Bake Your Heart Out: Foolproof Recipes to Level Up Your Home Baking

By Dan Langan

The debut baking recipe book from Food Network star Dan Langan!

Like many of us, Dan Langan learned young that if you want to make someone smile, all you need to do is give them a cookie. Dan channeled his natural creativity into baking alongside his mother and grandmother, and he soon became obsessed with making and remaking his favorite recipes until they were the tastiest and prettiest versions of themselves. Since then, Dan has become a trusted source for delicious, foolproof bakes and has connected with home bakers via social media, television, and digital videos, and through his website, Baked by Dan. In his debut cookbook, Dan shares 100 recipes for his game-changing versions of familiar classics, such as Red Velvet Layer Cake and Creamy Lemon Chess Squares, as well as unique creations like Seriously Sesame Brownies and a Ricotta and Pistachio Cannoli Tart. He’ll also let you in on the pro secrets that make his bakes better than your usual stand-bys, like toasting not only nuts but oats, poppy seeds, and almond flours to turbocharge their flavor, or by stabilizing whipped cream with a touch of cream cheese to keep it perfectly fluffy. Equally invaluable are Dan’s tips for helping you produce bakes that look as good as they taste, so your dessert bars have razor-sharp edges and your muffins have gorgeously domed tops. Accompanied by charming photography that's as enticing as the treats themselves, this beautiful and instructive book will become a go-to for bakers both seasoned and beginner.

Whether you’re an experienced baker looking for a cake decorating book to improve the appearance of your bakes or a novice baker looking for basic dessert recipes, Bake Your Heart Out has something for everyone. Dan Langan’s dedication to testing and perfecting the techniques in this pastry book has made it the perfect cookie, bar, pie, and cake cookbook for anyone who wants to learn how to bake like a pro.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Union Square & Co.
• Release date: Oct 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781454947578

Book preview

the cookie jar

Crispy, Crunchy, and Everything in Between

I have many fond memories of the times my brother and sister and I made cookies together, taking turns beating the batter and scooping out the dough—it was like a team sport we could all participate in! During the holidays there was always cookie dough in the fridge and because we didn’t have a cooling rack, we would just line the dining room table with wax paper and cover it with cookies as they came out of the oven, then go to town with the icing and sprinkles.

Yet there is no denying that some cookies are just better than others, with crisp edges, chewy centers, or a jam-packed appearance that signals how good they will taste. While that can be partially attributed to the appeal of certain flavors and ingredients, a lot of it comes down to technique and understanding the roles that fat and moisture play in the chemistry of a cookie. (Yup, I can even geek out over cookies.) As a kid, I often made the chocolate chip cookies from my mother’s old Fanny Farmer cookbook, and though I loved baking with Mom, I was always frustrated that the cookies came out so flat. My nine-year-old self tried chilling the dough, using more eggs, reducing the baking soda, and so on until I worked out that adding more flour helped them spread less. Realizing that by altering the ratio of flour to fat, I could make cookies that came out exactly the way I liked them was a lightbulb moment for me, and I’ve been pursuing cookie perfection ever since. All that tweaking has been done for you in the recipes that follow, but there are still a few variables that you can control to take your cookie game to the next level:

Resting: Nearly all cookie dough benefits from a resting period before it goes into the oven. During this time the flour hydrates, the sugars dissolve, the flavors bloom, and the dough becomes firm enough to hold its shape when it encounters heat rather than spreading and collapsing. Even as little as an hour or two will make a difference; overnight is better still.

Freeze-to-bake: If you have always considered cookies an instant gratification kind of bake, letting your dough rest may go against the grain. Fortunately, almost all cookie doughs freeze beautifully. When I make cookies, I like to double the batter (or bake only half) and freeze the rest as ready-to-bake balls so I can produce a batch of freshly baked cookies in about 20 minutes at the drop of a hat—talk about instant gratification! I find there is far less compromise in flavor or texture this way than freezing and defrosting prebaked cookies. Chill the dough balls until firm, then transfer them to a gallon resealable bag and stash in the freezer for up to 3 months. Don’t forget to label each package with the contents and date. You may need to bake the cookies an extra minute or two; just use the same visual cues for doneness.

Size: I’ve found a big, chunky cookie brings out the kid in all of us. That’s why a lot of the cookies in this chapter are big; some might even say oversized, measuring at least 3 inches in diameter. But there’s another reason I tend to go big with my cookies: It’s a lot harder to achieve that golden mean of a soft, fudgy, dense center with crispy, golden-brown edges when you make small cookies. And, hey, it’s just less work to scoop 12 cookies than 24. That said, if you want to make smaller cookies, you definitely can. Just reduce the baking time (start checking them 3 or 4 minutes before the recipe indicates) and be sure to observe any visual cues provided in the recipe.

Shape: Whether you make your cookies large or small, consistency is the name of the game. Cookies of the same size will bake more evenly and look more uniform. That’s why I highly recommend you portion out your dough with a cookie scoop rather than eyeballing or using two spoons the way Grandma did. (A cookie that starts out as an oval will never be perfectly round, right?) For this book I have used one of two scoop sizes, a #40 scoop that translates to about a rounded tablespoon for smaller cookies, and #20, which is just shy of ¼ cup, for the big guys. (If you are shopping online or at a professional kitchenware shop, these will be the purple and yellow scoops, respectively.) Depending on the dough and how much it spreads during baking, these will produce a cookie about 2 inches in diameter for the small scoop, and a generous 3- to 4-inch cookie for the large scoop. No scoop? Weigh the entire batch of dough and divide that number by the recipe’s yield to get an average weight for each