Unwrapped 2.0 (2015) s01e07 Episode Script

Hi.
I'm Alfonso Ribeiro, and this is "Unwrapped 2.
0".
Now, there are only a few things you can put on any snack to make it taste even better salt, sugar, and nuts.
No, really, think about it.
What doesn't taste better with nuts? Candy bars? Check.
Ice cream? Check.
It's pretty clear you can't go wrong with nuts, so let's go nuts.
Whether it's a sweet pecan treat or a peanut-buttery cake, an, oh, so unique peanut, or an old-school candy bar, "nuttin'" beats nuts.
There must be a million different ways to combine peanuts and chocolate.
Take this peanut-butter Kandy Kake from Philadelphia's iconic Tastykake brand, for example.
They've been cooking up these delicious sweet snacks since 1914.
Tastykake actually got it's name when Herbert Morris' wife, one of our founders, bit into one of our cakes and said, "What a tasty cake!" Don't ask why they spell it with a "K.
" That's a mystery lost in time.
But we do know they decided to add the, oh, so delectable combination of chocolate and peanut butter to their tasty treats.
The peanut-butter Kandy Kake came on the market shortly after we started to see that combination in chocolate candies.
Tastykake really thought, "What a great idea of flavors, and wouldn't it taste that much better with our unique Tastykake cake?" Making the peanut-butter Kandy Kake starts with the cake.
In this case, sponge cake.
The recipe is pretty straightforward water, flour, sugar, and corn syrup.
But what happens next is anything but straightforward.
This is a fascinating part of the process.
The ingredients are culled from the silos outside, and they're blown through the pipes in the ceiling to a scaler and then directly to the mixer.
That is one big mixer.
The baker then adds some milk, eggs, spices, and leavening the old-fashioned way by hand.
The mixer then runs for approximately two minutes.
The baker will then take the batter, add some more water, and continues the mix.
Once the water is fully incorporated, the batter is piped into a holding tank next door which can hold it's batter let met tell you up to 500 pounds worth.
While that's happening, the pans are being prepped.
Before the batter hits the pan, it's sprayed with a non-stick spray, which is very similar to what you would do at home before you're about to bake a cake.
The prep pans are pushed along the line to the depositor, which fills them each up with the exact amount of batter.
Then, it's on to the oven, and this isn't your everyday kitchen appliance.
It's a serpentine-style oven, which helps make sure that the oven's very compact so it doesn't take up a lot of space.
As the cakes travel through the various twists and turns of the serpentine oven, they pass through three distinct temperature zones as high as 400 degrees and as low as 200 degrees.
Those zones are designed for several different things.
It helps us get exactly the bake that we're looking for and makes sure the cake is fluffy and is exactly the right color and delicious.
And in a mere 10 minutes, they are just that.
As the cakes exit the oven, a blast of air will help the cakes release from the pans onto the cooling belt.
The belt carries them back under the ovens until they reach room temperature.
And then, it's time for the peanut butter but not just any peanut butter.
We wanted a peanut butter that was the right mix of sweet and salty, so it gave you that sweetness without too much salt, because it is a dessert kind of treat.
As you can see, they use plenty of it on each Kandy Kake.
Would you believe they go through 1.
2 million pounds of the stuff a year? You can make almost 8 million peanut-butter sandwiches with that amount of peanut butter.
At this point, they definitely look good enough to eat.
But, what the heck Let's coat them with some delicious milk chocolate first.
In one year, Tastykake uses over 3 million pounds of milk-chocolate coating for our Kandy Kake.
The cakes are enveloped in a warm bath of velvety chocolate heated to a precise 100 degrees in a process that's referred to as enrobing.
Then, it's a 4-minute trip through an 80-foot cooling tub where temperatures range from 40 to 60 degrees.
The cooling tunnel helps to make sure that the chocolate has completely set before it heads off to wrapping.
Our milk-chocolate coating is very important to us.
We ensure that, when it's cold, it gets to the right temperature so that it doesn't melt in your fingertips.
From there, it's just a matter of a robotic machine putting all those scrumptious cakes in wrappers and boxes.
And it's always wrapped in multiples.
Because when it comes to peanut butter Kandy Kakes, one just isn't gonna cut it.
You just pop them right out of the wrapper.
I can't have any without at least having two packs.
Coming up, what nutty chew got it's start on the battlefield? And later, a southern sweet with French royal roots.
If you like your nuts and chocolate old-school, have I got a chew for you.
Goldenberg's Peanut Chews This tasty treat by Philadelphia's Goldenberg candy company has a lot going on.
It's chewy.
It's nutty, The chocolaty coating melts in your mouth, and the flavor that stays with you is so satisfying.
It's been around since 1917, but it didn't actually start as a commercial candy.
