes for everything because I just like wanted to like use the most of that bag that I could. And it was kind of like exciting to have this ingredient that I had never really worked with before. Oh, that's so great. Yeah. And it's super versatile. I mean, it's just it's a base that you can add almost any flavor to. So you can make it chocolatey, you can make it fruity, You could add almond extract and make it nutty. Like you can just go so many directions and it's all really easy.

5:10I mean, you just add some liquid and a little bit of flavor. Yeah. I was wondering about making like a cold brew glaze or something like that. Have you ever swapped in like other liquids? Yeah, I've definitely used coffee. Sometimes I'll use like a little bit of something like rum or grummonier. You could really, I mean, truly just anything that you have in the fridge. You could use juice. Natasha Pickowitz uses vinegar sometimes, which sounds really delicious that I haven't tried. Whoa. Yeah. I love that. That's a very Natasha thing to do. Yeah, totally. So like seeing the recipes that were the most popular out of snacking cakes, did that inform your approach at all when you're going back and making this second book?

5:49It did. I think with both books, I tried to utilize like a huge variety of flavors. So there was kind of something for everyone. I know that people really gravitate, especially like in the cake category. They really loved the cakes that had fruit. So I tried to include lots of cakes with fruit. And I love baking with fruit. My first book was all about seasonal fruit desserts. And then I tried to, you know, translate those fruit flavors to other things that you might not normally have as a fruit, like a fruit flavor dessert, like a cookie or a bar. Yeah. Are there any like fruity cookies that come to mind as favorites from the book?

6:24Yeah, there's like a lemon cornmeal cookie that has this beautiful blueberry glaze that you make with freeze dried blueberries. And it's just like tart and the cornmeal adds a little bit of texture to the cookie. And it's really beautiful. I love that. I feel like in the summer, I just want to eat as much fruit as I can. And I always am aspiring to bake with it. But the quantity of fruit that you have to buy to bake with if you're also going to be eating is always more than I think it's going to be. And by the time I'm sitting down to bake, I've snacked my way through most of the fruit. Yeah, if you're making a pie or something, you need a few pounds of fruit.

6:59But if you're making a cake, you only need a cup or so. Also, the cakes and the pies are worth it. I should just carve out a day, I think, and spend money on stone fruit and do it, you know? Yeah. I mean, I love a peach pie. And a plum pie is actually my favorite of the stone fruit pies. Yeah, your plum cake that you mentioned before, it kind of reminded me of the Marion Burroughs plum torte, that iconic cake that I still have not made this summer. Yeah, that was totally the inspiration. I added a little bit of almond flour to it and some and other good things. Other good things. Yeah, the Marion Burroughs plum tart was totally the inspiration for that cake.

7:37And I just added some almond extract and some almond flour and some sliced almonds on top for texture. Nice. So I feel like one of the big appeals with your recipes is that they really are like approachable and accessible in terms of the ingredients and definitely the equipment that's required, like not needing a stand mixer or beaters or like a lot of equipment. but it must be difficult to develop recipes like that. And I'm curious if you find that to be a challenge or maybe if you have finessed the way that you've developed recipes along the way to be hitting this kind of target for people. Yeah, I definitely work within a pretty small framework for the recipes for these books because I want them to feel really accessible to people who don't have any equipment or somebody who's just starting baking who might have to buy everything they need to make something.

8:29So you don't need any electric equipment. You need, you know, one bowl, snacking cakes. You just need one pan. Snacking bakes, you need the same size pan and some half sheet pans, which are really inexpensive to buy at like a restaurant supply. But, yeah, I really streamlined kind of the process of making all of these different baked goods. And one of the main things that I did was to always call for what I'm calling for butter is to call for melted butter instead of softened butter. and that makes things easier to mix. You don't have to wait to soften butter on your counter and they come together really easily with hand equipment rather than electric equipment.

9:11Does it change the texture at all to be working with melted butter instead of softened? It does a little bit. The cookie recipes are probably different than a lot of the cookie recipes that you've seen before but I was still able to achieve a lot of different textures. So there's crispy cookies and chewy cookies and kind of everything in between. What was the recipe that was like the biggest challenge to streamline to fit into these parameters for snacking bakes? The recipe that I tested the most was chocolate chip cookies for sure, because people have like capital O opinions about chocolate chip cookies.

