The Key To Mastering Savory Baking, According To Duff Goldman - Exclusive

Daydreaming about a day spent baking usually conjures images of cakes and cookies, pies and pastries, and so many other sweet treats. But baking can be so much more than that. There is a whole world of savory baking out there — if you can master the basics.

Just ask master celebrity baker and cake artist Duff Goldman. Of course, he knows the sweet side of baking. These days, you'll often find him in his DIY cake decorating studio, Duff's Cakemix, and you could see one open near you soon, so you can level up your skills like the Ace of Cakes. But when he's not spinning sugar, he's exploring his savory side in his newest Food Network show "Duff: Ace of Taste," where his culinary craft goes way beyond dessert. When we got the chance to catch up and talk all things baking with Goldman, the conversation took a savory turn.

In an exclusive interview with Tasting Table, Goldman shared his savory baking insights, including the most important element to master if you want to expand your baking repertoire to feature more than just sweet treats.

The first thing Duff Goldman points out about savory baking is that it often involves "a lot of breads." Think tasty favorites like pizza, quiches, meat pies, biscuits, and even baked pastas. Goldman says the key to mastering these types of recipes comes down to "understanding your medium." In the case of bread, that means "understanding how flour works." Using the right flour, the right ratios, and the right techniques can make or break your savory baking attempts.

Take a good pizza, for example, which so often is determined by the quality of the dough. As Goldman explained, "[When] you make a pizza dough, you make it three days before you're going to actually use it. Let the yeast break down all the starch in that dough so it's smooth on the inside and gets super crispy." 

And it's not just pizza. "Getting a well-laminated crust on a quiche is the same thing," he added. "It's understanding how flour works in that particular dough." While any quiche can be thrown together by "mixing a bunch of eggs and cream and cheese" along with some seasoning, Goldman says it's the attention to crafting those ingredients into a perfect dough that makes a quiche stand out: "Making sure you have a beautiful, buttery, crispy, flaky crust — that is what makes a delicious quiche." That comes with understanding flour — so study up and follow the recipe (and consider investing in a scale), and you'll be one step closer to expanding the bounds of your baking.

Check out Duff's Cakemix before it heads to a location near you, and click here to learn more about franchising opportunities.