Define The Word Pie

The most I see of the world, the harder it is for me to define the word "pie". When I say the word "pie", your mind probably first pops into a round baked treat filled with things like apples and cherries. It likely has some kind of top crust keeping these fillings piping hot too. But maybe you'll then start to think about cream pies, and instead of a hot filling it's cold, and likely has no top crust. Then you might wander to the kind of pies that you find in stores and gas stations, a single piece of crust folded over and stuffed with fillings (like this week's featured review). Finally, if you're Greek (or if you've visited Greece), you might think of pies as also being any pastry filled with vegetables and cheese. This is only the tip of the iceberg, as I'm sure this post alone might turn up people with other "pies".

Check out my latest pie review because it's filled with chocolate.

CC

Time To Mound On Some Science

 I'm not a huge fan of Mounds bars, but I thought that maybe I could improve them by adjusting their temperature. Turns out I was right.

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While you're at it, check out my book called Treats and Beasts, it'll make you happy I'm sure.

Kit Kat Done 5 Ways

In this experiment I taste a Kit Kat bar done 5 ways, room temperature, refrigerated, frozen, microwaved and baked. Find out which one tasted best, and which one changed entirely.

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A Thick Cookie

The search is over for me. I've actually been looking for these cookies for several months without any indication that they actually existed. My main search took place in Canada, since that's where I live, and right now I'm convinced they've never been sold here. I figure there's some kind of health and safety guideline that does not allow for that much icing on a cookie. I've also previously searched in upstate New York with no luck. I had to explore a bizarre chain of truck stops in the mid western United States to find the Oreo cookie that feel too thick to be real. Strangely however, I didn't mind it that much and even found a little bit of balance.

Check out my full super thick Oreo review right now.

You can see some of the other fun things I found on a recent trip to the USA by following me on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

If you're looking for something to educate and entertain, why not check out my new book called Treats and Beasts.

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Doesn't Matter What Kind Of Cookie You Love

Cookie Good Times T-Shirt
by candycritic

 Pick up this cool cookie t-shirt and let the world know you're into eating round baked things.

Also be sure to check out my Zazzle store for even more t-shirt designs.

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Candy In The Media - Chance The Rapper VS Cookie Monster

I would pay good money to see this show live.

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Birthday Wish List Part 4 - Oreo Mug Ultimate Dunking Gift Set

This gift set is probably one of the best inventions since the Oreo cookie itself.

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Candy In The Media - Epic Cake Machine

This is part invention, part art installation, and part dance routine, but it ends in cake, so it's also wonderful.

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I Made A Video About Putting Stuff In The Oven, And My House Didn't Burn Down

While my house didn't burn down, what I did was really stupid. Putting chocolate bars in the oven doesn't make much sense, and should ruin a perfectly good chocolate bar. The strange thing is that it didn't. It turns out putting strange flavours of Kit Kat bars in the oven actually turns them into a unique snack exspirience.

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Does Suzy Q's Get An "A"?

Over the last few months I've been working on something called the Doughnut Project.  The goal of the Doughnut Project is to sample as many different Tim Horton's doughnuts as possible. Every time I try a new doughnut I post it on our Instagram feed as well as where I bought it on our Candy Map. It's been a fun project, however one of my friends, Adriana, has been frustrated with me.  She's of the mind that Tim Horton's doughnuts are sub-par, and that a man like myself should not eat these second rate doughnuts.

Adriana has been trying her hardest to get me to expand my doughnut eating experiences, and she started with a local place (here in Ottawa) known as Suzy Q's. Suzy Q's is what I would call a trendy bakery. Trendy bakeries are places that generally sell only one or two different items, they're also often sparsely decorated, and only hire young people to work at the front. With trendy bakeries you also often find that excess is the creative inspiration, that or sometimes weird flavour combinations.  More often than not this kind of bakery does not appeal to me, mostly because many of these places focus on the weird or the excess, rather than putting out a good product. It's very rare for a trendy bakery to impress me, but when it does it's often spectacular.

Suzy Q's does fall into the category of trendy bakery, and at times it also falls into the traps of trendy bakeries. They seem to fall into this trap more in the excessive than the strange flavours, however there are a few strange flavours as well.  The good thing is that while they do fall into the traps sometimes, they also offer some pretty tasty doughnuts as well.  I sampled four different doughnuts, the Grasshopper, Dirty Chocolate, Salted Caramel, Bumbleberry.

I picked the Dirty Chocolate because when I checked out their website, I thought it looked the best.  I tried the Salted Caramel because when I went to the store it looked the best.  I picked the Bumbleberry because it looked very pretty. Finally I let the guy at the counter pick the Grasshopper. One of these doughnuts was very disappointing, one was OK, and two were pretty good.

