Original subtitles

[music playing]

Yes.

Yeah.

Wow.

So this is dessert first?

ZOE FRANCOIS: Well, in my world, it's always dessert first.

I'm Zoe Francois.

I'm a cookbook author and a pastry chef.

I've made it my life's work to eat

sweets, make sweets, and create beautiful things out of sugar.

I want to show you how much fun baking can be.

We're also going to visit some of the talented bakers

and unique places around my hometown that inspire me.

It's all going to be super simple and, of course,

delicious.

Oh my gosh.

And the great thing is we can do it together.

It's finally springtime in Minneapolis.

Everything comes alive.

Hey, boys.

Thank you so much for doing this.

Yeah, no problem.

I just need you to bring the rest of the furniture

in from the garage.

We've been waiting a whole long, long, long winter for this.

That's why you have kids, right?

Free labor.

Yes, exactly.

So every spring, we open up our porch,

we invite the neighbors over, and we celebrate the end

of a really long winter.

Are you going to help us?

Yes, I'm going to make you a pie.

Everybody in-- Well, not everybody.

Most Minnesotans love rhubarb.

It has a really tangy, tart flavor to it.

And baked with sweet strawberries,

it's absolutely perfect.

So it's super exciting when the rhubarb comes up.

That's when we know we've made it out of winter.

And this year, it's just absolutely spectacular.

This rhubarb, I cannot wait to make this into a pie.

People are intimidated by pie dough.

But I promise you, this is so, so easy to make.

All we need are a few basic ingredients

and my secret to a tender, flaky pie crust--

Vodka.

I highly, highly recommend that you bake with scales,

because then every time you do it,

you get the precise measurement.

I have all-purpose flour, salt, and sugar

for my dry ingredients.

Now we have to deal with our fat.

You want the butter to be cold so

that you end up with actual pieces of butter in there.

And that's what creates the flakiness.

But it also has a little bit of shortening.

That's what really gives the tenderness to it.

Everything has to be cold, cold, cold in order to get

to the perfect pie crust.

Using a little bit of vodka in the water

means you can add more liquid.

But it won't create gluten.

And the gluten is what creates the stretch

and the structure in the dough.

But it also can make your dough tough.

So now we're ready to assemble.

I'm doing this by hand, but I'm also

going to use a pastry blender.

I got this in the 1980s when I was in college

and I haven't replaced it yet.

By the time I'm done working the butter into it,

it'll almost have a creamy yellow color to it,

and nice sort of pea-sized pieces of butter.

Minneapolis is actually nicknamed the mill city,

because the mills for the flour were built

right on the Mississippi River.

This is looking good.

If I squeeze it gently, it stays together.

And that's how you know that you've got butter

coating all of that flour.

And my shortening and then we'll work that in the same way.

I don't want to put all the water in

at once, because you don't want too much water in there.

Otherwise, again, like I said, it might get tough,

which is also why we added the vodka.

I'm just sort of tossing it.

You don't see any powdery flour.

But it's not a solid mass either.

You could just squeeze this together.

But I like to use the pastry scraper to press it together.

And it's almost like it's creating layers in your dough.

It generally takes about six, seven,

sometimes eight, if you're tentative, turns.

And then your pie crust will come together.

Oh, this looks so good.

That butter smells incredible.

I like to press it into a disk because then it chills faster.

So this needs to chill for about an hour.

And then I can go ahead and roll out all my pies.

You can see I have lots of pie dough

ready and waiting for making my strawberry

rhubarb lattice pies.

Along with the pie, I like to offer my porch party guests

a little something extra.

But it has to be just as quick and easy to make

as it is delicious.

So I'm visiting Diane Moua of Bellecour for inspiration.

She's one of the most incredible pastry chefs,

not just here in the Twin Cities,

but anywhere in the world.

I'm just going to start over here, OK?

Go for it.

I'm good.

I had plenty this morning.

Oh.

Diane, that's incredible.

Thank you.

So I see this over here.

