- Hi my name is Kiano I'm a tasty producer and today
I'm going to show you how to be a better baker.
Pies are such a fun, simple way to be creative.
You have a crust and you fill it with generally fruit
that has a little bit of sugar, a little bit of spice.
So you kind of have a blank canvas to decorate it however
you want, you don't have to be professional to do it.
Pie decorating can be as simple or as complicated
as you want it to be, even if you don't have proper tools
you can use the most random items in your kitchen.
When you're trying to customize and like make you pie
look like your own, you really can use anything that's
available to you, use whatever tools you have
in your kitchen to customize and make it your own.
I think the fun thing about baking is that most desserts
have different components so when you're cooking
with other people, everyone can kind
of take charge of a section of that.
So is you're making a pie, one person can tackle
the crust, maybe another person can tackle the filing.
For example my sister is into spices, she will raid
cabinet, put a little bit of this, a little bit of that
in there, so I can pay more attention to making the crust.
So in the kitchen you're baking together but everyone
has a piece so they can put their own personal flair
and personality to and they will all get baked together like
one cool little product but everyone had their hands in it.
I haven't lived in my hometown in over 10 years so anytime
I go back home my family immediately requests a pie from me.
It doesn't matter if it's a holiday, they're like we want
apple pie period even though they're asking for the exact
same thing time and after time again it's a fun,
creative challenge of how do I take the exact same
ingredients but make it new where everyone is still
like whoa I've never seen that before.
Customizing decoration is a huge part of it.
There's so many ways of transforming a familiar dish
so that excitement never fades.
Very few people in my family bakes, even to this day when
I return home for any holiday I am working with bare
minimum equipment, when I am cooking with my family
I am always trying to get creative and make
desserts with what we all ready have.
So I'm like all right how can I make dessert for this dinner
without cluttering the family kitchen with things
that they aren't gonna use all the time.
It's so easy to say I want to get into baking
and then buy all of the stuff but really you can make
dessert with a lot fewer things than you need.
You can get creative with what you all ready have
around the house, there's so many ways
you can present your dish and it doesn't always
have to be exactly as the recipe told you.
I've always viewed a recipe as a piece of inspiration
or kind of an over view guideline of what to do
bu then the real joy of home cooking is that it's
your kitchen, it's your rules, you can do what you want.
If it says put one teaspoon of cinnamon and you don't
like cinnamon put something else in there.
There's a lot of room to customize and make your desserts
a lot more creative and unique, which is what people
are going to respond too when you put
it in front of them because it's gonna be different
from what you can buy from your grocery store
and you have more control over what you're making
and you can make it fit to the equation better.
There's this whole world of how you visually present
what you're making that really can transition you into
a whole different realm of challenging what the tried
and true is and you can really get creative.
So a dessert that I made that was more of a challenge
was making a Charlotte Royale.
It is a old school English cake, when I am making stuff
at home I want to make things that I want to eat.
That means seeing this really classic recipe
but switching out the parts that I wish
I could have it as I could never buy.
So with the Charlotte Royale I made I am a huge fan
of cheesecake, it is one of my favorite types of dessert
and I decided to fill the Charlotte Royale with cheesecake
instead of Buvarian cream because I think
what you're making should excite you.
So event though it was by the book one way when you're
cooking for yourself and for your friends you wanna
make it tailored to your audience,
you make it how you're gonna enjoy it.
Cake making has a lot more moving parts that can go
a little bit more wrong once you know what makes
a great cake batter, what makes a great icing.
You can start playing around with how you present
that and you can change the shape
and decorate it really cool and pretty.
With any thing practice makes perfect, so when you're
making that batter you want to make sure at no point
are you over working that batter.
A big mistake you can make is wanting to have the batter
look nice and smooth and like luxurious where to make
a really good cake batter you want it to be just combined.
So that everything is there otherwise if you're overworking
it you're actually you're gonna make a really tough cake.
It's always great to having that moment where you put that
thing you spent all afternoon making on the table
in front of people and getting that wow reaction.
You want to see people excited.
To make a beautiful dessert it's not about doing
the most complicated thing, the recipe itself
can be very simple, it's how you customize it
and stylize it just by putting your own
personality into it and getting creative.
With cake making you generally have multiple components
and to make sure in the end you end up with a beautiful
cake you really have to pay attention to every element
and take your time, your never being
too over ambitious with any stock.
So if there is a part that you're maybe not as comfortable
with take a shortcut make it simpler,
you don't need every element of what
you are doing to be brand new to you.
So to make something different that people may have
not seen before I decided to do this rippled ombre effect.
Borrowing inspiration from another type of cake called
a zebra cake, each color pushes out the previous creating
this nice ripple effect but instead of having two colors
back and forth in tiny quantities.
I decided to do four shades of brown to white
so it took something not people are familiar with
the chocolate cheesecake, it's no bake and whip
it up in 10 minutes and through customizing it.
It turned into a very beautiful and unique dessert.
There's so many things that could go wrong while baking.
You can crack a cheesecake, or maybe forgot
to spray your cake and it will not come out the pan.
Or you over baked your cookies and they're hard as a brick.
Don't worry about it you can salvage it and get a little
creative to make something new and could still have
a really great dessert in the end.
I think it's really important to know that just because
something didn't turn out as you intended,
does not mean it's always a lost cause.
You can always repurpose what you've all ready made
and make another cool dessert out of it
or sometimes you can even fix it and cover up your mistake.
When looking at a recipe to make the first thing to do
is figure out what part is science and what part is flavor.
Science I'm not messing with, I'm not messing with how
it's going to rise or structurally work but with the flavor
that's when it becomes customizable.
When you're making things in your own kitchen your
imagination has no limit you can put whatever ingredients
you want you can make it shaped however you want.
It really is a question of your personality
or what you did that day, you could've have been
to the farmers market and saw beautiful
strawberries you're gonna use that.
It's putting a lot more of yourself into the food
than you actually expected to.
Baking is inherently a celebratory food,
every occasion we have in life usually has an accompanied
dessert, it's generally for something or for someone.
And I think there is nothing more awkward or fearful
than putting something in front of someone
that you're like hey I'm expecting you to eat this
and in their mind they're like ew I don't want to eat that.
How can I pretend that I like it.
It's always a goal to but something in front of people
that they're genuinely excited to try.
When you're baking for other people, when
you present it to them there's so much appreciation
that comes into that, even though it might not be perfect
every time especially when you're starting to bake out.
But when you take time and effort to make things
for the people you care about it does not go unnoticed.
And you have a secondary reward that you get to make things
for people but then after that you get to share it with
them as well and you get to sit down with your friends,
stand with your family over the food
that you've just made for them.
Enjoy each other's company have the laughs,
blow out the candles and just have a good time.
Even when you're baking yes stuff can go wrong
it might not be exactly as you envisioned
it and it can't be perfect all the time.
But when you're baking for other people they're gonna
appreciate that you took the time,
put the energy into making something really special
for them and that's always nice to share food
with other people that you care about.
- [Male] Oh yes!
(upbeat theme music)