Watermelon pizza, whipped lemonade and air fryer pasta chips get put to the test in the latest TikTok special edition of Barry tries. I don’t think i’ll be attempting the watermelon pizza again any time soon, that really was some…. thing, yep, definitely a thing! But pasta chips may be my favourite new thing!
How to make TikTok watermelon pizza
Get a griddle pan and place the sliced watermelon into it. Warm over a medium heat and keep cooking until the bottom of the watermelon is charred (keep checking every so often by carefully lifting), once done turn over and cook the other side again until charred, roughly 3-4 minutes longer but do keep checking. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before topping.
Add the pizza sauce, cheese and pepperoni. Decorate like you would any other pizza to your liking if you prefer and place in a pre-heated oven at 180fan/200c or equivalent, baking until the toppings are melted. Allow to rest for a minute or 2, then slice and serve up! This is a truly crazy combination that I was not a fan of, it felt like eating an apple pie and a pizza at the same time, but give it a try if you dare!
How to make TikTok whipped lemonade
Whipped lemonade, if you are in the UK will need a little prep – essentially trying to get hold of some lemonade powder, which is super common in the USA, where you just add water. This is essentially what makes it, well, lemonade really! The closest thing I can think of that has lemon flavour in powder for in the UK like that is lemsip (a medicine!) …. do not use that!
Anyhow, start by adding the double cream to a mixing bowl and adding in the lemonade powder. Using an electric whisk beat together the powder and cream until it thickens with stiff peaks, the base mix is now ready!
Add water and ice cubes to a glass, squeeze in a tsp of lemon juice, then dollop in some of the lemonade cream, topping with lemon zest if you wish. Now that is all in there on it’s own it will be separated, so give it a good stir together so some of the cream dissolves into the water, the more you stir it, the more flavour is driven into the lemonade as it dissolves, but you want to try to leave some of the lemonade lumps for the whipped texture. Play around with it, but it is quite naughty!
How to make TikTok air fryer pasta chips
The first thing I will say about these is that they do not store well! Make them as a snack to be eaten almost instantly or certainly in the next few hours.
With you pasta cooked, get a large bowl and add the pasta (drained), with the some salt and pepper, oregano and ¾ of your cheese. Also add in the olive oil and stir to coat well. Place in an air fryer for approx. 20mins at 400f / 200c. Stirring every 5 minutes or so. If the air fryer is too full you can do this in batches, keep checking them to see how well they are cooking as they could cook quicker than that.
Cook them until fully golden brown, they are much crispier that way, so try to get them beyond having just browned edges as they are more chewy, but be careful not to burn them!
Serve in a bowl with the remaining parmesan on top and the passata sauce to dunk them in. Pretty weird things in a way, but highly addictive!
If you don’t have an air fryer make them on a lined baking tray and bake at 200c/180fan or equivalent, removing and checking again every 5 minutes to check the colour / progress.
Of the 3 recipes, the pasta chips were my favourite, but you really do need to get them cooked just right for a decent crunch and for them to resemble chips / crisps.