December 21, 2024 • 27 mins
The Fork Reporter walks us through his best tips for baking cookies this holiday season, as well as a brief history on hot Dr. Pepper, and it's all live on KFI AM 640!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Neil Savandre. You're listening to KFI EM six
forty the four Report on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Happy Saturday to you, Neil Savadri here with the four Report.
How are you? The Holidays are upon us. I got
to tell you, no deed, good deed goes unpunished. I
got to I was last Yesterday was supposed to be
my last day at work, and but I decided to
(00:23):
do today's show live because we had a guest and
I didn't want to back out on them, and they
backed out on the last last minute. You gotta love it.
I'm happy to be here though I am broadcasting from home,
and I'm looking at some slight winds outside. It's lovely
and I'm always happy to be with you. In another
reminder that I will be producing the Jesus Christ Show
(00:45):
a special, the Christmas Eve Special. It will be on Tuesday,
of course, in for John Cobalt from one to four.
So please Joe join me and your holy host live
one to four right here on KFI on Christmas Eve. Cookies.
(01:07):
We don't love cookies, Kayla. What what's your jam? What's
your cookie jam?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I love chocolate chip, but boneless ones that are like
soft and fall apart out of the boneless, like the
really soft ones that just like fall apart.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
You could hear both Andrew and me fall off our chairs,
neither of us to get to the mic fast enough. Boneless. Yeah,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
The next time I go to like Marie Calendars, I'm
gonna they say, would you like any cookies?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah? Do you have any boneless? That's what I'm gonna say,
and they will respond the same way as we just did.
All right, all right, what's your jam? Boneless? I do
like chocolate chips, probably at the top for me as well.
I love a good chocolate chip cookie. I make a
pretty decent chocolate chip cookie, but it is uh. I
(01:59):
guess bone lists on the inside, but a little bit
of crispiness on the outside, uh, and then chewy on
the center. Like that is a good thing. But I
like snickerdoodles, which is one of my mom's favorites, and
she would make that all the time. I enjoy a
good snickerdoodle. I like an oatmeal cookie. If you put
raisins in it, I despise you. I like a good peanut,
(02:23):
but I like the classics. What about you, Andrew.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I like the oat milk cookies, yeah, but the rais
uh sometimes yeah, but I also am like white chocolate
Macadamia's like my ghost Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
You know what's funny is I really love that cookie
as well. But it's not for what It's not one
that comes to mind, but when I come across it,
I get it and I always enjoy it. And I
don't know why it's not on my kind of standard
list because it certainly is one of my favorites. It
just is, uh. I guess that I didn't have it
(02:59):
very growing up, so it's not like, you know, one
of those that pops into my mind. I don't remember
my mom ever making it, but we do love them
around the house here. What about you, Bella?
Speaker 4 (03:12):
You know, I definitely this is also kind of not
everyone's cup of tea. But a chocolate chip with like toffee,
that's my see.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Toffee is my jam too. I don't ever think of
it in a chocolate chip, and I have done some
modified chocolate chip cookies in my past because I like
messing with it, but I go back to the classic.
But toffee is one of those things that I love
in a cookie as well. I just love that English
toffee style anywhere, quite honestly, is a yummy, yummy thing.
(03:44):
So I thought, why not with the season upon us
and baking being the thing that everybody runs to is
go over a couple of reminders how to make the
best cookies, whether you like bones in them or not. Apparently,
so you want to start with good fresh and radians.
That's always going to be the key. Baking is chemistry
and the freshness of the ingredients is not just about taste,
(04:08):
but chemically, how they react to one another is going
to change the fluffiness of the cookie, the structure of
the crumb. And that's why it's important. So check your
expiration dates. Again. It doesn't mean that it's bad for
you or something, but it might not have the kick
that it's supposed to. And that would be on baking powder,
(04:28):
that would be on baking soda. Replacing those if necessary
if you want to test them. Here's the easy way
to do it. Baking soda should bubble when added to vinegar.
That's the acid that's going to kick it off. That's
baking soda. Sodium bicarbonate, I think is what that is.
And baking powder should bubble when it's added to hot water. Now,
(04:52):
baking powder already has a chemical kick in it, or
a acidic kick mixed in the powder, but it's still
sodium bicarbonate, but it has gosh, what would it be
in there. I'm trying to think what the tartar powder?
(05:14):
I think. But that so that will react just by water,
which will activate the acid, which will activate the baking
soda that is in baking powder. So eggs are good
to eat for quite a long time, sometimes up to
a month or so after the so called expiration date
on the side. But for baking, it's best. You can
(05:36):
cook them and make your eggs fine, but it's best
to have the freshest eggs for baking because they are
going to bring a couple things, including structure with the fat.
That fat and the protein in there is going to
build structure in your baking whatever you're baking. In this case,
we're talking about cookies used on salted butter. Is the
(05:59):
standard response. I hear that from chefs all the time,
so that you can control the salt that's in your dish.
But honestly, I've done it both ways. I have messed
with it. You're talking about your average stick of butter,
about a quarter tea spoon of salt. Is what's in
(06:21):
there when it's salted? Can that change? Can that change things? Absolutely?
Have I ever noticed that it changed? You know, the
flavor in the negative new use kosher salt. It comes
in different grain sizes. If you use the the regular
(06:44):
kind of table salt, then it gives it kind of
a metallic taste, which is not so good to me.
