Pastry Chef Attempts to Make Gourmet Hot Pockets

Hot Pockets are a form of the crisping sleeve

while the actual cuisine is a stuffed bread type of food.

So there's two Hot Pockets.

Both the sleeve and the actual Hot Pocket.

Do you get it?

[Male Speaker] The sleeve is called a Hot Pocket?

That's what I just said.

Hot Pockets are a form of the crisping sleeve

while the actual cuisine.

This sentence makes no sense,

but it is technically a Hot Pocket for the Hot Pocket.

Get it?

Okay.

[upbeat jazz]

[machine whirring]

Ow.

Ow, ow my god, ow, ow.

Hey everyone, I'm Claire.

We are in the BA Test Kitchen

and today I am making gourmet Hot Pockets.

[upbeat jazz]

I've never had a Hot Pocket before,

but I do remember the commercials

and how delicious they looked.

It's basically, it's inside out pizza, right?

It's reverse pizza.

In my mind, pepperoni pizza is

the kind of like original or classic, but I don't.

Is that right?

Who ate these as a kid?

Is pepperoni like the classic?

Okay.

They call them sandwiches,

Hot Pockets brand sandwiches, which seems dubious.

But it's like melted cheese, and pepperoni, and a crust.

Like pretty simple actually.

So I've been told that the flavors of Hot Pockets

like go into the dozens,

so this is what was available at a nearby grocery store.

There's like ham and cheddar,

meatballs and mozzarella, four cheese pizza.

Lean Pocket seems kinda sad.

Feels very easy to gourmet.

Just use really nice cheese,

use really nice pepperoni,

make a dough, put it together,

and like there's no way that it won't be good.

Do I have to freeze them?

Okay, so these come frozen

so I'm just thinking I don't have to have them frozen,

but they should be fully baked and then reheated, right?

All right, so it comes in these like sleeves.

There's two in a package.

I'm not terribly impressed

by the look of the pastry on the outside.

Oh wow, after you cook it,

you pop this thing down

and it's like a little carrying case for it.

Cooking time on high, two minutes.

Ooh, I'm excited.

[upbeat jazz]

It smells good.

It smells like canned tomato

or like tomato paste and dried oregano.

Have you ever had one?

Do you want to try it with me?

I've never had one either.

One, two, three.

Ooh, it's hot. I know.

All right.

I'm kind of intrigued by the pastry

because it's kind of bready and flaky at the same time.

Oh yeah, there you go.

It's seams.

That to me says that there's two big sheets of pastry

and that they're being,

there's like filling goes in

and then the two sides are getting pressed together.

The pepperoni is very soft

which to me is a little bit off putting,

but in general,

there is nothing wrong with this food at all.

This is perfect, I mean, in theory,

but it's like, it's good.

Sohla, do you have a minute?

I was told by Dan that you have an interesting,

some interesting thoughts about Hot Pockets.

Well, they are gonna be microwaved from frozen, right?

That was the question I had.

I was like do I have to freeze these and then reheat?

Yeah.

We might have to get dry ice

'cause the freezing's gonna take a long time

and I'm trying to wrap this up in like two days.

Well, I was telling them

that you can actually buy the paper

to make the sleeves to get the crispy thing.

Really? Yeah.

So you can buy this basically.

This material and make your own.

[Claire] To create it, oh my god.

And then you can have a little crafting too.

Yes.

Where do you buy it?

Like online?

Online, yeah.

What an interesting development.

Can we order some of this?

Rick, you're not busy

making like eight different cookies right now, right?

Rick has been working on holiday cookies like a mad man.

What are my choices? Meatballs and mozzarella,

ham and cheddar, five cheese pizza.

Let's do the meatballs.

Oh, okay.

Wait, there's a, wait.

There's a five cheese pizza

and a four cheese pizza which I didn't notice.

[laughing]

Ooh, look at the pastry on that one.

It looks like it has some like spices on it.

So this is advertising that it's a garlic buttery crust.

If I do the pepperoni,

I still want to do a seasoned garlic buttery crust.

So there's a little bit of filling that's leaking out

so where it kinda busted through.

That's good to know

so that if my version does that a little bit,

I mean, that can be forgiven if the original does it too.

That was very hot.

Cute little meatballs.

Yeah, very cute.

I'm really excited about the garlic buttery crust

which even frozen smells so good,

but it doesn't look as flaky as the crispy crust.

So I could absolutely see a version

where I take this kind of coating

and put it onto a flaky pastry.

Okay, so these are five inches long.

Width is about two and a 1/4.

So there are these holes in the top

that I think are there to allow the steam to escape.

The kind of punctures have closed up

and so the steam tries to escape through the weak points

which is really the seam,

so that's why that kinda busted through.

I'm gonna cut this in half.

You can really see here how flaky

the texture of the pastry is.

Get a load of that.

There are air pockets.

It's not like completely filled

like the photo has you believe.

The flaky, the flaky.

I was gonna say the flakiest pastry.

The pastry is flaky which I'm kinda surprised at,

but it still has a softness to it.

Like it doesn't have that shattering

crisp texture like a croissant does.

