Happy Friday!
This week for Quartz, I interviewed Food52’s Kristen Miglore about her second cookbook, Genius Desserts, which I’ve been delving into—both baking from it and reading it like the most delicious novel. That’s how good the recipes’ headnotes are.
I have a personal affinity for Kristen. We were summer interns together nearly a decade ago at Saveur magazine, so it’s been inspiring to watch her become an editor, creative director, James Beard-nominated columnist, and New York Times-bestselling cookbook author.
Genius Recipes, if you’re not familiar, is a concept Kristen coined seven years ago when she started a column for the food site Food52. The point was to feature game-changing recipes that contain some unexpected element that results in easier execution or more exquisite results—a twist that elevates the dish to the level of “genius.”
I’ve got Kristen to thank for my go-to roasted chicken, which cooks at the aggressive temperature of 500°F (260°C); Caesar salad dressing that replaces the raw egg, lemon, and oil with jarred mayonnaise and red wine vinegar; and chocolate World Peace cookies with their game-changing sprinkling of sea salt, all of which appeared in her column and first Genius Recipes cookbook. (Actually, my mom first introduced me to the cookies, demonstrating how the column indeed amplifies home cooks’ most beloved recipes.)
“Once you make them, you kind of can’t forget them,” Kristen explained to me recently, while on her book tour for Genius Desserts. “In the best cases, they change the way you cook.”
She has made a career of culling and curating such recipes from other cookbook authors, chefs, bloggers, editors, and home cooks, investigating what makes them so special, testing them to ensure they deliver delicious dishes, and writing about them for her legion of fans.
In the kitchen, she is a hero because she saves me from moments of analysis paralysis—when the pressure to choose the recipe for the single most mind-blowing banana bread, soft-centered chocolate brownies, or juicy and crusty cobbler—threatens to diminish the unfettered joy of baking.
All of which is to say, with her newest book, she rescues readers from the decision fatigue of the internet and delivers you the best of the best, so you can just bake already. We could waste decades arguing over the quintessential chocolate brownie, but if you choose chocolate savant Alice Medrich’s cocoa brownies from Genius Desserts, you’re sure to end up with outstanding results.
And because Kristen’s process involves diving deep into the rabbit-hole of what makes a recipe “genius,” you’re also likely to learn something that’ll make you a better cook or baker. In the case of those brownies, it’s that replacing melted chocolate with powdered cocoa allowed Medrich to precisely control the chocolate-level of her brownies and deliver perfectly gooey centers.
“By taking out the chocolate, with its variable fat and sugar, Medrich was able to control and fine-tune the proportions of both,” she writes. “When she added the fat back (in the form of butter), the centers stayed softer.” Genius.
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Two-ingredient sweet potato frosting. I am not the only Quartz reporter obsessed with Genius Desserts. While I was making those brownies and blondies, food reporter Annaliese Griffin was making brown-butter Rice Krispie treats, a vegan chocolate cake, and—wait for it—chocolate frosting made from a bag of chocolate chips and a can of sweet potato purée.
“Genevieve Ko’s Two-Ingredient Chocolate Frosting has joined whipped cream and traditional chocolate ganache as my go-to cake toppers,” Annaliese writes. “To make it, you heat a 15-ounce can of pureed sweet potatoes on the stove until it bubbles. Turn off the heat, add in 10 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, and stir until smooth. Let it cool before you frost your cake. That’s it.”
Here are some genius tips for taking on a creative project—from the mind behind Genius Recipes:
Make room for your favorite parts of the process. For Kristen, this is the part she calls “discovery”—”interacting with the community, gathering and tracking down all these recipes, and then testing them … that part, I have to say, is really the most fun of the whole bookmaking process.” Know what yours is, and make space for it.
Set time limits for the tougher parts. “It gets less fun, the more you’re doing the writing and editing,” Kristen admits, adding that starting her column each week is no easier than it was seven years ago. “Every week I still have to remind myself, just do it! Force yourself to begin.” For this—like me—she’s a fan of the Pomodoro Method: setting a 25-minute timer for a low-commitment way to execute work, uninterrupted. And she doesn’t let deadlines slide, because she knows that slope is slippery.
Don’t worry, everyone is afraid of running out of ideas. “I definitely worried that we would run out of things to look for, or to talk about after a year,” said Kristen. “I just thought it might peter out once we had gotten the very best roast chicken, and guacamole, and spaghetti sauce.” But of course, there’s not just one way to roast chicken, and the world is full of great ideas. Take a pause and recharge. Maybe make yourself some brownies.
Have a great weekend!
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A catchy tune. Phosphorescent is pretty cute when they’re happy. I’ve had the song “New Birth in New England,” from the band’s new album C’est La Vie stuck in my head since I first heard it. Upon second listening, I realized the song was a love letter to lead singer Matthew Houck’s wife/baby-momma/keyboardist, Jo Schornikow. I am even more charmed since seeing the video of the band performing it on the The Late Late Show With James Corden, where the lead singer and guitarist is wearing a shirt with his own band’s name emblazoned on the front, which he apparently does with some frequency. It’s just so endearingly uncool. I love it.
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