Room temperature ingredients. Have all your ingredients at room and
temperature unless otherwise specified. As a matter of fact, in
my chocolate chip cookies, I melt the butter, which is
not always the case. A lot of times you're creaming
(07:05):
the butter with the sugar and making it a little
more paste like. But in mind, it's a little little different.
Oven temperature, unless a recipe specifically calls for you to
start with a cold oven, preheat your oven about fifteen
minutes or so before you begin baking the cookies. You
(07:27):
want it to be set and ready to go to
continue to bake, and that is a key to that
kind of the rise or even the spread, depending on
the amount of fountain fat in your cookie. That you're
going to get when baking them off. All right, when
we come back more cookie tips be cause tis the season,
am I right? Am? I? Right? Yeah, I'm right.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
You're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Savedra on
demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Our last program before Christmas and Hanukkah start the same
day this year. Pretty rare that that happens. I'm trying
to think the last time that came about. But anyways,
the holidays are here and I'm all about it, so
happy to be with you today. Want to remind you
that if you're a fan of the Jesus Christ Show,
(08:18):
that the Jesus Christ Show Christmas Eve Special is on
live Tuesday right here on KFI from one to four
in for John Cobelt, and then I think it will
replay on Christmas Morning for the Bill Handles Show. So
if you are so inclined and enjoy that, please join us.
(08:38):
I produce that every single year and it'll be a
good time as always, and the Holy Host will take
your calls and answer your questions and hang out with
you so you can hang out. Then all right, back
to cookies and Technique of the Week, because the holidays
are about baking, right, We're breaking down some of the things,
(08:59):
including fresh ingredients, are importance because there's chemistry going on,
and chemistry is really the bottom line of baking. We
went through that. We went through room temperture ingredients, getting
your oven up to temp unless it says somewhere on
the recipe otherwise, you want to make sure that your
(09:22):
oven is pre heated fifteen minutes or so before you
bake your cookies. You should also know where any hot
or cold spots are if you've ever I remember my
mom doing this, taking the cookies and spinning the tray
front to back, back to front, what have you, because
the oven was probably not very consistent. Our ovens have
(09:44):
gotten better throughout the years, and the tech is so
much better about keeping them consistent. I thankfully have a
really nice oven that does its job and it heats
pretty well. But I have had some of the worst
ovens in my past. I only got a good oven
probably within the last five years, my dream oven. But
(10:07):
before that I have been I've used tiny, little apartment ovens,
you know, that barely can fit a cookie sheet in there,
all kinds of things. When Tracy and I got married,
I moved in with my wife Tracy into her apartment
in Hollywood. That literally the day we got married. And
that oven, that oven would would heat up when it
(10:30):
wanted to and not heat up when it didn't want to.
I mean, just on its own, it would be like today,
I'm going to work. But I get all that. An
oven thermometer is your friend. There, I don't know, six
eight bucks or something. At your local grocery store. You
can hang them on the rack or just sit them
on the rack, and you can tell what the temperature
(10:50):
of the oven is to make sure that it is
in tune with the knob. It's really a very little
expense to put forward far as cookie sheets, when you
place your cookie dough on a sheet, it should be
cool or room temp. And I say this because you
might be making a lot of them this time of year,
(11:11):
and maybe you only have the one cookie sheet, and
if you do, you got to let it cool down
before you put it back in that oven. Otherwise the
transference of heat might change the shape of your cookies
or the way they cook or bake through, and they
may end up getting dry, and they like two cookie
sheets are better obviously, because you can let one cool
down as you put the other one in there. If
(11:32):
you have the space to put two racks, just keep
in mind that two racks of cookies is going to
consume the heat of the oven differently, and you may
have to rotate them as well, so shape texture can
be changed. If you're putting them on a hot pan,
Baking sheets with little or no sides are best. They
allow the cookies to bake more quickly and more evenly.
(11:54):
I use parchment paper. I think it's the best. Reusable
silicon panliners are all so wonderful, but they will they
will transfer heat differently, and you should test that to
understand what's going you're looking for. Use a cookie scoop.
I like that. You can get them. They look like
ice cream scoops, but they're smaller. I use one that
(12:17):
is a for my large chocolate chip cookies and peanut
butter cookies. I use one that's a quarter cup. You
can also just use a quarter cup and just use
a fork or a knife to scoop it out and
PLoP it on for your drop cookies, like your chocolate
chip cookies pooh, pooh pooh. The standard rule for spacing
(12:44):
is about two inches between each cookie, depending on their spread.
That gives them the space so they don't touch, of course,
but also it gives them space so that the hot
the heat kind of swirls around them and gives a
balancing cooking. Check your cookies early, not when the recipe
says they'll be done, I found over and over again.
(13:06):
Just Kayla likes them with no bones, she said. Indeed,
uh God, I want to I want to meet your mom.
I wanna. I want to find out who raised you. Uh.
I find out that when cookies look done in the oven,
they will be overdone by the time they cool. My
cookies when I pull them out do not look done.