The worst was shockingly the Dirty Chocolate, it was bland and had a weird texture. The OK doughnut was the salted caramel, it tasted fine, but the texture of the caramel was a little weak. I was really happy with both the Bumbleberry and Grasshopper, both had interesting textures, and I really liked the crunchy marshmallows on the Grasshopper. All around it was a fine experience, and I regret nothing, but it's not likely that I'll return to Suzy Qs.

The problem is simple, price.  I paid ten dollars for four doughnuts. I'm not sure if you can just buy one doughnut, but that price is not listed on their sign. So I felt a little forced to buying four doughnuts, and at ten bucks they're not cheap. It's not that I object to the idea of paying two-fifty for a doughnut, but that doughnut better blow my mind away.  These doughnuts were OK, but they didn't change the way I saw doughnuts.  They weren't a creative leap in the field of doughnuts, and the quality of the doughnut itself wasn't anything inspiring.  If someone gave me one to eat, I'd be happy, but I don't know if I could justify paying that much again for something that didn't blow my mind.

Do you know a doughnut place that I should try, let me know on Facebook or Twitter. Also, how do you spell the name of these ring shaped pastries, doughnut or donut?

CC

It's a New Episode of Junk Fud On The Road All About Disney World!!!

In this episode Chris and Allison talk about their epic 12 day adventure in Disney World (that's the one in Florida). It's a unique episode because it was recorded while driving back home after their trip.

For more episodes of Junk Fud you can check out our YouTube page, Soundcloud, or our webpage.

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A Candy Critic Shirt Thing

Cookies Are Awesome T-shirt by candycritic
Design your own custom t-shirts online at Zazzle

If you disagree with the statement on this shirt, then you and I can no longer be friends.

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A Candy Critic Shirt Thing

Simple Donut T-shirt by candycritic
Browse more Donut T-Shirts at Zazzle

The biggest problem when you wear this shirt is that every time you look down you crave a doughnut.

CC

Marshmallows Vs Circus Peanuts (Part 1?) The Rice Krispie Challenge

Are Circus Peanuts marshmallows?  This is a question that crossed my mind recently.  I asked a friend of mine who happens to be a marshmallow expert and her opinion was that Circus Peanuts are not.  One person that might disagree with that Circus Peanuts are not marshmallows is John Holahan, the creator of Lucky Charms. The story is that he chopped up Circus Peanuts into a bowl of Cheerios, and Lucky Charms was born (I tried doing this myself, and you can read about it here).  According to the advertising, Lucky Charms contains marshmallows, so therefore some might consider Circus Peanuts to be marshmallows.

It's a difficult thing to really nail down, but recently I was inspired.  I thought the best way to find out if Circus Peanuts are in fact marshmallows is to compare them physically.  Sure I could do some science like stuff and compare the ingredients, but I have a better idea.  Why not try and find out if Circus Peanuts act like marshmallows.  After all if it has feathers and quacks, then it's a duck.

For my first experiment I've decided to see if Circus Peanuts work in a recipe that's tied closely with marshmallows, Rice Krispie Treats.  I'm going to make two batches of Rice Krispie Treats, one with normal fresh marshmallows, and one with an equal amount (in weight) of Circus Peanuts.

The first thing one notices when comparing the two ingredients is the way they melt.  Or more to the point, the way Circus Peanuts don't really melt.  The marshmallows melt very evenly and turn into a creamy liquid.  The Circus Peanuts do melt a bit, but they're much more globby. They also take a bit longer to melt.  In fact when I started melting the Circus Peanuts I was convinced they wouldn't melt at all and the experiment would be a bust fairly soon.

The thing is, the Circus Peanuts did eventually melt, but I'm not certain it's because of a gelatin breaking down in the heat, I'm thinking it has more to do with the sugar melting.  This means that if you're trying this experiment at home yourself, keep an eye on your Circus Peanuts because if it's the sugar melting than it's likely going to burn fairly quickly.

Eventually I managed to get both to a decent enough consistency that I could add the Rice Krispies.  With the marshmallows it only takes a few stirs to get them to blended perfectly with the Rice Krispies.  The Circus Peanuts were a bit more of an effort.  I also didn't end up needing as many Rice Krispies for the amount of Circus Peanuts I was using.

Putting the marshmallow Rice Krispie Treats into a pan is sticky, but fairly easy (particularly if you're liberal with the butter).  The Circus Peanuts were a bit more challenging, but manageable.  I should mention that I was really surprised that the Circus Peanuts worked this well, I thought they wouldn't make it our of the pot.  I eventually managed to flatten both batches of Rice Krispie Treats, however the marshmallow ones looked much more blended.

