- Claire, cover this up.
It looks like you're selling drugs.
[laughing]
Jesus Christ lady.
- Taste it.
- It's always the quiet
ones you gotta watch.
[light upbeat music]
[screaming]
- They kind of look like
the alien spaceships
from "War of the Worlds".
Hey everyone I'm Claire, we
are in the BA test kitchen
and today I'm making gourmet Mentos.
I always looked at Mentos as a candy
and not as a breath mint,
although I know people
actually do use them as breath mints
because mint is the original,
but I always really liked the fruit ones.
I did not know that there were
so many different flavors.
Fruit seems classic, mint seems classic,
but there's so many
different ones, green apple,
palm vert is what it says, cinnamon,
there's an all strawberry one, lemonade,
one Emoticon on each dragee.
I kind of want to open these.
Oh wow.
I don't understand this one.
Is the little drip above the eye sweat?
I don't understand what
any of these emotions are.
Am I like on the, is that a thing?
You're like emotion blind or something?
What is this?
Let's take a poll.
What is this emotion?
- This is like a drop of lemon juice
is about to get in your eye,
and you're like [groans].
- I'm sure that's what it is.
Wanna taste one.
- I mean--
- Ooh.
- They're not great.
- I like Mentos.
I do like the texture.
I just like how they
start off really hard,
kinda soften, they become very chewy.
- Like look, the shell
is actually pretty thick
and then the inside is--
- [Claire] Almost a little fluffy.
- [Alex] Yeah.
- Weird.
- It actually looks like
the inside of a Skittle.
- Yeah, I was just gonna say.
This is basically the Skittles episode
with a thicker shell.
- With a thicker shell.
- One check in the plus column for mint
is that they're all white.
I don't have to deal with the
food coloring aspect of it.
It's not an overly aggressive mint flavor.
Chris.
- [Chris] Yeah?
- Can I offer you a breath mint?
- It's so hard.
- Yeah.
I know, Chris.
You can't do the thing,
your normal thing, where
you like take the teeniest
tiniest bite.
- No, I did.
[Claire laughing]
It just took a lot of work.
It's quite a shell on it.
- Yeah, Delaney pointed that out.
It's a very hard, firm candy shell.
Which is always, presents a challenge.
- I enjoy that taffy-like texture.
And all candies like that, like Mentos,
Hi-Chews, like anything that
has that kind of pully quality.
- Yeah.
- But then on top of that--
- I hate making those.
[laughs]
So now I want to take a closer look,
because it seems like maybe
there's something going on there
in the middle, underneath the candy shell.
They're all very uniform.
Diameter is 1.9 centimeters.
.9 centimeters thick.
It is really quite firm.
There is sort of a fluffiness,
meaning kind of an aerated quality
to the interior.
Maybe there's some gelatin in it.
All right, I've concluded that Mentos
are a bigger version of Skittles.
There is a candy center that's chewy
and then there is a sugarcoating
on the outside that's hard.
So I can use a lot of the learning
from the Skittles episode
and apply it here.
Okay.
Time for my favorite part.
Reading the ingredients.
Sugar, wheat syrup, coconut
oil, corn starch, cocoa butter,
natural flavors, maltodextrin,
sucrose fatty acid esters,
gellan gum, carnauba wax,
sodium carboxymethyl
cellulose, gum arabic.
That's a lot of weird stuff
in these Mentos.
I mean, it's interesting.
I don't know what wheat syrup is,
and that's the second ingredient,
so there's a high proportion of it.
The coconut oil is interesting.
All right, I think we
gotta go do some research
so I can look into some
of these ingredients
and also hopefully find
some good stuff on YouTube.
The first thing that comes
up is Mentos and Coke.
Should we watch videos of that?
- [Man] Sure.
- I think we should.
Steve Spangler Science. I love it.
- What we want, is we want, yup.
And we're just gonna put them in to test,
in three, two, one, pull.
[yelping]
- It's the Mentos page.
Why do I have to be 16 years or older?
[gasps] This is, why does
dropping a Mentos into a bottle
of soda create a reaction?
The reaction occurs because
of a simple rule of physics.
It's not a chemical reaction.
Soda/fizzy drinks contain
a certain amount of CO2
dissolved in water, in the
form of blah, blah, blah.
This combination,
basically the answer to
this, I'll just condense
what this paragraph is saying,
that it makes it fizzy,
is what this is saying.
I found out very little
about how Mentos are made.
