America's Test Kitchen

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Joe makes Bridget banoffee pie, Dan reveals the secret ingredient to insulating your food, and Keith makes me browned butter shortbread.

It's all coming up right here on "America's Test Kitchen."

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♪♪ -The first time I ever had banoffee pie, I was at my sister-in-law's house in Scotland.

I had one slice, and I was absolutely sold.

It's creamy.

It's dreamy.

It's all the flavors that I love.

Now, I'm very lucky, because Joe's here, and he's going to show me and you how to make this gorgeous pie at home.

I'm so excited for this.

-That's right.

This is one of the great British desserts.

And the funny thing is, most Brits actually think it's an American dessert.

It's a little over the top.

But it is that magic combination of banana, toffee or caramel... -Yes.

-...whipped cream, and a really crisp crust.

-Gorgeous.

-The best thing is it's super easy.

-Love it.

Even better.

-Even better.

So we're going to start with that crust.

-Okay.

-So I've got 1 1/3 cups of all-purpose flour here.

And to this, I'm going to add 5 tablespoons of sugar.

-Okay.

-1/2 teaspoon of salt.

And we're just going to whisk that together.

And to that, we're going to add 10 tablespoons of melted unsalted butter.

Now, this is the only moisture that's going in the entire pastry.

It's a very low hydration dough, which means it's going to get very crisp and stay very crisp essentially, too.

-Yes.

-And like I said, I promised you this was going to be an easy dough.

And this really is.

I feel like it's ready once you don't see any more dry flour.

-Okay.

-And that is pretty much it.

-That looks great.

-That's our dough.

So, I've just got a 9-inch fluted pan with a removable bottom.

-Okay.

-So this makes it very easy to remove the tart case at the very end of baking.

-Alright.

-So I'm going to take our dough, divide it into 2/3 and 1/3.

The larger portion, I'm just going to crumble into our pan directly.

So this is a pat-in-the-pan tart dough.

So it's super simple.

Simply pat it into your tart case.

So, you know, you don't need to worry too much about the finish, because it's going to be covered in filling.

But if you're worried about it, you just simply smooth it over with your fingertips.

-Alright.

-Perfect.

So now we've got the remaining 1/3 of our dough.

I'm going to take that.

So now I'm just going to press my remaining 1/3 of the dough into the sides of the pan.

I don't need to worry too much about getting it even.

I'll just do a first pass where I get it all the way around.

At some point, you're going to run out of dough.

-Right.

-So what I do at this point here is I keep on pressing it in, and what you'll see is the dough starts to rise up above the exterior of the pan.

At this point, I like to just take my paring knife, run it all the way around, take that extra dough, and then we can use that to patch up the remaining bits.

-Nice.

-So, we're going to bake this in a 350-degree oven on the bottom rack.

And I'm going to set the whole tart pan on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet.

-Okay.

-So, we're looking for this to get golden brown and firm to the touch.

And this will take 35 to 45 minutes, and we'll rotate the pan halfway through.

-Okay.

♪♪ -Let's check it out.

It's been about 40 minutes.

Ah, lovely.

-Mmm.

-You can smell the butter, and it's looking... -Sure can.

-...nice and golden brown.

Put this down here.

And we're looking for it to be firm to the touch.

And, yeah, really nice and firm.

As you said, it recalls a really good shortbread cookie.

-Mmm.

-So we just need to let this cool now, which will take about an hour.

♪♪ So, we made our very easy crust.

-Yes.

-Now we're going to make our very easy filling.

So for that, I've got a 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk in a large saucepan.

And to that, we're going to add 1/2 cup of dark brown sugar.

I've got 6 tablespoons of butter.

This is going to help give us that right set and also give us that really silky texture that we're looking for.

-Mmm.

Yes.

-And then I've got 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda.

And we're going to bring this to a simmer over medium heat.

-Joe, one thing.

-Yes.

-This is not how you traditionally make a dulce de leche.

-That is absolutely right.

It is not.

We're going to use an old test kitchen trick.

We're going to add a little bit of baking soda to it, which is going to raise the pH of our mixture, which is going to give us better browning in much less time.

So we're going to cook this until it's darkened slightly, and we're looking for the temperature to register between 221 and 224 degrees.

-Alright.

-And it happens in about 9 to 12 minutes.

But you do need to move it all the time.

Because it's so thick and viscous, it can really catch on the bottom of the pan if you don't move around too much.

-Got it.

