Pastry Chef Brianna Shaver Garden Box Baking Interview

Episode 19: Pastry Chef Brianna Shaver Garden Box Baking Interview. Brianna is a Pastry Chef turned SAHM who is now focusing on her craft of masterful dessert creation as a digital creator, social media influencer, and food photographer. She also does custom orders in Seattle. Brianna and I had a really fun chat about baking! She shared her experiences and some fabulous tips about making yummy desserts! She is a content creator and her recipes can be found on Instagram at http://instagram.com/gardenboxbaking and on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCURXLk23fgEim--Z9IWNMog where you can find her full recipes along with images/videos.

Thank you for coming on my show Brianna! You can watch our chat as a video on YouTube at https://youtu.be/T8F37ZSKZZE

Enjoy Brianna's Favorite Chocolate Chip Banana Bread recipe! I made it and it's delish!!!

4-5 (454g) bananas

½ cup (99g) olive oil

1 cup (213g) brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup (120g) all purpose flour

1 cup (113g) whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon salt 

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ cup (57g) toasted walnuts, chopped

½ cup (85g) chocolate chips

Simple syrup 

Mix together the mashed banana, oil, sugar, eggs & vanilla. Add in the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt & cinnamon. Fold in the walnuts & most of the chocolate chips. Pour into a greased and parchment lined loaf pan, top with remaining chocolate chips. Bake @ 350° 60-75 min (check to see if it’s done by inserting a toothpick in the center, it should come out clean or slightly tacky). Brush with simply syrup while warm. Let cool & enjoy!

Visit my website: https://www.juliehoagwriter.com/
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Transcript

Season 1, Episode 19 Pastry Chef Brianna Shaver of Garden Box Baking on the Vegetarians and Meat-Lovers: Split Table Recipes Podcast with Julie Hoag.
This transcript may not be 100% accurate because it was transcribed by YouTube. If you have questions, please email juliehoag@juliehoagwriter.com

