Sometimes what you watch on the internet seems like a genius idea. But are they really?? That’s how we felt about TikTok food hacks.

Were they real? Were they faked?

Everything is so heavily edited nowadays, it makes you wonder.

Before there were TikTok food hacks, the reigning champs of short food clips were Tasty. Their short clips looked literally perfect.

So I was sad to see that one of their recipes was debunked recently by a Youtube channel called How To Cook That. In case you’re wondering which recipe, it was the fluffy jiggly japanese pancake.

People were upset, rightly so. But honestly, in order to get something that perfect, I imagine Tasty has to go through many shots and takes. And the magic we saw was the magic of great editing.

Now TikTok food hacks seem a bit more believable and relatable, just because it’s done by every day people rather than a production crew. Plus everyone appears to be able to reproduce the same result. Isn’t that what makes something credible?

We’ve tried a couple of them so far. And one fared better than the other.

How did our TikTok food hack adventures turn out?

1. Kimbap Folding Hack

The first Tiktok food hack we tried was the tortilla folding hack. At some point Koreans found this hack and used it to make folded kimbap (김밥).

That seems like a great idea, right? Why couldn’t you use seaweed like you use tortillas?

When I first saw the videos, I was so excited to try the hack out. The concept seemed really quick and easy. Plus it looked tasty (arguably the more important reason).

Here’s a video where we attempted to fold kimbap and sushi.

Was it faster than just rolling the kimbap and sushi?

Nope.

What we learned in the process:

• Seaweed is fragile and may tear
• Don’t put too many ingredients (or you will end up with a sad (but tasty) mess)
• Don’t cut up your ingredients into strips. It’s better if they’re already in a big square. Otherwise folding will be tricky.

Overall, yes it tasted delicious. The spam “musubi” rendition could probably have used 2 quadrants of rice, given the saltiness of spam.

Will we try this again? No. With tortillas maaybe. At least not with seaweed. Next time we’ll just stick to good ol’ fashion rolling.

2. Baked Boursin Cheese Pasta

Not to be deterred, we tried another TikTok food hack. This time in the form of cheese and pasta. It already sounds good, right?

The sensation started off with people using feta cheese. Basically a block of cheese baked with some cherry tomatoes. Sounds super easy.

Boursin eventually came out with their own recipe. Kudos to the person who came up with the idea to capitalize on the TikTok fad. Here’s a link to the recipe they created.

https://www.boursin.com/recipe/baked-boursin-tomato-pasta/

We filmed our attempt below.

To be fair it was our 2nd attempt. The 1st attempt we just wanted to see if tasted good.

And did it taste good? Yes!

Was it quick and easy? Yes (sort of).

Everything is so simple. But you do have to use 3 different cooking vessels – a baking dish, a sauté pan, and a pot to boil your pasta. In an ideal world I would just want to throw everything into the oven.

What we learned in the process:

• Use a thin noodle like angel hair or thin spaghetti
• Bake until the majority of the tomatoes are blistered (popped). This way the sweet and sour juices will meld together with the Boursin cheese to make a tasty sauce.
• Don’t use too many noodles if you want a better sauce:pasta ratio

Would we try this again? Absolutely!

I admit I’m not a creamy-pasta-kinda-gal. I prefer my tomato-based pastas like puttanesca. Mmmm puttanesca….

But I can see myself making this every now and then. This has enough acidity from the tomatoes where I wouldn’t get sick of the creaminess from the Boursin.

All and all it’s been fun trying out these TikTok food hacks. We will definitely try out more in the future.

Until next time!