How to Make Childhood Favorites Like Classic Sloppy Joes and Perfect Ice Cream Sandwiches

[Music] my [Music] today on america's test kitchen l shows bridget a tidy take on classic sloppy joes adam reviews kitchen sponges dan reveals the science of cookie size and lon and julia unlock the secrets to the perfect chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches it's all coming up right here on america's test kitchen [Music] nobody really thinks about sloppy joes they come together out of convenience you've got some ketchup ground beef maybe a little vinegar on hand and you end up with a sloppy mess but we here at america's test kitchen know that everything can be made better because we think about food and speaking of better ella's here and she's going to tell us why we should improve on sloppy joe that's right some of the sloppy joes of the past have been known to be highly oversweetened and typically fall flat in flavor after that right not to mention they rarely stay in the bun which is why we call them sloppy joes but today we're going to make it a lot more manageable okay okay and we're going to start with one pound of 85 lean ground beef in the test kitchen we've tried lots of ways to enhance this beef we've cooked it in sauce but that just made it pebbly and dry the solution to that though is to make a slurry of one tablespoon of water and a half a teaspoon of baking soda this slurry enhances the ph of the beef and it keeps the proteins from binding together too fast too soon gotcha and we're just going to pour it over the meat it's not a lot it's not a lot we don't really need a lot i'm also going to add to this a half a teaspoon of table salt and give it a stir all right so seasoned and it's going to hold on to moisture that's right gotcha all right that's all set just going to set it aside for a bit and we can start building the foundation for our sauce we noticed the trend in a lot of the sloppy joe recipes they had a ton of vegetables celery carrots bell peppers it changes the texture it wasn't what we were looking for if i want a salad i'll order one exactly exactly but what we decided to do was to keep the onions but we're gonna treat the onions just like we did the beef with a little bit of baking soda okay an eighth of a teaspoon to be exact so i have here two teaspoons of oil i'm gonna put this over medium heat and we'll know it's ready when the oil starts to shimmer and we're going to add the onions all right okay so i have half an onion finely chopped we want these onions to break down gotcha practically melt and that's what this 1 8 teaspoon of baking soda is going to do just like it did with the beef and this only take about three to four minutes well nobody wants to find a firm onion in their sloppy joe those onions should practically melt into the mixture and baking soda makes that really easy here's how typically when you cook onions pectin and hemicellulose molecules from the plant cells link up into a gel that holds water and helps the onion pieces keep their shape hours of cooking will break down the cell walls and eventually the onion's texture will become very soft but there is a shortcut baking soda is alkaline and when you add it to your finely chopped onion it raises the mixture's ph in an alkaline environment the hemicellulose readily dissolves out of the cell walls and the pectin molecules are inhibited from grabbing onto each other and forming that gel so the onions quickly turn soft and tender and that's why baking soda is the key to our magically melting onions all right so it's been about three or four minutes you see how much the onions have broken down that would have never happened without the baking soda and this is exactly where we need to be all right so to this i'm going to add two minced cloves of garlic for about 30 seconds until they're just fragrant all right to this i'm going to add two teaspoons of paprika i'm going to stir this constantly for about 30 seconds until the paprika is fragrant a quarter teaspoon of red pepper flakes an eighth teaspoon of salt and two teaspoons of brown sugar i'm going to add more flavor compounds by adding a quarter cup of tomato paste all right i'm just going to let this bloom a little three to four minutes is all we really need and we're looking forward to get rust colored okay gotcha all right so it's been about three minutes our tomato paste is a nice rusty red color i'm gonna add the beef now the magic behind the consistency of the beef is making sure that it's broken down and i'm gonna do that using a wooden spoon and just cook it until there's no longer any pink in the meat this should take about five minutes okay so the meat is no longer pink we've gotten exactly where we want to be but i'm to take this a step further by using the potato masher this trick is the difference between how much meat stays on your bun versus how much meat is on your plate you're right cleaning up after sloppy joe aren't you this is a tidy gel all right that looks great ketchup is a staple item in sloppy joe so we could not go without right instead we decreased the average one cup of ketchup to a third cup wow and you get more of that tomato flavor from the tomato paste that's right i'm also adding a tablespoon of worcestershire okay and a tablespoon of red wine vinegar nice so we are not lacking in flavor in this sloppy joe no well already there's a huge difference in this it's not so sloppy it's not so sloppy at all so now that the beef is cooked until it's tender and juicy we're going to make a slurry and this slurry is going to do two jobs it's going to act as a thickener for our sauce and it's also going to emulsify any fat that may be in the pan from cooking the meat so i have a half a teaspoon of corn starch and a tablespoon of water and i'm just going to give it a mix i'm going to stir in this cornstarch slurry until it coats the beef and thickens about one minute the heat's gonna activate this