Yep, any time we put rhubarb on the menu here,

you sell out of it.

My mom just called me up, like hey, I have rhubarb.

Do you need some for the restaurant?

And I'm like yes, I do.

ZOE FRANCOIS: Oh, so your folks grow the rhubarb?

DIANE MOUA: Yeah, she has a whole field.

We used some already, so there's just a few left.

And so are you going to use the rhubarb in something that--

Yes, I am.

--You're going to make today?

DIANE MOUA: So I made some jam here.

ZOE FRANCOIS: Diane has a knack for turning

whatever she has on hand into incredible desserts.

I have a bunch of strawberries.

ZOE FRANCOIS: OK.

I made a cake the other day and I have all these scraps.

I hate wasting stuff, so we just basically collect it.

No, in a restaurant, you can't waste anything.

Yep, you can't waste anything.

I try to utilize everything.

And so I figure we're going to make

a strawberry rhubarb shortcake.

ZOE FRANCOIS: Diane uses those tasty, overripe strawberries

to make homemade ice cream.

So exciting.

I want to paint a room in my house that color.

And then she layers that together

with the other leftovers for fun take on parfait.

This is so beautiful.

And it's easy. I mean--

DIANE MOUA: It's super easy.

ZOE FRANCOIS: --you could totally do this at home.

DIANE MOUA: And you can do it with your kids.

Whoops.

Messy is good.

ZOE FRANCOIS: This is like the perfect sundae.

DIANE MOUA: Doesn't it just make you happy?

Mm, it's delicious.

It says Minnesota summer--

Mm-hmm.

--Right here in the glass.

Diane has inspired me to turn some of the strawberries

I'll have leftover from the pie into a second dessert

for my spring porch party.

Mm.

My dad is in the backyard.

And he is such an amazing gardener.

I can bake with all the things that he grows.

But I can't grow anything.

He always supplies my fresh rhubarb.

But today he wants to make sure I have it whenever I need it.

Perfect.

ZOE FRANCOIS: Hey, Dad.

Yeah, hi.

How are you?

I'm great.

This looks fantastic.

Good.

I just planted some rhubarb.

Oh, good.

Do you want me to do something?

Here, you can hold that.

OK, thanks.

Squeeze this out.

OK, now turn it over.

Set it in.

Bring the soil around.

There you go.

Ooh, it feels so good.

Perfect, perfect.

I remember having rhubarb, but I always thought it was a weed.

Did you actually plant that?

Well, a weed is an unwanted plant or vegetable.

That's all a weed is.

Yeah.

It's so funny that some people don't love rhubarb.

It's kind of like the cilantro of the dessert world.

I grew up loving it and I just assumed everybody would.

It's that tartness and crispiness and a little bit

sour.

And I promise you, married with these berries,

you are going to love this.

If you can't find rhubarb, you can do a berry pie.

Any kind of fruit pie you can do this filling with.

The leaf is actually poisonous.

So we want to make sure that that's gone.

If you don't have rhubarb in your garden,

frozen rhubarb works just as well.

These strawberries are just gorgeous.

And they smell so good.

If you're using frozen ones, they sort of

break down on their own.

But the fresh ones need a tiny bit of help.

I'm just doing a few little turns with this.

So the other thing that's crucial to this recipe

is vanilla.

It just perks up all of the other flavors.

I'm going to add the rhubarb.

And then I'm going to add the sugar and corn starch.

And I'm going to bind everything together on the stove.

When it's done, it's going to be thick.

It's going to be translucent.

It's almost going to look like jewel tones.

It smells sour and sweet.

And it's a combination I love.

Terrific.

So just pop this into the refrigerator.

And as this is chilling, I'm going to roll out my pie crust.

You want to make sure that you have

enough flour on the counter that you're not going

to have that pie crust stick.

But you don't want to be adding a lot more flour to the recipe.

So just give it a few turns like this.

And then with the palm of your hand,

just beat it a little bit.