I'm mostly taking Skittles
as a jumping off point.
So I wanna go look up that recipe
and then start to kind
of gather my ingredients.
Can we talk about the game
we were playing at lunch?
Okay, so we played this
game, which I haven't played
since I was probably in day camp
as an elementary school student,
where instead of a coin
we were using a Mentos
and putting it on the edge of the table
and trying to get it to
hang over the opposite edge
with three tries of pushing it,
but we learned something,
because they kept falling
on the floor.
They shatter, and they
break off kind of like glass
or hard cracked sugar.
When I rub it like this, I do start to get
a little bit of an
oiliness, so I know that
that's sort of the coconut
oil, mixed in with that sugar.
I do think it's a hard cracked sugar
that's basically mounted
with oil, corn starch,
and maybe some gelatin.
And I think that that's it.
And then that was really useful,
so us playing that game really helped me
on this Gourmet Makes episode.
This coating is going to be royal icing
because I've done many versions thus far
of a candy shell, and I've really not
had a lot of success.
We all know what happened with M&Ms.
I don't want to think about it.
[emotional piano music]
So I think the best way to
get a candy coating this thin
and this opaque white is
just to do royal icing.
There's really only two
main things to tackle.
The interior that I'll
flavor with some mint oil
or peppermint extract, and the candy shell
on the outside.
[upbeat jazzy music]
So here's the process for the filling.
I'm cooking sugar, corn
syrup, salt, and water
in the saucepan to hard crack sugar stage.
Then I'm mixing in
coconut oil, corn starch,
some softened gelatin, and peppermint oil.
Stir it together, let it sit.
That's really it.
It's a complete guess.
Who knows?
But it could be perfect.
I wanna see if by pulling it I get
just a softer texture overall.
Because I'm working air into
it, something that's just
more malleable and fluffy.
Here are my two tests.
The same mixture.
This side I pulled the sugar
until it became opaque,
then this side I just let cool.
I think if I adjust the
amount of coconut oil
and the amount of gelatin,
I'll get something
a lot firmer.
But I do think that
pulling it is a good idea
because I want something
opaque with a little bit
of aeration in it, just like this.
I think it could use more peppermint.
There is kind of a starchiness
that's not very pleasant, so
I think I need to dial down
the corn starch as well.
But it's a good starting point,
and I know what I'm gonna
change in round two.
[upbeat jazzy music]
We're gonna pretend like
an hour didn't just pass
when I was in a meeting,
and I'm going to make the second batch.
I can't really do it with my right hand,
because my right hand is, doesn't work.
Only my left hand works.
[laughing] I can't really--
- [Man] Your right hand doesn't work?
- I mean just, I'm left handed,
and it's 99% left hand,
one percent left hand.
I can't really make,
like I can't really like hold up numbers.
You know, like three, or two--
- What?
[Claire laughing]
Can you do it evenly on both hands?
My right hand is just like very tight,
and my left hand is
like, I can do anything.
It's like Gumby.
- Your left hand's like a superhero?
- Yeah, my right hand is useless.
- Yeah. Leave him at home.
- Yeah.
[upbeat jazzy music]
Ooh, okay.
- You know what's really funny?
We get paid to do this.
- I know.
They're gonna yell at me though.
[laughing]
- [Alex] Last one, last one!
- I get three chances!
- [Alex] What?
- You get three tries.
You get three pushes.
- [Alex] Okay.
- Do you know what it
kind of reminds me of?
[laughing] It's like curling!
[upbeat jazzy music]
[laughing]
Sorry.
Wow.
[sighs] Dan, that was your fault
because you asked Delaney to come over
and talk to me about my weird claw hand.
[laughing]
Okay, sorry.
I have to focus.
I really did waste a lot of time.
[upbeat jazzy music]
For round two I'm going to
decrease the coconut oil
decrease the corn starch,
decrease the gelatin,
and increase the peppermint.
It's really not coming together
the same way it did.
Maybe it's the lack of cornstarch?
Hard to say.
It's really hot, still.
And it kind of hurts.
Ow.
And now it's starting to harden,
which is a bad sign.
I have an itch on my nose.
Oh, it's bad.
[laughs]
That didn't help.
It's becoming a lot
more difficult to pull.
All right, I think we're done.
I think it's not gonna work.
This is still warm but I'm calling it.
It's going to harden into a rock.
[tapping]
I think I know what went wrong here.
And I overcooked the sugar.
