This is Mill Street Radio from PRX, and I'm your host, Christopher Kimball.

Cookbook author Ann Byrne may have written the definitive history of Southern baking.

Today, we're looking back on its best stories, including the early explosive days of baking powder.

People were having gobs of it to recipes because they

didn't know really what to do with it. And there were all kinds of these recipe pamphlets coming

out from the baking powder companies telling you, oh, well, you know, add a quarter cup to your cake.

You know, it's going to rise. The unexpected histories behind your favorite southern desserts that's coming up later in the show.

But first, it's time to answer your baking questions with our special guest host, Cheryl Day.

Cheryl is the author of Cheryl Day's treasury of Southern baking.

So, Cheryl, I was in Paris recently. I came across this technique that just blew me away.

And I was talking to a chef. He makes this Paris flon, which is essentially a like four or five

inch deep custard. It's basically pastry cream in a pot brbrise shell and nothing on the top. So he doesn't

pre-bake it. And here's what he does. This really was interesting. He takes a silt pat,

you know, for baking cookies. But this version of it, I guess, is got wire mesh in the bottom.

Oh, wow. You can see through it.

So it's wire mesh.

And he puts around a circle, it's like a cake pan with no bottom.

He puts that on the sill pat and puts the sill pat on a cooling rack.

Okay.

So there's nothing in between.

There's no baking sheet.

There's no bottom.

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