I feel like I know what I'm gonna do.

All right, time for my favorite part,

reading the ingredients.

And this one's gonna be, it's a doozy.

Enriched flour, parentheses wheat flour,

malted barley flour, niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate,

riboflavin, folic acid, close parentheses,

water, reduced fat mozzarella cheese,

parentheses pasteurized part skim milk,

nonfat milk, modified food starch,

and there's an asterisk which leads to nowhere.

cultures, salt, vitamin A palmitate, enzymes,

asterisk, ingredients not in regular.

Oh, I need to start over.

There's the asterisk.

The asterisk indicates ingredients

not in regular mozzarella cheese.

Pepperoni, parentheses pork, beef, salt,

contains 2% or less of water, dextrose, spices,

lactic acid starter culture, oleoresin of paprika,

garlic powder, sodium nitrite, BHA, BHT,

citric acid, brackets to protect flavor,

closed brackets, closed parentheses,

tomato paste, palm oil, margarine,

parentheses palm oil, water, soybean oil, sugar,

mono and diglycerides, soybean lecithin,

potassium sorbate and citric acid,

bracket preservatives, close bracket,

annatto and turmeric color,

vitamin A palmitate added, close parentheses,

2% or less of whey, soybean oil,

fractionated palm oil.

I've never in my life heard the word fractionated.

Modified food starch, yeast, dough conditioner blend.

That's bad stuff.

Parentheses calcium sulfate, salt, L-cysteine hydrochloride,

garlic powder, tricalcium phosphate,

enzymes, close parentheses,

salt, dried garlic, sugar, spices, dried onions,

sodium stearoyl lactylate, maltodextrin,

potassium chloride, citric acid, soy flour, egg whites.

The screen's not big enough.

I don't really have to do research.

[Male Speaker] We've gotta do some research.

I already know how to make it.

I can make it right now.

We could be done today.

[Male Speaker] Can we just go watch the Jim Gaffigan bit?

Yeah, yeah, let's go do that.

They have a warning printed on the inside.

It's like warning, you just bought Hot Pockets!

I hope you're drunk or heading home to a trailer.

You hillbilly, enjoy the next NASCAR event.

I don't think this is very nice.

Hot Pockets!

I have a plan.

I'm gonna start by making a dough

and then the dough has to rise,

and then while it's rising,

I'm going to put together the kind of tomato base

and prep my filling ingredients.

My hope is that by end of day,

I'll have like one prototype,

just at least one version baked for us to sample.

[upbeat jazz]

The dough is both flaky

but also has kind of that bready texture

where there's like an open kind of crumb.

So to get that effect,

I'm doing a dough that's both laminated to produce flakiness

and yeasted to get that kind of rise out of it.

All right, this is the dough and I'm gonna let it rise.

The next thing I'm going to do is prepare a tomato sauce.

So I'm gonna do a mixture of tomato paste

and whole peeled tomatoes that I'm gonna cook.

We should put a little fresh basil in it.

That would be good.

And so I'm gonna put it together on the stove

and then transfer it to the oven and let it cook.

And then I'm gonna make some tomato powder

because we have time.

I'm just gonna take a little piece of Rick's,

what is this one?

Mole cookie.

Mm.

Oh, spicy.

It hits you later.

Back when I made Doritos,

we had some tomato powder that we ordered from the internet

and we don't know what happened to it,

so now I'm gonna make my own or I'm gonna try

and I'm basically gonna take tomato paste.

I'm going to spread the tomato paste in a very thin layer,

let it dehydrate,

and then when we come back tomorrow,

pulverize it into a powder.

Now, I'm going to prep my other filling ingredients

and I can make the butter block which I have a plan for

and I'm very excited to show you what that is.

Let's do the butter block next, I guess.

Jeez, I didn't know you were gonna throw it.

Ah, okay.

Dan, okay.

I was not expecting any of that.

Okay, so I have salted butter here.

We're making something savory.

And I'm going to season the butter block

which is the thing I was excited to show you.

What is that crust called?

The butter something?

The crispy, buttery crust.

I'm just kinda guessing

but I'm gonna do a 1/4 teaspoon onion powder,

an 1/8 of a teaspoon garlic powder.

This is sweet paprika and several cranks of black pepper.

So this butter, I'm going to form into a block,

something kind of square or rectangular.

You've all seen this before.

When I keep saying lamination,

what I mean is that I'm going to take a block of butter

and literally fold it into the dough

so that the butter is inside sort of an envelope of dough

and then roll it out and fold it.

Okay, this is gonna go into the fridge

while the dough finishes its rise

and then I'm gonna prep the remaining filling ingredients.

It's jut the cheese and pepperoni.

And I think I will do a mix of the soppressata,

the sweet and spicy,

and then unsliced pepperoni,

and then I'll move on to the cheese.

Low moisture is important so I'm not using fresh

which has a much higher water content

and it's the enemy right now

because I'm trying to make the filling

as low moisture as possible.

Claire, how's it going?

You're making pepperoni pizza?

Mm-hmm. Yeah?

[Claire] Mm-hmm.

To me, ham and cheese feels like the one.

Really? Yeah.

