Boom!

Hello, I'm Julia Child.

Welcome to my house.

What fun we're going to have baking all kinds of incredible cakes, pies and breads right here in my own kitchen.

Pastry chef Gale Gand owner of Chicago's Vanilla Bean Bakery demonstrates her not-your- usual lemon meringue pie.

Florida baker David Blom makes cookies: delicate, curved tuiles and tasty little gingersnaps.

Join us on... What's missing here?

That looks like a pretty naked dessert.

You can dress it up very nicely with some cookies.

We'll have a lace cookie and a gingersnap.

And David Blom's going to make these for us today.

We'll start with the tuiles.

Notice that these are very, very fragile, lacy-type cookie.

Mm-hmm, can we...?

Awfully good.

So we're going to start.

We have to melt some butter and some cream that we have over here.

About half a cup of cream and a half a stick of butter.

Just to facilitate the butter melting chop it up into little pieces and throw that into there.

You want the cream to boil or just to heat up?

Just to heat up, so the butter melts.

Okay, I'll watch it.

So while our butter and cream are coming up to a little simmer over there I'm going to take three-quarter cup of pulverized almonds.

Just took a food processor chopped up from whole almonds.

And here, you're going to need two-thirds cup of sugar.

Sugar's awfully necessary when you're pulverizing nuts because they can turn oily, can't they?

That is... Their sugar will keep it from making peanut butter or almond butter.

Also, two tablespoons of flour.

I'm going to mix that around a little bit.

We need some flavorings to this.

So, take and grate an orange-- just need the zest.

Oh, it smells good, doesn't it?

And also, we need an eighth-teaspoon of vanilla.

Instead of adding it to this I'm going to add it to the liquid because it is a liquid.

A little more than that-- I like vanilla, anyway.

I do, too.

This is all mixed together.

Just add the wet to the dry.

Just make sure it's incorporated.

No eggs or anything?

No eggs.

That's amazing.

Well, that's because it's a lace cookie.

The sugar's going to hold it together and a little bit of the flour.

So what we do now, take some plastic wrap, cover it.

It has to refrigerate... overnight.

That will thicken it up.

It's too liquid right now.

And here we have some already.

I made this yesterday.

Now, how does it... it really has thickened.

A very important part of this is a non-stick pan.

I don't think it would work that well on parchment paper.

Parchment paper, especially if you have liquid it will ruffle under the bottom.

You don't butter it or anything?

Nope, doesn't have to be buttered.

Oh, because there's butter in the cookie.

I'm going to mix up the lace cookie mixture that we have here.

Mix it up, make sure everything's... because it might separate a little bit.

Take, about a heaping teaspoon of it... right there.

That looks a little bit too much.

I'm going to cut down a little bit.

And you have to use fingers in baking.

Impeccably clean, as we always say.

Impeccably clean fingers.

There's no need to spread these out or anything.

This is the glory of this.

These are going to spread out by themselves.

So they go right into a 325-degree oven.

How long do they take?

For about five, eight minutes.

Is that all?

We're just looking for a nice, brown color.

They're all nice and brown.

You have to let them stay for about 30 seconds maybe 45 seconds, because they're very hot right now.

So we're going to take them right off.

We're going to form them right onto a rolling pin.

Okay, as they're sitting there cooling you can take them off either with a spatula or what I do, a little bit easier I just take them off with my hands.

You have to get a little callous You've got to curl them upside down.

You can turn them right side up.

Upside down, anyway you... anyway you'd like.

That's a good trick, that pushing them... See?

Yeah, mm-hmm.

Little circles.

You wouldn't think that would work, and it does, perfectly.

Now, of course, these are fine plain.

But if you want to give a little zest to them we could put a little stripes of chocolate... Well, that's a nice idea.

...on top of them.

Oh, those are so pretty, aren't they?

We start out with a rectangular piece of paper.

If you don't have a pastry bag at home this is the way to make it with... You could use parchment, you could use wax paper.

We want to make a triangle.