-So I like to really make sure that my spatula sweeps around the outside of the pan, because it's those corners where the bits can really catch and start to burn a little bit.

-Definitely.

So I know where you're going to be for the next nine or so minutes.

-Nine or so minutes, I'm going to be here, and I'm not going to be stepping away.

This is not a recipe that you can step away from.

-Well, I'm stepping away because I'm going to talk a little bit about the dulce de leche.

Now, the process of making dulce de leche can be tedious, a little bit finicky.

And that's because the proteins and the sugars need to go through the Maillard reaction.

Now, the problem is making dulce de leche can take a long time, and it can start to become clumpy before it has a chance to brown.

So what we need to do is speed up the Maillard reaction, and we do that by raising the pH.

Here's how.

The mixture of butter, brown sugar, and condensed milk that we use in our dulce de leche has an acidic pH, which means it can take 30 minutes or more for the Maillard reaction to happen.

The reaction begins when the milk is heated, gradually turning the sugar and proteins to a deep golden color.

Simultaneously, the water in the milk turns to steam and evaporates.

The proteins in the milk have positive and negative charges along their strands, and the opposite charges on neighboring proteins attract one another, pulling the strands together and forming a tight tangle.

As the water continues to evaporate during the long cook time, the combination of moisture loss and clumping proteins turns the dulce de leche into a solid, unusable mass.

To avoid the clumping and reduce the cooking time, we add baking soda to the mixture of butter, sugar, and condensed milk.

The baking soda raises the pH level, which accelerates the Maillard reaction.

Because the reaction happens faster, it only takes 10 minutes for the mixture to brown, so less evaporation takes place.

The higher pH also changes the electrical charges on the proteins to mostly negative.

The negatively charged protein strands slightly repel each other so they don't clump up, preventing the dulce de leche from hardening.

The result is our dulce de leche remains smooth and pourable.

Smells great, Joe.

-Yes, it does.

So, at this point, it's already bubbling.

So this is the moment that you know it's going to be close to its final temperature.

And I'm really looking at the texture of the dulce de leche around the corners.

It's already starting to look a little bit less liquid, a little drier.

And that's telling us that some of that moisture has been evaporated, and we're getting that Maillardization.

-Mmm.

-So I'm just going to bring this off the heat, and we can just check our temperature.

-And again, what are you looking for?

-So we're looking for it to be 221 to 224 degrees, which is quite a precise number.

But, you know, whenever you're working with sugar, it really matters.

So this is ready, and we're going to pour it into our cooled tart pan.

-Mm-mm-mmm.

-So, we just need to let this sit for 30 minutes to come to room temperature.

Then we're going to refrigerate it for six hours or up to two days.

We have our cool pie, and now we're just going to give it all the really fun finishing flourishes.

-Great.

-So, first, we need to take it out of our tart case.

I'm just going to take my offset spatula, place it underneath the bottom, simply run it around the outside... -Mm.

-and it comes away very nicely.

-Lovely.

-I'm just going to slide it onto our serving platter.

And now we need the banana part of our banoffee pie.

-Yes.

-So I've got three to four bananas.

That's how many you'll need depending on the size of your bananas.

I'm just cutting these into 1/2-inch slices.

Let's banana our 'offee pie.

Right, let's squeeze that in.

Perfect.

Let's go to layer four.

-Okay.

-Whipped cream.

-Yes.

-I've got 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream that's chilled in a stand mixer.

And to that, we're going to add 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar.

So we're just going to lightly sweeten it.

And then this is actually part of the original recipe.

It's 1 teaspoon of espresso powder.

-Espresso.

-Exactly, a bit of coffee flavor.

And we're going to add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

So, I'm going to start this on low for one minute till it gets nice and foamy, and then we're going to increase the speed to high for one to three minutes until it gets to stiff peaks.

-Got it.

♪♪ -It's the fun part now.

We're just going to take a spoon and dollop it all over our pie.

So there.

These nice stiff peaks really make sure that they hold up, they look majestic, and they give us that really thick final layer.

-Mm-mm-mmm.

-And the very end, you just give it a nice, little swirl to attractively turn it into your beautiful dessert.

So, this is a really easy little garnish.

It's bittersweet chocolate.

I'm just going to run my peeler over the chocolate, and you get these lovely, little swirls.

-Mm.

-Irregular shapes.

Sometimes they're little coils.

Sometimes they're little shards.

And it just gives you a really, I don't know, expressive topping to a dessert.

Okay.

I found the best way to slice it cleanly is using a sharp knife and dip it in a bowl of hot water.

