Pastry Chef Attempts to Make Gourmet Warheads

Heard you had an upset tummy.

Yay!

Thanks, Rhoda.

Rhoda brought me some Pepto.

Ooh, it looks so gross.

You just gotta take it.

Okay, ready?

Ugh. That's disgusting.

[Man] Do you think you could make a better Pepto?

I could make a better-tasting pink liquid,

but I don't know if it could cure five symptoms.

[upbeat jazzy music]

Ready?

[gasps]

[laughing]

Hey everyone, I'm Claire.

I'm in the BA Test Kitchen, and today I am making

Gourmet Warheads.

I can't believe I just said that.

[upbeat jazzy music]

Oh, not looking forward to this.

I actually really like sour, but these are

like unpleasant sour.

Carla, how do I get excited about this?

You eat a bag of these, and then you come back in

and you're like--

Wait, this must be Cosmo's favorite thing in the world.

Yes.

Yeah, we could go get Cosmo back.

I was just gonna say,

you know what would make me feel more excited about this,

is let's get Cosmo back here.

[Carla] A small child?

[Claire] Yes.

Great. Let's do that.

We'll get him amped, and then he'll amp her.

Perfect.

That's what I need.

[Carla] Great.

So, you know, the standard Warhead is this

individually wrapped candy lozenge, basically.

Kind of looks like a cough drop.

At least I think this will be easy.

Do I have to eat it?

I never want to eat another one of those again.

[Man] It's just a sour coating.

Oh, it's just a coating.

I get it now.

All right.

It's a simple hard candy with a citric acid coating.

I can pretty much say that without looking

at the ingredients.

All right, this is black cherry.

I'm gonna rinse it under water.

I guess there's something to be said

for the hurts so good kind of mentality around food,

but I feel like that only is really like a spicy thing.

Their catchphrase is survive the sour, savor the sweet.

That's actually kind of hard to say.

So apparently in classic there's watermelon, blue raspberry,

lemon, black cherry, and green apple.

I do kind of want to open the worms.

Do people eat these?

I don't understand.

This has nothing to do with a Warhead.

It's not sour.

That doesn't make sense.

Nope.

Let's try the sour twists.

These are kind of fun.

I don't get it.

On the spectrum of foods that are like easy

to make gourmet and then hard to make gourmet,

these are like over here.

It's like, how does one make these

anything other than what they are

which is artificially flavored sugar with citric acid?

On the other hand, I think I can make them.

This might kill Chris Morocco.

He might die if he has to eat these.

I don't want that on my conscience.

Mm.

Wow, Andy.

Not even a flinch.

You love them!

Because I love citric acid.

You love them! I love citric acid.

Oh my god.

I did not see this coming.

Oh my god.

It makes this, it has the effect where right over here,

makes your mouth pucker.

I really am into it, and then I'll spit it out

because it's gonna get sweet.

[Claire] That is so crazy to me.

I would love for it to be sour for the majority

of the time, and not just--

Oh my god.

It does not taste like apple until the sourness goes away.

Right.

And even then, it's such a faint apple flavor.

It's not good.

Chris would not approve.

I'm seriously worried that it will maim Chris.

I think it's going to cause him great injury.

Do you want to try a Warhead/when was the last time

you had a Warhead?

When I was like 13. Okay.

Me and my brother got a jug, and then we would like trade

for different flavors and stuff.

It was like a whole game.

It's hard for me to imagine people liking these.

They were hot.

Yeah.

They were really hot for like a year.

It's so weird!

Why does anyone eat these?

They're not food.

Why is this like a thing?

[Claire laughing]

That's the face.

This is kind of inedible.

Oh Chris.

I don't, I ...

First of all, I like your haircut.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Second of all, I am gonna ask you to--

Good opening move.

I just-- Eat a Warhead.

Claire.

I really don't wanna eat a Warhead.

What if I crush it up and you can just take like a--

Just have like a nubbin?

A tiny piece? Okay.

All right, approved.

[Claire] Did you just try some?

Can you narrate it?

It's like sour, but it's not like crazy sour.

Chris-- It's not screaming sour.

Okay.

Let's just.

Like, that to me tastes sweet.