We need a knife.

So if you look at this here is where the actual point's going to be.

These two are going to meet up to this.

So we bring this up like this.

Just the way you'd think you wouldn't do it.

Like that.

Let's do that once more.

Remember, this is where the point's going to be.

This fold up like this... And you curl it on itself.

You take your fingers, push down with your thumb, up with your fingers and you could close that up.

Just melted chocolate.

It's beautifully smooth and shiny.

You don't want to get it too hot, either.

I just close up the bag, just like this.

So, let's bring our cookies over here.

Be very careful when you're moving them.

Yes, they're so fragile, aren't they?

And of course, you can leave them plain or you can have little stripes of chocolate.

That's nice, and do them over paper; you can reuse the chocolate.

Exactly.

Well, those are lovely.

Thank you.

Now you're going to do us some gingersnaps.

Gingersnaps.

We need 4½ tablespoons of sugar that we're going to cream... with the butter.

You could've added one-fourth cup.

You're not used to using tablespoons.

I'm not used to using tablespoons.

Well, that's fine.

And two tablespoons of butter.

Three tablespoons of molasses.

Oh, that dark, good, dark molasses, yes.

Is that sulfured or unsulfured or do we care?

We like unsulfured.

Good.

We need one-eighth teaspoon each of ginger... cinnamon... salt...

It's interesting when you say gingersnaps and there's very little ginger really in it.

Also, an eighth of a teaspoon of baking soda.

Just going to mix this with the paddle, in the mixer.

Just going to cream all the sugar and the spices together.

And after that's all creamed... That was fast.

That was very fast.

Going to need 1½ tablespoons of water.

And a three-quarter cup of flour.

And we'll mix this till it comes all together.

It just comes together like that.

Smells good.

Now, what happens is that, like most doughs this has to be refrigerated for...

I'd say this, maybe two, three hours.

Just so it rests.

Let me just wrap this up in plastic.

And that will get refrigerated two to three hours.

So here we have the dough that's been well chilled.

You could make it ahead and freeze it if you wanted, couldn't you?

Frozen, it will stay for a very, very long time.

It's a very sticky dough.

Yes, it is.

So we've got to... don't be afraid to use the flour.

It's nice having a marble surface, isn't it?

Rolling out on marble's very nice.

So, and when we're rolling, very important always roll to the edges-- never go like that.

Just, right out to the edges.

And if you go over the edge then you thin it out, I guess.

It won't be square, more so...

It will be like rounded with cracked edges.

And you want square dough.

And we got about that thickness.

It's like an eighth of an inch.

And you have little tears and that doesn't make any difference?

No, that's all right.

( laughs ) We have... you can take any kind of cutters that we have.

We have three different ones.

And you got a nice little heart there.

We have a fluted round.

You could use any kind of cutters.

Big ones, small ones.

Those are nice little hearts.

Do these spread during baking?

No, not at all.

So that you can put them as close together as you want.

So what else we do to this going to make a little solution of water and molasses.

We're going to brush this on right before we bake them.

Make that equal-- just small, little amount-- equal parts molasses and water.

What's that you're going to do?

This is going to make a nice sheen on top of them when they come out of the oven.

Oh, that's a good idea.

This is a very nice, simple cookie, isn't it?

Very simple.

After they're all glazed we're going to put them into the oven and they bake at 325 degrees.

Watch them very closely, though.

Take about five to seven minutes.

And that's all?

Those cook awfully fast-- that was about five minutes.

As they cool, they're going to crisp up.

Right now, maybe a little warm.

And they won't be as crispy.

Once they cool, they really give you that snap in the gingersnap.

Oh, this is lovely.

There's no excuse for not having cookies with cappuccino and with desserts and everything.

Well, these are delicious.

Mmm, those are so good.

These are all... easy to make.

Thank you, David.

Very easy.

It was a joy being here.

You've given us a very good lesson, thank you.

If you love lemon meringue pie you're going to go mad over this one.

This is made out of phyllo dough.

