Experimenting with Potato Peeling Methods

I decided to try out a few unconventional methods for peeling potatoes using a tube with bottle caps attached to the top and then spinning it with a drill. The idea behind this method was that the sharp edges of the bottle caps would scrape off the potato peel. I put the lid on, spun it around, and dipped it into a bowl of potatoes. Unfortunately, the result was not what I had expected - the potato was still largely unpeeled.

I also experimented with using a plate to create a pattern on my cake. The idea behind this method was to cut a zigzag pattern out of the plate and use it as a stamp to apply a design to the side of the cake and top two slices. I watched a five-minute crafts video that demonstrated how to do this, but things didn't quite go as planned. The first time around, the pattern didn't transfer well to the cake, and the second attempt was no better. However, by repeating the process at the same spot several times, I was able to create a smoother design.

The host of the five-minute crafts video suggested using a plate to create patterns on cakes, but I found that it wasn't the best option for this task. A better hack would be to use an ice cream container lid instead, as it provides a much firmer surface and creates a sharper pattern on the cake. To achieve this, you can simply cut out the center of the lid and arrange some sugar into a number five shape. Then, turn on the heat and let it melt - once it's cooled, try to get it off the pan. Unfortunately, the result was that the sugar was stuck to the pan, had broken apart, and tasted burnt.

To create a sugar five for my cake, I would suggest using a different method altogether. First, put sugar into a pan and add enough water to make it wet - then turn on the heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Use a wet pastry brush to wash down the sides of the pan and remove any sugar crystals that may have formed. Once the sugar has reached a golden color, but before it turns burnt, pull it off the heat. Next, pour the sugar mixture onto a non-stick baking paper in the shape of a five - you should have enough there to create several. Let the sugar cool and harden, then peel it off the baking paper. With these steps, you can create a beautiful and durable sugar five for your cake.

Support from Patrons

The video I was watching also suggested using burnt sugar as a decoration on cakes, but this didn't quite work out in practice. The resulting piece of burnt sugar was not very appealing to look at or taste. In contrast, the methods outlined above can be used to create beautiful and functional decorations for your cakes. With thanks to my patrons who have supported me every month, I will continue to experiment with new recipes and decorating techniques and share them with you in future videos.

Competition and Cookbook Giveaways

To show appreciation for my patrons' support, I am excited to announce that there are still a few chances left to enter the competition to win a pair of Furi knives. These knives are highly regarded among chefs and home cooks alike, and would be a valuable addition to any kitchen. Additionally, I am offering pre-orders for my upcoming cookbook - this will be a unique opportunity to get your hands on some exclusive recipes and decorating techniques that can't be found anywhere else.