I think that because it
kind of peaked at 290
to get at 300, I turned
the heat up too high
and then it went over
as it was sitting here.
Maybe I backed off too
far on that coconut oil
and corn starch and gelatin, maybe.
It is unchewable.
The flavor's good.
I think, I like this amount of peppermint.
I do need something in
between here and here.
So I think I'll add back
in maybe a little bit
of gelatin, and a little
bit of coconut oil.
And I'm also going to be more careful
about not spiking the sugar at the end
of the cooking process.
I have a feeling that's
mostly what happened here.
So I'm just gonna keep going.
I'm having so many Starburst flashbacks,
and it's terrible.
All right.
I feel good about these first two tests
that I did today for that interior.
I guess tomorrow my goal will
be to get to a good place
with the filling, and
also maybe tackle forming.
And then all that will
be left is candy coating
and then possibly iterating
on further flavors.
That's it.
[upbeat jazzy music]
Today is day two.
I think I got off to a good start
at the end of the day yesterday.
But Chris and Gaby are here
because we're gonna have a little fun
before I have to get back to work.
We're going to put some
Mentos in some Diet Coke.
- Fun isn't work?
Work isn't fun?
- No, this isn't fun.
- Is that what you're saying?
Come on.
I didn't know that that was a thing.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- They wanted us to go outside,
but I don't really want to go outside
because it's humid--
- I don't really want
to go outside either.
- I think we should do
this in the dish pit.
[upbeat jazzy music]
Don't suffocate yourself.
All right, is it lined up?
All right ready?
- [Gaby] Yes.
- Oh god.
Wait, Chris you do it.
- What do you need, to hold that thing?
- Do you want me to pull it out?
Here, I'll hold it steady--
- [Claire] Is it lined up?
- It looks lined up.
- [Gaby] Yeah, pull it!
- You pull it.
- [Gaby] You can do it.
- [Claire] Oh god.
Whoo!
[laughing]
- Oh, gosh.
- [All] Boo!
- [Man] Was it six?
- [Together] That was six.
- [Chris] We need like 30.
- [Claire] We have to do it again.
Okay, we're adding a lot more.
That's lined up.
Okay, ready?
- Yes.
- [Claire] Gaby, want to count it?
- One, two, three.
[laughing]
- That's not how it's supposed to work.
- Okay ready?
- One more time?
One, two, three.
- Oh god!
- Oh no!
- Oh god!
[laughing]
- It got stuck.
I think we should try that again.
We need a test tube.
Okay, the new plan is use a
straighter, more slippery tube
so that they all drop in simultaneously.
Oh yeah.
- Should we do a double tube?
[gasping]
- I think that's gonna--
- [Chris] I think that's
such a great idea.
Okay.
- Okay.
- [Gaby] So we take one side.
- Chris, what is that supposed to do?
- Just like protect the face.
- Okay, ready?
- Yes.
- [Claire] Gaby, count it.
- One, two, three.
[gasping]
[laughing]
[dramatic music]
[laughing]
I love it!
Oh my god!
I [beeping] love it!
It does work.
It's not a myth.
- I did pull a muscle, you guys.
In my neck.
- I'd recommend not doing this at home.
- Claire's down.
- Oh, ooh we got a video.
- Guys, guys, guys.
[laughing]
- That was definitely the
most fun I've ever had
in Gourmet Makes, even
though it made a huge mess.
And I pulled a muscle.
[emotional piano music]
That experience is going to get me through
the rest of this episode.
The best part of Mentos
is that they do that
with Diet Coke, so my
new goal is not so much
about nailing the flavor or texture,
it's getting something
that does that same thing
with Diet Coke.
All right.
Let's just take a look
at what I did yesterday.
These are the two tests I got through.
This guy hardened.
Ooh.
I scared myself.
I am so overly caffeinated,
and I haven't eaten anything today.
So that really scared me.
For the third try I want
to do something in between.
So those are pretty easy changes,
this time adding back a little bit
of the coconut oil and gelatin.
So that's what I'm going to try.
[upbeat jazzy music]
This time I'm gonna cook
it to the same temperature
but be more careful about the
level of heat that I have.
[dramatic music]
- [Man] What are you thinking about?
[sighs]
- I was thinking about
[laughs] I was thinking about Starburst,
and how this is,
how bad that was.
So now I'm just pulling
this just like I did before
in previous episodes, and yesterday.
All right, this looks nice.
It's pretty soft and satiny.
I feel pretty good about this texture.
