Casey Barber and Classic Snacks Made From Scratch Giveaway!
This week my friend Casey Barber of good.food.stories is joining me to chat about her new book, Classic Snacks Made from Scratch. I mean, who couldn’t love a book like that?!! If I wasn’t concentrating on losing the baby weight I think I might work my way from beginning to end without a second thought. Everything looks delicious and harkens back to those alluring snacks of my childhood.
1) You did an amazing job rounding up all the classic snacks in this book. Were there a lot of these in your house growing up? How did you compile such a list?
Though my parents did their best to keep my sister and I in the realm of Grape-Nuts and whole wheat bread, my grandparents had no such compunction. Their freezer was always stocked with Pudding Pops, their fridge held treasures like three-layered Jell-O… according to family lore, any time I arrived at their house, I declared, “I would like to have something sweet!”
Putting together the list was fun and fairly easy—I brainstormed all my favorite snacks from my youth, asked my friends what their most requested (or most infamous) snacks would be, and combed the aisles of my local grocery stores with a notepad!
2) What do you think is the biggest difference between these classic snacks when they are made in a home kitchen versus the kinds we find on store shelves?
The biggest difference—and this isn’t necessarily a bad difference—is that there is a particular chemical aftertaste that I just couldn’t replicate in some snacks. You know how Twinkies would coat the inside of your mouth with a layer of sickly sweetness? Yeah, I couldn’t make that happen. But the best part about these snacks is that you can completely customize them to your liking. I’ve had people doing Milano cookies in orange as well as mint, people making Twinkie cupcakes; it’s really cool to see how everyone interprets the snacks.
3) How was the process of creating and testing each recipe? I imagine it took a lot of work since people expect these to taste just like the real deal they find at the store! No pressure there… 🙂
The process of creating each recipe started the same way: by buying the processed, packaged version of the snack in question, then dismantling and dissecting each component in my kitchen (pulling apart Oatmeal Crème Pies, cutting open Totino’s pizza rolls) to dial down to the essential flavors and textures of each snack. Sometimes it was easy to figure out that, for example, a Nutter Butter is essentially a frosting-filled peanut butter shortbread cookie, but other recipes took a lot of time. Nailing down the particular wheaty sweetness of a Wheat Thin was a big challenge.
4) Which one of these snacks has a Proustian effect on you? (For me it would be Sno-balls. So completely off limits in our house…oh the memories of buying them at the local five and dime and savoring them in my friend’s treehouse on sticky summer days praying we wouldn’t get caught!)
So funny – Sno-Balls were one of my favorites too, though revisiting them as an adult made me realize just how creepy that outer marshmallow layer is in the way it peels away from the cake inside. It’s just so… ALIEN. Funyuns were a big rediscovery; I have such fond memories of crunching into them while wasting time at the local pool, preferably alongside one of the snack bar’s crispy, buttery grilled cheese sandwiches. I probably should have only purchased a snack-size bag when researching them for the book, but I ended up eating the whole full-size bag in a matter of days. Couldn’t stop!
5) Are there any newer classic snacks you didn’t include in this book? When I shop with my daughter I am amazed at the amount of newer snack foods that have come out since we were kids!
You can probably tell just by looking at the table of contents that I’m a child of the ‘80s. I don’t understand these new snacks; like, when and why did they decide to make Fruit Roll-Ups green or blue? They were perfectly fine in regular fruit colors! Actually, I would have liked to include some even weirder snacks like Fun Fruits (remember those?) and sugar wafers, or drinks like Ecto Cooler in the book, but developing and testing 70 snack recipes was more than enough work.
6) What were some of your favorite moments from the writing and production of this book?
Honestly, some of the best moments were getting feedback from my testers, all of whom were home cooks with varying degrees of skill, and hearing how happy, successful, and empowered they were by trying the recipes. I had people deep-frying, boiling sugar and making marshmallows, tempering and enrobing chocolate, shaping and baking pretzels—all of these things that they’d never tried or thought they could do and they all pulled it off!
