Crazy Love at 86: Bake-Off's Prue Leith Celebrates Being Old

Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio

Prue Leith, former judge on 'The Great British Bake Off,' shares her experiences with aging, love at 70, and memorable moments from her care

Key takeaways

• Falling in love can feel as vibrant and intense at any age, with Prue Leith emphasizing it as one of life's greatest joys.
• Filipino cuisine is deeply diverse due to centuries of cultural influences from Chinese, Spanish, and Muslim traditions.

Main topics

• Aging and love later in life
• Filipino cuisine and cultural heritage

Notable quotes

In the question of falling in love, there are no differences at all. I mean, you behave like a teenager.

As anybody of any sense knows, falling in love is the best thing you do in your whole life. So to do it two or three times, which I have, could not be more lucky.

Conclusion

This episode celebrates the richness of life at any age, from romantic rediscovery to

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Thanks for downloading this week's podcast. If you'd like to hear an ad-free version of this episode and every episode, please visit our show page in your Apple Podcast app. Again, you can listen to our show ad-free and support the work we do here at Milk Street. Go visit the Milk Street Radio page in your Apple Podcast app and start your seven-day free trial. And thanks. This is Milk Street Radio from PRX, and I'm your host, Christopher Kimball. Speaker 2 (0:32) Prue Leith has left the Great British Bake Off, but she's not letting retirement slow her down. She's here to say that there's a lot to enjoy about aging, and for her, being old still feels like being young. Speaker 3 (0:43) In the question of falling in love, there are no differences at all. I mean, you behave like a teenager. Speaker 2 (0:50) Today, Prue reflects on her life, her career, and falling in love. Speaker 3 (0:54) As anybody of any sense knows, falling in love is the best thing you do in your whole life. So to do it two or three times, which I have, could not be more lucky. Speaker 2 (1:05) We'll hear more from Prue Leith later in the show. But first, I'm joined by Kimmy McIntosh. She's the chef and also co-owner of Milkfish Bake Shop, a Filipino pop-up bakery in Las Vegas. Kimmy, welcome to Milk Street. Speaker 1 (1:20) Hi, Chris. Thank you so much for having me. This is so exciting. Speaker 2 (1:24) So I find Filipino cuisine the most complicated cuisine in the world. All the different cultural influences. So how do we get started with this? Because there's so much diversity there. How big is the archipelago? How many different islands are there? Speaker 1 (1:43) Well, there's over 7,000 different islands. And of course, you know, when you kind of bunch them up in some geographical regions, they're going to have their similarities. But I would almost argue that. Each of those 7,000 islands has their own unique traditions. When you move more toward the southern region of the Philippines, you see more of that Muslim influence, more of those spices being incorporated into the cuisine. When you move a little more north toward the main island of Luzon, you see more of that Spanish influence, which I would say is one of the more prevalent influences that you can see in parts of the Philippines. Everywhere you go in the Philippines, you do see that imprint of the early Chinese settlement that... did take place before Spanish colonization and American colonization. So I would say those are the three big imprints that you would see the most prevalent through our cuisine in the different areas. Speaker 2 (2:35) So if you had someone from the southern part of the Philippines walk into a kitchen with someone from the northern part, would they share much in common in terms of recipes and styles of cooking? Speaker 1 (2:49) Well, definitely there are distinctive factors. You know, I'm down in the southern region. Now I know I'm going to see, you know, the incorporation of star anise and other spices. Or if you go to Bicol and it's like, oh, OK, well, in Bicol, I know that food's going to be maybe a little spicier here because this is the only place in the Philippines that grows chilies. But I would say sour is a big component. We used vinegar very, very early on, just like a lot of people did for preservation. But we also cook a lot in vinegar. Speaker 2 (3:18) The name milkfish is great because once you hear milkfish, you'll never forget it. I mean, it really is a fish, milkfish. Speaker 1 (3:25) It is. It is a type of fish. So milkfish is known as