I have high hopes.
It's very firm.
It starts out really, really hard
and then it softens.
Tastes really good.
Tell me if you think this
is the texture of Mentos.
- It's too hard.
- Yeah, I knew it was too hard.
[laughs]
But it's close, right?
I think to get it softer
I add more corn starch
and maybe a little bit more gelatin,
and I think it'll be good.
- That makes sense.
- I think it'll be good.
I do want to try another test
with those changes I just said,
but first I think it would be useful
to use the third batch as a test
for seeing how I'm gonna form them.
Chris, what's that thing called?
The metal grinder thing?
- The angle grinder?
- No, what's the thing
that we got for Ruffles?
- Oh, the Dremel tool.
- The Dremel tool.
I think I need to use to Dremel tool.
- [gasps] Yeah!
- [Claire] Because here's my thing.
- What's up?
- I have to make a mold for these, right?
And it's like, it's close
but they're too deep.
So I think I have to drill
I think I have to shave
off some of the metal.
Is that a bad idea?
- No.
- You don't think so?
- It's a great idea.
But it sounds like maybe it's
a job for the angle grinder.
[upbeat jazzy music]
- [Claire] I'm gonna stand, no.
- Yeah, this thing throws metal.
It's a [beeps] angle grinder.
It's not some like, it's not a scalpel,
it's a hammer, you know?
- So we're trying to
just shave down the metal
so that the depth only really goes
to like maybe there.
That's a lot of metal, though.
- We need to make this mold flush
so that the two sides like actually meet,
because we don't want there to be a gap.
- [Claire] No gap.
- No gap.
[upbeat jazzy music]
- It's very close.
- What would Brad say?
Tighter than a frog's ass?
Watertight.
- Is a crab's ass watertight?
- [Chris] Exactly.
- Thank you Chris, so much.
- [Chris] Oh yeah, absolutely.
- The first thing I have to do
is clean up all the metal
shards from this table.
Here are my angle ground
teaspoon measures.
I'll demo with the failed batches,
but basically here's the idea.
This is a really bad
example because I'm not
gonna be able to get it out of the mold.
You get what I'm, you get it.
I could probably make something
like this with my hand.
Freeform.
Okay, so the weight of the
Mentos with the coating
is 2.8, the weight of
this one is 1.7, 1.8.
So there's a full gram difference,
and I don't think that the coating itself
is gonna weigh that much,
so basically the mold that
Chris just spend 15 minutes
angle grinding is too small.
I'm going to think
about this and clean up.
Maybe at, well I don't really
want to make them by hand.
I need to figure out,
I need to think about the mold.
And find something better.
[upbeat jazzy music]
Too big, yeah.
[sighs] This is the fourth batch.
And I'm still tweaking
those levels of coconut oil
and corn starch and gelatin
to get the softness I want.
So this time, I'm increasing coconut oil.
Ten grams more coconut oil this time.
25 grams corn starch.
For the gelatin I'm also increasing.
It feels too soft.
It also is weirdly kind of marshmallowy,
and I think that's because
of the amount of gelatin.
For this version, I'm
doing everything the same
but taking the gelatin down.
Oh, I hate the smell of gelatin like that.
[laughs]
Something happened.
It crystallized.
See how crumbly it is?
I don't really know why it happened.
I just, let's just go home.
It's so much more fun to
put Mentos in Diet Coke
than it is to make Mentos.
[sighs]
[upbeat jazzy music]
I was gonna go home and
think about what I was
gonna do today, but then I thought
about other stuff, and forgot.
I still think that I need
to think about molds.
And what am I gonna do?
What is this shape, you guys?
Let's brainstorm.
As a team, yeah.
No Skittles I used the
eighth teaspoon measures
to form them.
M&Ms I used to molds,
the silicon putty molds.
This has come up before in Gourmet Makes.
I don't remember when. We never did it.
But the idea of using a potato as a mold.
You know when you were a kid and you made
like the potato stamps with paint?
It's basically that idea.
So the idea is to drill,
use the Dremel tool
to drill two halves of an oblate spheroid
into the cut side of a potato.
It's a great idea.
This diameter looks very similar.
[upbeat jazzy music]
I just had a moment of
perspective about what I'm doing
and it's so stupid.
It's never gonna work.
I've made zero progress
and it's day three.
- What is happening right now?
- Christina, this episode is--
- You're melon balling.
- So far off the rails.
- A potato.
Would it dome?
Would you fill it and then--
- No, no.
