If you've ever wanted to eat a Koosh Ball then you understand the appeal of Hostess Sno Balls. Who doesn't want a fluffy, jiggly, bouncy neon snack? Uh. Well. Maybe you don't. In which case, who wants chocolate cake? More
Writing about Magic Middles, making a recipe for them, makes me feel like that person at the Police Department that sketches a criminal's portrait while listening to the victim's account. You see, I have never tasted a Magic Middle or seen one in the wild. But based on eye witness reports and video footage, I've taken on the role of a forensic chef in the hunt for America's Most Wanted Cookie. More
Oatmeal Creme Pies have mastered consistency in every sense of the word. It starts with the unparalleled consistency of both the cookies and the so-called creme. Together they are yielding yet substantial and neither squishy nor firm. Their flavor and texture remain consistent from edge to edge, from box to box, from decade to decade. More
Scarfing down a sugary snack without preamble definitely gets the job done, but a little delayed gratification really amps up the satisfaction of certain sweets. These sweets seem to demand a little ritual and thought: Twisting and licking an Oreo, wearing a Fudge Stripe like an edible ring, punching out the middle of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, or folding and nibbling a Fruit Roll-Up into a fruity snowflake. More
I'd like to think of myself as a qualified hangover expert. I grew up in Kentucky, a stone's throw from the Woodford Reserve distillery. I minored in OMG Too Much Booze at culinary school (emphasis on minored; I graduated at 20) and have worked my entire adult life in the hard-drinking realm of restaurant kitchens. More
I don't know that there remains any praise for Biscoff that Francis Lam has not already articulated. Rather than try to out-prose the man who wrote of cookies that "taste beautifully and comfortingly of warm spices, caramel and wheat", I've decided to tackle Biscoff from a different angle; as a chef, not a writer. More
Writing a nostalgia-fueled column about childhood junk foods has some occupational hazards. Trips to the grocery now involve huge chunks of time spent roaming the center aisles ("Chips Ahoy or Famous Amos? Oh, hello Pecan Sandies..."), my notebook at work has more pages devoted to Little Debbie than Petite Syrah, and my coworkers get irate when subjected to taste-testing the same thing twelve too many times ("Soft Batch, again?"). More
Last year, Robyn taught us about a magical place called the Netherlands where people enjoy life so much that they crown even the most mundane food, buttered bread, with hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles). I don't know how this practice began, but I'd like to think that the people of the Netherlands have a sweeter constitution and dessert in the evening alone can't sustain them. To survive the long, dangerous hours between breakfast and dessert, they take chocolate vitamins to tide them over. More
People who rag on Conversation Hearts as tasteless, chalky pills totally miss the point. You don't eat Conversations Hearts, you experience them. I can remember everything about them without having had a box in years. More
Imagine, if you will, a cage match between Butterfinger, 5th Avenue, and Clark Bar. Who would emerge victorious to claim the crispiest, crunchiest, peanut butteriest crown? Moreover, how might we then usurp the throne for ourselves? Let us first define the rules of engagement. More
The contents of this post may suddenly disappear when they realize how much classified information it contains. Please read this quickly, before they find out. We don't have much time. More
What made Jell-O pudding in the little plastic cup so exceptional compared to the instant variety, or even homemade, related directly to its texture. It had a slick silkiness that made all other puddings seem as thick and heavy as paste. You could suck up a spoonful through closed teeth, letting it flood your mouth with creamy chocolate wonder. And what can compare to the exquisite pleasure of licking clean the chocolate stained tinfoil lid? More
Like loose change lurking in couch cushions, half eaten boxes of Nilla Wafers populate our cupboards; buried treasure lost amid the Seven Cs (cookies, crackers, chocolate, cereal, candy, chips, and cola). No Pantry Pirate ever sets out to find Nilla Wafers, instead, Nilla Wafers reveal themselves with the time is right. Just as despair sets in, the weary snacker sets eyes on their golden shores. More
