Plan B Forum

Burger King Bacon Sundae taste test

When Burger King debuted their limited-time summer menu, the Bacon Sundae stood out. First off, any non-breakfast item with bacon always stands out. Add soft serve, caramel and chocolate into the mix and you have publicity in a plastic cup.



Reviews are mixed, some love the gooey decadence, some think it's a gimmick and others say it is making us all fat. CBSNews.com's Felipe Maya put the treat to the test on a hot summer day in New York City.

Real People: Taste test: Burger King Bacon Sundae

Reviews are mixed, some love the gooey decadence, some think it's a gimmick and others say it is making us all fat.

Heston Blumenthal shares his iconic bacon and egg ice cream recipe served at his world-renowned eatery The Fat Duck

Heston: "This is one of my signature dishes at The Fat Duck. What makes it so special is being able to make instant ice cream at the table with the help of a little dry ice. Dry ice can also be used to turn bought smoothies and custard into ice creams and sorbets. I serve this dish with marmalade because its bitterness and acidity cut through the richness of the ice cream."

Serves 6
Ingredients

For the ice cream base

400g sweet-cured smoked back bacon
1 litre whole milk
30g semi-skimmed milk powder
24 large egg yolks
120g unrefined caster sugar

For the crispy soldiers

Clarified butter
1 brioche loaf, crust removed, cut into soldiers (1.5 x 1.5 x 5cm)
Golden caster sugar

To serve

6 medium eggs
Pastry offcuts or other bits of dough, to plug holes
400g dry ice
Orange marmalade

Method

To start the ice cream base, preheat the grill to high. Lay the bacon slices on a parchment-lined baking tray and place under the grill for 5–7 minutes or until crisp.

When the bacon is cooked, drain on kitchen paper and cut it into strips. Place in a bowl, pour over the milk then leave to infuse overnight.

The next day, put the milk and bacon into a saucepan and add the milk powder. Place over a medium-low heat and bring to a gentle simmer. Remove from the heat.

In the meantime, blitz the egg yolks and sugar together using a hand blender. Combine the egg mixture with the warm milk and bacon and return the pan to the heat. Warm the liquid until it reaches 85ºC.

Once this temperature has been reached, remove the pan from the heat and pass the ice cream base through a fine sieve into a clean container over iced water, pushing the custard through with the back of a ladle.

To cook the crispy soldiers, melt a tablespoon of clarified butter in a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Add some of the soldiers and fry on all sides, remove and place on kitchen roll to absorb any excess fat. Repeat as necessary to cook the remaining soldiers.

Clean the pan completely then place it over a medium-high heat. Add enough sugar to cover the bottom of the pan and allow to melt.

Once the sugar has completely melted and caramelised, add some of the soldiers, no more than 4 or 5 at a time. Turn using tongs in order to cover every side, being careful not to touch the sugar as it is extremely hot. Once coated on all sides, remove the soldiers from the pan, place on a silicone mat and allow to cool. Repeat as necessary, cleaning the pan thoroughly after each use.

To serve the ice cream, use a large-gauge needle or an egg punch to make a hole in the top and bottom of the eggs and gently blow out the contents. Rinse the shells in cold water and place in boiling water for 45 minutes to sterilise. Remove, allow to cool and plug one of the holes in each shell with pastry.

Using a syringe, fill the eggshells with the ice cream base. Plug the remaining hole with pastry and keep refrigerated until needed.

To serve, make the ice cream in front of your guests by cracking an ice-cream base-filled egg into a saucepan and adding some of the crushed dry ice while mixing continuously until the ice cream is formed. This will take approximately 1 minute and it will look like scrambled eggs. Place in a bowl, add a teaspoon of orange marmalade on top of the ice cream, place a slice of crystallised bacon on top and serve with crispy solders on the side.

Tip: When handling dry ice, you need to take exactly the same precautions as you would with naked flames, hot pans and baking trays straight out of the oven. Don’t let it come into direct contact with your skin or you will get a nasty burn. And make sure all the dry ice used to freeze an ice cream has dissolved before you serve it – you don’t want to bite into or swallow a chunk of dry ice!

