Bantering bakers heat up on the web

Monica Hanes and Frank Allen of Hampton Bays are a pair of guerrilla bakers.

In the spirit of the blog, the tweet and what seems like the whole world’s uploaded life on YouTube, they took their passion for baking, a shoestring budget, and the help of two computer savvy brothers to skirt the big leagues and create a homemade internet baking show that rivals the Food Network’s finest.

By following along with the bakers on the show, even culinary neophytes who don’t know cream puffs from cannolis can transform their kitchens into confection heaven.

With a title of “Bake This!,” an oven imperative they agreed had just the right dash of New York chutzpah, the show launched in September 2008 and six episodes have aired since, with each one leading viewers through the creation of one dessert. So far they have filmed the baking of a shadow cake, deep dish apple pie, pumpkin cheesecake, cheesecake brownies, napoleons and Scandinavian almond bars. The recipes and episodes are all available at their website, www.bakethis.tv, to play and pause while following along at home.

As any teacher will tell you, presenting the facts is only half the battle. So “Bake This!” is not only instructional, it’s entertaining. As Ms. Hanes and Mr. Allen bake, they banter, in a style that has the ring of a down-home version of Hepburn and Tracy repartee.

“People really think I’m so mean to Frank,” Ms. Hanes said, “but that’s the other premise of the show. Frank is kind of my foil. He does give it to me, but he doesn’t have my cutting edge, if you will.”

“I’ve learned a lot since working with Monica,” Mr. Allen said, a bit sardonically. “My vocabulary, especially, has grown.”

The pair met at a bus stop last year, waiting with their sons, who both attend the Our Lady of the Hamptons school. They started talking and discovered they shared a passion for baking, which led to an exchange of recipes and desserts.

When Ms. Hanes discovered that Mr. Allen had worked as a professional baker, she proposed that they open a bakery together. Mr. Allen responded that while he would have been interested if he were younger, he knew from experience that it was too much of a grind and time commitment to start up a bakery operation now. “You’re there day and night,” he said.

She wasn’t ready to give up on the idea of turning her passion for baking into a business. And, as is often the case, inspiration struck from the 
least likely place: the internet, and “iCarly.”

“iCarly” is a web show starring Carly, a preteen who uploads live episodes detailing the ups, downs and absurdities of adolescence. Ms. Hanes was watching one such episode with her son when she thought, “Why can’t we have a show on the internet?

“I thought, ‘no one is going to come to me and ask us to do this, so let’s just do it ourselves,’” Ms. Hanes said.

She broached the idea to Mr. Allen and he was game. She spoke with her friend Andy Godfrey, a “self-proclaimed computer geek,” who runs a computer services company, A Godfrey Computer Services, and he agreed to join the team.

“He does everything,” Ms. Hanes said. “He’s the cameraman, director, producer, he’s pretty much the whole ball of wax.” He even fills Ms. Hanes’s kitchen with professional lighting, a spotlight on the counter, with overhead and frontal cameras. His brother does the video editing from Arizona.

In the show, the duo make everything from scratch and run a trial of every recipe before the filming. One 20-minute episode will take at least three hours to film, they said.

Desserts are based on the seasonal ingredients available and upcoming holidays. The two bakers most recently filmed the creation of a fresh berry tart with pudding in anticipation of the summer and the wild berries that are ubiquitous on Long Island.

“They’re not only terrific and taste wonderful,” Mr. Allen said of the tarts, “but also very beautiful to look at.” (See recipe.)

Mr. Allen was 4 years old when he started baking. “The first thing I ever made was potato peel pie in my kitchen,” he said.

“Frank grew up in Appalachia,” Ms. Hanes quipped.

“I was always in the kitchen with my mother because I love to eat,” Mr. Allen said, ignoring his partner’s jibe. “If you love to eat, you have to learn how to do it yourself.”

He attended the Culinary Institute of America and worked as a pastry chef in Connecticut before moving to Hampton Bays. He worked at a number of bakeries, including the first in-store bakery on Long Island at Foodtown, the former supermarket on Ponquogue Avenue on the block that is now the King Kullen shopping center. He also worked at the Southampton Bakery, now Blue Duck, as a salesman for a bakery supply company, and for Carla Craft at the Oceanview Farmers Market in Montauk.

While Ms. Hanes has no professional baking experience, she became known around the neighborhood as Betty Crocker, because she always baked goodies for school events and for her neighbors.

But since she became involved with “Bake This!” she said that her ultimate goal is now to have a show on the Food Network. She and Mr. Allen are planning to send a DVD to the station headquarters eventually.

“It’s a big learning process, but we think every show is better than the one before,” Ms. Hanes said.

“In the bakery, you feel the creativity just flow through you,” Mr. Allen said. “When novices get through doing a pastry or cake, they can stand back and say, ‘Wow, I can make that!’ It’s a great sense of accomplishment that you get.”