Speakers: Julie Hoag and Brianna Shaver of Garden Box Baking
hello everyone I'm really excited to share this guest with you and first of
0:07
all welcome to vegetarians and meat lovers split Table recipes and I'm really excited to talk to this person I
0:14
love to talk to other people who like to cook and I want to welcome Brianna, do you go
0:19
by Brianna or do you go buy garden box baking because I know that's what you are on Instagram.
 yeah well I mean yeah
0:26
garden box baking flick my handle for everything but I'm Brianna
0:31
Brianna Shaver and you are a digital Creator a pastry chef turned stay-at-home mom you do food photography
0:38
recipe development and custom orders out of Seattle
0:44
that's awesome so what so what does a pastry chef do like I know there's different titles of different chefs but
0:51
what exactly is a pastry shop um well I guess it depends where you work but
0:57
I mean you're just in charge of any kind of dessert um or you know if you work in a
1:03
restaurant of course all the desserts on a restaurant on their menu um I was doing corporate dining mostly
1:09
so that was a little bit different because we were in charge of um all of the desserts for breakfast lunch
1:17
and dinner throughout the day and then um just you know um having a team of pastry cooks and
1:24
coming up with different recipes um different Cuisines that sort of thing
1:30
well that's fun so when you were doing that were you the only pastry chef or were there others that you were working
1:35
with no there were a lot I was actually working at The Meta building one of the meta buildings here in Seattle and so um
1:42
every building had their own pastry chef and when I left I think there were like
1:49
eight buildings maybe more around the general area there's a lot around here so there were
1:55
a lot of us but on my team there was um I think four four or five of us pastry chefs and then we all had a smaller team
2:02
of pastry fits as well sounds really fun did you enjoy doing it I did yeah it was really fun
2:09
um I but I ended up leaving after I had my daughter I went back to work for a few
2:14
months and then I was like this is not sustainable so yeah I
2:20
totally understand because I kind of did something similar and then I went part-time my first was born then I went
2:26
part-time and then when I had after I had my second I just became a stay-at-home mom too so I was a stay-at-home mom for about six years and
2:32
then I went back to working and so it's hard to leave your child and some people that's just not okay to them and that's
2:39
how I was too I wanted to spend that time with my kids when they were young was that your thought too or what was your going through your head yeah I mean
2:46
we well I just was not okay with child like daycare I just could not fathom dropping her off at daycare so we got
2:53
Nanny it was really great but then I'm like I'm spending almost my entire paycheck to pay someone
3:00
else to raise my daughter when at least times you know that time is so precious they changed so much that it's like I
3:07
don't want to miss all these Milestones you know so it just did not make sense yeah so true and that's exactly how I
3:13
felt too and you know you don't get that time back you know mine are all mine are all teenagers now but so it's it's still
3:21
very very busy but it's different because they can do things on their own but you don't get that those young years back so I totally get where you're
3:27
coming from there so you've taken your experience and you've turned it into doing what you're doing now so tell us
3:33
about what you're doing right now yeah so now um I mostly do content creation
3:40
um for mostly Instagram but I've also started branching out into YouTube shorts and Tick Tock and I have some
3:46
other things in the works but um yeah just posting on there and then I do recipe development and food photography
3:52
for companies so um they'll usually send me some some kind of ingredient that they're looking
3:58
to promote and then I can develop a recipe based around the ingredient um do some photos for them and
4:05
um yeah and then I I also do custom orders here in Seattle for cakes and that kind of thing
4:11
um but I'm kind of trying to move away from that and just do the content because yeah I like it more it's so much
4:19
more flexible it's it's I can imagine it'd be kind of hard with a child to be like okay I
4:25
gotta make a cake right now for this timeline and it's it's a little bit harder when you're doing your own content creation you're on your own
4:31
timeline so that's a big difference yeah yeah for sure yeah so when you're doing it I actually found you it's kind of
4:37
interesting how I found you because you have worked with salafina spices right yeah and I have too and so I got an
4:43
email from them and you were featured I'm like oh hey I'm gonna hit her up and see if she wants to come on the podcast
4:49
yes that's actually how I I hooked up with you and then I messaged you on
4:54
Instagram so that was kind of fun that we both done that have you done a lot with them I've only done a little bit with them
5:00
um I started working with them in January so um just I just like I think I've done
5:07
six recipes or so yeah I think I've done about six
5:12
um so far and then I'm actually working on a spice blend with them right now to be like a custom spice blend which is
5:17
very exciting yeah yeah absolutely that's very exciting so now when you're doing your content creation Now are you
5:24
kind of sticking with the pastry stuff or are you venturing into different areas I pretty much just toothpaste like just
5:30
in there it's for the most part I mean I've posted a couple of things that are not sweet but for the most part Just
5:36
Desserts um yeah yeah I I don't eat them eat desserts 24 7. I eat lots of different
5:43
things but we'd all love to do that right that's not gonna work
5:51
exactly so what what are you working on right now other than you said you're
5:56
working in like a spice blend is that what you said yeah we're gonna spice blonde with them um I am working with a
6:02
brand called cookie chips right now as well doing they do like packaged to cookie like cookie mixes and
6:09
um so I've been developing different recipes using their cookie mixes which has been fun
6:14
um and then I'm also just really busy like in my personal life right now with some like new poem things and so it's
6:21
been hard to get a ton of content done lately but uh yeah just juggling
6:27
everything it's fun though that you can do it kind of on your own pace and that you can
6:32
still do some things and not being completely out of touch with what you did when you were working so you can
6:38
kind of like keep in that a little bit you know and it can grow into something too for you you know like that's what's really cool about it
6:44
being you know doing an online stuff is that you can do as little or as a lot as you want and you can just grow from it
6:50
which is really fantastic yes yes for sure the goal is to eventually replace my previous salary
6:58
with with this stuff so I'm working towards it absolutely now do you
7:03
maintain a website yet are you just pretty much using social media now I've been I have my domain I've uncapped my
7:10
website kind of halfway built I just need to I need to find the time to sit
7:15
down and really finish it but but eventually the goal is to get it going and to start
7:21
