Pastry Chef Attempts to Make Gourmet Butterfingers

Brad you gotta, you gotta spend

more time on Gourmet Makes with me.

Yeah. It's just so much more fun.

Yeah.

On to the next mission.

Always.

Of education and suffering.

[laughs]

Also known as Gourmet Makes.

[upbeat music]

[pots falling]

Sorry [laughs] sorry.

Hey everyone I'm Claire

we're in the BA test kitchen

and today I'm making gourmet,

Butterfingers.

[upbeat music]

Butterfinger has been on my wish list

for Gourmet Makes for a very very long time,

almost since the beginning.

It's one of my favorite candies

and it has always been one of my favorites.

As a kid it was the thing that

I would trade other people for

you know after Halloween

we're all looking at our candy.

I just love the peanut flavor.

I love that it has that unique texture

with all of the really thin layers

of this kind of caramel-y honeycomb type airy

but still hard and crunchy center.

With just a thin, super super thin layer of chocolate.

So this one of those candies where

it's a total mystery to me how they make them

and how during the process of all of those thin layers of

what's kind of like a peanut brittle-y substance is formed.

So I think it'll be a cool learning opportunity

and just excited to eat the candy cause I love butterfinger.

This is really the only butterfinger I'm familiar with.

I mean there is this one, there's the crisp bar.

I remember Butterfinger BB's when I was a kid

but that's not a thing anymore apparently, right?

They don't? Oh, there's bites?

Is this what Butterfinger BB's were turned into?

Nobody lay a, nobody lay a finger on my Butterfinger.

The crispity crunchity peanut-buttery.

Crispy and with Bart Simpson.

Yeah, good commercials.

Great commer, great candy bar Claire

I am stoked for this one.

Me too.

One of the best.

I agree.

Have you eaten one?

No no no.

First of all they almost, like fiber-y.

Yeah.

It's almost like, like um, Like threads.

Like um um, Like halwa.

Yes.

Mm, how do they do this?

It is so good.

I can see why Bart was so fired up.

Four grams of protein.

Ah, it's good for ya.

[laughs]

Calcium, potassium, .6 milligrams of iron.

Great. Good for the kids.

Uh. Peanut soy milk.

Did you do this already?

We don't really do this part.

Oh no, no, no, we don't read the [stammers].

We're not there yet?

We're not there yet.

All right. See ya brad, sorry. [laughs]

I feel like I just [beeps] the show up all the time.

That's all right. [laughs]

They'll edit it out.

I keep watching these episodes and I'm like,

I thought I was in that.

[laughs]

Boy, they just cut it all out.

Yeah. [somber music]

It's all right, just don't feel bad.

They cut out a lot of stuff of me too.

[noises]

Thank you.

Maybe the reason why I think it tastes so incredible

and better than I remember is because

it says that they made an improved recipe.

I'm very interested in reading more about

how they improved it.

It's interesting, like, it doesn't say what it is.

It just says Butterfinger, crispity, cunchity,

peanut buttery, but like, peanut buttery what?

You know how it'd be like cream filled whatever.

It's like, what is it?

If you were to say what Butterfinger is,

because they say, Butterfinger, crispity, crunchity,

peanut buttery, but then it's like dot, dot, dot.

What is it?

Bar, it's a bar.

It's like layers of what, like, brittle,

and something more flakey?

It's really unique.

It is, there's nothing like this.

But now I want to clear all of this off,

and take a closer look and try to really

get in there to like really take a look.

It's like five and a half centimeters long,

by three centimeters wide,

and about one and a half tall.

It's not perfectly rectangular.

It fans out a bit on either end and widens slightly.

And now I'm gonna break it open.

This one is hard.

Oh my god, how is it that hard to break open a Butterfinger?

I'm flaking off the chocolate coating

cause I wanna, very closely, examine.

Okay, ah-hah.

So this gives me a good indication of how these are created.

If I had to guess, this filling is worked

into long ropes that are then cut in

different lengths to make the different sizes

of Butterfinger bars.

The two ends are really pinched together

and compressed to make this sloped,

kind of pleasant pillow shape and with

the totally flat bottom.

It is an, just such an interesting texture in there.

