America's Test Kitchen

-Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Julia and Bridget bake the ultimate turtle brownies... Jack talks all about buttercreams... and Erin bakes Julia alfajores de maicena.

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

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-I fancy myself as kind of a brownie purist.

I don't want any frosting on those brownies.

And as soon as ingredients like chocolate chips or nuts or coconut go into the brownie, well, I think you've just wasted an ingredient.

-[ Laughs ] -But I do like turtle candies.

-I know you do.

I've witnessed you down a few of those.

-Exactly.

And Julia's here.

She's going to combine the two things that I love.

-Mm-hmm.

So turtle is caramel, pecans, and chocolate.

-Mm-hmm.

-It's a magic trio.

-Yes.

-You know, there are a lot of recipes out there for turtle brownies, but they don't take it very seriously.

They just unwrap some store-bought candies and chuck them in a brownie mix.

And that doesn't really taste very turtle-y.

-Right.

-We're going to take this seriously and make caramel from scratch, develop a brownie that has the perfect texture to support the caramel.

You're going to be a fan.

-Okay.

-So we're going to start with the homemade caramel.

-Nice.

-So here I have a little saucepan.

I have 1/4 cup of water.

To this I'm going to add 2 tablespoons of corn syrup.

And this is just caramel insurance that the sugars won't crystallize as they cook.

-I love that -- caramel insurance.

-[ Laughs ] Yeah, it's the best kind of insurance.

Now for the sugar.

This is 1 1/4 cups of sugar.

Notice I poured it right into the center.

-Yes.

-I don't want it to get on the side.

I do want to make sure all the sugar is hydrated before we start to cook because the dry sugar, that's what will crystallize if you don't get it wet.

The sugar is nicely wet.

Alright.

Medium-high heat.

On goes the lid.

It takes about 3 to 5 minutes for the sugar to dissolve and it to be boiling.

Alright.

It's been about 3 minutes.

Oh, there you go.

See, all the sugar has dissolved.

It's a nice, hot, bubbling mix.

We're gonna keep this simmering over medium-high heat another 3 to 5 minutes until there's a nice golden ring around the edge.

-Mm!

-Well, there you go.

For a foolproof caramel, it pays to use a little bit of corn syrup to prevent it from becoming grainy.

Here's how that works.

Caramel sauce contains a lot of sugar, which is mostly identical molecules dissolved in a relatively small amount of water.

When those molecules bump into each other, they fit together easily and form crystals.

As the crystals grow, the sauce can take on a grainy texture.

There's a simple way to prevent those crystals from growing.

We just add a little corn syrup to the sauce.

Corn syrup contains other types of sugar, such as maltose, which is a different-shaped molecule.

Because the shapes are different, they can't all nest together and form crystals, so the sauce doesn't become grainy.

And that's how corn syrup can help us to make a failproof caramel.

-Alright.

Nice and golden around the edge.

A little more golden on one edge than the other.

I didn't have the pot totally center on the burner.

[ Both laugh ] So now I'm going to turn it down to medium low.

Going to swirl it all together so it's a uniform color.

-Beautiful.

-We're going to cook it until it registers 360 degrees.

Takes anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes.

-Okay.

-In 360, it should have a really beautiful golden color.

360 on the nose.

-Nice.

-Off the heat, we're going to make it into a caramel sauce.

So here I have 6 tablespoons of heavy cream, 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

I'm going to whisk that in.

We want to dissolve the salt.

Now we're going to whisk this right in.

It gets pretty vigorous.

-Oh, yeah.

-Alright.

Now we're going to enrich the caramel with just a little bit of butter -- 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter.

A little vanilla -- teaspoon of vanilla.

I love it when the butter and the vanilla hit the hot caramel.

Alright.

Now we're going to get it out of this hot pot into a liquid measuring cup because we're going to use it throughout the brownie-making process.

-A heatproof one.

-That's it.

We're going to set this aside, and then we can get ready to make the brownie batter itself.

Alright.

Time to make the brownie batter.

Now, when we were developing this recipe, you know, there's lots of different types of brownie textures.

You got the cakey, you have the fudgy.

We wanted to go right in the middle with this because you want to support the caramel.

If it's too cakey, the caramel kind of sinks.

-Right.

-If it's too dense, it's too much like a candy.

-Mm.

-And for the chocolate, we found that two types of chocolate deliver the best, deepest flavor.

There's no cocoa, but there is bittersweet and unsweetened.

