I’ve always had a soft spot for the nostalgic foods of my childhood. Pleading for Fruit Roll-Ups in my lunchbox, eating entire pans of Rice Krispies Treats every high school afternoon, downing bags of Doritos as midnight snacks in the dorm room, using handfuls of Corn Nuts to keep me awake on road trips home from grad school—snacks have always been there for me. I’m also a little bit of a DIY fanatic. And while I’m not as handy with a circular saw or sewing machine as I am with a stand mixer, I’m fascinated by the process of making things from scratch—just to prove it can be done.
A few years ago while my husband, Dan, and I were strolling the aisles of Target (as we do), he commented that Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food would be his favorite ice cream flavor—if only it had a vanilla base instead of chocolate. “Oh, I can make that for you,” I blurted out. His excited face meant I couldn’t take those words back, so I went forth and whipped up homemade fudge, caramel sauce, marshmallow fluff, and vanilla ice cream to create his ultimate frozen treat.
It was so worth it. I wanted—no, needed—to make more DIY versions of our favorite snacks.
There’s a “mad scientist” feel to reverse-engineering these treats, dissecting each layer of an oatmeal crème pie or licking the life out of a barbecue potato chip to analyze the exact spice blend. But it’s also supremely gratifying to nail a recipe and find those flavors that have such strong emotional connections, but without preservatives or a weird chemical aftertaste.
The surprised and gleeful reactions when people bite into a homemade Dorito, Combo, or Twinkie never get old. “You made this?” my friends ask incredulously. I can see the recognition and remembrance on their faces, their taste memories firing to life. Whether you’re baking up a quick batch of Wheat Thins or taking on Good Humor bars as a weekend project, I hope you feel the same sense of wonder and accomplishment when making these classic snacks at home.
Make a pan of Tastykakes with your kids and pass on the excitement you felt when unwrapping a package of your favorite cookies. Store a dozen Mallo Cups in the freezer for a special treat. Bring a bowl of homemade caramel corn to your next potluck and watch the crowd go wild. These recipes are all about sharing the love of making food from scratch and the pleasure that comes from bringing smiles to the table. I guarantee that you’ll impress your family and friends, but more than that, I hope you make yourself happy, too.
Not to sound like a professional organizer, but apart from your mise en place (that’s the French term for measuring your ingredients and placing them at the ready in little bowls around your workspace before you begin to cook), a well-equipped kitchen is the best tool at your disposal for becoming a better cook and baker. If you’ve got the following pieces at hand, you’re well on your way—and don’t forget, as Grandma always said, “You buy cheap, you buy twice.”
KITCHEN SCALE The best way to guarantee accuracy and consistency when measuring isn’t to use cups or spoons; it’s to use a kitchen scale. Even careful measuring has a margin of error, and being able to dump ingredients into one bowl set atop a scale is much less messy and leaves far fewer items to wash. Each recipe in this book gives measurements in both volume (cups and tablespoons) and weight (ounces) where applicable.
A note on measurements: I use the “spoon and sweep” method for measuring flour (and other dry ingredients), stirring and aerating the flour with a spoon before using the spoon to fill my measuring cup, then leveling off the excess with a knife or bench scraper. Scooping flour with the measuring cup itself can compact the flour and give you as much as an ounce/quarter cup more per scoop, which can make a big difference in many baking recipes. Spooning the flour into the cup provides more reliable results. All measurements in the book are for unsifted ingredients.
STAND MIXER If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if it was worth it to buy a stand mixer, I wouldn’t need a book deal to keep me employed! Yes, unequivocally, a stand mixer is worth it and pays for itself. The overwhelming benefit of a stand mixer is that it handles tasks that would otherwise kill your arms or take a lot of time to do by hand. While it’s completely possible to make the majority of the recipes in this book with an electric hand mixer (the exception from a practical and mess-related standpoint being marshmallows—that stuff fluffs up big, takes a lot of horsepower, and has the potential to splatter everywhere), you’ll save time and energy by investing in a stand mixer.
FOOD PROCESSOR When it comes to making pie crust, the food processor is the most efficient tool in your kitchen arsenal—yes, even more so than a stand mixer—and will convert crustophobes into professional pie bakers in the blink of an eye. Beyond that, a mini food processor or the small bowl insert for many larger models is crucial for grinding spices and herbs into fine powder.
RULER Yep, a plain old ruler from the school supplies section! I like a stainless steel version because it lies flat on dough and cleans up easily, but any kind will do as long as it measures down to 1/8 inch. Use it to measure rolled-out dough and to divide that dough into equal-size rectangles and squares for crackers and pastries.
SILPAT BAKING LINERS Though parchment paper is technically compostable, the money you shell out for roll after roll isn’t recycling itself back to you. Enter Silpats: washable, reusable silicone baking mats that take the place of parchment paper for lining your baking sheets. They’re a small investment at around $25 a pop, but avid bakers will make that money back in one holiday cookie season. I own two and use them for all my baking, as well as for roasting veggies to a beautifully caramelized brown.