um doing more like long-form recipes on there yeah definitely so what's your
7:27
favorite pastry to make gosh I know people ask me this all the time and I have such a hard time
7:34
answering because I don't know I I don't know I love making everything
7:39
um I mean really I love to make what I love to eat so carrot cake and
7:47
scones and that sort of thing but I don't know that I have a I don't know
7:52
that I have a favorite one to make I just I love all of it do you have any secrets to share of
7:58
things that you've learned over the years um one great secret is if you need a
8:04
recipe quick and you don't know uh you don't have one on hand and you don't know where to look because there's so
8:11
many out there King Arthur Flower has the best recipes their test recipes are
8:16
so good I always if I'm like needing some inspiration I always go over there and look at some of their stuff because
8:22
yeah everything I've tried every every recipe I've made from them is always 10 out of 10. oh nice so how do you
8:30
spell that did you say King Arthur or did you say I'm sorry yeah King Arthur it's just the flower brand but then they
8:37
have like all these recipes on their website yeah they're great very cool very cool
8:44
so and then you shared with me uh yesterday or a few days ago you shared mcpathy your chocolate chip banana bread
8:51
which did end up making it was very delicious and I had to modify it though because of course doing it last minute I
8:58
didn't have everything on hand I didn't have the whole wheat flour which for people listening to this I'll put the recipe down in the podcast notes it's
9:04
really good it's really good so I didn't have the whole wheat flour so I had to do two cups of white flour and then I
9:10
didn't have walnuts but I had pecans so I used pecans and then my other problem which actually ended up being really
9:16
yummy was I didn't have a full cup of chocolate chips I only had a quarter cup but I had butterscotch chips so I did a
9:22
quarter of chocolate chips and a quarter of butterscotch chips and it turned out really good that sounds delicious
9:29
yeah my family loves it I have three teenage boys so you know it's not going to last real long it's it's mostly done
9:36
already and I just made it and the banana and I happen to have bananas too
9:41
I'm like hey this is perfect so you know that's it's really good so did how did you develop that recipe was it something
9:47
that you saw and you modified or was it something that you've been making for years yeah it was um well actually it's
9:54
funny originally it was um a King Arthur flour recipe but then I
10:00
had adapted it to um for when I was making it at my last job
10:05
at meta I was we adapted it um and kind of like changed it a little bit and then so we could do it at Large
10:12
Scale um and then since then I've also kind of tweaked a little bit more here and there
10:18
so it's it started out as one recipe and now it's kind of become its own thing
10:23
but yeah I always add extra spices and change up the flour ratio and all that
10:29
sort of stuff yeah it's interesting how you you know I do that a lot too where I see a recipe and I'll modify it or I'll
10:35
combine two recipes somehow and it's really fun to do sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but for me I have a
10:43
certain like I like to do things a certain amount of times before I would publish it do you have a set number of
10:49
how many times you'd like to make it to have it turn out before you decide to share it no not really a set number
10:56
um I just as many times as it takes to make it how I like it I guess
11:01
um typically it's like one or only one or two times because I've made the recipe before somewhere along the way
11:06
but um if it's something completely new that I'm trying out um probably two or three times before I
11:13
before perfect it and share it with the world right exactly so what has been your
11:19
favorite cellophaneous spice to work with so far oh um they're all so good but I I love
11:26
their vanilla beans because I use vanilla and like I use them on everything and the vanilla beans
11:32
are really good and so when I have I love having the beans because then when I'm done with the I use all the seeds up
11:39
then I take that leftover bean and I cut it up and I stick it in with my uh coffee like my sugar for coffee so I
11:45
make vanilla sugar coffee in the morning that's so good yeah oh that's a great
11:51
tip I never would have thought of doing that that's great it's so easy and then it's like you do a couple beans in there
11:57
with um you know like a cup of sugar and it oh it's so fragrant it's delicious
12:02
wow that's nice now I haven't really worked much with beans do you have to like what do you have to do to them to make
12:08
them usable um you just have to nothing you just like uh slot do a slice down the middle
12:13
of it all the way down and then you can kind of peel it open um and then I use the back of a knife or
12:18
you can use a spoon and you just kind of scrape out the seeds and you just add them to whatever it is so if you're like
12:25
replacing vanilla extract with vanilla bean in a recipe you can use usually like half of a bean or the amount of
12:32
extract that usually calls for do you feel it gives a different flavor when you use that than when you use like
12:38
the liquid vanilla um I think so if like not really in if
12:43
you can bake it but if you're gonna put it in like a frosting or an ice cream or
12:50
um whipped cream something like that then like the flavor is much more pronounced with the vanilla bean and it
12:56
just tastes more natural you know it's not made out of alcohol and it's you know it's that just the bean itself and
13:04
it's super good yeah vanilla beans are so good well that's so interesting I need to try that now because I'm like I
13:11
just have never tried that before I've always just gone to the whole you know the old liquid form which yeah you're
13:16
right it's just kind of I don't know I think it'd be more exciting to use a vanilla bean even just more fun if not
13:22
even the flavor it's just like more fun to use I would imagine it is more fun and it always feels like you're
13:27
elevating your dessert whatever you're making oh yes that's like a whole vanilla bean in it exactly yeah it's just more natural and
13:34
it's just it yeah it's just I think it's just better all around yeah so what is your so when you're
13:42
cooking do you usually I know it's hard with like a child around but do you try
13:47
to do it when she's busy or do you find yourself doing it when she's around how does that work for
13:54
you being a mom it can be challenging yeah yeah I can well typically I do
13:59
everything during nap time so any of my like my recipes that I'm making or content that I'm making will be during
14:06
nap time um and I'd say half the time I get it all done in that time and the other half
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she wakes up and then I'm battling her trying like no don't eat that no don't
14:17
touch this trying to pull the camera down yeah
14:22
yeah and speaking of camera so you've ventured into photography now is that something you added in after becoming a
14:28
stay-at-home mom or is it something you've always done well I actually did Photography in high school
14:34
um a couple years but that was a very long time ago now and so I had to relearn I had to like re-teach
