This twist on a corn dog uses potato instead of a cornbread batter as the breading for a hot dog but it changes the whole dynamic of the classic meat on a stick.

Instead of a dense corn breading, the potato breading is creamy and light.

Since these cut the hot dogs in half, you can also use them as snack or hors d’oeuvre fare, instead of pigs in blankets.

They’re great nibble with beer!

The recipe, sent to us by the Idaho Potato Commission, was created by Dan Whalen of The Food in my Beard, who was inspired by fried snacks coated in a layer of potatoes, in Puerto Rico.

The tangy and delicious dipping sauce is a mixture of what Dan would want on both French fries and a hot dog.

July is National Hot Dog Month; the third Wednesday is National Hot Dog Day.

> The history of hot dogs.

> The best hot dogs, wagyu beef dogs from Snake River Farms.

> Favorite hot dog toppings by city.

> Mac and cheese hot dogs and 30 more hot dog recipes.
> Mini corn dogs recipe.

> Hot dog vs. weiner vs. frank.

> Hot dog vs. sausage: the difference.

> Field Roast Great Vegan Hot Dogs.

> How hot dogs are made.

> Nitrates and nitrites.
 
 
RECIPE: POTATO DOGS
 
Ingredients

For The Sauce

 
For The Potato Mixture

 
Plus

 
Preparation

1. MAKE the sauce. Mix the mayo, mustard, chili paste, relish, and ketchup in a small bowl. Set aside in the fridge until ready to use. This can be done up to 3 days in advance.

2. PREHEAT the oven to 350°F.

3. POKE a few holes into each potato using a fork. Rub the potato with olive oil and salt and place on a baking sheet. Bake the potatoes for about an hour until tender.

4. PREHEAT about 3″ of vegetable oil to 375°F in a heavy bottom pot.

5. PEEL the potatoes and run them through a potato ricer into a large bowl. Add the scallions, Parmesan, egg, and breadcrumbs. Stir well to combine.

6. ADD the sour cream, starting with about half, and stir to combine. Add more as needed until the mixture is smooth but not too wet. It should be stiffer than mashed potatoes.

7. INSERT the ice pop sticks, one by one, into the hot dogs. Start at the cut end and push the stick about ¾ of the way through the dog.

8. TAKE ¼ cup of the potato mixture in your hand and press it flat into your palm. Wrap it around the hot dog, adding more as needed. Press to tightly seal. Repeat until you run out of the potato mixture or the hot dogs. Then, working in batches…

9. FRY the potato dogs, flipping a few times to evenly brown on all sides. Remove from the oil to a drying rack or paper towel and season with a pinch of salt.

10. SERVE the potato dogs with the sauce on the side or drizzled on top, as desired.

[1] Switch from corn dogs to potato dogs (photos #1, #2, and #4 © Idaho Potato Commission).

[2] An inside peek.

[3] Sambal oelek. You can buy a jar where Asian products are sold, or make your own with this recipe (photo © McCormick).

[4] Idaho russet potatoes.

[5] Scallions, along with Parmesan cheese, add flavor to the potato mixture.

[1] 1944: Shoefly Pie (all photos © TasteOfHome).

[2] 1976: Banana Pudding.

[3] 1984: Red Velvet Cake.
 

[4] 1961: Ambrosia.

Thanks to Taste Of Home for this bit of food fun: the popular desserts—and recipes for them—from the year you were born.

There’s every year from 1940 to 2000.

Think of what you can do with these:

 
 
> Head to the recipes!
 
 
KNOW YOUR DESSERTS
 
> The history of dessert.

> The history of cake.

> The different types of cakes.

> The history of pie.

> The different types of pie and pastry.

> Almost 1000 more food histories.

> Almost 100 more food glossaries.
 
 
 
 

[5] 1959: Baked Alaska.

How did the most beautiful disposable paper plates, made by Sophistiplate, come to be?

As a foodie family, Gary and Dan Seehoff love to entertain and set a beautiful table for family and friends.

