- Right. No.
What the fudge? Oh my goodness.
(bright music)
Hello everybody. It's Barry here.
Hope you are well, wherever you are in the world.
Welcome to our kitchen today.
We're trying to do homemade juice balloons.
Juice balloons? All being well it'll be juice balloons.
It'll be hot chocolate, a cocktail one,
and then maybe a bonus scene right at the end.
It's because we're gonna do something called spherification.
Yeah, you might remember,
got hold of a tool called a Spherificator.
Spherificator. That we made some different flavoured caviars.
And that was a machine that kind of did it all for you.
It fell into a solution and these little bubbles appeared.
They look sensational.
Pioneered by Ferran Adria and his team of development chefs
at his famous El Bulli restaurant,
spherification is a process which allows
for the controlled jellification of a liquid,
transforming it into a sphere with a thin gel membrane.
So by hopping online and getting some sodium alginate
and some calcium lactate,
these together with our fluid of choice can help make
these jelly spherical things of delight that we can,
perfectly food safe, pop in our mouth and eat our drink.
So apparently we're gonna need a quarter of a teaspoon
of this sodium alginate, AKA 1.25 grammes.
I was gonna eat that then. (Barry laughs)
And one teaspoon of the calcium lactate.
Some chilled, smooth, so no bits orange juice, all right.
It's been in the fridge overnight. It's nice and cold.
This is what we're gonna sphere.
And if we do this right, it shouldn't be as fluid as that
in a little while.
Because in comes the sodium alginate.
Just a quarter of a teaspoon.
And then this thing.
(funky music) (blender whirring)
That is a lot of bubbles.
Apparently we should let these bubbles disperse
and it's gonna thicken it up.
Right now I'm thinking, what? All right.
Next, we take a second bowl. Slightly larger.
500. Oh my gosh, it was 500ml cold water.
And now it's the turn of the teaspoon of calcium lactate.
And why does this remind me of when I tried
to do a swimming pool for the kids, putting the chlorine in.
That became the bane of my life.
Like, monitoring chlorine levels was crazy.
(whisk whirring)
Right. I am extremely happy with that.
If it wasn't for it slightly collecting at the bottom there,
I wouldn't know that this was just a mixing bowl
full of water.
So this is the third and final bowl.
It's a large one that we basically just fill with water
and stick a sieve in it.
Apparently this is optional, but it will help scoop it out.
So what's gonna happen
is when we do the other two mixes together,
a chemical reaction will happen.
But by putting it into the water here
just the standard water, it'll clean it
and also stop that reaction happening
where hopefully we'll have our juice sphere.
So I'm not perfectly confident.
I'm having some major sphere and doubt about this.
If it doesn't, we'll just keep blooming well trying.
Let's check on those bubbles.
All right, here we go. It's a bit more jelly-like.
But there is a foam on the top.
Now, I dunno if you've ever been to those posh restaurants
where they serve like that edible foam stuff.
These chemicals apparently we've bought, these chemicals,
apparently you can use them to do that too.
So if any of you guys got any tips on that
that could be a future video.
I've got some pretty corns coming up along this theme.
You'd think with all the kitchen tools in the house
that I would have a larger spherical measuring spoon.
Now the tablespoon one has generally gone missing.
We can't find it.
So we'll go down into this mixture
and I'm actually gonna submerge
the whole thing in the water.
(peaceful music)
Right, it says to move it around the mixture
for a couple of minutes.
But that doesn't look very spherical to me.
We'll see what happens with that.
Apparently it is all about trial and error.
So we might generally end up with like little edible clouds.
But it's been in there three minutes now
so let's try and get this thing out.
Ah no, that has completely dispersed.
Look at that. Oh my gosh.
(Barry laughs)
That is majorly disappointing.
I was expecting it to hit it and just be like,
yeah, I'm a sphere.
Wow. Well, I've got enough mix to keep going.
Oh, come on.
(upbeat music)
It's falling apart. They look like icebergs.
They don't look round at all.
Ah, look, no, it's just dispersing. No!
All right, I'm now trying the website, wikiHow
which is legendary just for the photos alone
but this has a different ratio of water.
So I do wonder if I over diluted some of these mixtures.
Let's try again, but this time with water.
We might make an edible water bottle.
(Barry laughs)
Folks, the first thing, my confidence is complete shattered
with this so far.
Down there I've got some Bacardi, I've got some lemons.
I was gonna do like a Mojito.
We we're gonna get crazy with this.
But right now, all I'm thinking
is if I can just nail an edible water bottle,
that's a start.
And then maybe we'll do the Mojito actually.
I might need one after this.
My expectations have gone downhill.
H2O, Baby. Alginate.
(blender whirring)
Let's see what happens.
Translation. What the heck is going on?
That looks completely different texture than the other one.
This one's actually different in the why,
like so much transparency.
It's telling me to put 950ml of water
which is actually in my opinion more diluted
which I thought would be the polar opposite.
I thought it would be more of this.
(blender whirring)
All right. We'll stick with that.
I just had to check. Yes, this is genuinely food grade.
I am feeling really unsure about this.
This one does a bit differently.
