Pastry Chef Attempts To Make Gourmet Lucky Charms

Yeah, how much should I charge per bowl?

$500 a bowl?

Yeah, totally.

(jazz drums)

Ugh!

Everything sucks...

As Brad would say.

Hi everyone, I'm Claire!

We're in the B-A test kitchen, and today we are going

to make gourmet Lucky Charms.

(jazz drums)

Before I say anything, we are going

to eat all these Lucky Charms.

None of this'll be wasted.

I was not allowed to have sugar cereal as a kid,

so Lucky Charms was a rare treat.

It's been quite a while since I've had it,

and it's quite delicious, I have to say.

So, I have different kinds here:

a chocolate variety, which I didn't know existed,

limited edition, which has all four-leaf clovers in it,

and then these bowls are just

the classic marshmallow shapes.

So there's hearts, stars, and horseshoes,

clovers, and blue moons, hourglass?

When did that become one?

Rainbows and tasty red balloons.

The easier part of the challenge will be the marshmallows,

because that's something I've made before,

and I have some idea of how to do that.

I think the bigger challenge will be the cereal part.

Obviously, they're not fried,

they're puffed through this industrial process

that I won't be able to duplicate here.

I'm really have no idea what these shapes are.

This is an X.

What is this?

It's, like, fish shaped.

Each of these is about a centimeter in diameter.

The inside has very, very tiny air bubbles

that's making it so light.

(cereal crunches)

I think as a kid I really underestimated

how good the cereal part was.

I can kinda tell from the flavor

and the slick exterior that they've been coated

in probably a sugar solution to make them a little sweet.

It's just so crunchy, like,

there's no chew at all.

Okay, marshmallows.

Very clean cut.

The color goes all the way through,

so it's not sprayed on the outside

like it was in the Skittles.

So these are marshmallows, but they're not fluffy,

and they're not squishy.

They are totally dehydrated and dry and crisp.

It smells...

It just smells sweet.

I don't know how else to describe it.

It just really tastes like sugar.

Hey Molly!

Once I saw these in the office, there was no stopping me.

A box disappeared,

was found on Molly's Yeah, I have it on

station. my station.

What does the gourmet version have to have

to keep that nostalgia factor, and what could we do better?

I think I would just flip and reverse

the ratio of marshmallows to oat cereal.

I was gonna try to really execute

the classic marshmallow shapes,

but the cereal shape seems less important right?

Right, yeah. So what kinda shapes

are you gonna try?

It might be Os.

Oh, okay!

Os are fine, as long as you got

something that's not just like a ball,

or a freakin' fusilli No, no, no.

or somethin'. (laughs)

As far as the cereal component goes,

my goal is to create something that has

the same lightness and crunch as the Lucky Charms cereal,

maybe with a little bit more oat flavor.

As far as the marshmallows, what's most important, clearly,

is that I retain the shape and colors of the marshmallows,

much more important than the cereal.

'Cause no one remembers what the cereal shapes are,

but they remember the marshmallow shapes.

Time to read the ingredients.

Ingredients: whole grain oats, sugar, oat flour, corn syrup,

modified cornstarch, corn starch, dextrose, salt, gelatin,

trisodium phosphate, yellow five and six, red 40, blue one,

natural and artificial flavor, vitamin E parenthesis

mixed tocopherols parenthesis, added to preserve freshness.

Vitamins and minerals: calcium carbonate, zinc and iron

mineral nutrients, vitamin C sodium ascorbate, A B vitamin

niacinamide, vitamin B6 pyridoxine hydrochloride, vitamin B2

riboflavin, vitamin B1 thiamin mononitrate, vitamin A

palmitate, A B vitamin folic acid, vitamin B12, vitamin D3.

That's quite a lot.

There's some meat on those bones.

I have some things to think about.

We're gonna go over to the old YouTube

and see what we can find about how these are made.

I have not had sugar breakfast cereal in so long.

It's delicious, right?

Oh my God, it's like drugs.

Sugar is a drug.

(Claire laughs) Thanks guys.

I've talked about the show How It's Made before.

Great show. (laughs)

Here is clip of an episode they had on oat cereal,

so this is kind-of a jackpot.

So it's making a stiff dough, it looks like,

from the oat flour and whole cooked oats.

