Savory Baking | Erin Jeanne McDowell
Intro: Welcome to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery By The Book with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table talking to cookbook authors.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: Hi, I'm Erin Jeanne McDowell, and my newest cookbook is called Savory Baking: Recipes for Breakfast, Dinner, and Everything in Between.
Suzy Chase: This cookbook is about translating your love of baking into every meal of the day. And let's kick things off a few years ago when you started noticing a pattern when it came to your baking style. What was that?
Erin Jeanne McDowell: I sort of realized that I had a sweet tooth, certainly, and the sweet tooth had kind of been driving the ship of my career for most of my life. But I had this definitive salt tooth that I like to call it. Just meaning, I loved making savory things. And when I was given an opportunity to make something for people that I love or to impress people, I remember once I was going to a big event and there were going to be a lot of other pastry chefs there, I chose to make something savory, because I felt like it was something that I loved doing and that love would kind of translate and you'd be able to taste it. So it was certainly starting to become a guidepost in my own baking, but it's far from a trend. All over the world there are massive quantities of savory baking and so it was really fun to be able to dive into it in a larger single subject book sort of format.
Suzy Chase: So you say savory baking really inspires you to reach beyond your normal baking creative thinking. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Erin Jeanne McDowell: Yeah, definitely. I mean, baking has this reputation for being very by the book, and I certainly understand that because if you go rogue on a baking recipe, you could think you're making the tiniest little change, but it actually can drastically impact the results. But cooking has a reputation for being a little bit more by the cuff. So you can add a little bit of this or you like things spicier so you can kick up the spice. And what I love about savory baking is it really is the best of both worlds. I definitely have to utilize that slightly more science tuned portion of my brain, but it also allows me to riff a lot easier because once I have that base recipe for a tart or for a pastry, I can really mix up the filling inside the same way that I can mix up what kind of stew I might want to make for dinner.
Suzy Chase: Did you see this yesterday in the news on Eater? It said the James Beard Foundation is introducing a bread book category to the awards in 2023.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: Oh my gosh. I actually didn't see that. And that makes me so happy. I feel like bread is almost its own world and in pastry school even they sort of divvied you into these two categories of the bakers and the pastry chefs. And the bakers were especially the bread bakers and the yeast people. And I definitely have always identified more on that bakers side and that makes me really happy. And this book is super bread heavy and it's actually really the first time that I have done that in any of my books. There's one yeast raised recipe in my first book, The Fearless Baker, and obviously The Book on Pie is all about pie. So this was really an exciting time for me because bread was one of the first parts of baking that I really, really fell in love with and I used to be a bread baker through college and it's just definitely a really big part of me.
Suzy Chase: So you say you grew up eating a lot of pie and you say there's a pie making tradition in the Midwest, which I love to hear. So what sorts of savory pie recipes did you create for this cookbook?
Erin Jeanne McDowell: This was so much fun for me because I had a savory chapter in my last book, The Book on Pie, because I couldn't leave this sort of savory dream that I had totally behind. So I squeezed some into The Book on Pie, but it was only one chapter and then there were four other chapters of different sweet versions. And so this basically gave me an opportunity to reopen that part of my brain and bring out some of the ideas that didn't get to come out the first time around. And I just had so much fun. I tried to think a lot of utilitarian things, but also some real show stoppers because I feel that pie is inherently a show stopper. So some of the show stopper ones that are so fun are the meat and potatoes pie, which is sort of beef stew on the inside and then duchess potatoes topping it. From afar, it looks almost like a toasted meringue topped pie, but of course it's instead meat and potatoes. So that one is really fun.
On the more utilitarian side, I have this really fun recipe where the pie crust is baked just on a sheet pan on its own and then topped with all sorts of delicious things after baking. It's so easy, great in the summer when you don't want to turn the oven on for a long time. And there's also some really cool alternative pie crust recipes using the same masa that I would use to make tortillas as sort of the crust for a tamale inspired pie and also using leftover rice to form a crust and the filling is sort of this spicy miso eggplant. And both of those are really easy and definitely nowhere near as intimidating as making a whole pastry crust sort of pie.