But post Thanksgiving dinner 2015, they found themselves doing the dishes for days on end. They vowed to go disposable the following year. But…

They couldn’t find any disposable dinnerware elegant enough for their table. But they had a solution: They designed their own line, Sophistiplate. And is it impressive!
 
 
A SOLUTION TO A UNIVERSAL PROBLEM

Once you try Sophistiplate for an event, you’ll be converted to the ease of cleanup.

There are designs for every holiday, family occasion (e.g. baby shower), and many classic designs that fit everywhere.

 
 
The Designs

There are many all-purpose designs, and you can also search by:

 
We close by saying:

> Visit the website and feast your eyes!
 
 
 
 
READY TO PARTY?

> Keep a diary of your parties and events.

> Monthly entertaining is easy.

> Designer ice cubes.

> Arty serving pieces.

[1] There’s a design for every event. We love this colorful, crimped pattern, “Panoply,” and gold and white recyclable flatware (photos © Sophistiplate).

[2] You can create any mood you like. This elegant pattern is called “Timeless.”

[3] We can’t wait for an occasion to use the Honeybee design.

[2] Nabisco sold millions of boxes to home cooks to make various icebox cake recipes. Word on the street was that they were discontinued, but they may be back some day Nabisco).

[3] Italian pizzelles are made in larger, thicker sizes but also in super-thin wafer cookies like these (photo © Nicole Pearce | Unsplash).

[4] An icebox cake made with homemade chocolate wafers by Zoe François. Here’s the recipe. She also makes a version with caramel whipped cream (photo © Zoe Bakes).

[5] Thicker wafers are exemplified by these Vanilla Wafers, invented in the 1890s in New York City (photo © Nabisco).

[6] This type of sugar wafer, called Neapolitan, were invented in Vienna in 1898 (photo © Schär).

[7] The original cream-filled wafer cookie from Manner (photo © European American Brands).

[8] When wafer cookies were filled (and coated) with chocolate instead of cream: Voilà, the Kit Kat Bar, a candy bar-cookie hybrid, launched in 1935 (photo © Hersheyland).

“Wafer” can refer to different types of cookies or to a type of chocolate melted down by chocolatiers to make other chocolate products.

Let’s take a “tour” of the wafer sub-category of cookies cookie category.
 
 
THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF WAFER COOKIES

There are different types of wafers in the cookie world. All are flat: much thinner than a regular cookie, dry, crisp, and sweetened*.

Thin wafer cookies date to the 14th century, following the invention of waffle tongs/waffle irons in The Netherlands.

The earliest known English-language use of the term wafer (wafeltje in Dutch) appears in Middle English by 1377.
 
 
Moravian-Style Wafer Cookies (photo #1)

These are the thinnest cookies that can be made; the dough is rolled to an almost transparent thickness. The baked cookies are very fragile but delightful, for serving with ice cream or tea.

The cookies first appeared during the Christmas season centuries ago in the kingdom of Moravia a historical region located at the east side of what is now the Czech Republic (from the end of the 8th century to the end of World War I).

They are Moravia’s version of spice cookies (German Lebkuchen are a neighboring style. Here’s a recipe if you want to bake your own.

Thin wafer cookies existed in the early Renaissance, the 14th century [a href=”https://stores.renstore.com/food-and-drink/traditional-cookies-of-the-renaissance” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>source].

Moravian wafers likely originated in the 15th century, when exotic spices from around the world sailed into the ports of Europe.

Recipes for the cookies arrived America in the 18th century with Moravian émigrés, who founded the town of Salem (now part of Winston-Salem), North Carolina in 1766. From there, they moved to other communities of the Colonial American Moravian Church. In the U.S. they became known as Moravian wafers or cookies.

Made with basic cookie ingredients (flour, sugar, and butter) the originals were flavored with holiday spices such as cinnamon, cloves, and ginger.

Today they are made in a variety of year-round flavors. Dewey’s Bakery, for example, makes more than 10 flavors, including Brownie Crisp to Coconut, Cranberry Orange, Ginger, Lemon, Lime, Peanut Butter, and Salted Caramel, among others.