What that YouTube video showed me about the cereal

is that it's made from the whole oats and wheat flour,

but I'm gonna do oat flour,

and then it's extruded through a die.

I had our producer order this KitchenAid

pasta extruder attachment that makes

all of these different pasta shapes,

so I might choose one of the large macaroni die,

this one, for basically extruding little circles

and then cutting them off and making those O shapes.

(jazz drums)

I'm gonna use steel-cut oats, which are the whole oat grain.

They're really nutritious.

I might grind this up even finer

to kind-of make an oat flour,

and then I'll cook the flour into a porridge.

This is a ghost town, right?

There's nothing happening in the background.

This whole episode's already got enough, it's so boring.

Ready?

Kinda nervous?

(mixer whirs)

Nothing came out!

Nothing's happening!

120.

Oh, we got robbed! (laughs)

Ooh, it's happening!

They all got smushed.

It's not holding together.

In my head, this worked perfectly.

I'm switching out the die.

I'm gonna try rigatoni.

(light jazz)

I managed to cut off one little ring.

It would probably be easier to do this by hand.

I'm gonna go to plan B.

I'm going to try punching out each individual little O.

(jazz drums)

Okay, so before I waste any more time,

I'm gonna try baking these up.

Just to see what happens, because I'm curious,

I'm going to try microwaving this one.

The actual microwaves might be such

a powerful heat source that it might puff them.

Looks like it did when you put it in there.

Nothing happened.

I don't think it's gonna puff.

Fail.

The microwave one did not really puff,

but it didn't explode.

It mostly just dried out and got kinda hard.

No.

It's really bad.

Fingers crossed for the ones in the oven.

Okay, so these, I didn't set a timer

so I don't know how long they were in the oven.

They kinda just crack a little bit.

They really didn't expand much at all.

It's really not tasty at all.

It's like a really bad cracker.

(sighs)

Texture's not right, flavor's not right,

so I'm gonna take a couple days to think about

how I can produce something that has

that much airier, crunchier texture,

and we'll come back in a couple days

and definitely try out the marshmallows, too.

(jazz drums)

So I had some thoughts.

I'm gonna make a batter that's a little bit looser,

and then I can dehydrate it and it will maintain its shape,

but it'll just lose all the water.

I'm gonna use my flour mill,

my favorite tool in the whole kitchen,

which I'm so excited about.

(jazz drums)

It's certainly a lot finer.

I'm gonna do a lot of baking powder this time.

The first thing I'm gonna try is baking these.

They just kinda look a little sad,

and they're definitely not dry enough.

They're kinda gross.

I have a feeling that,

if I bake them and then I dehydrate them,

I might really have something.

(jazz drums)

These don't look too bad.

Do you wanna see?

So, I'm dehydrating them.

(laughs)

Oh my god, they kinda look like cat food or something.

Ouch, more sugar!

There's definitely vanilla in this.

Taste it.

This was a mistake.

The flavor's wrong.

I wanna quickly put together another batter

because it just tastes like raw oats and not a lot else.

(jazz drums)

I wanna toast the rest of these oats,

so they start to develop some flavor.

Ooh, okay.

I feel really encouraged by this.

They really don't taste that good.

They are kinda gross.

(laughs)

I might add a little honey, some cinnamon, vanilla extract.

(jazz drums)

This has not been dehydrated,

but just tasting it for flavor.

It's a little tastier, right? Mmhmm.

Uh, looks like dog food.

Amiel, they haven't been dehydrated yet.

They taste pretty good, but pretty different.

I now have the honey simple syrup,

so my hope is that this is gonna

give them some of that shine.

(jazz drums)

Oh, they definitely look shiny.

I think that the shininess is gonna help people

move beyond the association with dog food.

Taste them and let me know what you think.

(chuckles) What?

You hate it. It kinda tastes like

dog treats.

(laughs) Like, you know, Milk-Bones.

Why have you tasted that?

Who hasn't eaten a Milk-Bone?

I used to watch my friend's dog,

and every now and then I'd take a little nibble. (laughs)

Never have I ever.

I'm really trying to get away from the

pet food associations.

Maybe what I should do is swap in

refined white sugar for the date sugar.

(light jazz)

I think I'm gonna grind them a little bit finer.