All right. Like sweet and dull.

Now I wanna prove a point.

All the way in. Right in.

[laughing]

[Chris] Why would you do that to me?

You needed to know.

Just so you could--

That was horrific.

It's not just sour, it's like pain.

Can I lick it?

[Claire] Yeah, you can lick it.

[laughing]

Just a tiny little taste.

[Gaby shrieks] [Claire laughing]

No!

No, Claire!

Oh, these are fine.

[Claire] What?

This is the most divisive thing we've ever had

in this kitchen. Wait, really?

Half the people can't stand it and spit it out,

and the other half are like these are incredible.

These are not as sour-- As you remember?

These are like unpleasant sour.

Have you eaten a whole one?

Yeah.

But not like,

well no, I guess.

[Priya] Just eat the whole one, Claire.

[laughing]

No.

This is a fascinating study of people's palates.

How about that? Fascinating.

Not that I think there's a lot of layers of the onion

to peel off here, but I'm gonna take a closer look.

See what we can find out.

[giggling]

So it looks like it has this sort of white,

this white bloom around the candy, and that's the sour part.

You have to get through that layer of sour

and then it's just plain sweet candy underneath.

Okay.

So, it's not an oblate spheroid because it has

a band around the sides that's flat.

I have a bowl of water here because I want to try

to dissolve away the bloom.

Like I just don't think that the actual candy is sour.

Yeah.

So, I wanna try to break one apart and see a cross-section

because I wanna see if I can see any distinct layers

in the candy.

So I can see the layer of the white coating on the outside.

It does kind of look thicker than I thought.

I think one of the challenges will be getting that layer,

whatever it is, to adhere to the candy,

and to build on itself.

My hypothesis is that it's a sweet candy lozenge

and a sour coating, and that's it.

Time for my favorite part.

Reading the ingredients.

Corn syrup, sugar, microencapsulated malic acid,

[malic acid, hydrogenated palm oil] citric acid, gum acacia,

soybean oil [processing aid], ascorbic acid,

artificial flavors, carnauba wax, cornstarch,

blue 1, red 40, yellow 5.

Wow, so there's some ingredients that I'm really

not familiar with.

The microencapsulated malic acid is kind of what's

getting me, and that's also the third ingredient.

The malic acid, I don't really know anything

about malic acid.

It's come up before I think in Sour Patch Kids.

And I think there is food grade malic acid that you can buy,

but we'll have to look into that during research.

All right, Wikipedia.

Warheads extreme sour hard candy derive their strong

sour flavor primarily from malic acid, which is applied

as a coating to the outside of the small hard candies.

Then it says it leaves a fairly mild candy that contains

a much less sour and much more flavorful

ascorbic and citric acids.

Okay, I'm gonna look on YouTube.

[Announcer] At Halloween, Warheads bring an element

of surprise to every candy bag--

Yeah. Yeah.

[Announcer] With mega tons of sour--

Yeah.

[Man] It's actually injecting a citric acid center

to the middle of the candy--

[Claire] [gasps] What?

So that the Warhead's gonna have--

injecting a citric acid center to the middle of the candy

so that the Warhead's gonna have sour on the inside

and sour on the outside!

No. No.

No.

[Man] You heard him.

I wish I hadn't watched that.

It's annoying.

Okay.

So the main revelation from the video was that there is

a citric acid center, so I have to verify that that's true.

I wanna break one of these open again.

All right, that actually broke in half decently well.

I don't know what they're talking about,

this whole citric acid thing.

I don't think that's real

'cause I don't see any citric acid center.

What are they talking about?

Maybe that's an old video and they changed the formula.

So my idea is to make a sugar solution,

spike it with some citric acid, and pour very small

amounts into these molds so that I have

a little hexagonal tiny disc,

and then that will be sandwiched between the molds

for the actual Warheads, and that'll be like a sour core.

I have an idea.

What if the core is a flavor that's not the flavor

of any of the normal five flavors, and then each of them

has a different but same flavored core?

That makes sense, right?

Here's another thought.

Maybe I do a lemon core, and then I don't do

a lemon flavored Warhead, I just do the other four flavors.

Thoughts?

Okay, great. I like this idea.

