Ina Garten Reveals The Hardest Recipe She's Ever Created

Ina Garten is the face of home cooking. Now on her 12th cookbook and counting, the food guru has been in the industry for as long as it will take us to perfect a Thanksgiving turkey (which is still yet to happen). Nevertheless, Garten has proven herself to be the go-to "Barefoot Contessa" with 28 seasons to boot. "Be My Guest" is Garten's most recent television venture which showcases her conversations with celebrity guests while cooking in the kitchen. We would love to know what she puts on her Thanksgiving table! Like that time she made a "make-ahead feast" for her guests (per Food Network).

While we may never know all of Garten's kitchen tips and tricks, she did reveal the hardest recipe she's ever made. Mashed attended the New York Times Food Festival, where Ina Garten spoke to food editor Emily Moskin during the segment "How Ina Garten Does It" about her childhood experiences and upcoming cookbook. As the discussion continued, Garten explained that one particular dish was incredibly difficult to get right due to its flavor and texture profile.

After almost 20 years and counting on television, what recipe could have possibly stumped the infamous Ina Garten? After all, she is a connoisseur of all types of foods — cooking and baking included. That's why the audience at the New York Times Food Festival may have been surprised to learn that her trickiest recipe was a classic dessert.

Ina Garten told New York Times editor Emily Moskin, "Boston cream pie seems like the simplest thing in the world. It's white cake, a pastry cream filling, and chocolate ganache." She continued, "I would get each one of them right and then put them together and the chocolate would overpower everything else. It has to be perfectly layered."

It took Garten a whopping six years to perfect her Boston cream pie after receiving some advice from famous pastry chef Christina Tosi. Known as the CEO of Milk Bar, Tosi told Garten to include a sugar syrup soak to give the cake more flavor. Garten explained, "So I did the whole thing all over again, all the parts, got them all lined up and did the sugar syrup soak, put them all together and it's close, but it's not quite where it needs to be." That's when Garten and her team cracked the code: "One of my assistants said, 'What about putting some Grand Marnier in the soak?' And I was like, 'That's it.'"

The food mogul explained that the Grand Marnier added the exact taste she was looking for to finally finish the Boston cream pie. Garten now describes the pastry as a "comfort food" and mentioned that she wouldn't let the recipe go until it achieved "the flavor, the texture that I had in my head." With any luck, the recipe will find its way into one of her future cookbooks.