So here I have 4 ounces of bittersweet, a stick of butter, and 2 ounces of unsweetened.

And we're going to melt this together in the microwave.

50% power.

It takes anywhere from 2 to 4 minutes.

We're going to stop, stir occasionally.

-Okay.

-Alright.

In it goes.

I'm going to set it for 3 minutes, 50% power.

Alright.

Time to take a look.

Oh!

That's it.

-Ah!

-Oh, it smells delicious, doesn't it?

-Yes.

-I'm just making sure there's no chunks of chocolate left.

This is perfect.

Alright.

We're going to set this aside while we finish the rest of the batter.

Here, I have flour.

This is all-purpose flour.

3/4 of a cup, not very much.

This is mostly a chocolaty brownie.

A little bit of leavening -- 1/2 of baking powder.

Alright.

Whisk this together.

Alright.

And here we have the eggs, 2 eggs.

A little bit of salt -- 1/4 of a teaspoon.

2 teaspoons of vanilla.

-Nice supporting note for the chocolate.

-Mm-hmm.

And some sugar.

Cup of sugar.

There we go.

Gonna whisk this together.

Alright.

In goes the chocolate.

-Mm.

-Whisk this in.

-Mm, mm, mm!

-Uh-huh, uh-huh!

Alright.

Now we're going to add the flour mixture.

Sprinkle this over top.

I'm going to stir this in using a spatula.

All the flour's almost in there.

Last ingredient -- pecans.

We're going to add chopped pecans to the batter.

We'll also garnish with some later so you know they're in there.

-Nice.

-2/3 of a cup toasted chopped pecans.

Alright, so I'm going to add half of the brownie mixture to this pan.

This is a nice 9-inch square baking pan.

It's been greased.

And then you see that there's a nice foil sling.

That foil sling is really important for getting the brownie out of the pan in one fell swoop.

Alright.

So half of the brownie batter went in there.

I'm just going to spread it into a nice even layer.

Time to start adding the caramel sauce.

We're just going to add a little bit to this center layer, about 1/4 of a cup.

I'm going to use a greased measuring cup.

This caramel is still nice and warm so it'll drizzle really easily.

-Oh, good grief.

-Yeah, I know.

Whoo!

-Is there anything better?

-No, no, these flavors are amazing.

Alright, so that goes on.

Now to put the rest of the brownie batter on top, I'm going to use a spoon and sort of dollop it over because it's very thick.

Alright.

Now I'm going to use a little offset spatula.

Spread this brownie batter over the top.

-This is pure decadence.

-Alright, a little more caramel sauce for the top.

-Mmm!

Mrow!

-Oh, yeah.

-Ha-cha-cha.

-Yeah.

Alright.

Now I'm just going to use the same offset spatula.

You could use a butter knife.

-Mm-hmm.

-We're just going to sort of swirl the caramel into the brownie batter.

-My goodness.

A little marbling action there.

-Yeah.

Make sure it's a little everywhere.

Alright.

This is ready for the oven -- 325 degrees.

A little on the slightly lower side than average, about 35 to 40 minutes.

Of course we'll rotate it halfway through.

You know it's done when you put a toothpick in the center and it comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached.

-Alright.

-Oh, ho, ho!

-Ooh!

-Oh, it smells good!

-I can see some bubbling going on there.

-Mm-hmm.

One way to tell if it's done.

Toothpick into the center should come out with just a few moist crumbs.

Perfect.

-Very nice.

-Because it's going to continue to carryover cook in this baking pan.

We've got to let this cool for at least an hour and a half.

-At least.

-Alright.

So it's time to pour that last bit of caramel over the top.

I warmed it up in the microwave.

Alright.

So now we're just going to spread this out to a nice even layer.

Alright.

Into the fridge this goes, two hours, then we can taste.

This is nicely chilled.

Time to taste.

-Very cold.

-Yep.

Alright.

So using our handy sling we're just going to lift that out.

Thank goodness for all that vegetable-oil spray because this just really slides right off.

So here I have some hot water.

You just want a nice, hot, slightly wet knife.

Alright.

So we're going to cut it into 5x5, for a total of 25 brownies.

There we go.

This last cut here.

Alright.

-Wow.

-So one more flourish.

We're going to press toasted pecan heads right into the center of each brownie.

-I was thinking about these ingredients with the chocolate and the pecans and the caramel.

This would be a really great addition to, like, Thanksgiving.

-Mm-hmm.

-It's kind of unexpected.