I'm into this.

[upbeat jazzy music]

I'll start with the lemon core.

150 grams of sugar, 75 grams of corn syrup,

75 grams of water.

You can see that the sugar has started to take on

a little bit of a brownish tone, and that says

we're in the first stage of caramel.

Okay.

Citric acid.

A half teaspoon of lemon extract.

It's spiked a little bit, you can see that I basically

made caramel, but that's not a bad thing.

It'll just taste a little bit caramelly.

It looks like I added food coloring, but I didn't.

And that's because it's kind of caramel at this point.

This is really hard.

This actually requires quite a bit of coordination.

Isn't this mesmerizing?

Well now the mixture's getting pretty thick,

so I'm gonna let these cool.

That's actually very hard to pour that mixture consistently.

If it tastes too caramelly I might have to start over.

It's not good.

It's really bitter.

It's kind of the caramel flavor interacting with the lemon,

it's like really bitter and unpleasant, so I might

have to try this one again.

I remember now what I need to do.

Once I hit 300, I have to plunge it into an ice bath

to stop the cooking so that I don't end up

making caramel like this.

The idea was to get something just like this,

a little hexagon that is nice and flat,

so it'll just be this little thin piece suspended

in between the two halves of the Warhead.

Okay, I'm doing the same thing over again.

Same amount of sugar, same amount of corn syrup.

Citric acid and extract.

Oh, it's way past 300. Okay.

Rookie mistake.

So I just plunged it into the cold water,

and that is basically just to bring down

the temp really quickly.

Now I worry that the sugar has cooled too much.

It's gonna be very hard to fill these.

This color is better, it's much paler,

so it at least halted the cooking, maybe possibly too much

because now it's getting very thick.

Okay.

That went pretty well.

This row in the middle here, on the diagonal,

this was the first row that I poured.

You can see that's very pale, and then over here

where I kind of finished, it's a little bit darker.

I hope that even the darker areas aren't super bitter,

and that the taste is fine.

[upbeat jazzy music]

These are cool, and hardened, so I'm gonna turn them out.

I'm gonna taste a darker one just to make sure

there's no bitterness.

Hmm.

It's good.

Lemony, sour but not too sour.

It tastes like a lemon drop.

That's good.

I think this is gonna work.

I'm hoping that this core, that it like fuses

seamlessly into the rest of the hard candy around it.

I want it to sort of fuse and become one

with the surrounding candy, if that makes sense.

I'm not making these as sour as the original.

No one likes that.

I want pleasant sour, not painful sour.

Sort of sour.

Somewhat sour, moderate sour.

Sour enough.

I'm gonna shake it, and then the idea is it'll kind of

break off all those little pieces.

[upbeat jazzy music]

I really feel like this is sort of like panning for gold.

Ooh, all right.

Tomorrow I'm gonna come in, we'll take a look at the flavors

that we got, to make a couple different kinds of Warheads

and I'm basically gonna cook that same sugar solution,

same process, plunge it into the cold water, flavor it,

and then pour it into the molds,

and I'm gonna do assembly.

I think I'm gonna finish tomorrow.

[upbeat jazzy music]

Okay.

Gloomy day outside.

Not the busiest in the Test Kitchen.

But I will just take that as

a sign that I should focus and try to really nail it today

without a lot of distraction.

We're gonna have a special guest later

making a second cameo in Gourmet Makes.

Cosmo Music is going to be here.

He'll be mostly in a consultant role.

I have a feeling he's gonna really be

into Warheads the original, and hopefully I'm gonna

have something for him to taste.

My goal today is to make a bunch, coat them, and that's it.

It's not that hard.

Just hard candy.

I think I'm gonna finish.

We have some interesting new flavors to work with.

These are some extracts.

Raspberry flavor, lemon extract, a cherry,

this is apple oil.

Ooh. Wow, that's weird.

This one is, it says green apple type.

I don't really know what that means.

So these don't all align with the flavors of Warheads

but that's okay.

We're gonna sort of make our own.

Let's see what the ingredients are in here.

Yeah.

Ingredients here are ethal alcohol and natural flavor,

so it's hard to say.

