(upbeat music)
- Happy birthday Tasty.
It's crazy that you're turning five,
it's been such an awesome and fun journey.
And I'm excited to see where this takes us next.
Hey, it's Alvin.
We're celebrating Tasty's fifth birthday.
And I'm gonna be sharing stories
about you know moments and favorite video's
from each of those five years.
Takin' it all the way back to 2015.
Five years ago my approach to videos,
pretty much is the same as the way I make food videos today.
I just wanted to make recipes
that I thought were fun
and I thought other people could find fun.
From 2015, the one recipe that really stands out to me,
was the white chocolate magic ball.
This idea was inspired by a dessert
that was going viral on Instagram.
So I set out to recreate it.
This one was probably one of my trickiest recipes
because I had to find a mold that would make sense.
It was a journey to figure out
that we needed to use clear plastic ornaments
usually found on Christmas trees.
It was really a, kind of recreate it from scratch moment
because there wasn't a lot of information
on the actual recipe served at the restaurant.
At the time, I wasn't making a lot of desserts
so it was completely new.
I'm not like a pastry chef or a chocolatier.
Filming the video was also pretty tricky
because the chocolate melts pretty quickly.
And there's like a little window
where you have to pour it but get the right collapse
from the chocolate ball.
And I'm pretty sure I shot that part like 12 times.
A hole is cut into the bottom
and you can fill it with whatever you like.
I chose brownies and fruit and ice cream.
Once that is all plated
a really hot chocolate ganache or sauce is poured
on top of the cold white chocolate sphere.
And the whole thing melts away, kinda like magic.
2016.
Tasty was picking up in popularity.
Food videos were kind of taking over the internet
and it was a really exciting time.
One of my favorite recipes in 2016
was spinach dip mozzarella sticks.
I just took two things I love to eat at parties
and put them together.
So for this recipe it starts off pretty basic.
We're gonna make a normal spinach dip with cream cheese,
spinach, all those nice cheeses and seasonings.
And the cool part is that this spinach dip
has a lot more mozzarella added
into the actual dip itself.
Because after that the mixture gets spread
on a parchment paper.
It gets frozen and then cut into rectangular sticks
that are then breaded and then fried.
And when it fries the cheese inside that we added before,
melts so that when it pulls apart
it's almost like a mozzarella stick.
But there's also spinach dip.
Perfect party food.
2017.
One of my favorite recipes this year
was the jiggly fluffy Japanese cheesecake.
- [Rie] It's so fluffy oh my god!
- I actually go the chance to go to Japan with Rie,
a fellow Tasty producer.
We work with the Tasty Japan team.
One popular dish was this jiggly cheesecake
that was, that is probably really well known now.
But back then it was like this Instagram viral thing
that only a couple of shops were selling.
This one was probably my second hardest video on Tasty
I've ever made.
I made about 15 of these
before I actually figured out the correct ratios.
Essentially this recipe
is a kind of a egg yolk cheesecake batter,
that is folded into a bunch of egg whites.
So in the beginning its a lot of egg yolks
and some cream cheese, milk, sugar, flour,
all that nice stuff.
And, that gets set aside.
And what happens next is kind of the core of the cheesecake
which is like a ton of egg whites.
Because, the whole thing of what makes it jiggly
is the air that is trapped inside the whipped egg whites
when it bakes.
So the whole cheesecake is highly dependent
on really well whipped egg whites.
Once those are done, the main batter gets folded in,
and it gets poured into a large cake pan.
That is baked in a water bath
for a very very very long time.
It's essentially a giant souffle cake.
This recipe I think is pretty satisfying
in a lot of different ways.
You have the peeling of the paper,
you have the way it jiggles when you set it down,
and kind of wobbles around a bit.
And then the powdered sugar on top.
And overall it just looks very aesthetically pleasing
which is why I think it's very popular.
And it also tastes pretty awesome too.
2018.
At this point Tasty is expanding,
we're trying a lot of different things.
We're trying shows,
we have a lot of longer formal content on YouTube.
And it was a great time to just try a lot of cool things.
I've always had a fascination for really visual foods.
So, I decided to make a giant version of a burger.
Came down to really figuring out
how to make a giant bun, a giant slice of cheese.
How to make two giant patties, the lettuce and the tomatoes.
So, for me it was almost like this fun,
architecture experiment, and seeing,
you know what recipes were out there.
But how that'd look like if I multiplied it by 10, or 20.
So it was a cool process to go through,
where I literally had to figure out
what the biggest pan I had was, how big the oven was,
what the cook times were.
And the different solves you deal with
when food is that large.
And I think that was the biggest challenge
but also the most fun part of the experience.
So people were into that video,
and after that I was lucky enough
to be able to produce a whole season
of "Making it Big."
Where you go around and make giant versions
of peoples favorite foods.
Like ramen, chicken nuggets, sushi, pizza.
So, that was a really fun time.
2019.
I was experimenting a lot more
with different kinds of videos.
I wanted to showcase a lot of chefs
instead of doing everything,
all the cooking myself.
So I went out and shot a lot videos
that were almost documentary inspired.
With a lot of chefs.
I did a couple ones with a mozzarella master,
a Chinese hand pulled noodle master,
a Japanese soba master.
And, I will probably say my favorite one
that I've ever produced,
was the one with a sushi master.
I wanted to showcase what it was like
to be one of the lead craftsman in his field.
Not just the way he cooks,
but also the parts that lead up to it
that a lot of people don't see.
The most interesting thing
is that he is only open for dinner
for 16 people every night, that's the maximum.
But there's so much work that goes on in the morning,
late night, even the day before,
that I think was really important to show.
Shooting that video was an experience as well.
His whole restaurant was essentially like, this temple.
We made sure not to bump into anything.
You know all the wood was imported from Japan.
We had to be very careful with our camera equipment.
We didn't want to intrude on his work.
We just wanted to sit there, capture everything silently,
the way he would do it normally.
And, it was a really cool balance
to not only get the chance to film a master like him,
but to appreciate his work through the lens of a camera.
And, 2020.
This year we really wanted to show
that you can do so much with cooking at home.
And, this is the first time we really focused
on giving glimpses into the actual people
behind the camera and the recipes.
To show how they actually cook at home.
I've been a fan of a lot of Korean and Japanese
YouTube food creators.
They have pioneered this style of a food cinematic vlog
that uses subtitles and music and the sounds of cooking
to kind of make a video very relaxing.
I was really inspired by those videos.
I think cooking with three ingredients, is really fun.
Because there's this challenge of making a dish
that people might know, but with way less ingredients.
So it automatically makes things
more accessible to new cooks,
who might be trying recipes or cooking for the first time.
And it also is easier,
since you don't have to go grocery shopping
for 20 bajillion things.
And there's this kind of magic science
behind why certain three ingredients
can come together to create something
that usually would take 20.
So I like that part of it a lot.
In this video, I also took inspiration from a Korean trend,
which was the whipped dalgona coffee.
I made a fluffy souffle jiggly omelet.
Again with a lot of Asian influence.
I made teriyaki chicken,
the way I would usually make it for myself to eat
on a daily basis.
And I made crème brûlée,
which I used a trick from my friend Rie,
who uses melted ice cream
to substitute for all the eggs and the sugar.
So, it was a fun food packed day.
But not that many ingredients.
(upbeat music)
So there you have it.
Those are some of my favorite videos
from my five years at Tasty.
Happy birthday Tasty, and here's to five more.
- [Man] Oh yes.