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NPR's Book of the Day

Betül Tunç's new cookbook shares the recipes behind her viral dough videos

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Books, Arts

4.2672 Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Betül Tunç is the Turkish baker behind the popular Instagram account, @turkuazkitchen. With more than 10 million followers, her account features recipes and photography of sweet and savory baked goods. The account took off during the early days of the pandemic with a video of Tunç punching the air out of freshly risen dough. Her debut cookbook Turkuaz Kitchen presents those recipes and more from Tunç's childhood. In today's episode, Tunç speaks with Here & Now's Jane Clayson about baking as therapy, her interest in vintage cooking tools, and being fine with making mistakes while baking.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. All right, not to brag, but I'm pretty

0:07.0

decent in the kitchen, but I'm more of a stovetop kind of guy. I've never really gotten a knack

0:12.5

for baking. And I think it's because of something our next guest says. Betel-Tunsch is the author

0:18.2

of the new cookbook, Tercass Kitchen, all about working with dough.

0:22.2

And she says the key to the perfect dough is A, following recipe directions thoroughly, and B, patience.

0:30.3

Two things that I'm not great at.

0:33.0

But hearing about some of these recipes, I might want to try to get a little bit better to share some more doughy secrets with here and now's Jane Clayson.

0:42.5

After the break.

0:43.9

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

0:48.1

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods.

0:54.8

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,

0:58.5

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

1:02.1

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:25.1

It all began in 2021 with a hypnotic video of hands manipulating bread dough as it's kneaded and punched, allowed to rest and then shaped into a beautiful loaf.

1:36.6

That video, Punch Down Doe, went viral, and its star Betul Toonch became a phenomenon.

1:42.4

Her Turquess Kitchen videos on Instagram have amassed 10.5 million followers.

1:47.8

Now, Batul Toonch has published her first cookbook, which is also called Turkaz Kitchen, and she joins us now via Skype to talk about it. Welcome to here and now.

1:53.5

Thank you so much for having me. Well, thank you for coming. Take us back four years ago,

1:58.7

where it all started with that punch-down dough video that really

2:02.6

changed your life. What made you think, I'm going to put my hand and punch down some dough?

2:08.2

I'm going to put that online. I don't know. Like, it's just coming with naturally, you know,

2:13.6

you never just plan to do something when you cook front of camera.

...

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