Make it a Great Week

I hope you enjoyed watching me experiment with different potato peeling methods and cake decorating techniques. Make sure to let the algorithm know by liking, commenting, sharing, subscribing, and watching more of my videos - every little bit helps! Don't forget to enter the competition to win those Furi knives and pre-order my cookbook. With these tools in your arsenal, you'll be well on your way to creating stunning cakes that will impress your friends and family. Make it a great week, and I'll see you on Friday!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enWelcome to How To Cook That I'm Ann Reardon and in this episode I will be debunking videos  that you guys sent me on twitter. Let's start with this one sent in by got beef, it says I  never knew this about the inside of oranges ... they're in the store with an orange on a drill  then they pull out a blow torch and heat the orange. Just not very long.  Then they turn off the blowtorch she tries to blow it out and they keep spinning the orange  for a while why are they even doing this? The centrifugal force is is pulling it down and  it's done something to the inside of this orange and you're going to see what it is.  Wow they made orange jelly hmm pretty impressive, let me just bring up the point about centrifugal  force she was saying that that was cooling the orange down and changing the inside of the orange.  Centrifugal force is an apparent force that appears to pull something away from the center  when it goes on a curved path. Really it's actually just the inertia keeping the object  on the path that was going rather than pulling away from the center but we call that apparent  force centrifugal force. We can demonstrate that by getting James to spin a bucket of water  over his head ... and as you can see he doesn't get wet because the force is  keeping the water on the path going round the circle so that it doesn't come down  on top of him. So what if we spin an orange well as you know oranges don't just have  juice inside as one bucket of water sort of thing they have lots of little sacks of juice so that'd  be a bit more like spinning say a bucket full of water balloons let's get james to do that as well.  He's such a good sport and as you can see the water balloons are not falling out and if we have  a look in the bucket at the end they are also not broken they've just stayed intact because they're  just lots of little sections. Now i think that if you spun the orange super super super fast like  ridiculously fast you could damage all those little membranes inside and maybe turn it into  juice but i don't think this is spinning fast enough for one and even if you did make juice  there's no reason for that to gel into jelly but as always let's test it out. I'm going  to hit it with a blowtorch for the same length of time as they did i'm not going to  show you the whole long process because they drew it out for as long as they could  obviously to get the long watch time and then i'm going to keep it spinning for the same  amount of time as they did and now after all that let's cut the orange in half and inside you have  a normal orange of course. But their video had 20 million views on facebook which means the  facebook algorithm is promoting that video and paying them to do dumb stuff like that. Now if  we go to the actual page that they uploaded it on and read the full description right down on  the fourth line it says this ... this was a funny magic trick we did in store as a joke.  I don't know i must have different humor to them but that information as i said was on the fourth  line which means it doesn't show anywhere that the video is it doesn't even show on the page  the videos on unless you click see more and most people don't even see that information.  This next video was sent in by morgan who says: this video is stupid and dangerous I want to see  what actually happens because I know it isn't factual. So she's picked up this is a fake  well done morgan, let's check it out. She puts strawberries and razor blades into a container I  can understand why he said it was dangerous and shakes them around for a minute and a half to  keep people watching for longer and then finally reveals perfectly diced strawberries! Well I agree  morgan this is not going to work but just for you I'm going to do it. Firstly hull the strawberries,  now I've got a knife and a chopping board out I could of course dice the strawberries while  i'm here but let's not do that let's do the hack. Add the razor blades to my strawberries put them  into a container add the lid start a timer for a minute and a half and start shaking.The razor blades are so thin that most of them are just sticking flat to the container's edge  as soon as there's any moisture they might as well not even be in there but i'll keep shaking  for the full time. As you can see now most of the razor blades are still stuck to the edges  and we have not diced the strawberries we've basically just smashed them against the sides  of the container and mixed them with the razor blades which we now need to find and take out.  There were eight of them so i just need to check one two three four five six seven there's another  one in there somewhere let me find that. now once again when you go to their actual facebook page so  you can see the full description and click see more so you can see that invisible fourth line  it says this page publishes videos are intended for entertainment purposes only this includes  scripted dramas satires parodies and magic tricks and i assume they think this comes under magic  tricks, you know what i think about that already. Anyway let's check out this next one this is from  Ozzies Delight on instagram and it also says it's a strawberry hack. When you get your strawberries  do not wash it just remove it from the pack that it comes with and store in any glass airtight  jar will do. I've had the strawberries going to two weeks and see how fresh they are. Let's test  that out and see if it works this one by the way has 27 views not 20 million views, 27 views, so  i'm going to make this fair by taking half of the strawberries from each punnett in case one punnett  was more fresh than the other they're both from the same store on the same day but just in case  and then i'll put all these other ones into the one punnet and put them both in the fridge. Nine  days later and the ones in the punnet look a bit dry and old and the ones in the jar still look  brand new plump and perfect. Now i think that that is the sort of hack that i'm looking for  hacks that