[Claire] No one's said that.

I just did like literally 12 seconds ago.

Wait, what did you say? You missed your window.

Ham and cheese feels like the Hot Pocket.

Are you kidding?

Are you crazy?

It's pepperoni pizza.

I'll make you a deal.

If you bring me ham and cheddar,

I'll make you-- We can do?

I'll make you a Hot Pocket.

The Delany special?

Yeah.

Like I'll put it on the sleeve.

I'll write like Delany.

Okay, so I'm going to,

let me pause with the filling stuff

'cause I'm going to go to back to my dough which has risen.

I'm gonna take it out.

So I'm gonna punch it down 'cause I want to expel that gas

'cause any air in there will make it harder to laminate.

So I unwrap the block and now,

oh my god, I just got a whiff of it.

It smells.

Actually, it smells so much like Doritos.

Nailed it.

Okay, that's not what I'm making.

Okay, so I've put this on an angle,

like at a diagonal on the dough.

Bring all these points to the center

and now I roll it out.

You make these layers

and sheets of butter alternating with dough.

So that basically creates sheets of dough

separated by sheets of butter.

In the oven, the butter melts.

The water that's in there turns to steam.

There's a little bit of a puffing action

and you get these like flaky, buttery layers.

And then now, into the fridge

and let's see what's happening to our paste.

How hot is it in here?

My god, it's like done.

I made like tomato leather.

So this could use more time in the dehydrator,

but it is drying out pretty easily so that's good.

I'll probably check this in like a half an hour

'cause I think it's probably,

it's very close to being done.

Okay, so here's that tomato sauce.

I'm going to discard to basil because that's done its job.

Putting it into a food processor

to basically get it really smooth

and break up all the solid.

This sauce is delicious.

[Brad] I got a new dehydrator I gotta bring down too.

Oh really?

I kinda like it.

It's been through a lot with this one.

It's just like a tin box.

Yeah, this was state of the art back in the day.

I'm making,

I'm dehydrating tomato paste in it to make tomato powder.

For?

Hot Pockets.

Oh really? Yeah.

Now, how do they achieve the poof?

Like it's like a hollow gap inside, right?

Oh, that's I think just from the cheese melting

and creating--

Oh, and then falling?

Yeah.

But I'm gonna try not to get too much--

[Brad] Too much gappage?

Of that gap, yeah.

You just gave me an idea

which is maybe I will preform--

You're welcome. The filling.

That's a good idea. Yeah.

Like compress it

so that I don't get that big air pocket in it.

Yeah, there you go.

Stick with me. Good thinkin'!

So Brad just gave me the idea

to try to like preform the filling into rectangles

and to mix all of it together

and then maybe like chill it.

So I went to grab all my filling ingredients

and I'm gonna basically mix them all together

tomato sauce included

until I get a mix that I like and I can season that,

and then I'm gonna form it

into basically like rectangular bricks.

With pieces this large it might not work.

So this could be like a total disaster.

[Male Speaker] Oh god, oh no.

So this is not working at all.

These are too large.

I need like ice cube trays but that are large

and the shape of bars.

We have those molds that we used for the stickers.

Is this gonna fall on my head?

Oh my god. [laughs]

It almost like cracked me right in the forehead.

For the first time in like two years,

that dumb Twinkie thing came in handy.

This could work.

I think we're gonna go with this.

So now, I'm gonna weigh the filling into single portions

and then put a pan on top and weigh 'em down

just to get them like really compact.

Now into the fridge.

All right, now I think I can roll out the pastry.

I'm gonna cut it in half

'cause I'm gonna make basically

a bottom layer and a top layer.

While the pastry is chilling once again,

I'm gonna try to make that kind of like

I want to call it like zesty spice mix.

I don't really know what it is.

So I'm gonna start by pulverizing

the dehydrated tomato into a powder.

[upbeat jazz]

[blender whirring]

All right, success.

So we got some plain dry bread crumbs here,

get tomato powder and onion powder,

paprika, dried oregano.

I think I'll do a 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

So we have this Parmesan powder from Doritos.

We got this for Doritos and we've used what,

like four teaspoons?

And we have this entire thing left.

Mm, we should market this.

This should be a thing.

It's delicious.

And now I'm gonna bring out both sheets of pastry,

the filling, and an egg to start assembling.

So now, [giggles] I kinda love it.

My little filling Twinkies.

So the yolk is the glue

to keep the sides of the pastry together.

Folding the pastry over and kinda draping it.

And they look good, I think.

I do think that they're gonna burst apart in the oven.

Do a little bit of egg white

and make sure I'm really venting

to prevent the egg from sealing.

This stuff goes on.

There's a lot of moving parts to this recipe.

It's only day one.

We've never done this much cooking on day one.

[Male Speaker] It's impressive.

I feel good about that.

[upbeat jazz]

They don't look anything like Hot Pockets,

but they look incredible.

[Male Speaker] Amazing.

Did I do too good a job again?

Mm, they smell so good.

They look so good.

How good do these look?

They look so good, right?

Like that amount of seepage looks so perfect.

Ugh, look at the layers.