Wow.

-Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho!

-Oh, my goodness.

Mm-hmm.

I saw a lot of sugar go into this and it's sweet.

But that caramel really, really -- And the bittersweet chocolate prevent it from going over the top.

-Yeah, that's pretty key.

I love the texture of the caramel on top.

It's chewy.

It's like a really perfectly cooked candy.

You know what I mean?

-Mmm!

-It's chewy, but it's spread out, and that brownie has the perfect texture.

Not too cakey, hearty enough to support the caramel, but not so dense it's like candy.

-Alright, Julia, I have two brownie favorites now.

I like just the plain old fudgy brownies.

And I love turtle brownies.

-Yay!

I was a little nervous at the beginning when you said you were a purist, I thought, "Well, then I hope you like these."

-Yeah, well, I don't.

I love them.

-[ Laughs ] -Thanks, Julia.

If you want to make these at home, it starts with a beautiful brownie batter that uses a combo of unsweetened and bittersweet chocolate, swirl caramel into the batter, and pour more on top before baking, and add toasted pecans to the batter and press more pecans on the finished brownies.

So, from "America's Test Kitchen," my new favorite brownie -- turtle brownies.

What?!

-[ Laughing ] I know.

I housed that first one.

-I was talking a lot, though.

Alright, I got to catch up.

-As a kid, I didn't really care what kind of buttercream frosting was put on my cake, but as a pastry cook, I do care because some of these are really quite easy, some are a little bit more complicated, and they all give you a different result.

All five things on the table are buttercream, but they're different from each other.

Now I'm going to begin with the simplest.

No surprise -- this is American buttercream.

This is actually the frosting of my childhood.

It's made with butter and confectioners' sugar.

Now, the confectioners' sugar is doing a couple of things.

If you were to use granulated sugar, you'd have a gritty texture.

So this is smoother.

Also the cornstarch that's in the confectioners' sugar thickens this up.

All the rest of the buttercreams on the table have eggs to do the thickening.

This is the only one without any eggs in it.

We add a little bit of heavy cream to ours to give it a little luscious, creamy texture.

This is a confetti birthday cake frosting.

It's going to be sweet because it does require a lot of confectioners' sugar.

Next up we have German buttercream.

Now, instead of confectioners' sugar, this has an egg-based pastry cream that's cooked and cooled that's added to the whipped, fluffy butter.

It's very rich.

It's very soft.

So it's really lovely as a filling.

We use it in our chocolate espresso dacquoise.

This is the espresso filling that goes inside those layers.

Here's my favorite.

This is the Swiss meringue buttercream.

So this is made with egg whites that are cooked with sugar syrup and then beaten with the butter.

It's not at all sweet.

It has a sort of light, delicate texture.

It's not at all greasy.

If you don't like buttercream, this is actually, I think, the best one to try.

Next up we have the Italian buttercream, same as the Swiss in the sense that it's made with egg whites and sugar, but the sugar is cooked to 240 degrees.

This gives you a more stable frosting that's designed for piping rosettes, any fancy decoration.

Last but not least, but perhaps most complicated is the French buttercream.

And I say it's complicated because it requires a certain level of precision.

You're working with egg yolks rather than egg whites here, and egg yolks are more likely to curdle when added to that hot sugar syrup.

It also gives it this lovely hue.

Now, this is an orange French buttercream, but a lot of this color is coming from the yolks.

So there you have it.

There is a buttercream for every birthday cake and every occasion.

If you want to check out any of the recipes here on the table, go to our website.

-Alfajores de maicena are a beloved sandwich cookie from Latin America, and they feature all sorts of fillings, from jam and peanut butter to a rich dulce de leche, which is what Erin is going to show us how to make today.

-I am, Julia.

So, "alfajores" means "sandwich" and "de maicena" means "cornstarch," and the cornstarch is a key ingredient, which is going to give our cookies the melt-in-your-mouth texture that we want.

So we're gonna make our own homemade dulce de leche.

Alright, I have an 8-quart pressure cooker, and I'm going to add 8 cups of water to it.

There's a million and one different ways of making this.

I'm sure you've come across many of them.

-Mm-hmm.

-Our favorite method is using a pressure cooker.

So we have our 8 cups of water in here.

And I'm going to add two 14-ounce cans of sweetened condensed milk in an 8-inch stainless-steel bowl.

So I'm just going to cover this with foil.

We want this to have a tight seal all the way around.

-Right.

