baja blasted apologies and brick flavored juice boxes
unsnackable volume 66
Lately, I have stumbled into a perpetual reenactment of the marshmallow experiment. I shuffle through moments of reckless instant gratification, pious self-control, and meticulous scrutiny about how my approach to small choices reflects on my life prospects.
My search for a balance between restraint and indulgence always feels the most frantic in these last days of winter when the sun shines a bit brighter but I can't feel its warmth on my skin. How must I contort myself to discard the leaden dullness of another winter that seems like it will never end? How do I preen and practice to bloom as vividly as the flowers?
It took four days to get Unsnackable off the ground the first time (when I called content a prison and floated the idea of starting a newsletter via tweet), about a month to relaunch it the second time (finding a platform that had the functionality I needed without administrative costs that would be financially destabilizing shaved a few years off my life). Now I am relaunching for the third time after a yearlong hiatus. It was a busy year, punctuated by my former newsletter platform discontinuing its newsletter product and locking me out of my published newsletters and my subscriber list (but eventually letting me back in), yet another tour through the (now even more expensive!) newsletter platform marketplace, and settling back here and being tasked with the mind-numbing chore of manually importing and formatting each of my newsletters.
But we're here! We made it! And I am sorry if you unsubscribed months or years ago and found this newsletter in your inbox. Welcome back to Unsnackable, this newsletter is a small tantrum about international snacks, beverages, and fast food that I want but cannot have with occasional diatribes about other snacks (both literal and figurative) that I can’t get off my mind. I think there is value in exploring without aspiring to consume, and I hope to continue using this space to do that. I will always try to engage with the weight of my whims, especially when the machinations of colonialism and imperialism have made the cost of essentials too high for any of us to accept . I don't think writing about snacks will change the world, but I do believe imagination is the fuel we need to build a better future. Mine happens to do its best work on a diet of sweet, savory, thirsty, and boozy snacks.
To welcome Unsnackable back into your life, one of the snacks i’m offering is more of a tactile apology. It is a necessary deployment of my true love language "This took a lot of research but I reverse-engineered a way to make something I have never tried for you" except it takes the form of one of the most thoroughly tested recipes I have ever shared. I think it still qualifies as unsnackable because frankly, it is a bit insane despite being genuinely delicious.
Baja Blast has always held a place in my heart. It was introduced just early enough that I formed a strong emotional connection to it, but both withheld and accessible enough to keep my devotion from waning. When I saw a picture of the Baja Blast pie, I knew I was tasked by the small yappy deity in the sky to make it for myself. I did not expect that nailing the spiritually Floridian but empirically ramune adjacent tang in the form of a pastry would be so hard. It took guidance and recipe adaptation from Stella, Claire, and Sally as well as uh...multiple gallons of Baja Blast for this recipe to come together. It is finicky and substitutions for anything not marked as optional are likely to leave you with delicious neon-tinged gak instead of a pie.
Baja Blast Pie (Unsnackable Style)
Ingredients
Graham Cracker Crust (Or use a store-bought crust)
180g graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons unrefined coconut oil
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
Baja Blast Coconut Condensed Milk
4 cups of Baja Blast (1000 g)
134 g Sugar
1 Can of Chilled Organic Coconut Cream (Unsweetened)
1/4 tsp cardamom seeds (optional)
1/4 tsp ginger powder (optional)
Baja Blast Pie Filling
9 ounces sugar (255g)
16 oz. Baja Blasted condensed milk ( around 2 cups; 450g)
1 1/2 ounces cornstarch (about 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon; 42g)
1/4 teaspoon (1g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for table salt, use about half as much by volume or the same weight
4 large eggs
8 ounces fresh lime juice (about 1 cup; 225g), from about 8 limes
Food Coloring (2 drops Americolor Gel Teal+ 1 drop of Americolor Gel Mint Green or 2 drops of Teal from the Wilton Neon Gel Kit)
Coconut Whip Topping
2 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream
4 tbsp Creme of Coconut (Sweetened)
Lime Zest (optional)
Directions
Make the Crust (Skip if using a premade crust)
-Preheat oven to 350
-In a large bowl, stir together graham cracker crumbs and sugar
- Mix the melted butter and melted coconut oil in a small bowl
-Add the coconut oil and butter mixture to the large bowl and mix until the whole mixture is uniform and sandy without large chunks. Sometimes using your hands can help the distribution more quickly than a utensil
-transfer the graham cracker mixture to a pie dish, and use something small with a flat bottom like a glass or measuring cup to press the mixture into the pie dish
-using the measuring cup/glass flatten mixture starting from the middle of the bottom of the dish, working outwards to distribute the crust towards the walls of the dish. Use the sides of the glass/measuring cup to press the mixture into the sides of the tin.