bangos in the Philippines, and it is the national fish of the Philippines. And the name I will credit to my husband. My husband came up with it. We actually were originally going to open a Filipino bar and speakeasy serving Filipino food. And he's like, you know, if we named a bar milkfish. Anyone who's Filipino is going to look at it right away and be like, what? Is there bungles in there? What's going on in there? And it would almost be impossible to not go in. But at the same time, for people who are not Filipino, it is such an interesting name. And it's just so unique. And so when we transitioned the idea to become a bakery, we just added Bake Shop to the end of it. Speaker 2 (4:06) It's a Filipino pop-up bakery. How long do you stay in one place and then move on? And how many different places have you been to? What's the concept here? Speaker 1 (4:18) Yeah, well, we often will pop up around town at different friends' businesses, whether it's a burger restaurant, a bar, another bakery. And so we will sort of find ourselves accessible to different areas around Vegas. So it's sort of a variety. Speaker 2 (4:34) So pick a recipe you particularly like. What was the process of creating that recipe? Like Paul McCartney, you could just say it just came to you. Yeah. Speaker 1 (4:44) Well, my favorite thing on our entire menu is our karaoke. So they're coconut mochi fritters. So I had one for the first time here at a bakery inside of a Filipino supermarket. And I loved the texture. I loved that it was transporting me back to the Philippines. It's been a very long time since I've been back there. And it was kind of like I had so much success of. Taking my memories of Filipino dishes and ingredients and putting my own spin on it, that immediately I was like, okay, this is a coconut-based fritter. I want to see how much coconut that I can put in this one dish. I made a toffee sauce using coconut jam, which is a very common breakfast spread in the Philippines. I also topped it with latik, one of my favorite ingredients. It is toasted coconut curds. Speaker 2 (5:33) Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. What is that? How is that made? Speaker 1 (5:37) Oh, God, they are so cool because it is one of the things you can truly trace back to pre-colonial Philippines. So it's just coconut cream that you're cooking all the way down. And then you're going to evaporate everything until the curds start separating from the oil. So then the curds start toasting really, really slowly and caramelizing in that coconut oil. And you just kind of keep stirring it until it becomes like, you know, picture kind of like. Fried garlic, maybe a little darker brown. It is this amazing, complex coconut flavor that I've just never had before. It has this little savory note to it. It almost has this acidic little finish to it as well. For me, I love highlighting it whenever I can because it is very, very hard to think of truly pre-colonial ingredients in the Philippines. And so I love the idea of highlighting it in this dessert. A Speaker 2 (6:28) lot of American desserts. are really sweet, right? Yeah. Speaker 1 (6:33) It Speaker 2 (6:33) seems to me that other cultures do a better job of balancing sweet with something else. You often add salt to something to balance out sweet. What are some other techniques you use to get better balance in a baked good? Speaker 1 (6:49) Well, going back to the lattic, I think that, you know, not necessarily adding salt, but adding an ingredient that just has this inherent savoriness to it. None of the desserts that I was raised on were very sweet. Being able to just incorporate different layers without just adding sugar, I think, is one of the highlights of a lot of Filipino ingredients, you know, like ube, pandan. They're not just like loaded with sugar, but they do have this lovely sort of sweet connotation to it. Speaker 2 (7:17) So do you want to explain what pandan is? I think you do a tres leches with it. Speaker 1 (7:21) Yes. Pandan is technically screw pine leaf. And it is used as often as vanilla is used here in American baking. So in Southeast Asia, it grows everywhere and it pairs perfectly with coconut milk. I would say while it has hints of vanilla, you get a lot of herbaceous qualities, nutty qualities like almond and pistachio. You get like a hint of floral with like some rose notes. Definitely unique in itself, and I love being able to highlight it in the tres leches cake. Keeping the connection with Mexico was really important for me for this dish. It was kind of my silly way of honoring the fact that the Philippines