(Cheering)
- Ooh, look at those.
- Yeah, much more
Cheeto-like, don't you think?
- I think we are certainly getting there.
- Oh, we?
(laughter)
- We're working very hard.
- (laughing) We.
(blender motor roaring)
(oil sizzling)
(laughter) Oops.
I'm Claire, We are here
in the BA test kitchen,
and today I'm going to try
to make a gourmet Cheeto.
(percussion music)
So I'm actually kind
of excited to try this.
This is the, I think,
classic crunchy Cheeto.
It's super crunchy all the way through.
There's kind of like a knobbiness to it.
The orange color is key.
Very fine bubbles, it's very
brittle, it breaks easily.
But it is a little greasy, but although
when you pick up a Cheeto it doesn't
have a greasy feel immediately.
No strong odor.
It smells a little cheesy.
(crunching noise)
(giggling)
They're so good.
They're very cheesy, so crunchy.
Is this what I've been missing
the last 25 years of my life?
And these are flaming hot.
Oh my God, look at the color.
Ooh, not found in nature.
(crunching)
I don't know about these.
I don't think I'm gonna attempt that.
See, I like the look of these.
It's kind of like styrofoam.
(crunching)
These are amazing.
But I think, this is
not what people think,
when they think of Cheetos.
I think it's more of the crunchy ones.
The goal would be to get something,
you know, maybe like between
one and a half inches
and two inches in length,
so there's not like one ideal shape,
unlike Twinkie, it's like the Cheeto can
kinda look however it looks.
Definitely need to get the
cheese to stick uniformly to it.
I think getting the
Cheeto dust is necessary.
We're just gonna go classic crunchy.
- They're kinda delicious.
- Like, kinda amazing.
They're so good.
So crispy!
- These are number one,
number two's Funyuns.
- [Man] Something don't seem right.
- Really?
- They're not crunchy enough.
Or I just haven't had em in two decades.
(laughter)
- [Chef] When I make em,
what has to be true to the original?
- The color.
As close as possible.
- Okay, okay.
- Almost tempura-like crunch.
- Cheesy, powdery.
- Yeah.
- If you could improve
on the cheese flavor
that would be the only way to like
up the ante.
- Yeah
- And I want that addictive quality.
You know, you could just eat a whole bag.
- Yeah
Okay, now time to read the ingredients.
Enriched cornmeal, parenthesis, corn meal,
ferrous sulfate, niacin,
thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin,
folic acid, end parenthesis,
vegetable oil, parenthesis,
corn, canola and/or sunflower
oil, close parenthesis,
cheese seasoning...
(ingredients read on top of one another)
Okay.
Ooh, it's gluten free.
So I think I have to do a little research
before I get started
and just make sure I'm
gonna start off on the right foot.
Corn meal goes into an extruder.
The friction melts the starch in the corn,
causes the moisture to heat up,
when it passes it's boiling
point the meal pops,
creating the Cheetos shape.
The process takes 19 minutes.
We're gonna try to do it in four days.
(cartoon crash)
I kind of remember this commercial.
From the research it
really just seems like
the composition of a Cheeto is
like corneal, and water, and salt.
So that's where I'm gonna start.
- Oh the cheese, God.
You can buy powdered cheese,
but I kinda thought that was cheating.
I thought about dehydrating
cheese, but cheese is oily.
Then someone told me about
tapioca maltodextrin.
It's like a powder that makes
fats into other powders.
I did ask Brad to order it on Amazon.
So that's, I don't know,
I've never used it before.
I don't really know how.
(percussion music)
So I think step one is
like cook some cornmeal.
The cornmeal we have is pretty course.
So add some salt.
Cook it.
Put this in the food
processor and smooth it out,
and break up those bits of corn.
And then drop it into a deep fryer,
and like, just see what the result is
that I have no idea what's gonna happen.
It's just like one sad, little, thin
string-like Cheeto floating in the oil.
It's like ugh.
I need to just try a larger piece.
(percussion music)
They're maybe a little thin still,
and definitely too uniform.
Well they're like...
- They taste very oily.
- Yeah.
I'm sort of thinking for the next round,
mix in a little baking
powder, and also corn starch.
For like crispiness. So...
- But then we haven't even
gotten to the cheesy part.
- I'm a little nervous.
Yeah, tapioca maltodextrin.
There's nothing on the back!
I don't know how to use it.
- [Phone Video] Tapioca
maltodextrin, a food processor...
- This looks a lot easier
than I even thought.
It doesn't seem like you really wanna add
anything that has any moisture in it,
so before I combine the cheese
and the tapioca maltodextrin
I wanna dehydrate the cheese.
