Charles Melton Attempts To Keep Up with a Professional Chef | Back-to-Back Chef | Bon Appétit

don't put it on one spot and hold it there I know Carly you know hey guys it's Carlin I'm here in the bone Appetit Test Kitchen today with Charles Melton his movie the Sun is also stars actually out today and you're also on Riverdale mm-hmm great so we have 20 minutes just a mere 20 minutes to make individual baked Alaska's Baked Alaska yeah and we're gonna see if Charles can follow along with me through verbal instructions only have you ever heard of a baked Alaska some stunts all right so on the count of three we're just gonna turn around start cooking okay okay but I can't look at you and you can't look at me okay okay all right three two one bye-bye can you hear me yes I can hear you okay on your cutting board you've got a pound cake and this is gonna actually be the base of our Baked Alaska so take the ring mold that's on that cutter that's on your cutting board okay and just position it right in the middle from the top down and you're just gonna push straight through the cake to make a cylinder okay so do you have a cake cylinder Charles yeah all right perfect so the little scraps those funny shapes or you just put those on the baking sheet that's got the ice cream all right so now turn your cylinder on one of the round sides okay we go yep and then I want you to use the serrated knife by the cutting board you know just get to like nice even about 3/4 inch thick slices turning on its side cutting it down the middle cutting it yeah so you that you end up with like a 3/4 inch okay yes the 3/4 inch oh yeah okay and then the top one I'm basically just trimming the brown top off oh we're just gonna use one of these but I like to just make sure we have two nice circles trim the top the top of the yeah the very top of the cake sort of on that top slice can just come off can I eat this are we gonna use this later you need these two discs so put that put those on the rimmed baking sheet that has the parchment paper one of mine is nicer than the other that's why I have us do too and then we can pick the nicest one all right and you don't need that round cutter anymore you can put that with your cake scraps okay and grab your ice cream okay so what we're gonna do with the ice cream is we're gonna do basically the same thing you're gonna turn without taking the lid off or anything turn your pint of ice cream on its side and then we're gonna cut crosswise through the paper through the ice cream to get about the same thickness discs of ice cream I cut off the very bottom you know cuz it's like got ya Astra so I just like cut that off so that I can reveal the ice cream okay with one slice chocolate chip oh the pint container is on an angle so you kind of have to yeah account for that but try to get again like 3/4 inch or an inch thick okay so just make another cut above the one they can just did so right now this is what I'm doing Carla I think you might like it I grab the circle thing oh cooking sheet and then I just I'm using it to measure where I'm gonna cut the pint of ice cream whatever works as long as you end up with two more disks of ice cream and we do have to work quickly because ice cream melts Alaska gotta be cold okay you're right so when you get another disc you want to just pick that up with a spatula and place it right on top of your cake ground oh I cut my finger oh no for real no I'm good oh did you turn around no I turned half way so look at those guys point deducted okay so I'm gonna do a second slice just to be safe even though we're in the end we'll probably just make one take the plastic off oh yeah take the paper so I just pushed mine through in the and lift the paper off at the same time okay and put it back onto your other cake and then these have to go right back in the freezer while we do the rest so let me know when you have your two cakes ready to go wait what so it's cake on the bottom cake on the bottom disc of ice cream on top okay and then again on the other one cake on the bottom okay yeah I just like having to in case something goes wrong with one of them alright this next part is a little touch-and-go and but it's gonna be amazing you get a saucepan on an induction burner and I want you to pick up the sugar that's in the bowl and as a show that pant put in this put it in the pot put it in the sauce pot and this is going to become a sugar syrup okay should take the water from the measuring cup not the water in the bowl and then add that water to the sugar and we're still not even adding any heat yet the sugar has to completely dissolve into the water before it starts simmering otherwise it'll never hit temperature should i mix it yeah so take your spatula and give that just a mix to make sure it's kind of like wet sand yeah and you just want to make sure your sugar is like saturated with the water we're gonna start cooking this syrup in a second but at the same time we're gonna use the mixing bowl to make a meringue what's a meringue a meringue is a egg white whipped egg white so it's kind of like when you whip whipped cream and they get to two peaks you know and then you can like have your strawberry shortcake or whatever so egg whites exactly okay so let's go ahead now you stirred your sugar right yeah go ahead and turn the induction on there's a button in the very front