It's county fair season and, sure, we love the real deal -- funnel cakes, kettle corn, snow cones, deep-fried curiosities, corn dogs and other items on-a-stick -- but what if we could have all those things made with quality ingredients? And clean fryer oil? How great would that be?
These are not your usual contests. We have a slightly nutty system but it works. Together, the Food52 community has created two cookbooks this way -- there’s no stopping us now. Read about it
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The ingredients: milk, flour, bourbon, heavy cream, butter, cocoa powder, eggs and sugar.
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Standard cream puff procedure: we brought the milk and butter just to a boil with a pinch of salt and some water.
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We stirred in the flour and returned the mixture to the heat, stirring constantly. After a few minutes, a rich dough forms.
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Now for the rebellious, yet genius, move! You transfer the dough to a food processor and pulse it for a bit to cool it down.
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When it's no longer blazing hot, we added the eggs little by little with the mixer running.
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And this is what we ended up with: a gorgeous, silky pâte à choux.
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Time to pipe!
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Amanda used her pastry bag to create perfect round puffs.
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A little egg washing session.
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Perfect puffs!
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Hardlikearmour has you slit the puffs and then return them to the oven (now turned off) to dry out a little more.
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This wooden spoon is earning its keep today.
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To make the cream filling, you whisk together the cream, cocoa powder and sugar and let it sit for a bit. Then, you whip it up.
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A touch of bourbon goes in right at the end.
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The puffs were beautifully soft and tender inside.
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To make the fudge, you'll need: buttermilk, breadcrumbs, lemon zest, corn syrup, vanilla extract, salt, baking soda, sugar and butter.
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First step: toasting the breadcrumbs. Then, you stir in the lemon zest.
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For the fudge, we mixed together the buttermilk, butter, sugar, salt, baking soda and corn syrup and got it boiling.
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Amanda butters the pan, while Merrill whisks to dissolve the sugar.
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The fudge starts out looking like this...
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Several minutes later, it looks like this.
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The drizzle test. You want the fudge to come together in a ball when you drop it in ice water, but still be soft to the touch when you pinch it.
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Looks like dulce de leche!
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Whipping the mixture lightens and softens it.
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Then, you can work in the breadcrumbs.
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We found using our fingers was helpful at this point.
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We patted it into the buttered dish and chilled it.
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Yum!