After letting them cool for about half an hour, it was time to taste.  The marshmallow Rice Krispie Treats were smooth, and each bit of Rice Krispie was coated in a fine coating of melted marshmallow. They were also very chewy, not hard.  The Circus peanuts were certainly not as well coated, and most interesting is that they were kind of hard.  It was as if the Circus Peanuts turned into a slightly chewy hard candy.  The Circus Peanuts stuck together a lot better than I thought they would, with only a few loose Rice Krispies in the bottom of the pan.

Flavour wise I was pretty happy with both treats.  I've always loved Rice Krispie Treats made with marshmallows, in fact they're my favourite way to eat marshmallows. The Circus Peanut Rice Krispie Treats were not bad either.  The cereal gave the normally strange texture of the Circus Peanuts a bit of a crunch, which is good.  It also killed the flavour of the Circus Peanuts a bit, and that's not a bad thing either.

While we  certainly can't say that marshmallows and Circus Peanuts are exactly the same, I wouldn't say that the difference is totally clear either.  At this point I would say that Circus Peanuts might be a marshmallow, but of a different breed.  I may have to try a few other experiments before I say for sure. Fortunately both Circus Peanuts and marshmallows are very abundant.  My only problem is coming up with more experiments.  I'm thinking next I may try and roast them on an open fire.

CC

A Take Care Of Your Lips Candy Thing - Part 2 - Cupcake

What's the difference between cupcake lip balm and regular cake lip balm, let me know?

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A Scary Candy Cookie Thing

This Alien cookie jar might be a good way to keep your kids hands out of the candy jar.

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Candy In The Media

I don't know if I've ever tried a Whoopie Pie, although I really appreciate the fact that the word "pie" is in the name of this treat twice.

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Candy Critic Dessert Club – Something Simple? - Apple Pie

The saying "it's as simple as apple pie" obviously has more to do with the people eating the pie, than the people making the pie.  Apple pie is in no way the easiest dessert to make, it's not even the easiest pie to make.  It takes about 3 hours, and involves many pots and pans, spices, and the a great deal of apple know-how.  The apple know-how is the part that I am most lacking, in my mind there are about 3 or 4 different varieties of apples (know there's more but I don't think about them), and I've never bought apples for pie in my life.  Instead, I find that I have apples that seem to be going bad, so I figure the best way to use them is to make an apple pie.  This never works our right.

Dough
2 1/2 cups flour
4 teaspoons brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
14 tablespoons cold butter, diced
1 large egg, beaten
 2 tablespoons cold water

Filling (Although you can just use a can if you don't have the apples, but in that case, why did you want to make an apple pie anyways?)
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 pounds apples, in my case whatever you have on hand
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of ground nutmeg

The first thing you have to do to make this pie perfect is make sure that the butter is cold.  When you're dicing the butter you'll probably have to keep it out of the refrigerator and you'll be touching it a lot.  So to make sure that you're not working with warm butter, dice it, then put it back in the fridge.  While it's cooling, mix up the flour, sugar, and salt.  Once the butter is cooled put the cold butter into the bowl and work the dry ingredients into the butter using your fingers.  You'll want the mixture to look like corn meal.  Then ad the egg to the mixture along with the cold water.  The best way to get this into a nice roll-able dough is to use your fingers to mix it up, a spoon just wont cut it. Once the whole thing is combined cover the dough and put it in the fridge for at least an hour.

During your one hour of waiting, watch a little TV, then start working on the filling.  Cut the apples into quarters, then slice them fairly thinly.  Make sure to sprinkle the lemon juice on the apples fairly quickly after you've cut them up, as this will keep them from turning brown.  As soon as all the apples are cut, pour on the brown sugar and mix it around till the apples are evenly covered (again using your hands works really well for this).  Take all the butter for the filling, and melt it in a pan, then add the apples and let it all melt and simmer for a few minutes.  There will be a lot of liquid, so strain the apple bits out, and put the liquid back into the pan.  Heat up the pan with the juice and melted sugar until it thickens up into a syrup like consistency.  Then off of the heat, toss the apples, the thickened juice, and the cinnamon and nutmeg together.  Let all this cool before putting it in the pie crust.