Two or more thin, round Moravian wafers can be sandwiched with a filling—chocolate or lemon cream, caramel, etc.

Thin or sandwiched, they also can be dipped in chocolate.

Beyond Moravia, other countries made wafer-thin cookies. Check out the Italian pizzelles in photo #3.
 
 
Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer Cookies (photos #2 and #4)

Starting in 1924, The National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) sold millions of boxes to home cooks who wanted to make an easy but impressive icebox cake dessert with their Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer Cookies.

In 1929, they printed their classic recipe on the wafer box: Nabisco’s Chocolate Wafer Zebra Cake (photo #3).

The wafers are delicious on their own, and in our college, many evenings were spent topping them with whipped cream, caramel sauce, preserves, or fudge sauce.

> Icebox Cake Recipes
 
 
Nilla Wafer-Style Cookies (photo #5)

The recipe for vanilla wafers or sugar wafers was invented in the late 19th century by confectioner and inventor Gustav A. Mayer, born in Ulm, Germany in 1845.

An 1870 émigrée to Staten Island, he manufactured cookie and biscuit molds and equipment, and also made wafer cookies in the flat, thin style of Europe.

They were a hit, and he sold his recipe to Nabisco, which began producing them under the name Vanilla Wafers in 1898.

The beloved banana pudding recipe printed on the Vanilla Wafers box became a “hot” dessert in the 1940s (here’s the original recipe).

Nilla Trivia:

In addition to hot dogs on the grill, here’s something different for July 4th week: a red, white, and blue pizza.

You can also make the pizza on the grill (here’s how).

When you don’t want a red, white, and blue theme, use white waxy potatoes instead of the blue variety. Or, ditch the sliced potatoes, add more hot dogs to fill in the spaces, and top the pizza with French fries.

If you want to use frozen fries, you can top the
 
 
RED, WHITE & BLUE HOT DOG PIZZA

Ingredients

 
The bonus is that all ingredients are store-bought and easy to assemble.
 
Preparation

We microwaved the potato slices for 15 seconds to al dente so they would bake to the optimal tenderness.

1. BAKE the pizza until bubbly. Because the fries take a bit longer (30 minutes compared to 25 to 30 minutes for a crust), consider baking the fries until golden and top the pie when it comes out of the oven.

2. FRENCH FRY OPTION: Frozen fries and pizza crusts bake at 450°F, so you could also top the pizza with the fries for the last 5 minutes of baking, to warm them up.

Thanks to Bubbie’s for the idea, which uses Bubbies Sauerkraut.

Bubbies Spicy Sauerkraut contains red pepper slices.
 
 
BEVERAGE RECIPES

 
 
BEER PAIRINGS/font>

[1] Red, white and blue hot dog pizza (all photos © Bubbies).

[2] Bubbie’s Sauerkraut, a naturally fermented superfood.

[3] Bubbies Spicy Sauerkraut adds red chile peppers.

Sauerkraut is a national dish of Germany, and is known by its German name in English-speaking countries (the English translation is “sour cabbage”). It’s also a traditional dish in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, in France and The Netherlands.

However, sauerkraut did not originate in Germany. The pickled cabbage dish suan cai dates to at least the days of the building of the Great Wall of China*.

The Romans also pickled forms of cabbage, which could be the source of modern-day European sauerkraut.

However, a competing theory calls out the Mongol conquests of the 13th and 14th centuries.

The Mongols brought the method of preserving cabbage by lactic acid to Europe, after conquering parts of China, where lactic fermentation was a well-known method of preservation. (If the Mongols did not yet know the lactic fermentation process, they learned about it in China.)

Each non-English-speaking country has its own name for sauerkraut, and regional variations abound.

Today, the per capita consumption of sauerkraut is higher in the U.S. and France (where it is called choucroute) than in Germany [source].
 
 
________________
 
*Several walls were built from as early as the 7th century B.C.E. The final stretches were completed in 206 B.C.E.