Sicilian Torta Setteveli With Cookbook Author Ruby Bhogal

She's My Cherry Pie

Host Jessie Sheehan interviews baker and author Ruby Bogle about her unexpected career transition from architecture to professional baking.

Key takeaways

• Ruby Bogle discovered her passion for baking through a Paul Hollywood cookbook during a period of unemployment.
• A vegan cake Ruby made on the 2018 season of Great British Bake Off became a viral internet meme.

Main topics

• Career transition from architecture to baking
• Great British Bake Off memories

Notable quotes

I baked my way through my unemployment and baked my way to... a new career.

Conclusion

An inspiring look at finding professional purpose through a hobby, pai

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:02) Hi, peeps. You're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from the Cherry Bomb Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and author of four baking books, including Snackable Bakes. Each Saturday, I hang out with the sweetest bakers around and take a deep dive into their signature bakes. My guest today is Ruby Bogle. Ruby is a baker, recipe developer, cookbook author, and broadcaster based in England. She was a finalist on the Great British Bake Off back in 2018 after only having baked for a year. She's the author of One Bake, Two Ways, and her brand new book, Around the World in 80 Cakes, is out this Tuesday in the U.S. Before she got into baking, Ruby studied architecture and worked in the rail and construction worlds. But after competing on the Great British Bake Off, she honed her craft and is determined to help bakers at home through her books and social media. She joins me today to talk about how she came to bake in her late 20s and her stint on the Great British Bake Off, including the cake she made on the show that literally became a meme. Then she walks me through her recipe for Sicilian Torta Settevelli from her new book. It's a seven-layer Italian cake made with alternating layers of chocolate sponge, hazelnut Bavarian cream, hazelnut crunch, and dark chocolate mousse. And it all gets topped with a... glossy chocolate glaze. Ruby shares two amazing tips while telling me about this cake, including that she always wraps her cake layers warm in order to maintain their moistness, and she always covers her ganache after combining the cream and chocolate and before stirring. I loved chatting with Ruby, so stay tuned for our convo. You can find today's recipe at cherrybomb.substack.com. The new fall issue of Cherry Bomb Magazine is here. It's our first ever home issue, and Melissa Clark is on the cover. Melissa is a beloved home cook, author, and New York Times food reporter and columnist. Lots of you know and love Melissa from her work at New York Times Cooking, but you also love Melissa's cookbooks and swear by so many of her recipes. She's authored and co-written 46 books. This issue celebrates everything home and interiors, from kitchens to dining rooms to pantries. You can pick up a copy now at CherryBomb.com or find one at your favorite local bookstore or culinary shop. If you're in New York City, you can find copies at Casa Magazines, Mulberry Iconic, Kitchen Arts and Letters, and Books are Magic. If you're in San Francisco, stop by Omnivore Books on Food. If you're in Seattle, drop by Book Larder. And if you're in St. Paul, Minnesota... Visit GoldenFigFineFoods.com to get a copy. Let's chat with today's guest. Ruby, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to chat Sicilian torta settevelli with you and so much more. Thank Speaker 2 (3:07) you so much for having me today. I'm so, so excited. Big fan of the podcast, so I am thrilled to be chatting with Speaker 1 (3:15) you today. Yay! So to begin, I usually ask about early childhood baking and sweet eating memories, but we are not going to do that with you just because those aren't really... part of your story. So what I did want to start with is you ended up being an architect before you became a cookbook writer, etc. And you have wanted to be an architect since you were 12 years old. Please, please, please. How did you even know what an architect was? I need you to explain this to us. Speaker 2 (3:43) Oh, yeah. I had... big, bold aspirations from a really, really young age. And to be fair, I say 12 as like a ballpark figure. I think it was more so a case of much younger than that. I grew up with two older sisters. I grew up very heavily on the 90s rom-com era. So I'm talking Michelle Pfeiffer, Meg Ryan, absolutely loved anything that they would do. And there was one film in particular, which I'd say was very much... key in me deciding from such a young age, yes, I want to be an architect, which was Michelle Pfeiffer in One Fine Day. Fantastic movie, set in New York. She meets George Clooney. She has a fantastic job as an architect. She's waltzing around the office in these incredibly chic outfits, carrying, you know, a cute little model town that she designed really quickly. And she looks fabulous. And I remember watching that when