Episode 23 Best Bakes Ever

The wonderful smell of bread just out of the oven.

The perfect piecrust. The snap of a biscuit.

And, of course, cakes.

Cakes of all shapes and sizes and for every occasion.

We have got something for all the senses here,

as we celebrate some of the best bakes ever.

Welcome to more fabulous bakes.

Coming up - the Hairy Bikers making scones...

# Scones that can be as light as a bee

# Are lovely things to eat in the afternoon... #

..Glynn Purnell will show us how to make a baked Cheddar custard...

..and there's Nigel Slater's raspberry and cinnamon meringue.

But we start with bread.

Not a straightforward loaf baked in a tin -

this is quite a challenging recipe, but enormous fun to make as well.

You will need to pay close attention

if you want to make Paul Hollywood's eight-stranded bread plait yourself.

Eight-strand plait, to me, it seems a very difficult choice.

That is precisely why I chose it.

I wanted to see them sweat a little bit on the Technical Challenge,

and it was nice to choose something

that even a baker would find difficult.

So to start with, we need to make the base dough.

So can you put 500g of flour into there for me, please?

-And strong flour, of course.

-Strong flour,

high in gluten, that gives you the elasticity

and the strength to hold the bubbles inside as the bread grows.

7g of fast-action yeast, please.

If you can only get the fresh yeast,

then you need to add 12g. Give me 10g of salt.

That goes in there, to the other side of the bowl. Why do we do that?

Because if you put it over the other side, with the yeast,

it slows down the action.

-Am I getting there?

-You are getting there.

Come and work for me any time.

OK, the next ingredient I'm going to add, olive oil.

Does that have to be a good olive oil?

You don't need to use virgin olive oil, just any olive oil is fine.

Now, I'm adding about 320ml of water.

Cool water is absolutely fine. Start off by adding half of it.

Fingers like a mixer.

In you go, and then just turn it.

So often bread recipes say warm water, you were saying cool.

If you want to use warm water, that's absolutely fine,

it just speeds it up.

And the thing about making bread is, the slower the prove,

the more intense the flavour, the better the fermentation.

All I have done there is crush the dough together,

and you end up with a soft dough like that. That still needs work.

Olive oil onto the bench, pop your dough into that

and just coat the outside with the olive oil.

One thing I have learned from you is not to add too much extra flour

and also, having a nice oily surface, it's much easier to work.

If I add lots and lots of flour to that,

it will take forever to rise,

airholes will be very tight

and it will end up like a house brick.

So as I work it more, I begin to speed up.

And you do this for about ten minutes.

It is important at the very beginning to have that

fairly wet dough, which looked as though it would stick to the table

and everything else, but because of

that olive oil, it is completely free.

It is very difficult for bakers to teach people how to knead.

Everyone has got their own way.

I hold the bottom, grab the top - you have initially stretched it.

Then you roll it up.

So you're in, you've ripped, and then you're rolling up.

And that is the motion I have used for many, many years, and it works.

Everything has been incorporated in, it's got a lovely shine

from the olive oil, it's quite stretchy and resistant as well.

So pop that in a bowl, clingfilm that,

and leave that for about an hour.

-Here it is then, Mary.

-That's fully proved.

Yeah, it couldn't get any more proved,

it'd be climbing out the bowl

and trying to get off the table. It will carry on growing.

So the aim is to get it to double its size.

At least double in size.

And you can see, it's just full of air.

Sinking back in, you burst all the bubbles and it starts to drop.

Those little creases there are actually signs that the bread

has risen and fallen back.

We call it "the drop". If you walked in and saw your dough

like that, you'd instantly go, "It's fully proved."

It has exhausted all of the flour and fallen back and created creases.

So the next move?

The next move is to tip it out, just stretch it slightly.

Bang it down a little bit. Now you want to divide it into eight.

So find roughly halfway.

And then divide that again.

And then once you've got your pieces, lay them out.

That one is a bit small, that one is a bit big.

You've got to roll each piece out nice and neat and equal.

You start in the middle, rolling it, and then you roll out.

You put quite a bit of weight on your hands.

You can see I open and flay out my fingers like that.

Sometimes you'll hit an air pocket like that one there.

That would affect the growth, you see, if it wasn't knocked out.

And you can see, actually, on the bench, there's

not a lot of flour, is there?

Because you want that dough to stick.

If there's too much flour, it just skids.

-You need that bit of adhesion.

-Yeah, you need that bit of bite.

We roll it out... No, you went something like that, did you?

I'm not doing karate on it, Mary.

I have every sympathy with our bakers.

-I can tell you, it is pretty difficult.

-It's hard.