Bacon ice cream (or bacon-and-egg ice cream) is a modern invention in experimental cookery, generally created by adding bacon to egg custard and freezing the mixture. The concept for bacon ice cream originated from a 1973 sketch on the British variety show The Two Ronnies as a joke; however, it was eventually created for April Fools' Day. Heston Blumenthal experimented with the creation of ice cream, making a custard similar to scrambled eggs then adding bacon to create one of his signature dishes. It now appears on dessert menus in other high-end restaurants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon_ice_cream

This is based on a recipe I developed for my In Search Of Perfection television series. It's actually pretty easy to make and not only will it impress whoever you are cooking for, it is really delicious. And do have a go with the atomiser... it makes a difference, I promise.

Beer and Vodka battered fish and chips
(Serves 4)

Making this batter is easy, but it needs to chill for half an hour in the fridge, after which speed is the name of the game in order to keep the bubbles in. For best results, you will need a soda syphon.

Ingredients

200g plain flour
200g white rice flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp honey
300ml vodka
300ml lager
2-3 litres groundnut oil (for frying)
4 large turbot fillets, 2-3cm thick (ideally, get 1 whole turbot weighing 2.5kg and either fillet it yourself, or get the fishmonger to do it)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Thick slices of lemon for garnish

Method

Tip the plain flour, rice flour and baking powder into a bowl. Put the honey and vodka into a jug, stir and add to the flour to create a batter mix. Stir the lager into the batter until just combined. It doesn't matter if the consistency is a little lumpy. The most important thing is to open the lager just before stirring and transferring to the siphon, to retain as many bubbles as possible.

Transfer the batter to a jug, then pour it into a syphon. Charge the syphon with three CO₂charges and put it in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes.

Put enough groundnut oil to cover the fish in a large pan or casserole. Heat it to 220°C, using a digital probe to check the temperature. (It's best not to use a deep-fat fryer for this because the temperature fluctuates too much and has trouble reaching 220°C.)

Rinse the turbot fillets and dry them with kitchen paper. Season well, then dust with rice flour. (This ensures the batter sticks to the fillets.) Shake off any extra flour.

Shake the syphon vigorously, then squirt the batter into a medium-sized bowl, enough to cover a fillet. (Don't squirt out too much: the batter begins to lose its bubbles as soon as it leaves the syphon.) Dip the fillet into the foamy batter. When it is completely coated, lower the fillet into the hot oil.

As the fish fries, drizzle a little extra batter over it to give a lovely crusty exterior. When it has turned a light golden brown, turn the fillet over and drizzle more batter on top.

Let the fish cook for another minute or so until it has coloured to a deeper golden brown, then remove it from the oil. Use a digital thermometer to check it is cooked: insert the probe into the thickest part of the fish - once it reads 40°C the fillet should be set aside so that the residual heat will cook it to a temperature of 45°C.

Serve with lemon.

For the chips

1.2kg Arran Victory or Maris Piper potatoes
2-3 litres groundnut (peanut) oil
Table salt and sea salt

Wash and peel the potatoes, then cut them into chips about 1.5cm thick (don't worry too much about making them all the same size: the variation will give a greater range of textures).

Place them in a bowl under cold running water for 2-3 minutes to rinse off some of the starch, then drain.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil (add 10g of salt per litre of water), add the chips, bring back to the boil and simmer until the chips have almost broken up (it's the fissures that form as the potato breaks up that trap the fat, creating a crunchy crust). It is important to make sure the simmer is gentle so the potatoes don't start to fall apart before they have cooked through.

Using a slotted spoon, carefully lift the potatoes out of the water and place on a cake rack. Leave to cool, then put in the fridge until cold.

Pour enough oil to cover the chips into a deep-fat fryer and heat to 130°C. Plunge in the chips and allow them to cook until they take on a dry appearance and are slightly coloured.

Remove the chips and drain off the excess fat. Place them on a cake rack and allow to cool, then return to the fridge until cold.

Reheat the oil to 190°C. Plunge in the chips and cook until golden brown.

Drain the chips, season well with a mixture of table and sea salt, then pile next to the fish.

To serve

For that total chip shop experience, decant some pickling juice from a jar of pickled onions (or white-wine vinegar) into an atomiser and squirt it on the fish and chips.

dales wrote:And I don't particularly like bacon.