You don't want any water getting into the bowl.

-Exactly.

We just want this to be nice and sealed.

I have this on a rack which came with the pressure cooker.

And this is important.

It has cute little handles.

So I'm just going to drop this right into our water bath.

Another really good reason to have the rack is so that you have consistent heat that circulates around the bowl.

Alright.

So now I'm just going to turn this on, put the lid.

So we're going to pressure-cook this at high for one hour.

-Okay.

-Alright, Julia, let's start making our cookies.

-Mm-hmm.

-Alright, so in this bowl, I have 1 1/2 cups of cornstarch.

To this I'm going to add 1 1/3 cups of all-purpose flour.

I'm also going to add 1 teaspoon of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of table salt.

Alright.

So let's just whisk this together.

Over here we are using 2 sticks of unsalted butter.

And it's at room temperature.

So it's very soft.

-Mm.

-I'm going to add 1/2 cup of sugar.

I'm just going to let this beat over medium-high heat.

And we're going to whip a little bit of air into the butter.

And it's going to be light and fluffy.

Okay, Julia, it's been about 2 minutes.

-Mm-hmm.

-And as you can see it's light and fluffy.

-That is picture-perfect creamed butter right there.

-Yes, it is.

Now I'm going to add 3 egg yolks.

In this cookie, there's some traditional aromatics that are added to it.

So I'm going to add 1 teaspoon of lemon zest, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and we're going to add 1 tablespoon of brandy.

This is optional.

-[ Laughs ] Gotcha.

-So now I'm just going to let this beat until it all comes together.

Next up we're going to add our cornstarch mixture.

-All at once?

-All at once.

-Ah.

-So the cornstarch is a little lighter than regular all-purpose flour.

I'm going to show you a little safety measure so you don't get it all over yourself.

I'm just going to cover the bowl.

-Ah.

-Super simple.

And I'm just going to let this go.

And I can hear it coming together.

So I think we're safe.

Excellent.

-Nicely done.

-So I'm going to take half of this dough.

Okay.

So now I'm just going to press this into a 1/2-inch-thick round.

Oh, it's so soft.

And may I have that other piece of parchment?

-You got it.

-Excellent.

Thank you.

So now a lot of recipes call for chilling the dough before you roll it out.

We don't need to with this.

So this is a little streamlined version.

So I'm just going to roll this into basically a round which is about 1/4 of an inch thick.

-Okay.

-And rolling it between the two pieces of parchment allows you so you don't need any extra flour.

You don't want to throw off that ratio.

So I'm just going to lift this up.

-Mm-hmm.

-I don't want any wrinkles.

I want these cookies to be nice and smooth.

So lift that up.

Smooth it out, flip it over.

See if I need to do it on the second side.

-Looks pretty perfect.

-Looking pretty darn awesome.

Okay, so now I'm going to transfer this to a rimmed baking sheet.

We're going to continue on with the second half of the dough.

Alright, Julia our dough is in the freezer.

-Mm-hmm.

-And our pressure cooker is ready.

-Mm-hmm.

-So it's been one hour and now I'm just going to quick release.

[ Air hissing ] Alright.

So now I'm just going to reach in.

I'm just going to grab those handles and lift this guy up.

My gosh.

-Dun, dun-dun-dun!

-Beautiful.

-Gorgeous.

-Yep.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this and just strain it through a fine-mesh strainer.

-Mm-hmm.

-There we go.

You see that color.

Color really changed.

-Gorgeous.

-Anytime I pass something through a fine-mesh strainer I always use a ladle.

It helps to kind of force it through.

So what I'm just going to do is just kind of go in a circular motion and let it start flowing.

And it's going to look grainy and a little broken.

That's okay.

It's going to come together.

It's just really hot.

And as it cools, it's going to get nice and smooth.

-Alright.

-So we're going to add 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1/4 teaspoon of table salt.

Everything sweet needs a little bit of salt.

And I'm just going to whisk this in.

And now we're almost finished.

I'm going to let this refrigerate for two hours.

We want it to set up and it's going to get even thicker.

Alright, so, Julia, after I rolled that second half of the dough out, I froze both rounds for about 30 minutes so that they're nice and stiff, and it's going to make it easier for us to cut our cookies.

-Okay.

-Alright.

This is for you.

-Thank you.

-This is for me.

And basically what we're going to do first is loosen this top piece of parchment.

-Okay.

-This is going to make it easier after we cut the cookies to release them from the parchment paper.