14:40
myself um after I yeah after I quit my job it's like well I really
14:46
want to get back into photography and start doing food photography so um yeah I just bought a camera and
14:52
watched a bunch of YouTube videos and yeah so far so good
14:57
that's awesome absolutely I kind of did similar thing too in I did a little bit of video I didn't get too much into
15:03
video but are you getting much into video like the creation you know people have those videos where they're showing it being made have you done much of that
15:10
yet yeah um on my Instagram I pretty much only do videos I don't really just do the
15:16
pictures because um I think the videos are just really fun to make
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um but I'll do some of them are the whole process of me whatever I'm making and some of them are like you know
15:28
slicing into a cake or taking a bite of something that sort of thing but I do
15:33
all my um videos on my camera as well and then I edit them on an app called in
15:40
shot on my phone very nice yeah it's really fun and I think people
15:45
really just like videos so they end up being more popular anyways how about Pinterest have you put stuff on
15:51
Pinterest because that's a fabulous place for food yes I know actually that's my plan is to to go into
15:57
Pinterest next I years and years ago I had a flute food blog called baking with
16:02
Brianna and this was like my first time trying uh a food blog and I was on
16:09
Pinterest with that but um I didn't like I didn't continue doing that
16:14
because at the time I was just focused on work and yeah so I can stop doing that but
16:20
um yes I will be going on to Pinterest that's my next my next plan
16:25
absolutely it's great for food and you can put videos on there too that's and you can recycle like take them from
16:31
Instagram that use your Instagram and put them on Pinterest your videos and you know you can do obviously still live
16:36
pictures on Pinterest too but videos are they they do have a limit for how long the videos can be on Pinterest but you
16:43
can put them there so and even if you do a clip you know that's that's okay too yeah yeah yeah that's I should do it I
16:51
am that's what I've been doing I started like I was saying I started doing um YouTube shorts and so I just post whatever I post on Instagram then I just
16:58
go over to YouTube and then I'll post the same thing and change like this music um but the video is the same thing and
17:05
yeah I think that's the secret sauce too for people doing content creation is taking
17:11
it and putting it in different ways and different platforms so that you can get more exposure you know it's just
17:17
it's a great way to use your content and you know you want to use the max out of your content as you can because yeah
17:23
like as we said sometimes it can be challenging to make that original content so you got to use it like crazy
17:29
yes yeah it takes so long sometimes just to do one recipe that's like well I
17:35
gotta post this as much as I can everywhere I know right and then if you do a video you can do like if you want
17:42
to chop it up you can do a piece here and then you can do the same recipe later with a piece there you know just keep reposting which is just it works
17:50
out really well yeah so when you were making food when you were working was there a certain Focus
17:56
or was it always just all kinds of different foods or do they you know tend to serve more like cheesecakes and cakes
18:03
or was it just kind of all just huge variety of things well
18:10
um okay so I met her it was um it kind of changed towards the end of her when I was working there but for a
18:16
long time um we were doing a global menus so everything every single day was a different
18:22
um it was a different menu and it was a different theme based on different locations and so sometimes we were doing
18:30
very traditional um Japanese desserts sometimes we were doing something that you would find in
18:35
the midwest sometimes um we're doing a French dessert you know so it was it was all over the place it
18:41
would just change every single day which was really cool because then we got to um try so many different recipes that I
18:48
would never normally do which was great but yeah it was It was kind of just
18:54
everywhere everything that's really great and it's almost like training in and of itself because you're
19:01
doing these different foods that you maybe wouldn't have otherwise tried or you know the nice thing about that too
19:06
is do I'm sure you probably got to taste it too right because you're doing recipe development but you know it's like
19:12
buying all those ingredients like so you're learning to work with them and learning to mix them together without having to actually pay for them like
19:18
that's yeah that's like you know taking little classes here and there in different you know desserts from different areas of the world that's
19:25
pretty cool yeah yeah it's really cool one of the recipes we would make quite often was like a Mochi cake and that's
19:33
with like my Chico flour which I had never used before and then I got I'm
19:39
gonna work with it so much there that I got really familiar with it which is really cool because I never otherwise would have everywhere else I'd worked
19:45
beforehand was pretty traditional American type desserts or French inspired desserts
19:52
right like I've never even heard of that kind of flower so yeah it's like a sticky rice flour so it's like Japanese
19:58
typically but yeah wow so what was your training that brought you to be able to do that kind
20:05
of work I went to pastry school um in 2010 and
20:12
um got my yeah my associate's degree with that and then um I got my bachelor's degree in
20:18
Hospitality afterwards and so um I spent the next
20:24
decade or so working in just different bakeries and restaurants
20:30
very cool very cool did you ever make donuts I suppose you probably did right oh yes yes I find I find making donuts
20:39
at home kind of hard because you have to have so much oil right like it's kind of that's kind of a heart so I haven't
20:45
really done much Donuts but I always think that would be kind of fun to make till my boys would probably love it but
20:51
yeah Donuts are fun I I um I for a while I because I really love donuts but I
20:58
always feel kind of guilty eating them because of all the oil and so but I love I love coconut oil so
21:05
I've started frying them in coconut oil at home which is great but coconut oil
21:10
is kind of expensive and so I can't do it very often because it uses so much right so do you have to have it be
21:17
really deep or can you use just a little bit in a pan when you do that kind of thing with coconut oil
21:23
um it just needs to be deep enough to where you put the donut in that it doesn't touch the bottom of the pan so
21:29
you can if you just if you just do one at a time and you do a small saucepan you don't need a ton but if you're
21:36
trying to fry you know 100 Donuts or something crazy you know you need a big pot and it'd be
21:41
a lot right exactly yeah oils have definitely become more expensive especially if you want to use a
21:48
different kind of oil you know other than the vegetable and Olive at least Olive is more common but some of the
21:53
oils that are more rare they're just I mean you're spending more money like walnut oil avocado oil yeah you know
22:01