cornstarch and it's gonna give us a silky texture i've never seen this before in the sloppy joe okay we're good these are ready it's the prettiest joe i've ever seen well thank you very much i'm going to just give it a taste i think you should try some too let's give it a taste and see if we need to add any extra flavors oh yeah what do you think i think maybe a little more vinegar a little more splashed vinegar oh okay oh that's so good i'm gonna go a little more sugar too all right i think that's gonna be perfect let's have some sloppy jokes oh this is the test right yes how sloppy are they once you get them on the bun but i love how this is clinging to the bun and thank you for not using gourmet brioche buns or something like that it's got to be a squishy potato roll or something like that here's some pickles for your joe this is a first for me i've never had pickles on a sloppy joe so there's a method to this you have to give the bun a little smash now this is the point where half of it would have dropped out onto the plate all right that is so tender very tender really well balanced it's super tomatoey it's still in the bun it's still in the bun sweet and spicy you know what's missing what's that the chandelier of orange fat that traditionally starts to drip down your hands as you eat it and that's because the corn starch that you added there really holds on and emulsifies basically that that fat that was in the pan that's right i think joe walked a few blocks uptown this is so much better than i've ever had now you don't have to fight with joe you'd like to make the greatest sloppy joes at home well it starts by tossing ground beef with a little baking soda slurry and then meanwhile saute onions and baking soda until those onions practically melt then stir in a little brown sugar spices and tomato paste brown the beef then finish the sauce with ketchup red wine vinegar and worcestershire and then thicken it with a little cornstarch so from america's test kitchen the overhaul but still so classic sloppy joe can we even call it sloppy joe anymore nope formerly known as sloppy joe [Music] the lowly sponge is arguably the most important tool in your kitchen and as it turns out it's also very controversial everybody has a sponge opinion but today adam's gonna actually tell us which one is truly the best you are so right about everyone having strong opinions about sponges when i was talking this up you know with my friends telling that we were testing sponges everybody's like okay let me tell you what the best sponge is like no i'm going to tell you what the best sponge is and it turns out there are almost as many sponges out there as there are opinions about sponges so we had to do some serious winnowing down of all of the possibilities number one we eliminated anything that couldn't be used with non-stick cookware make sense we did a little bit of pre-testing we cooked diced onions in a really sugary barbecue sauce almost to the point of burning and then scrubbed away with a whole bunch of these things we also cleaned wine glasses that were fragile thin glass and we ended up with this lineup of ten sponges different materials different shapes different colors different prices that ranged from a low of 70 cents per sponge to six dollars there was a lot of down and dirty testing testers used the sponges to clean both non-stick and traditional skillets that had had scrambled eggs cooked in them without fat that same mixture of onions and a sugary barbecue sauce cooked almost to the point of burning they also cleaned cast iron skillets that had been used to sear burgers made out of 85 lean beef so there was plenty of nice messy fat to clean out of there in terms of getting into smaller spaces and maneuverability testers used them to clean really sticky one tablespoon measuring spoons and also those wine glasses again in addition they took the dimensions they took the thickness they calculated how much each sponge could absorb in terms of liquid that's not all all the sponges went home with testers for some real world home testing people use them for a couple weeks and then report it back and what was interesting is that there were winners and losers amongst all of the different styles and materials no one material really stood out interesting but there were a couple of features that were really important let's talk first about scrubbing wow and for scrubbing testers really responded to sponges that had a slightly sort of coarse or gritty texture this one here for instance it's sparkly sparkly wine that one and another one this yellow one had like a woven netting that was good because it was rough and it really assisted with scrubbing gunk out of the pan another thing that testers really liked for scrubbing was something like this a little bit you know waves ridges i call this topography which added power to the scrubbing two different styles of topography size turned out to be important some of them were a little too small this guy for instance is about two and three quarter inches so once he gets compressed down he's wet you're really going in there it just felt a little too small to really get a lot of cleaning done in per swipe the same was essentially true with this one the little yellow smiley face i like the way this looks this one is the scrub daddy it actually got its start on shark tank and it's designed to respond differently to cold and hot water with hot water it gets softer and you can compress it and it did an okay job scrubbing but it just didn't feel again really big enough to get wide swaths of scrubbing done so testers felt like it wasn't quite all-purpose enough now the opposite of sponges that were too small sponges that felt too big this guy is about five inches long great for bigger jobs not quite as good for those small jobs like the one tablespoon measures or the wine glasses yeah it's thick and is this microfiber that one is almost like terry cloth this