(13:29):
They continue to cook as I bring them out and
have them sit on the pan to kind of firm
up a little bit before I put them on a
cooling rack. And I find that that makes them lovely
and doe and yummy and soft, but still a little
crispiness on the edge without them being overdone, because they'll
(13:49):
continue to cook as the reality. So unless the recipe
says otherwise, remove cookies from the cookie sheet just a
minute or two after pulling them out of the oven,
place them on a cooling rack. Otherwise, like I said,
they continue to cook cookie cutters. If you're using plastic
cookie cutters, try dipping them in warm vegetable oil while
you're working. You'll get a cleaner, more defined edge on
(14:11):
those cookies. Rolled chilled sugar dough between two sheets of
parchment or wax paper. You can remove the top sheet,
make the cookie cutouts, then lit them with a spatula
on the cookie sheet. I find that that makes them
better if they're spreading too much. You know, you put
(14:32):
something on there and it's like, oh, look at this
cute house, and then when it's baking, it's like you
could discute chevy house. That is because you need to
chill your dough again. And one of the ways I've
done that is I put them and do what I
just said between parchment paper, roll them out to the
(14:53):
thickness you want, and then cut them and then I weed.
I weed the stuff the batter there that I'm not
going to use, and then I put them back in
the refrigerator to chill the cut pieces now, and then
I'll put them in the oven to keep that shape
as long as possible. So those are some tips for
(15:14):
you for your cooking and baking pleasure this season.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
You're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Sevedra on
demand from KFI Am sixty.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Don't forget, You've got Tiffany Hobbs coming up at five
o'clock with all you need to know. So go nowhere.
And the Jesus Christ Show Special Christmas Eve Special is
on this year, of course, on Christmas Eve from one
to four in for John Cobalt. I will be producing
(15:46):
and I hope you join me and the Holy Host
for your questions and the like. Hey, well, I got
cut off during one of the spots with the bug
man and I wanted to remind you how you can
get a hold of them, because tis the season and
to not have a holes in your house, oh holy night.
You don't want to be on your roof gables or
(16:07):
on your walls or anything like that. So they're giving
away and offering a free termite inspection to you good people.
If you have termites, they will get rid of them
without tinting, and they repair any damage those bugs caused.
And I've seen them do it, and it's pretty bizarre
because you think, no, that's fine. I can see from
(16:28):
down here that that roofline or a roof gable is
totally fine. And then they're poking it with this little
poker thing to see if you've got termites there, and
sure enough, it goes right through it like you know,
florist foam or something, and it goes right through it.
And they had to replace a bunch of things and
protect our homes. So get that done. Get that free
(16:48):
terminite inspection again. It costs you nothing. Just dial pound
two point fifty on your cell and say the bug man.
If you call today, you'll also receive a free one
year maintenance program with a completed inspection in service. We
utilize that maintenance program and have years for many, many years.
So check it out. So again for your free termine inspection,
(17:09):
to pound two fifty and say the bugman, pound two fifty,
say the bug man. All right. So every year we
talk about the different flavors either of the past year
or the upcoming year, and there are flavor there is
a flavor that is standing out. So for twenty twenty five,
it looks like brown sugar maybe the flavor to beat.
(17:34):
Now this came. It was called the flavor of the
year by the tea has a gwah by tea has
Agwah it's a flavor company that I've never heard of.
Apparently they've been helping the food and drink industry for
over a century. So maybe I do none of them.
Somewhere in my head. It doesn't steam like it. Brown
(17:54):
sugar was chosen because it's nostalgic. Obviously, it's super versatile.
You know, you're probably using it right now. It's a
great ingredient during the holidays for its warmth and molasses.
E flavor been around for a long long time. It's rich,
it's got a complexity of taste, layers of tastes, and
(18:15):
it's being used in creative ways right now. And then
it's going to be moving into twenty twenty five in
a big way, so you'll be seeing more of those
brown sugar flavors in everything like baked goods, savory sauces,
even fancy drinks. As a matter of fact, where do
we get at Western Bagels? Bill Handel treated his team
of which I am part of, to breakfast the other
(18:38):
day and we got Western bagels and we got you know,
egg sandwiches, and I had not had coffee cake in
a while, and my mom makes a great coffee cake,
and it's one of the things that I'd remember her
making on the weekends. She's probably Sundays after church or something.
And so I crave a good coffee time and again,
(19:02):
and they had one, and I'm like, oh, I wonder
if this is any good. So I got one, and boy,
it just that topping, that crumble on top with that,
you know, cinnamon and butter and brown sugar topping. Oh
it gets me every single time. And it's just delicious.
So that that great warm color, that brown, luscious color,
(19:25):
the flavors of molasses. It gives extra moisture because it
has extra moisture in it naturally. As a matter of fact,
if you come across I mean, use fresh ingredients as
the best way. But if you have it and it's hardened,
you can put it in the microwave, you know, four
or five seconds and soften it up. I recommend doing
(19:47):
that because you don't want it hard in your food.
If it starts to clump up in your baked goods,
it can leave little pockets of sugar. Sometimes that works
again a crumble, but not always like in a cookie.
So sugar always already showing up in a lot of
trendy ways drinks for instance, is one of the new
ways brown sugar lattes, brown sugar milk tea. Bartenders are
(20:09):
also using it to have depth of cocktails. It's one
of my favorite things to put in an old fashion.
You know, you put a little brown sugar instead of
your white sugar in an old fashion and it can
give just an extra depth of flavor to it. Bartenders
are using brown sugar in a lot of mainstream cocktails,
(20:31):
adding you know, a little bit of holiday flavor to them.
