- It's actually a really
good garlic bread. Garlic bread is my favorite food. I could honestly eat it for every meal or just eat it all the time
without even stopping. (laughs) - You'd get fat. No. Why would I get fat? - Bread make you fat. - Bread makes you fat? - [Narrator] Hey, what's up guys. Welcome back to Binging with Babish. For this week we're taking
a look at the garlic bread from Scott Pilgrim vs the world, a concept which like last week,
I know is a bit of a reach, but I made a lot of pizza
for this Thursday's basics. So I needed appropriate accompaniments. To start, we're using
this frozen garlic bread as a sort of control group. This is what I grew up eating on spaghetti and meatballs nights. So once prepared, according
to package directions, it seems like a good place to start, and right away, there's a few obvious ways in which we can improve. First off, there's no
fresh garlic and perhaps, just as concerning, in
place of real butter, there's margarine. That being said, it's still toasted bread with garlic and butter flavor. So it tastes really good. Or perhaps that's just
my nostalgia talking. Either way, we've still got
plenty of room for improvement starting with fresh bread. The obvious direction to
go is with your standard, supermarket Italian loaf. I personally like sesame seeds for their added texture and flavor. And once our loaf is vivisected, it's time to slather
it in compound butter. That is one stick of lightly
softened unsalted butter into which we're going to
crush three garlic cloves. Basically the more you
break down your garlic, the more garlic flavor you're gonna get, which is why I opt for the garlic press. Next up, some freshly minced herbs, about two tablespoons each. Finally, chopped basil and parsley, bringing a lot of much needed
dimension to our garlic bread. We are then generously kosher salting and freshly ground peppering and mashing into a cohesive paste. Otherwise known as compound butter, which I personally think you should have in the fridge at all times,
right next to the ketchup and your leftover taco bell sauce packets. The next step is of course, to generously and evenly slather it on top of our bread. From there, you've got two options. For baking, you could either sandwich it, and wrap it in foil, baking
it 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes,
which is gonna give you a crisp exterior and soft interior, but it's gonna leave the
garlic kind of uncooked. I personally prefer to bake open faced at 400 degrees Fahrenheit
for seven to eight minutes until the bread is crisp and
the little chunks of garlic are just starting to turn
lightly blonde around the edges. And there you have it,
some easy, homemade garlic, buttery, herby, crispy,
soft carbohydrate bombs, perfect for serving with pizza
or pasta or any other food that's just bread in a different shape. How can we possibly improve upon this seemingly perfect side dish? Well America's Test Kitchen
has a rather innovative way to both max out garlic flavor
and evenly toast the bread. They start by microplaning their garlic into four tablespoons of melted butter. This ruptures more cell walls, which creates more garlic flavor, which they then microwave for 30 seconds to mellow it back out. Then to bring some of the
long roasted garlic flavors, they combine one teaspoon
each, garlic powder and water, which apparently activates
the garlic flavor in the garlic powder. Add the microwaved butter
and fresh garlic mixture, along with one teaspoon salt, quarter teaspoon cayenne pepper, and four more tablespoons
of refrigerator cold butter, which is going to sort of
rethicken this butter mixture into a spreadable paste. A simple finger dip confirms
that it is delicious and extraordinarily garlicky. This is getting spread on
top our halved Italian loaves by sort of placing a channel of it down the center of the loaf and then using an offset spatula to spread
evenly and prolifically, before placing on a rim baking sheet and baking at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for about four minutes. And this is where the
real innovation starts. We are first to flipping our loaves and then lightly compressing them with another baking sheet,
which we're gonna leave on there as it returns into the oven
for another five to 10 minutes. This is going to ensure that
the cut side of the bread is exposed evenly to the heat. Gorgeously toasting both the bread and the nice pasty garlic. Now I'm sure you will
agree that this is both a handsome and unique
loaf of garlic bread, sort of like the Dan Levy of garlic bread. It's unconventional
and it's neat and crisp and I just wanna eat 'em up. But unlike Dan Levy, I actually found this to be a little too garlicky and I think that there's a
bread that's gonna respond better to this pressed toast method, a bread that positively