I have to like put two sides.
- Or do you want to fuse them.
There has to be another way.
I think this, we need to stop this.
I don't know what's going on
- I have melon ballers but they're too,
I can't find the right size using any--
- What do you mean?
- That's not the right size.
- Why not?
- It's just not.
- That's exactly a Mentos.
- No, itt's not, because I
weighed them out, and it's--
- I think--
- Look at the actual difference in depth
between the, if it's two halves.
- Do you have the lozenge molds?
- Wait, I just had an idea.
[laughs]
We could try making our
own corn starch mold.
That was a thing that I took away from,
what was the last episode we did?
Not, oh from Sour Patch Kids, yeah.
They make a compressed corn
starch mold, basically,
but I was like, what
if we take corn starch
and we mix it with egg
white, and we can basically
press Mentos into them.
- I think that's worth a shot.
Okay, well why don't we just--
[Claire laughs]
do this no more.
- Sweep it all into the trash.
- And yeah, corn starch mold.
- That's a better idea.
- Go for it.
- My new idea is to make sort of clay
from corn starch and egg
white, and then to use Mentos
as the form, make an impression,
and then take them out
and use that as the mold.
[upbeat jazzy music]
I've never felt anything like this.
It's so weird, this texture.
It's sort of like dry but
loose at the same time.
Kevin feel it.
It's so weird.
- [Kevin] Ugh.
[Claire laughs]
- My plan is to, wow look at them sink.
It's like quicksand.
[slow piano music]
I think we should start
this whole day over.
I just wish that I were further along
in this process than I am.
Just sucks.
[sighs]
I've done nothing but spin my wheels
in this whole episode.
[sighs] The molds thing is not happening.
This is the mold.
We're going back to this place.
As far as molds go.
So now I'm going back to the filling,
which I was putting off
to figure out the mold.
What's happening there, John?
Look at that one.
Look, they've been swallowed.
- [Man] Kevin tried to
dig them out a little bit.
- [Claire] They've been
swallowed up by the monster.
- [Man] Oh my god.
- Okay.
I have to make the filling.
I'm going to do what I did last night,
but then it went wrong and took a turn.
So I'm gonna try to repeat that,
the same quantities, and
hopefully it turns out.
But I'm worried.
I don't feel good about it.
[slow emotional piano music]
- What happened?
- I really don't wanna do this anymore.
- Oh, you can do it Claire.
I know you're gonna finish this one today.
- You think so, today?
- Yes.
And if not, I will lie for you.
I'll be like, you nailed it Claire!
- Yeah, yeah. Thank you.
- This is the same!
Keep going.
- Thanks, Gaby.
- Have faith.
- That helped me.
- [Gaby] Yay!
- Thank you.
- [Gaby] Go Claire!
- Thanks, Gaby.
- I'll put a sign here!
- [Claire] Thanks Gaby!
- [Gaby] Go Claire!
Bye!
- That was good.
I feel better.
All right.
[upbeat jazzy music]
Let's just have it be the one
even if it's not the one,
you know what I mean?
It's too hard.
And I don't wanna make it again.
[gasps] Rhoda, hi.
- Hi love!
- [Claire] I'm having some issues
and Dan wanted me to call you
because I'm refusing to make anymore.
Do you wanna stop by?
If you could just save the day.
- Claire, what's happening?
Okay, I need to start by trying one.
What's that?
[Claire laughs]
- [Claire] Don't worry about it.
- They're so much chewier than I remember.
- And I'm not able to
really get that texture.
- What did you do for Skittles?
- Let me look back at Skittles
and see about the
temperature that I was using.
- In a way this is a lot like a Skittle
because it has that interior.
Were you gonna do a shell
or something on the inside?
- Yeah, and so I'm basically
gonna dow hat I did
for Skittles, which is just
use two measuring spoons.
Yeah.
And put them together.
- You should go back to Skittles.
- So Rhoda gave me good
advice, as I knew she would.
Rhoda said to go back to Skittles,
and take a look at Skittles
and what I did there,
because it is a sort of similar texture,
and I was referencing
Skittles earlier in the video.
I don't know why I didn't
actually pay attention to it.
So I'm watching the very end of the video.
I'll feel like we did it.
With a pastry brush until
mixture registers 250 Fahrenheit.
Remove from heat and
whisk in eight tablespoons
butter in pieces.
Here's what I'm going to do.
Is basically just to cook
it less hot, the sugar,
and that's what I did in Skittles.
