♪♪ -"Cook's Country" is about more than just getting dinner on the table.

We're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the dishes.

We go inside kitchens in every corner of the country to learn how real people cook.

And we look back through time to see how history influences the way we eat today.

We bring that inspiration back to our test kitchen so we can share it with you.

This is "Cook's Country."

♪♪ -Today on "Cook's Country," we're taking a trip to America's Dairyland.

First, Bridget makes Julia cream cheese kringle, and I share the story of how the kringle made its way from Denmark to Wisconsin.

Then Bryan visits Milwaukee and shares his version of fried cheese curds.

That's all right here on "Cook's Country."

♪♪ -Funding for this program has been provided by the following.

-Monument Grills, offering innovative technology and design for the grilling enthusiast.

With a lineup of gas grills to suit every level, our mission is to ignite your passion to pursue the art of grilling.

Learn more at monumentgrills.com.

♪♪ -Kringle is the official state pastry of Wisconsin.

It's tender and flaky with a cream cheese filling, sometimes a little fruit, a thin glaze on top.

And I've actually never had it until I went to Wisconsin with my dear friend Bridget, who, as it turns out, is somewhat of a kringle fanatic.

-I love kringle just a little bit.

I always leave extra room in my suitcase so that I can pack as many kringles in there as I possibly can, and I bring them home.

And the kids love me for at least a week, because that's as long as it lasts.

-Well, how hard is it to make?

-You know, the actual authentic kringle is basically a Danish.

-Mm.

-So you're talking about a yeasted dough that's laminated.

So all those layers of butter and time.

The real kringles take up to three days to make.

-Oh, wow.

-So we wanted a much faster -- I'm not gonna call this fast, but it's much faster than three days.

And it's really simple.

-Okay.

-All right.

And you can have kringle any time you want.

So this is just a block of cream cheese, 8 ounces.

And we've let it soften.

It's always good to do it at room temperature for a couple hours instead of microwave it.

-Mm-hmm.

-This is 1/4 cup of granulated sugar.

And I'm gonna add a little bit of lemon zest here.

Pack it in.

There we go.

So I'm just going to mix this together by hand, old-country style... -[ Chuckles ] -...until it's all nice and smooth.

All right.

So that's looking pretty good.

Let's move on to our dough.

So we're not gonna laminate this dough.

We're not gonna work the butter in.

We're almost gonna use a pie-dough method to work our butter and the fat into the dough.

This starts with 4 cups of all-purpose flour.

So we have a little bit of sugar here.

This is 2 tablespoons of confectioners' sugar.

-Mm.

-This is 3/4 teaspoon of table salt, and 2 1/4 teaspoons of instant yeast.

That's about a package.

-Mm-hmm.

-I'm just gonna blitz this really quickly to bring the dry ingredients together.

All right, so that looks good.

Now we're going to add our fat to the equation.

-Mmm!

-This is 1/2 pound.

We're making two kringles.

-[ Chuckles ] -So that's 2 sticks of unsalted butter really well-chilled... -Uh-huh.

-...and cut into 1/2-inch pieces.

And because we want maximum flakiness without having to do all of that lamination work, we're gonna add a little bit of shortening.

Shortening's great.

It just really adds that flakiness to pie pastry.

Gonna do a similar job here.

And this is 4 tablespoons, also chilled and then cut into 1/2-inch pieces.

Now I'm gonna pulse this until the mixture looks like coarse sand.

All right.

How's that looking?

-Wow.

-All right, so this is gonna come out of the bowl.

Now we're gonna add our liquid ingredient, sour cream.

-Ooh.

-2 cups of sour cream.

So it's nice and fatty.

It's gonna add richness.

But it also will help with tenderness and flakiness.

-And add a little tang.

-Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So this is gonna go right in.

All right.

And just stir it until the dough comes together.

-That is really easy.

-All right, I'm gonna flour my bench here pretty well, just to make sure there's no stickage.

-[ Chuckles ] -All right.

And dump all this out.