I was a kid. And I was like, you know what? I think I want to be Michelle Feist when I grow up. I am liking what's happening here. She has met George Clooney. He's quite the fox. This could be a fantastic life plan. So yes, I very much set my life goals and aspirations off a 90s rom-com and very much stuck to it. I can be quite stubborn when push comes to shove. And so when I had something in my head, I was like, that's what I'm going to do. And I'm very art focused, always been that way, wasn't very... you know, into the sciences or maths or anything like that at school. And so I thought something design led, perfect. Went ahead with all of that, really steamrolled, went to university, did my master's even in architecture too. And then very swiftly realised that Michelle Pfeiffer was lying to me. It was not the glitz and glam that was portrayed in the movie. There were no George Cloonies on my architecture course. or in the offices. Speaker 1 (5:42) So yeah, it was quite full from grace for me. Oh, that's hilarious. Can I hear a little bit about you being like an arty kid? Like, were you drawing a lot? Were you painting? What was your endeavour of choice? Speaker 2 (5:54) Yes, I have loved art ever since I was very, very young. I was the sort of one who, you find me in the back, I've got, I'm the youngest of four siblings. So My two older sisters and older brother, there is quite an age gap between me and my nearest sibling. And so when they were off at university or at college, I was often at home just with my mum. I like to say that I've lived the best of both worlds where I'm the baby of the family, but also lived the life of an only child. So I think I had the benefits of both. But very often you find me in the back room on my own, enjoying my own company, scribbling away, raiding my dad's cupboard. My dad was also an engineer, but more of the mechanical kind. And so messing around with his pens and his papers and drawing, I love art to this day. And that's been a real passion for me since I was very, very young. Speaker 1 (6:49) So we've established that baking was not a major part of your childhood kitchen, but cooking most definitely was. Your mom was this incredibly enthusiastic cook. And I managed to discover a YouTube channel of hers or some kind of cooking show. So she was not only enthusiastic, but she kind of wanted to share what she did with the masses, as it were. I Speaker 2 (7:10) think her YouTube channel, or at least her Instagram channel, was very much a product of my sister wanting to make sure that everyone kind of knew just how wonderful my mum's cooking is. I very much have my mum to thank for when it comes to my love and relationship with food. I am very, very fortunate that I've grown up in an Indian household where food is an abundance. We are a real feeder family. If you come round to my mum's house, slight mention that, you know, you might be hungry, even just a whisper of a growl of your tummy and she will lay out a five course meal and you will not leave until you are close to a carb coma. And so I feel really, really lucky that I've grown up in a household where food and consumption of food. is really, really encouraged. I've grown up with a really healthy relationship with food. I think that's really important in this day and age as well, where, you know, food is such a privilege. And I feel very, very lucky that I got to explore so much of it from such a young age. I know when I was growing up, I used to, I wouldn't say be embarrassed, but, you know, sometimes I'd be a bit embarrassed when I was whipping out my packed lunch at school. People will be having fish finger sandwiches or... burgers and oh there you go Ruth has just got another curry again and so back then I didn't realize just how lucky and how rich I was when it came to food and now looking back and I was like oh my god my pack lunches were so good I feel very very fortunate and lucky about that but because my sisters and my brother are a lot older and they'll be away at university it meant I was at home quite a lot with my mum And you'd normally find her in the kitchen whipping something up. And so I learned from a very young age all about the joy of Indian cooking and learning about the spices and how to layer those and the flavor profiles. And so very, very fortunate when it comes to cooking. I've had quite an extensive, I'd say, introduction to all of that from such a young age. And so that came very second nature to me. Cooking comes very second nature. I absolutely love it. I love eating out. I love... creating a feast for friends and family, but baking very much came much later. Speaker 1 (9:18) In college, you sort of took with you what your mom had taught you and you were cooking. I read that you had many male roommates and that you were cooking for them while you were in college. So was that sort of your first foray into sort of taking on a role like your mom's and sort of being the person who was going to keep everybody fed with delicious items? Speaker 2 (9:38) Absolutely. I somehow