Recreating Candice Kumai's Japanese Soufflé Pancakes From Taste | Reverse Engineering | Bon Appétit

hi i'm anna and i'm in the ba test kitchen about to have a super secret conversation about chris morocco once again we're putting chris's super taster abilities to the test this is candace kumai's fluffy japanese souffle pancakes with matcha whipped cream i'm challenging chris to recreate this dish with all of the ingredients in just one day he'll be able to taste it touch it and smell it but at no point will he be able to see this dish at the end of the day we'll come back to see his final creation and i'll be the judge [Music] you know what it smells like either like a pancake or a waffle so i've got this round thing which is wildly flat on top this is this like eggy waffle smelling thing but it's not a waffle like what is this it's like a super eggy mutant pancake that was cooked in like a ring mold or something this is sort of like this condiment sort of like dressing for this pancake kind of thing there is a tiny prickle of flavor of some sort that i'm having a hard time placing it's almost like the consistency of like a lemon curd or like a pudding it's not like thick because it's like full of like dairy fat or cream necessarily unless i'm just like totally losing my mind and that's exactly what it is sort of tastes like maple butter so there's a sweetness here right and it feels like it's in powdered form and it's like it's been sprinkled over this thing maybe that's the thing that i thought was powdered sugar or maybe maple sugar and powdered sugar are working together here almost like a strong kind of vanilla note too unless there's just like straight up maple syrup so then we have this thing is this some like viral tick tock trend the construction is so tall and that doesn't really correspond to anything i know so in terms of how you would construct something like this it's almost like you took a flat top or like a non-stick skillet put like a ring mold on it poured batter in let it kind of set and kind of puff a little bit then you flipped it i don't know it's kind of almost like the trash can nacho of pancakes and the only way you would get it to open up at least in my mind is through the inclusion of most likely baking powder i'm like way out in the deep end right here i truly have no idea what this is i've never eaten this before i've never seen it before i'm sure there's like a tick tock dance associated with it or something i think this is some kind of pancake or pancake adjacent food with some kind of maple custard this is hard mainly because like i'm just so aware of like how weird it's gonna be when i like try to make a pancake in a ring mold and probably fail at it all right so i need to make a shopping list let's start out with ap flour white sugar eggs milk heavy cream baking powder starch maple syrup maple sugar tall ring mold okay i feel pretty good about this i'm very curious to see what comes back especially in the ring mold or biscuit cutter realm i will have my first shot at trying to attempt this and we'll see how it goes [Music] what is our working name of this thing tick tock pancake there was this gelatinous amoeba-like blob on the side of the plate a starch-bound custard such as a pastry cream seems to be the closest that i can get mentally that was one tablespoon of corn starch which basically requires heat to activate its thickening properties much like flour as opposed to eggs on their own they can be heated to below the boiling point and still activate most of their thickening properties so i'm going to do a little bit of sugar here and then a pinch of salt maybe we'll do three eggs all right so we're going yolk only now i'm gonna whisk these together really the vigorous incorporation of the yolk with the sugar and with the starch as well is gonna help protect the egg from the heat of the dairy that it's gonna come in contact with that pastry cream situation was not super rich but maybe had a bit of richness to it let's do half milk half cream and i'm just gonna heat it up but there's definitely you know ways to make custard that like you don't have to do what i'm about to do but it's simply the way i know how to do it so that's what i'm rolling with so i just want to get this to the point where it's not boiling but it's starting to kind of just steam ever so slightly and then i'm going to slowly incorporate it into the egg so gradually incorporating the warm milk is going to slowly heat those eggs up i'm going to pour it back into the pot here that is what we are going to boil the only way to unlock the full thickening potential of those starches is to heat them up that is what is going to turn this into a thick and luscious pudding of sorts this kind of starch-bound custard is very much within sort of like canonical french cuisine certainly what i'm doing right now feels very french i don't know about tick tock pancake being french if there's one thing that the original dish showcased it was seemingly like a very silky almost evanescent type of custard this feels like it could be a little bit too thick to me but it's not so far off so now we need to focus on the pancake element rather than simply making a pancake batter and hoping for the best we need to approach it more like a souffle and whip egg whites into like meringue and incorporate that into kind of a pancake style batter a souffle is a sweet or savory eggy baked dish it's very light it's not necessarily custard it's not bread it's kind of a fusion of all these different things souffles don't typically have chemical leavening in them in pancakes you would normally find a chemical leavener such as baking powder or baking soda i'm going to probably double down just for a little bit of insurance and use baking powder let's make some souffle i really want to keep track of quantities in terms of