actually work and are helpful to people so go give OZZIES DELIGHT i'll put a link to her  instagram post below go give her some love on instagram because you know the algorithm isn't  going to because it was helpful it wasn't rubbish. Anyway moving on next we have one from tik tok  that was sent to me quite a few times by quite a few of you and jen asks is there really enough  pectin in pears to make this work? basically they're mixing sparkling lemonade pears salt  and red vinegar bringing it to a boil and once it cools down they've got this jelly this pear jelly  thing going on. Now to answer your question jen no there's not enough pectin in one pair to set  that amount of liquid i think this is probably a matter of lost in translation i think they've got  one ingredient label wrong there but we'll make it their way first just to show you what happens  and then I'm gonna swap something out. Put the lemonade into a pan add a sliced pear some salt  red wine vinegar bring it to the boil and then pour that into a glass. Dave's gonna love that!  While that cools let me make another one with the same ingredients except as I said I'm going to  swap out one thing I'm going to take out the salt and swap that for agar powder now you need to boil  any solution that you add agar to in order for it to gel and I'm not adding vinegar to this one just  because i think it would taste nicer without it and it's going to make no difference to the  recipe. Let them both cool and then dave can be our taste tester 💕 Do I just drink it like this?No that was definitely an unexpected hit of seawater! This one is the same recipe one  ingredient different. Okay all right let's com-pear it. Yeah it's actually okay quite  nice quite fresh light pear flavored jelly good one. Now before we move on i just want to say  a huge thank you to everyone who has pre-ordered my dessert cookbook, I announced it in the last  episode and i was really nervous i said to Dave what if nobody actually wants to buy my cookbook  that i've spent a year writing and then i put the video up and all i could see was these comments of  going i've pre-ordered your book i've pre-ordered your book and i was so blessed that was just  lovely it was the best thing and then i went to bed and then in the  morning i woke up to this ... it was sitting at number one best seller in  baking cookbooks in the US and number one in books overall on amazon in Australia which was just  crazy! You guys you literally blew me away 💕 So to say thank you I want to run a competition for  everyone who pre-orders the book if you haven't already pre-ordered it's not too late you can do  that just go to your bookstore that you'd normally order from online and type in Ann Reardon and  search for that. I've had lots of questions about the quantities, it's in grams and ounces and cups  and centimeters and inches and Fahrenheit and centigrade everyone is covered everything is  written both ways so that everybody knows what they're doing and you don't have to convert  anything! So hopefully that's good for all of you make sure you pre-order and then when you do I'll  put a link to the entry form just underneath this video and you can go and enter to win yourself...one of these amazing Furi knife sets it's got all these knives plus that one that's there  that's still in the box that i didn't take out and this unbelievable knife block which i just  love. It's wood and it's got magnets in there so the knives just sit like that you can either  have them on the outside or you can put them on the inside i just prefer them on the outside so  i can see what knives i'm grabbing quickly and easily so there's one of those and there are also  five of these beautiful sets as well to give away so what you need to do is just pre-order the book  go to the link below to get to the competition page and enter for your chance to win one of those  prizes, there's more stuff coming up for people who pre-order as well and i'll announce those in  future videos just thank you so much and for those of you who wanted to know what's in the book it's  a dessert cookbook and there's a chapter on ice creams there's chapter on fun, easy desserts,  pastries, chocolate desserts of course artistic desserts there's heaps in there and each chapter  has its own introduction which is a food science introduction which explains the science behind  what you're baking so you can get perfect results every time! Okay next video this is another tik  tok one and this is showing us how to cook steak in a toaster ... now i assume that this probably  should be possible i mean the toaster is a heat source so it should work but the question is  why and also is it going to be food safe to then use that toaster again for anything else so let's  check it out. Now i set a timer on my phone so i could see how long it took and after 20 minutes of  repeatedly putting it down the stake was finally hot enough for the rare setting on my thermometer  and the whole toaster was hot to touch i don't think it's supposed to be on for that long.  Now i couldn't get it out using (silicon) tongs so i had to unplug it and then use  a fork so never use a fork if it's plugged in obviously and then let's see what it's like.  It's a bit tough the knife makes this look tender but trust me it's not,  the knife is just super sharp. Now my main concern is not for the steak it's for the toaster  the tray has uncooked meat juice on it which can have a bacteria and i can wash that tray  but i can't wash the inside of the toaster itself which also has meat juice in it. Now instead of  going down the path that most tik tokers seem to do when they're criticized about a food video  they make they just say this was for entertainment purposes only and they add that somewhere in the  fourth line or below of their description juliette chose not to do that apparently  in an interview with insider she said this: I recommend more people cook with their toaster  my toaster did survive i just cooked shrimp yesterday in my toaster and it grilled it  perfectly. Well i would suggest you don't do that people and i don't have a stove or an oven only a  coffee maker toaster and hair straightener my boyfriend wanted steak for dinner so i  popped the steak in the toaster. I find that very interesting that insider didn't follow that up by  watching her other videos because in this video it appears like she has a stovetop and an oven. Now  fair enough she could be in a different kitchen but if we look at the benchtop in this one it  looks surprisingly similar to the benchtop in the toaster with the steak video. Okay moving on this  is called parasites in pork don't like pepsi. They basically get pepsi and pour it onto their pork  and then they say these are little worms and if we fast forward.  