(grinder whirs)

Why is it so liquid? (laughs)

I don't understand.

Why is it so liquid?

(light jazz)

This looks better than wet cat food.

I feed Harris' cats with wet cat food.

It's really gross.

(light jazz)

My Instagram is all food, I don't really do selfies.

Follow me @csaffitz.

(light jazz)

Save me. I can't believe you're

making her do this!

Call for help. How many does

she have to make?

It's definitely not worth it,

especially when the original tastes pretty good,

and like, just have a bowl of that.

Yeah, I grew up with dogs.

What is the world?

What is the world?

Did you grow up with pets?

I had a gerbil.

It wasn't a good relationship.

(laughs)

I'm gonna put these in the oven, 10 minutes.

(jazz drums)

Oh my God, they got so dark!

Did I leave these in for too long?

I kinda burned 'em.

Did I bake off a version with the white sugar already?

That's why, that's why they burned,

it's 'cause of the white sugar.

I'm gonna taste it.

Crunchy.

Mmm, kinda good.

Try it.

It needs to dry out more, too.

It's all oat flour.

What was that face?

It's bitter.

[Claire] I burned 'em, kind-of.

It's on the crunchy side, not the crispy side,

you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What's the difference between crunchy and crispy?

Crispy implies that there's air and it's a less density,

and crunchy implies that it's a denser, hard-on-your-teeth

kinda thing. That makes sense.

So...

More airiness.

Ay. (sighs)

I'll get rid of those, I'll take the golden ones

and I'll dehydrate them and see what happens.

I agree with what Delany said, it's sort-of a density issue.

I'm gonna have to figure out another way

to get more air into it.

Maybe tomorrow I should start with the marshmallows,

and then I can return to the idea of the cereal.

(jazz drums)

So, I wanna check on the cereal from yesterday.

Also, it's so hot in here and I'm sweating.

Do you wanna taste this real quick?

This one attempt. Yeah, let's do it.

I want you to know, it's wrong.

Oh my God, they're so soft.

Don't taste it, go away.

They kinda taste like the little

heads to the graham bears, you know.

Teddy Grahams! Teddy Grahams.

I know, the problem is, they turned off

the air conditioning in here, and then this thing shut off.

It just took out all the moisture in the room.

You know, save it for the judge, lady.

Do you want these to-go?

I'll give 'em to the boy.

They're pretty tasty, I like those.

Oh my God, it's actually makes me feel so much better

that he's gonna feed this to his child.

[Brad] Have a good weekend!

Thanks, you too.

(sighs)

I'm not even gonna attempt natural food coloring for these,

'cause just look at them.

They're pretty much fluorescent,

so I have to pick my battles and that's not one of them.

I have this particular meringue recipe committed to memory.

We're just gonna go with these classic shapes.

I'm skipping the hourglass.

(jazz drums)

Good enough.

So blue is on the top,

yellow in the middle, and then pink on the bottom.

I'll have to make the rainbows like that.

I'm about to cry. Oh really?

(jazz drums)

So some of these worked out better than others.

All in all, not terrible.

Almost indistinguishable when you eat them.

I think I just want to get them

continued to dry out in the dehydrator.

And in the meantime, I'm gonna go back to the cereal.

My idea is to mix a fairly loose batter,

make a stiff meringue, fold that in,

smooth it onto a half-sheet tray, and bake it that way.

(sighs)

I don't love how it cracked.

It doesn't taste bad, at all.

What you get is kind-of that nice toasted oat flavor.

These are better. (laughs)

These taste better.

Color-wise...

Right?

Spot on.

You know, I could take them and then punch them out

like this, stick one in the dehydrator and see what happens.

(groans)

Okay.

Finally, I'm done punching out.

My forefinger kinda hurts.

Smells like honey.

Ooh, the marshmallows are so dry.

Look at that, so dry.

Mmm, do you wanna try it?

(laughs)

(jazz drums)

They really shrunk quite a bit in size.

They're really crunchy, delicious.

I made Lucky Charms!

But there's no one here to pat me on the back.

Sucks.

Alright, I'll try the originals first.

These are delightful.

They all immediately dissolve.

The marshmallows hold up well.

Okay, don't tell anyone, but I think I'm gonna have

the other test kitchen people taste them dry.

