Pop Rocks

[Tri2Cook]

What if I put the "pop rocks" on the creme brulee after it was cooked and cooled down, right when I put the sugar on it to caramelize with a torch?

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They're sugar, they'll melt along with the rest of the sugar under the torch.

I seriously doubt the coated ones would survive being baked in a custard, the cocoa butter would melt as soon as they were warm and... that's all folks. I think your best bet for using them with creme brulee is to sprinkle them on top of the sugar post-torch after it cools for a few seconds and don't worry about hiding them. If the sugar has cooled a little but is still sticky they might stick to it and become part of it the sugar crust as it hardens which would disguise them a little.

You could go with a non-traditional creme brulee cooked on the stove then mix in coated pop rocks after it cools and before chilling but even that wouldn't work with the uncoated rocks.

Edit: Something that I just thought of. What if you were to mix pop rocks with white chocolate, spread it thin, let it crystallize and break it up into small pieces then mix them in to a cooled, stovetop custard. Then you could spoon it into whatever you serve your brulees in, chill them, sugar and torch them.

Edited May 13, 2009 by Tri2Cook (log)

[Chefb28]

What if I put the "pop rocks" on the creme brulee after it was cooked and cooled down, right when I put the sugar on it to caramelize with a torch?

←

They're sugar, they'll melt along with the rest of the sugar under the torch.

I seriously doubt the coated ones would survive being baked in a custard, the cocoa butter would melt as soon as they were warm and... that's all folks. I think your best bet for using them with creme brulee is to sprinkle them on top of the sugar post-torch after it cools for a few seconds and don't worry about hiding them. If the sugar has cooled a little but is still sticky they might stick to it and become part of it the sugar crust as it hardens which would disguise them a little.

You could go with a non-traditional creme brulee cooked on the stove then mix in coated pop rocks after it cools and before chilling but even that wouldn't work with the uncoated rocks.

Edit: Something that I just thought of. What if you were to mix pop rocks with white chocolate, spread it thin, let it crystallize and break it up into small pieces then mix them in to a cooled, stovetop custard. Then you could spoon it into whatever you serve your brulees in, chill them, sugar and torch them.

←

That's a really good idea I'll have to try it out. I'll probably sprinkle them on right after I blast the suger with a tourch, just to see what happens. Thanks

[Mette]

just bumping this topic...

I got carried away at the gourmet wholesalers and bought a jar of Texturas Fizzy - I want to make some kind of bark with them (mixed w freeze dried raspberries) - any experience on how long they will stay fizzy if completely coated with choc?

Thanks

[Kerry Beal]

just bumping this topic...

I got carried away at the gourmet wholesalers and bought a jar of Texturas Fizzy - I want to make some kind of bark with them (mixed w freeze dried raspberries) - any experience on how long they will stay fizzy if completely coated with choc?

Thanks

Almost indefinitely.

[lambrecht gourmet]

I know pop rocks in chocolate is the latest fad, but I want to make some for a young adult group who would love them. However, I tried using them (they came out with a peppermint flavor this year) in a white chocolate ganache and while it tasted fine, they didn't "pop" at all. Anyone have tips or recipes they could share?

[mkayahara]

I know pop rocks in chocolate is the latest fad, but I want to make some for a young adult group who would love them. However, I tried using them (they came out with a peppermint flavor this year) in a white chocolate ganache and while it tasted fine, they didn't "pop" at all. Anyone have tips or recipes they could share?

Keep in mind that pop rocks dissolve in water and water-based liquids; the reason they work so well with chocolate is that chocolate is a fat. Ganache has a lot of water in it - presumably enough to dissolve the pop rocks. You might try coating them in cocoa butter (or pure white chocolate), letting that harden, then incorporating them into the ganache that way. The cocoa butter will provide a moisture barrier that will prevent them from dissolving.

[pastryani]

Reviving this thread because I've got to make bonbons with a fizzy/popping component to them.  I was thinking about adding pop rocks, and after reading here it seems that mixing them with ganache is definitely not the way to go since  there's too much free water in ganache.  The workaround seems to be coating them with fat (cocoa butter).  What is the best way to do this - spraying with an air brush or panning?  If it's the latter, would the coating of cocoa butter be too thick?

 

Alternatively, if I didn't spray with cocoa butter, would it work if I filled a dome mold 1/2 way with pop rocks and then followed that with a thin layer of chocolate as a barrier before adding the ganache?

 

Someone also mentioned something called "texturas fizzy", and there's also a "texturas sparkey".  I haven't used either of these these before - does anyone have any experience using them?  If so, which is better?  Would the fizzy be weird with chocolate and feel like you're eating your chocolate with a tablet of "eno" fruit salt?   

 

 

 

[paulraphael]

My hunch is that cocoa butter would do the trick. I've used pop rocks in various takes on Heston Blumenthal's "exploding cake," where they go into a no-bake pastry shell made from butter and ground up sugar cookies. They pastry keeps its popping action for a few days, with the butter isolating the poppers from whatever ganache or fruit I put on top. I always brown the butter, for more flavor and to get rid of all the free water.

 

This method has always worked, although sometimes there seems to be twice as much popping action as other times. I think the pop rocks have to be used fresh. I seal them in their foil pouch after using, and store in the freezer, but they still seem to lose their mojo after a few weeks. 

 

BTW, I've only used the ones sold by Modernist Pantry as "culinary crystals popping candy." I don't think MP is a manufacturer, so it's possible that these have the same origin as the ones everyone's been discussing.

