(lighthearted music)
- So, you guys might
have may or may not have
already seen this recipe
on the Tasty channel
a couple of times.
I did a behind the scenes of it.
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Yikes.
I really want to give you
guys more instructions
and more of a story on
how to make this happen.
So the inspiration for
this recipe comes from
a lot of New York
restaurants were serving it
at the time.
It was pretty popular.
It was all over Instagram.
I was like, "Man, I want to figure out
"how to do that."
For this recipe, you actually do not want
to use milk chocolate, you
want to use good chocolate
because you want it to be
firm, you want it to be snappy.
You don't want any of those extra sugars
or other things that
they put into candy bars
that can help kind of make
the ball a little soft.
So you really want to get
nice chocolate for this.
You want to melt your chocolate,
but you do not want to overheat it.
It will cause it to coagulate.
So the most important
thing is that you need
to find the right containers,
or molds, for the recipe.
I used refillable ornaments
that I just got online.
You can find them on Amazon.
Basically they're these
clear, plastic ball ornaments
and depending on how big you want
the chocolate ball to be,
it can be anywhere from
four inches in diameter
to around eight inches.
You really just need to figure out
what size you're gonna make,
and who you're making it for.
That's probably the most important thing
and make sure you get multiple
because you're gonna make
crack some of the balls.
The trick is to pour
that amount of chocolate
into the ornament, close it
really, really, really tight.
You really just want to
like hold it and press it
so you do not let any
of the chocolate escape
from the edges and just slowly rotate it.
But you also don't want to move too slow.
Sometimes what happens
is that you rotate it
and it doesn't coat the whole ball,
it will cool down before it
even coats the whole thing
and it's just kind of hard.
So you might just be like kind of doing
this weird like ballerina
dance where you hold it
and look at it.
If you watch the behind Tasty,
I do this like 300 times.
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So you kind of have to
do that and watch it
and kind of tap it a little bit
to get it into the right spots.
After that, they go in the freezer.
When they go in the
freezer, you want to make
sure that they're level.
That they won't just
roll around everywhere
and every two minutes
or so until they're set
you want to actually check them.
Make like, I would say like, four to six
of the chocolate balls,
put them in the freezer,
expect some of them to
break because you really
just need one.
The key to opening it is
to really just make sure
that at first, you use your
hands to kind of hold it
and warm it a little bit.
So you kind of see like this huge thing.
Sometimes it'll crack, sometimes it won't.
It really is a game of luck.
We're putting it on a heated sort of bowl
to kind of rub so that the chocolate melts
and you kind of get this hole
for it to sit and stand on
to fill it with anything you want.
After that, you kind of put
whatever it is on the plate.
The key here is to keep
the plate, the ball,
and anything cold.
So if you're using ice
cream, keep it in the freezer
until the last second.
If you're using berries,
keep them in the fridge.
If you're using a brownie or a cake,
also keep it in the freezer.
Keep your plate in the freezer.
You do not want the ball to
melt before anything happens.
Once you take that out,
you kind of assemble
one brownie or a cake.
You kind of put some berries around it.
I like strawberries.
I like blueberries.
You can fill it with
whatever you want, honestly.
You kind of put the ice
cream scoop on top of that
and then you put the ball.
You kind of want to
snuggle it over the sides.
If it's not fitting,
you can either shave off
some more chocolate, take
out some of the berries.
You just want to make
sure that when the ball
is on the plate, it looks
like nothing is underneath it,
it's just a chocolate ball on a plate
because that's the surprise.
Don't worry, if there's like little cracks
between the plate and the ball itself
just run a ring of berries around it.
It covers up most of the problems,
that's what I pretty much did.
That is your chocolate ball
that is almost ready to serve.
The last and final bit is going to be
the really hot ganache
that kind of goes on it
and turns it from chocolate
ball to magic chocolate ball.
The chocolate ganache is just
even parts milk and cream.
You are pretty much ready to serve.
So what you'll do is
you'll serve the desert
to whoever you're making
it for and you'll pour
in a circle motion over the top
and then boom, that's it from there.
You got money raining everywhere,
horns, fanfares playing.
What actually happens
is that the chocolate
is going to melt the ball
and cause a waterfall effect
where first it will make
a little bit of a hole
where it first melts then the entire thing
should theoretically crumble and collapse
in a really beautiful, melty way,
and the walls will fall
away revealing every single
beautiful thing that you put inside.
Hopefully it's colorful berries
with ice cream and cake.
Maybe it's a wedding ring, I don't know.
Is that how I'm gonna propose?
Maybe, don't worry about it.
If my future fiancee
is watching out there.
I should probably change
up the method, huh.
Five layer brownie cheesecake
was probably one of my
greatest architectural feats,
if I would say so myself.
I was actually studying
engineering in college.
Not really a good student, to be honest,
but one thing I definitely did pick up
was the ability of how
to approach a problem
and how to look at it from certain angles,
especially when things don't exist.
A lot of times we were asked
to do hypothetical questions
like if you wanted to accomplish this,
how would you go about achieving it?