And what you want to do is just put your knife in there, leave it for a couple of seconds, and then we'll draw it out.

We will wipe it clean, and then we can make our clean cuts.

Go down to the middle.

-Mm.

-Press down, and you can really hear that crisp crust coming through.

So you just want to wipe it off using that bowl of hot water.

-Is this one for me?

-This one's going to be for you.

-Mmm.

It's one for the books.

-There we go.

We've got -- You can see all four of our different layers.

-It's all four of my favorite food groups.

-[ Laughs ] -Only thing left to do is eat it.

Of course, I've got to go right for that -- that little triangle at the end.

-The little triangle at the end.

And it's all about getting every single component together at the same time.

-Look at that soft dulce de leche.

-Mm-hmm.

-Beautiful.

But still set.

-That's right.

The inventor of this recipe said you really want the filling to just melt in your mouth.

Mmm.

-Oh, that's good.

Got to make sure the second bite's still good.

-[ Laughs ] -Not quite sure.

-Double check it.

-Double check it.

Oh, come on.

Look at that.

-And it's -- It's just all about these contrasts, complementary contrasts.

Crisp, buttery, caramel-y.

-Sublime.

-[ Laughs ] -I love the crisp crust.

It stayed super crisp even with the toffee in there.

And then, again, the whipped cream on top.

I mean, I can't believe I'm this excited about whipped cream.

-The whipped cream is a real major component.

Prevents the other elements really overwhelming it and making it too sweet.

-It's just so, so sublime.

I can't think of a better word for it.

This is one of the top 10 recipes I've ever had, so thank you so much.

-Ah.

I'm so pleased.

-You got to make this pie at home.

It is absolutely spectacular, and it all starts with an easy pat-in-the-pan crust.

Make a makeshift dulce de leche on the stovetop with sweetened condensed milk, brown sugar, and butter, and finish the pie with a layer of bananas, whipped cream, and shaved chocolate.

So, from "America's Test Kitchen," an exceptional banoffee pie.

Banoffee-offee.

-Banoffee-offee-offee.

♪♪ -Today, we're going to talk about how a whole lot of nothing can really be something.

This is baked Alaska, and this is a blow torch.

Lights.

Watch what happens to the ice cream in the center as I blast the exterior with the torch.

While the exterior is charred by the intense heat, the ice cream in the center doesn't even climb by a single degree.

This is a bowl of ice cream, and again, my trusty torch.

I'm going to use it from the same distance as I did for the baked Alaska, and let's see what happens.

You can see that the ice cream starts to melt almost immediately, and it's quickly on its way to becoming ice cream soup.

So, what's going on here?

We've often heard that air is a great insulator, and it can be, but with one critical condition -- The air must be trapped so that it cannot circulate freely.

This is how the comforter on your bed, the insulation in your home's walls, and the padding in your winter jacket work.

It's also how meringue works to protect ice cream.

When we make meringue, we whip egg whites and sugar until the mixture transforms from a liquid to a stable solid that is packed with literally millions of tiny air bubbles.

Because the air is trapped, even if the exterior of the meringue gets very hot, it cannot circulate to carry the heat inward.

Meringue is such an effective barrier that it can keep ice cream frozen in a 350-degree oven to help create one of the world's great desserts.

There's nothing to it.

♪♪ -Shortbread is an iconic Scottish biscuit or cookie, and it only has three ingredients -- flour, butter, and sugar.

So how you put it together makes all the difference.

And today, Keith is going to make shortbread, but he's going to kick it up a notch and make browned butter shortbread.

-That's right.

I have two facts for you.

-Okay.

-Fact number one.

-Uh-huh.

-Adding browned butter to any cookie makes it better.

-True.

-Right?

-Uh-huh.

-Fact two, adding browned butter to shortbread doesn't always work.

-Oh, really?

-Believe me.

By adding just browned butter and putting it into a dough... -Mm-hmm.

-...you lose that nice, tender, rich texture.

So how you treat the butter is very, very important here.

-Mm.

-So let me show you what we're going to do.

-Okay.

-We're going to start with 20 tablespoons of butter in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat.

I'm starting it in a traditional skillet... -Mm-hmm.

-...because a nonstick skillet, you can't see what's happening.

-Yep -So you want to be able to monitor the butter.

You want to see those brown solids on the bottom of the skillet.

-Yeah, that makes sense.

♪♪ -The butter's almost melted here.

Now, I'm going to go in periodically with a spatula and just stir this really quickly.

