In this video, learn how to make Chef John’s viral Strawberry Sando—a Japanese-inspired fruit sandwich that’s as stunning as it is delicious! Featuring perfectly ripe strawberries, pillowy soft bread, and a lightly sweet whipped cream filling, this treat is all about freshness and flavor.
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00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with Strawberry Sando.
00:08That's right, we are making a Japanese-style fruit sandwich, which is why it's called the Sando.
00:14And I have to say, after you start calling sandwiches Sando's, going back to calling them sandwiches seems a little bit cumbersome.
00:22But no matter what you call it, these are delicious, fun to make, and very, very pretty.
00:27And to get started, we will take the sweetest, best, ripest strawberries we can find, and we will hoe them, which means trim it off the calyx, which is the green leafy thing on top.
00:39And for this, we're going to want to use the tip of the knife, and just go in about a quarter of an inch at about a 45 degree angle, and trim around until that comes off.
00:48And when we do recipes that need lots of strawberries, sometimes we'll just trim straight across and cut off the entire top to save time.
00:54But if we want to see that beautiful heart shape when we cut our sandwich open, we really do want to trim them up like this.
01:01So we'll go ahead and prep our strawberries as shown, and then set those aside.
01:05At which point we can move on to trimming our bread, which in a perfect world is homemade milk bread.
01:11But I had to settle for some fancy white bread from the local French bakery.
01:15But no matter what you use, we're going to cut off the crust, while at the same time, hopefully achieving a nice square shape.
01:23Which when you're using bread that has a rounded top like this one, which is sort of how almost all breads are, it can be a little bit challenging.
01:30But the good news is, just try to get it close, and it's probably going to work out fine.
01:34And that's it once our bread's been decrusted and successfully squarified.
01:39We can move on to make our sweet whipped cream filling, which for me is going to start with some mascarpone cheese,
01:45to which I'm going to add a little bit of pure real vanilla extract, followed by a very, very small pinch of salt.
01:52Okay, just like a quarter of a pinch.
01:54And then we'll sweeten this up with a little bit of powdered sugar, although regular white sugar will work.
01:59And then what we'll do is cream all this together with our hand mixer, before we finish up adding our whipped cream.
02:05Oh, and I should mention, this cream cheese is optional.
02:09And a lot of versions just use only whipped cream.
02:11So if you don't want that extra bit of richness, you can leave it out.
02:15I mean, you are after all the Marlon Brando of your Strawberry Sando.
02:20Oh, and speaking of the horror, whether you add the mascarpone or not,
02:24first, once you're whipping up the cream, you have to really concentrate on not doing it too soft or too firm.
02:30Or if it's too soft, the sandwich is not going to hold its shape.
02:34And if you whip this cream too long and it gets too stiff, it can actually separate and get grainy.
02:39And it will turn into something you don't want to eat.
02:42So basically what we're looking for is very stiff peaks, which are peaks that hold their shape on the ends of the beaters.
02:48And if you shake it, they do not move.
02:51And right here, I decided I was just a few seconds away.
02:54And of course, to clean off the beaters, once you lift it out, just put it on high for a second.
02:59And any excess will fly off.
03:02Thank you, centrifugal force.
03:03And that's it.
03:04Once your cream is whipped perfectly, we will grab our bread and we will spread a nice thick layer on both sides.
03:11Or at a layer somewhere between a quarter and a half inch thick, which I believe is referred to as three eighths.
03:17And by the way, in a few moments, I'm going to show you a faster way to do that.
03:21But anyway, once both sides have been creamed, we will turn one slice like this.
03:26And we'll place our first whole strawberry down with the tip going right up to the tip of the bread.
03:30And then we'll place a second berry right behind that.
03:34And then finish up with a third one.
03:36And to help save space, you can kind of nestle the tip of one into the depression on the top of the other.
03:42Which in the business, we refer to as centipeding.
03:45And once that's been accomplished, I'm going to cut a strawberry in half.
03:48And place that on either side with the tip pointed out.
03:52And if you want, you can use two whole strawberries instead of the half.
03:55But personally, I think the ratio is better if you go with a half.
