Blog Archives

The Snack Report: Kit-Kat Vanilla Ice Cream Flavor

One of the more interesting but benign trends Japan has gotten into over the past decade or so has been the rise of fancy flavored Kit-Kat bars. Obviously, in America we simply know them as plain wafer cookies coated in boring milk chocolate and pretty much nobody likes them, since after you’ve eaten one there’s not a whole lot compelling you to ever eat them again. However as weeaboos, otaku, and even people just casually aware of Japanese culture have found out, Nestle actually expanded the Kit-Kat brand into bold, delicious new territories in Japan. There’s more than just the one or two types you see in the west here; Kit-Kats come in dozens of different varieties in Japan, ranging from delicious to interesting to downright insane. Stawberry? Got it. Sweet potato? It’s sweet. Spicy wasabi? You bet your ass they got wasabi. Virtually everything is a Kit-Kat flavor in Japan. Long have I wanted to get my hands on some of these magical flavors, and ironically we ended up finding them not in the multiple Asian grocers we frequent around here, but instead in a gawdy candy store we visited on our trip to Baltimore.

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*cue angels*

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Pizza Lab #21: S’mores Pizza

August is one of my favorite months. And yet it’s a shame this August has been one of the coldest ones in recent history, here on Long Island. We might be approaching Fall at an annoying pace, but that doesn’t mean we can’t squeeze out a few more weeks of Summery activities, so long as the weather doesn’t go completely to hell and we somehow end up with snow in September. We decided to squeeze in one last grilled pizza for the season, and ohhh man was it a good one. Pizza Lab takes on the firepit favorite, s’mores, marking our very first grilled dessert pizza.

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Cheat Codes: Eggless Chocolate Chip Cookies

Picture the scene: It’s midnight.  An adorable mid-20s couple wanders into the kitchen in their PJs with the intent of making chocolate chip cookies.  Then, disaster; they discover that they are out eggs.  How this happened, no one knows.  But there’s nothing that can be done about it now.  What do they do?  Do they give up on having cookies?  Do they go to bed without dessert?  No!  They adapt!

"But what did they do?" asks the little bird.

“But what did they do?” asks the little bird.

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Cheat Codes: How To Melt Chocolate in the Microwave

We’re all aware with the world’s fascination with chocolate. I like chocolate too. I don’t love it per se, but chocolate is good when necessary. Some recipes for frostings or sauces will call for it melted, and quite frequently they recommend using a double boiler to do so. A double boiler is essentially just a a big pot with a smaller pot inside it, with water in between the two. They do work great for melting chocolate, since throwing chocolate into a pot on the stove will generally burn it since the flame / heat striking the bottom of the pot makes it grow too hot too quickly, which can scorch your chocolate or whatever you’re warming.

But really, who even owns a double boiler, outside the hoity of toitiest? They’re handy, but not necessarily a requirement since there’s better, easier ways to heat up delicate foodstuffs like chocolate. Instead, let’s look at how simple it is to use your microwave to melt chocolate chips into a luscious chocolatey liquid. By the way, it’s incredibly easy.

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Pizza Lab #17: Oreo Pizza

Oreos are truly a force to be reckoned with. They’re almost a staple snack food in American culture and have become synonymous with cookies as a result. Everybody likes them, to the point that there’s ongoing discussion about the correct way to eat the damn things. Nabisco themselves have even spunoff the cookies into different varieties like Marshmallow Crispy Oreos and Chocolate Chip Cookie Oreos. They as a snack or dessert have reached a transcendental food status in that they get treated as their own ingredient or flavor for other desserts. That’s pretty freakin’ impressive when you think about it. We see foods now that are straight-up called Oreo-variety, not just chocolate-cookie-variety. So good for Nabisco! Oreos are yummy, and deserve all their mystique. Now obviously, we’ve approached the subject of Oreo desserts before, but this will be a special occasion where Oreos and dessert pizza are combined together!

 

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