I'm gonna bring all this together.

And this would be, when you were laminating dough, you would put the butter block here, and you'd have to start folding and waiting... -Mm-hmm.

-...and folding and waiting.

No, this is a lot easier.

All right.

So that looks pretty good.

I'm gonna cut this in half using my bench scraper And each of these, I'm going to work into a 7x3-inch rectangle.

So I'm gonna get a little piece of plastic, transfer.

There we go.

-Boy, it really does hold together.

It looked so crumbly at the beginning, but it's holding together just fine.

-And you can also use the plastic to help it come together, too.

So we're going to do the second batch of dough exactly the same way -- 7x3, wrap it in plastic.

It's gonna go in the fridge for 30 minutes and then into the freezer for 15.

-Mm!

-Let it rest and let it really firm up before we move on.

-So, why the fridge, then the freezer?

-Yeah, the fridge is going to allow it to rest.

Gluten has a hard time relaxing if it goes straight to the freezer, so always a good idea to go fridge first and then freezer.

-So that's how you get a tender pastry.

-That's exactly right.

-All right.

-So we've got our benches here a little light -- lightly floured work surface.

-Mm-hmm.

-Don't be afraid to add a little bit of flour to it.

-Okay.

-And flour your rolling pin, as well.

-All right.

-And we're gonna start rolling out this dough till it's 28 inches long... -Oh, wow.

-...by 5 inches wide.

-Okay.

-All right?

Now, sometimes it'll start getting wider.

You just kind of squidge it back together... -Got it.

-...and force it in the long direction.

And I'm kind of working from the center out.

-Yeah.

-It's always a good idea.

That way you don't end up with one area that's super thick.

This should be about 1/4 inch thick.

-Okay.

-Oh, that looks great, Julia.

-Yeah?

Am I good?

-Yeah.

So we are going to fold this in half, but we want to add our filling now.

-Okay.

-So I've got your bowl of filling there.

-Divided it into half.

-Yeah.

And we're gonna avoid the outer 1/2 inch of our dough here.

-Okay.

-And we're going to just scoop some of this onto the bottom half, this way.

-Mm-hmm.

-Bottom half of the dough.

And then we're gonna spread it out.

And if you get a little bit of the filling above that halfway mark, it's totally fine.

-Okay.

-In fact, that's the best way to err.

-Okay.

-All right, now you got a little bowl of water there.

-Okay.

-And a pastry brush.

-Mm-hmm.

-All right, so we're gonna brush this uncovered edge here with water at the bottom.

-Okay.

-Not the ends, though.

This is our glue.

All right, and now we're gonna fold over.

So I like to start in the middle... -Okay.

-...and just fold over so that the ends meet together.

-Okay.

-And you're just gonna lightly press that together.

And if at any point the dough starts feeling too warm, you can just put it on a tray and put it back in the fridge.

-Well, that makes sense.

-Yeah.

-All right, pinch the bottoms, not the ends.

-Correct.

Just that long edge of the dough.

-Okay.

-And it should glue together almost instantly.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

So now it's time to make our race track.

-[ Chuckles ] Is that why they're shaped like that?

-Yeah, so kringles all over the world are shaped differently.

But in Racine, Wisconsin, they're usually an oval.

-Interesting.

-Yeah.

So we're just going to bring those together, kind of make an oval.

-Okay.

-And you're going to try to tuck one end into that open end.

And that's why we did not close those ends.

Just like that.

And then you're gonna press that to secure.

-Press that.

-Yeah.

-Okay.

-All right.

So bring your tray there.

It's been lined with parchment.

-Okay.

-Gently transfer this to -- and quickly -- to your parchment-lined sheet pan.

All right, you've got a piece of plastic over there.

Just cover the whole tray as best you can.

Instead of three days and going back every, you know, so many hours and laminating and folding, we're just gonna cover this, and you want to refrigerate this for a minimum of four hours.

-Okay.

-But you can do it up to 24 hours.

-Ooh!