And that loosens up the dough.

And it helps prevent it from cracking as you're rolling.

I'm just rolling out to the sides

and sort of lifting up as I get to the edge,

never over the edge.

I never want to sort of press down on the edge

and get the edge really thin.

And then I turn the dough.

By turning it like that, I'm always sure it's not sticking.

And just keep going until you have enough dough

to cover the whole pie plate.

And now you can really see all of that butter

and all of the places that we have created

the flakiness in this crust.

So to get it into the pie pan, I just--

And there.

That's it.

I'm going to slip this into the refrigerator

so that butter stays nice and chilled the whole time.

Well, that was graceful.

So now we're going to do the exact same thing

with the top crust.

The goal is that I want the dough to be

perfectly even throughout.

I don't want thin spots or thick spots.

I want the whole crust to be the same thickness throughout.

So I'm going to put this on parchment to cut the lattice.

I'm going to make a really, really

tightly woven lattice that is an absolute showstopper.

This is one of my sort of signature

moves in terms of pies.

Create the strips as even as you possibly can.

I'm just going to show you the technique

of weaving the lattice.

And then you decide what size you want to go with.

This is a little bit relaxing.

It's almost like a meditation.

OK, I'm going to take every other strip

and lay it down onto the other sheet of parchment.

You can see it sort of gradually tapering down.

So it's almost the same shape as the round pie.

Great.

So to start our weaving, what we're going to do

is we're going to flip up every other strip.

And then I take the middle strip and I

put it down on top of the others and I

unfold these, so every other one over that strip

that you put down in the middle.

And just keep going along.

And you'll see this come together

as the weave is created.

You have to get sort of in the zone or get the vodka back out.

OK, so you can see that I'm doing this on the parchment

instead of right on the pie.

I find with berries and other really soft filling,

if I tried to do this right over the fruit,

the lattice could sink down into the fruit.

And you'd lose the definition.

Slide it onto the baking sheet.

And then I'm going to drop that right into the freezer

for about 10 minutes.

So I have my chilled bottom crust and my chilled filling,

which looks delicious.

I don't know how anybody cannot like rhubarb.

That is fantastic.

And you can see how nice and thick it is.

So I know that this is going to bake up properly.

And I'm not going to have sort of a juicy mess at the end.

My lattice is firmer.

And slide it.

So you can see now because we built

that on the parchment paper just how beautiful it looks.

So in order to crimp these two together,

I'm rolling the crust up and into the lattice.

Terrific.

But now we want the edge to be pretty.

I'm going to just take my finger and my thumb.

And then I'm going to press between them,

just like that, super simple.

There.

I'm going to freeze that.

You can do this days, even weeks ahead and then

just bake it when you're ready.

My

Pie is thoroughly chilled.

Sometimes the outer edge of the crust

will bake faster and get too dark as it's in the oven.

So I like to make a tent, a little bit of the center.

So I have a round bit here.

And then I can fit it.

This is so much easier to do with a cold pie

than steaming hot in the oven.

And then I just have it sitting on the counter.

Before I throw this in the oven, I have an egg wash.

I just want enough on there that it's

going to help the color of this and also

act as a glue for the sugar so that it's caramelized

and sweetens it.

And that's it.

I go at 425 because I want to set that crust really, really

quickly so that I don't get a soggy bottom on the crust.

It's been 30 minutes at 425.

It looks fantastic, but that edge

is getting a little bit dark.

So I'm going to throw my tent over it.

See how beautiful that is?

Then I'm going to turn the heat down.

We're going to leave that now until the filling is bubbling

and the crust is nice and golden and caramelized.

I was so inspired by that beautiful ice cream parfait

that Diane made at the restaurant.

And just like Diane, I don't like to waste food either.

So I'm going to use the leftover strawberries

from our pie to make a fool.

And a fool is a really, really simple, easy but elegant

dessert that you can whip together

at the absolute last minute.

For mine, I'm going to make a simple lemon curd,

puree some strawberries, and fold

each into fresh whipped cream.