The variety of sanctioned nomenclature for Stylized Animal Snacks boggles the mind. "Wait, what's a Stylized Animal Snack?" you ask. Well, I'd call 'em Animal Crackers, but you might've called them Animal Cookies. Unless you called them Circus Animals. Or did you prefer Zoo or Carousel Animals? More
The mere sight of an Oreo stirs up feelings in me disturbingly like love. Not, of course, a torrid, star crossed love. Or even a simple storybook love. No, Oreos give you the kind of love only found in a long term relationship. They're familiar, comforting and pretty good in bed. (Oh, like you never eat cookies in bed?) More
What I can't give you: the sound. The crisp, glassine crinkle of Little Debbie's cello wrap crumpling between your fingers. The delicate, mournful song the wadded-up wrapper sings as it slowly unfurls in the trash bin, discarded after faithfully protecting your snack for so long. What I can give you: fluffy yellow cake, silky whipped filling, and a coating of chocolate resilient enough to let you carry the whole thing around in the palm of your hand. More
Santa and Milanos have equally substantiated merits. Santa supposedly rewards children for their behavior and Milanos ostensibly taste good. Both claims remain scientifically impossible to prove, but even so, people continue to believe in them because both point to something beautiful. More
Maybe it's the PTSD (that's Post Thanksgiving Sobriety Disinclination) talking, but any dessert that can accommodate a few ounces bourbon seems like the very definition of Happy Holidays to me. Not that McDonald's Egg Nog shake is alcoholic. Just that, well, it should be. More
Okay, let me get this straight. It's Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and you've bellied up to Serious Eats for more? Either you're not an American or you're an exceptionally good one. In any case, winter has almost arrived and with it? Hot cocoa season. More
Most of my childhood memories center around food and one of the earliest involves Fig Newtons. Before my brother had the audacity to be born on my fourth birthday, I was a painfully shy only child. So when my aunt and cousin drove in from out of town for a visit, I felt slightly terrified. My cousin was a bone fide Big Kid who could ride a bike and stuff. Don't those Big Kids pick on the Little Ones? I didn't plan on sticking around to find out. More
Not all 1980s era spokes-creatures suffered at the hands of human children as Lucky the Leprechaun did. Chester Cheetah and Tony the Tiger enjoyed an open dialogue with kids that, while perhaps overstepping the bounds of traditional customer-service interactions, symbolized a new era of peaceful human-mascot relations. But none worked harder to maintain this lasting peace than diminutive Ernest J. Keebler. More
Urban legend has it that some industrial candy snafu botched the names of 3 Musketeers and Milky Way. The tale has a certain logic. 3 Musketeers doesn't have three ingredients but Milky Way does. And the very name Milky Way recalls the smooth, uninterrupted creaminess found in 3 Musketeers. Those kinds of wonky urban legends ran amok in the eighties, but we have the internet now, so let's clear this stuff up. It's not a tasty tabloid tale of "Switched at Birth!" but rather "Murder, She Wrote." More
One of my favorite parts of snuggling up to the latest issue of any given food magazine is catching up on restaurant news in cities across America. New York. Boston. San Francisco. Chicago. Lexington. "Wait, Lexington...What state is that even in?" I can hear you asking. More
Today, I give the world homemade Lucky Charms marshmallows. That's right. You can now make little Styrofoam pellets of pure joy. Crispy, toothache inducing marshmallowy delight. I'm talking about marshmallows so crisp they get mistaken for astronaut ice cream. Any color you can imagine. Any shape. No leprechaun hunting required. More
After using my culinary time machine to rip a hole in the fabric of the kitchen space-time continuum, I visited an alternate universe where I discovered Brown Butter Soft Batch Cookies. The responsible time/dimensional traveler would have turned back; patched up the rift and come home straight away. And I promise, I'll do just that. But as long as we're here, I want one more souvenir. You see, I discovered the alternate-universe's Nutella, like peanut butter, comes in both crunchy and creamy. More
I can vouch for every dessert on the menu. Ah-mazing. I want to be Shawn when I grow up.