Do we think there's a scenario in Gourmet Makes

where we don't care about the original

'cause the homemade is so good?

[Male Speaker] You're not done.

The shape looks really nice,

but one thing that happened is the layers all rose together

so the height kinda uniformly.

The layers like uniformly separated.

Typically, with a flaky pastry,

that's actually a good thing.

In the case of Hot Pockets, it's not ideal

because it doesn't have that burrito shape

where it's all the way around.

So I will probably change the method for forming them

where I might roll a single piece of pastry

all the way around.

The size I think looks good.

They smell incredible.

They look better than I thought they were going to.

They look amazing.

I'm very proud of myself.

I think it's too flaky.

It looks so good.

Rick, I need.

Look it, just be impressed.

Are these?

Wow, look at that puff!

Holy [beep].

Does it look so good?

[Rick] Wow.

[Claire] Just get a load of that.

Wow.

Ow, it's so hot.

It's really hot.

The crust is amazing.

I just burned my lip.

This is worth it.

I'm in awe.

I think it's too flaky.

[Rick] Maybe a little too flaky, but.

I mean, I'm not mad at it.

It's day one, Rick.

I've never done this well on day one.

Look at that.

That's sick.

Look at that.

Yeah, it's pretty good.

I don't think I've gourmeted something so hard.

[upbeat jazz]

So my plan is the following.

I'm going to make another dough first thing

so I can get it rising.

I just need one, I just needed one.

And then while this is rising, we're going to.

I'm gonna make the new butter block,

this time with less butter.

Into the fridge.

We also want to try microwaving

the two frozen pastries that I made yesterday

and see how those hold up.

The homemade ones are obviously not uniform in size,

but the overall dimensions are fairly similar.

I'm gonna use this sleeve

and we're just gonna do them one at a time.

Ooh, this one's a little bit,

it's a little bit of a tight fit.

It's like trying on pants that are one size too small.

[upbeat jazz]

[gasps] It's perfect.

It looks so good.

Chris, look.

This is homemade.

That was what I was smelling!

Yup.

It smells so good.

I know.

I'm making some changes.

It might be very hot.

I feel like it could a little more moisture,

a little more like tomato

and maybe a touch more like gooey cheese.

Yes, it needs more cheese for sure.

But wow, the flavor, wow, the texture.

It's just a wow.

It's a wow.

It's a wow.

Cheese? Cheese.

It's slippery, god!

[laughing]

Stop it.

All right.

I am increasing the ratio of cheese in the filling

and adding more filling.

[Male Speaker] How many cheeses are in there?

There's still just one kinda cheese,

just more of it.

Should I add parm?

All right, I am gonna grate some parm in there.

Why not?

Yesterday, there was a huge wheel of Grana Padano

that Gaby and Brad cut.

Grana Padano is like a milder,

less salty, less expensive parm,

but we just have a ton of it in the kitchen

and parm is very expensive so we're using this.

Okay, I feel good about this filling.

I'm gonna set this aside

and now I'm gonna go back to my dough

and work in the butter block.

Thank you.

[upbeat jazz]

But I do want to swap this out with a pastry

that's been in there since yesterday

so I can try some different ideas

about forming the Hot Pockets.

Did we get those for the Oreo shoot?

No, we didn't,

but you know what I did get.

Let me see, let me see.

Wait, not from Whole Foods.

There's no way Whole Foods sells Hot Pockets.

Made a couple stops.

No, and we're not doing the Hot Pockets here.

Oh my god.

We're doing sliced ham, ham steak.

Okay.

And then a couple of cheddar options.

Okay, here's what I need you to do Delany,

I need you to cut all this up,

grate the cheese, and we're in business.

It'll take you 10 minutes.

It'll take me five minutes.

Okay great, great, even better.

If you do it in five minutes,

then we can do a little test run with it.

Yeah?

Okay, so here's my plan.

Rather than create a bottom pastry and a top pastry

and fuse them together with egg wash,

I'm going to wrap the pastry around the filling.

All right, so this is the pastry

and this is the filling.

I'm going to wrap it like this

and so the pastry is folded over itself on the bottom

and then the weight of the filling keeps it together.

I want the top to be thicker than the sides of the pastry

so that when they wrap underneath,

they can overlap and then form a single thickness.

So I'm gonna take this piece of pastry

and roll the ends much thinner

to have them meet underneath the pastry.

Oh no, so far it's not working.

Hold on.

You know what I need is I need a thinner dowel.

I need a thinner rolling pin.

[blender whirring]

God, this is the cutest little oh my god.

This is, I love this thing.

This is like my dream.

Hey, Claire.

[gasp] You did good job.

Look at you.

Thanks, how surprising.

Yes, great.

That was so fast.

Okay, all right, let's try it, let's try it.

But this is also the moment of truth for you.

You're the architect here

so is it ribbons or is it?

Are these a little long, do you think?

I don't know, what do you think?

I don't know, I'm not gonna eat this.

[laughing] Okay.

This is strictly a Delany specialty.

[Alex] Your inclination is to go for chunk.

I'm gonna do a mix.

Oh! Yeah.

[Alex] The Claire ham couvait.