-Mm-hmm.

-As it gets hotter, the water on there will start to pop.

So the more you stir it, the less pops you'll have.

-Yep.

-Also, by stirring it, any of those solids that are going to stick to the bottom of the pan, you can scrape those up and actually get them in the butter rather than leaving on the bottom of the skillet.

-Yep.

-Alright.

So this is getting going pretty good.

It will go from an opaque color... -Mm-hmm.

-...to a clearer color... -Yep -...as that water evaporates.

And you can see the solids on the side here, and that's where you want to start scraping.

-Mm-hmm.

-And you don't want to walk away from this at this point.

-Yeah.

-This will go really quickly, and you'll have burnt butter in a blink of an eye.

-I've done that.

-We've -- We've all done that.

-Yeah.

Right?

-See how that butter is clear?

-And there it is.

-Yeah.

-Mm-hmm.

-You can see the solids in there.

-Yep.

-I'm going to turn it down just so we don't burn that.

-That's beautiful.

-Now I'm going to take this out of the skillet, because if I leave it in this skillet, it will continue to brown, and then you'll have burned butter.

-Yep.

-Okay.

Now, like I said earlier, just adding butter like this to a shortbread is going to give us something really greasy, and it's going to spread a lot, so we want to solidify that butter.

So the best way to do that is in the refrigerator.

So I'm just going to put this in the refrigerator... -Mm-hmm.

-...and let it cool down a little bit.

And it will start to set up.

We don't want it to be chilled.

We don't want it to be super cold, like 30 degrees.

We want that texture of softened butter, which will take about a half an hour to 45 minutes, depending on your refrigerator.

-Okay.

-It's been 30 minutes, and you can see that the butter is now opaque.

-Wow.

-And it's set up, but it's not too, too hard.

So that is perfect.

That's exactly what we're looking for.

So I'll set that aside for a second, and we can talk about our flour that's going to give the shortbread its structure.

So, I have 2 cups of all-purpose flour here.

-Okay.

-To which I will add 1 teaspoon of table salt.

I also have 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.

Give us a nice, tender texture.

Just whisk this together really quickly, make sure that all that salt is incorporated into the flour.

Now we can get to mixing or creaming our butter and our sugar.

I'm going to add 1 1/3 cups of granulated sugar.

-Mm-hmm.

-And I also have 1/4 cup nonfat dry milk powder.

-Interesting.

-So, I'm going to put this on our stand mixer.

I'm going to mix this on medium-high speed.

-Okay.

-If we added melted butter... -Mm-hmm.

-...it would just create this dense mixture.

By creaming, we're going to aerate it.

Nice, light texture, tender, melt in your mouth.

-Mmm.

-Perfect.

-Sounds good.

[ Mixer whirring ] -I'm going to stop this and scrape it down.

Sometimes you'll get all the butter and sugar pushed up on the edges, so I just want to make sure we scrape down.

Okay, so, I'll put it back on, and we're going to go until it's nice and light and fluffy.

♪♪ -Mmm.

-It's been three minutes, and you can see the color change.

-Mm-hmm.

-So we've lost that yellow butter color, and it's almost white with brown flecks from the butter solids.

-Mm-hmm.

-Perfect.

I'm just going to do one last scrape-down of the edges.

So, couple more additions.

I have 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

Vanilla and browned butter is a great combination.

And I have 2 teaspoons of water.

That's what's going to give it that nice structure.

Okay.

Now we can add our flour.

So, I'm just going to put this on low speed, and I'm going to mix in our flour slowly.

So, this is a fairly dry dough, you can see.

-Yeah.

-But that's okay.

One more scrape of the bottom.

Okay.

Just one more quick burst.

That is perfection.

So I'm just mixing this and getting it into a cohesive ball, and I'm just going to turn it out onto our counter.

-Ohh.

The aroma of this dough.

I don't remember a cookie dough that smells like this.

That's incredible.

-I'm just going to push this together.

-Mm-hmm.

-And then I'm going to divide the dough into two equal pieces.

Okay.

I need your help.

-Alright.

-You're going to be rolling with me.

-Oh, yeah!

-So, I have a piece of parchment in front of you.

-Okay.

-That's for you, and this is for me.

-Alright.

-So, we're going to take this, and the first step is to just kind of shape it with your hands into a 4-inch square.

Now, it's okay if it starts to crack.

-Okay.

-You can always use the bench scraper to push it together.

-Oh, yeah.