Suzy Chase: So when it comes to savory pies, you like to think outside the traditional pie plate. I'd love to hear about that.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: I love a pie pan. I have a lot of them. But I think when it comes to making it for dinner sometimes you definitely want a different sort of presentation option. One thing is I like to bake in spring form pans sometimes to get one of those really tall impressive pies. But I also really like a cast iron skillet, which really any sort of oven safe skillet would work great, but a cast iron specifically drives a lot of heat to the bottom and that can help prevent soggy bottoms, which no one wants that on their pies. And then also I think that sometimes when you're eating it as a meal, you want the opportunity for them to be individually portioned. So using things like muffin pans or individual tart plates or little pie plates, things like that, is another great way to bring it more into the savory world.
Suzy Chase: So I learned about frybread in this cookbook. Can you talk about your first memory tasting fry bread at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas?
Erin Jeanne McDowell: Yes, it was a bit of a tradition in my family. My mom and dad would take me to this art festival that they had every year at Haskell, which is an amazing university in my hometown of Lawrence. And I had this delicious frybread one year when I went there and I immediately went to look up how to make it and was sort of then met with the fascinating history of frybread, which was really born out of necessity and resilience only when indigenous tribes were being forced to live on reservations and they no longer had access to huge quantities of crops that they had and instead were given processed white flour and lard. And frybread was one of the things that came of it.
My experience tasting it was mind-blowing. And then learning the history so immediately after definitely gave me an even greater appreciation for something that is so delicious but definitely has a complicated history. And it also then kind of led me down the road of looking at other fried breads that you have throughout cultures and traditions. And in fact, I have Hungarian ancestry and there's a delicious fry bread known as pc and that can often be more of a sweet sort of thing. So I actually included some sugar-coated PC in the variation for this fried bread recipe as well.
Suzy Chase: So is fry bread crunchy or is it soft?
Erin Jeanne McDowell: Oh, it's both. That's the best part about it. It's crunchy around the outside, kind of shattery. It's certainly not flaky, but it shatters the same way something like a croissant or something would, that outer crust of it. And then it's very, very, soft and fluffy on the inside. It's not yeast-raised. My version uses baking powder and so no rise time, it's pretty simple to make. And it's actually become a big tradition in my family. We make it and we make fry bread tacos and it's something that we do very often in holidays when we're all together, we'll make frybread for kind of a big hearty lunch one day and it's so much fun. And we'll save some of the fry bread and have it as dessert. We'll just go full double frybread.
Suzy Chase: That sounds amazing. So another of the many things I learned in this cookbook was there are three types of egg wash. Talk a little bit about why we should use an egg wash and what are the three versions?
Erin Jeanne McDowell: Yeah, I love to use an egg wash to promote even browning. So that's the main thing that it's doing, but it also is going to have the ability to create a little bit of shine on the top of the product, and which part of the egg that you use determines that. So sometimes when I have a dish maybe that I want to add shine to, but I know it's going to brown well all on its own, maybe it has a lot of cheese in it so it's going to get darker golden brown on its own, maybe I would only use an egg white wash because then I wouldn't necessarily be promoting browning, I would just be adding the shine because that's really what the egg white contributes.
Other times I might not necessarily want the shine, I want more of a matte look, in which case I might use an egg yolk wash because then I'm going to get that browning, but I'm not going to get the intense shine. And most of the time you're usually just using the whole egg as the egg wash and that's going to contribute both some browning and some shine, so you get the best of both.
Suzy Chase: Since we're both from Kansas, I thought I'd make the obvious, your classic cornbread, and you call yourself a corn fanatic and you say there are a few different ways to make cornbread. I'd love for you to chat a little bit about that.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: Well, when I set out to write this book, cornbread, it's one of the first recipes in the book and it was one of the first things that I started writing because I think that it's such an important one in the savory world. It can go savory in so many ways, but also it's an accompaniment to so many delicious savory dishes. And in my mind, I was going to come up with just one cornbread recipe that was my ideal cornbread. But the unfortunate thing was as I went through, I started discovering that I really found wonderful positive things about a number of different cornbread recipes that I was trying in different variations. So in the end, there are so many variations of cornbread in here and they're all so good and I love them all for different reasons. And it was a really fun journey kind of to decide that I wanted to devote a little bit more real estate in the book so that I could cover all of these different cornbreads that I wanted to feature.