And I'm gonna do cheese on the top

and cheese on the bottom.

This is like some deep engineering.

So this is gonna be the bottom, by the way.

And now, ready?

I'm pretty stoked about this

just in case you couldn't tell.

Me too.

I think it's gonna work.

All right, into the oven.

That worked pretty well

and that was very free form.

I wasn't even measuring

and I didn't really focus on

preforming the filling or anything,

so that's what I'm gonna do now.

I also want to try and experiment

where I let the dough proof again after I form them.

I think that will produce something a little bit lighter

with more of a crumb

rather than just thin sheets of dough.

What is he eating?

[Male Speaker] A disgusting sandwich.

Alex Delany, what are you eating?

What?

[Claire] Is that a ham sandwich?

Yeah, it's a ham sandwich.

I can't believe you are like pregaming

the Hot Pocket with a sandwich.

I'm so hungry.

Okay, fine.

So I have a new idea for the filling

rather than those weird Twinkie molds,

but something similar.

I'm gonna use plastic to form like little sausages

of the weight of filling that I'm gonna use.

This is weirder.

Brad, I'm gonna open the oven right next to you.

I'll get the door for you.

Ready?

What you making?

Top secret.

Oh, what are you making, Hot Pockets?

[Claire] Oh wow, okay yeah, okay, we sprung a leak.

[Brad] That happens though.

Oh, it looks good though.

Delany? Delany.

So I did not egg wash the side so it sprung a leak.

Oh.

You know like where I pinched off the sides.

[Alex] But you know, what happens though.

In a Hot Pocket. In a Hot Pocket.

I think that the folding plan worked great

and you don't even see a seam, right?

No.

Oh, nice, crispy, crunchy.

[Claire] Oh, that looks like a big air pocket, huh?

[Alex] Yeah.

[Claire] It looks good though.

[Alex] That actually looks pretty great.

[Claire] The pastry looks good.

[Alex] The pastry looks great.

[Claire] Nice and flaky.

It's only 2:30.

I know, I'm overachieving on this task.

She's good.

What in the world are those?

We're taking over those Claire's show by the way.

Oh my god, they look like little ndujas.

Isn't that the most disturbing though?

[Claire] Don't touch the packets!

Oh sorry, we love the packets.

All right, so we're at Claire's station right now.

I brought a couple friends along

to test out this Hot Pocket

to see if it lives up to the standard.

Are you guys that familiar with Hot Pockets?

I could not tell you what a Hot Pocket tastes like.

All right.

Claire's so pissed off.

[Claire] What's going on?

Hot Pockets!

Did you try the pepperoni one from Claire?

[Alex] No.

This one's like a little bit softer,

a little more muted, a little like--

It's for someone though.

Oh yeah.

That is good.

Every pot has its lid.

You know what?

You could have left it all in.

There are chunks. I'm sorry, what?

[Alex] We could have left all the filling in.

All the filling?

We could have, huh?

Okay.

I feel like I'm gonna get hurt if I stay here any longer.

Someone's definitely gonna get hurt.

It's delicious.

I want to try the pepperoni one.

The pepperoni one was-- That I don't cross her

so that I can come back and try the pepperoni.

Yeah.

Oh, she loves it.

I like that forming method.

I think it worked well.

Wait, hold on.

Delany, you gotta take this with you.

Oh no, that's for you.

Oh, I insist.

You're good.

Okay, great.

So I'm going to take the pastry that I made today,

roll it out,

and start forming them with my filling packets and the sauce

and hopefully get some kind of finished product

before the end of the day.

So I am concerned that this is not sealed

on this side in particular.

So I'm gonna do a few more and in the meanwhile,

in the meantime, I should say,

I'm gonna cover this

and just let it sit out at room temperature

until I notice that it's puffed a little bit

and then I'm gonna bake it.

[upbeat jazz]

They look like they've puffed a little bit

which is the indicator I was looking for.

So I'm gonna put 'em in the oven,

check 'em after maybe 15 or 20

and we'll see how they go.

I'm gonna finish forming the remaining three

which I'm just gonna chill before baking

and we'll do a side by side.

[upbeat jazz]

It's been 19 minutes.

Oh no, they're leaking everywhere.

Sauce.

[beep]

[upbeat jazz]

Oh god, it's a whole mess.

The fillings leaked out.

We'll come back to these once they cool off a little bit.

It's very light because there's nothing in it.

So it busted a seam right there.

Rough.

It's less crispy than before.

There's still distinctive layers,

but it's less flaky and a little bit more like bready crumb

which I think actually looks really, really good.

Do you want to try a Hot Pocket?

We had a structural issue.

Oh.

Oh my god.

It's so good.

I like how flaky it is.

Flaky, but also bready.

But not too flaky.

Not like a croissant which is like what it was before.

The first version I tried was way too flaky,

like too fancy.

This feels like-- Like shatter.

Well, when I had the regular Hot Pocket yesterday.

You ate a regular one?

Well, they were over there.

I'm like well, I gotta try one.

I thought they were yours,

but they were so dense and chewy.

[Claire] I can't believe you ate one.

And I was like this is much better.