Okay so I guess what I'm really doing

is making three flavors, each with a lemon core.

Fortunately we have those flavors.

There's apple, here's raspberry, and here is cherry.

I'm gonna pick my corresponding food coloring for that.

I'll start with one.

I don't want to press my luck.

I think I'm also going to add a little bit of citric acid

just for some tartness.

But basically I'm going to do the same thing

I did yesterday when I made those little discs of lemon.

I'm starting my first sugar solution.

75 grams of corn syrup, 50 grams of water.

This will come to a boil, I'll get my candy thermometer

on it, and then same thing, cooking it to 300.

And this time I'm gonna be more careful about monitoring it.

Dan, I'm sorry, it spiked really fast

and then I'm sorry.

I had to plunge it into the water.

I'm adding the food coloring, and now I'm adding

the citric acid.

Smells a lot like green apple.

I can't, I don't even have time to measure the citric acid.

Okay, so I'll pour it into here, but this is

my green apple candy solution.

It's not working great because it's starting

to really harden, and I'm getting

all these threads everywhere.

There's gotta be a better way to portion it out.

What a huge mess.

Now I'm pressing that lemon piece into the centers.

I'm just gonna let these cool.

I would give myself a B on that round.

Hmm.

It tastes like a Warhead.

Like we're using the same flavors.

It ain't bad. Not great.

It tastes like green apple hard candy.

Exactly.

I feel like I nailed it, but is that necessarily the goal,

you know?

The hemispheres have hardened so I'm gonna pop them out

and take a look.

Wow.

They look like marbles.

Mine have more air bubbles,

I don't have that step in the assembly line

where it like kneads out all the air bubbles,

but they look really good.

So this is one half of a final Airhead.

And you can't really see it, but the core has kind of

fused into the center of the green apple.

I feel really good about this.

So the idea next is hopefully I can just remelt this stuff,

and then fill another hemisphere, and basically

lay this guy on top, and then the two halves would fuse,

and then I have one.

So I'm gonna pop the rest of these out.

What did people do before silicon?

It'll melt better and more evenly if I break it up

into smaller pieces, so let me just.

[upbeat jazzy music]

Okay.

Oh, hey Delaney.

[laughing]

What's up?

That was scary.

What were you chipping away at?

Oh, just my green apple sugar.

You wanna taste it.

These are the--

No, no you can't taste that.

Taste like a little piece of the stuff on the counter.

No wait, I got you right here.

Here's a little piece.

Ooh!

Very green appley, right?

Very green appley.

It has apple oil and apple extract in it.

Yeah.

And citric acid and food coloring.

Yeah.

Right? Yup.

It's like kind of good.

No, like definitely good.

Right? Yeah.

I really think that this one is gonna be

just day two finish.

Wow.

Confidence.

It's only 11:23, and I'm already a sixth of the way done.

Do you feel good about the sour situation?

Well, that's step three.

I'm on step two of three.

That's step three of three.

So I'm not really there yet.

Okay.

But that part seems easy.

Famous last words.

I know, I know.

I shouldn't say stuff like that. Whatever.

But actually, you're distracting me.

I'm remelting this sugar.

Hold on.

All right, well I'll just let you do that.

Come back later.

[upbeat jazzy music]

It's still thick, but pourable.

So now while it's still warm

I'm going to press a half down onto it.

So overall I think these look really good.

In each of these we have two halves of green apple

sour hard candy with a small disc of lemon sour candy

suspended between the hemispheres to create that core

which may or may not exist in actual

what are these called?

Warheads.

I was gonna say Sour Patch Kids.

So for now, I'm gonna put these in a container

and then I'm gonna go ahead and make the other flavors,

starting with blue raspberry.

Same process.

[upbeat jazzy music]

Okay. And we're there.

Ooh, what are you making here?

You setting stones?

No, this is a lemon flavored core

that I'm putting into the centers of the candies.

[Brad] Do they all have that?

No.

Mine is gonna be special.

Oh, you made some?

Yeah, look at these guys.

And I'm just gonna shave down,

and I'm gonna use these-- What the hell is that?

What do you mean? [Brad laughing]

It's blue raspberry and green apple.

They look fantastic

but do they look like a Warhead?

