Abby Dahan, Stephen Starr’s ‘secret weapon’ pastry chef, launches a baking school

On a snowy Sunday afternoon, 12 Zoom squares populated the screen of Abby Dahan’s Great British Bake Off-themed pastry class. Dahan, the longtime Parc pastry chef, ticked off a list of what her students would need for today’s recipe, coffee walnut whirls. It began with an ingredient list from all-purpose flour to yolks and ended with a slew of tools: a double-boiler, a thermometer, a scale, a rolling pin (or wine bottle, what have you), a bunch of spatulas and whisks, piping tips, a pastry cutter, a ladle...

“Oh, gosh, how could I forget?” Dahan exclaimed, “The most important: A glazing rack.”

None of this was new information to anyone who had done the assigned recipe reading and prep. But most cooks could be seen scrambling around their kitchens, fetching this or that forgotten item, measuring out an overlooked ingredient, bracing themselves.

The class was the latest from the Bake School, a project that may have never come to be if it weren’t for the pandemic. After Dahan was furloughed, then temporarily laid off by Starr Restaurants last spring, she kept herself busy by teaching virtual baking classes for a company that wanted a team-building alternative to Zoom happy hours. She had done some demonstrations and in-person classes before, but in this case, she was coaching students to success in their own kitchens — all through a screen.

“The more I started to think about it, I was like, ‘This is something I really love to do,’” she realized. “So my new purpose became how to make baking accessible.”

Dahan’s dessert bona fides are plentiful. She’s the daughter of Jacques Dahan, a French expat and executive who established a South Jersey headquarters for the French chocolatier Michel Cluizel. She trained as a pastry chef in Paris and has been executive pastry chef at Parc (where she is back on a part-time basis) for seven years. Inquirer restaurant critic Craig LaBan called her the bistro’s “secret weapon” in a 2018 revisit.

If the Bake School progresses as she hopes, it might take her out of the restaurant industry entirely one day. That would be a loss for Philadelphians who like to dine out, but a boon for home bakers up for a challenge.

Ovens set to 350°F, baking sheets lined with parchment paper, stand mixers at the ready, Dahan’s Great British Bake Off class began. What ensued were culinary gymnastics that could frazzle even seasoned bakers. But in her hands, the controlled chaos resulted in four recipes that married into one patisserie-worthy confection.

» READ MORE: Quarantine baking projects for home cooks without yeast (or patience)

First, milk chocolate melted into heavy cream and instant coffee over medium, sending up sugary aromas. She directed students to scrape the saucepan thoroughly, mixing in every shred of chocolate, then coaxing the hot ganache out into a baking pan. As it chilled in the fridge, seamlessly they shifted to sablé cookies: Ground walnuts, powdered sugar, all-purpose flour, butter, baking powder, and a yolk formed a soft dough. In no time, it would be cooled, rolled out, cut into rounds, baked off, cooled again, then dolloped with the ganache.

Forty-five minutes in, Dahan paused to recap and summarize what lay ahead (and to give a few breathless cooks a chance to catch up). Two recipes were down, but marshmallow was up next, followed by piping and glazing. Timing would be imperative. “The difficulty in this recipe is that everything kind of needs to be done around the same time so you can assemble.”

“I know it seems like we’ve already done a lot, but there’s still a lot to do,” Dahan said. “We’re all going to get there. It’s just gonna be a really good, long journey for us all.”

Early last summer, Dahan started to formalize the Bake School. She applied to start an LLC, created a website, and launched social media pages in its name. The school’s bread and butter is custom courses for companies and private clients, who have asked Dahan to design programs for everything from anniversary dinners to virtual family reunions. The classes start at $250 for two hours. Every couple months, she also offers an open class — like the GBBO-theme class — to the general public for about $25.

Dahan has heard people say “I love cooking, but I hate baking” lots of times. She wants to push back on that notion. “I think when you dig a little deeper, it’s not so much that people hate baking. It’s either intimidating or it’s too specific, like, ‘Oh, that seems like a lot of prep and it seems like a lot of work.’ And really, it is and it isn’t.” She breaks down recipes step-by-step and explains why things are done a certain way — like why dough should be chilled (to hold its shape when baked) or why you shouldn’t stir melting sugar (it will recrystallize). She troubleshoots in real-time and in hypotheticals. She recommends brands for chocolate and sugar thermometers. She also likes to impart lessons that will be applicable to several recipes, such as ganache ratios that work across the board.

Teaching taps into Dahan’s experience supervising green cooks in restaurant kitchens. “Some are going to be really quick on the uptake and you only need to show them once. And then you have some that you have to show over and over again and make sure they take notes, and ask, ‘Remember how we did this? Can you repeat it back to me?’ It’s exactly the same thing,” she says. “I feel really comfortable teaching essentially what are pastry newbies.”

The moment for marshmallow had arrived. A sticky concoction of corn syrup, sugar, water, egg whites, gelatin, and vanilla bean, it was arguably the most difficult recipe of the day. First, some warnings: The whites needed to be pure — no yolks or shells — and forget about the boxed kind. The mixer bowl had to be spotlessly clean. The gelatin had to be hydrated properly.

With the students on the edge of their Zooms, waiting further guidance, Dahan took a minute to remind them of everything else that needed checking: Were the cookies browning in the oven? Did they need more time? Rotate the pan. Was the ganache cool (but not too cool)? Oh, better start melting chocolate for the glaze.

”Great, now we can finally begin our marshmallow.”

As the egg whites were whipped till frothy, the cooks turned on the heat under their syrup-sugar mixture, which had to be brought to 115°C, then poured into the whites and whisked vigorously. “You just gotta be vigilant and you don’t want to step away,” Dahan cautioned the cooks. “You can very quickly go from 112° to 119° and be like, ‘I was gone for 30 seconds, what happened?’ ” Somehow, somehow, most everyone managed to nail their marshmallow on the first try. Only one pupil had to start over after the sugar ran too hot.

At last, assembly began: Ganache, warm and soft enough to pipe, went onto the cookies. Marshmallow was swirled around it. A heap of melted dark chocolate — another item that needed to reach a precise temperature — was ladled overtop the whirls to form a crisp shell, affixed with a whole nut just before it set. Dahan topped hers with gold-leaf foil. As usual, she was ahead of where most of her students were.

As she shepherded a few stragglers toward the finish line, she urged patience — and efficiency. “Whenever I’m at work and I’m tempering chocolate, it’s one of those things where maybe you have a little side project that you’re working on,” she said. ”It really is almost ... a waiting game, which can be really frustrating if you’re in a rush, but, you know, all good things need time.”

Follow @the_bake_school on Instagram for recipes and open class info. In May, Dahan will offer public classes for making a Fraisier cake (a classic French dessert with fresh strawberries) and tiramisu. Sign up at thebakeschool.com.