Suzy Chase: I learned so many tips from this recipe. One, if you want a crispy crust, bake it in a skillet.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: Yes. Again, the heat, the way cast iron retains heat, it's going to promote a little bit more browning anywhere that the batter is coming in contact with it. So in the same amount of bake time, it gets a little bit crisper on that outside edge. And I really love that sometimes, especially when I'm serving it alongside something like chili or something where I'm going to be dunking it. It's kind of nice to have some of that textural contrast.
Suzy Chase: And then you say, if you don't want it to dry out once you slice it, add brown sugar.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: A lot of people misunderstand the use of sugar in savory recipes. A lot of people think, I think especially that in America we're so addicted to sugar, which is definitely true. And certainly as a baking author, I've never been accused of using too little sugar in the recipes that I create. However, sugar provides moisture in recipes and it improves shelf life. That's why so often when you go to the grocery store, some of the varieties of bread that are sold, not in the bakery section, the packaged sliced bread, when you look they all have sugar in them. It's one of many preservatives that they put in to help keep it soft and prevent it from staling. So home-baked goods, by adding a little bit of sugar to some of your savory baked goods, you can prevent them from drying out really fast.
And for example, I say you can leave the brown sugar out of this cornbread because you 100% can. It won't really affect the texture a ton. You're not going to notice the absence of it in the taste unless you have a very, very fine palate. But if you're not going to eat at all right away and you want to be able to eat it over a couple of days, I would really recommend using that sugar because it's going to improve the overall shelf life of the product.
Suzy Chase: I found it interesting that your version of traditional cornbread has no flour and all corn meal.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: The earliest versions of cornbread were basically more paste-like with just corn meal and water. But as time went on, it became common to use white flour to give a fluffier texture to the cornbread. But especially in places where wheat didn't grow as readily, so there wasn't the same access to white flour or maybe in times of war where budgets were tighter and distribution of all of these things was harder to come by, it was very common to make cornbread using only corn meal and no white flour. And it's definitely still a lot of people swear by this as the way to make cornbread, especially in the South, there's a lot of people that this is how they make cornbread. And I have to confess, I love it.
I love the fluffier cornbread and that is what I list as the classic cornbread. But when I was trying all these variations, the traditional cornbread that only uses corn meal, it is so purely corn tasting. It's just delicious and it is a little bit crumblier, and bonus, it's also naturally gluten free because there is no white wheat flour in it. So I really believe that in this book, no matter kind of your feeling on cornbread, you're going to find one that kind of hits that perfect craving for you because I really tried to include all the best ones and I had a lot of favorites.
Suzy Chase: Since I'm not a baker, I'm crazy about quick bread. You have an intriguing recipe for pine nut and salami quick bread. Can you describe it? There's such an interesting combination of flavors and textures going on.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: I wanted to create some quick breads that could be used in sort of an appetizery way, meaning you could make this quick bread and slice it and just leave it out the same way you would leave out a plate of cheese or charcuterie. And that actually sort of inspired the flavors of those quick breads then. I thought about kind of charcuterie plates and different combinations of things that I liked to see. So the pine and salami is one version. I dice the salami really, really small so you get these kind of little chewy bits throughout and then obviously you get the crunch from the pine nut. There's some herb in there.
And there's also other versions kind of in the variations there. There's a marinated olive and feta version, which is really delicious. And so, again, just kind of trying to think of it in this snacking capacity, and quick breads are known for being really lovely and moist, but I also wanted to think of these as the ability to maybe be toasted either as leftovers or almost as little skillet crackers. And that's one of my favorite ways to enjoy them actually. That pine nut salami one, I like to lightly toast it and then do a thin layer of scallion cream cheese or the pepper jelly that's in the book is also really delicious with it as well.