They're not done. They're not done.

Just check back later.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

[Claire laughing]

What do you think? I want a little more.

Just a little more, Claire.

[Claire] It's malic acid.

It's the most malic acid they can legally put on it.

Pushing the limit over there, Warheads Inc.

This hasn't been real popular among the crew.

Like we have pretty much as many as we started with.

Ooh, you can't eat a lot of these.

Definitely not.

Was that a game for you and your friends when you were--

Try the legal limit of everything?

Yes.

No.

[laughing]

Ooh, Claire I like those.

Isn't it good?

Forget the rest.

Put those and make a little cardboard bing.

That's the kind of little sucker I want.

There you go.

Do I get extra credit for Gourmet Makes

because I made a candy that's another candy

in the process of making this one.

Negative. Great.

[upbeat jazzy music]

[gasping] No!

Do you have anything sweet in your closet?

Yeah, let's see what we have left Gaby.

We have some--

Do you have Kit-Kats?

Gaby, that was from like three years ago.

[upbeat jazzy music]

Why don't you go into the chocolate stash?

We have delicious pastry cream.

[Gaby] Pastry cream?

Yeah. [Gaby gasps]

[upbeat jazzy music]

I can get just pastry cream.

Oh wow.

[Claire] Who wants one?

[Man] I want one.

Oh my god.

This is so much more fun.

[upbeat jazzy music]

It's a mille feuille.

It's kind of like tic-tac-toe.

We call it [speaking foreign language] in Spanish.

That's what we'll call them.

[speaking foreign language]

That was fun, Gaby.

[laughing]

These guys look good.

I'm pretty happy with my progress so far.

They really do look like marbles/medicine.

All right, so now I have all my candies formed,

and now I want to see if I can improve the shape

a little bit.

This is the Dremel tool.

We all know what the Dremel tool is.

[upbeat jazzy music]

I do want to use eye protection.

I think I'm making it worse.

Little better.

That, oh!

Did it go under the oven?

I don't think I'm gonna do the Dremel tool anymore.

I have an idea. I need gloves.

Kelly there's that, is that propane right in front of you?

I mean it's not in there.

I won't actually be upset if we don't have a torch

because I'd love to just skip this whole step.

I'd love to, [gasps] I have a different idea you guys.

I have a different idea.

This is maybe the best idea I've ever had.

I don't have the torch, so I'm gonna take this

over to the stove, I am going to heat this surface,

and it's thin and it's aluminum.

So it should heat up very quickly.

All right, it's getting real hot.

I'm gonna take it off the heat, bring it back over here.

And here's the idea.

Oh no.

Basically going to rub and rotate the candy

and the heat from the pan will kind of melt off

and flatten the layer around.

I think the best thing to do would be

to actually work over the flame directly,

because it's closed down quickly.

So I'm gonna bring all of this over here.

[upbeat jazzy music]

This is working pretty well, so I'm gonna sit here

and just smooth out every single one.

You know, once it gets coated some of that rough surface

will be covered, so I think I'm good.

It's not the same, but that's okay.

This is the last candy.

Which is good timing, because we have a very special guest.

Hello. One Mr. Cosmo Music.

So, first of all. Yeah?

Would you like a Warhead, and how do you feel about them?

I feel like they're tremendous.

Are they sour enough for you,

or do you need them to be more sour?

More citric acid.

So which flavor are you on?

I'm on blue raspberry.

Blue raspberry, and how long does it stay really sour

do you think? Not that long.

So when you taste it, there's no puckering,

your eyes don't water, you don't make a face.

You're unfazed. No.

It's just like.

[giggles]

Not even sour enough.

So this is malic acid, it's derived from apples.

According to the back of this package,

it says that it's good for your skin

and it's used to remove dead skin cells,

reduce signs of aging, including wrinkles

and aid in the treatment of acne

and promote the production of collagen.

Doesn't say anything about eating it,

but we think it's fine.

And then here's the citric acid.

Cosmo, do you wanna grab that salad spinner,

that green thing down there?

Cosmo.

Hello.

What's up, buddy?

Nothing much, how about you?

[Brad] Good.

So here's my plan. Yeah.