those are just a lot more expensive at least where I am in the midwest uh probably is for you the same I would
22:07
imagine yes everything is so expensive now just groceries in general oh my gosh
22:12
anytime I go buy ingredients I'm like what I know it really has gone up since
22:19
covet hasn't it I mean I feel like that's what the ins instigator of this was because it wasn't like that before I
22:25
didn't feel like I don't think so I feel like ever since the last few years my
22:31
grocery bills have doubled easily buying the exact same things it's just
22:37
crazy it really is I know it needs to stop yeah I know it could
22:44
you can't keep going up that's what the scary part is it's like I feel like it's just out of control you know it it
22:51
really is it really is it's wild I'm I'm well we're trying to like our plan right
22:57
now is to move um kind of out of Seattle and get some land and I keep trying to I keep telling my
23:03
husband we're gonna have a hobby Farm we're gonna have chickens I'm gonna have a greenhouse we're gonna grow all our own food
23:09
we'll see that would help though I mean you know like I do a little garden but it's not
23:15
anywhere near enough to be any you know huge volume you need a lot of space to
23:20
be able to do something like that you know but to even have your own chickens and stuff to get eggs I mean that would
23:25
be huge too yes yeah yeah that would save a lot because that
23:30
I swear the eggs that I buy are like eight dollars a carton yeah
23:36
crazy you know that's kind of what it is for me too depending on which brand I buy it's like we have five to eight
23:41
dollars for 12 and you know my boys eat a lot of eggs so like when I make
23:47
scrambled eggs for the five of us I use like 20 eggs I mean that's crazy I was
23:52
telling somebody that recently and they're like what and I'm like yeah because they're all teenagers and they
23:59
eat a lot of eggs 20 eggs I make use 20 eggs which is just blows up my brain when I think about it that's a lot of
24:06
eggs it's a lot of eggs it's crazy so do you like cooking other
24:12
things too other than pastry are you just kind of more into the pastry stuff yeah I enjoy cooking I cook you know for
24:20
all of our meals for my family and I really like it um though I wouldn't say that I'm very amazing at cooking Savory
24:28
food it's I'm pretty good but I'm not I'm not a Master Chef or anything like
24:34
that you're more skilled at the pastry stuff and yeah yeah
24:41
so what's your favorite thing to make at home like if you were to make whatever you wanted it for your family to enjoy
24:46
that's a pastry food what would you pick um probably croissants I love to eat
24:54
them I love to make them and there's just something so satisfying about
24:59
having like a crunchy croissant with a cup of coffee in the morning
25:05
I agree that is delicious now when you make croissants I've never done that how are they so flaky is it the dough that
25:12
makes them flaky or the way you cook them it's the dough so it's a laminated dough so what you do is you mix a dough roll
25:19
it out and then you have this big slab of butter that you've beaten down into
25:24
like a rectangle and you put it on top of the dough and then you fold the dough over it roll it out and then you hold it
25:31
again and you keep doing that you do that multiple times so you get all these layers of dough butter dough butter dough butter and then by the time you
25:38
bake it and then you roll it up into the croissant shape too then you're getting multiple layers on top of multiple
25:44
layers so that's where all the plate comes from is all the butter layered in between the dough it sounds time
25:50
consuming too is it take a fair amount of time yeah it does if you have a sheeter which I don't most people
25:57
wouldn't have on their house so they're big these big you know Industrial Equipment
26:02
um but if you have a sheeter if you're working in the industry it can be it can be a lot quicker because you can just run the dough through the sheeter
26:09
um when you're rolling it out by hand it can take a long time and it can uh I mean it's a little bit of a workout too
26:15
it's not like yeah put your weight into it I think that that's true with Joe
26:21
especially if you're having to knead it too or anything anything with dough can be a little bit labor intensive and time intensive yeah
26:29
yeah yeah I have this recipe that my my grandma made she was from Finland my dad was
26:36
actually born in Finland and so it was this braided bread and you have to like
26:41
it's it's really like an old recipe but it's a lot of work and you have to let it rise and you have to punch it down and then you have to let it rise again
26:48
then you have to divide it all into these different strands and you braid it and you let it rise again so it's like
26:53
in a like a whole day process you know yeah but it's such a good recipe and it's an old recipe but yeah it's just
27:01
it's time intensive and labor intensive too and it's hard to get the dough
27:06
like evenly the strands even so that you want it to cook evenly right like I'm sure you that
27:13
you can imagine what that means because you've done a lot of that kind of stuff so it's a challenge but I make it at
27:18
Christmas every year so it's the thing yeah I love those braided loaf breads are so
27:26
good I love all brands I but they are they take they take a long time I always
27:32
would plan to make my own sourdough bread and I do sometimes but then I most of
27:38
the time buy it because it's such a process I really like it I know it really is a
27:45
process it's really good but there's so many good bread makers out there too it's just it's amazing I don't know if
27:51
you guys have you guys have Panera Bread out there yeah yeah yeah I love their
27:57
bread that's really good so do you do you get into like making your own frostings and is there any tips
28:04
you have and making frostings um well my favorite frosting recipe that I
28:11
use I do like a faux Swiss meringue buttercream so it has the texture of
28:16
Swiss meringue buttercream but instead of um are you familiar with with what Sesame buttercream is it's like I am
28:24
really not no so it's made with egg whites and you kind of cook them over a
28:29
double boiler just to like warm them up before you whip them and
28:34
make them meringue out of them and then you added butter but I like to instead use
28:39
um meringue powder and then mix that in with the powdered sugar make a uh like a royal icing type
28:47
of consistency and then add in butter that way and you get the same texture as like
28:53
a Swiss meringue buttercream without having to go through the whole process of making it and it's way easier it's
29:00
super quick and it's so silky smooth I love it I don't know that I've ever seen the
29:06
powder I'm gonna have to look for that in shirts in the cooking aisle well you
29:12
can buy it at like um like a Michaels they carry it you know um like in their baking section it comes
29:19
in like a little tub but I always just buy it on Amazon and um yeah they are so like Wilton
29:25
makes one but then I usually buy this smaller company um I'll have to look and see what that's
29:30
like Julie something comes in a blue bag I always use hers yeah sure oh
29:36
interesting yeah I'll have to look for that because I've never I didn't even know that was a thing yeah
29:42
yeah it's a great little hack that's nice now is that one that you