When World War I broke out and they got involved in providing a military ration bar for the troops, they developed the Goldenberg's Peanut Chew.
It was actually created to be a little more durable than a traditional candy, so that the troops actually could hold onto it into the war.
When those troops came home, they weren't ready to let go of these tasty treats, so the Peanut Chew went public.
But what we want to know is just how are Peanut Chew candies made today.
It starts, of course, with the peanut.
We utilize peanuts grown in the southeastern U.
S.
from Georgia and Alabama.
We use about 40,000 pounds of peanuts a week.
That's a city bus full of nuts, but, luckily, they arrive in more manageable The nuts are fed into big holding containers while the other ingredients are mixed in what looks like a high-tech laboratory.
The molasses and different sugars and ingredients some of them secret are actually combined into these large kettles that are cooked for about 10 minutes together until they're fully blended.
Once cooled by 50 degrees, the gooey good stuff is piped over to the hopper to mix with peanuts to form a chewy center.
Many people assume that caramel is responsible for the color and consistency here.
But in fact, it's the molasses that gives the candy both it's unique flavor and texture.
The mix of peanuts and sticky sweetness is then pressed through a roller into a two-foot-wide slab on a stainless steel conveyor belt.
At this point, the candy is a toasty 200 degrees, so it enters into this long white cooling tunnel.
The cooling tunnel is about a 50-foot-long device that does two things.
It makes the surface of the candy more uniform by flattening it.
It also cools the temperature down to where it can be cut and then robed more easily.
In a mere 12 minutes, the candy goes from 200 degrees down to about 70 degrees.
Once it's cooled, it's time to cut.
The first thing is to divide it into 28 separate rows.
In order to create uniform pieces, each row is cut just under an inch thick, leaving some extra Peanut Chew at the edges.
But you can't let any of that delicious Peanut Chew go to waste.
So what happens to the extra? The sides of the Peanut Chew sheet are actually trimmed off and put back in through the batch mixer.
Then, those rows are sliced by band saw into bite-size pieces.
Now, the chews are all set for the last stage and one of the most important.
The dark-chocolaty coating for Goldenberg's Peanut Chews is delivered in tankers and kept in a very warm room That's 76,000 pounds of ooey-gooey melted dark chocolate.
From that point, it is transported into the enrobing room in pipes and then kept in 2,000-pound smaller batches.
It's all kept very warm so that's it's very pliable and easy to coat.
A paddle constantly blends the chocolate to keep a smooth consistency just right for that coating, or enrobing as it's known in the candy world.
These may look like finished Peanut Chews, but they're not quite ready to eat.
After the chewy center is enrobed, the dark chocolaty coating gets blown with a fan that actually creates a distinctive look with a ripple effect, as well as creating a uniform coating to go into the cooling tunnel.
You got to have a big cooler like this to put out as many treats as these guys do.
And at 50 feet long, this one is massive.
Over 131 million pieces of Goldenberg's Peanut Chews candy are made every year.
That's enough for every man, woman, and child west of the Mississippi to have their own delicious chew.
As it cools to room temperature, it hits a spiral turntable that lines up the pieces for packaging.
One of the unique attributes of Goldenberg's Peanut Chews is the fact that these full-size bars actually contain individual pieces, which makes it more shareable.
Whether it's a bag of minis or a full-size bar, Goldenberg's gets that, oh, so recognizable retro wrap.
And if you're lucky, you might just spot that retro wrap wrapped around a 1967 Volkswagen Microbus.
Goldenberg's uses the classic car to spread the peanuty word about its "Chewin' It Old-School" campaign.
"We've been chewing it old-school since 1917" is what we like to say.
I got that right.
Yes! Coming up, what nut is better when it's burnt? Nuts can go into almost anything, so here's a crazy idea.
What if, instead of adding nuts to something, you added something to nuts? Great idea, right? Well, one candy store favorite is doing just that.
I know, your first reaction is probably, "What are those?" Well, those are French burnt peanuts.
They were pretty popular back in France in centuries gone by.
But these days, family-owned and operated Primrose Candy in Chicago is one of the few companies that still make them.
Up until the '60s, we basically were a hard-candy company.
In the '70s, we had the opportunity to expand into pan candies.
And that's when we expanded into French burnt peanuts.
But just what is a French burnt peanut, anyway? A French burnt peanut is a roasted peanut on the inside, and then we put a sugary shell on the outside.
But why are they sometimes called "bumpy"? Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
First, they start with roasted peanuts to the tune of 125 million a year.
We will actually do a hot-pan process using a tumbling motion.
The pan itself looks like the tail end of a cement mixer.
And while they may be called French burnt peanuts, they're not actually burnt.
Once the pan and nuts are good and hot, it's time for the coating to begin.
That's done with a time-honored method called panning that was created by confectioners in France in the 17th century.
