Pop Tarts: Dilemmas and Options

Unlike the homemade Doritos, there seems to be no shortage of others out there online who have attempted homemade Pop Tarts before. Not just a string of individual bloggers, either. Even Bon Appetit and King Arthur Flour are in on the game. There are a lot of options out there, but the King Arthur dough recipe seems to be the most common recipe.

The concern that I have with this is that in all of the photos on the various recipes, the dough looks puffy and flaky and delicious... and that is essentially the opposite of an actual Pop Tart. The store bought Pop Tarts have a crumbly crust that almost reminds me more of graham crackers than of flaky pastry. I don't know whether this is because they are mass produced, or because they're full of preservatives, or because they're never actually fresh, and I don't know if that particular type of crust is possible to recreate or not. That could very well be. It is also possible that everyone assessed the situation and thought, well, you could make it like the store bought product, but why bother?

So I'm going to start with a recipe from one of my favorite cooking blogs: The Smitten Kitchen. This recipe is adapted from the King Arthur recipe, but differs primarily when it comes to the fruit fillings - King Arthur doesn't have one listed. This fruit filling notes that you should mix it with corn starch in order to thicken it. Not doing so causes it to seep through the edges of the pastries.

I have yet to come across a recipe that purports to result in a pastry that can actually be put in an upright slot toaster. I'm sure all of these would be fine in a toaster oven, but I'm not sure whether I'm willing to potentially wreck my regular toaster trying. Another thing to note is that most of the recipes that I came across indicate that if you want to freeze these pastries, you should do so before you bake them, which kind of defeats the purpose of a pre-baked snack that you just pop into your toaster. I think I'll bake them all and freeze half to see how they handle later on. Most likely I'll reheat them in the oven, but I may also try the toaster by laying it on its side.

Initially, I'm going to follow the recipe exactly, but I'm thinking that maybe in a later batch I would swap in some whole wheat, or white whole wheat flour. I'll initially try a jam filling and a cinnamon-sugar filling (why mess with the classics, right?), but I'll think of some more flavor combinations as I go.

Well, what are we waiting for? Get to the kitchen!

Doritos: A Promise of Homemade Tortillas

I took the week off. I needed to put a presentation together for school. I had the most intense craving for lemon-flavored desserts. I bought a filing cabinet and spent an entire Sunday going through the stack of boxes and organizing the cabinet. I just couldn't fit making tortillas from scratch into my weekend.

But this weekend. I promise.

I'm going to stick with the traditional Dorito flavoring this time. For the next round I have something spectacular in mind!

Doritos: First Attempt

I've tasted success. And it tastes like Doritos.

Homemade Doritos using store-bought ingredients were a success. I'm actually pretty impressed with the result, but have some fine-tuning to do.

Positives:

• The flavoring was great! Yes, I used the powdered cheese from the store, which was super salty and tasted a lot like box mac n' cheese. I added a lot of other powdered seasonings based on the ingredients list from the real Doritos - or what I could make out of that list, a lot of it sounds like chemical-ville. 
• The flavoring adhered to the chips better than I thought it would, and I didn't lose too much to the paper towel. 
• The shape and size of the chips was accurate, and for the most part they were crunchy. 
• I didn't burn my house down, burn myself, or make too big of a mess. 
• They look and taste like Doritos!!!*

Negatives: 

• As we learned from reading the history of Doritos, when they redesigned the chips in 1994, they made them thinner. You can tell, because these, while looking and tasting very good, are quite a bit thicker than your average Dorito. 
• While this is possible and quite easy with a pot full of oil, it would be easier with a proper deep fryer because the temperature would have been more consistent. Some of my chips could have cooked longer, and consequently came out chewy. 
• I should have at least bought a deep fry basket. I eyed one today and ultimately didn't buy it (idiot) and so I had to use various implements to scoop little triangles of tortillas out of the 300 degree oil, meaning some cooker longer than others. 
• My house smells like deep fry. 

Before leaving for the store today I made a list of ingredients that I thought would make up the powdered flavoring. Wikipedia conveniently provided the full ingredient list, and while I didn't recognize most of them, I was able to put together a list that sounded pretty close to what Doritos taste like.  

The first major success was that I found a packet of powdered cheese at the store. There is was, on a bulk spice rack, looking suspiciously like it had been liberated from a box of Kraft Mac n' Cheese. What can I say, it's the Midwest. It looks horrifying. The downside is that this was from the bulk spices and was distributed by my local grocery store. Is it available everywhere? I have no idea. It looks and tastes a LOT like the packet of cheese you get in a box of Mac n Cheese. Maybe that would be the alternative?  