-Yeah.

So this is gonna make you a hero in the morning if you want to serve it for breakfast.

It's fantastic.

-It also looks like it could freeze well.

-Yeah, it absolutely freezes beautifully.

So I'm gonna go put these in the fridge.

And, again, 4 to 24 hours.

All right?

♪♪ -The kringle is the official state pastry of Wisconsin.

This sweet, layered treat originated in Denmark, where it's traditionally shaped like a pretzel and filled with fruit or custard.

More than 375,000 Danes immigrated to the United States in the mid-1800s in search of opportunity, and when they did, they brought the kringle with them.

Many of these immigrants settled in Wisconsin, where they put their farming experience to work, helping to build the dairy industry.

In Racine, Wisconsin, several old-world bakeries still specialize in kringle.

According to one of these bakeries, customers kept asking for more filling.

So by the 1950s, the shape of the kringle had changed from a pretzel to a ring.

Many bakeries also started filling their kringle with cheese, a natural choice in a state known for its dairy.

And here at "Cook's Country," our cream cheese kringle is inspired by this beloved Wisconsin classic.

♪♪ -All right, so our kringles have chilled and rested.

They were in there for about eight hours.

-Nice and firm.

-Very firm, yeah.

All that butter and the sour cream -- you got to keep it super chilled.

All right, so now we just want to finish it with a little bit of egg wash here.

This is just one beaten egg.

No cream, no water, just egg.

-And that's just gonna make it nice and glossy.

-That's right.

All right, these look great.

Now we're gonna bake them in a 350-degree oven.

I've got two racks in there, one set at upper middle and lower middle.

So we're gonna bake them 40 to 50 minutes.

And I'll rotate the pans and also switch positions halfway through.

Mmm!

-Oh!

Oh!

-Oh, these look gorgeous.

And, of course, you know, I switched them halfway through, so they're nice and evenly browned.

But we do have to let them cool before we can move on to the next step.

So we're gonna let them sit here on the wire racks for about 30 minutes.

All right, our kringles have cooled off just a little bit.

It's a little bit warm in the middle.

-Oh, yeah.

-Yeah, it's just closer to room temp.

And I did move them to a wire rack, but I still have that parchment-lined tray underneath because it's almost time to glaze.

-Mm!

-We have to make our glaze first.

Easy.

Super easy.

This is a cup of confectioners' sugar.

Going to add 2 tablespoons of milk.

I like whole milk.

You could use 2%.

-Mm-hmm.

-Skim milk starts getting a little watery.

-Yeah.

-And this is 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

And I'm gonna use a whisk to just bring this together.

All right.

So just getting out any lumps.

I'm just gonna continue to use this whisk to drizzle the glaze over.

-Oh!

That is gorgeous.

-All right.

We're gonna let that glaze sit for about 10 minutes.

And then we can eat.

-All right.

-We have kringle ready to eat.

-I can't wait to try it.

-That glaze just set up just a little bit.

-Oh!

-There we go.

I'm giving you a dainty piece to start.

-You can also see there's some layers of flaky pastry, even though you didn't do a laminated dough.

We just used the quick method.

-Mm-hmm.

-You still get some flakes.

-Yeah, definitely.

-Mmm!

-Mmm.

-Mm-hmm.

-Mm-hmm.

-Mmm.

It is the perfect marriage of that creamy filling and that tender, flaky pastry.

-And it's great for people that don't want a pastry that's too sweet... -Mm-hmm.

-...either.

This is perfect.

We have a couple other variations.

We have a double berry.

-Mm.

-It's got raspberry and some dried cranberries on there.

And then we have a pecan kringle, because it's the law.

You have to make the pecan kringle.

-Oh, really?

-Definitely.

Definitely.

I think it's Wisconsin's favorite.

And those are both available on our website.

-Bridget, thank you for showing me how easy this spectacular pastry is to make.

-It was a lot of fun making it with you.

-There you have it.

If you want to make the ultimate kringle, start by making a simple cream cheese filling flavored with lemon.

