Pastry Chef Attempts to Make Gourmet Butterfingers | Bon Appétit

bread you gonna you're gonna spend more time ago me makes with me yes there's so much more fun yeah on to the next mission always education in separate [Music] sorry hey everyone I'm Claire we're in the VA Test Kitchen and today I'm making gourmet butterfingers Butterfinger has been on my wish list for gourmet makes for a very very long time almost since the beginning it's one of my favorite candies and it has always been one of my favorites as a kid it was the thing that I would treat other people for you know after Halloween we're all looking at our candy I just love the peanut flavor I love that it has that unique texture with all of the really thin layers of this kind of caramely honeycomb type airy but still hard and crunchy Center with just a thin super super thin layer of chocolate so this is one of those candies were it's a total mystery to me how they make them and how do i process all of those thin layers of what kind of like a peanut brutally substance is formed so I think it'll be a cool learning opportunity and I'm just excited to eat the candy because I love Butterfinger this is really the only Butterfinger I'm familiar with I mean there is this one there's the crisp bar I remember Butterfinger BBS when I was a kid but that's not a thing anymore apparently right they don't oh there's bites is this what Butterfinger BBS or turned into crispy crunchy de peanut butter yeah with Bart Simpson yeah good commercial grade Commerc great candy bar Claire I am stoked for this one meet say I'm one of the best I agree it's almost like fibery it's almost like I can make throws like yes why they do this it is so good I can see why Bart was so fired up four grams of protein ah skip Rhea calcium potassium point six milligrams of iron good kids peanut soy milk you do this we don't really do this part oh no no we don't we the I don't know you're not there you're not there yet all right see Brian sorry edit it out I keep watching these episodes and I'm like I thought I was in that play I just cut it all out yeah don't feel bad they cut out a lot of the stuff of me too we're gonna do may be the reason why I think it tastes so incredible and better than I remember is because it says that they did and improved recipe I'm very interested in reading more about how they improved it it's interesting like it doesn't say what it is it just says Butterfinger crispity crunchity peanut buttery but like peanut butter you what can't you know hug be like cream-filled whatever it's like what is it if you were to say what Butterfinger is because they say Butterfinger crispity crunchity peanut buttery but then it's like John Tata what is it ah it's a bar and it's really unique it is there's nothing like this but now I want to clear all this off and take a closer look and try to really get in there to really really take a look it's like I have enough centimeters long by 3 centimeters wide and about 1 and a half tall it's not perfectly rectangular it fans out of it I'm either end and widen slightly I know I'm gonna break it open hey oh my god how is it that hard to break open a Butterfinger I'm flanking off the chocolate coating because I want to very closely examine okay aha so this gives me a good indication of how these are created if I had to guess the filling is worked in two long ropes that are then cut in different lengths to make the different sizes of Butterfinger bars the two ends are really pinched together and compressed to make this sloped kind of Pleasant pillow shape and up with the totally flat bottom it isn't it just such an interesting texture in there I can't crumble anything or flake it into any layers just by pressing on it but as soon as I break it open you know there's pieces that kind of want to flake off like that this definitely seems to me like a kind of hard crack caramel where it just shatters into these very fine layers now it's time for my favorite part reading the ingredients corn syrup sugar peanuts vegetable oil indices palm kernel oil spread the seeds peanut flour nonfat milk and less than 2% of cocoa milk salt yellow corn flour boy less than natural flavor of natto color okay lots of interesting stuff here even those not that many ingredients they yellow cornflour I think is really strange so I'd like to go over to the computer to start to take a look online so we can find yeah let's read about this improved formula Wow in January 2019 Ferrari formulated the Butterfinger the new bar also uses a higher percentage of cocoa and milk and the chocolate coating and cuts ingredients such as a preservative TBHQ and hydrogenated oils okay so they made it a little more natural that you're using peanut said they're roasting themselves that's cool what in order to get that rich flakiness the recipe calls for the addition of cornflakes so that the cornmeal is because it's like cornflakes or something I don't know if I believe this [Music] the research phase was helpful and it did give me actually a pretty good sense of how the whole thing is made one surprising thing was the presence of cornflakes not cornflakes the cereal like we think of but a sort of very fine puff-puff corn flake i guess and then it is this folding technique and then it gets kind of flattened and formed into these bar shapes and cut and that that is the Butterfinger filling and I get that so when you have a minute you want to talk sugar talk to us about when you try to make this [Music] while it was still hot ground peanuts and fuel a team one on top tried to fold and roll with a head and roll I think I got two turns and then it just hardened and then you couldn't do anything with it it wasn't good I mean I saw these people anyway I think 90% of this or if not 95% of this episode we'll be trying to devise a method for the filling I'm actually let's not worry about flavor it's gonna be all about the texture and shape my plan is to make a toffee smear peanut butter over it I'm not gonna do anything with cornflakes yet I want to just get a sense of the method and then go from there order crown me some of the good peanut butter so my idea is to actually spread the peanut butter on to a greased still pad and