Pop tarts brown sugar cinnamon is a fan favorite. That's
one of my favorites. Brown sugar sauce made it's weigh
into chicken wings at Yankee Stadium in twenty twenty four.
There's also brown should chicken wings nel Yes, I don't know.
It doesn't say okay, but you know, a boneless chicken
(20:53):
wing is just a chicken nugget. People don't get weird
about it. She only hates bones in her cookies, of course,
Sully cookies exactly weirdo. There is also a brown sugar
instead of an ice cream flavor, now, which is come on,
how could that be bad? So brown sugar especially popular
(21:14):
among foodies and influencers on social media, So you're going
to be seeing this throughout twenty twenty five as well,
along with some other things mushroom based products looking balance.
Nutrition is going to be something, it continues to be
something we strive for in twenty twenty five, but nostalgic
flavors are coming our way as well as battling better
(21:38):
digestive health. I have never I don't know what it is.
I have never met a beautiful woman a woman, and yes,
I think all people are beautiful in their own right,
but man, I've never met a beautiful woman that doesn't
have digestive issues. I don't know what it is. Ladies,
ingredients for health. These are more things that you're going
to see for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
You're listening to you The Fork Report with Nil Sevedra
on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Just getting off the phone with my mom because I
mentioned her coffee cake and then somebody hit me up
on social media listening and said, what is the recipe
for your mom's coffee cake? And I thought it was
from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, you know the
one with the red and white gingham on the outside.
(22:30):
You know that red and white checker. I think that's
the one, So I'll tell you what. In the next break,
I'll go run and grab it because I have my
coffee here. If you don't have it, I highly recommend it.
It's a great cookbook and has tons of great baking things,
and a lot of these are the things I grew
up with. But I'll take a look and check out
the recipe and make sure that it's the one that
(22:51):
I was talking about. But my mom believes that is
the one she's cooking. She's making cookies right now, as
a matter of fact, just like you should be. God
bless that woman. She's coming up on eighty seven years
old next year. Who I think so? Yeah, I think
so all he smokes in the kitchen bacon like a
crazy person. Alrighty, So I'll check that out during the
(23:15):
next break, running to my cookbook cabinet and take a
look at which one that is. But I always love it.
It's a standard. It's got a sturdy but soft enough crumb,
and I like that, and it holds up with the
crumble on top and the way that the butter and
the crumble makes like these little nooks and crannies in
(23:38):
the top of the cake. Oh, I just love it.
And I was talking about it with my son who's
he'd never had coffee cake, so he's like, well, that
sounds great, So maybe I'm gonna have to make some,
all right. Another thing that is coming back, I guess.
I came across this article in Food and Wine magazine
(24:03):
and it's kind of an unexpected drink, Hot doctor Pepper.
I know, right, it's doctor pepper soda soda, Heat it
up with a slice of lemon. And there was this
viral video I guess on Instagram Morgan Chomps Cchomps, which
(24:28):
has now gotten over two million views. She made hot
Doctor Pepper in a crock pot, And at first it's
like w right, But when you think about it, doctor
Pepper is incredibly complex. A lot of these were created,
you know, in the late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds,
(24:50):
as for medicinal purposes. The sodas in the like, so
dodtor pepper actually has it was kind of an elixir.
Actually has a lot of different ingredients. People that cook
with it. I've cooked with it many many times. You
can barbecue with it, you can braize with it, and
so it sort of makes sense. Although it's not something
if someone didn't say it that I would naturally go there.
(25:14):
So this is becoming something interesting. Back in nineteen fifty eight,
the idea was created former president of Doctor Pepper to
promote the drink during the colder months to go ahead
and warm it up, and it became super popular in
the sixties and seventies apparently, although I never remember it,
especially in Texas. That makes sense where Doctor Pepper was invented.
(25:38):
So this is like a vintage holiday drink. Why does
Doctor Pepper work as a warm drink? Well, it's already
a bit different from their other sodas. Like we talked about,
it is a mix of twenty three different flavors. But listen,
you've got ginger in there, you've got vanilla, you've got cinnamon, nutmeg, orange.
(26:00):
Think about those. Doesn't that scream winter in the holidays?
So it's up there with cider, with eggnog, these types
of things. So what does it taste like? Well, I'm
gonna have to mess with it, but to me, I'm
sure you're gonna get that sweetness, the warmth, the spicy kick.
It's going to fall into that apple cider kind of
(26:22):
cinnamony spicy. You know category it's going to heat the
bubbles out. That's the first thing. You're not gonna have
that carbonation, but you're gonna get that the flavors that
are there, so you don't need a croc pop. But
that's how a lot of people are making it. You
can heat it up on the stove in a regular pot.
(26:44):
The goal is to heat it about one hundred and
eighty degrees hot, not boiling, because boiling is two hundred
and twelve. So you want, like coffee, about one hundred
and eighty degrees And once heated, you put a slice
of lemon or lime and you toss a few slices
into the d and this adds, you know, a much
needed acidity to balance out the sweetness. And I'm kind
(27:08):
of curious. So people that have tried it say that
it's really delicious and great for the season. So maybe
it's going to be a hot Dr Pepper summer or
winter chick summer, Hot Doctor Pepper winter. All right, that
tracks you've been listening to the Fork Report. You can
(27:28):
always hear us live on KFI AM six forty two
to five pm on Saturday and anytime on demand on
the iHeartRadio app,
Hey, it's Neil Savandre. You're listening to KFI EM six
forty the four Report on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Happy Saturday to you, Neil Savadri here with the four Report.