I can't crumble anything or flake it

into any layers just by pressing on it.

But as soon as I break it open, you know,

there is pieces that kinda want to flake off.

Like that.

This definitely seems to me like the hard crack caramel,

it just shatters into these very fine layers.

Now it's time for my favorite part,

reading the ingredients.

Corn Syrup, Sugar, Peanuts, Vegetable Oil

[Palm Kernel Oil and Palm Oil],

Peanut Flour, Nonfat Milk, Less Than Two% Cocoa,

Milk, Salt, Yellow Corn Flour, Soy Lecithin,

Natural Flavor, Annatto Color.

Okay, lots of interesting stuff here.

Even though there's not that many ingredients.

The yellow corn flour, I think is really strange.

So I'd like to go over to the computer

and start to take a look online, see what we can find.

Yeah, let's read about this improved formula.

Wow, in January 2019, Ferrara reformulated the Butterfinger.

The new bar also uses a higher percentage of cocoa and milk

in the chocolate coating and cuts ingredients such

as the preservative TBHQ and hydrogenated oils.

Okay, so they made it a little more natural.

They are using peanuts they're roasting themselves.

That's cool.

What?

In order to get that rich, flakiness,

the recipe calls for the addition of cornflakes.

So the, the cornmeal is cause it said cornflakes?

Or something?

I don't know if I believe this.

[Male] Poured in 100,000 pounds of peanut butter,

mixed in giant vats, along with another ingredient

that just might surprise you.

People may not realize that one of the ingredients

we use in Butterfinger is cornflakes.

Ah.

[Male] You heard right.

The research phase was helpful and it did give me,

actual pretty good sense of how the whole thing is made.

So one surprising thing was the presence of cornflakes.

Not cornflakes the cereal like we think of,

but a sort of, very fine, puffed, puffed corn flake,

I guess.

And then it is this, folding technique,

and then it gets kind of flattened,

and formed into these bar shapes and cut and that,

that is the Butterfinger filling.

And I get that.

Sohla when you have a minute you wanna talk sugar?

I failed, so I don't know how much help I can offer.

Talk to us about when you tried to make this.

Okay, it was a really long time ago.

But it was like, a, a toffee,

and then while it was still hot,

ground peanuts and feuilletine Mhm.

On top, and like, I tried to fold and roll--

Uh-huh. and fold and roll.

Uh-huh. I think I got two turns.

And then it just hardened and then

you couldn't do anything with it?

It wasn't good, I mean, I sold them to people anyways.

I think 90% of this, if not, 95% of this episode

will be trying to devise a method for the filling.

I'm actually not that worried about flavor.

It's gonna be all about the texture and shape.

My plan is to make a toffee, smear peanut butter over it.

I'm not going to do anything with cornflakes yet.

I want to just get a sense of the method

and then go from there.

[upbeat music]

Rhoda found me some of the good peanut butter.

So my idea is to actually spread the peanut butter

onto a a greased silpat.

And then basically put it, peanut butter side down,

over a slab of the toffee and peel the silpat off.

Also this is a really salty peanut butter.

[sighs]

Oh!

Jeez, ugh.

This is going into the refrigerator

because all of those oils and

the peanut butter will set up.

While that chills I'm starting the toffee.

Toffee is like a mixture of brown sugar, butter,

and you're cooking it to the point where the sugar

is at hard crack, but it's different than a true caramel

where you're taking sugar well beyond that hard crack stage.

In, you know, above 300 Fahrenheit.

So this is lookin' pretty ready.

[sighs]

Let's do a final temp.

Yeah, we're at 300, okay, great.

I mean, I want it kind of in

the same slab shape as the peanut butter-ish.

Oh, see, this is gonna be so tough.

It's already hardening.

Ay-ay-ay.

Well this is a mess.

Hold on, okay so here was my plan.

Peanut butter that I can't peel off

onto this slab that is now hardened.

So I have to try again.

This is not gonna work.

[breaking]

[laughing]

What did I cook the sugar to in Mentos?

Oh, Krispy Kreme, Takis, [Claire laughs]

Jelly Belly.

No that was pizza rolls.

Milky way.

Taki dough.