that says power okay give it a few stirs as it's warming up yeah it just looks like a milky water yeah that normal yeah totally so it's gonna look cloudy and opaque yeah until the sugar is dissolved and that's a great way to tell that your sugar is dissolved is that the liquid will start to look clear you can see the bottom of the pan yeah wait what's this little bowl right next to this stove yeah so you should have you have a little pastry brush and you've got the little bowl of water yeah and so now as you've been stirring you kind of kick some sugar crystals up on the side of the pan oh yeah yeah yeah so I use that to brush the sugars exactly oh yeah and that way your syrup won't crystallize so we're gonna let that hang out for a minute we're gonna come back we're gonna have to take the temperature but first we got to get these egg whites in the bowl so now pour your egg whites into the bowl they're the yellowish yeah blobby thing and I've got a tiny little bowl that has cream of tartar which which one's the cream of tartar it's in the very smallest bowl and it kind of feels like baby powder or towel okay got it put that into your eggs and then a pinch of salt which is then a little bit bigger bowl a pinch of salt pinch of salt all right so now a child find the the switch on the left side of your mixer okay and get that to like four okay and then I want you to come right back over to your pan of your simmering syrup yeah and find this probe thermometer you've got like what the red thing yeah so the other end of it the very pointy ends yeah we want to get that into the get a good reading on the syrup okay so tilt your pan yeah so like right in the middle and then check your little readout thing and tell me where you're at 2:30 okay perfect I'm at toots they're almost 232 and we're going for 238 okay so then you can just like let that go back down again got to keep cooking and your egg whites right now did they look very bubbly and kind of pale yellow and very frothy my egg whites they look I mean they're kind of they look white like more like a cream creamy yeah the bubbles are going to check our syrup how's your temp because I'm almost there oh my temp is 3 to 39 oh okay okay so here's what's gonna happen now I want you to hold your pan in one hand pour the syrup into the bowl aiming for like the side of the bowl not the beaters okay are you doing it right now I'm doing it right now all right what are you doing I was waiting for you I started going I'm doing something really cool right now sure you were doing something really I'm lifting my pan up in the air Oh pouring every drop of this syrup Oh wonderful and it's all your syrup and already yep oh wow and what are your egg whites look like it looks like a firm foam a sense firm that's a great description a firm thumb all right let's go up to I'm eight whoa in a minute we're gonna check our egg whites feel the outside of the bowl doesn't feel very hot yeah yeah Sam and your egg whites look more shiny now yeah okay so turn your speed off tilt the head of the machine up so the beater is attached to the machine I want you to just unscrew it and take your beater off you just push it up and rotate it and then it comes off push it up yeah rotate it yeah okay I got it you got it so now with that beater which is like a giant whisk just kind of stir around in your egg whites gently and lift the beater straight up so that the egg white droops off the bottom slowly stir right yeah just like give a little just to get some of the product on the whisk and then turn it over and see if your peak has a little bit more peanuts to it it's a pig it hasn't moved okay perfect so now we got to go into our pastry bags wait Charles I didn't add my vanilla did you add your vanilla I added my vanilla I didn't even tell you to add the vanilla that was very good because I didn't add mine hold on now I have to whip again should I whip while you're doing that no I don't want you to over whip and you're sounded perfect where your egg whites very did they would you describe them as glossy glossy okay yeah okay great all right that's it and now what has to happen is we got to scoop a bag full of this egg white mixture into the pastry bag with with the little other spread with the other spatula so that the bag is like fold it down it kind of makes a collar and you can put your hand under there yeah I'm very sticky as it is but so then just scoop up and without like deflating these egg ways yeah you don't I shouldn't mash it like push it down we're gonna have to mash it to a certain degree because it's got to get all the way down to the tip I'm like wiggling yeah up for the plastic come on yeah it is your bag full like up to the collar where it was folded over yes okay cool so now just lift the collar back up so it's like standing straight up yeah we just want to close this up so that the meringue doesn't squeeze out the top okay so I just squeeze to the bottom so I can sort of bat like little zigzag folds it's example well I don't sleep flake I don't know what a please um just fold it and then twist it I think I put too much in here it's okay just roll with it a little night you know you're gonna get a little backsplash oh I'm gonna get a lot of bags okay just take your pastry bag down and choose the most beautiful of these two baked Alaska's would you say the smaller one or the