one turned out to be just right it was the medium sized sponge it's about four and a quarter inches long two and a half inches wide and an inch thick this one struck tester testers small enough for the small jobs big enough for the big jobs size just right there was not only the issue of how the sponges scrubbed pans and cookware there was the issue of how they cleaned up themselves because they're getting all kinds of gunky with you know biscuit dough and whatnot this guy here with the terry cloth the microfiber it never recovered from that sticky biscuit dough it was matted it was nasty for the garbage destined for the garbage can similar situation with this one the silicone one you know it's supposed to stay clean that's what its name is but food just got jammed inside of those bristles and never came out again testers were pretty impressed with this one this one did really well on the scrubbing test and it cleaned up itself beautifully it didn't look as trash to some of the others testers were able to just run it under the water rinse it off and this is in fact our winning sponge the winner tell people what to get that is the oh cedar scrunge multi-use scrubber sponge and it's got all of the features that testers really like it's got topography it's got a rough texture to the scrubbing part it's got the sponge it's about the right size it was one of the most absorbent sponges in the test it's about a dollar 67 per sponge or 10 bucks for a pack of six all right thanks adam so one of the most important equipment testings we've ever done sponges and this is our winner it's the oh cedar scrunge multi-use scrubber sponge it'll cost you about ten dollars for a pack of six [Music] check out this spread of cookies in front of me they range from one tablespoon of dough all the way up to one cup of dough they contain identical ingredients and they're all baked in the same oven at the same temperature for the same amount of time but just check out how different they are on the inside this one tablespoon cookie is dry all the way through on the other hand this one cup cookie is completely raw at the center the sweet spot is three tablespoons where the edges are crisp and the center is chewy there are lots of ways to control cookie texture including changing the amount of sugar the number of eggs or even how you incorporate the butter but the easiest way is just changing cookie size want something drier and crunchier go smaller want a cookie with crispy edges in a fudgier center go bigger and if you really just want raw cookie dough with a crispy rim grab that one cup measure [Music] late 70s were known for many things including the chipwich that chocolate chip cookie and vanilla ice cream sandwich decorated on the outside with mini chips now i ate my fair share of those as a kid but you can't find them these days which is why lawn's going to show us how to make them i sure am and you would think it'd be easy you'd take two chocolate chip cookies squish them together pop them in the fridge till that ice cream hardens and you're good except you're really not if you try to take a bite of that the cookies are rock hard ice cream squishes all over the place and it's a mess so i went and i purchased chip witches and a couple other brands took them apart and kind of poked around at those cookies to figure out what they were doing and we're going to do it here we're going to start with 10 tablespoons of unsalted butter and i've already melted it in this 10 inch skillet over medium high heat what we're going to do is brown the butter the reason we're browning the butter is these cookies are going to be frozen and we want to make sure they're as flavorful as possible i want to make sure i'm stirring constantly that keeps those milk solids from sticking to the pan and ensures they end up in our cooking in the meantime i've got a bowl set aside you can't kind of just turn off the heat and leave it in there it'll keep browning in that pan so when it's ready it has to come out right away to this butter i'm adding three quarters of a cup of dark brown sugar you really do want to use dark brown sugar here it's got a little bit more molasses than light brown and more flavor and i've got three quarters of a teaspoon of table salt it's a little bit more salt than usual and you're using dark brown sugar because these cookies are going to be frozen so they need all the flavor they can get that's right because cold temperatures are known for dulling flavors and that's because cold temperatures slow our taste buds ability to respond to flavors and it also slows down the aromatic compounds so we can't smell them as well so julia it's been about 10 minutes and this has cooled nicely so we can move on yep first i have one cup and two tablespoons of all-purpose flour here and i'm just going to whisk in our leavener a quarter teaspoon of baking soda that looks great and then i let this cool because i didn't want it to cook the egg that i'm about to add it's one large egg this is two teaspoons of vanilla extract and then the secret ingredient that makes everything work water water yup two tablespoons of it the water is going to be the key to keeping this cookie nice and tender so i want to whisk this until it's smooth it's going to take maybe 30 seconds so this looks great just dump all your dry ingredients in now i know that this looks kind of like cake batter it's very soupy it is and it should be all that water that loosens this up is going to help these cookies spread when they bake in the oven and give us a nice thin flat even cookie last up i have our chocolate chips and you'll notice i'm using mini chips instead of full-size chips and it's because chocolate when it's frozen is rock solid and you'll crack a tooth trying to bite through the really large chips that you see out there so stick with mini chips i've chosen semi-sweet because i like that touch of bitterness this is half a cup of mini chips and that's