[laughs]

We lost Mentos! [laughs]

But I, but that episode came out.

I wrote it down somewhere. Oh, this is it. This is it.

That's it?

Yeah, cook to hard crack.

Oh damn it.

Does that help you?

I take terrible notes.

Oh yeah. Was that 270?

Okay.

Is this the final? Yeah.

On the second version, where I'm doing just--

[glass breaks]

[all exclaiming]

Damn it. Everything's fine.

Version two is going to be a mixture of just

corn syrup, a little water, and brown sugar.

I'm gonna cook it to a lower temperature

and I think I'm gonna quickly like, pipe the peanut butter

over top and then try to work with it very, very quickly

and see what I can make happen.

[upbeat music]

I'll cook it to like 270 this time.

I'm piping rows of the peanut butter over top.

[upbeat music]

It's actually starting to set up quite a bit.

So I think at this point I wanna try to cut it.

All right, so these aren't exactly

the nicest, prettiest bars,

but I'm happy that cooking that mixture

to a lower temperature still let me work with it.

But also allowed it to harden.

[tapping]

It definitely formed lots of layers.

I mean maybe not the most even layers,

but it certainly has that laminated quality,

which is kinda cool,

I really didn't even think you could do that with sugar.

The layers are there, and the flavor's actually pretty good,

It's peanut-y but it's too sticky, dense, hard,

stick in your teeth.

I have a lot of good thoughts for picking

this up on day two.

Kind of a cool test, kind of excited about it.

At least I have some, direction, you know?

[Dan] You feel okay about chocolate

or is that a whole other conversation?

Oh, I'm not worried about chocolate.

Sohla said she wants to temper with me,

which I am excited about,

so I'm not worried about that at all.

[upbeat music]

Over the weekend I went to a very special store in New York

that sells a special product called, feuilletine.

Which has that kind of cornflake-y,

really light crispy texture,

which I'm really excited to experiment with today.

Because the problem that I had on day one with the test

was even though I got the layers and I got good flavor

it was too hard, like, it was too firm of a crunch

and it didn't have, sort of, that airy, crispy

separation that a Butterfinger has.

I think in this one, I just want to start

doing a bunch of tests and seeing how much I can improve it.

Last time I used all dark brown sugar

and I think the flavor was a little molasses heavy,

so now I'm using a mix of dark brown and white,

in one to one.

[upbeat music]

I knew it was you, I can just tell from your footsteps.

My foot, I have very iconic footsteps.

Very distinctive, well, I just, we hear them a lot.

Yeah.

This is, uh, your favorite peanut butter of all time.

I know, it's so good. It's the best.

[Dan] You were a strong advocate in the

Reese's episode for Claire making her own peanut butter.

Has something changed?

I was?

I think you have to make your own peanut butter.

[sighs]

And I think-- That's not,

that's the wrong answer.

I want a deeper toasty-ness to the peanuts.

When the only components are peanut butter and chocolate,

I see-- Yes.

the point in making your own peanut butter.

Yes, correct.

But like, this is, this is-- This is just, another,

you know condiment cheating, Yeah, right.

We don't need to waste our time on this,

we have a very good product.

I'm not, I'm not trying to go insane.

I mean it seems like you kinda have been

ever since you started doing the show.

I know, it's just, I know.

[laughs]

[crashing]

Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh, uh oh.

The flakes are a little bit large,

I wanna break them up so they're finer

because I don't want there to, them to be so distinctive.

I want them to blend and disappear into the filling.

But I think the whole thing could use another hit of salt.

[upbeat music]

So, now I'm applying thin stripes of peanut butter,

now I'm just folding it onto itself.

Oh [bleeps] I forgot this, damn.

I meant to put that in.

[upbeat music]

Before it fully set, I want to try to cut it.

[crunches]

Actually, the flavor is very, very close to Butterfinger.

It's just too many layers of the sugar

that are still too thick.

But it's definitely doing that, like,

shattering, Butterfinger layers kind of thing.

You can see where there's like, a thicker layer

of sugar in there, that didn't really, really stretch.

This has a very, very uniform interior, as compared to this,

which is a little bit, little bit coarse.

But, but the texture's kind of the same,

it's that kind of shattering, crumbly, break apart,

I'm kinda into this.

