Can viral recipes live up to their reputation?

Social media facilitates the circulation of a lot of viral trends, some of which are food related. While many of these food trends can look aesthetically appealing, and influencers claim they are delicious, some videos can be very misleading. In many cases either the recipe will not turn out the way it is supposed to, or it ends up not being as tasty as it appeared. To see if some of these recipes are actually worth it, I decided to test out a few viral recipes.

Fried wheat pasta

According to a viral recipe, if you fry wheat pasta it will expand greatly and can be sprinkled with cinnamon sugar to eat it like a churro. To test this out, I bought some wheat pasta, heated up some oil, and placed an uncooked piece of pasta in the pan. Nothing happened. The pasta got burnt, but did not expand at all. After that I tried a cooked piece of pasta, let it dry, then fried it. This time I saw a slight bit of expansion, but still nothing compared to the viral videos. I tried the piece of pasta with some cinnamon sugar, and it was decent, however, it definitely didn’t live up to my expectations. After some research I discovered that it is not simply wheat pasta that will puff up, but actually a specific type of Mexican product called Duros. Thus, the videos were misleading, however, Duros will in fact expand. I did not end up trying it with the proper product, however, I would love to give it a try in the future.

Dried Yogurt

I made dried yogurt by spooning yogurt into a bowl lined with a paper towel, then covering the yogurt with another or the same towel. I placed it in the fridge for nearly 24 hours with a heavy jar in a bowl on top in order to squeeze out the yogurt’s liquid and dry it out. Though I am a big fan of greek yogurt by itself, I ended up flavoring my yogurt with some cherry juice. This gave the dried yogurt a pink tint. I was pretty excited to try it, however I was pretty disappointed. I have never eaten chalk, but I imagine it would feel pretty similar to my experience with the dried yogurt due to the texture and consistency. In all fairness, my yogurt still ended up with a little bit of moisture, so I likely should have replaced the towel with a fresh one towards the end. Regardless, I have little hope that this is something that I would ever enjoy. Maybe with some experimenting it could become tasty, but I will gladly be sticking to my regular yogurt.

Japanese Cheesecake

This is the only viral recipe I tried that I thoroughly enjoyed. I used plain greek yogurt and biscoff cookies to make this. After letting it sit in the fridge for a day, I gave it a taste, and it was delicious! As I mentioned earlier, however, I am a big fan of plain greek yogurt, and the bitterness does not bother me at all. For those who do not like plain yogurt as much, it would be a good idea to use a sweetened version such as vanilla, lemon, or any other flavor that sounds good. This recipe is also very easy to be creative with. You could easily add berries, use different cookies, add cocoa powder or cinnamon or any other toppings and flavors.

With some exceptions, many viral recipes are not nearly as life-changing as influencers claim them to be. Of the three recipes I tried, I was not at all impressed by the first two, and mildly impressed by the third. In the end, however, it was interesting to test them out, and try something new.