Suzy Chase: I love that you say muffins are small quick breads.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: Well, they really are. It's sort of like the difference between muffins and cupcakes is frosting. Sometimes the only thing that differentiates these are the pan that we bake them in. So for the most part, the method and the ratio of making a muffin is typically pretty similar to that of a quick bread.
Suzy Chase: I need a needlepoint pillow that says the difference between muffins and cupcakes is frosting.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: I just even think about me, in some of my videos for my web series, I'll sometimes hold up a pan and if I'm making cupcakes I say, "This is a cupcake pan." And if I'm making muffins, I say, "This is a muffin pan." So it's making them in, is it a muffin liner or is it a cupcake liner? It just depends on what you're making.
Suzy Chase: That's hilarious. On page 228, you have a recipe for bierock. Bierocks exploded in Kansas and they were invented by Kansas German immigrants in the mid -1800s. Can you just talk a little bit about this recipe?
Erin Jeanne McDowell: I love this recipe, and I know in actually lots of places in the United States, these are pretty popular, but especially in certain parts of the Midwest where they've kind of grown outwards. And they're obviously based in German baking traditions. It is a stuffed sort of all in one sort of bread. So it's a soft dough. It gets really brown around the outside, but not crusty. It's very soft. And then the filling can be any number of things. Another, sort of a rose by any other name sort of moment, another way that a similar, very similar item, is known is the runza. And the runza is sort of Nebraska born and is even a chain of restaurants and it's sort of almost like an all in one burger. So the inside of it has ground meat and onions, maybe cabbage, cheese possibly. And that combination of soft dough and kind of yielding to this filling, it really is, it's just incredible.
And it's one of the first savory pastries that I was like, you could write a whole book about stuff like this. You know what I mean? When I would eat bierock, I would just be like, "Oh, I could just write about these, talk about these, make these for days." The nice thing about the bierock is that they're just, they can be incredibly versatile. You can really put any number of fillings inside of it. And so I did kind of a non-meat version, but another familiar flavor combination. I did broccoli and cheddar for one. It's really a lot of fun to introduce people who've never had a bierock to them, but it's also just like it's a very familiar tasting thing, even if you've never had one before because it's just soft dough and savory filling and it's really awesome.
Suzy Chase: And for those who can't shake their sweet tooth, you sprinkle in sweet tooth breaks. What are those?
Erin Jeanne McDowell: I can't leave my sweet tooth totally behind just because I noticed I've got a little bit of a salty thing going on. So also a lot of these doughs really lend themselves to being made in both sweet and savory applications. So for example, I talk about strudel in this book, which is actually another recipe really close to my heart, and I love a savory strudel, but I included a sweet strudel in there as well as a sweet tooth break. And there's also with the monkey bread dough. It's a lovely dough, it's so soft and wonderful to work with, easy to shape. And I thought, "This is so easy and lovely to work with. You have to be able to make something sweet out of this too because there are just so many possibilities here." And obviously we've got a croissant recipe, so I can include how to make chocolate croissants in there and some little moments like that just to be able to remind you that also if you do have a household of people and you're already taking the time to make this dough, maybe you can turn that dough into dinner and dessert.
Suzy Chase: I applaud you because you show mistakes as well as successes in your videos. So much of baking and cooking is portrayed in this perfect, made for Instagram light, which I really hate.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: I really strongly believe that there's not just one right way to do things in the kitchen. And I also really firmly believe that we learn so much from our mistakes. And certainly I learned a lot from watching other people make mistakes. Even when you watch old episodes of Julia on PBS, her series, she would make mistakes on camera all the time, and then she would kind of explain why it happened and what she was going to do. And that was just so realistic because that happens in real life even if the reason it was happening to her is because she was trying to cook live to a camera. But I really admire and respect that and definitely have taken so much inspiration from that.
So in my web series, Bake It Up A Notch. We show where mistakes can happen. That's what the section we call it, Mistakes Happen. And I show where things go wrong and talk about how you can avoid them and how you can fix them. And a lot of the mistakes are not mistakes that would affect the flavor or the taste. They're just about perfecting the shaping or getting the visual look just right.