How are you? The Holidays are upon us. I got
to tell you, no deed, good deed goes unpunished. I
got to I was last Yesterday was supposed to be
my last day at work, and but I decided to
(00:23):
do today's show live because we had a guest and
I didn't want to back out on them, and they
backed out on the last last minute. You gotta love it.
I'm happy to be here though I am broadcasting from home,
and I'm looking at some slight winds outside. It's lovely
and I'm always happy to be with you. In another
reminder that I will be producing the Jesus Christ Show
(00:45):
a special, the Christmas Eve Special. It will be on Tuesday,
of course, in for John Cobalt from one to four.
So please Joe join me and your holy host live
one to four right here on KFI on Christmas Eve. Cookies.
(01:07):
We don't love cookies, Kayla. What what's your jam? What's
your cookie jam?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I love chocolate chip, but boneless ones that are like
soft and fall apart out of the boneless, like the
really soft ones that just like fall apart.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
You could hear both Andrew and me fall off our chairs,
neither of us to get to the mic fast enough. Boneless. Yeah,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
The next time I go to like Marie Calendars, I'm
gonna they say, would you like any cookies?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah? Do you have any boneless? That's what I'm gonna say,
and they will respond the same way as we just did.
All right, all right, what's your jam? Boneless? I do
like chocolate chips, probably at the top for me as well.
I love a good chocolate chip cookie. I make a
pretty decent chocolate chip cookie, but it is uh. I
(01:59):
guess bone lists on the inside, but a little bit
of crispiness on the outside, uh, and then chewy on
the center. Like that is a good thing. But I
like snickerdoodles, which is one of my mom's favorites, and
she would make that all the time. I enjoy a
good snickerdoodle. I like an oatmeal cookie. If you put
raisins in it, I despise you. I like a good peanut,
(02:23):
but I like the classics. What about you, Andrew.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I like the oat milk cookies, yeah, but the rais
uh sometimes yeah, but I also am like white chocolate
Macadamia's like my ghost Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
You know what's funny is I really love that cookie
as well. But it's not for what It's not one
that comes to mind, but when I come across it,
I get it and I always enjoy it. And I
don't know why it's not on my kind of standard
list because it certainly is one of my favorites. It
just is, uh. I guess that I didn't have it
(02:59):
very growing up, so it's not like, you know, one
of those that pops into my mind. I don't remember
my mom ever making it, but we do love them
around the house here. What about you, Bella?
Speaker 4 (03:12):
You know, I definitely this is also kind of not
everyone's cup of tea. But a chocolate chip with like toffee,
that's my see.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Toffee is my jam too. I don't ever think of
it in a chocolate chip, and I have done some
modified chocolate chip cookies in my past because I like
messing with it, but I go back to the classic.
But toffee is one of those things that I love
in a cookie as well. I just love that English
toffee style anywhere, quite honestly, is a yummy, yummy thing.
(03:44):
So I thought, why not with the season upon us
and baking being the thing that everybody runs to is
go over a couple of reminders how to make the
best cookies, whether you like bones in them or not. Apparently,
so you want to start with good fresh and radians.
That's always going to be the key. Baking is chemistry
and the freshness of the ingredients is not just about taste,
(04:08):
but chemically, how they react to one another is going
to change the fluffiness of the cookie, the structure of
the crumb. And that's why it's important. So check your
expiration dates. Again. It doesn't mean that it's bad for
you or something, but it might not have the kick
that it's supposed to. And that would be on baking powder,
(04:28):
that would be on baking soda. Replacing those if necessary
if you want to test them. Here's the easy way
to do it. Baking soda should bubble when added to vinegar.
That's the acid that's going to kick it off. That's
baking soda. Sodium bicarbonate, I think is what that is.
And baking powder should bubble when it's added to hot water. Now,
(04:52):
baking powder already has a chemical kick in it, or
a acidic kick mixed in the powder, but it's still
sodium bicarbonate, but it has gosh, what would it be
in there. I'm trying to think what the tartar powder?
(05:14):
I think. But that so that will react just by water,
which will activate the acid, which will activate the baking
soda that is in baking powder. So eggs are good
to eat for quite a long time, sometimes up to
a month or so after the so called expiration date
on the side. But for baking, it's best. You can
(05:36):
cook them and make your eggs fine, but it's best
to have the freshest eggs for baking because they are
going to bring a couple things, including structure with the fat.
That fat and the protein in there is going to
build structure in your baking whatever you're baking. In this case,
we're talking about cookies used on salted butter. Is the
(05:59):
standard response. I hear that from chefs all the time,
so that you can control the salt that's in your dish.
But honestly, I've done it both ways. I have messed
with it. You're talking about your average stick of butter,
about a quarter tea spoon of salt. Is what's in
(06:21):
there when it's salted? Can that change? Can that change things? Absolutely?
Have I ever noticed that it changed? You know, the
flavor in the negative new use kosher salt. It comes
in different grain sizes. If you use the the regular
(06:44):
kind of table salt, then it gives it kind of
a metallic taste, which is not so good to me.