Speaking of pie crust, by now you're pie dough has been in the fridge for at least an hour... right?  Well if it has, it's time to take it out and roll it flat.  Cut the ball of dough into two, one half should go back into the fridge, and the other half should be put onto a well flowered counter.  Flatten the dough on the counter as best as you can with your hands, then use a rolling pin to make it about one quarter of an inch thick.  Make sure it's as even as possible, and as soon as it's ready, use it to line your pie plate.  If you don't have a pie plate any baking pan should work, as long as you're OK with having an unconventionally shaped pie.  The rolled out dough will not fit perfectly, so cut around the plate with a butter knife and the excess should just fall right off.  If you rip the dough you can use any scraps to fix up any gaps.

Once your pie plate is layered with the pie dough, put your now cooled filling into the mix.  Then, take your scraps of dough and your second ball of dough and roll that out to the same thickness as the bottom layer, about a quarter inch.  After it's nice and thin, use the dough to cover the top of your filled pie.  As you did with the bottom, use a butter knife to cut away the excess around the edges.  Then using a bit of water crimp the edges of the bottom part of your pie with the top part of your pie.  Crimping is a technical word for pinching.  You want to have as good a seal as you can get or the crust may separate from the bottom.

You'll notice that you have some extra dough left.  You can use this dough to decorate your pie and/or make some small tarts.  The sky is really the limit, although you could just put it back in your fridge for later, or throw it away as well.  Turn your oven to 375 and wait for it to heat up... I guess I could have told you to heat up your oven sooner, but frankly I'm not really sure when that would have been appropriate, certainly not at the start of this recipe as it is now at least 2 or 3 hours later.  Before putting your pie in the oven, cut out several slits in the top of your pie, this will allow air to escape.  I'm not sure what happens if you don't cut the slits in your top crust, however I'm not willing to waste a pie to find out.  Once the oven is heated up, put it in for about 45 to 50 minutes.  You basically need to have a nice brown colour on the top crust.

If you want to make this pie a little extra fancy, with virtually no work for you at all, sprinkle a little extra brown sugar on the top.  It makes a nice little extra candy crunch, and really only takes seconds.

When the pie is done, take it out of the oven, let it cool for a little bit, then cut and serve.

My experience with making apple pie was much more time consuming than I thought it would be.  The pie itself was OK, but as expect I used the wrong apples.  My filling turned more into an apple sauce by the time the pie was baked.  I guess I could have picked better apples, but as I said before, that's not why I make apple pie.  If I was thinking more about buying ingredients for a pie in the first place I probably would have gone for a berry or chocolate pie of some sort. But I needed to use up apples and so there you go.  My crust also seperated a bit around the edges, I think it's because I didn't wet the two crusts enough while crimping, lesson learned.  Taste wise I'm pretty happy with the pie, as were the 7 people who had a slice, the only complaint being about the texture of the apples.

CC

Candy Critic Dessert Club – Something For The Holidays - Gingerbread Snowmen

What says happy holidays better than a plate full of gingerbread cookies?  These might be the only cookies that are exclusive to this holiday.  Shortbread cookies, the other holiday cookie, are also fairly popular at other times of the year, but you don't really see gingerbread in the summer, spring, or fall.  When I first thought about making these cookies, I figured that I would have a simple batter cookie recipe, with a few extra spices added in, I was wrong.

The ingredients:

1 Cup of brown sugar (Granulated worked for me)
1/3 Cup vegetable shortening
1 and 1/2 cups of molasses (dark for a richer cookie, light for a lighter tasting cookie)
2/3 cups of cold water
7 cups of Flour
2 teaspoons of baking soda
2 teaspoons of ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt

Frosting
4 cups powdered sugar
1 and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons half-and-half
1 drop blue food colouring

The first things you have to do is blend the brown sugar, shortening, molasses and water together.  I thought it would be "faster" to use a beater to do this. I thought that the shortening would blend better with the other ingredients using electric beaters, I made a horrible mistake.  The water and molasses blend gives you watery molasses, and the minute my beaters were turned on in this mix, I coated everything within a 5 foot radius with small brown spots of molasses. Even after I tried to continue to blend this mixture, I found that the shortening didn't really "blend" at all, but it kind of turned into very small clumps of vegetable fat floating in brown liquid.  So I would just suggest using a spoon and a little patience.

After these ingredients are fairly well blended, add one cup of flour and the baking soda, and mix until incorporated (using a spoon is fine).  Then add the ginger and one cup of flour, and mix until incorporated.  Then add the allspice and one cup of flour and mix until incorporated. Then add the cinnamon and one cup of flour and mix until incorporated. Add the ground cloves and one cup of flour and mix until incorporated. And you guessed it, add the salt and one cup of flour and mix until incorporated.  Finally gradually add the rest of the flour.  This system allow each ingredient to be mixed in fairly well.  The last bit of flour might be easier to mix in with your fingers instead of a spoon.