Use butter, shortening, and sour cream in the dough, and chill the dough both before and after shaping.

From "Cook's Country," a fantastic recipe by way of Wisconsin -- cream cheese kringle.

This is incredible.

-We're still going to make road trips, right?

To get more kringle?

-[ Laughs ] ♪♪ -Wisconsin -- America's Dairyland, home to more than 3 million cows.

And while it may be known for its Midwestern values and bucolic landscapes, I came for the cheese.

And what better place to start than the state fair?

Wisconsin knows cheese, and it's hard to find more enthusiasm than that surrounding the humble fried cheese curd.

This is a big one.

[ Kids squealing and cheering ] People just love cheese curds in Wisconsin.

It's good, greasy fun.

Cheese curds are small pieces of unaged cheese known for their mild flavor and signature squeaky texture, and when fried, the result is nothing short of heaven.

Thank you so much.

-Thank you so much.

-I headed to Clock Shadow Creamery in Milwaukee to learn from owner Bob Wills what makes a cheese curd a cheese curd.

All right, so what is the cheese curd?

-Well, cheese curds are basically baby cheddar.

So cheddar ages over time, goes mild, medium, sharp, extra sharp.

But day one, it's cheese curds.

-They put me to work cutting slabs of curd into their distinctive shapes.

This is a -- ends up being kind of a workout, huh?

-Yeah, yeah, it does.

-It's a little bit more physical.

It's great for the triceps, huh?

-Yeah.

-After all that work, I felt I had earned some curds.

I got a tip that there were two former fine-dining chefs frying some downtown at 3rd Street Market Hall.

Joe McCormick and Kurt Fogle opened Dairyland in 2022.

They wanted to take their restaurant pedigree and apply it to making the Midwestern comfort food they grew up with.

-We're really just interested in classic Americana, and we're interested in digging deep and just improving quality anywhere that we can.

-As you guys travel around Wisconsin, you might have seen it -- every small town has got a burger or a custard place, so for me, and I think for Kurt, as well, it's building something where it can be woven into the community in the tradition of that burger-custard stand.

-And turns out there's a lot to say about cheese curds.

-It's hot, it's gooey, it's crunchy, it's crispy... -Salty.

-...it's cool, it's warm, it's salty.

It's got plenty of umami.

-Joe took me into the back to show me how they make their beer-battered cheese curds.

-Uh, we found that the best beer for this application is actually the cheapest, worst beer you can find.

-The batter, made with flour, paprika, salt, baking powder, and beer, is thick like a pancake batter.

They add just a small amount to the curds, just enough to coat.

-We want them to be coated, but we don't want a lot of extra batter.

And it may not seem like it's fully coated, but you'll see it's gonna puff up and it's gonna make a nice shell around here.

-Then they go straight into the fryer.

-We want to gently drop them in there to reduce splashing, but also just a nice, gentle dip into the pool.

-Just let them slide in.

-Okay?

-Once they're out of the fryer, there's one final ingredient -- time.

-By the time we plate this to the time the customer gets it, it's gonna give us enough time for that heat to transfer through the cheese... -Okay.

-...and get that classic cheese pull so everything's nice and melty.

-Perfect.

There's a lot of thoughtfulness that goes into it.

-It's simple on its surface, but it takes more than just slapping some beer and flour... -Yeah.

-...and putting cheese in a fryer to make something really nice.

-Yeah.

And the only thing that can make this nicer was some house-made ranch dressing.

So we got our curds here.

A little cheese ooze.

Nice and warm.

Crunchy, crispy.

Ooh, wow.

That's super crispy.

Cheese is a nice and salty, still gooey.

I've got cheese coursing through my veins.

I've got buttermilk in my heart.

Got cheese-curd eyes.

Mmm.

♪♪ -One thing I noticed about your trip was that you were eating these cheese curds without me.

And we weren't sitting at a bar eating them.

-Right.

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I was sitting at a bar eating them with a whole bunch of new friends.