@fearlessem, I'm sorry to hear of your Butterfinger woes! To be honest, I am not much of a confectioner. I puzzled this recipe out through trial and error but don't have a particularly deep understanding of the process so I'm afraid I don't know how to diagnose what went wrong with your batch (other than to say it seems like some crystallization happened). The peanut mixture is right, it goes on kinda thick, but ultimately it's pretty "fluffy" and compresses as the mixture is rolled out.
At any rate, since posting the recipe I've continued tinkering with it at work. I've just updated it here to reflect those changes; I've cut the molasses with corn syrup and reduced the sugar. I'm hopeful those changes will make the candy easier to work with for those attempting the Butterfingers. If you ever decide to give it a go again, I hope you'll find it better behaved.
i hate that recipe. it's okay if you're in a major pinch and need dough NOW, but it's really cracker-like.
i wonder if it's the same recipe from "how to cook everything." cos that one is pretty solidly mediocre.
Fun fact: that SAME chicken leg had previously been gnawed on by Ed Levin, Blackbird's Bryce Caron and Kenji before finally being passed on to me. Even as a hand me down, it was delicious.
@rdub92, using the ounces on a measuring cup will definitely give you the worst cookies ever, and I'm sorry you had to find that out the hard way. :( For example, corn syrup weighs roughly 12 ounces to a cup, not 8 like water, which is how liquid ounce measurements are determined. Likewise, flour weighs about 4.5 ounces to a cup, also unlike the 8 for water. Your measurements would have been significantly off base. I hope you'll give them a shot with a scale so you can experience the intended results. You can get a great digital kitchen scale for about $25 at places like Bed, Bath & Beyond or Target; small price to pay for a lifetime of homemade OCP, no? :)
I would wager the scaling issue also caused trouble with the filling, but having had another report of a runny filling, I'll check the recipe against my method again today at work and see if there's something amiss.
@Erin, so glad to reunite you two. ;)
@becki, validation!!
@pointypartyhat @fatitalianbroad, I'm intrigued at the conflicting opinion. I wish I'd had the original so I could weigh in!!
@fatitalianbroad, please leave a comment with the recipe if you make these, I'm desperately curious for someone who remembers a Magic Middle to evaluate them!
@emscookin, You're a speed demon getting to these cookies so fast! :) The syrup cooling too much shouldn't be a problem, it may just be it wasn't as fluffy as you were expecting.
The creme is fairly fluid right after it's made. I pipe a dab in the center and let it spread out on its own toward the edges (which is why it's important to just pipe a quarter sized dollop lest it overflow when the second cookie is added).
If you haven't already pitched the filling you have, you may find it easier to pipe after letting it stand for an hour or two; it will begin to thicken up as the gelatin sets and will be easier to work with. Hope that info helps!
@aintbaroque, google "bake it so tshirt" and you'll see my favorite shirt to wear to work.
@Julian, next on my list!!
Sorry for the late reply, I've been out of town!
@tonisan9, you can just leave it out. I've got it in there as literalist recreation of the biscoff recipe, but from a technical standpoint it's not necessary. It adds a bit of nuttiness to the flavor profile. Most Asian markets will sell Kinako in small 3 ounce bags for about a dollar, so it's no huge investment if you ever find yourself somewhere that sells it. I use it in a ton of recipes on my blog, so I can help you polish off the rest. ;)
@Gravitystorm, Oh no! I'm sorry to hear they didn't turn out like you'd hoped. I make them often at work and double checked the recipe for typos, but everything seems to be in order. I can definitely attest that these are not at all tender cookies, but rather extremely crunchy crackers. If you were expecting something like Barnum's, I can understand your disappointment.
Wow, thank you for such a lovely flood of congratulations. It means a lot to me. :)
@Saria, who could blame you?! Who is it, btw? I'm flying to NYC in just over a week to meet everyone, I'll say hello for you. XD
@Kazb0t, these are great with honey! The molasses gives them the characteristic flavor (Butterfinger, Clark Bar & 5th Ave all use it), but I've made it with great success using honey too. Maple syrup behaves a little differently and I'd be less confident about it turning out quite as well.
