Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television

- This week on Milk Street, we dive into extraordinary desserts.

The first one's from chef Angie Mar from the Beatrice Inn in New York.

It's a cheesecake made with goat cheese, crme fraiche and cream cheese with a black pepper graham crust.

And then a quick and easy freeform raspberry mascarpone tart, and, finally, a yogurt loaf cake with coriander and orange.

This one is inspired by a classic French recipe that uses store-bought yogurt containers as measuring cups.

So please stay tuned to Milk Street as we explore a whole new way to think about desserts.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- That meal.

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- Now if you want to really understand somebody, just ask them about cheesecake.

- (laughs) - If they're the pumpkin cheesecake person, that's one category, if they're the New York-style cheesecake, if they're ricotta Italian cheesecake, which I do like a lot.

But this one from Angie Mar at the Beatrice Inn in New York is now our... my favorite cheesecake because it's got a lot of things going on.

I really like the texture, and it's not really a hard recipe.

- It is easy and it's got some unique elements, as you'd expect with Angie Mar, one of them being the chevre in it.

It's got cream cheese, like you'd expect, but it also has the chevre, which is a goat cheese, and the crme fraiche.

And even if you don't love goat cheese, this is an... - She doesn't like, goat cheese.

You want to just say it now?

- All right, I don't love goat cheese, but I love this cheesecake, it blew me away.

- The other thing is, there's no water bath, which, for me, is the one thing I don't like about making cheesecake.

- Right.

- The water bath.

- We are using a springform pan, for one thing, and you don't want to put that in water.

We are also going to put the graham cracker crumb crust only on the bottom.

So you have a nice thick layer.

If you would put this little bit of melted butter here on the bottom only of the pan.

- Sure.

- Not on the sides, that's a warning.

And I'll put together the graham cracker crust.

So we have salt in here, a little sugar.

We also have, and this is one of the first unique element, is that coarsely ground black pepper.

There's a good bit of it in this crumb.

You know, peppercorns are from a fruit berry.

Pepper is one of those things that can go sweet or savory, and a lot of people don't think of it that way.

All right now, all we need is the melted butter.

These are basic graham cracker crumbs.

Our oven is pre-set for 300 degrees.

This is another thing about the cheesecake, we're gonna be using multiple temperatures during the baking of it.

And we start at 300 for the crust alone, and that's gonna bake about 15 minutes only.

It gives it a nice, sort of a crunchy texture and a little bit of a toasted flavor.

Okay, so we'll put all of that in.

Now it's going on the bottom only, and you can use this to tap it out and make sure it's level and firm.

- So that's a pretty thick bottom crust.

- Well, you know, we're pressing it down, so it's gonna be less thick than it looks like it is now.

And it's got a lot of cheesecake on top of it.

So the ratio actually works out really nicely.

So this goes in the oven for only 15 minutes.

We're gonna let it cool for 15 minutes after that and then we'll be ready to fill it.

And while this is in the oven, we can start making our filling.

Our crust is out of the oven, it's been cooling for about 15 to 20 minutes.

So now we need to brush the sides of the pan with the rest of the butter.

We didn't do that first because then the butter would have burnt while the crust was in the oven.

- Okay, so I get all the fun parts of this recipe.

- You do, it's like painting.

This cheesecake is going to come all the way up to the top of the pan, so the butter is important to give it a free rein to rise and as it settles, it'll come down a little bit, but it's still, it's a generous amount of filling.

We have now turned the oven to 450 degrees.

We have a two-step baking process.

So we'll start at 450, and then we will turn the oven down at some point, and we'll talk about that a little bit later.

- 450 is a very high temperature for cheesecake.

- It is.

- It's a little unusual.

- Yes, and that's just to get the whole filling up to temperature, give it a little bit of lift, and then we'll lower the temperature.

Now we have several ingredients within this filling that are a little bit unusual.

We are going to have regular old cream cheese.

We also have the goat cheese, chevre, and those are equal amounts of cream cheese and goat cheese.

And then we also have crme fraiche.

Adds even more of a silky texture to the cheesecake, it's quite phenomenal.

We're going to use the paddle attachment with the mixer and we're going to start only with the cream cheese and the goat cheese.

And we're gonna beat these two things together to get a little lightness.

(mixer whirring) That's looking good.

Ah, I love that texture.

Now we're gonna leave the mixer on low while we had the crme fraiche and the honey.

So we'll just turn this on.

- Am I supposed to add this, is that what you're saying?

- Yes, please, would you add that?

- You know, cooking is all about nonverbal communication.

- Okay, so the honey adds a little sweetness, obviously.

This is not an overly sweet cheesecake, but honey has a different depth of flavor than regular granulated sugar.

It's a really nice addition.

Once the crme fraiche is in there, if you beat it at too high a speed it risks breaking.

