Babish Creator Is Fighting Burnout in the TikTok Era

Andrew Rea says he’s always wanted to direct a great movie, an Oscar winner, but right now he’s making a coconut Bundt cake. In the latest season of the TV show Hacks, one of the main characters scarfs a piece of a very similar-looking dessert, having guessed that it’s a gift from Tom Cruise. Rea found he couldn’t turn down the challenge to make one himself. He runs a YouTube channel called Babish Culinary Universe, where he’s become one of the world’s most influential celebrity chefs. (Just ask your zillennial co-worker.) Rea’s YouTube channel has more than 10 million subscribers, topping those run by New York Times Cooking, Epicurious, the Food Network or almost any other individual foodie. He’s especially famous for Binging With Babish, his video series that employs painstaking attention to detail in bringing Hollywood dishes to the rest of us.

With help from Kendall Beach, one of his producers, Rea is recording three separate attempts to bake a simulacrum of the Hacks cake that’s both picture-perfect and delicious. He takes great care analyzing the placement and amount of white chocolate used in the Doan’s Bakery cake that’s been shipped in from Los Angeles to his studio here in Brooklyn, New York. His first try looks great but strikes him as a little too simple; the second uses fancier ingredients, but the new dulce de leche filling soaks into the cake; No. 3, which combines elements from the first two, is just right. “I try to find a satisfying conclusion to any recipe,” he says. “No matter how horrible or messy it is.”