It says to take a deep spoon such as a ladle
and scoop up some of the mixture,
hold the spoon over the surface of the lactate,
then carefully tip its contents in.
Do not overcrowd the bowl. Well, I won't plan on that.
Will I be able to see it?
I've got a chopstick because apparently once it's in there
we do need to stir it for three minutes
to activate the reaction
and also to condense it into bubble shapes.
So does it form into a bubble shape then?
Does the sphere happen in there?
I Spinx this won't be my last attempt at this.
I'm gonna try with an ice cream scoop first of all.
And that does not feel any different.
Where is it? I can't even see it.
What the fudge? Look, there's like nothing.
I can't even see it. What's going on?
I might just go for their ladle suggestion
which is a much bigger amount.
Get it over the bowl and then tip it in quickly like that.
Oh my. And it just literally disappears.
Did you see it? It's just gone.
And I can see bubbles there, but if I just sort of,
that is so weird.
What? Look, if I can bring it together.
Look, I'm gonna try and lift out that little initial one.
Oh my gosh. Look at that.
What the heck? Did you see that?
Look, if I just put it in there, where's it gone?
Where's it gone again?
I can't see it at all in there but if I lift it out,
will this?
What is that? There's a huge one in there.
Can you see it? Just the outline.
This is crazy. It's transparent.
Then it suddenly appears for a bit.
Then you put it in the water.
Look, you wouldn't think anything was in here.
And then look at that.
I think we've just made an edible bottle.
Think is the key word.
I just wanna show it from this angle, look.
Look, there's nothing there at all.
Whoop! Check that out.
Oh, that's amazing. I can actually like prod it.
That is it.
(Barry laughs)
All right.
I'm fairly okay that we've gotten something out of that.
Now this is a different technique that I'm gonna do.
I wanna try and shape it slightly.
I don't know, it feels like it's kind of like determined
it's shape already.
It's like, this is me, take me for who I am.
I think it's kind of finding its own groove,
but do you know what?
That's still classed as edible water.
I'll take that for now.
This is like an unexpected sort of win
like compared to transparency, we've actually got something.
I'll take that, but we've got enough to keep going
and keep trying with this.
I wanna actually just fully submerge that in there.
This could be really all kinds of wrong
and go against the space-time continuum and all that stuff.
(Barry laughs) It's like rubbing a lamp.
Feel like I'm in a chemical Aladdin or something.
That hasn't worked at all. (Barry laughs)
Problem I got now, this one's gone into such tiny bits
I can't even see where it is.
I think this might be a video where I do a follow up.
That's what I'm thinking right now.
I might actually get some really intelligent people
like yourself help to make this a thing.
Do you know what? I've got a little bit of this left.
I'm gonna agitate the other mixture and pour in one go.
(fluid splashing)
Egg styley. I am much more confident.
I know the orange juice one was horrendous
but at least I could see what was going on.
Whereas here, this is an absolute nightmare.
So I feel like we got an edible water bottle
in the fridge there at the moment
which is staying kind of firm.
We'll see if we can get anything outta this last batch.
I'm not looking hopeful with this, but what I wanna do
I've got the ones in the fridge that I'm happy with there,
they'll do, it's worked
But then we'll jump back to trying something one last time
that you can actually see.
Yeah.
(Barry laughs)
I mean, I feel like that's better.
That's a better lump, isn't it?
It is like a brain. This one is firmer.
I feel like that's a much better texture that I'm after.
I don't know how that's happened.
All right, we've played enough with water,
we tried the orange juice.
My other one that was gonna be,
which hopefully will stand out
so you can at least see it is hot chocolate.
Well, it should be fun shouldn't it?
All right, so in goes some cooled hot chocolate.
We're gonna try and make hot chocolate spheres
even though we've only just borderline made the water ones.
And if this fails, we'll maybe go back to the orange juice
and try and revisit it.
Now that we understand what we're trying to see, right?
(blender whirring)
Boom. Now we'll go back to the hand whisk.
Because I don't think that really made a massive difference.
(whisk whirring)
But if I just try and submerge this. Come on now.
(Barry laughs)
What's going on?
Come on, come on. I believe in you.
There's still a chemical reaction that can happen
that can join you all together.
I mean, we'll give it a couple of minutes. We'll play fair.
Maybe it's all gonna merge into one massive,
mega hot chocolate ball.
Or maybe, just maybe it has worked
and it all comes down to this.
No. I'm gonna try one more time.
I'm gonna go back to the orange juice
but we're gonna do the second method
instead of the orange juice with the first method
we go to that.
So we've got more lactose in this bowl here.
Aah!
(bright music) (blender whirring)
Wow, that's a lot of bubbles.
(blender whirring)
All right, there's bowls and ladles and pugs.
You awake now, mate? You missed quite a lot of fun.
It's been great.
Hold it over the bowl and tip. No.
Oh my gosh. No, that's worse than before.
Oh actually, are we going egg white territory folks?
Let's find out.
We've got three minutes of this to kind of do something.
I don't know what's going on.
And I think it's completely dissolved into the water.
Oh no. It's completely gone.
(Barry laughs) No!
Mixing ingredients from method one with method two
is a complete fail, oh my gosh.