So hardball is like a 260 two or four.
And I was taking it to
all the way to hard crack
which is just above
300, so I'm dropping it
a good 40 degrees or so.
[upbeat jazzy music]
It's much whiter, huh?
- [Man] Totally.
- So that's a good sign, actually.
I think this is really close.
It's just a little too elastic
and a little too soft.
So I think we should push
it five more degrees,
cook it a little bit hotter
and a little less gelatin.
This is the very last one.
I think it feels really good.
It has that kind of hard cracky sound,
but it still is pliable,
and what I'm also really
happy about is that this
is a really white, opaque interior,
and it does, I think, look a lot like
the interior of actual Mentos.
So I did not see this
coming, but I actually do
feel really good about this.
So this is more, it just kind of breaks.
I'm not just saying this
because I don't want
to ever do it again, but I really think
this is the best version.
So I'll be portioning
them, trying to form them,
coating them in royal
icing, which is my idea
for the candy coating,
and letting them dry.
And that's it.
And then we get to play
with more Diet Coke.
[upbeat jazzy music]
It feels pretty firm.
I think it's fine.
I think it's great.
It's actually quite crumbly.
Which might affect my ability to mold it
into the shape that I want.
I think it will be okay.
I'll just have to maybe microwave them
to soften a little bit.
You're back!
I haven't seen you in so long!
Oh, what are you, Chris?
Take a bigger bite.
- You know what it reminds me of?
- What?
- The New York peppermint patty a little.
The inside.
Which I love, I always like--
- It's very peppermint patty like.
This filling is perfect.
- Not perfect, but damn close.
- Yeah, but I'm making Mentos.
- What is on that?
[laughing]
- [Claire] Don't worry about it.
- Claire, you, now it really looks
like you're making weird drugs.
[Claire laughing]
The designer club drugs and [beeps].
Did Andy give you those?
- What?
- What's going on over here?
- Calm down.
Let's not talk about that.
- That is, I don't think is quite it.
- I'm not making it over.
I made it one million times.
- Oh, you've done?
Oh, nailed it!
[laughing]
Perfect!
Now you just gotta do the coating!
- Yeah, there you go.
Brad hates it.
As usual.
It's not right.
It's crumbly, it's a different texture,
but I'm gonna move forward with it
because I like the way it tastes.
I kind of want to try an experiment
where I warm it up first.
[upbeat jazzy music]
I'm hoping that I get,
that when I open the door,
there's Mentos in there.
Well, it melted.
Basically what I've learned is Chris
is the only one that
cares about any of this.
Having melted it, it is
holding together much better.
So these are not the spoons that Chris
used the angle grinder on.
This is the larger size.
These are quarter teaspoon measures.
But I'm just kind of using
them as like a half-mold.
It's actually kind of working.
In terms of the size, it's pretty close.
It's the closest I've
come to a Mentos so far.
I wanted Brad to care more.
But Brad doesn't care.
- [Man] Aw.
- No one cares about my
suffering, basically,
and that does not feel good.
You know who cares?
Gaby.
Where is Gaby?
Gaby just gives so much compassion.
And I need more Gaby.
So I'm gonna just keep forming
the little individual pieces
and then I wanna see how they kind of set.
[upbeat jazzy music]
Does Brad know that he has fruit flies
flying around his fermentation station?
Also, what is that?
Also, that bag of egg yolks,
with sugar and salt, has
been there since April.
Which I don't feel good about.
I think overall they have
a very regular, even shape.
I'm actually more pleased with the shaping
than I thought I would be,
filling is maybe not the perfect texture,
but I'm happy overall.
These go back into the fridge,
and while they're setting
I'll think about how I want to dip them.
So I'm pretty committed to
royal icing as the coating.
Royal icing is a mixture of
egg white and powdered sugar.
The main question is how
am I going to dry them
so that they don't have a
flat surface where they rest?
I have an idea.
I need a bunch of toothpicks,
and now I need to find
a piece of foam board.
Do you have any foam board?
Like, maybe I could destroy part of it?
Thank you, I'll bring it back.
And the idea is that this will
create a suspension system,
which is very tiny.
What?
What?
[upbeat jazzy music]
This looks like a medieval torture device
of some kind.
Something out of Game of Thrones, maybe.
All right, now I'm going
to make my royal icing.
So I'm gonna grab powdered
sugar and egg white.