9:49And I knew that I wasn't going to be able to satisfy everybody with the cookie recipes in the book. specifically the chocolate chip cookie recipes so I tried to make something that was that I found really delicious and that felt very snacky and not too indulgent and I was able to make chocolate chip cookie recipes for a variety of dietary preferences which was also really important to me so there's definitely hopefully a chocolate chip cookie for everyone in the book. What's a Europlatonic ideal chocolate chip cookie? I like to use a little bit of whole grain flour but I don't have to. And I like them to be, you know, have a crisp edge and a soft center, but not doughy.

10:32And this might be a little controversial, but I like them to not have too much chocolate because I think sometimes it can be a little overkill when it's just like totally packed with chocolate. Like mostly chocolate. Yeah. Do you rest the dough? No, I don't rest the dough. You can rest the dough for sure, but that was another parameter for the snacking bakes is that you don't have to rest any of the cookie doughs. You can bake them all right away and you can bake them all in one go. Like all of the cookie dough fits on two sheet pans. That's crazy to me that you don't have to rest the dough because I feel like every chocolate chip cookie that I've made before that's been like the A's best or the New York Times best, like that's such a requirement for the process.

11:14How do you avoid having to do that? I mean, it definitely can make the cookies, it gives the cookies a different texture when you rest them. That's totally delicious. But for these recipes, I just really wanted people to be able to go from like zero to cookie in less than an hour without the resting time. So you still can. And like I keep cookie dough in my freezer and I bake it from the freezer all the time. Zero to cookie is such a good phrase. In my head, I'm thinking that like Rihanna lyric like from Shut Up and Drive. That's like zero to 60 in 3.5. Totally. Zero to cookie in 3.5. Yeah. That's so funny.

11:50And I feel like maybe an advantage that you have in this field of streamlining recipes is being a baker in New York City and maybe not having as much counter space or you don't have a dishwasher, do you? I don't have a dishwasher. I don't have a microwave. My freezer can fit like three ice trays and like there's usually like a gallon sized bag of frozen fruit and like that's about it. Yeah. Do you feel like that gives you maybe like insight or something into like trying to make accessible recipes? Yeah, I think it definitely does because I'm really conscientious of the number of dishes that I'm using every time I cook something.

12:29Because when you can just throw stuff in a dishwasher, it doesn't seem like a big deal to use an extra bowl or whatever. But when I know I'm going to be hand washing that later, I definitely think twice about every tool and utensil that I'm using. Yeah, I relate. I feel like one of the biggest things that convinced me to start using a scale when I was baking, in addition to being more precise, was that I didn't have to be washing all of my measuring cups and measuring spoons in the same way. Oh, yeah, for sure. And like there are certain things that are just kind of annoying to wash, like the corners of a measuring cup when you have something sticky in there.

13:00It's just very annoying to wash if you can't just throw it in your dishwasher. Yeah, and I feel like you must be, you know, you're developing recipes, you're testing them again. And like just the amount of dishes that are being dirtied is at a scale that I probably like can't even think about. It's a lot. It's a lot. So I want to talk about the like cravings matrix that you have at the front of your book because I think that's really fun. Can you maybe like break down what that is to a listener that hasn't opened the book before? So the craving matrix breaks down all of the different flavors that are represented in the book and then all of the different types of bakes that are in the book.

13:35So the table of contents is very straightforward. The chapter headers are pretty straightforward. It's cookies, bars and brownies and cakes, basically, which isn't super descriptive. So we wanted to have we wanted to give people something that they can open up and like have a craving and be able to just kind of like look at an organized list and be like, OK, this is a toasty, spicy cookie. and there's a list of warm and toasty cookies. Or I want to make a cake that's fruity or a cake that's chocolatey. And so you can just look through the matrix and find kind of exactly what you're in the mood for.

14:15And hopefully there's a wide enough variety that like every craving can be satisfied. Yeah, so right now I have it up. So let's say I wanted a chocolatey bar brownie. I could do the triple chocolate olive oil brownies or I could do loaded chocolate chip cookie bars. Those both sound so great. And on the fruity side of things, if I wanted a fruity cookie, soft grapefruit cookies is the first one that stands out to me because I love grapefruit and everything. Me too. When you were, so you did the matrix first and then you put in all of the recipes or did you kind of reverse engineer it around the recipes?

14:53It was a little bit reverse engineered trying to categorize. We were trying to figure out how to categorize everything in a way that was more interesting than just listing them out. Yeah, I think it's really fun. And I can imagine people that are indecisive, especially like even just closing your eyes and like putting your finger somewhere on the matrix and seeing where that is, is like such a fun way to decide what to have for dessert. And it also speaks to the fact that these recipes are so like quick to throw together that like you could actually go from zero to cookie or whatever. And I think that's like, that's not something you had in your other book, right?

