— Kristin T. Østrem

I'm creating recipes. I've been creating recipes for 30 some odd years, and keeping track of things is the hardest part of it for me, because I'm really like, "Oh, I want to do this. I want to do that." This is how you keep track of things. You get yourself a notebook. You write every single thing down. Every single thing down. And then, of course, I have my idea. I write out the recipe. I cut the recipe in half, maybe by a quarter, as long as I can do that while maintaining the integrity of the dessert. And then I start testing. And you know, sometimes it's like, "Oh," you have to know when to stop. "That is not going to work. I'm not going to keep trying." Sometimes, well, the flavor is almost right. You have to keep going and keeping track, of course, each time. And use a scale, so you can precisely know. Now, for example, I'm going to show you something. This is a little mini cake that has a gianduja, which is the real Nutella, on it. I'm doing desserts for a CCAP event. It's a kind of a Mediterranean Italian theme to honor the person who's being honored, is of Italian heritage, and I was like, "Nutella? No, the real thing is gianduja," which is a hazelnut chocolate spread. Well, I tell you that I was testing and testing and testing. Did I want it crunchy? Did I want it thick? What happens if it's been refrigerated? How long can it stay out? This was taken out of the freezer, and I'm really watching it to see how long the frosting holds. I did it as a ganache, and then I did it as more of a frosting. AndHere's something else, is that, that's a lot of tasting because let's say what you did was great. You've got it all written down. It's in your notebook, maybe it's in your computer now, but it's a lot of tasting. So I taste as little bit as possible. But how long until it's stale? Did it stay fresh? Did it turn liquid? I'm making it sound really hard. It's not hard, but it is a bit tedious, and you just go for it. And it's kind of fun, too.