[upbeat jazzy music]
The royal icing, I'm
using it to kind of get
that crackly texture as it dries
and then it kind of makes its own shell.
Oh god. Oh god.
[giggling]
Oh god.
Okay, I think I have to
start again with this.
Let's try that again.
[upbeat jazzy music]
There are still some drips.
Chris, this is ridiculous.
Although I did one.
- Is there another way
that one is supposed
to do this though?
- I'm sure that there is,
I just haven't thought of it.
- The shape already looks just dynamite.
- Yeah, like the coating,
at least from the top,
because I think these are gonna have
the best angle, you know?
- I like that they're
like slightly irregular
but in a purposeful way.
Almost like a Mento itself,
you know, just like we did
the physical reaction of the
CO2 coming out of solution
and diet soda because of like,
there's like a little bit of
surface variation, you know?
- Wait, what?
I'm sorry.
I've learned that this
takes intense concentration
and I shouldn't be spoken to.
It's a silent art.
[upbeat jazzy music]
I want to let this whole thing sit
so that the wetter Mentos can set
before I kind of move around the board,
and I'll come back in maybe ten minutes
and sort of transfer the
drier ones to the rack,
and then at that point
everything just needs to dry out.
Maybe overnight.
I might have to come back here tomorrow
and check on these.
This should maybe go into
the Gourmet Makes museum.
I'll just put this off to the side.
- [Man] What would you call it?
- What if I need to use it again?
This is our drying rack.
What would it be called
in Game of Thrones?
What's Arya's sword called?
- [Man] Needle?
- Oh yeah, Needle.
The Needle Rack.
These are my Mentos.
- It's that?
- Yeah.
They're close enough.
- Good enough for government work.
- Always.
Brad's so deeply unimpressed.
Ignoring all that, I'm
just gonna set these aside.
Oh, Brad, can I use--
Can I use your fans?
Yeah, yeah.
This is good. This is good.
- Put this bad boy on high.
- Yeah, put it on high.
Put it on high.
- [Brad] Now we're humming.
- Yeah, no.
It's, okay good.
I think it's getting air all over.
Great.
Just come back tomorrow.
[upbeat jazzy music]
So here are the Mentos.
These have been drying overnight,
they had the fan on them.
I think they've dried sufficiently,
as you can see, like they're pretty hard.
They definitely have a
right side and a wrong side,
so I'm trying to keep them
basically right side up,
because on the bottom they
have the little spikes,
tiny little marks from my torture rack.
That's okay.
I think they actually overall
look really, really good.
Especially if you stand like two feet away
and don't look too close.
Christina, can you hear that?
The tapping?
It taps.
- [Man] Can you bounce a
regular Mentos next to it?
- I don't think that's gonna happen.
Okay, let's just see if this bounces.
[laughing]
They don't bounce.
Whatever.
- [Christina] Are they supposed to?
- I was trying to get them hard enough
that they would do that.
- Is that a regular Mentos?
- Yeah.
- Okay, should I dry the OG first?
- Yeah, if you want.
I'll try one with you.
- Do you like them?
- I like these.
They're just a very different texture.
- Oh wow.
- They're like soft mints.
- Mm-hmm.
- Which I love.
- They're definitely improved.
- Oh, thank you!
- Yeah, I do not care to
eat another one of these,
and I would keep eating these.
- Yeah, thank you.
- [Molly] Cool, well done!
- Thanks.
Maybe the texture wasn't
exactly what I wanted
but I like the flavor.
I think we really gour-made these.
Just taste it and love it.
- Tastes,
if someone told me is was a Mentos or not
I wouldn't be able to tell.
It tastes perfect, Claire.
Tastes like coconut oil.
- I know.
I put coconut oil in it.
- Yeah, great job Claire!
- [Claire] Thanks.
- I think you did a great job.
- Oh, Brad.
[claps]
[whooping]
- No, it's nice.
This is hard, Claire.
Let's face it.
- Yeah, it's hard.
- You know how much money Mr. Mentos spent
on developing that to
be perfect every time?
- A lot.
- It's maybe a little mintier?
- You're doing a day one thing.
We're on the last day.
So, just.
- Great, you nailed it.
- Yeah, there you go.
- It's perfect.
- That's what I was looking for.
- It needs--
- Brad, don't go there.
- Just like a little more
of that ethanoly--
- Nope.
- Mentholy kind of burn.
Ethanol.
- Nope.
Too late.
- Great job, Claire.
- There it is.
Delaney.
Hi.
- A head shake just as a greeting.