29:47
have to keep refrigerated or does it can it sit out no it could sit out yeah it can sit out because you're using the
29:53
meringue powder and so if you were doing like the regular kind we use the egg whites you'd have perfect but
29:59
if you have to yeah there's a couple of benefits to using that then yeah
30:05
meringue is kind of I don't know I find it a bit of a challenge I haven't done it very many times but I don't know I
30:13
maybe I'm just not doing it right do you just I'm forgetting how you do it do you just whip the egg whites into the
30:18
meringue or how do I don't even remember how you do it yeah well there's a couple different methods for meringues there's
30:23
like an American meringue Swiss meringue Italian meringue um a traditional American ring you just
30:29
whip egg whites in your mixer with like some kind of tartar um that's it yeah that's right okay yeah
30:35
and sugar that's it um you just put those until you get the stiff peak but you can do the Swiss
30:43
which is where you kind of warm up the eggs first and you can do the Italian where you whip the eggs
30:49
um until they're foamy and then at the same time you're cooking your sugar so you're making a syrup out of your sugar
30:55
instead of using just regular granulated sugar and then you pour the hot sugar
31:01
into the eggs while it's whipping and then you get like a really glossy
31:06
delicious meringue of that one but it's a little bit harder
31:11
yeah I bet one thing I like to make but I find it extraordinarily challenging is is pie
31:17
crust to make that from scratch you know so often I'll just end up buying the pre-made because it's just so much
31:23
easier and so what are your experience what's your experience with making pie crust and do you find it easier just to
31:29
buy them as well because it's just hard when I've done it they're like crumbly they're just not staying together good
31:35
what are your tricks or your ideas that that help if you have any for pie crust I love pie crust I love making pie
31:44
um and I I never ever buy the pre-made pie crust because I just I have a really
31:50
good pie crust recipe that I always do but I understand I understand why people buy it it's so much easier but
31:56
um I think the the way that I make it is you just a few different ways you can
32:02
make pie crust the way I always do is I throw all the dry ingredients into my mixer and then I when I make I cut up my
32:08
butter into little honey cubes first and I spread it out in a sheet pan and I freeze the butter into little like
32:15
little cues so it's completely Frozen and then I put it in and mix it in with
32:22
the dry ingredients on low speed until you get like um the size of a pea for
32:27
the peas and then you'll go through with your hands and kind of like flatten let go like between your fingers you kind of
32:33
flatten the little pea-sized butter chunks um
32:38
and that gives you a really flaky dough is when you go on both and flatten it and get really flippy though from that
32:45
but the cold butter is like it has to be as cold as possible so that's why I freeze mine because if it starts to warm
32:52
up too much and then you go to make your pie dough then it's going to Mush into the dough too much and you're not going to get your flaky delicious pie crust
33:00
you're gonna get like a a weird crumbly sugar kinda dough texture thing and then
33:07
it's really hard to work with I think I know what you're talking about because I think that's what's happened to me it's
33:13
like not sticking together it's almost like in pieces and whatnot like you're just kind of like smoosh it together and
33:19
I recently did found a recipe too that I talked about I think it was some sort of biscuits and they also talked about you
33:24
have to freeze the butter and I'm like I had never heard of such a thing before and they said the same thing it's like
33:29
you need it has to be frozen otherwise it's not going to do what you want it to do and it's such an interesting tip
33:34
because I don't think many people are going to think about doing that unless they're told that you know that's not a yes I think anybody's gonna think of
33:42
yeah a lot of recipes will just say cold butter and it's like okay well if I'm a someone
33:49
who's never made this before I'm gonna think okay I'll pull a piece of butter out of my fridge and I'll cut it up and
33:55
I'll let it sit here on the counter while I'm doing this other stuff and then I'll put it in but then by that point it's not
34:01
really that cold and it gets you know it gets too soft and yeah
34:07
yeah exactly and yeah those people don't realize that that is a thing because unless you're told you're not
34:13
you're not going to think of that so yeah that's a huge thing so what does your daughter like to eat
34:20
does she have a favorite thing that you make I just I'm trying to get her to eat more food
34:25
oh yeah she's the yeah she doesn't I don't know if she doesn't like to eat that much she
34:32
likes cheese um yeah she eats a lot of cheese and well it says terrible she loves ice
34:38
cream she's only 18 months old so I don't really give her any but every once
34:43
in a while we get some um she'll see it because she knows what it is because of her book some of her
34:49
books have ice you know they'll be like an ice cream cone there or something so she knows what ice cream is yeah I should point to it and ask for
34:55
some and I'll give her like a little little tiny tiny taste and then but then once she gets any then she's like ice
35:01
cream ice cream ice cream I totally know yes they they definitely
35:09
like ice cream it's good though I don't blame them I like ice cream too I I do too it's delicious
35:15
have you ever made ice cream homemade ice cream yes I have um at home I just do like a notion
35:22
because I don't have an ice cream maker um I put I well in places I've worked uh
35:27
I've made I used to actually be an ice cream maker at one point for this local local ice cream shop here in Seattle oh
35:33
wow um which is like fun so I made tons and tons of ice cream there but yeah at home I'll just do the no churn one which
35:40
is like whipped cream and sweetened condensed milk and you just mix it together and put in your flavors and
35:45
like freeze it for six hours and then you got ice cream perfect that's a good thing to try too
35:52
yeah do you have any cookbooks that you love to use or that you recommend
35:59
um I have a whole countertop of these really nicely
36:04
curated looking cookbooks and I never ever open them
36:11
I understand I I wish I had a good one but I don't
36:18
I can understand I mean I sometimes use them or you know sometimes I use them even for inspiration to make something a
36:24
little bit different to alter it a little bit when I'm wanting some sort of inspiration sometimes I'll go to that
36:30
but yeah recipes are everywhere they're online like we were saying earlier online they're on all the social media
36:36
platforms they're just yeah everywhere but that's not a bad thing either because
36:44
audience all right we all get to try different things so on your Instagram do you actually have a recipe in your post
36:51
so if we can see how to make it yeah I do all yeah I put every
36:56
um anytime I post a recipe the hopeful recipe will be in the in the post itself uh eventually I'll like I'll say I'll
37:03