The second big success was figuring out how to deal with an ingredient listed as 'tomato powder'. Tomato bouillon, of course! I have never actually cooked with tomato bouillon before, but I see it every time I look for vegetable bouillon. 

Other than those two, the tortillas, and some extra vegetable oil, I had the rest of the ingredients at home already. It's actually not a bad blend of spices.  

Among the ingredients listed on the real Doritos is sugar. I don't know whether that's the seasoning or the tortillas, but I like sweetness to bump up and contrast the other flavors, so I decided to add some. But then, even though it wasn't an ingredients, I wanted to add paprika for color, especially after I saw how bright orange that cheese powder was. Since I only had sweet Hungarian paprika, I nixed the sugar.  Good move.

The list of ingredients on the cheese powder included both onion and garlic powder, so I went easy on those.  I used chili powder because these are supposed to be nacho cheese (thoughts: cumin might have been nice), black pepper and cayenne pepper for color and kick, and about a quarter of a cube of the tomato bouillon, since they were the two cup kind. The brand that I bought is a lot softer and more moist than other types of bouillon that I've used, so it took a lot of crumbling to get it small enough. 

When I whisked them together, they actually took on the color, scent, and taste of what you find on your fingers after polishing off a bag of Doritos. I had to adjust and add quite a bit more chili powder than I was expecting to get it dark enough. And to get it to stop tasting like mac and cheese.  

Once I was satisfied with that, I poured a disturbing amount of vegetable oil into a pot. Could I have used a better oil? Probably. Was I prepared to figure out how to cook with one of these other, healthier oils? Not today. I know vegetable oil. I can handle it. We're just testing the waters today, guys. Next I cut a stack of tortillas into eighths. I started small and only put a few in. 

Again, the problem of not having a deep fryer was that it was hard to tell how hot the oil was, and my first small batch was a little dark. Then I discovered the dilemma of not having a deep fry basket, or any kind of big mesh scoop, which meant that while I frantically tried to scoop the chips out with my slotted spoon, the ones left behind were cooking away. The next batch I didn't leave in as long, resulting in the first chips I took out being under cooked and chewy, and the last chips being too dark. This is probably just a perfection of technique issue, and having the right tools would help. And you can still eat them; they just taste a little stale. No big deal, everyone's eaten stale chips. 

After I pulled these out, I put them on a big baking sheet lined with parchment and paper towels. I didn't let them drain/dry for too long, though, because I was afraid that the seasoning wouldn't stick. 

To season, I used my sifter - the one with the little crank handle - but I didn't put a lot of the seasoning in it. It fell right through and dumped straight onto just a few chips. 

I was too much of a coward to put all the seasoning in there because I had a lot more chips to cook, so I just kind of finessed it by tapping the side with a spoon until they were mostly coated. 

I took them from the tray and dumped them into a big mixing bowl. Partly to free up the tray for the next batch of chips, and partly so I could toss the chips and get them more evenly coated.  It kind of worked.  As more chips were added they got coated a little better. 

I kept repeating this process until I had used about 20 tortillas. I never put more than 4 tortillas in the pot at a time, and they definitely cook better with less in there. It's also easier to season them, so I think it's safe to say that it's worth it to take your time and not rush through this. 

*I should note that I did not actually buy a regular bag of Doritos for comparison purposes. Doritos are one of my favorite snacks, so I'm thinking that I've eaten enough in my lifetime that the memory comparison should be sufficient. 

Store Bought Homemade Doritos

1/4 cup Cheese powder, or dehydrated cheddar ground into fine powder
1/2 tsp Chili powder
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp onion powder
1/8 tsp paprika
1/4-1/8 tsp cayenne pepper, more if you want it hotter
A pinch of black pepper
1/2 cube of tomato bouillon

20 corn tortillas
oil for frying

Whisk all spice ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside. Cover a baking sheet with paper towels.  

Pour oil into a wide heavy pot or deep fryer. I used my wider soup pot because it allowed more tortillas to fit without overlapping. I poured in about a half an inch worth of oil. I was hesitant to use more because I'm secretly terrified of burning my house down.  

Heat the oil over moderately high heat. The experts (and by that I mean the internet) recommend 300-330 degrees. My only cooking thermometer, the one for meat, only goes up to 220, so once I hit that, I waited another 5 minutes and figured it was good. Meanwhile, cut a stack of about 4 tortillas into 8 wedges. I used my pizza cutter. 

