LJWorld.com

A baked apple pie adapted from Yosses’ recipe.

Washington — Poor Bill Yosses. He’s the White House pastry chef. He makes desserts for a living.

He works for Barack and Michelle Obama. They talk about healthy eating. All the time.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right?

Not at all.

Yosses’ creations — especially his pies — have won over even the Obamas.

The president calls him “The Crustmaster.”

The first lady points to pie-on-demand as one of the big pluses of life at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

“I’m the dark side,” Yosses joked in an AP interview. “They love our pies.”

In truth, Yosses says, there’s no contradiction to being the pastry chef for such an avowedly health-conscious first family.

“They did reassure me that they love dessert,” Yosses says of his first days in the Obama White House. “But they don’t want it there for themselves or their children every day.”

Yosses, 56, doesn’t cook just for the Obamas. His team whips up treats for dozens, hundreds and thousands of guests attending a never-ending stream of parties, receptions and other special events at the White House.

On a recent visit to the pastry kitchen, Yosses offered a rare insider’s view of the operation.

Yosses, in his white jacket and apron, was just back from the South Lawn, where he helped Mrs. Obama and schoolchildren harvest vegetables from the first lady’s kitchen garden. Earlier, he’d baked oatmeal raisin cookies for the youngsters, the snacks sweetened with maple syrup to avoid refined sugar.

For all that’s going on, Yosses, bald and bespectacled, never seems to lose his easy manner and broad grin.

“We’re kind of used to the idea that, oh, there’s going to be 1,200 guests tomorrow,” he deadpans.

Yosses says there’s a set rhythm to the start of each day — a quick 7:30 a.m. meeting where all the White House departments coordinate the day’s plans. Then structure gives way to the varying demands of the day, with Yosses shuttling between the main pastry kitchen and a smaller chocolate shop and decorating area tucked into White House nooks. About 6:30 p.m., he heads home — to fix a quick salad for dinner.

Yosses, who co-authored “Desserts for Dummies” and another cookbook, had been executive pastry chef at a series of top restaurants before he arrived at the White House in January 2007, two years ahead of the Obamas.

When a new first family arrives, Yosses says, “we start from zero, getting to know a whole new situation.”

Within days of the inauguration, Mrs. Obama sat down with the cooking staff to talk about the importance of healthy eating, Yosses said, but she also let it be known that desserts were still welcome on the menu. Now, nine months into the Obama presidency, Yosses can anticipate what will please the family’s palates.

“Once in a while they’ll say I’m really hungry for X, Y or Z, but basically they pretty much leave it to us,” he says.

Specifics about the first family’s tastes are closely held, but some have filtered out over the months.

Obama loves pie. Banana cream pie. Huckleberry pie. Fruit pies of all sorts.

When AP asked the president in July to reveal a secret about the White House, he said this: “The pastry chef makes the best pie I’ve ever tasted, and that is causing big problems for Michelle and myself. I mean, whatever pie you like, he will make it, and it will be the best pie you’ve ever eaten.”

Yosses says the secret to his pie lies in the crust: It’s hand-mixed, to avoid overworking the dough. The bottom crust is pre-baked to keep it from being doughy. For fruit pies, the filling is cooked on the stove, then placed in the cooked pie shell and covered with the rolled-out top dough. The top is then brushed with egg-wash and the whole thing is baked again.

For all their enthusiasm about pie, the Obamas are disciplined enough to limit pie consumption to about once a week, Yosses says.