So we're gonna treat it gently at this point.

And if you look at it, you can see it softened the batter quite a lot.

So the next thing to add is the eggs.

We'll turn this on to medium, start adding the whole eggs first.

I don't know about you, but when the mixer is running, I can't resist cracking the eggs directly into it.

Have you ever dropped a shell into a running mixer?

- No, I crack them ahead of time.

- Do you?

- Yeah.

- I thought you were a renegade.

(laughs) So we had four whole eggs and we're adding a couple of extra yolks.

We get the benefit of the binding power of the yolks and the extra richness from them, too.

So the last ingredient to go into this is a little bit of lemon zest.

We don't want to grate the zest in advance, because we like the the oils from the zest end up in the cheesecake, as well, when you grate it over it.

- So if you grate lemon on a cutting board, all the oils end up in the wood.

- Yes.

- And don't end up in your recipe.

- So just grate it right over.

And you only want the yellow part of the peel, as you know.

And we can just stir this right in and get everything nice and smooth.

Don't forget to scrape the bottom of the mixer bowl because there's that little dimple down there that ingredients like to get caught up in.

Okay, that looks good.

Okay.

And I'll give you the fun part, which is pouring this into the crust.

(chuckles) Now this batter will very likely go all the way up to the top, that's okay.

You've just got to be careful carrying it to the oven.

So this is going into our hot 450 degree oven for about 20 minutes, and then we will turn the oven down.

All right, we're at the 20 minute mark, 450 degrees.

We are going to insert a wooden spoon into the oven door... - Into my ear?

- No.

- To the oven.

- I'm going to turn the oven off.

This is a very unusual technique.

I'm gonna turn the oven off, open this a little-- if you'll insert the spoon and I will close-- watch your fingers.

Okay, this holds the door ajar, so the temperature drops rapidly, which is what we want.

We have a two-temperature baking process and you don't want the temperature to linger at a high... - Right, got it.

- Okay, so 10 minutes like this, then we take the spoon out, we turn the oven back on, but only to 250.

- Okay.

- And then we have another 35 or 40 minutes for the cheesecake to finish baking.

- High, low.

- Equals delicious.

So we took our cheesecake out of the 250 degree oven.

It's been cooling on the rack about 10 minutes.

And now we're gonna loosen the sides with a knife.

We're gonna leave it in the pan to finish cooling, but we want to loosen the sides.

And this is a method that helps make sure the cheesecake does not crack as it's cooling.

You know, that dreaded cheesecake crack.

So, you know, the baking of this cheesecake might seem a little fussy, starting at one temperature, opening the door with a wooden spoon, and then lowering to another temperature.

But it works, it works.

- So, just so I understand, so releasing the crust from the pan as it cools-- if you didn't do that, it would tend to crack more than if you release it from the pan.

So the whole thing can shrink a little bit without cracking.

- Exactly.

So it will sit here and contract and cool for about an hour and a half to two hours, and then it goes into the refrigerator for a minimum of six hours.

And, of course, you can let it go overnight.

- Okay.

And now the moment we've been waiting for.

- This was a long refrigeration.

This was like six hours instead of the usual four.

- Yes, it's a lot of cheesecake and you want it to be completely set before we cut it.

And you can leave it in the fridge right in the springform pan, and that'll hold it together, keep it cold.

We just removed the sides, left the bottom on, and now we are going to cut it.

And if you'll notice, the top gets a deep golden brown at the final stages of baking.

- Well, it's sort of in between a New York-style cheesecake, which is very white on the top, and a ricotta Italian cheesecake, which is almost black on the top, right?

- Right.

- So it's the perfect mix.

- And we're also not piling any gloppy fruit topping on like the New York-style cheesecake.

- Thank you.

- (laughs) So we have a good knife for slicing, but you'll notice it's in a container of hot water because the cheesecake is very cold, and we want a nice clean cut.

So just start, go right to the center, go down, and then through the crust.

Ah... there we go.

Okay.

- I'm getting the plate ready, by the way.

- I noticed.

- Just in case... - Yeah.

- I see a slice anytime in my future.

Ah, okay, let's see how this comes out.

Well, we know how it's going to come out, right?

- Perfectly.

- Oh, the creaminess... there you go.

- Nice.

Ooh.

- You know this cake, there's a few, there are a few fussy steps along the way, the double temperature baking and everything, but it really is worth it.

Every single little of those steps is worth it.

You don't get any cracks in the surface.

And now you have this incredibly beautiful, rich cheesecake.

- So, the, really the singular thing about this recipe besides the ingredients is the hot oven, oven off, open the door, low oven.

So what, what does that do?

Why do we do that?

- We start out of 450 in order for the top to become set.

It kind of firms up.

And then we want to emulate the effect of a water bath.