I feel like this version is a little bit

more successful than the last one.

And now what I want to try to do is the following,

I want to cook another sugar mixture,

and I think the best thing to do is,

before I add the peanut butter, and the feuilletine,

I should try to start stretching it.

And also, I think I want to add a splash of vanilla.

[upbeat music]

I want to start immediately trying to work with it.

Ow, it's really hot.

[upbeat music] All right, I feel like this is already

maybe working a little bit better.

It's more turning into threads, rather than sheets.

I made spaghetti Butterfinger.

[snipping]

Ooh.

It's better, the texture is better.

So sticky though.

Flavor's great.

[laughs]

But it still has parts of it that are really hard,

and gets super stuck in your teeth.

It looks pretty close.

Color is certainly better.

So one idea is to stir the feuilletine

into the sugar while it's still hot,

right off the stove and then pour it out

and start to stretch it that way.

And then working the peanut butter in.

[upbeat music]

[Dan] Do you think it's gonna work.

I don't know, Dan.

Inconvenient questions at the moment.

[upbeat music] So one thing I didn't do before was like,

really enclose the peanut butter well, and then flatten it.

So this time we're trying to make more flat layers,

rather than threads.

[snipping]

Ah! Okay.

Oh, yeah, oh yeah.

It's not, that's not gonna happen.

Yeah, well these are the densest version yet,

sort of the opposite of what I was hoping.

[snaps]

I don't know what to do with this.

[smacking]

Hmm.

I had one other idea to lighten it,

which is to aerate it using like, a brittle method,

which means stirring a little bit of baking soda

into the sugar mixture.

And that causes a chemical reaction where it produces gas,

I don't know.

I just want to try it.

[upbeat music]

[snipping]

The way that it's cutting,

it feels like there's more air in there.

Ooh.

Definitely best version yet.

It feels much less prone to sticking in my teeth.

You can see, obviously that this is much thicker

than the thickness of a Butterfinger.

This has chocolate on it already,

but it really does wanna easily break apart.

Whoa, it's soft.

Oh, here.

[laughs]

I'm saving it for later.

That's very good. Yeah?

I wanna just think more carefully about dimensions,

and shape, and size.

My strategy for forming the filling into a shape

that will be appropriate for Butterfinger

is to create guides on the silpat with a Sharpie

and then it's gonna maybe be a little rough,

but I think it'll be fine.

This time I'm going to measure the feuilletine,

and I'm gonna mix them in a bowl with this time,

three eights teaspoon of baking soda.

Which is 50% more than I was using before.

Actually since I know I'm gonna be adding salt.

[upbeat music]

[chopping]

Phew. I feel really good about that.

They're maybe not perfectly even,

but each one looks similar to the other.

Like, they all look pretty close in size.

Maybe a little tall. But we'll see.

But overall, at least it has that effect where

there's a flat bottom and a kind of rounded top.

[crunching]

Mm.

Wow, I think the extra bit of salt really, really helps.

The flavor is great.

I think it's a little sticky still.

And that's because I overcooked it a little bit.

But overall, this is still progress

because I was able to form it, and cut it,

and I like this shape a lot better.

I think on day three, I'm gonna come in,

and do one final version of, it's never a good thing to say,

I'm gonna try [stammers] one more time to make the filling,

cooking it a little more carefully,

not letting it get away from me.

Today, I got really far, and actually feel great

about the flavor and the texture.

And I think we'll wrap it up on day three.

Not, no curse.

There's no day two curse, there's no day three curse.

Mercury's out of retrograde, right?

It has been for a while, I think.

[upbeat music]

What's this?

I just got like a little package in

this drawer [laughs] sent to me.

What is it?

What is this?

Oh, it's playing cards.

Oh my god, these are so good.

Oh my god, I don't know if it really looks like me,

also look what the back says.

Oh, my god, that's a good sign.

All right.

Put these away.

One thing I'm going to do is,

[laughs] I'm going to actually put it into this

kind of weird shaped loaf pan as a mold,

and I think that will help with more separated layers.

[upbeat music]

Some well mixed peanut butter, tell you that,

so this is the mixture of feuilletine,

salt, and baking soda.