7) What is next for you? I vote for a Classic Snacks vol 2!
I don’t think I can put my mind and stomach through the process of recreating any more classic snacks for at least a year—the number of Twinkies I’ve been making for my book events is reinforcing my decision to move away from the snack recipe development for a while! I’m still trying to pin down my next book topic; I love baking as much as I love cooking savory food, so it could be anything.
Images by Judi Swinks. Used with permission.
To Enter to Win A Copy of Classic Snacks Made from Scratch:
1. Leave a comment below sharing your favorite classic snack!
2. Subscribe to Kelsey Banfield on Facebook.
3. Contest runs from March 19th at 7:00am ET through March 26th. Winner will be announced in the March 29th newsletter!
Hostess cupcakes… OOOOH, now that’s all I can think of 🙁
I could save a fortune if I knew how to make swiss rolls. ; )
In this house it’s goldfish!
I used to love funny bones and peanut butter kandy kakes from tasty cake.
My favorite classic snack is Ritz crackers. Love them!
I loved snowballs! I still do, but don’t eat them as much as I did as a kid.
I do subscribe to Kelsey Banfield too!
I loved Zebra cakes as a kid!
I’m subscribed on facebook!
Oatmeal Cream Pies (oatmeal sandwich cookiesby Hostess, I think). Also, we loved Nilla wafers!
Hostess Pies or Ding dongs
I am subscribed on Facebook and my favorite childhood snack is the Little Debbie Zebra Cakes
Nilla Wafers or Newman’s Own Mint Oreo Cookies! I am subscribed on FB.
Subscribed on facebook…raspberry fig newtons
Nutty Bars, mmmmmm!
I love cheezits! I would love to be able to make them myself from real ingredients.
I am a facebook fan.
Loved nutty bars!
Oatmeal cream pies!
I love moon pies!
I subscribe to Kelsey Banfield on Facebook.
My favorite classic snack is Nilla Wafers!
I am subscribed to Kelsey Banfield on Facebook
I like Twinkies
Like you on FB
Poptarts!
I loved a treat my mom would make us…. Melt a bit of butter in a sauce pan, stir in a splash of worcestershire sauce, and then saute Cheerios. It was heaven to eat it while watching the Muppet Show! It just doesn’t taste the same now as it did then because it seems Cheerios changed their recipe 🙁
I have always loved twinkies!
I am a FB subscriber
Devil Dogs!!
I am a FB follower of The Naptime Chef.
My husband loves twinkies and I love little Debbie brownies. I’m a fan./follower.
I like the look of those Hostess Cupcakes; I wonder does she make a Moon Pie in that book? I have been so fascinated by it and wanting to buy it.
I subscribe to Kelsey Banfield on Facebook as Margot Core
I love Swiss Rolls, yummy!
I already subscribe to Kelsey Banfield on Facebook.
My fav is pop tarts!
I’m you fan on FB! (christina cosman)
My fav is pop tarts! 🙂
I love those little lemon hand pies!
I love pop tarts and anything hostess
I am a FB subscriber
My favorite classic snack is Combo’s!!
my favorite classic snack? must be animal crackers! those are the best and I love to make them for my kiddos! 🙂
hi where do you get your recipes for animal crackers? tell me pls.thnx
on my blog, http://www.acookingmizer.com/2012/11/01/spooky-circus-animal-cookies/
I subscribe to your lovely newsletter!
“Twinkies!”
Thanks, Cindi
jchoppes[at]hotmail[dot]com
I follow you via Facebook…
Again, thanks!
Cindi
Cindi Hoppes
jchoppes[at]hotmail[dot]com
follow on facebook
snowballs
I love peanut butter & apples!!
i wuv wafers.:) escpically the strawberry ones. I subscired on FB with problems tho.sory about the teribble spelling.something is wrong with fingers…………………….