Pan candies are candies that are formed using a tumbling motion where you add layers of candy to it.
Primrose uses a super-secret syrup recipe in their panning process that's made up of sugar and also Well, that's the secret.
It takes about an hour and a half of tumbling for the peanuts to soak up all the sugary good stuff.
Next, it's time for some flavor.
We add some vanilla flavor so you get the real nice crunchy, sweet outer shell and then the peanut flavor on the inside.
And that unique French burnt peanut color.
It takes several minutes for the first layer of sugary sweet coating to dry, only to go through the process again and again until they have the desired amount of candy shell.
But wait a minute.
These bumpies aren't bumpy.
How does that happen? Turns out, it's all in the hush-hush formulation of this next syrup mixed with the tumbling motion of the rotating pan.
From there, we change into a different syrup.
This syrup will create a little bumpiness on the outside of the peanut.
As the peanuts are cooked and cooled inside the rotating pans, the syrup hardens in thick drops forming the little bumps.
And this is what makes the French burnt peanut unique.
They spin around in there for another hour and a half for optimal bumpiness.
Everyone that makes French burnt peanuts will have those little bumpies on them.
We think that our formulation creates the most defined bumpies.
Once they've reached their ideal bumpiness, they're moved to stainless-steel polishing pans for a 15-minute tumble in a sugar solution.
Check out how that sugar shine really brings out that bumpy look.
And finally, they're sent down a conveyor belt scale to be weighed and bagged Ooh! before being shipped to candy stores to be sold in bulk bins.
And there you have it The mystery of the French burnt peanut, solved.
Maybe we should go with Mark's name for them, though.
I don't really know a better name to call them, and I use "bumpies" because it's a fun name for a candy.
And I think candy is fun.
When we return, see how a European treat gets a Southern stamp.
It's so satisfying to be just chewing along and, suddenly, something to really bite into something that gives crunch and texture to anything you might be eating.
The secret ingredient? Well, what else nuts.
The praline This nutty, buttery treat was originally a European concoction made with almonds.
The praline itself was developed by Count Praslin, who commissioned his chef to develop a candy for his parties in France.
The French aristocracy loved the sweet treats so much that they took the recipe with them when they crossed the Atlantic.
Some folks down south replaced the almonds with locally-plentiful pecans, and a regional specialty was born, one that continues today at River Street Sweets in Savannah, Georgia.
Our first patch of pralines was developed in our home with our mother reading ingredients to our father who was making it on the stove.
Today, River Street Sweets pralines are made in a slightly larger setting, but the basic recipe hasn't changed.
Although many people think the praline is the nut, it's actually the name of the candy surrounding the pecan.
And that melt-in-your-mouth sweetness is made of some of the simplest ingredients sugar, cream, and butter.
Who doesn't love sugar, cream, and butter? The process starts with a full gallon of white sugar, and then 21/2 pounds of real butter are added to each batch of sugary goodness.
Crank up the heat under the fire kettle and get ready for a sweet, rich stew.
Though maybe not quite rich enough, because then they add not just one kind of cream but two different kinds of cream to create the precise blend for their perfect pralines.
Like any sugar and dairy mix, it has to be continually stirred.
And in this case, an automated, claw-like agitative prevents it from sticking and burning.
And it mixes over a period of about 20 to 25 minutes, becomes airy and doughy.
This sweet mix then has to then be removed from the flame at not 240 degrees, not 242 degrees, but at a very precise Turns out that's the optimal temperature for that sweet, creamy praline base to envelop all those gorgeous Georgia pecans.
There's nothing like a Georgia pecan.
I believe that's the best-tasting nut in the world.
River Street Sweets goes through over 60,000 pounds of pecan halves in a year.
That's over 30 tons of pecans.
We can make up to The only left to do in this 30-minute process is cool these babies down.
That's done the old-fashioned way.
We dip the pralines off onto a marble table which is about four to five degrees cooler than the air around it.
Marble, in general, is very porous, so it extracts the heat out of the pralines and cools it within about a five-to-eight- minute period.
This sets the creamy mixture, trapping the pecans in a cocoon of melt-in-your-mouth sweetness.
After being cooled, it's on to the wrapping machine.
We seal them in a machine that can seal pralines up to 50 to 60 in a minute.
The company rolls out over 4 million pralines a year, and then ships the tasty treats to praline lovers all over the world.
But if you're lucky enough to be strolling down River Street in Savannah, you have to pop by the store for a sample.
There's nothing like getting a praline off a marble slab.
It's the best taste in the world.
And he knows what he's talking about.
I'm a Georgia boy that loves to make candy.
How's that? I love this whole setup.
Do we need to move you? Ooh, have I got a chew for you.
I only said it 'cause they wrote it.
He's like, "See, what it is It's because you're separating it.
" That's why I'm talking like this.