then basically put it peanut butter side down over a slab of the toffee and peel the sill pad off also this is a really salty peanut butter this is going into the refrigerator because all of those oils and the peanut butter will set up well that chills I'm starting the toffee toffee is like a mixture of brown sugar butter and you're cooking it to the point where the sugar is that hard crack but it's different than a true caramel where you're taking sugar well beyond that hard crack stage and you know above 300 Fahrenheit so this is looking pretty ready let's do a final temp yeah we're at 300 okay great I mean I want it kind of in the same slab shape as the peanut butter ish Oh see this is gonna be so tough it's already hardening oh yeah well this is a mess hold on okay so here it here was my plan peanut butter that I can't peel off onto this slab that is now hardened so I have to try again this is not going to work what do I do sugar to a Mentos [Music] Jelly Belly you know that was pizza rolls Milky Way but that episode came out I wrote it down somewhere it took to hard track no Danny did speak terrible notes thank you something to you okay is the final yeah on the second version or I'm doing just a version two is going to be a mixture of just corn syrup a little water and brown sugar room I'm gonna cook it to a lower temperature and I think I'm gonna quickly like pipe peanut butter over top and then try to work with it very very quickly and see what I can make happen I'll cook it to like juice 70 this time I'm piping rose of the peanut butter over top it's actually starting to set up quite a bit so you get this one I want to try to cut it these aren't exactly the nicest prettiest bars but I'm happy that cooking that mixture to a lower temperature still let me work with it but also allowed it to harden it definitely formed lots of layers I mean maybe not the most even layers but it certainly has that laminated quality which is kind of cool I really didn't even think you could do that with sugar the layers are there and the flavor is actually pretty good it's peanut II but it's too sticky dense hard sick in your teeth I have a lot of good thoughts for picking this up on day 2 kind of a cool test kind of excited about it at least I have some direction you know I don't worry about chocolate so well since she wants to temper chocolate with me which I'm excited about so I'm not worried about that at all over the weekend I went to a very special store in New York that sells a special product called SOI 18 which has that kind of corn flaky really light crispy texture which I'm excited to experiment with today because the problem that I had on day one with the test was even though I got the layers and I got good flavor it was too hard like was too firm of a crunch and it didn't have sort of that Airy crispy separation that a Butterfinger has I think this one I just want to start doing a bunch of tests and seeing how much I can improve it last time I used all dark brown sugar and I think the flavor was a little molasses heavy so now I'm using a mix of dark brown and white in one to one I knew it was you I can just tell from your footsteps a very iconic footsteps very distinctive well I just we hear them a lot yeah no this is your favorite peanut butter all-time I know it's so good it's the best I was I think you have to make your own peanut butter hot pink that's the wrong answer I want a deeper toastiness to the peanut all right when the only components are peanut butter and chocolate I see your point of making your own peanut butter but like this is this is this is just another you know yeah yeah right we don't need to waste your time on this we very good product I'm not I'm not trying to go insane I mean it seems like you kind of have been ever since you started doing the show I know it's just I know Oh the flakes are a little bit large I want to break them up so they're finer because I don't want there to serve them to be so distinctive I want them to blend and disappear into the fillings I think the whole thing could use another hit of salt so now I'm applying thin stripes of peanut butter now I'm just folding it onto itself bro I forgot this damn I meant to prevent it before it's fully set I want to try to cut it really the flavor is very very close to Butterfinger it's just too many layers of the sugar that are still too thick but it's definitely doing that like shattering Butterfinger layers kind of thing you can see where there's like a thicker layer of sugar in there that didn't really really stretch this is a very very uniform interior as compared to this which is like a little bit a little bit coarse but but the texture is kind of the same it's that kind of shattering crumbly break apart kind of into this I feel like this version is a little bit more successful than the last one and now what I want to try to do is the falling I want to cook another sugar mixture and I think the best thing to do is before I add the peanut butter and the faux-tina I should try to start stretching it and I also I think I want to add a splash of vanilla I want to start immediately trying to work with it I feel like this is already maybe working a little bit better it's more turning into spreads rather than sheets I made spaghetti Butterfinger oh it's better the texture is better oh so sticky though flavor is great but it still has parts of it that are really hard and gets super stuck in your teeth it looks pretty close color is certainly better so one idea is to stir the 14 into the sugar while it's still hot right off the stove and then pour it out and start to stretch it that way and then working the peanut butter in I don't know Dan and can we get questions at the moment so one thing I didn't do before was like really enclose the peanut butter well and then flatten it so this time we're trying to make more flat layers rather than breads ah okay oh yeah oh yeah not that's not gonna happen all right well these are the densest immersion yet it's sort of the opposite of what I was hoping don't want to do with this hmm I have one other idea to lighten it which is to aerate it using like a brittle method which means stirring a little bit of baking soda