plenty so let's go shape some cookies we're going to make 24 cookies which will yield 12 sandwiches and you can use a scoop if you want a number 60. i like to use a measuring spoon i think it's just easier i'm using a one tablespoon measure scrape this down onto the tray you want to make sure these are spread out when you place them on the pan you really only want to bake 12 per sheet pan because they're going to spread quite a bit you don't have to shape them perfectly but it does help if they're not kind of lopsided blobs okay we're going to bake these one tray at a time they're going to take 9 to 12 minutes and i'm going to rotate that pan halfway through baking they're going on the middle rack of a 325 degree oven so that they have a little bit more time to spread before they set and that just ensures a nice flat even cookie so that cookie dough has a little more fat and a little less sugar than a traditional cookie but it's the water that's the real game changer actually this dough has twice as much water compared to our perfect chocolate chip cookie now that may sound a little counter-intuitive because you think more water more ice crystals in the frozen cookie but the sugar lowers the water's freezing point so it keeps that cookie nice and soft in the freezer don't they smell great best smell ever those are perfect looking cookies they spread really nicely they're just picking up a hint of color on the edges and you want to pull them when they're on the soft side so i'm going to let these guys cool on this pan for about five minutes and then i'll transfer them to the rack and let them cool fully for 45 minutes and in the meantime i'm going to bake these off you ready to assemble sandwiches i see ice cream i see cookies yup so i held on to our baking sheets and popped one of them in the freezer that will give us a nice cold landing zone for these i want to make just four sandwiches at a time if you try to scoop all 12 your ice cream is going to melt before you can come back and start assembling and it ends up being a mess you can use any ice cream you want i stuck with vanilla since we're going for chip witches but i've made these with other flavors and it's great so i want to load these guys up with about two inch tall two inch wide scoops and the best way to have a nicely formed scoop is to make sure your ice cream is well tempered i find that if i can poke the ice cream and my finger leaves like a quarter inch indent it's perfect for scooping make sure you poke in the middle don't poke at the edge it's usually a little softer there if your ice cream is too hard and you can't leave that indent pop it in the fridge for maybe 15 minutes 25 minutes it'll temper much more evenly there than if you were to leave it on the counter and it doesn't matter if your scoops aren't perfect as long as they're about the right volume the shape isn't too relevant i'm going to take this and put it on my fingertips and not my palm because you'll apply too much pressure if they're on your palm put the cookie on top and while you're pressing you want to give them a quick twist twisting really does help make sure the ice cream is evenly distributed over the cookies there's a method to your madness there is do you mind popping these in the freezer of course thanks so don't they look great they look perfect last step is to add the chocolate chips i divided the chips in half i've got half a cup for you half a cup for me i had trouble getting these to stick by just pressing the chips in so i found that it was easier to pick up a handful of chips and press them in if you have ice cream oozing out the side of your sandwich you can kind of smoosh it back in place so once we finish chipping these we'll get them back in the freezer for eight hours that's a long time it is um you know how water was the key to keeping these cookies soft they're gonna pick up a little bit more water from the ice cream itself so we really have to give them eight hours so if you tried to eat them before that eight hour timer went off what would happen rock hard really okay so an eight hour wait this is bringing me back to my childhood in a very nice way oh good i promise they're worth it i don't think i've had a sandwich since made with baked cookies like this that was this soft the cookies have real flavor i can taste the vanilla i can taste the brown butter even though it's cold yeah it's got that kind of nutty toffee cookie dough flavor that everyone loves it's actually really great with coffee ice cream and i've had it with cherry ice cream fantastic really i love that you can use any ice cream you want oh that makes it fun especially if you have 12 of them and three pints of ice cream you could have different pints for a couple different flavors mom these are awesome thank you i'm glad you like them so if you want to make these throwback ice cream sandwiches start by making homemade chocolate chip cookies using brown butter dark brown sugar and a little water carefully portion the dough into cookies and bake for just 10 minutes before letting them cool completely scoop your favorite ice cream flavor between the cookies then let them firm up briefly in the freezer before garnishing the edge with more chips and next comes the hardest part letting them freeze for 8 hours before eating so from america's test kitchen to your kitchen a cool new recipe for chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches nailed it see what you did there absolute recipe thanks for watching america's test kitchen what'd you think well leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our channel see you later i'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 149,739

Keywords: americas test kitchen, cooks illustrated, cooks country, sloppy joes, ice cream sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies, cookies

Id: uqrFUD5jAIo

Length: 23min 50sec (1430 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021