[upbeat music]

The cut had a article that was like,

are sweatsuits appropriate to wear out of the house.

Obviously I feel that it is.

But I don't, but not all the time.

I just had a really late night.

And I just wanted to be comfortable.

Oh, my god.

[beeps]

I was not paying attention Dan.

[laughs]

[beeps] All right, well that may be a little hot.

So I'm going to now transfer it into this pan.

Is this what I did the last time? Are we sure?

Oh [beeps] I did not, damn it, [groans] I messed it up.

I forgot to pour that in.

[sighs] Well that was a trial, it was a test run,

I forgot to put in the feuilletine

in all that whole mixture.

That's why it did seem a lot different in texture,

is that I hadn't really aerated it.

All right, well that was a good test run.

Let's try one more time.

[upbeat music]

268, 269, all right.

Not gonna forget this time.

I can see that it's aerated,

there's lots of tiny little bubbles.

See how it just generally looks lighter in color.

This is a different pan, it's smaller.

[upbeat music]

[chopping]

They feel pretty good.

This has, oop, ooh, it's hardened.

And [tapping] it's a good sign that it broke so easily.

All right, I feel very good about those flakey layers.

It's a very promising looking texture.

Ooh!

[crunching]

That's it, I'm done.

I don't have to make this part anymore.

Mm, this filling tastes great.

[crunching]

It's very, kind of, shattering.

In the way that the Butterfinger filling is.

Great peanut butter flavor,

I think it actually could use a bit more salt.

So I might top with a little bit of flakey salt.

Cause I think that could really enhance it.

Sticks in your teeth a little bit,

but overall the flavor is really good,

not too sweet, mm, really does taste like a Butterfinger.

I'm kinda proud of this.

[crunching]

All right, I'm gonna stop eating this.

I'm gonna move on to tempering the chocolate,

I'm gonna set up my, well let me ask Sohla,

cause Sohla likes to temper chocolate by hand

and maybe she wants to do it together.

Sohla looks really busy,

she's with three people already watching what she's doing.

I'm gonna wait.

I'm gonna wait, I don't want to bother her.

What's happening over here?

Queso.

Ooh, it smells so good Sohla.

Do you want to try it?

I came over here to ask about tempered chocolate

but now we're having a queso tasting.

A little taste.

Yeah.

Mm, I love the flavor, also great heat.

I came over to ask if you had time

to temper chocolate at some point.

[gasps]

And how do you feel about milk chocolate versus dark?

I mean, I like milk chocolate. Both.

But it's maybe kind of sweet.

Why don't we do both?

I know, I've done a mix before, should we do a mix?

It's just a little harder to temper.

Or like, one of each.

Ooh, take your pick?

Take your pick. Okay, I have a great idea,

how about I do milk, you do dark, and we do it side by side.

That sounds fun.

Okay.

Have a temper off.

[laughs]

Yeah, but mostly I'm just gonna do what you do. [laughs]

Um.

Do you mind explaining what tempered chocolate is?

When you melt chocolate, there's like five or six

different crystal structures that--

Oh, is that right?

Yeah, it can like reset at

different crystal configurations.

Uh huh.

And you're aiming for this one particular one

and the only way to nail it is by like,

doing this temperature thing.

So the idea is to get something that has a snap and

that looks shiny, and doesn't start to immediately melt

when you handle it.

We're gonna do the seed method today.

You start by melting a bunch of chocolate,

you want to take it up to at least 95,

it really easily gets to 95 so don't go crazy.

Mm-hm. [laughs]

and then you add back some tempered chocolate

and then that's got those seed crystals,

to help you get to the, the right structure you want.

Okay, we'll get started.

[upbeat music]

Ah, spilling the water.

So Sohla is doing her regular work,

actual job, and I'm going to take the lead on this stuff.

I got dark chocolate on my right, that'll be Sohla's

and milk chocolate on my left.

Sohla weighed out 30% of all the chocolate of both kinds,

and this, I'm, we're gonna chop, and this'll be the seed.

The milk is almost completely melted,

the dark chocolate needs a little more.

I'm gonna turn up the heat on that one. Should I temp this?