Room temperature ingredients. Have all your ingredients at room and
temperature unless otherwise specified. As a matter of fact, in
my chocolate chip cookies, I melt the butter, which is
not always the case. A lot of times you're creaming
(07:05):
the butter with the sugar and making it a little
more paste like. But in mind, it's a little little different.
Oven temperature, unless a recipe specifically calls for you to
start with a cold oven, preheat your oven about fifteen
minutes or so before you begin baking the cookies. You
(07:27):
want it to be set and ready to go to
continue to bake, and that is a key to that
kind of the rise or even the spread, depending on
the amount of fountain fat in your cookie. That you're
going to get when baking them off. All right, when
we come back more cookie tips be cause tis the season,
am I right? Am? I? Right? Yeah, I'm right.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
You're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Savedra on
demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Our last program before Christmas and Hanukkah start the same
day this year. Pretty rare that that happens. I'm trying
to think the last time that came about. But anyways,
the holidays are here and I'm all about it, so
happy to be with you today. Want to remind you
that if you're a fan of the Jesus Christ Show,
(08:18):
that the Jesus Christ Show Christmas Eve Special is on
live Tuesday right here on KFI from one to four
in for John Cobelt, and then I think it will
replay on Christmas Morning for the Bill Handles Show. So
if you are so inclined and enjoy that, please join us.
(08:38):
I produce that every single year and it'll be a
good time as always, and the Holy Host will take
your calls and answer your questions and hang out with
you so you can hang out. Then all right, back
to cookies and Technique of the Week, because the holidays
are about baking, right, We're breaking down some of the things,
(08:59):
including fresh ingredients, are importance because there's chemistry going on,
and chemistry is really the bottom line of baking. We
went through that. We went through room temperture ingredients, getting
your oven up to temp unless it says somewhere on
the recipe otherwise, you want to make sure that your
(09:22):
oven is pre heated fifteen minutes or so before you
bake your cookies. You should also know where any hot
or cold spots are if you've ever I remember my
mom doing this, taking the cookies and spinning the tray
front to back, back to front, what have you, because
the oven was probably not very consistent. Our ovens have
(09:44):
gotten better throughout the years, and the tech is so
much better about keeping them consistent. I thankfully have a
really nice oven that does its job and it heats
pretty well. But I have had some of the worst
ovens in my past. I only got a good oven
probably within the last five years, my dream oven. But
(10:07):
before that I have been I've used tiny, little apartment ovens,
you know, that barely can fit a cookie sheet in there,
all kinds of things. When Tracy and I got married,
I moved in with my wife Tracy into her apartment
in Hollywood. That literally the day we got married. And
that oven, that oven would would heat up when it
(10:30):
wanted to and not heat up when it didn't want to.
I mean, just on its own, it would be like today,
I'm going to work. But I get all that. An
oven thermometer is your friend. There, I don't know, six
eight bucks or something. At your local grocery store. You
can hang them on the rack or just sit them
on the rack, and you can tell what the temperature
(10:50):
of the oven is to make sure that it is
in tune with the knob. It's really a very little
expense to put forward far as cookie sheets, when you
place your cookie dough on a sheet, it should be
cool or room temp. And I say this because you
might be making a lot of them this time of year,
(11:11):
and maybe you only have the one cookie sheet, and
if you do, you got to let it cool down
before you put it back in that oven. Otherwise the
transference of heat might change the shape of your cookies
or the way they cook or bake through, and they
may end up getting dry, and they like two cookie
sheets are better obviously, because you can let one cool
down as you put the other one in there. If
(11:32):
you have the space to put two racks, just keep
in mind that two racks of cookies is going to
consume the heat of the oven differently, and you may
have to rotate them as well, so shape texture can
be changed. If you're putting them on a hot pan,
Baking sheets with little or no sides are best. They
allow the cookies to bake more quickly and more evenly.
(11:54):
I use parchment paper. I think it's the best. Reusable
silicon panliners are all so wonderful, but they will they
will transfer heat differently, and you should test that to
understand what's going you're looking for. Use a cookie scoop.
I like that. You can get them. They look like
ice cream scoops, but they're smaller. I use one that
(12:17):
is a for my large chocolate chip cookies and peanut
butter cookies. I use one that's a quarter cup. You
can also just use a quarter cup and just use
a fork or a knife to scoop it out and
PLoP it on for your drop cookies, like your chocolate
chip cookies pooh, pooh pooh. The standard rule for spacing
(12:44):
is about two inches between each cookie, depending on their spread.
That gives them the space so they don't touch, of course,
but also it gives them space so that the hot
the heat kind of swirls around them and gives a
balancing cooking. Check your cookies early, not when the recipe
says they'll be done, I found over and over again.
(13:06):
Just Kayla likes them with no bones, she said. Indeed,
uh God, I want to I want to meet your mom.
I wanna. I want to find out who raised you. Uh.
I find out that when cookies look done in the oven,
they will be overdone by the time they cool. My
cookies when I pull them out do not look done.