And that's I think an important lesson in itself is that when we're looking and comparing so much of what we make in our kitchens to things we see on the internet or on social media, a reminder, I always say to people who send me their crust and they say, "Well, it doesn't look like yours." Well, I've made thousands of pies at this point, and if that was your first attempt that's a beautiful pie. That's a gorgeous attempt at the first time. And your hands are going to get more skilled every time you do it. There's a real muscle memory to baking. So showing people mistakes I think can also be kind of encouraging to remind you that this is still going to taste delicious even if the seam is visible on this pretzel. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes the mistakes are not anything that would actually change how much we can enjoy eating it, and it can just be something we can learn from so that maybe next time they look as good as they taste.
Suzy Chase: That's such a good point because most of the time my mistakes are visual and I know I have to put it on Instagram.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: Well, and I certainly understand and appreciate that. And I actually just had a question on Instagram the other day from someone who says, "The photos in your book are so beautiful, but doesn't it just feel so fake because everything is fake in the pictures, no doubt." Well, nothing is fake in these pictures. I definitely overhandle things sometimes and occasionally we might have little errors that we have to sort battle to make them look like what we want to look like. But I'm a strong believer that I want the pictures in my book to look like what it's going to look like. So I don't do a lot of tricks. And we eat all of these things after we photograph them. So there's not fake food or fake things in here. That's a bit of a misconception because some people may work like that, but especially with savory stuff, like if you see melty, gooey, cheese, that is melty, gooey, cheese.
Suzy Chase: So what are you making for Thanksgiving this year? We all want to know.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: Ooh. Can you believe you're the first person to ask me that question? The family Thanksgiving coordinator hasn't even asked me that yet. No, I always make the pies, obviously. And I did save, I tracked down some Concord grapes, which have a very short season. It's probably already over in most places, but last week I found some and I pre-made some Concord grape filling and froze it. That's one of my favorite fall pies. It's really unexpected and tart and delicious, and I like to bring one of those. And then I usually have some more typical requests. I usually have to bring an apple and a pumpkin, and then I usually make one kind of wild card every year as well. So I need to start brainstorming about what that might be. I might have to turn back into my books. Maybe I'll bring a savory one. That would be a real wild card.
Suzy Chase: That would be crazy.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: I do like the idea of making pies for Thanksgiving that are savory, and I don't know if this is just maybe in recent years because of the pandemic, with people meeting in much smaller groups, a pie is something, a standard nine inch pie serves eight people. So making a savory pie kind of as an entree or as a major side dish, I think is actually a really cool idea. And there's some different ones in the book that would work really well. There's sort of one that has creamed greens on the inside of it. That would make a delicious side dish at Thanksgiving and also great for any vegetarians who are coming to Turkey Day.
Suzy Chase: Now to my segment called I Could Keep Eating, where I ask you what one food you could just keep eating and eating. And for example, I could keep eating store cake or Parker House rolls with butter.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: Cheese.
Suzy Chase: Any kind of cheese?
Erin Jeanne McDowell: I mean truly. But obviously if given the option, I can dive in. It just kind of depends on the mood. One of my favorite snacking cheeses right now is Manchego. And I just make myself, my husband will actually do this for me sometimes, which is the sweetest. He'll cut me really, really thin slices of manchego and bring them to me on a plate with some fruit or something. And it's honestly one of my favorite snacks. But also just like cubes of cheddar, little pearls of fresh mozzarella. I could literally eat any cheese that you put in front of me and I could keep eating it for a very long time.
Suzy Chase: So where can we find you on the web and social media?
Erin Jeanne McDowell: You can find me on Instagram @EMcDowell and on Facebook at Erin Jeanne McDowell and also on TikTok @ErinJMcDowell. I'm around. Come find me. I'm throwing a lot of flour around, melting a lot of cheese, and rolling a lot of dough.
Suzy Chase: Erin, I cannot thank you enough for coming on Cookery by the Book Podcast.
Erin Jeanne McDowell: Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun. And I'm just so excited for everyone to dive into savory baking and find that love of baking with every meal that they make.
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