into the sugar mixture and that causes a chemical reaction where it produces gas I don't know I just wanna try it [Music] the way that it's cutting it feels like there's more air in there oh definitely the best version yet it feels much less prone to sticking in my teeth you can see obviously that this is much thicker than the thickness of the Butterfinger this has chocolate on it already but it really does want to easily break apart whoa it's soft very good yeah I want to just think more carefully about dimensions and shape and size my strategy for forming the filling into a shape that will be appropriate for Butterfinger is to create guides on the Silpat with a sharpie and then it's gonna be maybe be a little rough I think it'll be fine this time I'm going to measure by 18 and I'm gonna mix it in a bowl with this time 3/8 teaspoons of baking soda which is 50% more than I was using before and actually since I know I'm gonna be adding salt [Music] oh I feel really good about that there maybe not perfectly even but each one looks similar to the other like they all look pretty close in size maybe a little tall but we'll see but overall at least it has that effect where there's a flat bottom and then a kind of rounded top Wow the extra bit of salt really really helps the flavor is great I think that's a little sticky still and that's because I overcooked it a little bit but overall this is still progress because I was able to form it and cut it and I like the shape a lot better I think on day three I'm gonna come in and do one final version of never good thing to say I'm gonna try one more time to make the filling cooking a little more carefully not letting it get away from me today I got really far and actually feel great about the flavor and the texture and I think we'll wrap it up on day three not no curse you know there's no date to curse so day three curse mercury is out of retrograde right has been for a while I think it's got like a little package in this drawer what is it Oh playing card oh my god these are so good oh my god I don't know if it looks like me I was a look what the back says oh my god good fine all right put these away one thing I'm going to do is I'm going to actually put it into this on a weird-shaped loaf pan as a mold and I think that will help with more separated layers some well mixed peanutbutter I'll tell you that so this is the mixture of protein salt and baking soda the cut had a article that was like our sweat suits appropriate we're out of the house obviously I feel that it is but I don't but not all the time I just had a really late night and I just wanted to be comfortable oh my god I was my patient Dan all right well in that maybe got a little hot so I'm going to now transfer it into this pan he did the last time I'm sure oh I did not oh I messed it up I forgot to pour that in well that was a trial that's a test run I forgot to put in the 14 and all that bit whole mixture that's why I did see him a lot different inch extras that I hadn't really aerated it alright well that was a good test run let's try one more time [Music] 68 69 all right it's not gonna forget this time I can see that it's aerated there's lots of tiny little bubbles see how it just generally looks lighter in color this is a different pan it's smaller they feel pretty good this has oh it's hardened and it's a good sign that it broke so easily all right I feel very good about those flaky layers it's a very promising looking texture oh I've said I'm done I love to make this part anymore mmm it's feeling taste great it's very kind of shattering in the way that the Butterfinger filling is great peanut flavor I think it actually could use a bit more salt so I might top it fit a flaky felt because I think that could really enhance it six-hundred keeps a little bit but overall the flavor is really good not too sweet mmm really does taste like a Butterfinger I'm kind of proud of this all right I'm gonna I'm gonna move on to tempering the chocolate I'm gonna set up my well let me ask oh look Isola likes to temper chocolate by hand and maybe she wants to do it together so it looks really busy issues and three people already watching what she's doing I'm gonna wait I'm gonna wait don't bother what's happening over here oh it smells so good Sola I came over here to ask no tempered chocolate but now we're having a queso tasting yeah mmm I love the flavor also great heat I came over to ask if you had time to temper chocolate at some point and how do you feel about milk chocolate versus dark I mean I like milk chocolate but it might be kind of sweet I know I'm down a mix before should we do a mix it's just a little harder at temper right Oh take your pick okay I have a great idea how about I do milk you do dark and we doing side by side okay yeah but mostly I'm just gonna do what you do do my explaining whatever chocolate is when you melt chocolate there's like five or six different crystal structures that okay right yeah I can like reach that at different crystal configurations and you're aiming for this one particular one and the only way to nail it is by like doing this temperature thing so the idea is to get something that has a snap and it looks shiny and doesn't start to immediately melt when you handle it we're gonna do this seed method today you start by melting much chocolate you want to take it up to at least 95 it really easily gets to 95 so don't go crazy and then you add back some tempered chocolate and then that's got those seed crystals to help you get to the right structure you want okay Billy no water so so it is doing her regular work actual job and I'm going to take the lead on this stuff I got dark chocolate on my right that'll be soulless and they'll chocolate on my left go away doubt 30% of all the chocolate of both kinds and this and we're gonna chop and this will be the seed the milk is almost fully melted the dark chocolate needs a little more but I turn up the heat on that one shy tempis yeah okay Oh Sola is it oh let's turn that off oh it's off okay I'll take it off but I mean I think it'll be fine I ruin it it's just slightly inconvenient well that's pretty much how the show works so all right let's go okay speed oh you're