Wow.
- [Claire] No, what are you doing?
Don't do that.
Don't squeeze it.
Just eat the whole thing,
and pretend like it's identical.
- They're definitely softer.
- [Claire] I know.
- The flavor is definitely better.
- Thanks. I like the flavor.
- I think the flavor's great.
- The real test will be
if they make the Diet Coke explode.
- Oh, you haven't done that yet?
- We did it with the original.
- No, no, no, I know.
But ...
- But we haven't tried it with these.
- All right I kind of what to see that.
[upbeat jazzy music]
- So, we're gonna try
the Diet Coke experiment
with the homemade Mentos.
Are we ready?
- I'm ready.
- I'll help you position it.
I'm going on three.
- Yes. One, two, three.
[laughing]
[squealing]
[laughing]
- Yes!
[dreamy atmospheric music]
[clapping]
It works!
It worked, Claire!
- Yay!
- It worked!
[laughing]
- I think that this was one of the more
unhinged, expansive
episodes of Gourmet Makes.
Here's what we did.
- Wait, I'm sorry.
We still don't know why it works?
- But it's something about--
- It's like the surface, you know?
- Yeah, you know.
Just say stuff like that.
- A little bit irregular
that causes the CO2 bubbles
to kind of form around it.
- Anyway, thanks guys.
So fun.
- Thanks, Claire.
- This was a fun Gourmet Makes.
The middle section was less fun
than the beginning and end
where we just got to
play with the Diet Coke
in the dish pit.
Yeah, so it was great.
And I'm actually really
proud of the overall shape
and construction and coating,
which is also something
that I thought was gonna be hard,
so I was pleasantly surprised.
It was a Gourmet explosion.
[upbeat jazzy music]
Here's how you make Gourmet Mentos.
Sprinkle 3/4 teaspoon powdered
gelatin over one tablespoon
of cold water in a small bowl.
Set aside.
Combine 60 grams coconut
oil, 25 grams corn starch,
and one teaspoon of peppermint extract.
Set aside.
Combine 200 grams sugar,
a pinch of kosher salt,
and 100 grams corn syrup,
and three tablespoons water
in a small saucepan and
cook over medium heat,
stirring to dissolve sugar.
Bring to boil.
Cook until the thermometer
reaches 270 degrees Fahrenheit.
Remove from the heat, stir
in the gelatin to dissolve,
then whisk in the coconut
oil mixture until smooth.
Pour the mixture onto a baking sheet
and let sit until cool enough to handle.
Pull the sugar constantly
until the mixture
reaches room temperature.
Press the mixture back
onto the baking sheet
and let sit until
completely set and hardened.
Crumble the mixture into pieces
and microwave until softened.
Pinch off and weigh 2.7 gram portions.
Roll the portions to form spheres,
then compress between two quarter teaspoon
round measuring spoons.
Tap out onto the counter and repeat.
Flatten the spheres slightly
to create oblate spheroids.
Make a royal icing with
one large egg white
and confectioner's sugar.
Dip the Mentos one at a
time into the royal icing
and transfer to a toothpick drying rack.
Let sit until dry to the touch
and transfer to a regular
rack and let dry overnight.
There's something almost
nostalgic in the flavor,
because it's like a--
- It's like, you know what it tastes like?
- I know exactly what you're gonna say.
The soft mints--
- Grandma mint.
- Oh, yeah yeah.
- Grandma?
- I call them--
- Like the diner, when you
get those little pillow mints.
- Yes, the pillow mints!
- It's a grandma mint.
- Oh you know what you
should make, Claire?
Those Andy's mints.
- I love Andy's mints so much.
- Oh, Andy's mints.
- They were, like, class.
- Oh yeah.
Love the flavor.
- Thanks.
Do you get a little coconutty?
- Wanna try something savory?
[laughing]
What is it?
- It's a guessing game.
- Is it powdered kimchi?
- Nope.
- Powdered sauerkraut?
- Nope.
- And powdered miso?
- It's just miso.
Chickpea miso.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- Hmm.
- Isn't that neat?
- It's really tasty.
- Right, almost cheesy.
- Yeah, very.
- You want a pinch bud?
- I had all the pinches yesterday.
I already tried it all.
- What episode is this?
What are we doing?
- [Alex] What are we doing?
- Okay.
All right.
It's like, you never get a little Brad.
You always get all of Brad
when you ask Brad.
- We got one gear.
Boof!
[laughing]