loves being pressed and toasted, Pan Cubano. Into the bowl, the stand mixer goes 480 grams of bread flour, one packet or seven
grams of instant yeast, two teaspoons or about
eight grams of sugar, tiny whisk to combine. And then Pan Cubano's
unique claim to fame, 55 grams of melted lard, along with 300 milliliters
of room temp water. We're gonna add that gradually
as the dough comes together, adding 12 grams of kosher salt, once it forms a ball of dough and kneading on medium
speed for about 10 minutes or until a firm, but supple dough forms, which we're going to pull
that off the dough hook, form into a ball and
drop into an oiled bowl for one and a half hours
for its first bulk ferment. Cover it tightly in
plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature until
it's doubled in size. Once be-doubled, it's time to
form it into its final form. That being a long torpedo shaped loaf that we're going to coax it into on a well flour work surface. Retrieve the dough and turn
it out on said work surface, and begin patting it out into a large rectangle. We're aiming for about, I
don't know, eight by 12 inches. And then as is the procedure
with most enriched doughs, we're going to begin rolling it up from the bottom, pinching as we go. Pressing as we go to make
sure that there are no bubbles and pinching the seam
underneath the result of loaf, which, oh dear, that looks
rather not safe for work there. We're just gonna pat that out into more of a torpedo shape and then we're placing diagonally
on a rimmed baking sheet dusted with corn meal, which
is both gonna prevent it from sticking and add
a nice crunchy bottom to our final loaf. Then we're gonna cover with some generously oiled plastic wrap and let rise at room
temperature for another hour until it's about doubled in size. Then we are preheating the
oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit because this guy is ready to get baked. The only thing left to do is score it lengthwise across the top. Apparently this is traditionally
done with a palm leaf but I didn't have one of those handy. And then we're baking for 20 to 25 minutes until lightly browned
and its thickest point registers about 200 degrees Fahrenheit. And we're letting it cool
completely about three hours before slicing and
turning into garlic bread. As you can see, this
bread has a nice tight, but still airy texture,
which thanks to the lard, toasts up beautifully. I was a little overwhelmed
by the microplane garlic, so I'm headed back to the garlic press, slicing my bread in half and trying out two different
methods for buttering. I'm worried about the herbs burning, so I'm going to slab one half with the plain old garlic butter, which I will subsequently sprinkle with fresh herbs upon
completion and with the other, I am adding my fresh herbs to the butter before I commence to slathering. Both are being subjected to the same 450 degree Fahrenheit
oven for four minutes before being flipped and weighted, which is great, not only because
it toasts the bread evenly but it also prevents
the garlic from burning and turning acrid in the oven. So no matter how you prep your garlic and what kind of bread you use, I cannot recommend this method enough. About six minutes later and
they emerged from the oven looking just about perfect. We got our herby loaf from the back, and in front our plain garlic loaf that I'm going to
sprinkle fresh herbs upon before slicing and serving. Now, the first thing
we'll cover is the bread. I love Pan Cubano for garlic bread. The interior is soft and moist and buttery and the exterior is
crunchy and almost crumbly in a most unexpected and pleasant way. Next up the herbs. The herbs in the compound
butter version weren't burnt but their flavors were definitely dulled and muted by the heat of the oven. The fresh herbs version,
especially when finished, with a little bit of flaky Maldon salt was the clear winner. Pressing the garlic,
rather than microplaning it made the flavor a lot less
harsh and overwhelming. And the addition of
fresh basil and parsley added some much needed herby contrast. Now this was the Dan Levy of garlic bread. Not entirely sure why
I'm using him as a metric for garlic bread. Maybe 'cause I just
can't get enough of 'em. (upbeat music)
So curious: What's this subreddit? Who is TheFlyingHalibut? Why are there so many members but one poster? Why do I keep getting suggestions?
Genuinely curious as I couldn't find any info on "about" or google.
Much love
So the winner is
Garlic butter pressed then sprinkled with fresh herbs and salt at the end?
.... bread makes you FAT?
looks delicious! thanks for sharing!
Great snack😋
Who keeps Taco Bell sauce packets in the refrigerator?
Going well but.. No, just no: lard
Thought might like this sub but not. Lard bread goodbye. A perfectly good beautiful item, then promote ruining a classic with lard. Goodbye