repeatability and in terms of how i make adjustments so that's a teaspoon of baking powder i think we need a little bit of sugar here pinch of salt let's go with milk and then put some egg yolks in with the the milk there i'm going to do the whites beaten here for a little extra insurance we'll do a little extra sugar in with the white the sugar is going to help give a little bit more stability to the meringue i'm just going to beat till it's foamy and then sprinkle in the sugar while the egg whites are whipping i'm going to incorporate wet and dry ingredients here this is just egg white and a very small amount of sugar and as it's whipped it's incorporated air i'm gonna fold this into this pancake batter air is the key to a souffle it lightens the batter and as the batter cooks air trapped inside of it is going to expand and then ultimately it's going to leave it somewhat open and aerated you know and sort of set in place with that network of open air bubbles in there so that's going to mean you've got a much lighter pancake very key to have like a pretty high cooking vessel the rise has to be directed so that it doesn't flop over it occurs to me i probably should have sprayed the inside of that ring mold it's probably just non-stick cooking spray if i rush this then it could just burn and not actually cook so i really want to be mindful with the heat a fish spatula is basically the thinnest stiffest spatula you can pretty much get which is great at getting under things that might be a little bit stuck there's some good color underneath and it's not looking burnt so that's something here's what's exciting to me like that color but what's not exciting is the fact that it did kind of exactly what i thought it might which is just kind of hang out there and not really do anything at all all right so this one at least wants to fall out got a little dark it's fine this one i need to release all right well you know the first pancake it's never a winner so we're cool here everything's fine that was the one without the spray one with with the spray it dropped down real nice i think this second side is is a bit cuter it didn't get quite so dark there so i feel good about this in terms of like having that kind of slight hourglass shape and i guess we just kind of need to go for it here i don't know whatever all right well this is my first attempt at the dish and a little bit concerned about the interaction of the maple syrup and custard on there but it's cool ingredients maybe i will say 75 i'm very impressed that like right out of the gate i got the effect that i was looking for the construction of like that cream element just felt like i was making things up a little bit technique the meringue lightened pancake batter some kind of custard element i'm feeling pretty good about that like maybe i'd give myself an 85 appearance maybe 85 again the consistency of the pastry cream is way better certainly in the first attempt it still feels like it's more obviously pastry cream than the original dish perhaps original dish custard element tasted so light so thin but also like incredibly mild in flavor so when it comes to the pancake here pretty happy with how this came out i'd give this an 80 because i think there's something going on with the pastry cream element actual score is coming in wow it always manages to feel kind of humbling my actuals are 78 for technique 82 for appearance in terms of technique it feels like the area where i need to improve is the pastry cream element which may not be pastry cream at all i really need to pay pretty close attention the next tasting and hopefully figure out that creamy element [Music] a light dusting of powdered sugar and then the maple syrup is just maple syrup straight up feels like there's some dairy there there's this like really woodsy spice note that's like slightly bitter like astringent when i think pancakes i think syrup i think butter whipped cream fruit when we started talking about this kind of overall dish as being a souffle pancake it sort of like puts me in the mind frame of like what else could be here that's more emblematic of like japanese cuisine what is that flavor oh my god this is gonna drive me insane just give me a minute i need to like i need to think about this hold on hold on okay i needed to like kind of turn inward for a sec and just try to access some deep kind of taste memory it's slightly bitter it's got this like cedar sandalwood quality to it it puts me in the mindset of like cinnamon is it like dashi powder i can't believe [Music] this is killing me oh is it roasted nori that is green i'm tasting a green thing i know what it is god matcha it explains the astringency it explains that bitterness matcha is a form of tea made from green tea leaves powdered and reconstituted with water to be drunk or added into other food items i'm good i just need to come back to the light now we need to think about potentially a whole new construction of the creamy element do i try just doing like some kind of like a whipped cream something i don't know it just doesn't feel quite right second attempt at the dish right now so got some different matchas i don't know why it's so freaking hard you would have thought that the making of souffle pancake batter on the spot would have been the hard part no it's the green creamy could it be i'm just being total dingus and it's like this and then a little of this right like like that's not it right so that's just whipped cream with matcha we need some sugar in there and maybe a little pinch of salt like that's one option right that tastes like pretty creamy pretty fatty that really fills your mouth like quite a bit of fat that doesn't taste right to me part of what doesn't feel right about that is like wouldn't you want to infuse the cream with the matcha and at least cool it down and then whip it draw out more of