(13:29):
They continue to cook as I bring them out and
have them sit on the pan to kind of firm
up a little bit before I put them on a
cooling rack. And I find that that makes them lovely
and doe and yummy and soft, but still a little
crispiness on the edge without them being overdone, because they'll
(13:49):
continue to cook as the reality. So unless the recipe
says otherwise, remove cookies from the cookie sheet just a
minute or two after pulling them out of the oven,
place them on a cooling rack. Otherwise, like I said,
they continue to cook cookie cutters. If you're using plastic
cookie cutters, try dipping them in warm vegetable oil while
you're working. You'll get a cleaner, more defined edge on
(14:11):
those cookies. Rolled chilled sugar dough between two sheets of
parchment or wax paper. You can remove the top sheet,
make the cookie cutouts, then lit them with a spatula
on the cookie sheet. I find that that makes them
better if they're spreading too much. You know, you put
(14:32):
something on there and it's like, oh, look at this
cute house, and then when it's baking, it's like you
could discute chevy house. That is because you need to
chill your dough again. And one of the ways I've
done that is I put them and do what I
just said between parchment paper, roll them out to the
(14:53):
thickness you want, and then cut them and then I weed.
I weed the stuff the batter there that I'm not
going to use, and then I put them back in
the refrigerator to chill the cut pieces now, and then
I'll put them in the oven to keep that shape
as long as possible. So those are some tips for
(15:14):
you for your cooking and baking pleasure this season.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
You're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Sevedra on
demand from KFI Am sixty.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Don't forget, You've got Tiffany Hobbs coming up at five
o'clock with all you need to know. So go nowhere.
And the Jesus Christ Show Special Christmas Eve Special is
on this year, of course, on Christmas Eve from one
to four in for John Cobalt. I will be producing
(15:46):
and I hope you join me and the Holy Host
for your questions and the like. Hey, well, I got
cut off during one of the spots with the bug
man and I wanted to remind you how you can
get a hold of them, because tis the season and
to not have a holes in your house, oh holy night.
You don't want to be on your roof gables or
(16:07):
on your walls or anything like that. So they're giving
away and offering a free termite inspection to you good people.
If you have termites, they will get rid of them
without tinting, and they repair any damage those bugs caused.
And I've seen them do it, and it's pretty bizarre
because you think, no, that's fine. I can see from
(16:28):
down here that that roofline or a roof gable is
totally fine. And then they're poking it with this little
poker thing to see if you've got termites there, and
sure enough, it goes right through it like you know,
florist foam or something, and it goes right through it.
And they had to replace a bunch of things and
protect our homes. So get that done. Get that free
(16:48):
terminite inspection again. It costs you nothing. Just dial pound
two point fifty on your cell and say the bug man.
If you call today, you'll also receive a free one
year maintenance program with a completed inspection in service. We
utilize that maintenance program and have years for many, many years.
So check it out. So again for your free termine inspection,
(17:09):
to pound two fifty and say the bugman, pound two fifty,
say the bug man. All right. So every year we
talk about the different flavors either of the past year
or the upcoming year, and there are flavor there is
a flavor that is standing out. So for twenty twenty five,
it looks like brown sugar maybe the flavor to beat.
(17:34):
Now this came. It was called the flavor of the
year by the tea has a gwah by tea has
Agwah it's a flavor company that I've never heard of.
Apparently they've been helping the food and drink industry for
over a century. So maybe I do none of them.
Somewhere in my head. It doesn't steam like it. Brown
(17:54):
sugar was chosen because it's nostalgic. Obviously, it's super versatile.
You know, you're probably using it right now. It's a
great ingredient during the holidays for its warmth and molasses.
E flavor been around for a long long time. It's rich,
it's got a complexity of taste, layers of tastes, and
(18:15):
it's being used in creative ways right now. And then
it's going to be moving into twenty twenty five in
a big way, so you'll be seeing more of those
brown sugar flavors in everything like baked goods, savory sauces,
even fancy drinks. As a matter of fact, where do
we get at Western Bagels? Bill Handel treated his team
of which I am part of, to breakfast the other
(18:38):
day and we got Western bagels and we got you know,
egg sandwiches, and I had not had coffee cake in
a while, and my mom makes a great coffee cake,
and it's one of the things that I'd remember her
making on the weekends. She's probably Sundays after church or something.
And so I crave a good coffee time and again,
(19:02):
and they had one, and I'm like, oh, I wonder
if this is any good. So I got one, and boy,
it just that topping, that crumble on top with that,
you know, cinnamon and butter and brown sugar topping. Oh
it gets me every single time. And it's just delicious.
So that that great warm color, that brown, luscious color,
(19:25):
the flavors of molasses. It gives extra moisture because it
has extra moisture in it naturally. As a matter of fact,
if you come across I mean, use fresh ingredients as
the best way. But if you have it and it's hardened,
you can put it in the microwave, you know, four
or five seconds and soften it up. I recommend doing
(19:47):
that because you don't want it hard in your food.
If it starts to clump up in your baked goods,
it can leave little pockets of sugar. Sometimes that works
again a crumble, but not always like in a cookie.
So sugar always already showing up in a lot of
trendy ways drinks for instance, is one of the new
ways brown sugar lattes, brown sugar milk tea. Bartenders are
(20:09):
also using it to have depth of cocktails. It's one
of my favorite things to put in an old fashion.
You know, you put a little brown sugar instead of
your white sugar in an old fashion and it can
give just an extra depth of flavor to it. Bartenders
are using brown sugar in a lot of mainstream cocktails,
(20:31):
adding you know, a little bit of holiday flavor to them.