and Mexico were colonized by Spain at the same time, and because of that, we share so many ingredients. And so I wanted to try and keep it true to not only the traditional tres leches, but also incorporating the Filipino flavor element. Speaker 2 (8:17) So five years from now, do you want to keep Milfish the way it is now? Do you want to expand it? Do you want to open something totally different? Are you just too busy and too tired to think about that right now? I Speaker 1 (8:34) definitely feel busy and tired where it's hard to think of. But I will say, like, it's been a lot of fun to be able to explore the Vegas. restaurant community and just the Vegas community in general through the way we've been popping up in different places. But it's also just really exciting when you are in one place and people come to you and they can kind of find you there. And I want to be like my peers who have a set place that people can find them on any given day. Speaker 2 (9:04) Kimmy, it's been a real pleasure. A lot of fun. Speaker 1 (9:06) Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. Speaker 2 (9:10) That was Kimmy McIntosh. She's the chef and also co-owner of Milkfish Bake Shop, a Filipino pop-up bakery in Las Vegas. Now it's time to take your calls with my co-host, Sarah Moulton. Sarah is, of course, the star of Sarah's Weeknight Meals on public television, also author of Home Cooking 101. Speaker 5 (9:31) Sarah, how are you? I'm good, Chris. Let's do this. Speaker 2 (9:34) Welcome to Milk Street. Who's calling? Speaker 8 (9:36) Hi, this is Rachel. How Speaker 2 (9:38) can we help you? Speaker 8 (9:39) I am having trouble with making croissants. Speaker 2 (9:43) Oh, no. This is like a large hole is opening up right in front of me right now. Okay. Oh, Speaker 8 (9:49) no. Speaker 2 (9:50) So what's your problem? Speaker 8 (9:52) I tried twice. I really like them, and so that's why I wanted to learn how to make them. There's nowhere around here that sells good ones. I tried two different times. So the first time I used regular American butter and regular all-purpose flour. The second time, it was a different recipe that called for bread flour and European butter. So I did that. The first time, when I rolled out the butter, like made the little butter packet, Speaker 2 (10:21) I Speaker 8 (10:22) thought I brought it to the correct temperature, which they said it was a little cooler than room temperature. When I tried to roll it, out with the dough and did the fold and everything, the butter never spread out. It always stayed in a rectangle. So I didn't know if that was a problem with the butter or with the dough. The second time when I did the butter packet, it rolled out, but it rolled out in little dots. It still didn't get distributed well. Speaker 2 (10:50) Okay, a few thoughts. First of all, where are you getting your recipe from? Speaker 8 (10:54) The first, I found it on Pinterest. The second was from Paul Hollywood's recipe book. Speaker 2 (10:59) I would go to somebody who's a professional full-time baker. Stella Parks would definitely be someone. Serious Eats, I always trust. Claire Saffitz, you know, used to be at Bon Appetit. She's good. Definitely use European butter, like Kerrygold is what I use. That's 84 or 5 % butterfat instead of 80 or 81%. The texture is totally different. It has a very putty-like texture. You said you tried bread flour. That's good. I would use a high-protein flour like a King Arthur. It's about 12 % protein for AP as opposed to 10 to 11 for gold medal or Pillsbury. So that's good. The problem is making sure it's cold enough. I've done croissant. I've done puff pastry. And I'm never doing it again. Speaker 5 (11:47) I couldn't agree with you more. Oh, goodness. My niece just made croissant. She followed the Claire Saffitz recipe, which is in the New York Times. And it was very, very, very specific, she said, with all sorts of tips. For people who don't know, making croissant is a huge deal. It takes about 24 hours. There's so many stages. There's all these different folds you have to do. It has to be precisely squared off. The temperature of the dough has to be colder than the butter. goes on and on. It's work. It's worth it if you're a baker. I know from what my niece said, this recipe, it was like a Julia Child recipe in that she held your hand every step of the way and told you what it should look like, what the temperature should be, where you're going. I think that's your best bet. It's all about temperature. Yeah. Anyway, Rachel, let us know. I hope you try that recipe and let us know how it goes.