Amy Rosen spent the recent holiday of Purim baking her own recipe for hamantashen: she used chunks of Toblerone chocolate bars as the filling in the triangle-shaped cookies, rather than the traditional poppy or prune.
But next week, the Toronto cookbook author will be evaluating other people’s creations, when she debuts as a judge on a new Food Network Canada series, Wall of Bakers. It first airs March 28 at 10 p.m.
The show pits talented home bakers against each other, as they compete in the studio’s kitchen—whipping up their own show-stopping pastries, cakes and sweet treats.
Rosen is one of the 24 Canadian dessert experts on the judging panel. The producers approached her because of the reputation she built over a quarter-century as a prolific food writer and TV show guest.
But her recent history also includes launching a product of her own: Rosen’s Cinnamon Buns.
‘Intimidating’ to be with Anna Olson, Lynn Crawford
Still, Rosen felt a little intimidated in the company of culinary celebrities like Anna Olson, Lynn Crawford and Christine Cushing. Worse, most people thought she was only there as an undercover journalist.
“[It] was so insulting on several levels, but I get it, right?” Rosen recalled with a smile during an interview with The CJN Daily on Feb. 24. “So I’m not good enough to be there as a judge? But then they got it. I knew what everyone was talking about. I could keep up with them, and their techniques, and whatever.”
Toronto-born Rosen certainly has serious foodie chops: she’s a trained Cordon Bleu chef, and the author of five cookbooks. The most recent one from 2019 drew most on her Jewish background, with the title Kosher Style.
Her first venture into the bakery business involved opening a bricks-and-mortar store in 2016, where she sold her own line of cinnamon buns. The store closed two years later, as she pivoted into selling frozen versions instead—along with jars of spreads with combinations like chocolate with tahini.
Three Jewish judges and the host
There will be 10 episodes of Wall of Bakers—with contestants vying for a $10,000 prize— and Rosen appears in six of them including the premiere. And, as these shows go, she remains under a non-disclosure agreement until they air. But, she could reveal there is a bit of Jewish soul involved along the way.
For one thing, host Noah Cappe shares her background, as do two of the other judges: Jo Notkin, the founder of Maison Zoe Ford in Montreal, and Joanne Yolles, the veteran pastry whiz who came up with the coconut cream pie at Toronto’s legendary Scaramouche restaurant. (They also couldn’t dish out any advance details.)
Given the cooking traditions in Rosen’s DNA, she feels it informs how she approaches judging baked goods.
“Something might speak to me more if it’s a flavour I grew up with. Something might surprise me because it’s not something that I grew up with,” she explains.
“So I’d be, like ‘Wow, this is delicious! But everyone else might know about that. If you live in Quebec, you know what Pudding Chomeur is. But the first time I had the maple warm cake, that’s a signature dessert in Quebec, I said—this is the greatest thing I’ve ever had in my life!”
Just don’t look for any cinnamon buns, if only because of the time it takes them to rise, even though the flavour may factor into other things along the way.
Bakers nicer than chefs
Wall of Bakers was filmed last summer in Toronto, on the same set that was used for Wall of Chefs. The baking show also got to have a studio audience in line with COVID protocols. Rosen found the experience surprisingly emotional.
“I can’t tell you how many tears there were from contestants, and judges as well. Just in a joyous kind of way, to the point that I felt like a bit of an idiot. I asked, ‘What’s everyone crying about?’”
The egos of the chef show were nowhere to be found on this set.
“This is just like baking versus cooking. It’s just so much from the heart and you just really felt it coming out from everyone.”
The experience of Wall of Bakers was a far cry from Rosen’s other recent TV experience: an episode of Dragons’ Den that debuted in December.
‘Humiliated on national TV‘
For her primetime turn on CBC, she pitched Rosen’s Cinnamon Buns business to the panel of Canadian tycoons. She asked them to take a stake in the company—and to help her grow outside of Ontario.
At first, the Dragons were all smiles. They loved the taste of her samples. But things got testy when they began to quiz her about her company’s financials.
“I thought I knew most of the numbers, and then they just asked them in a different way, which I think throws a lot of people off.
And then once they saw my weakness, they just kept hammering me. Not all of them. A few of them. A couple of them, actually. And it just got into a yelling match and everything.”