like really stirring I heard like vigorous stirring is supposed to help with crystal formation okay yeah we're just stirring until our seed chocolate melts if we want to speed it up when we're close it's gonna start like clinging to the bowl it's gonna feel really thick and like it's gonna sit on you okay I'm at 74 oh boy you should go back over the water everybody outside like it got to be cold so I'm set okay it jeopardy to the pole I mean it just cooled it it didn't temper it just okay set so annoying in heart so now I'm doing a little test on parchment to see if it's tempered I want it to be sweet freeze shiny and it should snap rather than Bend Claire keep listen to the snap I think we should go on this guy while it's okay yeah yeah look at the texture of that versus this let's just cool like I said I didn't want to do milk chocolate anyway yeah we're gonna use the dark chocolate okay all right I'm just gonna dip it in place cool so I'm just keeping this moving so it's nice and fluid for us we're gonna get really Wonka [Music] that was the really fantastic that was the best as I've ever covered anything into ever chocolate it's so much easier to people yeah I don't know how you do it along they look so shiny you're so shiny they're totally set we're just surrounded by so much tempered chocolate right now this can't be anything go to win there you go oh you know what I forgot this is just flaky salt so cool so we're gonna let these completely set and then we'll come back and taste can't believe how fast that happened here about the squall oh yeah it's talking about the squall it's this would be here in three minutes yeah Oh morning till 5:30 p.m. you just skipped like the best part though sudden whiteouts icy roads wait view low down um you want to taste some of these yeah can you tell which are homemade I would say yeah correct Soula temper the chocolate and she did such a good job it was fast and furious but it worked and I learned some stuff that's thing that Claire Sabbats she lives her life quarter mile at a time Oh like I'm windy huh you can definitely see the layers already okay that's right oh good I'm surprisingly flaky yeah and like crumbling yeah you know what I'm glad it's dark chocolate because it's pretty sweet success thank you admit it you're a little surprised definitely surprised I thought you're gonna get close I didn't think you're gonna get that oh I love hearing that is it happening oh it is happening no of course I believe you you want to try Butterfinger chocolate tempered by solo it's really good thanks oh look at it now the squad of 2015 15 minutes ago was totally light outside and now look at it chief eunuch duties and you have no idea you're like wow I think you crushed I feel like this is one of your best ones yet oh yeah well I couldn't done without you thanks Sola thank you lunch with me two years to you got a little temper chocolate demo you want a butter no later better lay a finger on my Butterfinger here I made you one oh right off the bat I do see you achieve some nice layers hmm color little off well I didn't put a knot oh I didn't put any coloring in it I kind of forgot oh you kind of forgot yeah tacky not tacky but it's just it can be a little sticky oh not bad though Claire thank you actually great layers clay thank you it's like a goddamn Butterfinger God dang oh that was a good bite Claire good I'm proud of you you did a great job out there hey Fred really that goddamn just lock plates on flakes you did a great job player oh that was a trap I was a little worried that actually makes me feel good thank you here it's why I'm here Claire oh thanks Brad I know I should open it up number blue skies sunshine now I'm Claire go home that's a wrap for the day yeah oh yeah oh yeah five o'clock shut it down another one in the book surprisingly fun I thought this one was gonna be much more frustrating but I learned a lot and I wasn't that bad so kind of a best-case scenario for what could have been a really challenging gormie makes you get one that you think it's gonna be using it's hardening you think that's gonna be hardened and it's easy it doesn't matter it's not another way have zero expectations always and you'll never be disappointed it's kind of a life philosophy I'm adopting lately here's how you make a gourmet Butterfinger for the filling in a small saucepan combine 50 grams dark brown sugar and 50 grams granulated sugar 100 grams light corn syrup 20 grams water a pinch of salt and the drop of vanilla paste cook over medium heat stirring to dissolve the sugar then bring to a boil and cook until the mixture registers 270 degrees Fahrenheit on an instant-read thermometer remove from the heat and stir in a quarter cup slowly Atene toss with 3/8 teaspoon baking soda pour the mixture onto a Silpat and use the Silpat and grease club hands to fold the mixture onto itself several times to aerate it transfer to a loaf pan lined with greased parchment and pipe a layer of natural peanut butter across the center of the sugar mixture then fold the longer ends of the sugar mixture over the peanut butter to enclose it stretch and fold the mixture as many times as you can before it starts to harden when you feel it setting pull it into a long strip about one and a quarter inches wide use a knife to cut the candy crosswise into two inch lengths let cool completely for the chocolate coating in a metal bowl set over a large saucepan of gently simmering water about 340 feet grams of dark chocolate to 130 degrees Fahrenheit stirring continuously remove from the heat and add 147 grams of finely chopped dark chocolate then stir continuously until the temperature falls to 78 degrees Fahrenheit preheat the mixer over the saucepan until it reaches 86 Fahrenheit dip the bottoms of the candies in the chocolate first then set them on a cold Silpat lined baking sheet trim around the candies set the candies on a wire rack said in a rimmed baking sheet and pour more tempered chocolate over the top tapping vigorously on the counter to enrolled the entire surface of the candies let them set completely did I write that down that's not my hand writing down is dad I'm sure Dan Roden like I'm being trolled by Dan on vacation

