Totally Wicked: Deep Fried Oreos

Presenting  a delicious new deep-fried sugary heart-attack. Having that brilliant idea to make Homemade Vanilla Gelato only brings up a second, equally brilliant idea to mind: Wicked O’s.

Wicked O’s are deep fried Oreo cookies in batter, and goes very well with ice cream. The original comes from the Flaming Wings-Gravy Fix line of restaurants. I don’t know where else you could get deep fried Oreos.

The recipe here is good for Pillsbury boxes, which is the one that we have here because the other recipes you’ll find use a different brand and different proportions.

Ingredients:

• As many Oreo cookies you want.
• A box of Pillsbury Pancake Mix (400g)
• 2 eggs, beaten
•  2 cups of milk
• 4 teaspoons oil
•  Cooking Oil for deep frying

Procedures:

1.  Preheat the deep frier to 375*
2.  Make the pancake batter with the eggs, mix, milk and oil.
3.  Dip the Oreos into the batter. Don’t worry if the batter seems thin.
4. Put it in the deep fryer. It will float to the top, and once the bottom is toasted golden, flip the Wicked O’s to cook the other side.
5. Serve on a plate lined with kitchen napkins.

And the most fundamental step of all:

Eat with Ice Cream.

“Goes without saying,” sabi ni Miggy.

“You don’t say,” remarked AJ Cambal.

Homemade Vanilla Gelato

The Philippines is a hot country all year round. It’s hot when it’s dry; it’s hot when it’s rainy. And though it’d be a great treat to have something cold to eat, your usual sorbetes can be sort of crystalized and not as smooth with the texture, as a result of compromising the quality to cut back on costs. And not most Filipinos can afford to have an ice cream maker at home.

Reasons:

One, because it’s expensive.

Two, in a country where quality education only comes by way of private school, no, we do not need to spend money on an ice cream maker.

And three, unnecessary expensive expenses are expensive and unnecessary.

But quality gelato does not have to be expensive. Remember that ice cream making has been there way before the invention of freezers and liquid nitrogen. So there’s nothing that can stop you.

Okay, so this isn’t the one I made earlier today. Mine is still chilling away in the freezer. Pics up when I post the recipe for Wicked O’s I’m serving it with.

All that you need would be:

1. 4 egg yolks
2. ½ cup sugar
3. 2 cups (2 boxes/packs) of all-purpose cream (heavy cream if you can afford it)—chill one box, and leave the other one in room temperature
4. Dash of salt
5. Vanilla Extract
6. Some ice cubes

Sounds like a normal, inexpensive list of ingredients of absolute normalcy, right? I think if you tried to buy all those in the grocery, you could buy them under 120PHP. Definitely beats that 500PHP Hagen-Daazs.

Gelato is denser and more intense in flavor than regular ice cream.

The equipment you need:

1. A saucepan
2. A tray
3. A wire whisk (I don’t know if you could do this with a fork, but hey!)
4. A plastic spatula (or wooden spoon, or just your normal sandok ng kanin)
5. A big bowl (the serving bowl for rice would do)
6. A relatively big bowl, but smaller than #5 (preferably metal/mixing bowl, but normal ones are fine)
7. Cling wrap/plastic wrap. If you don’t have it, aluminum foil is fine.

Remember to prepare your ingredients and equipment before you proceed with the cooking.

Remember that this recipe is only good for four to six scoops, so if there are more than three people you’re serving this to, you can double up the recipe. Try to chill them no more than 2 inches deep. If you need to use more pans for it, go on ahead! :)

Procedures:

1. Prepare the custard base. Separate the yolks. Beat the yolks together with the sugar. Add a tablespoon of vanilla extract and a dash of salt and beat together.
2. Chill one box of cream; heat the other box in a saucepan. Heat it but don’t let it boil.
3. Take it off the heat, and temper the egg mixture. Carefully ladle the hot cream into the egg mixture while mixing it. Once it’s mixed in well, pour the custard cream back into the saucepan. Heat it up again on low heat and remember to mix it continuously until it thickens. Be patient. If you stop mixing, the edges will cook and curdle. And if you cook it on high heat, you’ll cook the edges and the hot air will make unwanted bubbles in your custard. Those bubbles will catch water and make ice crystals later when you freeze the ice cream. It’ll be ready when it falls with creamy ribbons from your mixing spoon.
4. Pour the custard into the tray. Mix it a bit to let it cool so you won’t destroy your freezer. When it’s not too hot, you can pop it in the freezer for the next thirty minutes.
5. In those thirty minutes, put some ice cubes into the bigger bowl. You can put rock salt or normal salt on them to not make them melt as easily. (Read: it’s a chemistry thing.) Take half of the chilled box of cream and pour it into your mixing bowl. With a wire whisk, whisk it over the ice bath until it doubles in volume. Do this again with the other half. You do it half-by-half because whipping an entire box of cream can be difficult—it can be done, though, so it’s up to you. (You can always do this with an electric mixer, but I promised you could make this without that equipment. I just did.)
6. Once the whipping cream doubles in volume, take out your tray of custard from the freezer. Break up the custard then gently fold in the cream.
7. Put everything back together in the tray and cover it with cling wrap or aluminum foil.
8. Freeze.
9. Check on it every hour for the next four hours and mix it up with a plastic spatula to disturb any possible crystallization going on.

