Binging with Babish: Monica's Candy from Friends

- No, I told them that your sweets were absolutely indescribable. - Hello Chandler, do we know that lady? - Maybe, isn't she the woman who lives under you and has very loud sex? - Correct. I'll do it just this once, but you can't tell anyone. - Yes, yes, please give it to me. - Yes, that's her. - Yes, that's her. (Audience laughing) - Hello, what's up guys? Welcome back to Binging with Babish, this week I forgot to record my kind of intro, so let's recycle this one from last week's episode, let's take a look at these oxtails.

Perfect, and now we can start making the

friends

' Monica

candy

, which I always imagined as a chewy

candy

covered in chocolate. So in a medium saucepan we are combining 60 grams of water, 155 grams of light corn syrup and 400 grams of granulated sugar, which we are going to place over medium-high heat, stirring minimally with the intention of bringing it to 320 degrees Fahrenheit. . Once 320 is reached, we must turn off the heat and begin to pour a mixture of butter and cream, 230 grams of melted butter in 230 grams of cream, adding little by little, whisking constantly and then, once everything is added, We'll put the caramel back over medium-high heat and cook it until it reaches between 240 and 245 degrees Fahrenheit again.

The softball stage, 240 if you want a softer caramel, 245 if you want to chew the caramel, then we add just a pinch of vanilla extract and many pinches of kosher salt. I mean, salted caramel, have you ever heard of it? Whisk to combine and then pour it into a prepared baking dish of some kind. Here I have a square one that has been generously greased with non-stick spray and lined with parchment paper. Once poured, you have to let it cool completely, I'm talking about at least six hours, only then can we consider unmolding and cutting into the shapes we want, mending both sides of a sheet of parchment paper with non-stick spray placed on the edge of the oven. sheet to receive such forms, and I had enough foresight to use this 10 which has a removable bottom for easy removal.

We're going to invert our black oak candies on a greasy surface, remove the plates and parchment paper, and then we can begin scoring and cutting, a supposedly precise process that I did rather imprecisely after I oiled my knife, I measured carefully in I got Perfectly square candies, but once I started cutting them, I just eyeballed it. After all, these are homemade sweets, they should look a little homemade, right? So, once they've all been cut into cubes, it's time to cover them in chocolate, which means we need to tackle the archenemy of all the great British baking show contestants, toning down the act of melting and then recrystallizing the chocolate so that keep shape in the room. temperature.

We will start by cutting a whole dough of dark chocolate, which we will place in a large glass container, which we will then place over a pot of water that is not quite boiling. The goal here is to simply melt the chocolate completely, start steadily, make sure the water doesn't boil, and bring it to a temperature of about 110 to 220 degrees Fahrenheit. Then we will remove it from the heat and seed it, that is, we will add a smaller amount of very finely chopped unmelted chocolate. This will cool our melted chocolate and encourage it to recrystallize; Effectively what we're doing is melting the chocolate and then adding a little bit of unmelted chocolate to try to help it remember where it came from and then stirring it vigorously and constantly thoroughly. , until it reaches 86 degrees Fahrenheit, this can take about 45 minutes, so the way to cool the chocolate fastest is to transfer it to a stainless steel container.

This doesn't retain as much heat as glass and will cool things down more quickly. If even after all this your chocolate is still hot, you can add more chocolate seeds, which will cool it even more and promote crystallization. But if that chocolate seed doesn't melt, you may need to reheat things for a few seconds. And I really mean just a few seconds, just long enough to melt the chocolate seeds. At this point, you don't want the temperature to go above 94 degrees Fahrenheit, otherwise you'll be starting from scratch. Now, to show you how important temperatures are in this process, I'm going to show you a kind of demonstration.

As you can see, I turned my chocolate down to about 91 degrees Fahrenheit, so I'm going to do a temperature measurement. Test by dipping a thin spatula into the chocolate and letting it sit for two minutes. And as you'll see in the looming close-up, it's pretty set but opaque, but this whole time I've been stirring and cooling the chocolate, so when I dip the tester in once more, letting it sit for another two minutes, you'll see what a difference it can make. make the temperature. The chocolate is shiny and pretty and ready to cover our candies, which we are going to carefully dip into the chocolate one at a time.

The easiest option is to use a pair of forks, as this will allow the excess to drain off. Just make sure each candy is completely covered in chocolate and place it on a prepared parchment paper placed on a rimmed baking sheet, trying to shake off as much excess chocolate as possible, so it doesn't have a foot on the bottom of your sweets. Then, while these guys are still wet, we need to top them off with some flaky salt. I'm pretty sure not salting caramel is a class three misdemeanor in most states, it was after the twentieth caramel that I realized and started using some fondue forks, world renowned for being able to deal with melted chocolate. .

Now we're just going to rinse and repeat with the remaining candies, heating the chocolate as needed but never above 94 degrees Fahrenheit, until we have a full surface of perfect chocolate covered candies. As you can see, the chocolate shell is room temperature, nice and shiny, and looks like something you could buy in a store, but what do they taste like? I wouldn't say they are indescribable but they definitely taste like little drops of heaven. They're soft, chewy, springy, sweet and salty, and pretty much everything I expect them to be. I would advise against sharing them unless you want unruly neighbors. (upbeat music)