How to Make Awesome Cakes & Pies

Transcript My name is Dave Crofton, the chef and owner of One Girl Cookies. My wife, Dawn, and I just wrote a cook book called “One Girl Cookies” where we share all our recipes from our shop, cafe in Brooklyn. There are some great recipes inside. We shared a few of them with you today. …

Transcript OK. Let’s get ready to make up the filling for the Black Forest Whoopee Pies. Straight forward cream-cheese filling. We’ve got a little bit of butter, and a little bit of cream-cheese. We’re going to start creaming those in the electric mixer. Do this at low speed. OK. Right now, I’m going to add …

Transcript Okay. So it’s time to pour the cake batter into the pans. Let’s get them ready with a little bit of, we’ve got some parchment paper rounds. You can either buy them in the round at a kitchen store or you can just use a pair of scissors and cut it out of a …

Transcript Alright. Let’s get ready to assemble the black forest whoopee pies. So I’ve got some baked whoopee pies. I’ve got some chopped up dried cherries. I got a little bit more of the old’ de ve the cherry flavored liquor and I’ve got some cream cheese cherry filling. First thing I want to do …

Transcript Alright. Let’s get ready to pipe out these Black Forest Whoopie Pies. We’ve got the chocolate batter. I have a regular cookie sheet and a piece of parchment paper on that. The parchment is going to be great for letting you get the Whoopie Pies off when they’re done baking. If you have the …

Transcript Okay, so now we’ve got our crumb coat nice and chilled. It’s really going to be perfect, nice and easy to decorate this cake. And again, it’s going to look a little rustic. This is not a wedding cake. I like to start on the top, but you’re welcome to start on the sides. …

Transcript So, let’s put together the cream cheese frosting for that red velvet cake. We’re going to start with the butter and cream cheese. We’re going to mix it in the electric mixer. I’ll start mixing that at a low speed. I’m going to add a little bit of vanilla and a little bit of …

Transcript The red velvet cake is totally cool, and I’ve got my cream cheese frosting. It’s time to do the crumb coat. We’re going to take and trim each of the cake layers, just a little bit. You don’t want to take out too much, especially if they’re already pretty flat. But you want to …

Transcript Let’s work on some black forest whoopie pies. We’re going to start by putting together a chocolate whoopie pie batter. We’re going to start, first, by combining all of our dry ingredients. That’s a little bit of all purpose flour, cocoa powder. We’re going to use some baking soda and salt. Okay. Okay. We’re …

Transcript Okay. So the butter and sugar has been creamed. Now I’m just going to add the eggs to that batter. Just one at time and that really means just sort of gradually. Let the mixer do its work. Two at a time, that’s okay. What you don’t want to do is if you dump …

Transcript All right, so the next step for the pumpkin pie is we’re going to toast the pumpkin seeds. We’re using what I call ‘Pepitas’, or the little green pumpkin seeds. You can use the white ones, that is more traditional, that you scoop out of the pumpkin at Halloween. Either one is fine. But …

Transcript Let’s get ready and assemble all of the ingredients, put the pumpkin pie together, and stick it in the oven. A couple of things I want to talk about. Pepitas, those are the green pumpkin seeds. They’re awesome. I toasted them up with a little bit of salt and oil. You can just eat …

Transcript Okay. Let’s prepare the filling for the pumpkin pie. Start with the eggs. I’m going to crack them into a little bowl. I always like to crack the eggs into the bowl, into a separate bowl first just to make sure that if you have any shells, they aren’t going to get into the …

Transcript We’re going to do a red velvet cake. It’s a two layer cake with a cream cheese frosting. I’m just going to start with some of the ingredients here. We have a little bit of yogurt and we’re going to add some vanilla to that yogurt and then also the red food coloring. Now …

Transcript All right, now we’re going to make a pumpkin pie. We’ll start by putting together the ingredients and shaping the pie crust. People are often intimidated by it, but it’s really simple. We’ll do it really quick. You’ll be a new pie lover in no time at all. So I like to use a …

Transcript All right. Let’s start rolling out these pie crusts and get the pumpkin pie shell in the oven to bake. I’m going to start with a nice rolling pin and I start with a little unconventional. I’m just going to tap the crust a little bit. Kind of flattens it out. Before you put …

Transcript All right, let’s get ready to blind bake the pumpkin pie crust. So it’s been in the refrigerator for a couple of minutes. I’m going to pull it out. All right, that time in the fridge just gets it set up, so that it’s going to be easier to work with. I’m going to …

Transcript Let’s roll out these apple pie crusts and start assembling the pie so we can get it in the oven. I’m going to take my rolling pin, and first thing I’m going to do is tap, pretty forcefully, on the pie crust, and I’ll rotate that crust every once in a while. That flattens …

Transcript OK. Let’s grab the apple pie crust bottom out of the fridge. It’s had a few minutes to set up now, so that’s going to be a little bit more durable. We can work with it. We can put the apple filling in it with a little more confidence. I’m going to take a …

Transcript First, we’re going to start by peeling and coring the apples and then slicing them into small chunks. I’m going to use a paring knife to do this. You can use a vegetable peeler if you want. That works pretty well. A lot of people like that. They even make these awesome machines that …

Transcript Let’s get all the ingredients ready for the rich chocolate cake. We’re going to start with some hot coffee and a little bit of cocoa powder. You should try to use the richest, darkest cocoa powder that you can get. It’s going to give you the most chocolate flavor that you can in the …

Transcript Now we’re going to work on a double crust apple pie. So that means there’s a crust on the bottom of the pie obviously, but then a crust on the top. It makes a really beautiful presentation. It’s a classic apple pie that people go crazy for. Let’s start assembling the pie crust. So …

Transcript OK. I think that chocolate cake is just about finished. Let me go check it in the oven. Oh, yeah, that’s looking really good. All right, I see that it’s starting to pull away from the side of the pan a little bit. I’m going to grab a knife and just check it for …

Transcript Awesome. So I think that apple pie is just about done. I can actually smell the aroma of the apple pie. That’s actually a really good way to tell that it’s getting to be done. I’m going to take it out and show you a few pointers. OK, it’s hot. That’s a hot oven. …

Transcript So before we put these all together, my oven’s preheated to 350. Make sure it’s nice and hot. I’m going to spray my pan. You want to spray it pretty liberally, with some pan spray, and a parchment round. Then you can cut that out yourself, or you can buy them already pre-cut at …