Rosen’s sister-in-law handles the financial side of the business, but she was not permitted to come to the taping, at the last minute, due to the COVID rules.
At one point, Arlene Dickinson issued a blunt assessment of Rosen’s pitch.
“What’s clear to me is you don’t know how to run a business,” said the fixture of Dragons’ Den. “But you do make great cinnamon buns.”
Dickinson and two other panellists offered to buy the company for $300,000. Rosen accepted, as the deal would have left her as the face and the name of the brand.
No deal
But after several months of back-and-forth negotiations with the investors and the show, the deal didn’t go through, and everyone just parted ways.
As for what she calls her “humiliation on national TV,” Rosen points out how what happened during the taping was not exactly what wound up being aired during the broadcast on Dec. 7.
“ I think it must be in their contract that they can’t come off looking so bad.”
At another point, Rosen claims she yelled back at one of the panellists—but that part didn’t make the final cut.
“I felt great about saying ‘I built a bakery. I did all of this’,” she says about being put in the position of defending herself. “So, in the end, you see some kind-of-humiliating stuff. But it could have been so much worse.”
‘Who are you excited to see?’
Dragons’ Den was taped before the Wall of Bakers, before Rosen’s public dressing-down went viral. Despite her frequent appearances on television and her articles in The Globe and Mail and EnRoute magazine, the contestants on the baking show weren’t exactly looking for Rosen’s autograph.
“When the contestants would come on, one of the questions that Noah Cappe would ask is, ‘Who on the wall are you excited to see?’ And nine out of ten times, it was Anna Olson because they all idolize her, as do I. And then there would be someone like Ricardo or someone with Christine or Lynn, right?
“So, by Day 5, when he would ask this, I turned to someone next to me, and said ‘I will give everyone here $10,000 if someone says they are excited to see me!”
Rosen won’t be holding a party to watch the premiere, though. That’s because in the months since her Dragons’ Den appearance aired, she’s been busy trying to take the cinnamon buns business to the next level, without their help.
Rosen’s cinnamon buns to go national
The products have been out of stock for several months due to lockdown measures last fall. With the factory where the buns are baked unable to operate with a full staff, she decided to shut things down until the situation improved.
Since then, she signed a deal with UNFI, a national distribution company, to get the buns and spreads into stores across Canada.
But, when it comes to doling out advice to the contestants on Wall of Bakers, she has no shortage of ideas about how they can win.
“What it takes is following the assignment. If you have to include spice, make sure you can taste the spice. And make sure your recipes work. Don’t try to do too much. As someone who’s made a business out of simple cinnamon buns, often simple is better—and it’s what people want.
“And if within 45 minutes, you’re trying five sauces and three components that are baked, and cold, and chilled, you’re going to run into trouble because not all of them are going to work out.
“So I would say limit yourself. Be competitive, though—but just don’t try to do the impossible.”
Four more questions for Amy Rosen
Q. What are your favourite tools to use in the kitchen?
A. My wooden spoon for sure. I think it was definitely my mom’s, maybe even my Bubbe Fran’s. And the wooden spoon is the thing I use every day and the most. I also have my mom’s Cuisinart from the 80s, and it works! It is super cracked. I have duct tape around it. I can’t make soup in it anymore.
Q. Why do you keep it? Why do you love it?
A. I was actually sent another amazing KitchenAid for free years ago, and it was so complicated. I actually just gave it to my best friend in Vancouver. This Cuisinart just works the best. Like, I’ve used the same blades since the ’80s.
Q. What was your least favourite meal that your mother cooked in her old frying pan?
A. It also used to be for our most tragic night of the month. We’d walk home from school, we’d smell something frying, and we said, “It’s not Hanukkah. What could it be?’” And then she’d stand at the doorway with a wooden spoon and say, ‘L.L.’ That meant “liver lover’s night.” So she would bread and fry the liver. So we would eat it and we’d scream and cry, ”No! Not liver night!”
Q. Did you get to keep that white jacket with your name on it?
A. No. I got to keep the water bottle, though. It’s a nice water bottle. Maybe if they renewed the show, they were going to have us back and they don’t want us to ruin it. Also, where are you going to wear that?