Pop tarts brown sugar cinnamon is a fan favorite. That's
one of my favorites. Brown sugar sauce made it's weigh
into chicken wings at Yankee Stadium in twenty twenty four.
There's also brown should chicken wings nel Yes, I don't know.
It doesn't say okay, but you know, a boneless chicken
(20:53):
wing is just a chicken nugget. People don't get weird
about it. She only hates bones in her cookies, of course,
Sully cookies exactly weirdo. There is also a brown sugar
instead of an ice cream flavor, now, which is come on,
how could that be bad? So brown sugar especially popular
(21:14):
among foodies and influencers on social media, So you're going
to be seeing this throughout twenty twenty five as well,
along with some other things mushroom based products looking balance.
Nutrition is going to be something, it continues to be
something we strive for in twenty twenty five, but nostalgic
flavors are coming our way as well as battling better
(21:38):
digestive health. I have never I don't know what it is.
I have never met a beautiful woman a woman, and yes,
I think all people are beautiful in their own right,
but man, I've never met a beautiful woman that doesn't
have digestive issues. I don't know what it is. Ladies,
ingredients for health. These are more things that you're going
to see for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
You're listening to you The Fork Report with Nil Sevedra
on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Just getting off the phone with my mom because I
mentioned her coffee cake and then somebody hit me up
on social media listening and said, what is the recipe
for your mom's coffee cake? And I thought it was
from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, you know the
one with the red and white gingham on the outside.
(22:30):
You know that red and white checker. I think that's
the one, So I'll tell you what. In the next break,
I'll go run and grab it because I have my
coffee here. If you don't have it, I highly recommend it.
It's a great cookbook and has tons of great baking things,
and a lot of these are the things I grew
up with. But I'll take a look and check out
the recipe and make sure that it's the one that
(22:51):
I was talking about. But my mom believes that is
the one she's cooking. She's making cookies right now, as
a matter of fact, just like you should be. God
bless that woman. She's coming up on eighty seven years
old next year. Who I think so? Yeah, I think
so all he smokes in the kitchen bacon like a
crazy person. Alrighty, So I'll check that out during the
(23:15):
next break, running to my cookbook cabinet and take a
look at which one that is. But I always love it.
It's a standard. It's got a sturdy but soft enough crumb,
and I like that, and it holds up with the
crumble on top and the way that the butter and
the crumble makes like these little nooks and crannies in
(23:38):
the top of the cake. Oh, I just love it.
And I was talking about it with my son who's
he'd never had coffee cake, so he's like, well, that
sounds great, So maybe I'm gonna have to make some,
all right. Another thing that is coming back, I guess.
I came across this article in Food and Wine magazine
(24:03):
and it's kind of an unexpected drink, Hot doctor Pepper.
I know, right, it's doctor pepper soda soda, Heat it
up with a slice of lemon. And there was this
viral video I guess on Instagram Morgan Chomps Cchomps, which
(24:28):
has now gotten over two million views. She made hot
Doctor Pepper in a crock pot, And at first it's
like w right, But when you think about it, doctor
Pepper is incredibly complex. A lot of these were created,
you know, in the late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds,
(24:50):
as for medicinal purposes. The sodas in the like, so
dodtor pepper actually has it was kind of an elixir.
Actually has a lot of different ingredients. People that cook
with it. I've cooked with it many many times. You
can barbecue with it, you can braize with it, and
so it sort of makes sense. Although it's not something
if someone didn't say it that I would naturally go there.
(25:14):
So this is becoming something interesting. Back in nineteen fifty eight,
the idea was created former president of Doctor Pepper to
promote the drink during the colder months to go ahead
and warm it up, and it became super popular in
the sixties and seventies apparently, although I never remember it,
especially in Texas. That makes sense where Doctor Pepper was invented.
(25:38):
So this is like a vintage holiday drink. Why does
Doctor Pepper work as a warm drink? Well, it's already
a bit different from their other sodas. Like we talked about,
it is a mix of twenty three different flavors. But listen,
you've got ginger in there, you've got vanilla, you've got cinnamon, nutmeg, orange.
(26:00):
Think about those. Doesn't that scream winter in the holidays?
So it's up there with cider, with eggnog, these types
of things. So what does it taste like? Well, I'm
gonna have to mess with it, but to me, I'm
sure you're gonna get that sweetness, the warmth, the spicy kick.
It's going to fall into that apple cider kind of
(26:22):
cinnamony spicy. You know category it's going to heat the
bubbles out. That's the first thing. You're not gonna have
that carbonation, but you're gonna get that the flavors that
are there, so you don't need a croc pop. But
that's how a lot of people are making it. You
can heat it up on the stove in a regular pot.
(26:44):
The goal is to heat it about one hundred and
eighty degrees hot, not boiling, because boiling is two hundred
and twelve. So you want, like coffee, about one hundred
and eighty degrees And once heated, you put a slice
of lemon or lime and you toss a few slices
into the d and this adds, you know, a much
needed acidity to balance out the sweetness. And I'm kind
(27:08):
of curious. So people that have tried it say that
it's really delicious and great for the season. So maybe
it's going to be a hot Dr Pepper summer or
winter chick summer, Hot Doctor Pepper winter. All right, that
tracks you've been listening to the Fork Report. You can
(27:28):
always hear us live on KFI AM six forty two
to five pm on Saturday and anytime on demand on
the iHeartRadio app,
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