And That's How the Cookie Crumbles
A special Just a Bite with Tandem Bakery's Briana Holt, plus her recipe for coconut macaroon crumble
Pastry friends,
If you’ve been to Portland, Maine, you’ve probably tried (or been told to try) Tandem Bakery. Baker Briana Holt is renowned across the state (and nationwide food media) for serving up the flakiest biscuits, unconventional cookies, and thick slabs of sweet potato pie with honey chai whipped cream.
We’re thrilled to count Briana as a contributor for our new issue Tough Cookie—catch her cocoa fennel cornmeal cookies modeled by baker Abi Balingit on our Instagram—and today we’re sharing her special Just a Bite, including a recipe for a coconut macaroon crumble that’s perfect for spooning over ice cream.— AA
You’re making dessert. What is it? How do you make it?
Oh absolutely, without a doubt, it's going to be ice cream sundaes. If you invite me for dinner two weeks out, maybe I’ll get it together and make the ice cream—but let’s be real, I'm a space case and more likely I'll buy it and spend my time on toppings.
I find hot fudge to be somewhat forgiving and can often make it with whatever is in the fridge and cupboard—different dairy, cocoas, sugars, flavors. I have a fave base recipe that really hits; I think it's from the Joy of Cooking! Heavy cream, butter, cocoa, and chocolate! I like to mix it up and do some brown sugar, some white, or even some honey. I like a mix of nice, fatty, classy Dutch cocoa and deep black cocoa. Good vanilla really shines here, as does whiskey or chartreuse or something sneaky like that. Half cream/half coconut milk is fun too. Find a hot fudge you like as written, and then play around!
Store bought treats are super fun and you can go nuts. I like pretzels or toasted nuts and seeds, or fun coconut pandan jelly cubes! My favorite easy thing to make is a toasty nutty macaroon crumble—see below for the recipe. It’s another recipe I can fiddle with depending on what I have, but the shredded coconut is non-negotiable. The texture of this stuff is really nice and as it sits on hot fudge and ice cream it can get that epic "once was crunchy" texture I really cherish. For whipped cream, I like to go big: buy the nicest cream I can find, and add a hefty dollop of sour cream to it as it's whippin because I'm a dairy freak and I'm not happy unless I have multi-dairy experience.
Someone is making you a dessert. What do you ask for?
A homey, dense, flavorful single layer cake, like a cornmeal cake or deeply spiced gingerbread with lots of texture, maybe an icing maybe not, that I can nurse over the course of a week, as it gets damp and more flavorful by the day!
You’ve transformed into a pastry. What are you and how are you consumed?
I’m a banana split. Theres something for everyone, and there are no spoons allowed!
Tell us about a dessert scene in a work of art/cinema/culture/literature that you’ll never forget?
This is such a good question—there are SO SO MANY! I love all my cake and dessert shots equally and truly as a movie nerd/dessert nerd, I hyper focus on that stuff in filmmaking! There's two that jump to mind and they couldn't be more different. The boob cakes from Le Grand Bouffe was pretty formative for me (as was the castle of paté) and that movie really blew my mind when I saw it. The thrill of watching those miserable characters revel in a final meal and eat/fuck/drink/fart themselves to death was really wild and the garish glorious vibes of all the food really hooked me.
Aand then the Oreo scene from Honey I Shrunk the Kids just slayed me as a youth. I could literally FEEL what it must feel like to scoop the middle out of an Oreo the size of your house and hold boulder size cookie fragments in your hands—and man did I want it.
What’s a baking hack you can’t live without?
Ok wow, this is hard. What's a hack and what's something I've been doing for 90 years because someone smarter than me showed me once??? Do I have any groundbreaking hacks? Prob not, but here's two things that made me / continue to make me SO HAPPY.
One, treat yourself to a second bowl for your stand mixer at home! It's incredibly helpful if you're tackling big projects! Two, are you making Swiss buttercream? Jail me, fine me, burn me at the stake, but go ahead and put your room-temp butter into your meringue ALL AT THE SAME TIME. The years I've taken off my life by not standing there staring into space dropping in piece after piece…I'm not sure what I'll do with those years but I'll figure it out.
Tell us about running Tandem! What do you find most rewarding and what do you find most frustrating?
Oh boy, how many hours do you have to read this? I'll say, it's been one of the hardest and most rewarding things I've done! It's endlessly humbling and inspiring to run a small business with two of your dearest friends. It's so hard and so special—when you have other owners who have known you for 20 years and are like you, and are different than you, and thankfully better than you at many important things, and also love you? It's a gift. and I’m constantly learning and fucking up and learning again.
Something I find truly frustrating is how it can feel difficult to curb ideas and desire for wacky fun projects in the face of pragmatic things like demand, staffing, seasons, availability, etc. It can sometimes feel like you have a whole business, a whole kitchen, and a whole small city to show off for and make fun things for, and then when you’re forced to get creative and make things work financially and with time/staffing constraints, it can have the effect of deflating your good vibe. But that's when the hard work of getting creative really pays off and you find ways to rethink your own thoughts, ask for help, and truly commune with the people you're working with!
Follow Briana Holt and Tandem Bakery.
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