Yeah. Okay.

Oh, Sohla.

Is it? Oh let's turn that off.

Oh, it's off. [laughs]

I'll take it off.

But I mean, I think it'll be fine.

Did I ruin it?

It's just slightly inconvenient.

Well, that's pretty much how this show works, so.

[laughs]

All right, let's go.

Okay.

Seed.

[upbeat music]

Oh, you're like, really stirring.

I heard, like, vigorous stirring is supposed

to help with crystal formation.

Okay.

[upbeat music]

Yeah, we're just stirring until our seed chocolate melts.

If we want to speed it up, um,

I like to do it in the walk in.

[upbeat music]

When we're close, it's gonna start,

like, clinging to the bowl.

It's gonna feel really thick and like it's gonna set on you.

Okay, I'm at 74, no 5.

You should go back over the water.

Everybody outside.

[laughing]

It's all right, I got it.

Too, too cold.

Ay, ay, ay.

Now I'm making a huge mess.

Sorta miss the sous vide method.

Sohla, I'm set.

Oh god [laughs] it tempered into the bowl.

I mean, it just cooled it.

It didn't temper, it just set. Okay.

[upbeat music]

So annoying and hard.

So now I'm doing a little test on parchment

to see if it's tempered.

I want it to be streak free, shiny,

and it should snap rather than bend.

Claire, listen to the snap.

[snaps]

[laughing]

I think we should go on this guy while it's still good.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Look at the texture of that versus this.

Well, let's just go dark.

Like I said, I didn't want to do milk chocolate anyway.

Yeah, this is gonna be tastier.

We're gonna use the dark chocolate, okay.

So, I'm just gonna dip and then place.

Cool.

[upbeat music]

So, I'm just keeping this moving so

it's nice and fluid for us.

We're gonna get Willy Wonka on this.

[tapping]

[sighs]

That was uh, thrilling.

That was so fast.

[laughing]

That was the fastest I've ever covered

anything in tempered chocolate.

It's so much easier with two people.

Yeah, I don't know how you do it alone.

[Claire] They look so shiny!

They look so shiny, they're totally set,

we're just surrounded by [laughs]

so much tempered chocolate right now.

This can't be anything but a win.

There you go.

Oh, you know what I forgot?

This is just flakey salt.

So cool, we're gonna let these completely set,

and then we'll come back and taste.

I can't believe how fast that happened.

[upbeat music]

You hear about the squall?

Oh yeah.

Everyone's talking about the squall.

It's supposed to be here in three minutes.

Oh, warning till 5:30 PM.

You skipped like, the best part, though.

What is--

Sudden whiteouts.

Icy roads.

[Claire] Wait, view.

[Delaney] Slow down.

Um you wanna taste some of these?

Yeah.

Can you tell which are homemade?

I would say these are homemade.

Yeah, correct.

Sohla tempered the chocolate and she did such a good job.

It was fast and furious,

but it worked and I learned some stuff.

Best thing about Claire Saffitz,

she lives her life a quarter mile at a time.

Uh, what does that mean?

The fast and the furious?

Oh.

You just said fast [sighs].

Like the movie? Vin Diesel, Paul,

it's all right, it's all right.

You can definitely see the layers.

All right, ready?

Yeah, go for it.

Let's try it.

[crunching]

Oh!

Claire, that is good.

It's surprisingly flakey.

Yeah. And like crumbly.

In a good way.

Yeah.

You know what,

I'm glad it's dark chocolate cause it's pretty sweet.

Ah, success.

Thank you, admit it, you're a little surprised.

Definitely surprised. I thought you were gonna get close,

I didn't think you we're gonna get that close.

Oh, love hearing that.

Is it happening, oh it is happening.

Yeah you don't believe me.

No, of course I believe you.

You want to try Butterfinger?

Sure, I thought a snack would never come.

Chocolate tempered by Sohla.

Mm, it's really good.

Thanks.

Oh, wow.

Look at it now.

The squall of 2019.

15 minutes ago was totally white outside

and now look at it.

If you're a tourist and you have a no idea,

you're like what the [beeps].

[chewing]

I think it, this, you crushed,

I feel like this is one if your best ones yet.