To make luscious lemon curd, we need eggs.

And the fresher the better.

So the best thing about living in this house

is whenever I need eggs, I just go over

to the chicken lady's house.

And the chicken lady just happens to be my best friend.

So it works out perfectly.

Hey, Jen.

Oh hey, lady.

So sweet, oh.

She's talking so much, I figured I'd take her out.

She's [inaudible] beautiful.

[flapping]

Whoa.

I love these green ones.

You can never have enough green eggs.

I know. Right?

I got to make some ham.

Hi, ladies.

Jen's chickens feed on nothing but grass, scraps and stuff

from the kitchen.

So these are some pretty healthy, beautiful eggs.

That egg yolk is just the color of a marigold.

It's absolutely gorgeous.

To make my curd, I whisk together the yolks, sugar,

and fresh lemon juice, thicken it with butter,

and then cool it down fast in an ice bath.

The lemon will add a nice perk of flavor to my fool.

I think they call it that because any fool can do this.

Actually, some believe that it comes from the French term

fouler, which means to crush.

The actual origin of the name is unclear.

But recipes for pureed fruits folded into whipped cream date

back to 15th century England.

Just going around the bowl and then up through the center

to fold these two together.

The strawberry puree is much, much looser.

So this is going to end up being a softer mixture.

You can layer this up any way that you want to.

You can just put lemon curd and then the strawberry.

Or you can do many, many layers.

Diced strawberries tossed together

with brown sugar, lime zest, and mint add

a little more texture and zip.

So super simple, super fast, super fun, really colorful,

full of flavor.

That's it.

There is our summer strawberry lemon fool.

Oh, it's just perfect.

Look at that.

The pie looks fantastic.

But it has to cool.

You can't cut into a hot pie.

So we'll just leave this until our guests arrive.

And then it'll be all set and ready to serve.

This is so fun.

And what a gorgeous day.

So here's who's going to be here tonight.

Along with my sons, Stephanie, who lives upstairs,

she's like one of the family.

Thank you so much for doing this with me.

[interposing voices]

If I could spend my whole day just

arranging flowers with you, it would be like heaven.

Come on, girls.

There they go.

My best friend, Jen, and she's leaving her chickens

at home, my dad, Craig, who usually supplies

the rhubarb for the pies.

And it's always fun to see who else

pops by from the neighborhood.

I have a quiet moment.

And this is the best part, because I get to taste

all the desserts that I made.

So I have my lemon curd and strawberry fool.

Mm, it's so refreshing and creamy and delicious.

Oh, it's so good.

OK.

I'm going to cut into one of our pies.

I made four pies because that's sort of a Minnesota tradition,

to give a pie to somebody that's been helping us out.

Mm-hmm-hmm.

Mm, hmm, the sweet berries and tart rhubarb

are perfect with our flaky, tender crust.

That is--

What you got there?

Oh, I should've known that moment wasn't going to last.

Yeah, I mean, we saw it through the window.

I can take that.

ZOE FRANCOIS: This is a strawberry fool.

Fool?

Yeah.

So you named it after Charlie?

Oof, that was a sick burn, right?

And strawberry rhubarb pie.

Yeah, this is really good.

Yeah, thanks.

So thank you, guys, for helping.

I have one more thing for you to do.

See that giant bowl of lemons?

What time is everyone getting here?

Around 7:00.

That looks great.

Well done, boys.

Help yourself.

Make yourself at home.

Wow.

ZOE FRANCOIS: And I made a pie for you for helping me.

Whoa, that is beautiful.

Bring this home and you and Nana can have some pie later.

JEN: This is amazing.

It is so good.

This is fabulous.

Oh, hello.

Hi, [inaudible].

ZOE FRANCOIS: This is what springtime in Minnesota

means to me.

It's so sweet.

Oh.

CRAIG: So this is dessert first?

Well, in my world, it's always dessert first.

That's right.

JEN: All right.