But instead of using the water bath at a low temperature, we turn the oven off for a short time, that drops the temperature rapidly... - Okay.

- And finish it off.

- So no water bath.

- No water bath.

- And no cracking.

- And no cracking.

And a beautiful crust.

- And an incredibly delicious cheesecake.

- And what more do you want?

Right.

Mm.

Wow.

- Right?

- Well, I have to say, the first thing that surprised me is it's really quite light.

It's not a heavy cheesecake, and I don't like the super heavy cheesecakes, the New York style, actually.

And it's really tangy.

It's not like it has just one note.

- Right.

- Yeah, it's-- the crme fraiche is great.

- The crme fraiche also gives it that silkiness, light and silky.

- Wow.

So I gotta thank Angie Mar from the Beatrice Inn in New York, a chevre cheesecake with a black pepper graham crust.

It has crme fraiche, it has regular cream cheese, it has chevre, it has goat cheese, of course.

A little lemon and black pepper in the crest.

I mean, the texture is perfect, the color is perfect, the flavor is perfect.

I guess you have to say it's perfect.

(laughs) Maybe that's the answer.

Angie, thank you, this is delicious.

- Today we're gonna make a really wonderful, quick and easy dessert.

It's a raspberry mascarpone tart and it literally takes just a few minutes to throw together and it'll impress any of your guests.

Today we're using raspberries, but you can really use any soft fruit, you can use blueberries, blackberries, anything really you have lying around.

I'm just going to toss them with two tablespoons of sugar.

Just gently give that a little bit of a toss, just to evenly coat them.

And then I'm just gonna let them sit for a few minutes in the sugar, it helps draw out the juices in the berries.

Okay, next I'm gonna go ahead make our filling.

We're using three quarters of a cup of mascarpone cheese.

If you can't find that, that's fine, you can substitute cream cheese, you just want to let it come up to room temperature, so it's easier to mix the other ingredients.

To that I'm gonna add two tablespoons of granulated sugar.

I have one large egg.

Half a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

You could also use almond extract.

You could also add lemon zest to this.

Really, any kind of flavorings that you wanted.

Just going to add a little pinch of salt.

Just gonna whisk that together.

I just want to mix it till there's no more lumps of mascarpone.

Okay... And now for the base of our tart, we're gonna use frozen puff pastry.

This is literally the best thing that you can stock your freezer with.

You can find it in almost any freezer section of any supermarket.

You just want to make sure that you thaw it first, before you try to roll it out, or else it will crack.

The best way is just to pull it out and put it in the refrigerator overnight.

We rolled ours out to a piece that's ten inches by 14 inches.

And now I'm gonna go ahead and I'm going to lightly score a border around the edge, about one inch in.

You don't want to cut all the way through, just about halfway through.

And what this does is it allows the edges to puff up once it's in the oven and it creates this nice outside crust.

So now I'm gonna go ahead and just poke the bottom with a fork.

This helps to keep it from puffing up in the oven because we'll have our filling right on top of this part here.

Now I'm gonna transfer the filling right in the middle here, spread it into an even layer.

You want to be careful not to go past that line that you cut for the border.

The flavor combination of the mascarpone cheese and the tart raspberries is really wonderful.

And now I'm going to just sprinkle the berries on top.

I just want to spread these out as evenly as possible.

You want to stay in the center, right on top of the mascarpone filling.

This looks beautiful-- and that's it.

Now, it's ready to go into a 425 degree oven on the upper middle rack and it's gonna bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Okay, so our tart is done, it looks fabulous.

It smells even better.

You can see the edges puffed up nice and high to form a nice ridge and the cheese filling browned just a little bit.

And the raspberries just smell amazing.

So I'm really excited to try this.

I'm gonna go ahead and cut this into six pieces.

You can serve this warm, like ours is, or you can serve it at room temperature.

Now we're gonna dust these with a little bit of confectioner's sugar.

That looks fabulous.

And that's it.

And it literally took me about 45 minutes to make from start to finish.

And you can get really creative with the berries you put on top and with the flavorings you put in the filling and it looks like I spent hours on it.

So here you have it, raspberry and mascarpone tart.

The gteau au yaourt, or yogurt cake, is a dessert so universal and so easy, it's oftentimes one of the first things kids learn to cook in the kitchen back in France.

The interesting thing about this recipe is that the container that's used for the yogurt is just as important as all the other ingredients.

The way they make this cake is they use up all the yogurt in the container and then that container serves as a measuring tool for everything else.

The flour, the sugar, the oil.

Now, here in the U.S., yogurt can come in all different sorts of sizes of containers, different shapes, and it's not very, very standardized.

So we worked with this recipe with more conventional measurements in mind.

The other great part about this recipe is the flavor combinations are endless.