Take your very large lump of gingerbread cookie dough and put it in the refrigerator for a few hours.  After it's rested in the refrigerator, take it out and decide how many cookies you want.  For me, this makes at least two batches of cookies, so you can return half of the cookie dough to the refrigerator or freezer for future use.  On a flowered surface knead the dough you have out a little, then roll it flat, about 1/4 of an inch.

To cut out the snowmen shape, Allison came up with the brilliant idea of using a glass, and several drink measuring tools.  We cut out each shape using these glass and drink measures, and smooshed the circles together.  It made for slightly squashed snowmen, but that made them more realistic.  Put your snowmen on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes.

Let the cookies cool for at least 30 minutes, and while they're cooling you can make the icing.  This icing is very simple to make.  Take the powdered sugar, vanilla, and half and half, and mix in a bowl.  You can add a little extra cream if you find the icing to be a little too thick.  Add the one drop of blue food colouring to give the white a slightly frosty feel, and stir it all up.

When the cookies are cool, use a piping bag and decorate your cookies.

This recipe worked really well for us until one point, the icing stage.  I've studied art for many years, I've worked on award winning projects, shown my work in galleries all over the world, but I can't for the life of me control a piping bag.  Our snowmen looked pretty sad.  I think many of the people who ate our cookies found the slightly lame snowmen to be childish and cute, I was just frustrated.  If anybody has tips on how to use a piping bag, I'm all ears.

The other thing to note is that this is not an easy recipe.  Most cookie recipes I've done take less than an hour to prepare, these took about 5 with all of the cooling stages.  The dough is also pretty hard to work with, so weak arms don't work in your favour.  The results however were worth the work, and Allison and I bonded a little more going through the process, that's what the holidays are all about.

CC

Candy Critic Dessert Club – The First Recipe - Banana Bread

Welcome to the first of what we hope to be many installments of the Candy Critic Dessert Club. We hope to regularly post our experiences making various desserts from around the world. In some cases we may be making something we're familiar with, other times we'll make something brand new to us. Often we'll get creative with our desserts either out of necessity or because we're being "creative".  The rules for us are simple; we won't edit out our mistakes. Sometimes desserts won't work, and you'll hear all about it.

For our first recipe we’re going to be making banana bread.  I chose this banana bread recipe because it’s the one I’m known for right now.  When I get invite to a party, people often ask me to make this banana bread.  I’ve made it a million times before, so I’m pretty sure I’ll get it right.  I know that I’m going to mess up a lot of recipes in the future, so I figured that I should try and make Dessert Club entry right.

Here’s the ingredient list:

2-3 very ripe bananas, peeled
76 grams cup melted butter
1 cup of maple syrup, honey, or brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 cup of walnuts
½ cup of chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Melt the butter, and mash the bananas. Once the butter is melted, ad it to the mashed bananas.  Then ad the maple syrup/honey/brown sugar, if you want to be creative you can ad a mix of any one, two, or three of these three sugars.  After everything is all mixed up, ad the egg, vanilla and baking soda. Ad the pinch of salt I always have a problem when a recipe says pinch of salt, how much is that exactly?), and gradually mix in the flour.  Once it’s all mixed together, stir in the chocolate chips and the walnuts.

Put everything into a greased and floured baking pan, and bake for about an hour.  Check on it after about 45 minutes by sticking a toothpick in, if the toothpick comes out clean it’s ready.  If it’s not yet baked, return to the oven for 10 minutes and check again.  Once the toothpick comes out clean, let it cool for about 15 minutes, remove from pan slice and slather it with butter.

This is a seriously tasty and simple recipe.  The biggest difficulty is judging when it’s done.  I’ve often under and over cooked my banana bread but fortunately you have some wiggle room both directions. Slightly under-cooked bread is OK, and slightly over cooked banana bread has a slightly nutty flavour. This time I over cooked the bread a little, but it still worked out pretty well.

I have to admit; this was a pretty boring first attempt at a dessert club.  I’m sure my friends are going to love it because they now have my famous banana bread recipe, but risk wise I didn’t really do much at all.  I think next time I’m going to try something a little more daring.  I’ve never made ice cream before, and I don’t own an ice cream maker, that sounds like an idea.

Do you have a family recipe you'd like to share? Maybe an Internet dessert creation you've discovered. Even if you've heard of some kind of exotic dessert you think we should attempt. Send us a note, link, or scan, because we'd love to try it.

Whenever we try a new dessert recipe we'll post about it on our social media (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr), just in case you want to try it with us.

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