And I think this is the first time I've said

that something that you made

is much better than the original.

[laughing] Jeez!

That was way more of an insult than a compliment.

The recap is I wasted the good one on Adam

and I should have saved it for Sohla

who actually appreciates what we've been doing here.

Really good lamination.

Yeah, the pastry looks good.

The pastry has that sort of like.

There's a crumb to it.

This is very good.

Thank you.

How do you feel about the seasoning and like salt level?

Close to what a Hot Pocket is.

There you go, perfect.

I guess that's what you're doing here.

Yeah, that's the name of the game.

I do feel good about these.

I wish that they hadn't leaked so much

so that's why we got our second batch over there

and I'm hoping that those are gonna do a little better.

[upbeat jazz]

Something bad happened.

There was an explosion of molten cheese.

It actually, wow.

[Male Speaker] It's remarkably similar to the last one.

It's the exact same pattern as last time.

There was the same problem with the weak sides

where they just burst.

I'm just gonna do all this again exactly the same way

except for one tiny change and make them again.

[upbeat jazz]

Today is day three.

There was no curse,

but I do have to start over from scratch

because it's been like five or six days

and I got nothing.

[upbeat jazz]

I'm holding back a little bit of the water

because I overshot it last time.

[upbeat jazz]

I'm making the same sauce as I did during round one,

all the same ingredients.

So now I'm doing the butter block

and the second version I did worked better than first,

so it's six ounces of salted European style butter.

I have my sweet and hot soppressata.

The pepperoni, low moisture mozzarella, Grana Padano.

Should we try and make it a five cheese?

I'm just speculating should we make it a five cheese.

Let me ask Sohla.

Sohla, should I add three and make it a five cheese

'cause they have five cheese?

All right, I'll have to go raid the cheese area.

So here's a piece of parm.

This is all Grana.

Maybe there's some pecorino the reach in.

There's a lot going on in these fridges.

Do you know if there's any pecorino anywhere?

No, that's okay.

All right, well the dough isn't gonna be ready for a while.

We can probably get our hands on some pecorino

and some provolone or like fontina feels like fancier?

[Male Speaker] Wouldn't a truly improved version

have six cheeses?

All right, we'll go six.

I've just been peer pressured into adding a sixth cheese.

Oh yeah, this is done.

[upbeat jazz]

Okay, this is gonna go into the freezer.

Where do we think that cheese is?

Jeez, provolone.

Dan.

Fontina.

No, stop.

That's for eating.

Pecorino.

You missed one.

This one, I,

this one, I already tried.

And caciocavallo.

So it's actually four different cheeses

and there was three there,

so we could do seven cheese.

[upbeat jazz]

If these explode, it's your fault, I think,

'cause of all the extra cheese.

[upbeat jazz]

I want to change up my method for this

from the last time

where I was making the little

like sausages out of plastic wrap.

So I might want to kind of do a mix of what I was doing

in round one and round two

which is like putting in some kind of mold maybe

and I guess put it in the fridge

and then cut it into four quadrants, four bars,

and each one will be the inside of one Hot Pocket?

Are these the same weird meat

and cheese tubes that I saw last week?

Yes, but not tubes.

This is seven cheese and pepperoni.

Oh.

So I didn't have enough pastry

to really overlap around the filling

without stretch pulling it tight,

so I left more room for myself this time.

[upbeat jazz]

I do feel that I'm not stressing the pastry as much.

It's just much more of a comfortable motion

to wrap the pastry around the filling.

[upbeat jazz]

Oh, it's hot in there.

Okay.

Oh!

All right, well some of them--

[Brad] Epic fail?

Not as big as before, but it's not good.

It's not good, Brad.

[Brad] Leaking out or?

Yeah, it's leaking out.

I'm really--

[Brad] It's gonna be a tough one.

I'm really irritated.

Brad doesn't care.

[upbeat jazz]

I was really hoping that there was like one or two

that didn't do this, but that is not the case.

No.

[Brad] Those don't look too bad, Claire!

No, but the dough looks good, right?

The dough looks good.

I want to take a bite out of that.

Yeah, right?

Oh you're just gonna shove it back in?

Yeah. [laughing]

I'm restuffing it.

[Brad] Yeah, put a little stitch in there.

No, not even, just smush it.

You know, we never found a video of the factory.

How do we know that's not how they do it?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

[laughing]

My one conclusion is that it's too much filling

and I have to put less filling in.

I'll just cut off a piece,

a lengthwise piece of the filling blocks

that I've already created.

But I'm concerned it's 4:30 already.

We gotta kinda hurry.

[upbeat jazz]

All right.

I feel really good.

I think it worked.

Oh.

I think four of them are salvageable,

but I'm gonna let 'em keep going

'cause they're not quite done yet.

All right, two have hemorrhaged terribly.

One has hemorrhaged a medium amount.

So that means three have had

I would say minimal to moderate loss,

which I think we can work with.

I'm not making these again.

While this is finishing,

let's get that paper and just like check it out.

We're moving on.

It's six o'clock.

No one has time for this.

Microwavable crisping paper

that was discontinued circa 1995.