-Huh.

-Uh, but I'm here with you now, so it -- we're gonna have a good time.

-Doesn't make me feel better, but you've got some making up to do.

-This will make you feel better.

-Okay.

-So these are fresh cheese curds.

And just to explain, cheese curds are basically unaged cheese.

There's warm milk.

They add a coagulant like rennet.

The cheese coagulates.

They pour off the whey.

They press the curds.

And then we cut them up.

Now, because we're gonna drop these into a hot deep fryer later on, we're gonna need to freeze them so as soon as they hit the hot oil, they don't start to melt immediately.

-Mm-hmm.

-So this is 1 pound of cheese curds, which is plenty for four people, or one person.

-Or two friends.

-[ Laughs ] Two friends.

We're just gonna throw these into a zipper-lock bag.

These cheese curds are all about 1 inch, uh, in length.

Sometimes they come a little bit bigger, close to 2 inches sometimes.

You just want to break them up to be about 1 inch in length... -Okay.

-...so they're all about the same size so they cook at the same rate.

-Makes sense.

-So we put these in a zipper-lock bag.

And we are gonna freeze these for at least two hours.

But you could really leave them in your freezer for a full month.

-Okay.

-Any time I had cheese curds in Wisconsin, they were always accompanied by ranch dressing.

-It's the law.

-[ Laughs ] It's written in the constitution.

We're gonna make our own ranch dressing today.

We're gonna start off with our fresh herbs.

It's a combination of chives, cilantro, and dill.

We're gonna use 2 tablespoons of thinly sliced chives.

And we're gonna use some cilantro.

So we're looking for 2 tablespoons here.

Our cilantro.

1 tablespoon of dill.

And that is about a tablespoon.

We are also going to add 1/3 cup of buttermilk, 1/3 cup of mayonnaise, 3 tablespoons of sour cream, 1 minced garlic clove, and then we're gonna add a teaspoon of white wine vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon of granulated garlic, 1/4 teaspoon of table salt here, 1/4 teaspoon of pepper, and a little pinch of cayenne.

And we'll just whisk this all together.

We're gonna refrigerate our ranch dressing.

And we're gonna throw our curds into the freezer.

Our curds are nice and frozen solid.

Now we could turn our attention to our beer batter.

So it's really important to this beer batter to weigh the ingredients.

That way it comes out consistent each time.

And we're looking for the consistency of about thick pancake batter.

-Okay.

-Okay, so it's 2 1/2 ounces of all-purpose flour here.

I'm gonna add 2 ounces of cornstarch, 1 1/2 teaspoons of paprika.

And the paprika is not in there really so much for flavor, but for color.

It lends a nice brick-red color to this.

Okay, 1 teaspoon of baking powder to act as our leavener so the crust is nice and light and crispy.

And we have 3/4 teaspoon of table salt.

Okay, and we'll just whisk that together.

Now we can add our beer.

We're gonna add 2/3 cup of lager.

So we're looking for a really mild hoppiness, mild maltiness.

So we're gonna whisk this together.

You see how thick it is.

-That's nice.

-Now we're gonna let this sit so the flour and the cornstarch have time to fully hydrate so it gets a little bit thicker than this, okay?

-Okay.

-So we'll let this sit off to the side.

-Mmm!

It smells great.

-And we can focus on our frozen curds.

So we're gonna fry this in three batches.

And that's important because when we add the curds to the pot, we don't want to overcrowd the pot.

We're also gonna do a special technique where we batter each of the batches of curds in a bowl separately.

I'll explain more about that in a second.

-Okay.

-But for right now, we're gonna divide these into three equal portions.

So we have a pound of cheese curds here.

So that comes out to about 5 1/3 ounces per bowl, give or take.

We have our curds portioned out there.

We have oil heating up over here.

It's almost up to 350 degrees.

See our batter is starting to thicken up nicely.

So typically whenever you're frying something, you take the food and you drop it into the larger amount of batter, you pull it out, and you drop it in the oil.