You can't just put the malic acid on it

because I don't think it'll stick.

No, it won't.

What they do at the Warhead factory

is they coat it with a little bit

of a certain kind of oil to give the acid

something to stick to. Yeah.

So I think that's what I'm gonna try to do.

I was thinking like really ground up, really fine sugar

that's like a little bit wet.

Interesting.

So you would put sugar in the coating?

Yeah. As well?

Kind of like Sour Patch Kids.

Yeah. We can try that.

We can do a little powdered sugar.

And you get more a sweet sour thing, right?

Yeah.

You wanna put those candies in the salad spinner?

Yeah. [upbeat jazzy music]

You wanna drizzle a little malic acid on there

and see if it sticks?

Yeah, it sticks.

What happens if you spin them around?

Not too much.

Here, I'll spin, or you spin and I'll,

uh, it's sticking a little, right?

Like, you can see with this one.

Yeah, that's not too bad. [upbeat jazzy music]

Now should we add a little powdered sugar

and a little citric acid?

That's such an even sprinkle.

[Cosmo] Good technique.

Right, like doesn't that kind of look good?

Yeah.

But I kind of agree with you.

It needs like more of a sheen, you know?

Yeah.

You know, just casual.

So I think instead of oil, I might want to use coconut oil.

So I'm gonna stream it in with a spoon.

Ready?

I think keep going, right?

It looks so much better.

I think if you keep going, and then we add

one more coating, I think we might be there.

Yeah. Okay.

[upbeat jazzy music]

This is the most fun I've ever had on Gourmet Makes.

Oof!

[laughing]

All right, are we done?

That's a pretty thick coating.

It looks like it.

You think you're gonna be able to handle

eating one of these?

Ready?

Three, two, one.

[Claire gasps]

[pounding]

Oh my god!

Mine's over.

[laughing]

Oh my god!

Cosmo.

Carla!

I'm out, Cosmo.

I think there's a chemical burn on my tongue.

Carla, I don't know what to do.

I've never seen him like that.

He's eating three, oh my god.

No, no, no.

Slow.

It like makes me scared.

It's over.

It's over?

All right.

Is my tongue blue?

How many are in there currently?

Oh no.

Does it feel like-- No one should eat these.

It's not even food. Oh my god.

[Cosmo] They're good, though!

[Claire] They're good!

Yeah, they're really good.

[Claire] Do you think it tastes better than the original?

Is that a lot more sour than the original?

[Cosmo] Yeah.

[Claire] Yeah.

[Cosmo] That one looks better.

[Claire] Mm-hmm.

This one's like

bland looking.

And can you confirm that we haven't paid you to say that?

Yeah.

I can see how blue it is from here.

[laughing]

What?

I feel it's my duty to remind you

that when you were here and we made Sour Patch--

Nothing is too sour.

You said nothing was too sour.

Are these too sour?

No.

No?

Cosmo, thank you so much for stopping by.

Yeah.

I hope you're okay. I'm fine.

Let me know.

Check in later tonight and let me know

if you still have the sense of taste.

High five.

I feel like I'm interrupting.

They're having a wine tasting.

Have we covered that, that they're doing a wine tasting?

Psst!

So rude, he's talking.

Alex.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt.

I just need Alex really quick.

I'm literally doing a wine tasting right now.

I know, but actually will you get me like a little?

I thought like we could trade.

Alex is gonna go just get me like a little,

like a one ounce pour.

What is it?

Organic sparkling California Chenin Blanc.

Ooh, thanks.

Yeah. Cheers.

Do you think it'll help fix that?

Yeah, maybe.

Probably not though.

That looks pretty intense.

Is this the final product?

Mm-hmm.

They're a little more bulbous.

I like the shape.

I'm like scared now.

Just try it.

And the fact that you're not trying to be like

oh it's not that bad, is even more--

No, it's not that bad. It's even scarier.

It's not that bad.

Jeez, Claire.

I'm sorry.

Cosmo ate four.

It wears off pretty quick, though.

Uh-huh.

Is it giving you a chemical burn?

No. Oh.

It went away in like--

What do you think about the flavor now?

The flavor's really good.

Isn't it good? Yeah.

