Toaster Strudels from Mean Girls | Binging with Babish

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babish

to get 10% off your first month. Using that link supports this channel and better help can connect you with a therapist to see if they can help you. - It's by Gretchen Wiener. -She is totally rich because her father invented the Toaster Strudel. - I don't think my father, the inventor of the Toaster Strudel, would be very pleased to hear about this.

Anyway, I don't think your grandfather, the inventor of the Toaster Strudel, would be very happy to hear you use that tone on me. - Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to Binging with Babish, where this week I'll use her mere mention in Mean Girls as an excuse to make my favorite childhood breakfast of Toaster Strudels. Also, fun fact, this guy here is Eddie Lou, a very talented actor, one of my closest friends and my college roommate. Anyway, let's get to work, toasting our

strudels

. Starting, of course, with the stuff from the freezer aisle, I follow the package recommendations, toasting one or two cycles with a medium-temperature load, taking them while they're still too warm from my delicate human fingers, and garnishing with a touch of loose liquid .

Ice formation. But the way I did it when I was a kid was to microwave it for 30 seconds and send it to the

toaster

oven, which, at least in my teenage mind, made it flakier and toastier. And these are just as delicious as I remember them. So to justify a homemade version, we'll have to make them pretty good. Let's start with the most obvious move. Some store-bought puff pastry is thawed and rolled out according to package directions and cut into Toaster Strudel-sized rectangles. Then the easiest candidate is some store-bought blueberry jam, applying an overly reasonable strip to the center of each rectangle, brushing the edges with a beaten egg, and slowly placing another rectangle of dough on top to minimize pockets of dough. air, pressing firmly to adhere, and then we'll transfer things to a line of parchment paper, line the baking sheet and crimp it very securely with a fork trimming the edges to tidy things up and re-emphasize the seal.

These guys are then put in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes before baking. As with virtually any pastry, we want it to be as cold as possible. Then we brush the outside with that beaten egg. And since I'm pretty sure they're going to explode as a test, I'm going to poke some small holes in two of these cakes. We have a lot of liquid filling and when it heats up, it will want to go somewhere. After about 15 minutes in an oven preheated to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, two of them exploded, one vented and one unvented. So the fault lies in the security of my settings.

Remember, kids, to curl with conviction once cooled but still warm or glaze with a simple mixture of powdered sugar and heavy cream. And these are perfectly delicious, but they are more strudel than Toaster Strudel. They have big cavernous air pockets between each layer and there's nothing convenient to grab and go with them and, most importantly, they certainly don't fit in a

toaster

. So before we get into the form factor, let's start with some homemade fillings. Here I have three honey crisp apples. You can use any good baking apple. You can then peel the core and purchase it, or simply grind it in the large holes of the box sorter.

We want a nice, fine texture so you don't get slices of apple. With each bite, we cook these apples in about a tablespoon of melted butter, along with the juice of one lemon, two ounces of dark brown sugar, and one and a half ounces of honey for sweetness, letting them cook together for about five. minutes before adding two ounces of finely chopped candied ginger. Then, for extra flavor points, I'll add a splash of whiskey plus a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt, half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, and three-quarters of a teaspoon of ground cardamom, letting it cook for 10 to 30 minutes.

Until the apples are nice and soft and most of the liquid has evaporated, a less juicy filling will help prevent bursting. Next, I will make a strawberry and basil filling. First, blanch half a dozen basil leaves for about 10 seconds before pouring them into an ice bath. Then combine 14 ounces of finely chopped strawberries, our finely chopped blanched basil, the juice of one lemon, two and a half ounces of granulated sugar, and a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt, place over low heat and cook for 15 to 20 minutes until Make it nice, thick and jammy. Now, this filling is considerably stickier than the apple stuffing, so I'll strain it lightly, pressing about half a cup of liquid through a fine-mesh strainer, reserving for delicious use later.

Lastly, my personal favorite, the blueberry. I'm going to use 10 ounces of frozen wild blueberries because they are nice and small. Two and a half ounces of granulated sugar, the necessary juice of one lemon. And to break things up a bit, I'll add two ounces of finely chopped dried apricots, plus a quarter teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of sumac, bring it to a simmer, and cook for about 10 to 20 minutes until everything thickens. and almost doughy, a perfect filling for our strudel. Now, underneath the dough, I'm going to start with two and three-quarter ounces of all-purpose flour in the bowl of the mixer, add a half teaspoon of kosher salt and a tablespoon of granulated sugar, beat until combined, and then cut into 12 cubes. ounces. or three sticks of cold unsalted butter.