But yes, 3 folds all together. I've done up to 5, but the flakiness starts to go down hill after 3. As the layers get thinner, so does the peanut/cornflake mixture in between, which means the sugar layers start to come into contact with each other, seeping around the nuts/flakes, then fusing into a solid mass. I found the 4- and 5-fold batches to be more mealy than flakey, almost like a cookie. I ended up taking that batch and grinding it in a food processor and using it as a garnish for ice cream, because it just wasn't fit as a candy bar.
Let me know if you wind up making a batch!
@heman8400, wait, do you mean s'mores Pop-Tarts or making s'mores WITH Pop-Tarts? I hope you mean the latter, because that sounds incredibly exciting...
Thank you all so much! It was a blast to come home from work and read all of these wonderful comments. I seriously
@Control, alas but no. I tried it; the sprinkles stick to each other as they come out instead of settling down into distinct lines. They're too sticky. :( I'm afraid it's arthritis or bust!
@jae_em, the vanilla flavor is definitely pronounced and while I really like it that way, don't hesitate to cut back on the vanilla. Just replace whatever you cut with water for the right consistency.
@grumblekitty, if you make sure to use instant COFFEE powder and not espresso powder (a mistake I've made before!), then it's totally unnoticeable. It just gives a bit more dimension to the flavor. Yeah. I'm talking about the dimension of flavor in a sprinkle. Nothing mocha-y or even identifiable as coffee, just a deeper/darker note that intensifies the chocolate. I think you'll like what it does. Fingers crossed.
@carriebwc, they're important for healthy living! ;)
@Lauren, oh that sounds like something that HAS to happen....
@ag3208, yowza!
@hotcookies, sorry I missed your comment! I had my notifications turned off, apparently. I don't know what to say about the Jello powder, having never used it in this case. I don't know if it would change the final texture or have any unforeseen consequences.
@grumblekitty, It can definitely eat up time making all the different flavors, but if you just pick one favorite flavor, it's much faster. Also, it's super kid-friendly, you can let your son play with the candy dough just like Play-Doh, mushing it around or molding into fun shapes rather than cutting it out.
@cyberroo, thanks for reporting in! Good call on rolling them thinner for a larger shape, could be tooth-breaking otherwise. :) The espresso ones sound awesome!
@efelliot, indeed the corn flakes listed in the ingredients are something known as "confectioners corn flakes" and it's my understanding that they're the rolled oats of corn, made in flat little sheets rather than grains (maybe grits are the steel cut oats of corn? haha). At this point, I've made the Butterfingers with and without the corn flakes and they're pretty spot on either way, but I am partial to the extra layer of crunch from the Corn Flakes, even if they're not the "real thing." Thanks for the interest...
One of my happiest memories of Japan is walking around with a yakiimo to keep my fingers warm in the dead of January. The other, two skewers of tsukune, which I could eat shamelessly on the lonely walk between the vendor at the subway station and my apartment where I'd almost never run in to anyone. Thanks for this mega shot of nostalgia!!
@MoEats, go for it! The original French candy that they're based on was made with almonds.
@CCAAA, it's a reference to someone having "butterfingers" or being clumsy; something like even a "Butterfinger" would manage to hold on to one. They seemed to be a different standard for naming convictions a hundred years ago, I think...
@Maggie, @Carey, Happy Valentine's Day! :)
@HollywithaY, they've really lost their glory, that's for sure...
@Tongo Rad, YES!!!! Ah, that's such genius. I wanted to do some from MST3K, a BSG set, some trek-themed ones, but writing on them proved so incredibly difficult!
I'll refrain from quoting myself from the article on my feelings toward beets in cake. ;)
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Amy, seriously, those look insanely perfect. That halo of bubbly crust is killing me! Can we set up a trade? ;)