03:58And then what we'll do is start piling on more cream.
04:01Making sure we're spreading and pressing that in every nook and cranny.
04:05All right, we do not want to leave any air pockets uncreamed.
04:09And while you're doing this, don't be shy.
04:11All right, it might seem like you're putting on a lot.
04:13Or maybe too much.
04:14But as you're going to see, you really do need that much for the sandwich presentation to work properly.
04:19And then what we'll do once we're eventually happy with the coverage is carefully place the second piece on top.
04:26And we'll give that a little bit of a pressing down.
04:29And then we'll take even more of the whipped cream mixture and start applying that to the gaps in the sides.
04:34And once those spaces are eventually filled, we will smooth things out the best we can.
04:40And once that's set, before we wrap this up, we should take a knife and we'll make a little cut to mark our bread from one point to the other where we know those strawberries are running down the center.
04:51Since once this is unwrapped, if you cut it the wrong direction, it's not going to look beautiful.
04:56It's going to look stupid.
04:58And there are plenty of stupid looking sandwiches, so we don't want that.
05:02And this is my method.
05:03Most people just take a sharpie and mark the plastic once it's wrapped.
05:07But as long as you know which way to cut, it really doesn't matter.
05:11And that's it.
05:11After wrapping that tightly, we will pop it in the fridge for at least an hour.
05:15Or maybe a little bit longer.
05:17But apparently we're not supposed to make these too far ahead.
05:20Because the bread can kind of get weird in the fridge.
05:23Oh, and a quick tip here.
05:24It's a lot easier to apply the cream if you pick the bread up.
05:28That just makes it easier to spread neatly to the edge.
05:31So that's how I did the second one.
05:33And then I repeated those same steps with the strawberries and the rest of the cream.
05:38And after wrapping and refrigerating those for about an hour and a half, I pulled one out.
05:43And after we have that unwrapped, we will find that mark we made earlier with our knife.
05:48So we're 100% positive we're cutting in the right direction.
05:51And that's it.
05:52We'll take a serrated knife.
05:54And using a nice, slow, steady sawing motion, we will slice through.
05:59And if everything goes according to plan, we should end up with three perfect heart-shaped strawberries in the center of each half.
06:06Which is exactly what happened here.
06:08Oh, and the reason I switched to this small paring knife is because once cut, we're going to want to do a little fine-tuning.
06:15Which means giving that fruit a little bit of a scrape to wipe off any excess cream.
06:19And reveal more of that beautiful red color.
06:22And besides that, if we want, we can also grab a little more cream with the tip of the knife.
06:27And apply that into any gaps so we have full cream coverage.
06:30And how much fussing around you decide to do is going to be up to you.
06:35And I did do a little bit more trimming off-camera to make these sit nice and flat on the plate.
06:40Or at least flatter on the plate.
06:43And as you can see, that second one, while still looking nice, featured berries that weren't quite as perfectly aligned.
06:48But even if these are less than geometrically perfect, I think they still make for a stunning presentation.
06:55Which is very nice.
06:56But, what do these taste like?
06:58Well, my friends, that is very easy to describe.
07:02They taste like fresh strawberries in sweet cream.
07:05Which, no matter what delivery system you're talking about, is almost always a wonderful thing.
07:11Oh, and forget I said that the mascarpone is optional.
07:14Since I really do think these are so much better with that little bit of extra richness and butterfat involved.
07:19But, by far, the most important factor is that you're actually going to find some properly ripe, naturally sweet strawberries.
07:27Right, this thing's always going to look good.
07:29But, if you really want it to taste good, the strawberries you use have to be sweet.
07:34And, by the way, if you're intrigued by this idea, you should definitely do an image search for Japanese-style fruit sandoes.
07:40So, you can see all the different kind of fruits you can use to make these.
07:44As well as lots of super cool, very creative designs.
07:47But, I was very, very happy with this simple strawberry-only version.
07:52And, as long as you can find some beautifully sweet berries to use, I really do hope you give this a try soon.
07:59So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts.
08:02A printable written recipe and much more info as usual.
08:05And, as always, enjoy.
08:11And, as always, enjoy.