While Kansas City cookbook author Erin Jeanne McDowell rolls out a batch of puff pastry dough in her kitchen, a camera phone hovers just above her countertop. As she works, McDowell reaches up to take photos and video for social media — more than 300,000 followers track her posts on Instagram.
Colorful, pie-shaped wall clocks decorate a back wall in her light-filled kitchen. Behind the scenes, McDowell has rigged a large tripod with an overhead arm to capture her process, step-by-step.
“It's not the prettiest element of my kitchen,” she says. “If you're watching my videos, you would never know it's there because of course, it's right out of frame.”
From her cheery Midtown abode, McDowell teaches home bakers in-person and online how to turn out a perfect cake, crimp a pie crust and create the flakiest dough. But creating recipes that anyone can follow takes a particular set of skills, meaning McDowell has to wear a lot of hats.
"I went to pastry school, not art school, but I now know how to edit video and photos,” she says, “all of these things that were never on my radar.”
McDowell is comfortable on camera, and fans connect with her warm, friendly teaching style — like spending time with a favorite aunt in her kitchen.
“If I could just focus on the recipe, I don't think my work would feel as difficult,” McDowell says. “But I do think that, to be a good teacher in this day and age, it doesn’t hurt to use the internet. It doesn’t hurt to use social media.”
McDowell is in the final stages of testing out a new holiday recipe she calls “Spiced Bows.” They’re sprinkled with a mixture of sugar, cardamom, and nutmeg. Just out of the oven, the pastries are toasty and fragrant, like puffy bow ties.
“It’s not a complicated recipe, but it is a very detailed shaping method,” she says.
The tasty treat is the result of a baking experiment McDowell shared on Instagram. The short post in late October, left her followers clamoring for a more detailed tutorial.
“And I want to maybe shoot some photographs to help guide people in the shaping, to make it easier for the visual learners,” she says while applying an egg wash between the layers of pastry.
After high school, the Lawrence native studied pastry and baking at the Culinary Institute of America in New York. Before moving back to the Midwest three years ago, McDowell developed recipes for The New York Times and prepared food for photo shoots as a food stylist.
Now, she’s the star of the “Bake it Up a Notch” YouTube series for the recipe and cooking website Food52. McDowell’s also the author of “The Fearless Baker,” “Savory Baking” and “The Book on Pie.”
“I've been baking pies since I was about 14 years old, when I started with my grandma Jeanne,” McDowell says. “That's actually why I use my middle name in all of my work, because I'm paying a little homage to Grandma.”
Early on, Grandma Jeanne, who died before McDowell was published, taught her the importance of testing a recipe and not giving up.
“The first time my grandma and I made a pie together, she was trying a recipe from a magazine and it used an olive oil crust,” she remembers.
The pie didn’t turn out flakey, and it didn’t taste good. McDowell suspects it may have had something to do with the olive oil her grandmother had on hand.
“Long story short, we hated it,” she says. “But we then set out the next week. We were like, ‘We got to make another one. That wasn't right.’”
Today, McDowell is probably best known for her showstopping pies. Her book on the subject features more than 100 unique pie recipes, 50 different crusts and 40 toppings.
Her sturdy pie challenge on Instagram teaches followers how to bake their pies correctly. For McDowell, that means the bottom must be a delicious golden brown and the filling perfectly set — ideally, the pie is stable enough to be lifted from the pan and sliced on a cutting board.
“The first thing I say when somebody tells me they don’t like pie is, ‘You probably haven’t had a good one.’” she says.
A good pie has loads of textural contrast, McDowell says.
“The crust should be crunchy, crispy, flakey, tender, all the way through on the sides and on the bottom,” she says. “Then you have whatever the filling is — something creamy, or something gooey, like a pecan pie.”
While McDowell revels in her warm kitchen on cold winter days, the real pleasure of baking comes from sharing her skills with other people.
“For those people out there who were not lucky enough to have a grandma teaching them these things, well, maybe I can be that for you,” she says.
“I don't have to be your literal grandma,” McDowell laughs, “but I can show you how to make something that you can maybe then learn to make with your kids, or your nieces and nephews.”
