RECIPES FOR SUCCESS

By Kristie Boltz

"If cooking is an art, baking is a science" is said to have originated in the 1960s in a King Arthur Flour catalog. Many food professionals, and amateur bakers like me, often respectfully disagree. Don't get me wrong - I own a cookbook called "Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast" (Ken Forkish, 2012), where he outlines how to manipulate these four ingredients with time, temperature, and technique to create many kinds of artisan bread. There are eight "essential" baking ingredients: Flour, eggs, fat (usually butter), sugar, salt, a form of liquid, and leavening agents. Flour provides the foundation, eggs add texture, fat holds it all together, sugar adds sweetness, salt adds flavor, liquids carry flavor, and leavening agents make things rise. Almost everyone reading this article will know that you have much more flour and sugar than baking soda and salt, but getting the measurement of any of the eight can result in disaster. It sounds like an eighth-grade science project, right? Baking has foundations in science, indeed.

And yet, if baking were simply chemistry, we would not have the difference between Pierre Hermé "The Picasso of Pastry" and Duff Goldman's "The Ace of Cakes." The artistry comes as you experiment with all the different things that can influence those eight essentials - including "secret" ingredients. Brown butter, or as the French call it, "beurre noisette," is one of those ingredients. A stick of unsalted butter melts, sputters, and foams in just a few minutes. As soon as the foam subsides, the milk solids darken and fall to the bottom of the pan, and "boom," you've got yourself something that will transform a host of recipes.

Whether you are a dentist, a practice coach, a dental assistant, a consultant, a hygienist, a practice administrator, or a C-Suite executive at an emerging DSO - you, too, have a secret ingredient. Do you know what it is? And, more importantly, are you using it to create something extraordinary to share with others?

One of the challenges of identifying your secret ingredient is that it often comes so naturally to you that you don't even recognize it as a skill or talent. To us, it's just "who we are." Sadly, somebody told others that their secret ingredient didn't suit their current position or organization, and they have been hiding it ever since. I've met women who have been baking without it for decades. And just like in a recipe, their final product isn't quite as good as it could be.

Your unique strengths are a good starting point for discovering your secret ingredient. My Top Five Clifton Strengths are Activator, Focus, Learner, Woo, and Positivity. According to Gallup, the chance that there is another person out there with those five in that order is one in 33 million.

Well, I'm a numbers geek, and we are approaching a worldwide population of 8 billion, so... there are at least

200 people out there who could be my Clifton Strengths "Doppelganger." So, your secret ingredient doesn't stand on your strengths alone. It must include your passions and your values. I've heard those words in more mission statements and unique sales proposition discussions than I care to mention. People want to talk about passions and values when convenient, or the "topic de jour." They rarely connect their strengths to what makes them tick and what principle they will die on the side of the mountain to defend. And those three things together are your secret ingredient - your unique superpower.

Learning to brown butter takes practice - the first couple of times you do it, it may fail. You may burn the crap out of it or be so afraid of burning it that you don't let the milk solids darken enough and miss out on the exquisite flavor. Perfecting your secret ingredient will take some time, but I promise it will be worth it. Because it will make everything you Dew that much better.

Discover it. Embrace it. Nurture it. Share it.

Here's to DeWing more with your superpower...

Happy Baking, Kristie

Brown Butter Toffee Chocolate Chunk Cookies

(Adapted from Two Peas & Their Pod )

• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 1 cup packed dark brown sugar

• ½ cup granulated sugar

• 1 large egg

• 1 large egg yolk

• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract

• 2 ¼ c unbleached all-purpose flour

• 1 tsp cornstarch

• 1 tsp kosher salt

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1 cup dark chocolate chunks

• ½ cup toffee bits

• Flaked sea salt for sprinkling on top

- Cut one stick (½ cup) of butter into tablespoons. Place in a medium saucepan. Melt the butter over medium heat, swirling it in the pan occasionally. The butter will foam and pop, so be careful. Continue to swirl the pan often. Remove pan from heat once the butter starts to brown and smells nutty. There will be small brown bits on the bottom. The butter should be an amber color. Pour butter into a small bowl and cool to room temperature, about 20 minutes.

- While the brown butter is cooling, in the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the remaining ½ cup butter with dark brown sugar and granulated sugar. Beat until creamy and smooth, about 3-4 minutes. Add the cooled brown butter and mix until smooth.

- Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and mix until combined.

- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, salt, and baking soda. Gradually mix in the flour on low speed until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chunks and toffee chunks.

- Chill OVERNIGHT for the best flavor and results. (If you’re in a hurry, chill at least 30 minutes)

- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Remove dough from fridge and form into 2 tablespoonsized cookie dough balls. Place on baking sheets lined with parchment, about 2 inches apart. Sprinkle with flaked sea salt.

- Bake cookies for 10 minutes or until slightly brown around the edges. Remove from oven and allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a wire cooling rack and cool completely. Store cookies in an air-tight container for 2-3 days, or give them to neighbors and friends immediately!

About the author:

Strategist. Coach. Baker. Cyclist. Cancer survivor. Philanthropist. Kristie Boltz is on a mission to make everyone she interacts with become a better version of themselves. After hearing Kristie's message, you'll feel like someone gave you a Wonder Woman cape and the power to set the world on fire.