-So, I'm just going to take a second piece of parchment.

-Okay.

-Give that to you.

-Thank you.

-And you want to put this on top.

We're going to make a dough sandwich.

And next step is to take our rolling pins, and we're going to roll this out into a 10-inch square.

Kind of a pushing -- light pushing technique.

-Mm-hmm.

-And then once you get out a little bit, you can start to do a smoothing technique.

Helps to rotate the dough around a little bit.

Pushing in one direction is always a little easier, I find.

-Alright.

10.

10.

-Perfect.

Okay.

Next step is we're going to cut off 1/2 inch from either side.

So really, ultimately, what we're looking for is a 9-inch square.

Just take a paring knife and mark it at 9 and zero on this side like that.

Alright.

Then you can take your ruler and your paring knife and just cut that across like that.

So now we're going to do the same thing on the other two sides.

-Got it.

Okay.

-Okay.

-So, now we have to cut our shortbread.

-Mm-hmm.

-So what we're going to do is we're going to make two cuts lengthwise.

I'm going to make a mark at 3 inches... -Mm-hmm.

-...and at 6 inches.

So we want three columns 3 inches wide.

-Gotcha.

-And then you can connect those marks with your ruler.

Make one nice, long cut.

Same thing with the second cut.

Perfection.

-This is fun.

-Now we'll make our cross cuts.

So, we're going to make 1-inch cross cuts.

-Okay.

-So, little bit more measuring here.

So you line the ruler up here and just measure every inch.

-You do a lot of woodworking, don't you?

-I do.

-It seems like a woodworking kind of person's cookie.

-Does it show?

-Yeah.

A little bit, a little bit.

-It does show a little bit, doesn't it?

Okay.

So, again, we're going to connect the top mark to the bottom mark like we did earlier, and we're just going to make these cross cuts.

-You know, doing these little finger shapes, they're really pretty, but there's also that diamond shape.

Takes a little bit more work, but you can find instructions on how to do that on our website.

I did my best.

-You did great.

Perfect.

-They're a little uneven, but they're okay.

-That's okay.

So, now we're going to transfer this to a rimless baking sheet.

So, we're going to bake this on the middle rack of a 325-degree oven.

-Okay.

-So fairly low.

And we're just going to bake it until it gets lightly browned around the edges.

It's pretty thin, so it's going to bake pretty quickly, 13 to 17 minutes.

-Mm.

Okay.

-If you're at home, and you only have one oven... -That's me.

-...bake them one tray at a time for even cooking.

We have two ovens here, so we can bake this two at a time.

-Awesome.

♪♪ Goodness, Keith, these smell incredible.

-Look great, too.

-Yeah.

-You can see the nice, light golden brown color in here.

-Mm-hmm.

-So, we're going to let these cool on the rack just like it is right now for 10 minutes before we move on to the next step.

Okay, it's time to score.

So I'm going to do the length first.

-Mm-hmm.

-We have a nice, long knife.

So just put the tip down and then just follow that line right along.

Perfection.

Same thing here.

Tip down.

Follow the line.

Wiggle.

-I nailed it.

-You're a professional.

[ Both laugh ] -I nailed it.

And then you're going to do that for the cross.

-Yep, same thing all the way across.

So, we've scored these.

We've cut them apart now.

We need to let them cool fully, about 30 minutes.

-Time to make some tea.

-That's right.

So, you can't have shortbread without tea.

-I absolutely agree.

I've been waiting to taste these all the way from when you made the dough.

I could smell that browned butter and sugar.

Oh, yeah.

Mmm.

Browned butter, vanilla comes at you right at the top.

-Right away.

-You kept calling the butter fluffy, and you added those leaveners.

-Mm-hmm.

-I worried it wouldn't have that shortbread sort of heartiness.

It totally does.

-It does.

Like, you take a bite through it.

-Mm-hmm.

-But then once you start to chew it, it just kind of melts in your mouth.

Yeah.

-It has that really nice, tender, rich texture.

-Mm-hmm.

A little cuppa.

Pinkies out.

-Pinkies out.

-Ohh.

That is perfection.

These are delicious and so fun to make.

-Yeah, they really are fun.

-If you want to make browned butter shortbread, brown 20 tablespoons of butter, then let it cool to re-solidify.

Add water and milk powder to the dough, and cut the cookies both before and after baking.

From "America's Test Kitchen," a great recipe for browned butter shortbread.

You can find this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with our product reviews and select episodes, at our website, americastestkitchen.com/tv.

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