I learned that the easiest
way is to break down
the problem into its parts and kind of
almost work backwards.
Cookie dough, Oreos, and brownies
are a very common combination,
and I wanted to take that further.
I really wanted to turn the flavor profile
of like a triple stacked
brownie into something else.
I wanted to turn it into more of like
this spectacle desert
that you could really wow
everybody at a party with.
I just absolutely love
layers and clean layers.
So that was something that I set out to do
was to turn a triple decker
brownie into a cheesecake.
The challenge with this recipe
is that all of these elements
all bake at different times,
different temperatures,
and have different thicknesses.
I kind of wanted to go after the vibe
of when you go to a cheesecake factory
and they set down a slice
of this beautifully cut
and assembled cheesecake.
I really didn't know
how this was going to go
until I made it and I had
to do a lot of pre-planning,
and thinking, and being
able to try to predict
how the food would behave in a way
that I had never done before.
I was hoping that the brownie
batter would not get dry.
I guess that the cream
cheese in the mixture
would give the brownie moisture.
It was really gratifying to
pull something like this off.
Especially when you have
never really done this before.
I guess I felt really happy, relieved,
that it actually worked.
After the brownie and cheesecake were set,
that's when I put the Oreos
and cookie dough on top.
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I don't try to do recipes a lot of times
because I think I really
enjoy the challenge
of getting it right on the
first or the second try.
It's kind of nerve wracking to cut it open
because you really don't
know how it's gonna turn out
until you actually slice
it open into the layers.
To my luck, it really worked out well.
I was able to see all four
elements in their entirety.
I love to spend time just
thinking about the food
and really just trying
to guess and predict
how food is going to behave.
Sometimes I really just sit
down and write things down
and try to map out or draw out
how certain foods will
look before and after.
So for this one, I thought about it a lot
and made some decisions.
That's the sort of approach
that I like to take
because there's something really cool
about trying something
that's completely new
and then somehow landing
it on the first try.
So in my video, I
combined brownies, Oreos,
cookie dough, and cheesecake.
What combination of deserts do
you want me to attempt next?
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I tried to come up with
an idea for a recipe.
What I really want to do is
make people go like, "Wow",
and really show them something
that they are familiar with
but maybe in a new way, or maybe something
that is new to them but in a familiar way.
It's always about taking
an element of something
that people know, twisting
it and making it cooler,
making it different, combining
it with other things.
The end result is the stereotypical wow.
That's sort of usually the approach I take
when I want to really showcase
food to people in a cool way.
So for the eight deserts in one sheet pan,
it kind of came from a time
where it was the holidays.
I had seen a lot of videos kind of pop up
around deserts and baking and pie.
Food Network actually
released this one video
that was pretty cool.
It was four pies baked
in the same sheet pan
and to myself, I was like,
"Wow, that's really smart,
"but can I take it even a little further?"
I know that pie is just one desert.
There are a lot of deserts out there
and a lot of baked goods
that people like to eat.
My hunch was that around Christmas time,
around the Holidays, usually
at these potlucks or parties,
there'd be a widespread of deserts.
Ranging from cookies to
brownies to cheesecakes to pies.
I think this crazy idea came
about because in my head
I was like, "Man, what
happens if you kind of put
"all those deserts together?
"Like is there a way to
take every single desert
"that everybody loves and
turn it into just one thing?"
I think that's kind of
how the idea was born.
I basically thought of what can I use
to serve this giant desert
and how do I make sure
that everybody gets a
piece that they want?
Sometimes when you bring
a desert to a party,
not everybody likes brownies,
not everybody likes cheesecake.
Is there a way to make sure
that no matter who you are
at the party, you're gonna have one piece
that's gonna speak to you?
That's how I sort of
designed this eight deserts
in one sheet pan.
I wanted to sort of build it in a way
where if you cut it in a precise manner,
you would end up with just like a bunch
of different flavors.
You wouldn't really cut it just along
where the flavors met, but
you'd be able to get pieces
or bars that would have
two flavors, three flavors.
The golden crown is
when you get that piece
with all four flavors in them.
The challenge in designing
this was that no matter
what piece you get, the flavor
should still go together.
So you kind of have to
play this weird math
mix and match game of
like do these two flavors
go together?
Okay, if this goes together with this,
then this must be next to here.
It was a lot of me drawing
things on a piece of paper
and crumpling it up like
you do in the movies
and throwing it in the trashcan
and kind of restarting.
After a lot of trial and
error, I manage to get
a certain layout of which
deserts go in which area
in the pan so that no
matter which piece you got,
it would always taste great.
I'm super, super proud of this dish.
I'd love it you would
all make it this year.
A lot of people are intimidated by it
and aren't sure if all of the
deserts would bake together.
But actually, I was able
to make it on my first try
and I really think you could too.
Just really customize it how you want.
If you do make it, hit
me up, slide in my DM's,
throw me a little pic.
Oh, God, that sounds so weird (beep).
If you do end up making it,
I wanna see how you customize it.
Hit me up, send me a DM,
show me what you got.
Oh, yes.
Woo.
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