15:28It's not. No, that's a new edition for this one. Well, I like it. And I imagine that other books might take a page out of it, literally, as well. So while we're calling out recipes, I'm curious if there's a recipe or maybe a couple that you think encapsulates the ethos of snacking bakes the most. I think one that you actually mentioned is the loaded chocolate chip cookie bars, which are—it's a vegan recipe, so there are no eggs or dairy. So it's basically like—it's all pantry ingredients. You don't need any eggs or dairy, so you don't need anything refrigerated. And you can kind of add whatever mix-ins you have around your house.

16:06It's just like a great easy base for any chocolate or nuts or even dried fruit. And it comes together really fast. What is it using if it doesn't have any eggs or dairy? It just uses oil. And then there's no egg replacer or kind of binder. It just doesn't need it. It's just like the other ingredients come together in a way that it makes sense. Exactly. That's cool. Do you feel like that's your approach towards vegan or dairy-free baking in general, is trying to just use ingredients that would otherwise be in the recipe instead of trying to do egg substitutions? Yeah, most of the time that's the direction that I go because I think egg substitutions work well for some things and they don't work great for other things.

16:48And so it's hard to kind of make a direct swap in lots of recipes. So for me, when I'm developing a recipe that I know I don't want it to have dairy or eggs, I just kind of start with a baseline of just like pantry ingredients. I like that idea. And I think coming back to the chocolate chip cookie that we were talking about, to me, that feels like one of the most difficult recipes in like the American recipe pantheon to develop because everybody has their preferences. And it's such a ubiquitous recipe. Like everyone has a chocolate chip cookie recipe. so I'm curious like what were you trying to add to the chocolate chip cookie conversation with the recipes in this book yeah I was definitely trying to add a cookie that didn't need to be rested huge huge and then something that had a little bit of maybe a surprising flavor so the chocolate chip cookie and there's a vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe as well that I think is really great like I would make either of them any day they both have a little bit of whole grain flour in them, which I just think is really delicious and adds nice texture and nice flavor that people may not have tried before.

18:00And so I love baking with whole grain flour. So I kind of wanted to share that in a way that felt really approachable and like a chocolate chip cookie felt like a great way to get that in. Yeah, I love that in a chocolate chip cookie. Sarah Jampel did a buckwheat chocolate chip cookie that is one of my go-tos because I think that It adds like such a nutty, savory flavor that works so well with bittersweet chocolate, especially. Yeah, exactly. So I'm a beginner baker myself or maybe on that journey. Definitely a lot of people that cook your recipes are. If you could give a piece of advice to kind of beginner bakers, what would it be?

18:35I would say start with something simple. Like don't go from zero to layer cake. Go from like zero to cookie or zero to snacking cake. And then also, like, don't be afraid to make a mistake. Like, what's the worst thing that could happen? It's like you've made something that's less than, like, perfectly delicious. Most things can be saved with, like, some ice cream or whipped cream on top. And just to, like, have fun with it and make, like, remember that it's not, like, the most important thing in the world to bake something. But it can be a really fun and satisfying hobby. And so just like keep it light and don't put too much pressure on yourself to make things perfect the first time, especially.

19:17OK, I'm going to listen to this back the next time I'm baking something. If you are trying to maybe maybe you're you've baked cookies before you've done that kind of base level and you want to push yourself a little bit. Do you have any suggestions for like what that reach recipe should be? I think learning how to make like kind of standard base recipes is a great place to kind of build your baking library. So like learn how to make a pie crust. And then when you learn how to make a pie crust, you can make a gullet or you can make a pie or you can make hand pies or you can make all different things with it.

19:51And those things can be sweet or savory. So I think finding those building blocks and getting comfortable with making those building blocks is a great way to learn how to bake and also to be creative in your baking. Because when you know those base recipes, you can adjust them to your own taste, which I think is the most fun thing about baking. Yeah, I like that. Do you feel like there's a recipe maybe in this book or in a different book that just is like such a classic Yossi recipe? Oh, gosh. Um, my first book had a lot of pies and galettes in it because it was, uh, a fruit-based baking book.

20:28And I still love those recipes so, so much. Um, snacking bakes and snacking cakes are all like, they're all, they feel so special to me because I think because of how much great feedback I've gotten, um, about how people bake from the book and they bake from it often and they bake from it with their kids and they you know love to give it as gifts and so I feel like those recipes all feel really really really special to me I can't choose one okay I won't choose well maybe when you like do you ever go out to eat dessert and baked goods in the city or are you mostly eating what you make at home um I definitely love to order dessert when I'm out I do eat dessert I mean almost every day I love that.