get a website and have it on there but um yeah they're just on the post I personally if I'm looking for a recipe
37:11
on Instagram or something and I see I I much prefer to just be able to like
37:16
scroll down and look at in the post itself and then like take a screenshot of the recipe and then have it versus
37:22
having to go click here and go find it and go down sit down through the ads and then get to the post and you know it's
37:28
the whole thing I totally agree and you know and I think it's a thing too where you could if you did have a website you
37:35
could do both because in people if people want to print it too then you can print from the website whereas you can't
37:40
really print from Instagram but yeah you can do a screenshot but yeah so that'd be a good way to to have it in two
37:46
different places but it does take a while I so wish Instagram would be usable on a laptop for typing because
37:54
typing on your phone that much content gets to be really old as you know and
37:59
very time consuming and annoying because you get all these typos when you're
38:04
trying to type yeah I a lot of time I will go and type something up on a note
38:10
on my computer and then it'll be synced to my phone and then off my phone I'll copy it and paste it
38:18
that's a great way to do it because it gets so annoying doesn't it I mean yeah it just is yeah and then I feel like
38:24
every I'll try to type out all of the you know my thumbs like one word and it
38:29
keeps changing it to something else because I like misspelling it and then it's like oh my gosh I've tried to type
38:35
this one word four times interesting I know the autocorrect is not as much as
38:41
it's worth I mean sometimes it saves me but most time it's yeah it's a total pain like no I'm really trying to say
38:47
that word it's really the word I'm trying to use yeah
38:53
so do you like to make cheesecakes I do like to make cheeses I I recently
38:58
posted one actually uh last week of the week before and um I mentioned in that post that I I like
39:06
never think about making cheesecake and then every once in a while like oh I should do that and I'll make it cheesecake and I'm like oh my God this
39:12
is so good why don't I make these all the time and then another year or two will go by
39:20
yes I know I love cheesecakes too and the graham cracker crust it's pretty
39:25
it's pretty easy to make I think you know as far as it's a lot easier than making a flaky pie crust as we were just
39:32
talking about earlier it's much easier yeah and the nice thing too is you can use like any kind of cookie you want so
39:39
if you want an Oreo cheesecake use Oreos or you can use graham crackers or you
39:44
can use like cinnamon flavored Teddy Grahams or something you know you can use all these different kinds of cookies
39:51
and you know get different flavors which is nice yeah that's a good idea I had never
39:56
thought of using the the Teddy Graham flavored ones that's a great idea Oreos
40:01
I've seen those done a lot and they even sell that pre-made in the store but
40:07
so when you're doing it how do you usually Mash yours up I usually use a food processor so yeah I
40:14
just throw everything in a food processor sometimes if I like if I don't have one around me from somewhere else
40:19
I'll just throw everything in a Ziploc bag and I'll take a um rolling pin and just smack it
40:25
yeah that's generally how I do it because I still don't have a large food processor I have a little one so
40:31
it's like I don't want to keep doing these rounds over and over again yeah just put it in a bag and get the heck out of it you know yeah
40:39
yeah I know exactly exactly I know that makes
40:46
me think of that bread I was talking about earlier one of the things you have to do I don't know if I mentioned that is you have to punch it down once it
40:51
rises you need to punch it down and my son this last Christmas was so funny because my son my youngest is um 13 and
40:59
he wanted to he he want he saw me do it he's like oh can I do that I guess so he
41:06
came over and he was punching my the toe down he thought it was the best thing ever like I get to punch this doe flat
41:12
you know it was pretty funny it's fun when they get to when they want to cook with you
41:18
like maybe when your daughter gets older there's something really fun to do like I mean my boys have done it a little bit
41:24
and have really short attention spans but they will cook a little bit so it's fun when you're cooking with them and
41:29
you can teach them things and you're having fun at the same time so yeah I think it's a great thing to do yeah that
41:36
sounds so fun I'm really looking forward to the day when she wants to help me cook a little bit will be so cute oh
41:44
absolutely I'm trying to remember I recently had when I did the salafina I
41:49
had some sort of flower what was that flower that I had and I was trying to think of ways to use it I ended up using it in with different things to make like
41:56
a tea um have you used any of their flowers the butterfly peeing the blue one or was
42:05
it oh it was hibiscus it was hibiscus yeah yeah have you used that in any other ways I
42:11
mean I couldn't really think of another way to use it other than with flavoring teas like I don't really know how to use
42:16
that yeah I haven't used theirs yet but um in the past I've made cookies and
42:21
then I'll use I'll like mix the Hibiscus powder into the glaze and then you can
42:27
glaze like do a drizzle glaze and then it gets like a really vibrant pink color
42:33
oh I bet that's really cool that's fun yeah I was just struggling
42:39
with ways to use it because I'm like I really wanted to try using it and I'm like but how do I use it okay if it's
42:45
like it didn't have great ideas of how I wanted to use it so
42:51
I also tried their smoked paprika oh which was fun and I ended up using it on
42:59
um made it into like a powder like breaded chicken so I added it with a bunch of different herbs with with bread
43:04
crumbs and then so they my family really liked that flavor of the smoked paprika
43:10
and I when I looked online it said it was really good for things like meats and stuff so that's kind of where I used
43:16
it I don't know I guess it's more of a Savory flavor so you wouldn't be using that in a kind of pastry cooking yeah
43:23
yeah it would not however I do use it a lot when I make chicken at home like all
43:29
do um like a I usually use the air fryer and I'll do chicken legs and I'll like
43:36
marinate them and then rub do like a chicken rub and I do a lot of smoked paprika with that
43:42
so good and brown sugar of course it has yeah I noticed in your recipe you used
43:47
brown sugar instead of any white sugar is there do you think that it brings about a different flavor I mean I thought it was really good in the bread
43:53
that chocolate chip banana bread recipe is there a reason why you use brown sugar fully and no no white sugar in
43:59
that recipe um I prefer the brown sugar because it does alter the flavor a little bit
44:06
um but it makes it more moist with the brown sugar because brown sugar have more of um
44:13
like a water content to it from the molasses in it and so it does help like
44:20
cakes and breads be more moist than white sugar do you always pack your brown sugar or
44:27
do you sometimes leave it loose well I typically weigh my ingredients so I'm I'm mostly just putting everything
44:33
on my kitchen scale but if I am using cups I will pack it down okay yeah yeah