When the oil is hot, carefully add the tortillas. The oil will start to bubble up right away.  Try to move them around so that they are evenly layered over the top of the oil. Cook for 1-2 minutes until oil stops bubbling and chips have darkened slightly. Remove from oil.  If you don't have a basket or a large wire spoon, work as quickly as possible because the pieces left behind are still cooking.  Dump the chips onto the paper towels and let them cool for just a minute.  

While the chips are cooling, spoon some seasoning into a mesh strainer or sifter. Do this over the bowl so that you don't lose any, then carefully shake the seasoning over the chips to coat. Turn them into a large bowl while you make more chips.  

Repeat this process until you run out of either tortillas or seasoning.  When you are finished cooking, toss the remaining chips with any leftover seasoning.  

Sit down and enjoy... until your basketball team starts losing. 

Doritos: Dilemmas and Options

The way I see it, there are four options for creating these homemade Doritos:

1. Make both the tortillas and the powdered cheese from scratch
2. Make the tortillas from scratch, buy the powdered cheese
3. Make the powdered cheese from scratch, buy the tortillas
4. Buy both the tortillas and the powdered cheese

Obviously, the true spirit of the project dictates that I make everything from scratch. On looking into it, it seems like this is actually possible to make both the tortillas and the powdered cheese from scratch. I mean, obviously it is because someone, somewhere has to actually make these, but there is often quite a difference between the tools, ingredients and techniques available to commercial food producers, and what's available to you in your home. 

So first, the tortillas. I once watched a TV food show, I forget which one, where a lady makes her own tortillas. She had this round, flat press that shaped the meal into a tortilla and it was uniform in thickness and size. I obviously don't have one of these, so I rendered this task an impossibility. A little research, though, lead me to this website that has a recipe not only for homemade Doritos, but it include the recipe for the tortillas, too. It seems that you use the rolling pin to shape the tortillas, and that doesn't seem too hard. 

Now, the powdered cheese.  Apparently all it takes is about 10 hours in a dehydrator, then a spin through the food processor to turn the dried cheese into powder. And therein lies the problem. The food dehydrator.  I looked into this a bit further and, while it seems possible to use a basic oven like a dehydrator, it takes quite a bit more work and the end result isn't consistent. Some sites even recommend things like propping the oven door open and putting a fan in front of it. And running the oven for 10 hours? Count me out. 

But buying a dehydrator? I don't know. At this stage, it's sort of a level of commitment that I'm not quite prepared for. Not that I have any thing against buying additional cooking gadgets - not that at all! But a dehydrator has never even been on my list of somedays. Also, truthfully, I'm concerned about the possibility of making my own jerky, and what that would do to my world.  

So, for the time being, it looks like options 1 and 3 from the above list are off the table.  I think that, since we're at the very beginning stages of this project, I should maybe take the easy way out, just this once, and buy both the cheese, and the tortillas. If I manage to pull them off (including if I manage to find some form of powdered cheese), I'll try making the tortillas from scratch. And all the while, I will contemplate the idea of buying a food dehydrator. 

about the kitchen

Not long ago I was having a bad day at work. I stood up from my desk and declared, "That's it! I need some Pop-Tarts!" and marched down to the third floor vending machines to buy them. My day got a lot better after that. Well, maybe not better, but tolerable.

A few days later, a colleague made a similar declaration.

Not long after that I heard a story on the radio about bake sales. It seems that in New York, schools are no longer allowed to have bake sales to raise money for sport teams or special event if those bake sales include homemade baked goods. The reason being that there is no way to tell the nutritional information on a baked good made lovingly by a parent. Prepackaged foods, the radio went on to state, such as Pop-Tarts, are acceptable.

I was baffled. A cookie or a brownie, made from scratch with real ingredients and no preservatives, is worse than a chemically produced, overly processed flavorless piece of nothing with more preservatives than real food? Just because it has the fat and calories listed on the label?

We discussed this at work later, and my colleague and I both agreed that there are virtually no circumstances in which we would choose a pre-packaged Pop-Tart over something made from scratch. Unless the Pop-Tart was made from scratch. Uh-oh.

And so it began. The idea that every vending machine option has a made-from-scratch equivalent that is no doubt better. But does it? Sure, homemade potato chips are better, but can anyone recreate the bar-b-que coating? Is a homemade Snickers bar really better than the one in the vending machine for 75 cents? And how the hell do you make Cheetos???

Well, maybe the idea isn't that you can make it better yourself. Or that it's easier. Or better for you. Maybe there is a statement here about knowing your food and how it's made and where it comes from. Maybe the idea is that we've allowed ourselves to believe that snack companies are the only people who can make things like French Onion Sun Chips. Snack companies aren't the only ones who can make snacks. And I'm not one to back down from a challenge.