It's green apple.

And there's a surprise in the center.

What?

There's a lemon core.

Which is how I made them fancy.

Like liquid, or--

[Claire] No, solid, but like a lemon center.

Ooh, that's a good sound.

That's nice.

Stick out your tongue.

Is it green?

[laughing]

So these are yours?

Yeah.

Oh, they look like gumballs sort of.

Yeah. I like them.

They look like they could be gummy.

And they look like they would be sweet.

Do I want to try them?

No. No.

Okay.

Good job, Claire.

Thanks Gaby.

You nailed it!

[Claire] Thanks, Gaby.

Yay!

Cheers.

It's only day two. Cheers.

Bye. Bye.

Wait hold on.

Are you sure, I just need you to know

that this is gonna be really sour.

Oh, I can't wait!

That's great. Okay.

Okay, great. Then go ahead.

It's green apple.

You like?

Yes.

I feel it right over here.

Andy has the gene.

You love it!

Mm.

Oh my god.

It's making my eyes water.

Yeah, me too.

But not in a good way.

I think there was a lot working

during this episode of Gourmet Makes.

One, it only took me two days.

Two, that forming method and working

with the hard cracked sugar is kind of fun,

and I liked the flexibility of being able

to work with it and remelt it and work with it again.

I think the molds were very successful,

and I like that technique over on the stove

with the hot pan and kind of making that flat edge.

So there was a lot of, I thought, surprisingly interesting

parts of this Gourmet Makes that I did not anticipate,

and I did not have a great attitude about it

in the beginning, but overall it was fun.

And then of course, the star of Gourmet Makes,

Cosmo Music, coming to give his expertise.

I think this episode really had a little bit of everything.

To the extent that Warheads, which is not really food,

could have been made better.

I think I did that with the lemon center,

and that was a fun technique to use also.

If I were to do it again,

I would maybe try to temper that coating on the outside.

Yeah, I don't know how malic acid is calculated,

but I have a feeling, this could never

go to market, basically.

This is dangerous.

[upbeat jazzy music]

Here's how you make gourmet Warheads.

For the citrus core, cook 150 grams of sugar,

75 grams corn syrup and 50 grams water

in a small saucepan over medium, stirring to dissolve sugar,

then boiling without stirring and washing down sides

with a pastry brush until the mixture

reaches 300 Fahrenheit.

Remove from the heat and plunge the bottom of the pot

into a bowl of ice water to halt the cooking.

Stir in one teaspoon citric acid

and one teaspoon lemon extract.

Pour a few drops at a time into shallow hexagonal

candy molds and let them cool completely and harden.

Pop out the pieces and set aside.

For the candy, cook 150 grams of sugar,

75 grams corn syrup, and 50 grams water in a small saucepan

over medium, stirring to dissolve sugar,

then boiling without stirring and washing down sides

with a pastry brush until the mixture

reaches 300 Fahrenheit.

Plunge the bottom of the pot into a bowl of ice water

to halt the cooking, then stir in a generous teaspoon

of citric acid, one teaspoon of green apple, raspberry,

or cherry flavor oil, and a squeeze of the corresponding

gel food coloring.

Pour into small hemisphere molds.

While the candy is still soft, press a piece

of citrus core into the surface.

Let them cool until completely hardened,

and pop out of the molds.

Remelt the leftover candy until liquid

and pour back into the same hemisphere molds.

Before the sugar mixture has a chance to set,

press the cold, hardened half overtop of the filled molds

to fuse the two sides into a sphere.

Let them cool until completely hardened.

Pop the candies out of the molds and repeat

with remaining desired flavors.

To refine the shape of the candies, heat a metal

sheet tray directly over a burner, and rub the candy

across the sheet tray along its equator, rotating evenly,

to create a flat band all the way around.

Repeat with all the candies, and set aside to cool.

To coat the candies, toss in a mixture of malic acid,

citric acid, and powdered sugar, and then toss the candies

in a bit of melted coconut oil just to coat in a thin film.

Gaby told me the best way to get a color off my tongue

is to rub it with baking soda.

Ugh!

Oh, Gaby!

Nothing is coming off on here.

Does it look less blue?

[laughing]