found myself, it was my second year of university. I absolutely loved going to university, mostly, I think, for a social aspect, not necessarily from the work side of things. But I spent a lot of time on my course. The thing with architecture is that it's very time consuming. I thought I was going to university, would finish uni, maybe a course or a day at uni at 5pm, have all evening to socialise. No, no, no. Architecture was not like that. It was like a nine to nine. You spend a lot of time with people on your course. And the majority of people on my course... were guys. And so when it came to looking for housemates for my second year, there was one other girl and then seven guys. And so it was an interesting mix. Absolutely fantastic. Love them all to pieces. But my God, were they happy with just eating packet noodles every single day, really random concoctions, anything that would just fill their bellies, a lot of cocktail sausages. Foods that you just think that is just not real. And so I very much, very quickly took on the role as mum in the house in that respect when it came to the food. One of the guys is Nigerian. So I also learned a lot about Nigerian cooking and food from him. It was between both of us where one night he'd be whipping up some jollof rice and the next night I'd be making a biryani. So we kept Speaker 1 (11:00) them very well fed. Love. If you love our show, did you know that we publish a free baking newsletter every Saturday to correspond with each new episode? Check out Cherry Bomb Substack to subscribe to our She's My Cherry Pie newsletter today, where you'll get exclusive insights about my guests on the show, their recipes, and other fun baking news and tips. Plus, check out our other free newsletters. where you'll find the latest food and fashion news and browse through our recipe catalog, which is filled with some really great recipes. While you're there, consider becoming a paid Substack subscriber to get access to exclusive content from Cherry Bomb Magazine, invites to our monthly Bomb Squad meetings with industry pros, and discounts to events like our annual Jubilee Conference. A subscription is just $6 per month or $55 a year. Learn more at cherrybomb.substack.com or click the link in our show notes. Baking didn't come to you until your late 20s after you'd studied architecture and worked in project management roles in these major London infrastructure projects. You ended up leaving your job. You were unemployed. You moved home with your parents. And you discovered an old Paul Hollywood baking book. And kind of the rest is history. But tell us a little bit about that book and what happened when you discovered it. Speaker 2 (12:26) Well... It was quite a surprise to find a baking book at my mum and dad's because like I've said, baking wasn't a huge part of my life until very, very late on. And it was definitely a book that was gathering dust. It wasn't in my life plan at all where I found myself unemployed at 28. I've always been very, very headstrong from a young age, knew that I wanted to be an architect from 12. So I always had a plan. And so when I found myself in this period of unemployment, which... At the start, it was very much by choice. I wanted to move back closer to home. I wanted to move back to London. I was living in Liverpool, had a fantastic job, but was craving being closer to family. After being away from them for about 10 years, really wanted to come back. So I quit my job, very naively thinking, I've got two degrees. I've had a fantastic career. I've come from a brilliant job. I'm going to really fall straight into it. live that chic London life that Michelle Pfeiffer promised me when I was very, very young. Alas, Michelle lied to me because I couldn't find a job for about the best part of a year. And so I found myself in a very, very weird timeframe that I never saw coming. And I think what was even worse when I didn't have a job was the fact that I didn't have any structure and I felt like I'd lost a huge part of my identity because it's been so ingrained in. my career and what I wanted to do and what I wanted to achieve. And the fact that I was also, you know, looming towards 30 and that big old grand age where you just think, I thought my life was going to be somewhere different by now. I thought I would have had a home or maybe married and it kind of hit me for six. And so I remember being at my parents' thinking I was going to be there for a month and I turned out to be there for about the best part of a year. I think I got to about month three or four and I was honestly... getting beside myself. I was like, there's only so many times someone can say to me, Rude, what are you doing with your day? And me reply with, well, you know, probably nothing. Doesn't feel great when you say that. I remember coming across some books. I was just clearing out some things in my mum's back room. And then I saw a baking book and I was like, well, who on earth owns this baking book? Because I know for sure my mum has never baked in her life. And if