The Courier-Journal (Louisville)
Butter candle
In my circle, arguably, that joke has already burnt out. Even though the log is based on an iconic recipe, it’s not the same thing as that crave-worthy plate of your grandmother’s famous Christmas cookies that you only get once a year. In a way, it almost felt like a go-to gag gift, but there’s nothing “go-to” about a KFC Firelog. The wow factor and the shock when someone opens it is half the appeal.
I decided to consult some experts on what makes the KFC Firelog such a novelty, and oh, dear Courier Journal readers, if you’ve read this far — I promise it only gets weirder from here.
We found a way to expand on the idea.
When I first reached out to Sullivan University, I thought their chefs might help me dream up a copycat recipe for the 11 original herbs and spices that we could use to season a homemade log. We all acknowledged this was a silly and over-the-top request, but the Sullivan team was enthusiastic and agreed to meet with me anyway.
That’s when the ideas really got cooking.
How to make your house smell like KFC without the chicken
Fittingly enough, Chef Rob Beighey and Chef David Moeller met me in a part of the Sullivan campus off Bardstown Road that operated as the “International Test Kitchen for Kentucky Fried Chicken” from 1976 to 1986. Today, outside the kitchen, there’s a black and white photo of Colonel Sanders cutting the ribbon of the facility. Sullivan lore says this space was once called “The Chicken Wing,” and the staff there could buy a chicken lunch for a dollar or so.
I was stepping onto sacred KFC ground.
The Colonel’s fried chicken recipe has a reputation for being one of the most coveted and heavily guarded trade secrets in the culinary industry. So before we could season anything, we needed to come up with an adequate substitute.
“Do you think most chefs in Kentucky can guess what those 11 herbs and spices are,” I asked them.
“They could probably get close,” Moeller said. “But 100%? Not a chance.”
So, we talked through a few of the more obvious ones.
“Basil, thyme, and oregano for sure,” Moeller said. “White pepper is the first thing that jumps out at me when I eat Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
Paprika was likely. Beighey heard rumors that ginger was in the background, but Moeller wasn’t so sure. For the sake of time, I consulted a recipe on allrecipes.com believed to have ties to the Colonel’s nephew to figure out what the rest could be. Celery salt, black pepper, dried mustard, garlic salt, and salt rounded out our hypothetical blend.
If we were going to make our own seasoned log, the wood could impact the aroma, the chefs explained. You wouldn’t use something like balsa wood, which has its own, strong scent. Moeller suggested oak or cherry wood might work.
We could, in theory, blend the spices with sawdust and add an adhesive to distribute them among the log. We could use cinderblocks to weigh it down and create the shape. We’d also need a nonflammable scentless adhesive like beeswax or paraffin wax.
“Now, you’ve got to be careful because, if (the adhesive) is fat-based and you put it on a fire, it’s going to explode,” Moeller said.
I wanted a wow factor, but none of us wanted an exploding log.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized the flammable log part should be left up to the experts at EnviroLog. I turned my attention back to the culinary team in front of me and the kitchen.
“So maybe we don’t set anything on fire,” I said. “But is there a way to take these herbs, and these spices, and boil them down into something like a broth, and make your house smell like fried chicken without actually using the chicken?”
“What about potpourri?” Beighey asked
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, stunned. “Kentucky Fried Chicken potpourri?”
That would be a great white elephant gift. To make it, they explained, all you have to do is skip the salt and track down whole, dried herbs, and put them in a dish together. I imagined little bags tied with signature red, white, and black ribbons holding this mocked-up spice mix.
But then, they had a better idea. “We could make a candle out of it,” Moeller said.
“That’s a trend right now, butter candles,”
KFC has firelogs that smell like fried chicken.
KFC
Beighey said. “So, if you take clarified butter and then put the herbs in it that way with (a food safe) wick, and let it get hard. Then you can eat the candle.”
If you infuse the spices in a fat and let it warm on low heat, it creates a vapor. That vapor could give you a real fried chicken smell, even without the chicken.
I left Sullivan eager to research butter candles.
How to make a KFC-inspired butter candle
My favorite part of the KFC Firelog has always been the spectacle of it. I knew if I was going to try to make a KFCinspired butter candle, I couldn’t keep it to myself.
So the afternoon before The Courier Journal’s annual holiday potluck I measured out 11 herbs and spices from that allrecipes.com blend. I slowly melted a pound of butter in a saucepan, and then, teaspoon by teaspoon, I added in the spice blend, tasting along the way so I wouldn’t overseason it, and careful not to burn the butter.
About five minutes later, I had a pretty tasty dip for bread, but my house didn’t smell like Kentucky Fried Chicken. I halfway thought I’d failed.
The next morning, when popped them out of the silicone mold I had refrigerated them in, they looked as ridiculous as this entire idea felt. The red paprika and the yellow butter had turned the candle an intense shade of neon orange and all the spices had sunk to the bottom.
Even so, I set up a burner and two of the candles in a small conference room in the newsroom. I shut the door and waited.
One hour in, the candles had melted and pooled into a runny, buttery goodness. The room just barely smelled like the 11 herbs and spices.
Another hour passed, and suddenly stepping into that room felt like walking into a warm, lovely southern kitchen. Each time I opened the door to check it, the smell hit as though someone had thrown a fist full of the spices in my face. I remembered chasing the smoke around the firepit the year I bought one hoping to catch a whiff of it. There was no chasing with this, though. In two hours and with just two of those candles, a smell wildly similar to fried chicken filled the room.
By the third hour, I started inviting amused colleagues in to smell and taste the melted candles for themselves.
“It legit smells like fried chicken,” reporter Stephanie Kuzydym told me, amazed, between laughs. “That is so yummy.”
“It tastes good,” reporter Lucas Aulbach said. “It’s got a good kick to it.”
“I want that recipe,” Stephanie added.
At the same time, wasn’t a perfect experiment by any means. Once we hit the fourth hour, the spices at the bottom of that flameless burner fried like spices that had been on a skillet too long. That
savory, luscious aroma from just a little while before had picked up a bit of char. One colleague called it “pungent.” Meanwhile, reporter Matt Glowicki, who swears he could live on bread and butter alone, still went in for a dunk.
“It’s got a little kick in there that I didn’t expect,” Glowicki said. “Yep, I don’t hate that.”
I unplugged the warmer. Very much like the KFC Firelog had burnt out among my friend group, so had this little potluck experiment. We all had a good time with it, though, and that’s what I was hoping for more than anything else when I pitched this story idea to my editor.
And while it’s certainly easier to buy an actual KFC Firelog from Walmart.com, my little creation did have a slight upper hand on the novelty that started this whole spicy journey.
It’s a gift.
It’s arguably “hunger inducing.” But, also …
(Please do eat the butter candle).