All right, folks, so I've got some (indistinct) in here,
this is the orange juice here and I thought,
right, I'm just gonna have my lunch.
It's been about 40 minutes.
So the air bubbles went after about 15,
but it's still been stood for about half an hour on its own.
And it's almost like that jelly texture
that it was talking about before.
I feel like it's there now.
Whereas before I think I just kind of thought,
oh, all the air bubbles have gone and that's it.
I feel like there's some sort of reaction still going on.
Let's try that. Please.
And I'm gonna make it diddy because I like
that this is quite spherical,
but I can get quite a good scoop on this.
Go on, go on in you go. Ooh!
Look at it. And that is way better than before.
I've just gotta try and stir this.
That is so different though.
Like a minute ago it just went.
(Barry imitates bombs exploding)
Come on, baby, come on, baby. Come on, baby.
Ah! Right. (Barry laughs)
Into its bath to like clean up all the chemicals and stuff.
Oh my gosh.
I think we've, oh, this can be amazing.
Now that one looks a bit weird. That one's got a tail.
This one looks even weirder.
That looks like a fish, but we'll take it.
What? That's amazing. (inspirational music)
Oh my goodness.
(Barry squeals)
All right, I gotta get these other ones out.
This video is just suddenly gone from, oh my gosh,
to, what the?
And maybe we'll do another one.
There's some good ones and some bad ones.
The chocolate mix there,
the bubbles have gone and it's standing.
So we will try that as a bonus scene.
I can't believe we've got something here.
Some of them do look like they're gonna fall apart
the moment I lift the sieve up though.
But I think some of them are gonna be okay. Here we go.
I'm just gonna lift the whole sieve up
in one big egg yolk protest.
'Cause let's be honest.
It does look like egg yolks doesn't it?
(Barry breathing nervously)
Stay there. Is that part of it?
No, no. It's not.
Look, look at that.
It's got a bit of a lump on it, but I will take that.
That folks is edible orange juice.
I never want to do this again.
Apart from in a couple of minutes
when I try the chocolate one as a bonus scene.
But there we go, edible orange juice.
Mrs B will be home in about 20 minutes.
So we'll get her to try it.
What a video. Now, where do I put these?
This has been an absolute nightmare
and this is actually numbing my hand.
Look at that.
Maybe I'll just call the video pain.
Bonjour Mrs B.
- Hello. What is this?
- This is literally, what she just walked in a minute ago.
- What have you done?
- I've come home from work. What is this?
This, okay, it might not look perfect.
Especially the water one.
They're not egg yolks.
- I was gonna say, is it some kind of weird egg?
- That's a edible water bottle.
- Right. - And an edible,
I nearly said yolk again, orange juice.
- Okay.
- I don't know why this is a thing.
It could probably have been made with gelatin
and that would be fine.
And that would've been it.
It's been pain for about five hours of my day.
- Oh dear.
- It's fine because you're here and then you get to taste it
and it's nothing more than just,
it should taste of pure orange juice and water.
- Okay.
- It should explode. You can slurp it or whatever.
(Barry slurping)
- Hmm?
(Barry laughs)
- You've not made that face since our wedding day.
- That's bizarre. - I know.
- That doesn't taste of anything.
- It didn't taste of jelly either. Do you know what I mean?
It was like-
- Yeah, I thought it would be jelly, like-
- Yeah. - It's just water.
- It's just water. It encased the fluid, which was awesome.
- Yeah. That was weird.
- 'Cause that just tasted, it was just like drinking water.
- Hmm.
- All right. You got your orange.
- Oh. - Oh!
You got to slurp it 'cause you get the explosion.
- Ah, strong. I'm getting that orange juice.
- It's good, right?
- Hmm.
- That has been the bane of my life.
To be fair, this was looking like an epic
like days, days, long video.
- It's a very weird texture.
- Yes. I was gonna do gravy. I bought some rum.
I was gonna do Mojitos. I ain't gonna do any of that.
I don't wanna waste the gravy
'cause that would get even weirder.
I don't wanna waste the rum.
- The Mojitos.
- Yeah. I'm happy.
This is something I can tick off and never do again.
Apart from for this bonus scene. Right now.
♪ If I take you to my crib ♪
♪ You'll be import I feel ♪
♪ I'll be spitting on the menu ♪
♪ Chuck some food on the grill ♪
♪ I like to do my cooking at 10 to nine ♪
♪ But you can do it anytime and you'll be just fine. ♪
The two tips that I think have been the most important,
I was a bit worried about the temperature of the water.
I don't think it's that.
The most important thing,
I feel like the sieve is really helpful.
Otherwise to get it out is really tricky.
And the most important thing seems to be actually,
oh, my gosh, I don't know if it's gonna work.
Letting it settle before sticking it into this mixture.
Oh my gosh.
Looks all kinds of wrong. Oh my gosh.
Well, here we go, I'm gonna try,
this one here looks to be the strongest out of the lot.
(Barry laughs) No!
(Barry slurps)
Oh. That's really gritty.
Oh, oh no, wow. Ooh.
It's like a chocolate driveway.
Well, that didn't work and I don't care. See you later.