- 5 hours ago
Satisfy your sweet tooth with a creative twist on a trendy refreshment! In this video, Chef John from Food Wishes shows you how to make three new dirty sodas inspired by classic desserts: strawberry shortcake, coconut cream pie, and blueberry crisp. Learn how to mix up homemade flavored syrups, creamy soda combinations, and tasty crunchy toppings for the ultimate sweet treats.
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00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with three new dirty sodas inspired by three
00:08old classic desserts.
00:10That's right, we're turning strawberry shortcake, coconut cream pie, and blueberry crisp into
00:17dirty sodas.
00:19And for my first foray into this very trendy refreshment, I was extremely happy with the
00:24results and very excited to share them with you.
00:27And to get started, we'll do our first simple serve for the coconut cream pie version, which
00:33starts by toasting some unsweetened coconut flakes over medium heat.
00:37And what we're shooting for here is about one third of the flakes to be a nice dark golden
00:41brown, and then two thirds of them to be a lighter golden brown to almost not golden brown.
00:46And once they're looking something like this, we'll go ahead and transfer in our water, along
00:51with an equal amount of white sugar, and we'll go ahead and give that a stir and wait for
00:55it to start to simmer.
00:57And once it does, we can back our heat down a little bit to maintain a gentle simmer, and
01:02we'll let that cook for about 20 to 25 minutes, at which point our coconut syrup is probably
01:07going to look something like this.
01:09And then what we'll do is let that cool on the stove about 15 minutes before we strain
01:13it, since if you splash yourself with it then, it will be significantly less painful than
01:18if you splash it on you now.
01:20But either way, we'll go ahead and strain that, and we'll press out as much syrup as we
01:24can. And then once that's accomplished, to finish off the flavoring, I think we'll do
01:29one teaspoon of coconut extract, just to intensify that flavor a little bit. And then we'll finish
01:34up with a very small, but very, very important pinch of salt, since again, we're not just
01:40making a coconut-flavored soda, but rather we want this to taste like coconut cream pie.
01:44And by toasting the coconut, and adding that little bit of extract, plus this pinch of salt,
01:50believe it or not, that's exactly what it's going to taste like. And that's it. We'll simply let
01:54that cool, transfer it into a smaller container, and pop it in the fridge until we need it.
01:59And we will move on to our strawberry shortcake syrup, which begins by tossing some trimmed,
02:04fresh, quartered strawberries, and a very generous amount of sugar. And once we've given that a quick
02:10mix, we're going to let this sit on the counter for an hour. And that sugar is going to pull
02:14a
02:15whole bunch of moisture out of the strawberries, and I think make them taste even more delicious.
02:19So I cover that up and let it sit out for 60 minutes, at which point your strawberries are
02:25probably going to look something like this, which could not be more beautiful. And if at this point
02:30you just decide to go ahead and make strawberry shortcake, no one would blame you. But if we're
02:34doing the soda version, what we'll do is transfer some water into the bowl, which is going to help
02:39loosen things up and make things easier to transfer into a saucepan. And then what we'll do is add
02:45the rest of the sugar, and we'll give it a stir and head to the stove, where we will bring
02:50this
02:50up to a simmer on medium-high heat. And then we'll back our heat down a bit to maintain a
02:55nice gentle
02:56but steady simmer. And we'll let this cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. And about halfway
03:02through, if you want, we can give this a little mashing, just to smash that fruit up a little bit,
03:07and maybe extract a little more flavor. So that's what I did. And after simmering for about 20 minutes,
03:14things look like this. And that's it. Once again, we'll let this cool down a bit before we pass it
03:19through a strainer. And this time we have two options. You can set the strainer up on something
03:24taller like a soup pot, and not press it, and just let all the strawberry syrup drain through.
03:30Or the method I'm using, you can actually push some of the fruit through with a spoon,
03:34and squeeze all the syrup out this way, which is going to give us something a little thicker,
03:39probably something closer to a strawberry sauce. But for my strawberry shortcake soda,
03:43I thought that would work the best. And then to flavor this like a shortcake,
03:48we will add a big spoon of vanilla extract, plus a little bit of butter extract, which you can buy.
03:54But I actually made my own with some butter and vodka, and it worked out pretty well. And I'll try
03:59to add those instructions to the written recipe, for the three of you that will try that. And then
04:05we'll finish up with some almond extract, and we'll go ahead and give that a mix. And as I've told
04:10you
04:10before, whenever you're stirring something, always try to remember what you might have forgot.
04:14And for me, in this case, it was the pinch of salt, which again, I think is key. So I
04:20added that,
04:21and my strawberry shortcake soda syrup was done. And I moved on to the third version,
04:27which is blueberry crisp, which starts by toasting a couple tablespoons of rolled oats over medium heat,
04:33which you can do by stirring, but it's going to be a lot easier if you flip them in the
04:36pan.