Fortunately, as we learned in the movie, butter is not a carbohydrate. Add that to the flour, a fixed paddle attachment, and run the mixer on medium-low speed for about two minutes until the butter breaks down into pieces the size of large blueberries. If you don't have a stand mixer, you can also make this by breaking the butter between your fingers. Now we will add six and a half ounces of sour cream mixing on low speed for about a minute until a shaggy dough forms and place it on a counter. Adding a little more flour feels too wet, adjust the focus so the audience can see what you're doing and fold gently until there are no dry patches left, this cheater's puff pastry won't puff up as much as the real stuff. .

So I think it will be more feasible to make a toasted strudel tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour, lightly flouring your work surface. And now, to make the dough flaky, we must follow the traditional rolling tradition. That is, we will roll out the dough to form a rectangle approximately 8 by 12 inches and fold it into thirds like a pamphlet, turning it at 90 degrees and repeating the process two more times. You should end up with a more cohesive, workable piece of dough that is positively stacked with layers of buttery wrapper and refrigerated for another 30 minutes before rolling out and baking.

I'm going to split this in half to make it easier to work with. You will look closely. You can see a small flex of butter layered throughout the dough layers. Now, roll it out and make some dimples in the dough, that should make it more workable and prevent it from cracking, and try to reduce it to about an eighth of an inch thick. This dough is fighting me a little, so I'm going to place it in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes, allowing the gluten to relax and making things a little more pliable. Don't wait more than 15 minutes, otherwise you'll have to fight hard butter instead of gluten.

Now, just like last time, I'm cutting the edges into a neat rectangle and using a ruler to divide it evenly into six sub-rectangles, enough to make three pies, one with each of our custom fillings. You can make them larger or smaller depending on your preference and general dexterity. Same procedure as before. Brush the edges with egg yolk with conviction and trim them again in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Then, once it is very cold, brush well with beaten egg. Then these guys head over and do it in a preheated 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for 20 to 25 minutes until puffed and golden brown.

Now if you ask me and ask me, those are some homemade Toaster Strudels. Let them cool in the mold for about 10 minutes beforehand. OMG, I forgot the frosting. The general procedure here is to simply add heavy cream to the powdered sugar until you have a nice bowl glaze. But now I'm going to make several flavors for our different fillings. For the apple, add a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste and about a quarter of a butter knife's worth of cinnamon for a vanilla-cinnamon glaze so good you won't be able to stop dipping your pinky in it. Now, when the movie came out, they made special edition Toaster Strudels with pink frosting.

To mimic that, we simply combine our strawberry runoff and powdered sugar. For the blueberry, I choose powdered sugar and lemon juice colored with a little food coloring to make it nice blue. Frost as appropriate depending on the filling of the dough. And there you have it how Toaster Strudels always looked in my mind. Golden dough and a perfect squiggle of frosting. But how did they taste and work? Let's take a look at a cross section here. I was worried I had made the filling too thick, but it was perfect, nice and sticky without spilling or exploding over the sides of the dough, and it was almost flakier than puff pastry, more like a pie crust than a puff pastry.

And although the apple and strawberry were delicious, my favorite is still the childhood blueberry one. But the fact is, these aren't Toaster Strudels until they can be made in a toaster. So this time I made another batch, baking for about five minutes less until puffed and blonde but not golden, letting it cool completely and then freezing it. Now, because of the thickness, my teen microwave method works better. Cook for 30 seconds before toasting until golden. As you can see, it came out a little dark. I think that's because I initially overbaked it in the oven. I also think it would be helpful to omit the beaten egg if you plan on freezing and reheating them.

There you have it, that's three versions of Toaster Strudel. The store-bought original is still very dear to my heart, but at the time of this recording, there are still a few left in the freezer. Meanwhile, the crew and I ate every single one of the homemade ones. So I think that qualifies them for the equivalence of a clean plate club. Thanks again. To better help sponsor this episode. Go to the link in the video description to get 10% off your first month. That link is betterhelp.com/

babish

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