Channel: Bon Appétit

Views: 4,050,976

Rating: 4.9603386 out of 5

Keywords: claire saffitz, pastry chef, butterfinger, claire makes, claire, gourmet makes, claire bon appetit, claire gourmet makes, claire makes butterfingers, butterfingers, claire butterfingers, gourmet makes butterfingers, gourmet butterfingers, how to make butterfingers, how to butterfingers, make butterfingers, making butterfingers, butter fingers, homemade butterfingers, diy butterfingers, butterfingers bon appetit, butterfingers at home, chocolate bar, food, bon appetit

Id: tqWXteVXo-A

Length: 29min 50sec (1790 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 11 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/cy1763]

oh good, it's less than 30 mins.

I love the sad music for Brad and him jumping the gun on the ingredient reading.

Seeing the way they tempered the chocolate this time was fun.

Claire really nailed this one.

[u/teddy_vedder]

Claire: that makes me feel good, thanks!

Brad: that’s what I’m here for!

Everyone needs a kitchen sidekick/taste tester as supportive as Brad!

[u/steveofthejungle]

Hell yes super excited to figure out what the hell that orange crunchy stuff is

[u/maculae]

They finally let Claire do Butterfingers! Sohla is the chocolate tempering master that Claire has needed since the beginning.

I have always wondered what was n the core of a Butterfinger (not enough to Google it myself). So I learned something too. Butterfinger was always one of my least favorite candy bars though.

[u/Alpha-Trion]

Lol, Molly's background cameo at around 8:30. Me_irl.

[u/aliceroosevelt2017]

Claire crushes it. And Gaby is right— I would be a tourist going ‘what the fuck is this’ during a squall.

[u/BobaFettCat]

I have high hopes for this one!

[u/Semper-Fido]

Let's have some real Butterfinger talk here. Anyone else not a fan of the new recipe?

[u/xeroxgirl]

Out of every culinary term ever, the one word Brad actually pronounces really well is croissant.