Remember that this recipe is just for the basic gelato, and can always be modified. Always have fun and discover your own flavors! :)

If you want to marble up some chocolate, just melt a bar of it and then pour it in zig-zags unto the gelato tray when the gelato’s frozen already. Mix it up with the plastic spatula in an 8-figure pattern.

If you want your gelato in chocolate flavor, you can add three tablespoons of cocoa powder to step 3 when you heat the mixture again. You could also add in half a cup of melted dark chocolate. If you’re using chips, make sure they’re the ones you’d be willing to eat, not the ones you just decorate with.

If you want to do it in a different flavor (strawberry, peach, anything) incorporate it to half of the chilled cream before step#5, and mix that half to the custard base. Only use the other half of the cream to whip.

Remember to flavor check after step 6. That’s your last chance to change anything in your recipe. At this point, you can add in cookies, fruit or chunks of chocolate.

Mochaccino Créme and Vanilla Froth

Flan, Crème Brulee and Custards of all sorts have always been an easy and delicious basic of plenty of food cultures. But more ubiquitous than the humble custard are the two top cravings on the list: Coffee and Chocolate.

Now, we can integrate all these well-loved flavors into one delicious must-crave-must-have.

Mochaccino Créme

Ingredients:

• 6 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 cups Heavy Cream (alt: All-Purpose Cream)
• 3 tbsp. Cocoa Powder (alt. 1/3 cup of dark chocolate to melt)
• 1 tbsp. instant coffee (alt. coffee paste)
• Pinch of Salt

Equipment:

• 6 ramekins (alt: flame-proof baking glasses / flame-proof white coffee mugs or cups)
• Baking pan

Making the Créme:

1. Before everything else, pre-heat the oven up to 250 degrees.
2. Separate the egg yolks from the whites by cracking open the eggs and transferring the yolks from the half-eggshells. Whisk together with sugar and set aside.
3. Take the salt, cocoa and coffee together and mix. Add in about a teaspoon or two of hot water, just to get the dry mix to melt together. This will be the mocha paste. It’s optional to add the hot water, but it makes it a lot easier to integrate the chocolate and coffee flavors into the cream.
4. In a medium saucepan, heat the cream only before it boils. Add in the mocha-paste or the dry ingredients. Remove from heat and stir until everything has been mixed well.
5. Pour the mixture into a bowl through a fine mesh sieve to make sure that the remaining cocoa powder won’t ruin the texture of the custard.
6. While beating the sugar-yolk mixture, slowly ladle in about a third of the hot mocha cream. This is called tempering, to make sure they don’t get cooked and you won’t end up with mocha-flavored scrambled eggs.
7. Pour the mocha-eggs into the rest of the mocha cream and mix together with a spoon. Don’t beat it, because by aerating the mixture, you will end up with a custard that is stiff and has bubbles inside. You want a custard that is soft and creamy, but compact.
8. Pour the mocha custard mixture into the ramekins or the white coffee cups. Place the ramekins into a baking pan, and pour freshly boiled water into the pan, about a third up the ramekins. This is called a hot water bath.
9. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes, or until set. Check on them on the 20^th minute mark, and one with a fork / toothpick to see if the consistency is to your liking.
10. Set to cool on a rack, then refrigerate.

What makes it a mochaccino a mochaccino is the froth on top of the coffee. Most custards and flans have a brown sugar syrup to line it with. Here, we use the egg whites to make a sort of froth, adjusting from the basic Royal Icing recipe.

Vanilla Froth

A close-up on the frothy icing.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup confectioner’s  sugar (white sugar will be fine)
• 1 egg white or just take a tbsp. from the egg whites separated when making the custard
• 1 tsp. lemon juice (or one small calamansi)
• 1 tbsp. vanilla extract

Equipment:

• A mixer, but a hand wire whisk will do
• A bowl

Let’s get frothy:

1. Whisk the egg white, sugar and lemon juice together to aerate it til soft white peaks form. High speed for those using electric mixers.
2. When the froth is okay, add in the vanilla extract and do one last quick mix.
3. Add on top of the Mochaccino, only a thin layer. It can get really sweet. The syrup that settles in the bottom can get really gooey, so a bit can go a long way.
4. Refrigerate your Mochaccinos or let set in freezer/chiller for a gelato-sort of consistency.
5. Garnish with chocolate syrup or chocolate shavings when ready to serve.

Everything here is just a modification of a basic recipe. The Mochaccino Crème is a modification of standard vanilla crème brulee, plus Rachel Ray’s way of making chocolate fudge, and my way of making chocolate ganache. The froth is just a modified royal icing recipe.

Which is to say, it’s all easy and can be modified. Coffee and chocolate go well with a lot of things, particularly oranges, raspberries, mangoes, strawberries or mint, and you can make a syrup out of them and substitute them or integrate them with the froth recipe.

As an alternative, you could put slices of fruit in the ramekins before you pour the chocolate into them. You can also use chocolate/hazelnut spreads in your custard, like Nutella or Crumpy. Just make sure to keep the proportions in check so you won’t mess up the consistency of your desserts.

Explore and have fun in the kitchen with some basic recipes.