MANDOLINE OR SLICER When making potato chips, thin slices are crucial—and I mean thin, like translucent. Barely anyone who’s not named Morimoto, Pépin, or Ducasse has the knife skills to do it by hand. Get a slicer to help. You don’t need one of the fancy French models to do the job: OXO makes durable and affordable mandolines, as well as handheld models for both slicing and julienning. When buying your mandoline or slicer, pick up a metal mesh glove (also known as an oyster glove or a cut-resistant glove) too: it’s much more efficient to hold the vegetable or fruit you’re slicing than to use the wobbly hand guard that comes with the slicer.
THERMOMETERS Way more accurate and less painful than dipping your finger into molten chocolate or boiling sugar, amirite? I use two types of thermometers: a plain old digital one to dip in and out of chocolate when tempering (the same one I use to check the internal temperature of roasted meats—don’t worry, I clean it!) and a digital candy/oil thermometer that clips to the side of a pot so I don’t need to hold it over bubbling sugar or oil.
PASTRY BAGS AND PIPING TIPS For most of my baking career, I used a gallon-size zip-top bag with a tiny corner sliced off as my pastry bag, so there’s really no shame. But the day I splurged for a reusable, washable pastry bag with plastic coupler (see How to Fill a Pastry Bag, page 187), I realized what I’d been missing. Even better, I now have silicone pastry bags, which clean up like a dream. I use an 18-inch pastry bag with Wilton round tip No. 10 for large piping tasks and Wilton round tip No. 5 for small piping jobs (such as the white doodle icing on the top of a Hostess cupcake).
DEEP FRYER While not absolutely necessary for successful deep frying, an electric deep fryer is a uni-tasker that lets you multitask in the kitchen, combining a heat source, temperature control, and oil storage in one machine. See Deep Frying 101 (page 188) for a full discussion of electric and stovetop equipment for deep frying.
ICE CREAM MAKER Unlike an electric deep fryer, there’s no alternative for an electric ice cream maker that’s half as efficient and reliable as the plug-in model. Luckily, you don’t need to shell out too much for a basic model that will work like a charm to freeze your assets. See Ice Cream 101 (page 187) for a breakdown of ice cream makers, Popsicle molds, and all the tools of the trade for frozen treats.
BAKED SODA Baked soda (also known as sodium carbonate) is a more concentrated form of baking soda that works as a natural chemical enhancer, deepening the color of baked goods and giving them a slightly bitter flavor. In Oreo cookies, it reacts with cocoa powder during the baking process to bring out that signature bittersweet chocolate taste and near-black color.
To make baked soda, preheat the oven to 250°F. Cover a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and spread a box of baking soda in an even layer on the foil. Bake for 1 hour and cool completely on the baking sheet. Store in a well-sealed glass jar—because of its concentrated alkaline content, baked soda is a mild irritant—and use as needed within a year.
Interested in the science behind baked soda and other carbonates? Food scientist Harold McGee has the details at curiouscook.com.
BUTTERMILK POWDER This isn’t as exotic as it sounds: buttermilk powder is simply dehydrated buttermilk waiting to be reconstituted. You’ll find it in the grocery store, usually in the vicinity of the powdered and evaporated milk or hot chocolate.
CHEDDAR CHEESE POWDER Again, it’s way less space-age than you think: dehydrated Cheddar cheese is the killer ingredient for many a recipe in the Cheesy Snacks chapter (page 60). Cabot and Frontier are two companies that make cheese powder (found in specialty grocery stores near the spice section), but my cheese powder of choice is pure powdered Vermont Cheddar from King Arthur Flour (see Helpful Resources, page 186).
CHOCOLATE Yeah, yeah, we all know what chocolate is. But you’ll notice that I call for coarsely chopped chocolate in this book’s recipes instead of chocolate chips. That’s because we’re melting chocolate to make glazes and frostings instead of putting it in cookies. Chips usually have a lower cocoa butter content or contain emulsifiers that keep them from fully melting in cookies, and we want a clean-melting chocolate. Look for big blocks of Callebaut, Ghirardelli, Scharffen Berger, or Valhrona baking chocolate at the grocery store.
CITRIC ACID This powder is often included in canning recipes as a natural preservative or tart flavoring. It’s also a natural alpha hydroxy acid used in skin peels and anti-aging cosmetics, and, when combined with an alkali such as baking soda, it provides the “fizz” in bath bombs! It’s available at specialty grocery stores, homebrewing stores, and online (see Helpful Resources, page 186).
CORNMEAL VS. CORN FLOUR VS. MASA HARINA So what’s the difference? Though they’re all readily available in the baking aisle, cornmeal, corn flour, and masa harina shouldn’t be used interchangeably in recipes. Whereas cornmeal and corn flour are ground from dried corn to varying degrees of coarseness, masa flour is made by an entirely different process. White maize (corn) is soaked in lime (a caustic limestone-derived substance similar to lye) to de-hull and soften the kernels. The kernels are then washed and ground into fresh masa dough. Masa harina is the dried and powdered form of this dough; reconstituted with water, it’s ideal for tortillas and adds a sweet corn taste to breaded foods such as mozzarella sticks and jalapeño poppers.