-Okay.

-Now we're going to flip.

Do like a flip.

Yep.

And we're going to do the same here.

-Okay.

-Yep.

Okay.

So, we're making 24 cookies.

But we're going to cut out enough cookies for 26.

-Ah.

Just a few in case.

-They're super-tender cookies.

And you might have some breakage, and it's okay.

There's no judgment here if it happens.

[ Both laugh ] We just like to have backups.

So you just want to cut them and transfer them to your rimmed baking sheet.

So we're going to bake off basically 26 per sheet.

So they should be about 1/2 inch apart on the rimmed baking sheet.

-Okay.

Okay.

I don't know that I'm going to get 26 out of this first roll around.

-Nope.

You won't.

And if you do, I don't know how you did it.

[ Both laugh ] So now, because this has cornstarch in it, we're not afraid of of overworking your dough.

We're not going to, like, create too much gluten.

And so I'm going to take your dough and my dough and mix it all up, roll it back out.

Create more cookies to cut.

-Very cool.

-Okay.

Okay, so it's time to bake.

-Mm.

-I have an oven heating at 350 degrees.

The racks are set to the upper middle and the lower middle.

We're going to bake these for about 10 to 12 minutes, and we're going to rotate and switch them halfway through.

-Ooh!

Smells like cookies.

-Smells amazing.

They look amazing.

Okay, so we're just going to let these cool for about 5 minutes.

And then after the 5 minutes, I'm going to transfer all the cookies onto the wire rack to let them cool completely.

Alright, Julia, we are getting one step closer.

Alright.

So we have our two-hour-chilled dulce de leche.

And now we're going to start assembling.

-Okay.

-Okay.

So I'm going to take 2 teaspoons of dulce de leche.

It goes in each cookie.

-Ooh, that's a lot.

-I measure the first one.

-Mm-hmm.

-And then I eyeball the rest of them.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Nicely done.

-Thank you.

So now we are going to make them into sandwiches.

This step is very important.

So there's two goals here.

One, we don't want to break the cookies.

-Mm-hmm.

-Number two, we want the filling to go out to the edges.

-Okay.

-Okay?

So what you want to do is grab one cookie.

-Okay.

-Put it on your three fingers.

And then take the top cookie.

-Uh-huh.

-And just place it on top.

And with your other three fingers, you want to just evenly press.

You want that filling to come to the edges, not over the edges.

A little trick that I have is sometimes if it's a little uneven, you can just spin it.

-Alright.

-And it kind of drags that filling over to where it needs more filling.

-Oh, yeah.

-The next step is we're going to roll this in unsweetened coconut.

-Mmm!

So we have a total of 1 cup.

I divided it in half so you could do yours and I'm going to do mine.

-Okay.

So we want that dulce de leche to go all the way to the edges so it will grab on to the coconut.

-I like that the coconut also kind of helps keep that dulce de leche in place.

-And if you're not a coconut fan, you can just simply dust these with powdered sugar.

-Okay.

Super fun.

-And there we have it.

-I've already picked out my cookie.

-You have?

I did too.

-Yeah.

Oh, which one's yours?

-Go!

[ Laughs ] I'm going for this guy.

-Oh, nice!

-Beautiful, right?

-Oh, gorgeous!

Mmm!

They're so delicate!

-Mm-hmm.

-It almost just dissolves into your mouth.

And you're left with a little bit of a sweet cookie flavor with that lemon zest, a little vanilla, and followed by the dulce de leche.

-Mm-hmm.

-Oh!

-Absolutely.

-Man, that's good!

-And a little brandy that adds a hint of complexity.

-A little bit of coconut on the finish.

-So mission accomplished, right?

-Mmm!

-It should melt in your mouth.

That cornstarch is the key here.

-Mm-hmm.

It just disappears.

It's like a magic trick.

-Mm-hmm.

-And that dulce de leche is so good.

Making it yourself is so much better than what you can buy in the store.

-Yeah.

-I ate that very quickly.

[ Laughs ] -I did too.

-It's delicious.

Thank you for showing me how to make these.

-Absolutely.

-If you want to make this classic Latin American treat, make dulce de leche in a pressure cooker with sweetened condensed milk.

Make a shortbread dough using a combination of cornstarch and flour and roll the dough out while it's still soft before chilling.

From "America's Test Kitchen," a terrific recipe for alfajores de maicena con dulce de leche.

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

This might be a two-cookie kind of afternoon.

-Maybe three.

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