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Baking with ketchup


momlovestocook

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So I'm watching my local lunch time news program and see a cooking segment. I watch for a few minutes and it's someone from heinz it up making apple pie with ketchup. The poor host looked scared to take a bite LOL. She was surprised you could not taste the ketchup. Apple pie with ketchup recipe here.

Anyone brave enough to try it? I know I will not be adding ketchup to my apple pies this week. I noticed a recipe for chocolate cookies as well.

Now maybe if they come out with a recipe to add ketchup to fruit and veggies my 7 year old will eat them LOL.

Sandra

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My first reaction is, of course, EEEEEEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUUUWWWW!

But when you think about it, ketchup is mostly sugar (or high fructose corn syrup) with vinegar and spices anyway. I'd bet that if you tasted several blindfolded, you would have a hard time detecting any tomato at all.

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I've done tomato sorbet, so why not use ketchup? As NSM points out, it's more of a sweet/tart/spicy flavor anyway. Baskin-Robbins Ketchup Swirl, anyone? :rolleyes:

But just think of all those food scientists in R&D, working hard to find more ways to use the product, so that the company can sell more. :shock: It's possible they could come up with something that's actually good . . .

but I doubt it.

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This reminds me of a dear friend who passed away many years ago and who made the best cranberry sauce. She always added 1/2 a cup of ketchup to her cranberry sauce.

(1 package of fresh berries, 1 naval orange, finely chopped whole, skin and all, 1 1/2 cups sugar in a sauce pan with 1 cup of water, cook till berries pop then stir in the ketchup).

It was very good. I haven't thought about this for years. Thanks so much, it brought back a fond memory.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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I think during earlier discussions of the stuff, we discovered that (besides tomato and vinegar) the main flavoring seems to be allspice. Allspice is not out of place in a fruit pie, so the tartness of the vinegar, and the different sweetness of the tomato are not really out of place either. I'd think it was a very thin line though. It would probably be very easy to overdo it. Like nutmeg.

Screw it. It's a Butterball.
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Sounds fun to me. I love funky stuff like this. Last week in my food writing class we made a dip to go with celery sticks made of peanut butter with a spicy asian twist. Lots of garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes. Great stuff. (Which reminds me I need to do my homework of writing the recipe we watched her make.) Now, I'm thinking of a thread asking people for funky peanut butter recipes. The stranger the ingredient, the more interesting the recipe as far as I'm concerned.

Pamela Wilkinson

www.portlandfood.org

Life is a rush into the unknown. You can duck down and hope nothing hits you, or you can stand tall, show it your teeth and say "Dish it up, Baby, and don't skimp on the jalapeños."

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The poor host looked scared to take a bite LOL. She was surprised you could not taste the ketchup.

I guess the question is, does the ketchup make a superior pie, or is it just a substitute for not having the spices on hand other than cinnamon? Of course, the reason the recipe exists is to sell more ketchup.....we all know that. Anyone ever try that Ritz Cracker Mock Apple Pie? I did.

Doesn't even come close to the real thing.....and what's weird is it's more expensive to buy a couple boxes of Ritz than a couple of Granny Smith apples! :raz:

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!

But when you think about it, ketchup is mostly sugar (or high fructose corn syrup) with vinegar and spices anyway. I'd bet that if you tasted several blindfolded, you would have a hard time detecting any tomato at all.

True enough, perhaps. But still.... there's a principle here. Whether it can be perceived or not by the average taster is besides the point. Heinz ketchup does nothing asthetically for an ingredient list.

Now, let's not get into the baking with real ketchup versus "imitation ketchup flavor" discussion LOL

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Anyone ever try that Ritz Cracker Mock Apple Pie? I did.

Doesn't even come close to the real thing.....and what's weird is it's more expensive to buy a couple boxes of Ritz than a couple of Granny Smith apples! :raz:

Funny, that was the first thing I thought of when I first started reading this thread. I remember that recipe on the back of those boxes. I grew up loving Ritz with peanut utter and jelly spread on them! I always wondered how the heck they came up with that recipe!

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The most basic recommendation I will offer on this topic, is that you should use either a housemade ketchup (I usually make my own at home) or buy a very good organic brand product (such as Muir Glen).

An exec chef, in whose kitchen I had worked, was a great conversationalist who often shared anecdotes of his travels & food-stylist jobs (for corporate accounts... such as when he and a partner cooked several hundred pounds of French fries in order to achieve one small, faultless packaging photo). One afternoon he told me about one of the "grossest things" he had ever seen: A delivery truck, bearing a shipment of tomatoes, arriving at a Heinz processing plant. Not laden with freshly picked, vine-ripened tomatoes, mind you, but the foulest, rotten heap of tomatoes that ought to have been dumped into the compost bin. Chef remarked that, if it weren't for the sterilizing & preservative effects of the vinegar, no one would dare to eat the stuff. As pastry cooks, we must proudly advocate the purchase & use of top-grade ingredients. We and our clientele invariably deserve the best provender.

Edited by Redsugar (log)

"Dinner is theater. Ah, but dessert is the fireworks!" ~ Paul Bocuse

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