They don't have to have it with milk, right?

Right?

No one said this had to have milk on it.

Right?

(jazz drums)

My frustration and exhaustion from Friday,

that turned into, now, appreciation

at the chance to do it one more time.

The milk was soaking into all of those

air bubbles and crevices.

I have to pipe them all out individually,

make a powdered sugar glaze.

It'll add sweetness, and it'll also add

a protective barrier between the cereal and the milk.

(jazz drums)

Oy, oh God, I almost fell.

Alright.

(jazz drums)

So, I feel like I have to tell people that

the cereal part is not gonna look like the cereal part,

and then the marshmallows, have you seen the marshmallows?

Oh my goodness!

(inhales sharply)

I just went with good old food coloring on these.

I should have put parchment down,

because now they're all stuck.

Cool.

See if I can, as Edna Turnblad says, negotiate the pleats.

Hairspray?

No. Anyone?

The marshmallow really coats the tongue, in a way,

and yet, the lingering of chemical food coloring.

It's really quite something. There you go.

Mmm, there's something very light

and airy about the cereal part.

Conspicuously, I did not give you milk,

because the second they touches milk, they dissolve.

Does it kinda do the same thing that Lucky Charms does?

It's better.

Yeah? Yeah.

[Claire] You don't seem totally--

I think these are pretty delicious.

Oh, thank you.

These are not as sweet and flavorful as I wish they were.

Well, I think it's a job very well done.

Thank you.

You know what these remind me of?

Remember that cereal?

I'm so glad you didn't say dog food. (laughs)

Remember the cereal where it was like

little chocolate chip cookies?

And the dog was like

(howls) Yeah!

What were those called? And it was like dunka--

Cookie Crisp!

That's what they were!

What's this?

That's a balloon.

A red balloon. Nailed it!

I think you nailed these.

Thanks!

Let's try the cereal.

It's not reminding me of a Milk-Bone.

It's the closest you've been, other than,

you know, what, they've got some cool little,

more like shapes and

stuff like that. I know, I know,

I didn't really even attempt the shapes.

I'm not doin' it anymore.

You hear that? No more.

We're human, Claire.

I know. Okay.

This isn't million-dollar machines makin' this,

it's human beings.

It's one human being.

I think you did a good job!

Thanks.

Keep fightin' the good fight.

Okay.

What?

(both laugh)

I think, overall, I did a pretty good job.

I'm pretty pleased with myself.

Ish.

(jazz drums)

Here's how you make gourmet Lucky Charms.

Start by combining one cup freshly-milled toasted oat flour,

one and a half teaspoons baking soda,

and one teaspoon kosher salt in a medium bowl.

Stir in two-thirds cup water

and a splash of vanilla extract, and stir until smooth.

Let rest 10 minutes.

Whip 100 grams egg whites until foamy,

then add a pinch of salt.

Start streaming in 100 grams granulated sugar gradually.

Whip until peaks form,

then beat in a capful of white vinegar.

Pipe out one centimeter circles onto

a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake in a 300 oven

until cereal is dry and crisp, 15 to 20 minutes.

Move from parchment and transfer cereal to a dehydrator.

Halfway through drying, spray with a glaze

made from a half a cup powdered sugar,

seven teaspoons milk, and a splash of vanilla.

Let dehydrate completely.

Meanwhile, whip 200 grams of egg whites

in an electric mixer until foamy.

Add a pinch of salt, then when soft peaks form,

start streaming in 200 grams granulated sugar gradually.

Beat in 200 grams powdered sugar,

followed by two capfuls of white vinegar.

Divide meringue into seven bowls

and add a different color gel food coloring to each bowl

until you reach the desired color.

Transfer meringue to piping bags

fitted with couplers and different pastry tips,

and pipe out marshmallow shapes

onto parchment-lined baking sheets.

Bake in a 200 degree oven until marshmallows are dry,

then transfer to a dehydrator

and let dry until crisp all the way through.

Toss with cereal.

If there's a snack food or candy or convenience food

that you love that you wanna see

recreated here in the test kitchen,

feel free to leave it in the comments after the video,

but please, for the love of God,

no puffed things of any kind.

Come back again for the next one.

I'll be probably right here.

(giggles)