Oh gross! Let me try putting pepsi on pork the things we do and let's see what happens  pour on the pepsi and then let's zoom in and see if anything comes out. Oh look at that  wow so there's another one ... why is this happening let me zoom out and show you why that's  happening. I have a needle going through the paper plate and into the pork sitting just under the  surface so i can press out the fat on top and it can look a little bit like a worm but it's not a  worm it's just white fat. Personally i think that this prank is one of the more dangerous ones to  be shared around the internet and the reason for that is because pork parasites are a real thing,  the most commonly known one would be trichonella which can cause trichonellosis. what happens if  you eat meat that is infected with the triconella larvae is when you eat it and the meat gets  digested the larvae gets released from the meat it sits in your intestine for a couple of days and  grows to full size in that time you can get nausea and vomiting and diarrhea and feel quite unwell  but then that larvae travels in your bloodstream and gets into your muscle tissues where it can  cause an immune response and swelling particularly around the eye area and depending where they go to  it can cause very serious illnesses and muscle pain and can make you sick for months so they're  showing how to test if your pork has this parasite but it's the wrong test! This is not going to  work you could have trichonella larvae in your meat pour pepsi on it and you will not see it,  if you want to know if it's in your meat what you need to do which is what they do here in Australia  and they do in the US before the meat gets to the market so they know if you're buying pork  at the shops it's very very unlikely in the US or australia to have this in it they have to puree  the meat up then they digest it using stomach acid which is a lot stronger than your pepsi or your  coke and then they keep it warm and agitate it for about 20 minutes to digest that meat. They then  pour it into different beakers just to concentrate it down and now that fluid there you can see you  can't see any worms in it with the naked eye because the larvae are tiny they put it under  a microscope and there you go now you can see the little trickinella larvae that were there in that  meat but you would not be able to see it with your naked eye even if the pepsi could digest the meat  you will not see it just looking at it, so by saying to someone you can test your meat this way  that's not a good thing. There are countries where this is a big issue and also for people  if you're in the US the number one cause of people getting it there is people hunting their  own meat particularly bears or wild boar and then eating it. So if you think you can test your meat  this is not going to work for you. So what you need to do is cook it really really well because  heat is going to kill it there's no rare steaks! What's next? Five minute craft says if we put  potatoes into a tube with bottle caps attached to the top and then spin it with a drill the potato  will be peeled okay let's try that out put the lid on spin it around and dip it out and of course our  potatoes are not peeled at all. Bottle caps are sharp enough that they could scrape off the potato  peel perhaps if they were all around the inside of the tube rather than just on the lid but they'd  be tiny little scrapings not big peelings you get when you peel it with a potato peeler. I was also  sent this five minute crafts video as well where they get a plate and they cut a zigzag pattern out  of the plate and they use it to put a pattern on the side of the cake and on the top two but then  all of a sudden the pattern goes from the really small zigzags that were on our paper to these huge  zags that are now on the cake and they add sprinkles on top. Now i'm not sure why they  faked this because technically it should work it's just icing and it's just a piece of cardboard it  wouldn't be my first choice for what to use if you didn't have a proper cake scraper  but let's try it and see if we can get it to work ... it's not great the first time around but if  i repeat it at the same spot a few times we can make it smoother. A better hack would be to cut an  ice cream container lid because it's much firmer it's not as flimsy as the plate and it gives you  a much sharper pattern on the cake. You will need to go across it several times so here is the side  done with the paper plate and here is the side done with the ice cream lid, i'll just quickly  run the ice cream lid the whole way around the cake so that it is even and there we go,  done. Michelle thank you for sending in this next one also by five minute crafts they put  sugar into a fry pan and turn on the heat and that looks burnt and then they put a different  looking number five on top of the cake let's look at those side by side 🧐 This is not the  method i would use to make a sugar five at all but i will do it their way and see what happens.  Arrange some sugar into a number five shape turn on the heat and let it melt then once it's cold  try and get it off the pan, now it is of course stuck because sugar really sticks to things well  and it has broken. If you look at the pieces anyway it is quite dark and if i taste it it  tastes burnt. Now here is how i would suggest you do that if you want a sugar number on top of your  cake put sugar into a pan and add enough water to make it wet then turn on the heat and stir until  the sugar is dissolved wash down the sides of the pan using a wet pastry brush this is important to  get any sugar crystals off the sides and then let it boil unstirred until it's just starting to turn  golden it goes from golden to burnt very quickly so pull it off the heat. now pour that onto a  non-stick baking paper in the shape of a five you should have enough there to make a few so you can  choose your favorite one. once it's cool it just peels off the baking paper and you can add it to  the top of your cake. With thanks to my patrons for your support every month here is a list of  absolute legends if you liked this video make sure you let the algorithm know by liking commenting  sharing subscribing and watching more of my videos don't forget to enter the competition to win the  Furi knives and pre-order my cookbook so exciting! Make it a great week and I'll see you on friday 😁\n"