21:16I think we all should be eating more dessert. When you're going out to order dessert, what's the thing that you see on a menu and you're like, oh, actually, I have to get this? Oh, gosh. I love when restaurants make really interesting ice creams because that's something that I don't usually do at home. And then I also love really simple things like a very good chocolate mousse or something that seems simple but has really interesting garnishes with herbal flavors or something that I wouldn't make at home. Something with a lot of components that I wouldn't make at home. Yeah, I had a Sunday at Gage and Talner recently that I think would fit onto all of this criteria for you because it was corn, ice cream, and that had all these toppings and things that I wouldn't make at home.

22:01So it was doubly special in that way. Yeah. Where are your favorite places to have dessert in the city? Oh, gosh. Sorry, I didn't prep you on this one. I just want to steal your recs. Gosh, I have a... And I like only go out in my neighborhood. Yeah. I mean, you live in Greenpoint, right, which is a great eating neighborhood. I went to Radio Bakery to get pastries just over the weekend. Yeah. I love the savory pastries at Radio. I'm thinking of the soft serves at Rule of Thirds are always incredibly delicious. They have a sesame soft serve there that's like so, so good. And they have seasonal ones, too.

22:42The last time I was there, they had a blackberry and had the blackberry and sesame swirl. It was so tasty. Whoa, I'm a soft serve fiend and I've never had their soft serve. Oh, it's so, so good. I normally go to Leo to get soft serve. Have you had that one? I haven't, but I should make a journey because... Yeah, if you can wait until Concord grape season, they do a swirl for the past couple years. That's Concord grape swirled with salted caramel. And it is so good. I really like covet it year round. Oh my God. Concord grape is one of my favorite, favorite seasonal flavors. So I will definitely try that.

23:14I love that. I feel like when I moved to the East Coast is when I started having Concord grape. And it is one of the best things about fall. I normally feel sad about summer fruit leaving, but the Concord grapes kind of ease my pain. Yeah. Concord grape pie is very laborious to make, but it is my favorite pie. It's so good. Do you take out the seeds? I do take out the seeds. When you said it was very laborious, that was the first thing that came to mind for me. How do you do that? Just take them out? You have to pinch the skins off, which is actually pretty easy. and then you cook the insides of the grapes, like the grape flesh.

23:47And once you kind of get it up to a certain temperature, the seeds and the flesh separate, but then you have to pass it through a strainer to get all the seeds out. So it's a labor of love, but it's totally worth it. Yeah, that sounds like you would make that for someone you care about. Yeah. If anyone ever makes me that pie, I'm going to know. If I'm ever thinking ahead at the end of the summer, I'll put together filling for Concord grape pie so I can have it at Thanksgiving. Oh, I love that. Have you ever done like a peanut butter and jelly pie with the Concord grape? No, but that sounds really good.

24:17I put peanut butter in everything. So that's immediately where my brain went. But I feel like that would be good. Yeah. You would love this tahini. The tahini blackberry swirl at Rural Thirds is like a really nice PB &J vibe. Yeah. I'm going to go, honestly, as soon as we can. Maybe today if they're open. So before we go, you know, this is taste. We like to talk to guests about their taste. And I have a little kind of rapid fire Q &A for you. So I'll just kind of throw something out and you can let me know the first thing that comes to mind. Okay. Go to bodega snack. Jalapeno chips. Go to a restaurant in New York City.

24:53Rule of thirds. Your favorite cookbook. Ooh, Thai, Good to the Grain, and The Last Course. Ooh, great answers. Your favorite New York City bakery. It depends what I want because like sweet things and savory things are different. You can give me two. It's okay. I love one of my favorite baked goods in the city, if it counts, is the potato pizza at Sullivan Street Bakery. Okay. Favorite store-bought or like pre-made dessert? I love Oreos and cookies and cream ice cream. Maybe together. Maybe together. Most underrated piece of kitchen equipment? Bench scraper. Most overrated ingredient? Truffle oil.

25:35That's like what everyone says. Everyone's probably says that. Yeah, I mean, that's the great answer. Soft cookie or crunchy cookie? Crunchy. Brownie or blondie? Brownie. Eight by eight pan or loaf pan? Eight by eight. Why eight by eight? I think it's a little bit more versatile because you can make a cake in it. You can make bars. You can make brownies. And with a loaf, you can make like really small batches of bars and brownies. But an eight by eight is a little, I think it's just a little more versatile. And you can, you know, bake savory things in it too. Okay. I just want to throw one more comparison for you.