What I learned from Joe and Kurt is that they take a little bit of batter, and they coat each bowl of curds separately... -Hmm.

-...so it just barely coats the curds.

That way you don't have a lot of excess batter clinging to the curds, you don't have a lot of excess batter floating in the -- in the hot oil.

We're gonna take 1/4 cup of our batter... -Mm-hmm.

-...and drop 1/4 cup into each one of these bowls.

The last batch.

So we're gonna just toss these around here to coat them evenly with our batter.

They look like they're just barely coated.

You should see some bare spots on there.

-Mm-hmm.

I mean, they're well-coated, but they're not sitting in a pool of the coating.

-Right.

And it's gonna make a difference when you drop it in the oil.

So our curds are nice and evenly coated.

Now to drop these in the oil, we're gonna work carefully.

We're gonna get the bowl very close to the oil.

And we're gonna use a little dinner spoon.

And we're just gonna slide the curds right into the hot oil.

So as soon as the last one goes in there, we're gonna start our timer for anywhere between 60 and 90 seconds.

And we don't want to disturb these as they cook.

Now, as they start to come to the surface and they start to spring little, tiny pinhole leaks, you know they are about done.

They're nice and golden brown.

-Mmm!

-So we can lift them out with our spider.

-Ah!

-Just slide them right onto a wire rack.

[ Chuckles ] So awesome.

-Those look perfect.

-Don't they?

-So we're gonna let the oil return to 350 degrees because we only fry them for 90 seconds.

We want to make sure that oil is at peak temperature and those curds fry up nice and crisp really quickly.

Bridget, I know this is gonna be the highlight of your day.

It's the highlight of mine.

Ready for some curds?

-Those are beautiful.

And I have to say, that paprika -- You're right.

It does make them really lovely.

-All right, so I just want to point out that nice kind of melty center.

-Little pull.

-You want to try it first naked?

-Yes.

-I mean, the curd naked.

-Mm-hmm.

Mmm!

It's that squeaky chew right on the tooth.

It's just fantastic.

-You can't eat a fried cheese curd and not smile.

All right, and let's try some of this ranch dressing.

-Mmm!

Mmm, mmm!

-Mmm.

-I don't think I've ever had these with homemade ranch dressing you know?

-Right, right.

-Mmm!

The crunch on the outside -- that batter is perfection.

-Yeah.

It's like a nice little shatter.

-Great job.

-Thank you.

-But I think maybe you need to work on it a little bit more, so you're gonna have to do some more research.

-You want me to get some more -- more cheese in here?

-Mm-hmm.

-Get the fryer back out?

-Bryan, these were spectacular.

Thank you so much for bringing this bar favorite to me.

-You're very welcome.

-Well, you know you want to make these cheese curds at home.

They were so easy to do.

And it starts by freezing the curds until they're solid.

Batter the curds in small batches.

And then fry without stirring for just a minute.

And don't forget to serve them with a homemade ranch dressing.

So, from "Cook's Country" by way of Wisconsin, fried cheese curds.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with product reviews and select episodes, and those are all on our website, CooksCountry.com/tv.

-[ Chuckles ] -Wait!

They're almost gone.

-Well... -Gonna need more.

-Let us help with dinner tonight.

Visit our website anytime for the newest season's fail-proof recipes, full episodes, ingredient advice, and equipment reviews.

CooksCountry.com/tv.

"The Complete Cook's Country TV Show Cookbook" includes every recipe, tasting, and testing from all 17 TV seasons.

With over 650 recipes, it's our most comprehensive collection of "Cook's Country" TV recipes ever.

The cost is $24.99, $15 off the cover price of $40.

To order, head to our online shop at CooksCountry.com/book.

-Funding for this program has been provided by the following.

-Monument Grills, offering innovative technology and design for the grilling enthusiast.

With a lineup of gas grills to suit every level, our mission is to ignite your passion to pursue the art of grilling.

Learn more at monumentgrills.com.

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