Before you leave, will you
set me up with a dehydrator?
(sigh of annoyance)
I'm sorry.
(percussion music)
There's no (laughing) cheese setting,
which probably is a cue
that you're not supposed
to put cheese in the machine,
but I'll come back in like 10
hours and see what happens.
(percussion music)
The fat kinda pooled out of the cheese,
so the idea is there's no moisture left,
so that we can pulverize it into a powder
with the tapioca maltodextrin.
(percussion music)
Okay, like nothing much has happened.
I might go Vitamix.
This is like a much more powerful motor.
(motor running)
(laughter)
Looks like it... worked
better than I thought.
Not quite as orange as the Cheeto itself,
but I'm just gonna keep going.
Tastes pretty cheesy.
It's a little too wet.
Very, very powdery.
Cornstarch.
It's good.
It could maybe be a little finer.
But I think it's very close.
Alright, so going back to my corn mixture.
Today I'm gonna go for a
crisper, lighter texture.
I'm gonna add a little
bit of baking powder,
which will help like aerate
the mixture even more.
And the cornstarch just
makes things crispier.
It's breaking apart.
Too much baking powder?
I think?
I don't know about this.
It's like, actually texture wise,
it's pretty good.
I'll try bringing the temperature up.
I'll do another test.
Maybe instead of a more low and slow fry
it's like a much hotter
much faster kind of fry.
It's holding it's shape a little better,
but it's still like
flattening out quite a bit.
Maybe I'll try piping it.
It looks alive.
It's still kind of flat.
Andy, do you wanna try it?
- Kinda tastes like a Cheeto!
- Yeah, okay, I have an idea.
I think keeping it
submerged might help it...
- To like puff more three dimensionally.
Cause it's like rising to the top,
cause it's immediately like expanding.
(percussion music)
Oh, I think it's gonna stick
to the spider though, we'll see.
Oh I think it...
Yeah it just totally...
Got stuck on there.
See it's like
too flat
- oh.
No.
- You ate it hot.
Maybe let it cool.
- It's a little gummy
and oily.
- But you ate it hot.
(laughter)
- You happy with the taste?
I feel like it's
- Not anymore!
You just told me it was bad.
(sighs)
Brad, your honesty is admirable,
but also kind of soul crushing.
So really what I should be doing is this.
Oh man, it's like freaking out.
It's still pretty flat.
I have to, I think I have to,
back up, try something else.
I mean I could try air frying,
and then deep frying, afterwords.
So we have this microwave air fryer thing
down here that I've never used before.
I don't really know how it works,
but I've been encourage to try it.
I think they're called air fryers.
- Yeah, we have one.
Where you toss em in oil,
and it like blasts them with high heat.
- Is that what that does?
- I think so
- I've never used one before.
But we'll try it.
Okay, I...
It is a little stuck the parchment.
I shoulda greased the parchment.
I should go back and try
it with just cornstarch.
So I can sorta figure out like
where this breading issue is coming from.
This is like such a sad, skinny little...
(percussion music)
Okay.
Well they're kind of sad looking.
They're definitely too thin.
Not much is happening so I think I have
to try again by piping them thicker.
(percussion music)
Okay, so it just beeped.
I'm hoping I can really
honestly just slide
the entire parchment into the oil,
and then peel the parchment off.
These are looking pretty flat though.
I put, maybe I didn't bake
them long enough in the oven.
In the, whatever, the air fryer.
Microwave, whatever.
What to do?
I might just need to add
some kind of a binder.
Like something to hold it together.
Is it making more of a
dough out of the cornmeal,
and like rolling it by hand?
- Yeah. Maybe there's just too much water,
and that's part of the problem.
Instead of going for something
that's more batter-like,
try something that's more dough-like.
Add an eggwhite, add more cornstarch,
to get something I can kinda roll out
and manipulate by hand.
Oh, great.
(oil popping) Oh!
Chris, it's kind of working maybe.
Well like look how much better they look.
Right?
- Definitely.
- Kinda looks like a Cheeto.
- Oh wow.
- It's expanded evenly all the way around.
So a pretty good snap.
It's very, it's very crunchy.
A little dense.
I'm gonna take this same
dough and try to just work
a little bit of baking powder into it,
and see if it helps
with the texture issue.
Yeah, they seem a little bit lighter
than they did the first round.
Do you think I should bake them
to like really dry them out?
- Yeah.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- Little more lumpage,
and then just like 12 times crunchier.
(laughter)
- Plain corn.
(laughter) Adam!
What?
So tomorrow we will try the
fry and then bake method
to make sure they're
dry all the way through
and very, very crunchy crispy.