the flavor is it possible oh for sure this other option i want to just heat some of the matcha up with cream then i'll cool it down and whip it just to see if i can develop a little bit more flavor in there okay flavor-wise theoretically blooming the matcha should develop more of its flavor and aroma i would imagine and we can just chill this while i make the pancake all right so that's a cup of flour a teaspoon of baking powder half cup of milk two egg whites maybe a touch of vanilla so that's two tablespoons of sugar in with the egg white exclusively this time the sugar is just going to give a little bit more stability to the meringue helping the egg white trap air and just giving it a little bit more stability to hold it butter's just going to give me a little bit more richness to the finished pancake and then meringue in two additions we never had bisquick as a family growing up if i wanted pancakes my parents were like yeah absolutely pancakes for breakfast and i'd have to make it like myself we did the version where you had to separate the yolks and the whites you know pancakes like always meant sacrifice and pain growing up because i had to literally sit there and whip egg whites on my saturday morning i'm gonna stick with the heaping two-thirds almost three-quarters of a cup here all right color looks pretty good there somehow we got some stickage this time it didn't slide right down i'm annoyed i'm gonna wash this real quick and do another one more spray i'm gonna go with a little bit less batter too oh i mean it's not as good as it could be it's gonna be better than that one though i have matcha infused cream a little bit of sugar yeah could use a little more sweetness there maybe the tiniest pinch of salt overall i'd say this does feel closer than the previous version final guess as to what this dish is is uh souffle pancake with matcha cream i'd like to say that ingredient wise i'm now at an 82 technique let's let's go 85 appearance let's go to an 88 just hoping that we're correct on the uh color palette this time around all right time to put it up for judging hey chris hi how do you think you fared i think i ended up in a pretty good place but this was one that brought on a few crises at one point i just kind of like had to sit down on the floor for a minute you know and just like think really hard may i present to you candace kumai's fluffy japanese souffle pancakes with matcha whipped cream is that the same diameter collar that i had so chris what did you do to achieve your final dish breakdown is not withstanding i made kind of a standard pancake batter and i folded meringue into it to achieve that light kind of souffle like texture looking at that i would say there's a higher proportion of meringue in there than was in mine how many eggs did you use out of curiosity i only used two okay candace's recipe uses three egg yolks and four egg whites so there's a higher proportion of meringue here she uses both corn starch and cake flour which you didn't use those are two ingredients that might help bring you closer to souffle land and away from pancake milk one difference between your batter and hers is she used almond milk cow's milk interesting i feel like that is a chef's liberty is there butter in the souffle though in the actual batter itself yes there is okay so it's not like a no dairy thing how is she making the cream she beats the heavy cream to stiff peaks and then adds the matcha powder and sugar interesting okay tell me how you cooked the pancake i got a collar like a metal collar and then simply sprayed it generously with non-stick cooking spray although it was hard to get one fluid motion such that all the batter stayed inside the collar she does use a lid with a little bit of water in the pan to help create some steam okay i can accept that ready to taste okay the interior of both look similar to each other hers tastes more like a souffle pancake because of the meringue yours tastes like a great american pancake that's like very much lightened up yeah but in terms of flavor not quite as light as this one definitely not on looks alone you can see why it's kind of taken off on social media yeah yeah so fun to consume with your eyes and with your mouth so in ingredients you gave yourself an 82. i gave you an 86. all right cool very minor differences technique you gave yourself an 85 i gave you an 82. that extra egg white the lid on top of the collar sure so that took it away from i also heated the cream with the matcha something about like how matcha is brewed okay well from a flavor point of view that makes sense to me but that's wrong yes confirm an appearance you gave yourself an 88 and i gave you an 84. darker top bigger in size i would give you an 80 on taste because while they look quite similar on the outside inside they are completely different pancakes so your average for yourself is an 85 and my average for you is an 83. so very close i accept the the feedback with humility and grace proof over and over again that we eat first with our eyes and when you don't eat first with your eyes your stomach and your mouth make some crazy decisions i'm not gonna try to do it one-handed today wait i don't want whole eggs here do i i think i just want yolk here that was not elegant cool

Channel: Bon Appétit

Views: 618,312

Keywords: blind cooking, blindfold cooking challenge, blindfood cooking, bon appetit, candice kumai souffle pancakes, chris, chris bon appetit, chris makes, chris morocco, chris reverse engineering, chris test kitchen, cooking challenge, food, japanese pancakes, japanese pancakes recipe, japanese soufflé pancakes, pancakes japanese, pancakes souflee, recipe for japanese pancakes, reverse engineering, soufflé pancakes, taste testing, tiktok pancakes

Id: l5t-uDLTr_Y

Length: 21min 51sec (1311 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 23 2022