It's demonstrating different ways to wrap food

and one of them is called the quote diaper wrap.

Do you see?

It says it right there.

The diaper wrap.

So this says general instructions.

Always use Microcrisp elevation rack.

Uh oh.

[laughing]

[Male Speaker] Did we get that?

Uh oh.

I don't know what that is.

[laughing]

It says do not use ordinary microwave cookware.

All right, let's.

I'm gonna pull them.

I think it's time.

It's 6:09.

They've been in for about 35 minutes.

I think we're good.

Oh yeah.

I'm gonna go ahead and say that these two

with the moderate amount of leaking are fine.

That one's fine, that one's fine,

that one didn't leak, that one barely leaked.

I think it's fine.

I have one that didn't leak at all.

The top looks a little weird.

I don't quite know what happened there,

but it didn't,

like there's no burst seams or anything.

I'm gonna let these cool

and then before I go home tonight,

I'm gonna throw them in the freezer.

Tomorrow when I come in, wrap them in the paper.

What do you think is gonna happen?

It's not gonna like start a fire or something, right?

We don't have the rack or the cookbook.

It'll be fine.

And we're gonna microwave 'em

and we're gonna wrap this up literally.

Who wants this?

[upbeat jazz]

Day four.

That's never a good sign.

Today, we're going to microwave and taste

and hopefully it all works out.

I'm nervous about the microwaving.

I think the microwaving could be a problem.

I'm worried that there's gonna be a cheese meltdown

in the Hot Pocket in the microwave.

Oh, there's the rack.

Brown and serve sausage in one of those biscuits

to make little pigs in a blanket.

Now at the same time, I went ahead and did the--

[Claire] Wait, hold on, how is she?

Now I'll just go ahead and do the last one here.

Just wrap the biscuit around the sausage

and then roll it in your Microcrisp.

Now, this whole thing--

How did she get it to stay?

Oh, a piece of tape.

Tape?

She used tape which I think is interesting

'cause I was like how do you secure the paper?

She just put a piece of scotch tape on it.

Let's see the after.

Those look so bad.

Hold on, but what are those?

[Male Speaker] Oh, look at them.

Look at those pork chops.

We have to stop.

I draw the line at pork chops.

I guess I should practice on an actual Hot Pocket.

Perfect.

[upbeat jazz]

The lady in the video did it

but I feel a little weird

putting this tape in the microwave.

See how it goes.

I think we can microwave it on here?

Okay, it's only for like two minutes.

What could go wrong?

[upbeat jazz]

All right.

The tape, it did melt.

The tape did melt,

but it only melted onto the paper

and not onto the food.

But the paper certainly absorbed

some of the grease which is normal.

I mean, it worked.

It didn't not work.

But I'm not gonna go through this whole tracing thing.

I'm just gonna make sleeves and then fold them.

I don't want to put tape on it.

[upbeat jazz]

I don't want to say anything about it

because I'm nervous.

I'm gonna use the instructions.

I'm gonna put it in for two minutes,

but I am gonna keep an eye on it after one minute

because I am very worried

that all of the cheese is going to leak out.

It smells really good,

but I'm worried that it's heating up very quickly.

Oh, oh, hold on.

I'm seeing some oils.

Nothing's coming out of the vents.

Okay, three, two, one.

[microwave beeping]

Oh, it's pretty good.

Very hot.

That worked out pretty well, I think.

It smells so good.

Sohla, I think I did it.

Yeah, this is much better than the original.

I was really nervous for the microwaving part.

It worked out better than I expected

and I actually think the crisping paper made a difference.

I'm really happy with the amount of filling.

It didn't leak out.

There isn't a big gap between the pastry and the filling.

You guys, this is so good.

It is so delicious.

I did it.

Did you microwave this?

Yep, frozen and microwaved.

This is really good.

[Claire] I gotta put one in the microwave though.

This is so good.

[Claire] I know, Adam, but thank you.

So good. I know.

Claire, you finally did it!

After how many episodes, she finally did it.

You're gonna go places.

This show is gonna work out.

Oh my god, oh my god.

I don't know what to say.

Don't take this the wrong way,

but it smells like a Hot Pocket.

I take that only as a compliment

All right, cool. which I'm sure that it is.

Two minutes on high with the crisping paper

is the perfect amount of time for these.

That's a good food, Claire.

[Claire] I know, isn't it delicious?

Why is it so good?

There's seven different cheeses in it.

I'm very proud of that fact.

Are you [beep] me?

I don't know, what else is there to say?

I know.

I think the only thing left to say is

no episode will ever be as successful as this one.

This is maybe,

I know it seems kind of low key,

this is maybe one of the most successful ones

I've ever done.

This is like a true gourmet thing.

It's laminated pastry, for god's sake.

I mean.

I think there was enough struggle

and then compared to the success,

it's made for a great episode, I think so far.

[upbeat jazz]

Here's how you make a gourmet Hot Pocket.

Dissolve one teaspoon of active dry yeast

in a 1/4 cup of warm water in a large bowl

and let sit until foamy.

Whisk in one and 1/4 cups room temperature water,

two tablespoons olive oil,

one and a 1/2 teaspoons sugar,

and one teaspoon kosher salt.