bigger one I'm torn I don't know I've you got to go with your gut okay okay and put that in the center of this cake turntable okay the cool thing is this turntable the top rotates right so give the white part a little spin what we're gonna do is we're gonna start squeezing out the meringue but I want you to squeeze them out to make like little little mini mountains okay so I'm still actually here let's practice practice on your the sheet tray that was in the freezer that have the other cake on it let's just do a couple practice ones okay squeeze from the back of the bag and you're gonna squeeze out like a little mound of meringue all right I got it so what we're gonna do is we're gonna make a bunch of those all around the base of this Baked Alaska all right so so but on it's got to go on an angle so that these yeah okay you want to put the tip of the pastry tip against the cake itself okay and squeeze some out and when you've got like a little poof of meringue yeah pull the pastry bag away I got I got I got mert the meringue coming out on both angles both sides did you make a little rosette yet on your cake almost go all the way around right yeah you want to go all the way around the base and you can just like squeeze them out and then turn the turntable is your meringue like standing up on its own pretty well yes it's not flute it's not slipping down no it's not okay good got it yeah okay so then directly above that row of meringue flowers we're gonna drop another set okay kind of like same size so now you should be halfway on the cake and halfway on the ice cream yeah okay perfect all right when you have your road - done let me know completed alright great let's go Row 3 Row 3 now I'm on top of it yeah you're kind of like should be cresting the ice cream at this point okay and so fill that in and where I am right now on that third row and so I've got like a ring of ice cream exposed in the very top sense yeah but the sides are totally meringues is that true for you I think so I pull it in with meringue okay the key thing so that the whole top has meringue so wait is there ice is there meringue in the center of ice yeah the whole thing should be enveloped in a meringue now you have like a lot of tiny meringues or they're about the same size smalls and mediums but then I did one larger one right on the top so I should kind of like fill in the yes and quickly because ice cream is melting got it I don't want to stress you out got it I'm I'm done with the meringue we're good like if you looked at it can you see ice cream or cake anyone nope you just see meringue I just see it meringue okay perfect do you see your torch my torch yeah there's a metal torch on your station yeah okay so this is the way this thing works there's the back of it has like a big round button and then there's like a little lever you got to pull that little lever down till it clicks yeah and then hit the round button and it should make fire come out yep and so now yeah now kind of waving the torch back and forth over your meringue all over it right yeah but go like don't put it on one spot and hold it there I know Carly you know is your torch going yeah it's going out oh my gosh yeah so we want to get like nice deep golden brown with like some darker points but the torch will pick up all the detail of your pastry test so like I'm painting with fire exactly okay I'm sorry all right great and on a count of three we'll just turn around and I get to see your amazing back to last wait okay you got it yeah okay one two three beautiful yours looks more like like a powdery snow fall you know and I went for more of like I don't know like a Queen's crown kind of it's crazy you even have the two little tips whoa so this is what's gonna happen okay we're gonna cut into it so you can see all the layers so just cut straight through the middle and then when you come down just like use the knife to kind of open up okay all right and the ice cream might be a little soft at this point we just have to see what happens but Oh oopsie oh yeah whoa beautiful Alaska got baked ready a switch yes I get to sample yours you're welcome thank you it looks actually incredible it's perfectly right you've got this layer cake in the bottom and then like the same height layer of ice cream and then the whole thing is enveloped in this awesome fluffy meringue I can't wait to taste them mm-hmm you've got a lot of different textures and temperatures going on you know I like the cake now you can just torch stuff for fun so how do you feel now I'm complicates Alaska I feel good I feel relaxed yeah yep and just calm famous delicious I'm fluffy fluffy just work stuff yeah yeah thanks for coming in make sure to come back any time we'll just say every food next okay okay

Channel: Bon Appétit

Views: 1,961,309

Keywords: back to back chef, charles melton, carla music, bon appetit, test kitchen, back to back, how to make, charles melton 2019, charles melton interview, carla, carla bon appetit, charles melton cooking, charles melton bon appetit, kitchen challenge, cooking lessons, charles melton funny, baked alaska, baked alaska bon appetit, carla makes baked alaska, baked alaska recipe, make baked alaska, making baked alaska, charles melton baked alaska, carla makes, food

Id: IJlbTGU3FZI

Length: 16min 31sec (991 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2019