Top baking recipes to try

Hi Bold Bakers, we just finished recording all of our videos for 2018 and the team behind the scenes at Bigger Bolder Baking and I wanted to share with you some of our favorite videos of the year. I'm gonna go first, mine was the 10 minute Berry Tiramisu. One of the things I love about this video is that number one the dessert tasted amazing but the footage just looks beautiful. It was the summertime, we had loads of lovely light coming in the windows because we have windows here in my kitchen where we film and we rely on that light coming in to light our set so I just really love the look of this video. So the inspiration behind this recipe came a long time ago way before Bigger Bolder Baking. I actually made it when I worked as a cook in a priest's priory in Dublin which you probably don't know about and I'll tell that story another day but I used to cook for priests and I made this dessert for them and they freaked out and they absolutely loved it and it always stuck with me so then when I started the channel I thought I have to make this. You can tell that I really really did like this dessert because look at this, that's my happy dance. I got a happy dance in there, a really good one and then you can tell afterwards that I was actually really impressed with how it tasted. So that's all on camera, all for the first time. I can safely say that's still my favorite video. So a lot of you know Olivia, she's my culinary assistant and has been working with me for two years. She also creates her own recipes for Bigger Bolder Baking. We're gonna find out what her favorite recipe was. I was thinking about it. It's really hard because I'm a chocolate person, but I think my favorite video of 2018 is the lemon bars. Okay, I love the way that these looked. They're like super bright yellow. You got that really nice layer of shortbread, and then there's like this custardy lemon in the middle, and then it's topped off with like a dusty snowing of powdered sugar. Oh, and Jem is wearing her tropical top probably to match the lemon. I love when Jem wears yellow. It makes her look super tan. The first step to making the lemon bars is to make the shortbread. The shortbread is super easy to make. I remember it's like lots of butter, flour, lots of powdered sugar, so it has that really nice like crumbly texture, which everybody loves in a shortbread crust. So that's how it starts. And then you're like, oh, is she making millionaire shortbread? What's this going to be? What's going to happen? And then she fills it with like a lemony custard mixture. Let's talk about that. I remember when we made this thinking like, oh, is it gonna come out brown? Is it gonna be like risen up and really crisp on top? And it actually stays just like super, super fudgy. I know it's odd for something that's lemony, but the texture is really like, I don't know. I don't know how to describe it. Jem, how would you describe the texture? It's like a lemon custard. It's like a lemon custard. It's like a lemon custard, yes. Okay, so up next is Ira. Ira is our super, super, super, super, super talented camera man and editor and I'm really excited to see what he has to say as his favorite because he's always the one behind the scenes and I'm excited for him to get in front of the camera my favorite was definitely the best ever blondie recipe oh yeah here's the melted butter that's the real key is to get the butter melted and to use really good butter I probably made this like four or five times at least and for I think Gemma even got to try it yeah we're perfectionists that's what I mean like we're perfectionists and I think really shows and we don't really let any mistakes through everything is just you know to the highest quality and like it really shows and I think the fans can see it too I really love brownies I just love brownies love chewy brownies and so I think they the blondies are just like a great twist on that like they have the same texture as the brownies but they have that like a different flavor that you can't really put your finger on but I guess it's the brown sugar and the white chocolate so good the way that we stacked them and we put the ice cream on top and then the caramel dripping on the side of it it was beautiful and delicious to shoot the show we use a mixture of Canon DSLR cameras and some lights and some lenses our favorite lens is probably the hundred millimeter macro because it lets us get really close up with the food and just get right in there these blondies were definitely my favorite recipe this year next up we have Brian who's our content and community manager hi so my favorite recipe of 2018 was three ingredient flatbread for me there were a lot of different reasons why this was my my favorite one I've made it multiple times and it's very very simple to as content and community manager this is actually one of our most popular videos so it was very nice to see the community's reaction the fan reaction all of that all of our bold bakers out there were We're really excited about this one and really eager to tell us about what kind of history and connection they had to different types of flatbread growing up. To me that's super important because baking is connected to history and memories and it is for me and I think it is for a lot of people around the world. All three of these ingredients are things that I just happen to have on hand at all times. I have two kids. My kids love eating yogurt. They do like eating flavored yogurt, which we don't put into this, but we do have plain yogurt on hand most of the time. The first time I made these actually was my wife was shooting a wedding, so I was at home with the kids. They helped me make it, and then after cooking them off on the stove, we turned them into pizzas. We put some pizza sauce on it, some mozzarella, kids like plain pizzas, and then we melted it all in the oven and just made our own personal pizzas with these. Luckily, we didn't use all of them, so my wife did get to try them the next day and we ate them with hummus and everything was great. Oh, I didn't see you there. I'm Kevin Kurtz. You may know me from such videos as Bigger Bolder Baking and Gemma's Best Ever Oatmeal Cookies. I'm the producer of Bigger Bolder Baking, Gemma's husband, and I'm going to share with you my favorite today, which is Gemma's best ever chocolate chip cookies recipe. So one of my favorite things from any of our videos is the opening. When I used to shoot and edit the episodes, I used to spend hours getting footage for every opening, making every single one unique, really trying to pull you fans, you bold bakers, the recipe, get you excited about about what you're ultimately going to see. So Ira did such a great job with this one really romancing the chocolate chips and all those beautiful cookies that you're gonna see in this episode. So one of the things that I love about this is it was one of Gemma's first best-ever recipes and a reason why the chocolate chip cookies are really special is because she talks about working as a pastry chef at Spruce. Spruce is a Michelin star restaurant in San Francisco. That is actually where I met Gemma, well in San Francisco, not the restaurant. But Gemma took me to the restaurant one time and we had an amazing dinner there and I also got to try the best ever chocolate chip cookies there. So that was a little bit of a sneak preview. So all of these tips that Gemma shares like chilling your dough and the difference it makes in aging your dough these are the things that I really love that Gemma shares because she gives those insider tips that a lot of bakers know that a lot of pastry chefs know and then not every baker knows but that they're simple things that you can do to make awesome results that's one of my most favorite things is actually all the comments from you bold bakers all of the photos that you all submit and just seeing you take Gemma's recipe and go and actually make them that's really important to us that shot of Gemma cracking open those cookies that is the real deal that is the stuff gooey in the middle crispy on the outside so i also want to give a shout out to a few other members of the Bigger Bolder Baking team who work with us around the world. Gemma's mom Patricia in Ireland and DeeDee who both work with us on our social media team. A big thank you for all of your support. 2018 was a great year but you know what 2019 is going to be even better. Happy holidays and have a wonderful new year. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Thank you Waffle. Thank you. Let's get baking. Okay, great job guys. Let's break down