There's lemon curd and there's a brown sugar meringue that has been miraculously browned topped with a crisp, beautiful phyllo dough.

This is all the invention of Gale Gand who's going to show us exactly how to make it.

Great, you ready to take a little lesson?

What are you going to start with?

We're going to start with the phyllo dough.

Usually, I get phyllo dough frozen, then thaw it out.

You can get it in the grocery store that way and keep it in your freezer till you're ready and then pull it out the night before and let it thaw in your fridge.

Really, what it is, it's like little, thin leaves of pastry.

It's like strudel dough thVat they made for you.

Grandmother's strudel dough.

Yes, see how thin it is?

But it comes really... Oh, that's dough or a piece of paper, there.

That's phyllo.

We're going to just cut this in half.

It's just like paper, isn't it?

It really is, like tissue and what I do is I like to cover it, just with a dry towel, not a damp towel.

Because they always say cover it with a damp towel.

They usually say damp, and I find then you get these little pockets of moisture and then... And they're wrong!

It does stick together, then.

I just use a dry one and that way, keeps the air away from it but doesn't add any extra moisture.

So what we're going to do, I'm going to brush it with a little melted butter here.

You can use clarified butter if you've got that and just sprinkle a little on.

And real delicately, just brush it.

Because you don't want to tear it.

It's almost like tissue paper but very easy to work with.

There we go.

It's really a great invention because it makes such a crisp crust, doesn't it?

And I use it for so many different things.

That's about a tablespoon of sugar, I would think.

Yeah, you can layer it as thick or as thin as you like.

We're going to do three layers right now, on top of each other.

But you could do, you know, ten layers.

Or another thing I do, sometimes, I'll brush it with egg whites and sugar.

I'll take egg whites and just whip them up real light and then brush that on instead of butter.

It's really for my dad, because he's on a no-fat diet so I use it for him so he can have some desserts of mine.

Well, that's nice of you.

It gets really crispy, then almost like a breakfast cereal.

And this will make enough for about three or four servings, just the one layer so it's a very small amount.

Another tablespoon of sugar.

So far nothing difficult.

Easy.

Get one more layer of phyllo.

Oh, that's three layers.

Now, we want to score it.

We're going to cut those triangles right now.

So I cut one... cut it into threes just like that and then cut triangles.

It's okay if they're not perfect.

I usually get three out of a row.

So that's enough for one pie, isn't it?

Let's see, each three sections would be one serving.

There we go.

So we're going to top it off with that last piece of parchment and then weight it down.

I've got a baking pan, just a metal pan and that metal will help conduct some heat so it can bake that top layer.

Let's stick it in the oven.

What temperature does it bake at?

We're going to bake it at 350 till they're golden brown.

Probably about ten minutes.

Next thing we want to make is the lemon curd to go inside.

We're going to start with four eggs.

These are whole eggs.

U.S. graded large, I imagine?

These are the large eggs.

These are nice; they're brown eggs.

Well... New England has the brown eggs.

I don't think anyone else does.

Now we're going to add the sugar.

We need one cup of sugar to go in there.

I'm going to whip those two together till they're really light and fluffy.

I want to give that a little scrape.

And it's getting very fluffy.

See how light it is, and airy?

And I want to add the lemon juice-- two-thirds of a cup of lemon juice.

Fresh lemon juice?

I'd use fresh.

Not concentrate.

I don't prefer it, no.

And we're also using fresh lemon peel so that's the lemon that you juice.

How much is that?

We've got one teaspoon there.

Yeah, is that a peel of one lemon, about?

And I zest it and then give it a little chop so that's kind of fine.

And mix that in.

One last little... there we go.

And now we want to cook this over hot water.

So we're making a bain-marie by putting some boiling water in a pot.

Sort of like a "sababyon?"

A lot like a sabayon.

Really the only difference is this has egg whites in it, not just yolks.

So it's a little more stable a little more forgiving than a sabayon.

And we're just going to whisk it over hot water.