04:37And we'll do that for a couple minutes, until they're nice and golden brown, but not too dark,
04:43because at this point, we want to toss in some chopped walnuts. And we want to toast those for
04:48about 30 seconds as well. And once that's been accomplished, we'll go ahead and pour in our
04:52blueberry juice, as well as our white sugar. And then besides that, I'm also going to add a couple
04:59cups of fresh blueberries, followed by a little bit of cinnamon. And I used about a third of a
05:04cinnamon stick, since we don't want that too, too strong. But the cinnamon, along with those toasted
05:09oats and walnuts, really did produce a fairly close blueberry crisp flavor. And that's it.
05:15Once again, we'll bring this to a simmer, and then adjust our heat and let it simmer for about 20
05:20minutes or so, at which point it looked like this. And we will move on to the cooling and straining
05:26step.
05:26And because of the oatmeal, this one was definitely the thickest syrup. And once this one cools down and
05:33comes out of the fridge, it's going to thicken up even more. So make sure you give it a good
05:37stir
05:37before you use it. And if you want to thin it with a little bit of blueberry juice, go ahead.
05:42And then to flavor this one, I added some of the butter extract, along with a mandatory pinch of
05:47salt. Plus, I also did a small squeeze of gel-style blue food coloring, which is not going to make
05:53this
05:53look blue. But it will give it a color closer to actual blueberries, as you can kind of see as
05:59it
05:59splashes up on the sides of the bowl. And that's it. Once all our syrups are done and chilled,
06:03we can grab some glasses with ice. And I'm going to start all three of these versions
06:09with some cream soda, which is basically my secret ingredient. And I'm putting like twice as much in
06:15that middle glass, since that's going to be the coconut cream pie version. And the only other soda
06:19that one's going to get is some regular sparkling water. And then for the strawberry shortcake
06:24version, I'm going to fill it up with a strawberry flavored sparkling water. And because of the old
06:30fizzing up effect, we'll probably have to do this in a few additions. But anyway, like I said,
06:35I finished off my coconut cream pie version, with just some regular plain sparkling water.
06:40And then for my blueberry crisp, I found a summer berry sparkling water, which was blackberry,
06:46raspberry, and blueberry. And it worked out very nicely. And as you top these off, keep in mind,
06:52we still need to leave a little bit of room to add our syrups. So for obvious reasons, don't go
06:57all
06:57the way to the top. And I'm going to pour in about three tablespoons or so. But of course,
07:02the exact amount is going to be up to you. I mean, you are after all the Nicole Tanner of
07:07the plant
07:07here. So add some and give it a taste. And you can always add more. And then I'm not sure
07:13if you
07:13have to. But before we add the splash of half and half to the top, I'm going to take a
07:17bar spoon
07:18and give each one of these a little bit of a mix, just to blend those syrups and sodas before
07:23we cream
07:24the tops. And I'm going to be doing a splash of half and half, which seems to be pretty standard
07:29procedure here. Although I guess some people use coffee creamer, which personally I avoid at all
07:35costs. And you could if you want use cream instead. But I'm going with a combo of half and half
07:40splashed
07:41in, and then a nice piping of whipped cream over the top, which is not just going to make these
07:46sodas a
07:46little richer. It's going to make for the perfect platform for our garnishes. And for those, I'm going to
07:52use some crispy freeze-dried strawberries, and of course some toasted coconut flakes. And then to
07:59simulate a blueberry crisp topping, I'm actually going to do a sprinkling of grape nuts, which yes,
08:04is in some of our crisp topping recipes. But anyway, once I had those looking exactly how I wanted,
08:10I stuck in three straws, and then took way too many pictures, before I finally went in for the official
08:16taste test. And that, my friends, believe it or not, really did sort of taste like a liquefied
08:22strawberry shortcake. With carbonation, of course. All right, this would have been great with just a
08:27regular strawberry syrup. But those other things we added in really did work out perfectly. And as
08:33good as the strawberry shortcake dirty soda was, I enjoyed the coconut cream version even more. And it
08:38was just like drinking the pie. So that one was my favorite. And then I moved along to the blueberry
08:44crisp version, which ended up being Michelle's favorite. And again, those other little elements we added
08:50to the syrup really did make this reminiscent of the dessert it was based on. And by the way,
08:56I don't have a big sweet tooth. And I never drink soda. So I really wasn't sure I was a
09:01dirty soda
09:01kind of guy. But apparently I am, as long as they're based on classic old-fashioned desserts.
09:07And whether you've been drinking dirty sodas for a while now, or these are as new to you as they
09:12are to
09:12me, I thought these were very delicious. And I really do hope you give them a try soon.
09:18So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more
09:24info as usual. And as always, enjoy.
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