Add 500 grams of all purpose flour

and stir to bring together into a dough.

Knead, adding more flour as needed to prevent sticking

until you have a very smooth and soft

but not sticky dough, about 10 minutes.

Form into a ball, flour lightly,

and place in a large clean bowl.

Cover and let rise in a warm place

until nearly doubled in size.

Meanwhile, make the tomato sauce.

Lightly crush and drain a 28 ounce can

of whole peeled tomatoes

and let it sit in a colander over a bowl to drain further.

Cook four smashed and peeled garlic cloves

and three tablespoons of olive oil

in a large saucepan over medium heat until lightly browned.

Then stir in a quarter teaspoon red paper flakes

and three tablespoons tomato paste

and cook stirring constantly until the paste is caramelized.

Add the drained tomatoes and a splash of their juices

to dissolve any brown bits on the bottom of the pot,

then season with salt and a pinch of dried oregano.

Throw in two big sprigs of basil

and transfer to a 300 degree oven.

Let the sauce roast,

stirring once until very thick and concentrated,

about 40 minutes.

Let cool completely.

Then pluck out the basil

and pulse the mixture in a food processor to smooth it out.

To make the tomato powder,

lightly oil a small parchment lined baking sheet

and spread a very thin layer of tomato paste overtop.

Place in a dehydrator set to medium high

and let sit until dry and brittle.

Break up into bits

and pulverize in a spice grinder to a fine powder.

Set aside.

When the dough is nearly proofed, make the butter block.

Toss six ounces

of salted European style butter cut into pieces,

two teaspoons Parmesan powder,

1/2 a teaspoon garlic powder,

1/2 a teaspoon onion powder,

a 1/4 teaspoon paprika,

a 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano blitzed in the spice grinder

and several cranks of black pepper

on a sheet of parchment paper to coat the butter.

Cover with parchment paper

and beat with a rolling pin until the butter is pliable.

Folding the parchment paper to make an envelope,

roll the butter into a thin even square with sharp edges.

Chill until ready to use.

When the dough is proofed,

turn out onto a work surface and knock out the gas.

Pat it into a square

and freeze for 10 minutes to cool it down.

Then unwrap the butter

and place over top of the dough at a 45 degree angle.

Fold the dough up

and over the butter so it's completely enclosed,

then pinch all the seams to seal.

Dust over and under with more flour

and roll out into a long rectangle.

Fold the dough in thirds like a letter.

Rotate the dough 90 degrees

and repeat the rolling and folding process.

Wrap the dough in plastic

and refrigerate until firm and relaxed,

about two hours.

To make the filling,

combine 100 grams of diced pepperoni,

35 grams of chopped, sliced, sweet soppressata,

35 grams of chopped, sliced, hot soppressata,

400 grams of finely diced,

low moisture, whole milk mozzarella,

125 grams of the tomato sauce,

a 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano,

a 1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper flakes,

and the following finely grated cheese:

30 grams Parmesan,

25 grams Grana Padano,

30 grams fontina,

25 grams pecorino,

25 grams aged provolone,

and 25 grams caciocavallo.

Press and cut into compact rectangles

weighing about 60 grams each

and measuring about four inches long and one inch wide.

To make the seasoning mix,

combine two tablespoons fine plain bread crumbs,

a 1/2 teaspoon tomato powder,

a 1/2 teaspoon onion powder,

a 1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper flakes,

a 1/4 teaspoon paprika,

a 1/2 teaspoon dried crushed oregano,

a 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt,

and a 1/2 teaspoon Parmesan powder.

To form the Hot Pockets,

roll out the chilled dough

dusting with flour as needed to a 1/4 inch thickness.

Cut into rectangles five and a 1/2 inches wide

and about six inches long.

Use the dowel to thin and widen the two longer sides.

Pipe some of the extra tomato sauce into the thicker center,

place a packet of filling overtop,

then brush a beaten egg white around the border.

Pipe more tomato overtop

and fold the thinner sides up and over the filling.

Turn it over so the seam side is down.

Firmly pinch the two shorter sides together.

Trim off the excess and tuck underneath.

Place the Hot Pocket on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Brush the surface with more egg white

and sprinkle some of the seasoning mix overtop.

Cut four deep, wide slashes

and cover while you're forming the remaining Hot Pockets.

Let all the Hot Pockets sit

at room temperature until puffed,

about 30 minutes.

Bake at 300 degrees Fahrenheit

until light golden brown and bubbling,

about 30 minutes.

Let cool completely, freeze,

and microwave for two minutes in crisping paper.

That was a long one.

[upbeat jazz]

[La Donna E Mobile]

♪ La donna e mobile ♪

♪ Qual piuma al vento ♪

♪ Muta d'accento ♪

♪ E di pensiero ♪

♪ Sempre un amabile ♪

♪ Leggiadro viso ♪

♪ In pianto o in riso ♪

♪ E mensognero ♪

♪ La donna e mobile ♪

♪ Qual piuma al vento ♪

♪ Muta d'accento ♪

♪ E di pensier ♪