How much does that take usually?

Probably 15 or 20 minutes.

You could definitely take a phone call while you're doing this.

You can walk away from it even.

I can whisk for a minute and then go do something and come back to it.

It's very forgiving.

It's kind of a foam on the top of it, isn't there?

It's fluffy and it has a foam.

That will go away, though.

And after it cooks, that subsides.

It gets very thick and the foam kind of goes away but it stays very airy and light, still.

But we still have a ways to go, do we?

We do.

Can you see how thick that's gotten, now?

That's practically done.

That's practically done.

Can you watch that for me?

I'll check the phyllo in the oven because I think it's ready.

Got that?

Yep.

I think we're done.

How can we tell?

Pull off that top pan... look underneath, oh, yeah.

See, we're golden brown, that's great.

Yeah, let's taste one that's done.

Oh, that's delicious.

You like that?

It's all crisp and caramelly.

The sugar kind of caramelizes in the oven.

Okay, it looks like the curd's there.

It certainly looks nice and thick.

You can bring it off the heat and I'm going to add some butter to it.

We've got four tablespoons of butter here.

Add that in, and just give it a whisk.

There, our butter's all in.

I'm just going to pour it into a bowl.

Now we want to chill it and get it cold and that helps it sort of set up.

There you go.

Well, it's lovely and thick.

The next step is to make our brown sugar meringue.

I'll show you how to do that.

I take half a cup of whites.

You do it with a machine.

Yep, I'm going to whip it right in the mixer.

Half a cup of... that's sensible saying half a cup, rather than, say, four egg whites because you want to know the quantity, don't you?

I always find that egg whites vary in size so if I say three or three to four you don't really know how much that is.

So half a cup and I keep them in big containers, you know.

I collect them over time.

So I need to be able to measure them out.

We're going to whip this till it's just a little frothy.

Gale, I see you're beating the egg whites over a hot water bath.

I guess that has to be to a temperature of 160 degrees to make sure you're killing off any harmful bacteria.

That's good enough.

Yeah, we've got a lot of bubbles.

And then we're going to add six tablespoons of brown sugar because we're making a brown sugar meringue.

And that's light brown sugar.

And whip that till it's real stiff and glossy.

Okay, we're there.

But we'll plate one up right now.

See how nice and stiff that is.

I'm going to place it in this pastry bag and I just have a plain, large tip on there.

Okay, want to hand me the plates?

Oh, that's a pretty plate.

Isn't that nice, with the lemon?

First thing I do, is put a little dab down for glue.

That's a good idea.

So we've got our first piece of phyllo down.

And now we're going to add... Oh, this is all chilled now.

See how stiff that gets?

Yes.

Want to give a taste?

I guess that really has set.

It's almost like a custard.

Mmm, mmm, good.

Tart?

I guess this isn't the typical way to make a lemon meringue pie.

No.

But I lived in England for quite a while and so lemon curd tartlets were really common there so... sort of combining two continents.

Now, I'm going to pipe the brown sugar meringue on.

It doesn't actually show that much in the end but it's fun if I'm making it to do it that way.

And now I need to brown this so I'm going to use a blowtorch to do that.

I find that's the easiest... A blowtorch?

Could you hand me my blowtorch?

Look at that, isn't that wonderful?

Isn't that easy?

Well, that's great.

Much easier than a broiler.

Much easier.

We're going to do one more layer.

Phyllo on top, lemon curd again.

I'm amazed at how beautifully that thickened up.

Without any starch or anything.

It's just the butter and...

There we go.

That's wonderful.

You like that?

That's wonderful.

I'm going to take one more layer.

Just place it on top, there we go.

Now, we need a little bit of mint.

Do a little bit of powdered sugar on the outer edge, there we go.

That's lovely.

That's absolutely lovely, isn't it?

This is a marvelous recipe.

I'll always make this my favorite lemon tart.

You'll make not-your-usual lemon meringue pie, huh?

And it's your invention.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Julia: Bon appétit!