And then we're gonna work
on the cheese mixture
and try to tweak that to get it to a place
where we really think we made a Cheeto.
(laughter)
(percussion music)
So it's day three of Cheeto.
This has really kind of clumped up,
and it's not very powdery.
So I'm just gonna really dry this out.
I had a couple new ideas.
So I thought about
introducing a couple flavors
into the cheese powder.
I had another thought, which is...
Oh I found it.
Powdered buttermilk, it's true buttermilk,
so it has like cultures in it.
So I think it'll give
like a really nice tang,
sort of lactic flavor.
Now to get back to our dough.
It was a little dense, not crispy enough,
so I think what I need
to do is almost make
like a hybrid, and make sorta
like a much looser, wetter batter
that I can still kind of
manipulate with my hands.
I'm gonna season the inside also.
Maybe just a little bit of
cayenne and the garlic powder.
(percussion music)
- [Man] Oh nice!
- They look a little bumpier.
- Yeah that looks like a freaking Cheeto.
- Yeah?
I do think they look more like Cheetos
than the ones from yesterday.
I'll put these in the oven
to really further dry out.
So I've had the cheese
dehydrating, I'm gonna check on it.
Much, much drier.
Break up some of the larger bits,
and let it go a little longer.
It is feeling pretty dry.
And now let me look at the Cheetos.
You ready?
Ooh, not a good sign.
That did not really slice through.
The thicker ones need a
little more time still.
I'll throw that back in the oven
and we'll do the cheese powder.
I think a lot of salt,
and a pinch of cayenne,
the tumeric, garlic powder,
cultured buttermilk powder.
I think it's gonna taste really good.
(motor running)
I think it needs to be cheesier.
It really, really smells like that packet
of cheese powder in the
Kraft Mac and Cheese box,
in a good way.
It's well seasoned.
Kinda has that feeling of the Cheeto dust.
Just to make sure the powder is powdery,
the Cheeto base is crunchy,
I'm gonna put the powder
and the Cheetos actually
all in the dehydrator,
turn it on high, and we'll
check back in a few hours,
hopefully wrap this up.
It seems really dry, that's a good sign.
Quick blitz.
A lot finer.
Check on the Cheetos.
Pretty good snap.
So crunchy.
(crunching)
Can you hear that, the crunch?
I would eat these.
These are pretty good.
The color is very different,
but I sort of feel like,
in some ways they look
equally unnatural, so.
I guess I consider that a success.
So are you guys ready to
taste the final version?
- Don't take this the wrong way-
- Okay.
- It's almost too classy to be a Cheeto.
- I take that as a compliment.
- You're in the pirate's booty world
of extruded, puffy, cheesy things.
- Chris, I will take it.
- That's a great place to be.
- Yes, I'm not upset about that.
- Save this, and put it on popcorn.
- Oh yeah.
- It will kill.
- So yeah, not a bad idea.
- I'm enjoying them.
- Great, so glad.
I have tons limited to this-
- Pretty good, Claire.
- Thank you. It only took three days.
- I think you achieved the
full 12 times crunchier.
(laughter)
- You didn't eat a Cheeto, there you go.
Here's how you make a gourmet Cheeto.
For the base, combine one
cup cooked cooled polenta,
two teaspoons baking powder,
an egg white, lots of salt,
and a few pinches garlic
powder, and cayenne
in a food processor.
Process until smooth and light.
Add cornstarch, a couple
of tablespoons at a time.
Process until mixture is
very thick, but still tacky.
Transfer to a piping bag,
cut a half inch opening,
dust work surface with more cornstarch,
pipe a long snake onto
surface, dust with cornstarch,
cut into irregular pieces,
and roll individually
into Cheeto-like shapes.
Drop into 375 degree vegetable oil,
and fry, moving around,
until bubbles subside.
Transfer to a dehydrator
that's 130 Fahrenheit,
dry until crisp all the way
through, four to six hours.
For cheese coating, combine
half cup tapioca maltodextrin
in a blender. Add a couple
of slabs of dehydrated
orange sharp cheddar, salt,
tumeric, a tablespoon or two
powdered buttermilk, one to
two teaspoons garlic powder,
and a large pinch cayenne.
Blend until powdery.
Spread out onto a small,
rimmed baking sheet,
and dry in a dehydrator til
totally dry, four to six hours.
Blend again, combine with
Cheetos in a plastic bag,
shake to coat.
That's it.
That's all you gotta do to make Cheetos.
It's really up to you, if
you wanna make that at home.
All you need is a
dehydrator, a food processor,
something to deep fry
in, deep fry thermometer,
a high powered blender that
costs like $500 dollars...
