Our next guest went from teaching middle school science
to teaching millions of people how
to cook and bake with his popular food
blog, "The Preppy Kitchen."
And he's going to help me today, so please welcome John Kanell.
Come on, John.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Oh, John, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
What are we making today, because this is a lot of stuff.
It's a lot of stuff, but it's so easy.
We're making some delicious, fried summer favorites
starting with funnel cake.
You're going to feel like you're nine years old when
you have your first bite.
OK, let's go.
OK, so first the dry ingredients.
We're going to whisk up some flour.
Ours is pre-measured, but when you make stuff at home,
you should fluff the flour up and sprinkle it in,
because you could pack 80% more flour in.
Here we go, all right, it's in.
All right.
Baking powder.
A little salt.
A little-- ooh, that's a lot of salt, John.
Well, give it a whisk.
OK.
Give it a-- John, you went from a teacher to a food blogger.
How did that happen.
Keep working, John.
OK, I'm not going to stop.
Look, we have our milk in here.
Add the wet ingredients while we talk.
Milk, OK.
I love teaching.
It's a passion of mine.
But when my husband and I wanted to start a family
and have kids, I wanted to be home and spend more time
with them.
So I channeled my passion for baking
into Preppy Kitchen, where I show
people step by step recipes.
Do you do the editing yourself when you
do the food stuff on the blog.
I do everything.
The photography, the video, all of it.
Oh, look at you.
You are a professional.
You want to whisk--
OK.
Break those eggs up, give it a whisk.
OK.
Oh, it was supposed to be in a separate bowl, but that's OK.
Oh, OK.
It's OK.
So, right, keep on-- you ain't got to front me out
on national TV, John.
Just pour it in.
It's like you're making pancakes,
you got to swap out for you.
Oh, OK.
So we're going to have our batter.
Mix it until it's just combined--
you don't want to have-- oh, that's so messy.
It's a small bowl.
I need a little more my milk, but it's fine.
They're dealing us dirty with this.
Oh, OK.
So, also the sugar, just pop it right in.
Oh, yeah, I did that a long time ago, John.
Any order is fine.
This is going to become a beautiful batter just like you
see in front of you, and then we're
going to put this into a piping bag.
Oh, OK.
Wow, look at the magic of television, already got mine.
That's a different piping bag.
Oh, wait a minute.
Oh, this one.
This is the piping bag, here we go.
Oh.
Snip the tip off, like maybe half an inch.
Here we go.
We're going to pipe this right into the hot oil--
with confidence.
Just be confident.
You'll--
Let me see you do yours first.
So we're going to make a little nest of batter.
Make a little nest.
Oh, so it's like circles.
Pipe some circles up.
It's going to sink down, don't worry about it.
It'll pop right back up as soon as it starts frying.
Just make your funnel cake.
Now, John, how did the blog become called Preppy Kitchen?
Well, a lot of people have problems in the kitchen
because they're not prepared.
You know, like searching for stuff.
You're getting frantic, your funnel cake looks like a mess.
It like, you're getting panicked,
if you just prepare ahead of time,
everything's going to be fun.
You'll have a great time in the kitchen.
All you need is just that little bit of prep work.
Oh, wow.
That's a big funnel cake.
Yeah.
You're going to try this until it's golden brown.
Golden brown like me and tWitch.
It'll be about a minute.
Yeah--
John, let's talk about them pretty babies.
You got these adorable twin boys.
How they help in the kitchen?
They better than me, huh?
They are just as good as you are.
Good answer, John.
They love making pizza.
They love whisking stuff together.
This is their dream come true, and they're a bit messy,
but as you can tell I'm a bit of a wreck in the kitchen.
It all comes out in the end.
You can be messy and it'll be delicious.
OK.
So it's been about a minute, so--
This looks as good as it's going to get.
OK, so we're going to take out these funnel cakes.
Yours is so pretty.
I mean, it looks--
Mine's just light skin, ain't that right, tWitch?
If it was darker, it would be a bit crispier and delicious,
but fish it out, and then--
You like it a bit darker, huh, John?
Yeah, it should be.
That's the optimal thing here.
OK.
So then you're going to give it a dusting of powdered sugar
on that delicious funnel cake.
OK.
Do you like it sweet?
Do have a sweet tooth?
Yeah.
Yes, I do right now.
If you do, then you can give it a double dust.
Look at you, so professional.
Just flip it on over.
This is like a squiggly line, I really
don't know what happened.
Yeah, I want to do this part.
A little powdered sugar goes a long way.
It fixes everything.
And no one will be able to tell anything happened.
Here we go.
It's almost there.
OK.
Look at that.
Oh.
Come on over here tWitch.
Come on.
Come on here, tWitch.
OK, which one am I trying?
You could try either one.
You can give it a little taste.
OK.
We can take take a taste too.
Oh, that's bomb.
It tastes good.
Give it a taste.
It's still good.
Thank you so much for being here putting up with me.
For these recipes and more information on John's blog,
The Preppy Kitchen, go to ellentube.com.
We'll be right back.