Binging with Babish: 'Sundae' from SpongeBob SquarePants

- Our jar of peanuts is completely empty. (burping) Hmm... Wait, I know another place we can find peanuts. (slow music) Thank goodness I still have these peanut plants growing in the window. (fly buzzing) A little texture never hurts. Here we go. This ice cream will taste delicious. - I don't know. Somehow I doubt it. Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to Binging with Babish. For this week, we're taking a look at SpongeBob's Peanut Plant, Ketchup, and Onion Sundae. And yes, this is a real peanut plant that I purchased on Etsy. He's too young to have hit the nuts yet, but I think ultimately that's not going to matter.

So, for the exact version of the TV show, we're crying as we finely chop a large Vidalia onion, fill a bowl with our ice cream substitute, aka an entire bottle of ketchup, spread our Vidalia onions on top, and leave plenty of room for Our Tennessee Red, Organic Heirloom Peanut Plant, roots, soil and all, as SpongeBob said, "a little texture never hurts," except that eating dirt is a very effective way to contract a parasite. I had to Google it and found a lot of articles on this topic, because apparently there are a lot of people who like to eat dirt.

I, however, am not one of them, so I'm going to carefully pick up the dirt, grab some peanut leaves, which are apparently perfectly edible, and off we go. Let's try some of SpongeBob's improvisation for Sundae, which I hope I don't have to tell you isn't very good. It's ketchup, onions and leaves. It's like eating a hamburger without a bun or hamburger. And yes, it gave me stale breath. So making an edible version of this will take some time. I think the only way to do it is to make ice creams with the flavor of the different parts of the Sundae.

First the onions, I have two large Vidalia onions, which I cut in half and thinly sliced, which I am now going to caramelize. I'm going to start by gently sautéing them over medium-low heat, adding a little kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, and then I'm going to cook them covered, stirring occasionally for about 15 minutes. We just want the onions to soften and lose a little moisture, but we don't want anything to turn brown yet. Once about 15 minutes have passed and the onions are nice and soft, we'll remove the lid, increase the heat to medium, and cook, stirring frequently, for 45 minutes to an hour.

Add a splash of water and scrape the bottom of the pan as many times as you like, until you have deeply browned Jamie onions. This is completely delicious and naturally sweet. So I'm very curious to see what kind of ice cream will be made. The next thing I'm interested in is tomato-based ice cream, which will be our ketchup substitute. I'm going to start by making a tomato jam. I'm cutting little crosses into the bottom of a kilo of fresh ripe tomatoes, which we'll then blanch and peel. In other words, drop the tomatoes, one or two at a time, into a pot of boiling water for about a minute, or until you start to see the skin split on the sides.

Then we took them out and threw them directly into an ice water bath. This is called shocking the tomatoes, and it will stop the cooking process and make the tomatoes easier to peel, which once they are all blanched and shocked, we will start doing. We will carefully peel each tomato, then cut them into quarters, cut out the core, and then cut each quarter into one-inch pieces. Once the tomatoes are broken down, it's time to place them directly on your lap. This will be efficient. Just kidding, there's a saucepan down there. In a medium saucepan we put our tomatoes together with about 450 grams of granulated sugar and the juice of half a lemon.

Then we will bring it to a simmer over medium heat, reduce the heat to medium-low and continue to simmer for about an hour, stirring frequently and occasionally removing the orange peel that appears on top. By the end, the mixture should have been reduced by about half. Now, to represent the peanut plant, I want something earthy, something grassy, ​​and something peanut-flavored. So I'm going to make a beet, matcha and peanut ice cream. Now, for all of our ice cream flavors, we'll need a basic custard. Just like the one we made with mochi ice cream last week. Four cups of heavy cream, two cups of milk, one cup of sugar and a pinch of kosher salt, brought to a simmer over medium heat.

We then add this mixture to eight separate egg yolks that we have placed in a large heat-resistant container. Then, very, very slowly, we will pour the mixture into the eggs while whisking constantly. This will temper the eggs, which will prevent them from scrambling in our ice cream. And this ice cream is going to be pretty weird, without scrambled eggs. Once we've added about a third of the heavy cream and milk mixture, we'll add everything back to the pot and whisk constantly over medium heat until it reaches 175 degrees Fahrenheit and becomes thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. . .

Now, in several containers, I have our different aromas. Tomato jam on the far left, followed by caramelized onion. Then some beet puree and lastly some creamy peanut butter, about half a cup of each. Then we slowly beat each of these until they are completely homogeneous. And if you're wondering where the matcha ice cream is, I have some leftovers from last week that I'll be reusing because, fun fact, you can melt and re-churn the ice cream. Well, maybe that's just a fact. I don't know about a curious fact. Either way, all the custard is covered and refrigerated overnight before being whipped using whatever method you choose.

There's our beet root ice cream, a little matcha ice cream, a little peanut butter ice cream for the peanut flavor, caramelized onion ice cream, and tomato jam ice cream. Each of which should be churned until it has the texture of soft serve ice cream. At that point, we'll scrape it out again and place it in a clean container, smooth it out, and let it sit in the freezer, again overnight. Then, about half an hour before serving, we'll transfer them all to the refrigerator so they can soften a little so they can be easily removed. So here we go, a heaping tablespoon of caramelized onion, another of tomato jam and then, to replace the peanut plant, you will see that I made a kind of Neapolitan with beet roots, matcha and peanut butter.

Is it the most beautiful thing in the world? No, but neither do I, and that's okay with me. But is that all about to change as I delve deeper into this crazy concoction of tasty sweet ice creams? Let's find out. The caramelized onion was interesting, the tomato jam was interesting, and the beet matcha with peanut butter was interesting. That's the only thing I can say. They are harmless, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them good. I think what this needs is a little bit of the old Sundae treatment. Whipped cream, chocolate sauce and cherry.

Now that's ice cream. Let's take a big bite and, Urgh! That's when I learned that chocolate and onion don't mix well. (final music)