44:39
I generally tend to pack it too and I don't know if it's something recipes when I was young and my mom always
44:44
saying pack it so I just always pack it I never leave it loose so I didn't really have a reason or know why but
44:51
this is something that I always did I guess yeah do you prefer do you ever use white
44:58
sugar you probably do right and some of the recipes you have to yeah yeah for sure I do I use white sugar a lot um but
45:05
if I can use brown sugar I do prefer it depending on what I'm making yeah do you
45:12
ever dabble in using uh like an artificial sweetener like Splenda no I don't I've used um different types
45:20
of sugars though like coconut sugar or maple sugar um for different things and I like to do
45:27
that as well but um I don't like the alternative
45:32
sugars I know I don't really either but my oldest son is really into
45:37
weightlifting and so he's you know like right now he's cutting calories so he doesn't want as many calories so a
45:44
couple of times I've made banana bread with Splenda just for him to have it with fewer calories and it actually
45:50
turns out pretty good but yeah I know what you mean I prefer the natural but him doing that has gotten me into doing
45:56
it a little bit with the Splenda yeah yeah I get that I there was like sometimes
46:02
I'm in my past I've gone on little kicks where I'll try not to eat very much sugar at all so then instead which is
46:10
still sugar I'll eat I'll just like switch it out for honey oh yeah it's a
46:15
good ingredient I know right one other thing I like to use which one
46:22
of my actually one of the the chef I had on a few weeks ago she has a lot of recipes where she uses Maple maple syrup
46:28
and I'm like that's a great idea like I hadn't thought of using it she uses it in recipes that you wouldn't ever expect
46:34
having maple syrup in so it's kind of a fun ingredient I hadn't thought of using in different ways you use it much yeah I
46:41
do use maple syrup I I love flavor of maple syrup um in the past I've used it to make
46:48
um like a pecan pie around the holidays instead of corn syrup
46:53
and that's really good um and yeah sometimes I'll just like throw it in little things like if I'm
47:00
making pancakes all the time instead of adding a little bit of sugar to the pancakes I'll just do maple syrup
47:06
I'm gonna put maple syrup on it anyways afterwards exactly different way to make it maybe
47:12
make it taste a little bit different you know yeah yeah was there anything we haven't talked
47:18
about that you had wanted to mention or discuss or point out or anything you want to say about your Instagram account
47:24
that or mention any recipes you've made recently um let's see
47:32
I don't know um I
47:38
well right before we started this I was taking some photos of these little cakes
47:43
that I made these little chocolate cakes and because I had some like leftover um
47:48
cake batter from a from an order that I did and so I just baked some little tiny
47:54
four inch cakes and then I put some whipped cream on top and fresh berries and of course I had to eat one uh it was
48:00
delicious but um that'll be on my page this week
48:07
tomorrow Friday um nice yeah so that I'm excited for
48:12
that one um but yeah I don't know I'm just uh trying to grow so um follow me
48:22
and yeah what's your name on YouTube are you what do you go by on there YouTube is also
48:30
garden box baking so YouTube Tick Tock and Instagram are all garden box baking
48:35
okay and how did you come up with that name um I have these two large garden beds in
48:42
front of my house and I was like kind of pondering what to call my
48:49
um Instagram and I knew that I wanted it to be something that was kind of like
48:56
plural or gardeny kind of kind of a thing you know
49:02
um and I was just like kind of looking at those garden garden beds out front and I thought let me see if this one's
49:08
still like you know garden box it's taking taken um and so and it wasn't time I went with
49:14
that I try to like grow some I'd like to grow a lot of stuff and use whatever I
49:20
can in my baking depending on what I've grown for the season so that's kind of kind of the idea behind it
49:26
yeah that brings me up to a question what kind of herbs would you use with baking like I don't feel like I use many
49:32
herbs or bacon I do with you know regular cooking but not necessarily with any kind of desserts
49:40
um I love to do Rosemary in baking yeah Rosemary's really good
49:47
um you can do like mint a lot mint is really good in baking
49:52
[Music] um fresh thyme depending on the recipe like
49:59
Thyme and then if you like maybe um do some lemon thyme and lemon together really good for baking Sage is
50:07
like if you do brown butter and Sage together so good yeah I loved it I love doing herbs if I
50:14
can in in baking um but like and so some of the recipes I'll use those in would be like
50:20
scones or maybe some like shortbread cookies like some crunchy shortbread cookies
50:26
um or like people do like a quick bread and then on the glaze I can put on some
50:32
fresh herbs into the glaze kind of thing very cool I just I really haven't
50:38
thought much about doing that so that's really fun I need to get into that and my garden my sister gave me some mint
50:44
and it is like a weed like it took over the I have these boxes these garden boxes in my garden and it like took over
50:50
the entire box like a weed I had like all this mint now what am I gonna do with this like it's so much mint like
50:56
extreme apartment and we have guinea pigs too and they actually love to eat the mint but they can only eat so much
51:02
mint so yeah I had so much mint and I'm like can you do you do you ever use dried Mint or is it mostly fresh no I
51:10
just use fresh yeah okay yeah because I didn't know if it dried if it would be any good I guess I don't really know
51:15
yeah I've never tried it I don't I don't know I feel like it'd get like
51:20
um I just imagine it in my head what it would look like and I feel like it just be this like little sad Brown triplet
51:28
right and you know nobody sells dried mint I mean they sell dried other herbs but I've never seen dried mint so I'm
51:34
like well maybe it's just another thing ice cream I guess you could somehow put
51:39
them in I don't know though because you don't really want Flakes and ice cream right like yeah no if you're gonna do
51:45
like a mint chocolate chip ice cream when you make your ice cream base you kind of heat the milk up and you steep
51:51
the mint in and then let's strain it out and then make it that way gotcha yeah
51:58
that's I recently saw something that was similar to that it was something else but yeah you maybe was steeping Rosemary
52:03
is that a thing I remember what it was but yeah it was to transfer the flavor and I'm like this is weird but then when
52:09
the recipe later it said yeah remove the remove all that yeah yeah go straight it
52:15
out and then if you leave it in too long you can it can get pretty bitter so you gotta oh time it yeah
52:22
well this has been so much fun thank you so much for doing this it was really fun to talk with you and learn more about
52:28
pastry cooking and find out some secrets from you so thank you so much yeah thank
52:34
you for having me this was so fun it was fun you have a good day okay thank you
52:39
too bye-bye bye



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