Welcome To The Show: My Professional Debut

As detailed in my last post, I was offered the chance to deep fry Halloween candy for the Orchards Hotel in Williamstown, MA. They were throwing a Halloween party with karaoke, a buffet, lots of candy, and my deep-frying expertise. In the week leading up to the event, I practiced the candy bars I knew, I tried a bunch of new ones, and I was confident and ready to go.

I got to the hotel mid-afternoon, checked in, got comfortable, and got mentally prepared. I had a bag full of supplies and my good deep-frying scoop. The party started at 7, so around 6:30, I went down to the bar and the chef's took me into the kitchen to get me ready. The restaurant manager, all the chefs, and everyone else was really welcoming. They had been hearing about this for a few weeks, and were excited to finally meet me. They also gave me a chef's hat and got me a coat to wear, so I was fully suited up and ready for action.
During the rest of the pregame warm up time, we played around in the back with the big fryer, testing out some of the candy bars I hadn't tried yet. Meanwhile, much of the staff was all crowding around to watch me in action and sample stuff. This was really fun; we deep fried Twizzlers by tying them in a knot at one end, dipping that in buttermilk pancake batter and holding it in by the long, unbattered end. These got much softer but were still chewy and very good. We also deep fried a bunch of Twix bars, because I made one, and after the manager's reaction tasting it, everyone wanted to try one. Then I got out the chocolate and the marshmallows to attempt to make a s'more.

I was going to jam the chocolate inside the marshmallow somehow, dip that in batter, and then crush up a graham cracker and roll everything in the graham cracker pieces. The head chef showed me a cool trick though, and I've actually used this a lot since learning it. He made a whole s'more and dipped it in the batter. Then, he carefully lowered only one end into the oil. After a few seconds, the batter has cooked a little and solidified, holding the whole thing together. It also puffs up, so the whole thing floats, and, when let go of, the entire s'more flips over in the oil, cooking the other side. The entire thing still wasn't the most beautiful dessert ever made, but it did stay together and was an amazing chocolaty, marshmallowy, delicious mass inside all the batter. After a little bit of playing around, the party was ready to begin, and we set up the table out front where I'd be working. The restaurant manager had brought in another deep fryer from his house that I could use out in the party, and if it ever got too crowded, I could use the bigger one in the back to prepare a bunch of stuff at once. The small one could easily fit several things in at a time, so I could keep up with all the orders OK. We laid all the candy out in front on the table, and we just let people dig through the pile, find something they wanted deep fried, and then hand it to me and I'd take care of the rest. Here's what my work station looked like:
While setting up everything and getting ready to go, one of the chefs asked me to prepare a special dessert for a girl in the restaurant who was there celebrating her birthday. I kept it simple and made a sampler plate with a Milky Way, Twix, Reese's cup, and Snickers. I even got to go out and personally present the dessert to the birthday girl and tell her a little about deep frying and my blog.
As seen above, I cooked just about everything that night on bamboo skewers, because then it's easy to roll the candy or fully submerge it to cook everything evenly on all sides. And you can easily pull them out of the fryer one at a time as they are ready. You can also hand them off while they are still very hot.

The whole night kind of runs together while I was out there deep frying for everyone, but here are some of the things I remember:

I snacked on candy pretty steadily throughout the evening, but the chefs also cooked me a delicious steak for dinner (not deep fried). The Orchards Hotel really took care of me while I was there.

One party goer was enjoying everything I had, but disappointed there were no Almond Joys. Coconut is one of the few foods I don't really like, so I hadn't thought of trying that or buying any, but she went out to a nearby convenience store, bought one, and brought it back for me to fry up for her, which she greatly enjoyed.

Another guest had me jam a Tootsie Roll inside a marshmallow and deep fry that. She enjoyed it thoroughly. I never tried this myself, although I did have a deep fried Tootsie Roll which was soft and melty and much easier to eat than normal.

A number of guests requested deep-fried Butterfingers, even after I warned them about the center fusing together into a solid core. They usually actually seemed even more interested to try it after learning that. And everyone enjoyed them.

Sadly, I didn't get to try a York peppermint patty, but those who did have them enjoyed them.

Whenever anyone asked for a recommendation, I would suggest something with caramel. I think those are the best. That said, I deep fried a Nestle's crunch bar, and that was good. The crunchy rice bits kind of float all around inside the mass of melted chocolate. Similarly, when eating a deep-fried Kit Kat, I could feel the wafer layers sliding around on each other. A lot of people asked for deep fried Hershey's. These were good, although compared to everything else a little plain, in my opinion.

The emcee at the karaoke table kept plugging my blog all night, which was awesome, and he kept coming over to get more deep-fried candy during all his breaks. I also gave out a number of my postcards for all those interested in learning more about deep frying.

Throughout the evening, I saw a lot of return visits by happy customers, and I got a lot of compliments on everything. Overall, I deep fried an impressive amount of candy over four hours. The pile was pretty much gone by 11pm.

Ashley's mom, was at the hotel, but she didn't join in the deep frying. That's too bad, because then I would have deep fried with all the members of her family. Her dad enjoyed the food, but the sugary smell was too much for him by the end of the night.

In the end, I don't think there was a single unsatisfied customer. My first foray into professional deep frying was an absolute success. I want to give a big thanks to everyone at the Orchards Hotel for really welcoming me and for helping everything go as well as it did. Perhaps the word will spread and I'll land other gigs, but I have nothing planned at the moment, which is fine with me. Sure, I'll miss the big crowds, fancy hotel rooms, steak dinners, and groupies, but for now it's back to deep frying for love of the game.