-Bake the crust for 10-12 minutes, until it gets noticeably toasted and slightly more brown.
-set aside to cool
Make the Baja Blast Coconut Condensed Milk
- Pour the 4 cups of baja blast into a medium nonreactive saucepan (with lots of room) and set it on high to reduce the soda to 1 cup of liquid. This should take somewhere around 30 minutes but depending on your stove/pot it could take more or less time. If you do not have a pot with volume measures, try this method to measure the reduced volume https://jeffreymorgenthaler.com/how-to-reduce-by-half/
-Once the liquid has been reduced, add the granulated sugar, ginger, and cardamom seeds and set aside
-Open the can of chilled unsweetened coconut cream and measure out 1 cup of the hardened white coconut cream from the top of the can
-add the 1 cup of measured coconut cream to the warm reduced baja blast and mix until combined. It doesn't need to be perfectly emulsified, just mixed together
-set it aside as you start to work on the filling
Make the Baja Blast Pie Filling
(For more detail, see the pictures in the bravetart recipe here)
-In a large, nonreactive pan mix together sugar, cornstarch, and salt until smooth
-then whisk in eggs one at a time, and lime juice (use fresh juice here, it needs to balance the soda)
-If the Baja blasted condensed milk has separated, stir it before adding it slowly to the pan. Mix everything with a whisk until it is smooth and uniform.
-Cook over medium-low heat, whisking constantly but gently, until hot to the touch, about 5 minutes.
-Increase heat to medium and continue whisking until thick, about 3 minutes longer. When custard begins to bubble, set a timer and continue whisking for exactly 2 minutes. (This is important to neutralize a starch-dissolving protein found in egg yolks.)
- Remove from heat and whisk in food coloring
-set a nonreactive fine mesh sieve over a large bowl and pass the mixture through to strain out pieces of cooked egg
-Spoon the strained filling into the cooled pie crust and set it on the counter to cool for one hour, before covering loosely and refrigerating for at least 4 hours.
Serving Your Masterpiece
-Before serving, add the two cups of heavy whipping cream to a chilled bowl and add 4 tablespoons of sweetened cream of coconut. Whip until stiff peaks form
-Spoon over chilled pie and top with lime zest.
-Cut with a wet chef's knife and ENJOY
I don't know if I expect any of you to make this pie, but I do expect you to (presumably) click through past the email length cutoff to see some unsnackables.
the unsnackables
sweet
In the grand taxonomy of cooking methods, it is obvious that cooking on a spit does not get nearly enough respect for creating so many of the world's most delicious foods. Al Pastor, Rotisserie Chicken, Shawarma, and the shining highlight of the German-Japanese pastry cultural exchange- The Baumkuchen. A lightly sweetened cake, baked in whisper-thin layers on a rolling spit and served in slices thick enough to highlight the engineering prowess of the dessert. This frozen confection takes a miniature wheel of baumkuchen, soaks it in rum, and nestles it on top of a cozy bed of vanilla ice cream. It's all I've ever dreamed of.
savory
It is not odd for a dip made from green onions and queso crema to be popular in Argentina (because cream cheese is the unsung hero of the dip game). Or for that dip to be turned into a chip (because what is it if not the cousin of sour cream and onion)? But what gives me pause is how that flavor ended up as a chip offered by a store-brand snack line of a grocer based in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Someone must have rallied hard for that flavor and their passion has caught my eye.
thirsty
The flavor of pez is not a flavor, but a shape. Like socially acceptable pica, it is the closest you can get to tasting a brick. So if that logic holds, would the flavor of this juice box lean more towards “berry-brick” or “berry mortar”
boozy
So much of writing this newsletter is muscle memory. I had forgotten how rewarding it can be to let myself spiral via hyperlink and hashtag, till I find myself obsessed with something I hadn't heard of 30 minutes prior. This particular spiral left me somewhere between my understanding of a beverage said to be a cousin of palm wine and makgeolli but through the eyes of someone who is combining indigenous brewing traditions of Borneo with local teas to create something entirely new.
I’m still figuring this out, but hopefully, you enjoyed v.66 of unsnackable.
If you didn’t please don’t tell me, tell your friends to subscribe because they hopefully have better taste than you.
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