Aw, thanks. Yeah.

I couldn't have done it without you.

Mm.

Thanks Sohla. Thank you.

It only took me two years to [crunching]

get a little tempered chocolate demo.

You want a Butterfinger?

Nobody lay a, better lay a finger on my Butterfinger.

Here, I made you one.

Oh.

Right off the bat.

I do see you achieved some nice layers.

Mm.

Color, little off.

Well I didn't put annatto,

I didn't put any coloring in it.

I kind of forgot. Oh, okay.

Oh, you kind of forgot?

Yeah.

Is it tacky?

Not tacky, but it's just eh, could be a little sticky.

I mean, not bad though Claire.

Thank you.

Actually great layers Claire.

Thank you.

Tastes like a god dang Butterfinger.

God dang.

[laughs]

Oh, that was a good bite Claire.

Good.

I'm proud of you. You did a great job on this.

[clapping]

Thanks Brad.

Look at that, like a goddamn croissant.

Flakes on flakes. You did a great job Claire.

Aw thanks Brad. That was a tricky one.

I was a little worried.

That actually makes me feel good.

Thank you, here.

That's why I'm here Claire.

Aw, thanks Brad.

Look the white squall ended,

I know.

Skies are opening up,

nothin' but blue skies, sunshine from now on Claire.

All right, go home. That's a wrap for the day.

Yeah, oh yeah. You worked hard today.

Five o'clock, shut it down.

Another one in the books.

Surprisingly fun.

I thought this one was going to be much more frustrating.

But I learned a lot and it wasn't that bad.

So, kind of, uh, best case scenario for

what could've been a really challenging Gourmet Makes.

You get one that you think is gonna be easy and it's hard.

And then you get one that you think is gonna be hard and

it's easy, it doesn't matter.

Said another way, have zero expectations always,

and you'll never be disappointed.

It's kind of a philosophy I've been adopting lately.

[upbeat music]

Here's how you make Gourmet Butterfinger.

For the filling, in a small sauce pan combing 50 grams

dark brown sugar and 50 grams granulated sugar,

100 grams light corn syrup, 20 grams water,

a pinch of salt, and a drop of vanilla paste.

Cook over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar,

then bring to a boil and cook until

the mixture registers 270 degrees Fahrenheit

on an instant read thermometer.

Remove from the hear and stir in a quarter cup

feuilletine tossed with three eights teaspoon baking soda.

Pour the mixture on a silpat, use the silpat and greased,

gloved hands to fold the mixture onto itself

several times to aerate it.

Transfer to a loaf pan lined with greased parchment,

then pipe a layer of natural peanut butter across

the center of the sugar mixture,

then fold the longer ends of the sugar mixture over

the peanut butter to enclose it.

Stretch and fold the mixture as many times

as you can before it starts to harden.

When you feel it setting, pull it into a long strip,

about one and a quarter inches wide.

Use a knife to cut the candy crosswise,

into two inch lengths.

Let cool completely.

For the chocolate coating, in a metal bowl,

set over a large saucepan of gently simmering water,

melt 343 grams of dark chocolate to

113 degrees Fahrenheit stirring continuously.

Remove from the heat and add 147 grams of

finely chopped dark chocolate,

then stir continuously until the temperature falls

to 78 degrees Fahrenheit.

Reheat the mixture over the saucepan until

it reaches 86 Fahrenheit,

dip the bottoms of the candies in the chocolate first,

then set them on a cold,

silpat lined baking sheet,

trim around the candies.

Set the candies on a wired rack set in a

rimmed baking sheet and pour more tempered chocolate

over the tops, tapping vigorously on the counter

to enrobe the entire surface of the candies.

Let them set completely.

To 300. Wait, can I read this note?

[laughs]

Yeah, what's it say?

It's day two, I went home and realized

I could've had a better attitude yesterday.

[laughs]

Did I write that down?

That's not my handwriting!

Someone wrote it.

Who wrote that down?

It's Dan, I'm sure Dan wrote it.

Maybe he was quoting you. Rude.

That is so good. Was this Mentos day two?

I went home and realized I could've had

a better attitude yesterday.

I feel like I'm being trolled by Dan on his vacation.

[laughing]