Dress Rehearsal

I got a call from Ashley a couple weeks ago, and she had an exciting opportunity to tell me about. You already know she is a fan of the blog, and her sister is a fan of the blog, but it turns out her dad is also a fan. What's more, Bernie English is the general manager of a the Orchards Hotel in Williamstown, MA. In the midst of planning a Halloween event for his guests, he thought a fun way to push it over the top would be to instead push it Off The Deep End.

So, Ashley was calling me up to offer me the chance to drive out to The Orchards in Williamstown and deep fry Halloween candy for a party. I was a little nervous at first, and wasn't sure I could make it work, since it is happening on a Thursday night. I've also never tried deep frying for a large group before, and I didn't know if I could keep stuff coming fast enough for the masses. But, according to Google Analytics, readers on six continents have read my posts. Now here was my chance to bring delicious deep-fried fare straight to my adoring fans. I realized that there was no way I could let this opportunity pass me by. I didn't want to end up like Harry at the end of Dumb and Dumber saying, "Don't worry, we'll catch our break too. . . just gotta keep our eyes open."

I met up with Bernie one weekend when I was traveling up to Williamstown, and we hammered out the details. I also got to meet the chef and I got a tour of the kitchen. I got to see the "small" deep fryer that I'd be using, which was still much bigger than mine, leading to a bit of deep-fryer envy. It did however, allay my worries about not being able to cook enough food quickly. I'm very curious to see the bigger one.

In preparation for this event, I figured I should do some practicing. My roommate, and I decided to cook corn dogs for dinner, and then I bought a ton of candy at the supermarket. I bought so much candy, in fact, that I felt I should reassure the cashier that don't generally eat like this. I won't list everything I bought, because I didn't get around to trying it all . . . but I will eventually.

For dinner, we started with corn dogs. In my last corn dog attempt, all the pieces tasted good, but they didn't stay together at all. I theorized that I should have made the oil hotter. I cooked it at 350F last time, but cranked it all the way up to 375F this time. The batter is the same as last time: a box of Jiffy corn muffin mix made following the directions on the box. And here we go. . .

First try: This one looks more like an ear of corn than a corn dog. But, it stayed on the hot dog, so, this is a good start.

Second try: Not totally covered, but it was a more even coating. We're getting there.

Third try: This time I rolled the hot dog in flour before putting it into the cornmeal. It looks very pretty, with the only real flaw being that crack down the center.

Fourth try: I also used flour on this one, and it looks beautiful if I do say so myself. Again there was a small crack, but otherwise it looked really nice and that crack didn't effect the stability of the corn dog.

Here is a delicious-looking cross section.

What did we learn? Well, corn dogs are awesome, but actually we already knew that. We did learn that 375F is definitely the right temperature, and a light layer of flour on the hot dog is clearly a good idea. Interestingly, it didn't seem like the flour was helping right after applying it, because then the corn meal seemed to slide off the hot dog even more easily. The corn muffin mix starts to stick after a little bit though, and the pictures certainly show a clear difference.

After making four corn dogs, I used the rest of the corn muffin mix to make hush puppies. I didn't quite get the shapes right, but they were good.

Then it was time for dessert. I had sent out an open invitation to a bunch of people to come eat fried candy with me, but aside from my roommates, only my friend Norman showed up. Norman is quite the chef, and is the author of monday night menu, a food blog that is slightly more sophisticated than mine.

I started with a 3 Musketeers bar. This was tasty, but I don't think deep frying added much too it. It might have actually made it a little less fluffy than a 3 Musketeers normally is. I certainly didn't complain eating it, but it didn't blow me away.

Next, I tried a marshmallow. I had been wanting to try this (and eventually a s'more). I stuck the marshmallow on a skewer and rolled it in the batter. The marshmallow expends like you'd expect, so it pushed its way out of the batter shell slightly. This was good, but it didn't change substantially. The marshmallow itself tasted like a marshmallow that had been blown up in the microwave, only it had a delicious coating on it. Looking back, I missed a chance here to put sprinkles or something else on the outside of the batter. I think that could have made a huge difference here.

Norman, meanwhile, tried a Baby Ruth, and he really liked how toasty the deep frying made the peanuts. Dan deep fried a Twinkie, one of his favorite deep fried treats, and Tyler got a little creative. He folded up a slice of white American cheese, dipped it in the batter and deep fried it. I should note that Tyler is a very picky eater, and he loved American cheese dipped in pancake batter and deep fried. This gave me a lot of confidence that whatever I deep fry for the hotel guests, they are going to like. He also dipped a colby jack cheese stick in the same batter and fried that. I tried bite of both of these things, and I also thought they were quite good.

Then I tried a Snickers bar and added a little powdered sugar for good measure. This was good, and I've had a lot of debates with people about which would be better, a Milky Way or a Snickers, but this is actually this first time I had tried the Snickers. I always said I thought I would like the Milky Way more, and after trying both, I do, in fact, prefer Milky Way. The Milky Way is a simpler, and it really gives the caramel center stage.

I finished up with a Milky Way covered in rainbow sprinkles. Although it still wasn't as good as the cookie dough, it was totally delicious, and the sprinkles definitely improved an already delicious deep-fried Milky Way.

Norman deep fried a Butterfinger covered in sprinkles, and he liked it, but it turned into a very different candy bar after coming out of the oil. All those flakes fused together in a solid core that Norman was chewing on for a while.

We didn't try a lot of what we had bought, but I was very full and from what we had tried, I was very satisfied that I could deliver a delicious, fattening, evening of snacks to the Orchards guests.

In addition to this round of practice deep frying, I also had officially-licensed Off The Deep End postcards made up to give out during the event. And, I am told a couple of different media outlets will be covering the event. This could be just the exposure I need to get that seventh continent. (Deep frying is very warm, so you'd think it'd be a popular activity in Antarctica.) My write-up will be the next post, and as of press time, the party begins in one hour!