You can see this topped off with all sorts of glazes, but more often than not, we see it with powdered sugar, maybe some fresh fruit, perhaps even a dollop of crme fraiche on the side.

Now, for us, we're going to be working with a flavor combination of orange as well as coriander.

And I know what you're thinking, coriander and a baked good?

Listen, we like sweets that are not just sweet.

And when we toast coriander, it actually softens a lot of the more savory notes and brings out its citrusy aromas, and that complements the orange just fine.

We're going to start this recipe off by toasting our coriander, and here I have a medium saucepan set over medium heat, one tablespoon of ground coriander.

Now the thing to keep in mind when you're working with ground spices and toasting is that because they're ground down so fine, they have more surface area and therefore, they could burn a lot faster.

So when you're going into this step, don't walk away.

Trying to spread the coriander out and allow it to toast for about three to five minutes, or until you start to see small, small wisps of smoke from the sides of the pan, and it gets very aromatic.

So now we can transfer it out of the skillet and back to the plate.

In fact, if you spread your coriander out into a nice, even layer, it'll cool a lot faster.

Now that my coriander is nice and toasted, we could go ahead and assemble team dry ingredients.

Here I have a cup and three quarters of all-purpose flour, that's about 228 grams.

And to that I'll be adding in two teaspoons of baking powder, as well as one quarter teaspoon salt.

And, of course, our coriander.

We just want to whisk this to combine to evenly distribute that coriander.

And that is team dry.

Let's go ahead and work with team wet, which is three eggs in a large bowl.

And to that I'll be adding in one cup of white sugar, along with the zest of an orange.

We're looking roughly two tablespoons of orange zest.

But the important thing to do here is zest the orange over the bowl.

And that's because as you drag it across the rasp, oils will be expressed directly into the wet ingredients and you'll get more of that orange flavor.

So from here we could go ahead and whisk this combination together and we want to whisk it until it's lightened in color just a bit.

And that means that we've incorporated air, and that's going to help us lift the cake.

With our eggs whisked, we can go ahead and add in the star of this cake, the yogurt.

Here I have half a cup of yogurt.

This is whole milk, plain yogurt.

Don't use Greek yogurt, it's simply too thick for this recipe.

You want plain yogurt for this.

We'll also add in two teaspoons of vanilla.

And finally, half a cup of oil.

And we'll whisk this all together until it's completely homogeneous.

So now that our wet ingredients are nice and well combined, we can go ahead and add in our dry ingredients.

And we'll stir that in with a rubber spatula until no streaks remain.

Okay, our batter has come together and we're ready to pour this into our loaf pan.

Now here I have an eight by four inch loaf pan that has been misted with a cooking spray and then dusted with a little bit of flour, and that is super important to prevent this loaf cake from sticking.

So make sure that you dust the interior, tap out all of the excess, and then you could introduce the batter.

With our batter in the loaf pan, all we gotta do now is top it off with another two teaspoons of sugar.

And what that's going to do is form a nice crispy crust on top and that completely eliminates the need for a glaze, but it also gives us contrasting texture.

Now that we've topped it off with sugar, all we gotta do now is bake it at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, for 40 to 45 minutes.

We took our cake out of the oven after 45 minutes and we allowed it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes.

Then we ran a knife around the edge and inverted it, so that way it pops out and can cool down completely before we can go ahead and cut in.

Now here you'll see that we have that nice crispy crust on the top.

I want you to listen for that when I slice in.

(crust crunches lightly) And because I want a center piece, we're going for the center piece.

Now, because there's sugar on top, I would totally eat this as-is, but to embellish it a little bit further, here I have some fresh berries.

And, of course, a little whipped cream never hurt anyone.

And there you have it, a French yogurt loaf cake.

Now you can find this recipe, as well as all of the recipes from this season on MilkStreetTV.com.

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- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - That meal.

You sauted, you seared, and you served, cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed, engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A. for over 50 years.

All-Clad-- for all your kitchen adventures.

(man speaking Hebrew) - (speaking world language) - Bonjour, je m'appelle Chris.

- We call it supa kanja.

It's the word for gumbo.

- Christopher, you have to make the authentic, original cotoletta alla Bolognese for me.

- So this is the Eduardo Garca blender.

- This is the no electricity.

- Next is dessert.

- That is really good.

I notice when you cook sometimes, you add a little bit of something, and then you just put the whole bowl in.

- I like to be generous with my food.

Generosity is important in cooking.

- That's true.

- Can start building bridges, and food is definitely a perfect common ground.

- This is a generational thing.

It's, it's something that you inherit.

- Yeah, that was great.

(woman speaking Mandarin) - What was this for?

What did she say?

- You get one more chance.

- Salute.

- How is it?

He's speechless.

- I'm speechless.

That's so good.