 

 

 

[Tri2Cook]

Mixing them with just enough chocolate to coat them and dumping them in the shell works, as does the barrier you mentioned. I've done both of those. I've used them in mixtures of chocolate and nut pastes or butters with no problems but that was in pastry applications where they didn't need more than 24 hours hold time so I have no idea how long they could have lasted. I'm sure the spraying would work but I've never actually done it. Panning them would probably do it as well but I don't have the proper equipment to try that one. I haven't worked with them in a while, I was too slow in using the last bag I bought and not careful enough with storage... about half of it morphed into a large lump.

[pastryani]

On July 5, 2017 at 8:25 AM, paulraphael said:

I seal them in their foil pouch after using, and store in the freezer, but they still seem to lose their mojo after a few weeks. 

 

Thanks @paulraphael and @Tri2Cook.  Is the freezer the recommended place for storage?  I would think that there'd be far too much moisture in there.  In any case it sounds like you should get only as much as you need because they don't keep well.

 

If anyone here has used the Texturas products, I'd be interested to know what you think about them:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Texturas-Ferran-Effervescent-Molecular-Gastronomy/dp/B00KA0V0PY/ref=pd_sim_325_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00KA0V0PY&pd_rd_r=TT1ZMVBNR4EBX51PRWGX&pd_rd_w=m2P7p&pd_rd_wg=DzG3l&psc=1&refRID=TT1ZMVBNR4EBX51PRWGX

 

https://www.amazon.com/Texturas-Sparkys-Popping-Molecular-Gastronomy/dp/B00KDJU1XE/ref=pd_sim_325_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00KDJU1XE&pd_rd_r=AREE7B9PX4XPMD0AKN1R&pd_rd_w=9cLuM&pd_rd_wg=bFbS5&psc=1&refRID=AREE7B9PX4XPMD0AKN1R

[Tri2Cook]

They seem to keep fine at average room temp as long as you keep the bag sealed. I just wasn't using them as often as I thought I might so they were around far longer than they should have been and not in the best room I could have chosen for storage. It's no fault of the pop rocks that I wound up with a big lump of sugar, that was completely on me.

[Kerry Beal]

2 hours ago, pastryani said:

 

Thanks @paulraphael and @Tri2Cook.  Is the freezer the recommended place for storage?  I would think that there'd be far too much moisture in there.  In any case it sounds like you should get only as much as you need because they don't keep well.

 

If anyone here has used the Texturas products, I'd be interested to know what you think about them:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Texturas-Ferran-Effervescent-Molecular-Gastronomy/dp/B00KA0V0PY/ref=pd_sim_325_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00KA0V0PY&pd_rd_r=TT1ZMVBNR4EBX51PRWGX&pd_rd_w=m2P7p&pd_rd_wg=DzG3l&psc=1&refRID=TT1ZMVBNR4EBX51PRWGX

 

https://www.amazon.com/Texturas-Sparkys-Popping-Molecular-Gastronomy/dp/B00KDJU1XE/ref=pd_sim_325_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00KDJU1XE&pd_rd_r=AREE7B9PX4XPMD0AKN1R&pd_rd_w=9cLuM&pd_rd_wg=bFbS5&psc=1&refRID=AREE7B9PX4XPMD0AKN1R

I have a couple of Texturas products - one is the violet stuff. Both big lumps now. 

 

But I can't tell by reading the descriptions which of those are poprocks and how the other one differs. 

 

Sosa sells unflavoured poprocks - Peta Crispy - coated and uncoated. I have a bottle of the uncoated - they have an inner seal and a lid. I keep them at room temperature.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Kerry Beal (log)

[JeanneCake]

We used pop rocks in a frozen dessert (sort of) a few years ago; I bought plain ones from Chef Rubber (outrageously priced I might add) and then coated some in cocoa butter. The chef made lime pops (frozen lime curd on a stick, basically) and these small pops were half-dipped in white chocolate and the pop rocks sprinkled on quickly before the choc set. Not so much bang for the buck, if you ask me ;)!

[paulraphael]

On 7/7/2017 at 4:42 AM, pastryani said:

 

Thanks @paulraphael and @Tri2Cook.  Is the freezer the recommended place for storage?  I would think that there'd be far too much moisture in there.  In any case it sounds like you should get only as much as you need because they don't keep well.

 

I don't think humidity in the freezer is an issue, since the rocks are sealed in the foil. But lower temperatures slow chemical reactions, and frozen water migrates more slowly than liquid water ... so my assumptions is that the freezer would be better for longterm storage than the pantry. That said ... mine still didn't last too many months.

 

Edited to add ...

I think the freezer or fridge would be a bad place for storing a big pile of pop rocks if you were planning to take them out and use them frequently. For the same reason cold storage is bad for coffee beans. Every time you pull them out and open the bag, you'd be condensing moisture from the air onto the rocks and the inside of the envelope. 

Edited July 15, 2017 by paulraphael (log)

[GlorifiedRice]

On 7/5/2017 at 1:44 AM, pastryani said:

Reviving this thread because I've got to make bonbons with a fizzy/popping component to them.  I was thinking about adding pop rocks, and after reading here it seems that mixing them with ganache is definitely not the way to go since  there's too much free water in ganache.  The workaround seems to be coating them with fat (cocoa butter).  What is the best way to do this - spraying with an air brush or panning?  If it's the latter, would the coating of cocoa butter be too thick?

 

Alternatively, if I didn't spray with cocoa butter, would it work if I filled a dome mold 1/2 way with pop rocks and then followed that with a thin layer of chocolate as a barrier before adding the ganache?

 

Someone also mentioned something called "texturas fizzy", and there's also a "texturas sparkey".  I haven't used either of these these before - does anyone have any experience using them?  If so, which is better?  Would the fizzy be weird with chocolate and feel like you're eating your chocolate with a tablet of "eno" fruit salt?   

 

 

Oreo put poprocks in its filling.