Roll out eight equal strands and then you're ready to assemble.

So what I'm going to do is line them up like an octopus.

I think if I were doing it, it would stay a bit like an octopus.

HE LAUGHS

OK, gather the ends and just tuck them together,

and tack them to the table so you've got something to plait with.

That is your starting point there.

Each one of them is numbered.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

What you've got to be careful of -

and no matter who you are - you will need the sequence to do this.

If you haven't got a sequence, you won't get it.

OK, so what you've got is eight strands laid out.

As you move it, you then recount.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

The first move is the only move you don't repeat.

So you start off, eight under seven, over one.

OK.

So when we count again, that's one, two, three, four, five,

six, seven, eight.

The next move is your start of your four sequence.

So two goes under three and over eight.

-Simple.

-Simple. And then one over four.

The next move is seven under six, over one.

And then eight over five.

-There.

-I'm keeping very quiet so as not to muddle you.

Then it's two under three, over eight.

And you repeat that until you finish. Seven under six, over one.

Eight over five. Two under three, over eight, one over four...

Paul might have been doing this for years,

but to make this complicated plait yourself, make sure

you have the sequence written down in front of you before you start.

All the way...down to...the bottom.

HE CHUCKLES

Like that. Squeeze...

There you have it. An eight-strand plait. Very simple...ish.

-That is magnificent.

-Easy.

-Easy-peasy.

-Easy-peasy.

How old were you when you first did your first one like this?

16.

What you're looking for, you've got your line

running across the top, the two either side,

and then you roll it over...

there is your sequence again.

You need to prove that up.

Allow the dough to prove again for about an hour,

although the plaited structure will prevent

the dough from rising as much as it might normally.

Once it's ready, brush it with eggwash

and a pinch of salt to help form the crunchy golden crust.

Bake in the oven for at least 25 minutes

until the dough is fully baked inside.

-OK, Mary, let's have a look.

-Well, that's got the wow factor for me.

-Looks amazing.

-If you knock it...

it's a loud, hollow sound. And if you lift underneath...

I have got asbestos fingers.

You've got all the beautiful colours

underneath the golden brown,

and you can see where it's all interlaced all the way down.

-And it smells divine.

-Well, can I have a taste, then?

-No.

-Why not?

You want to leave it for at least half an hour, 45 minutes,

just because the inside of that is still going to be very, very hot.

-Even the very sort of end?

-Leave it alone.

-Now it's time to eat the plaited loaf.

-Seems a long wait.

-Absolutely.

-You want the crust?

-Definitely. That just looks wonderful.

Look at the structure inside.

How even it is considering it's all been plaited individually.

It is such a beautiful loaf.

Once it's baked and it's cooled,

which is the best way of keeping bread?

For me, I just wrap it up in loose paper

-and put it in the bread bin.

-Not in the fridge?

No. Actually, if you put it in the fridge,

they stale three times quicker.

The cool air in the fridge draws all the moisture out from it.

I love it, because it's crusty, it tastes like bread ought to taste.

Really lovely.

Another bake now, and a pudding that looks

so good, surely it took ages to plan.

But no, Nigel Slater was just using some ingredients

he happened to have hanging around.

At the end of the week,

there's always something left that has to be used.

There's very often lots of bits left in the fridge.

I MUST use these eggs up.

They're just about to go out of their sell-by date.

They're still perfectly good.

I want a recipe that will use all of them at once.

So I'm going to make a meringue.

Apparently, if you make meringues with older egg whites,

rather than really fresh ones, you get a better result.

And this meringue recipe couldn't be simpler.

First, sprinkle a thin layer of sugar onto a roasting tray.

I'm using golden caster sugar for a rich butterscotch flavour.

And I have a little trick when I'm making meringue.

I warm the sugar before I put it in with the eggs.

Only for a few minutes.

Separate the egg whites ready for mixing.

I will keep the yolks for mayonnaise.

There's a million things to do with half a dozen eggs.

From mousses and souffles to mayonnaises

and hollandaise sauce - so many things.

As soon as my mix has thickened, I add my warm sugar.

Its heat is going to help everything come together

that little bit easier.

Turn the beater on really quite fast.

Look at that. Isn't that fab?

Just heap little piles of this fluffy mixture

onto a lined baking tray.

This is the moment I really love cooking,

when something is really simple - two ingredients -

and you're actually playing, really.

I love meringues with cream. Haven't got any, so I need something else.

With these, it's going to be just as luxurious.

A pinch of cinnamon works really well.

And then these will work their magic in the oven,

at 140 degrees for about 35-40 minutes.

BIRDSONG

For me, there's nothing quite like the transformation of a meringue.

They're very lightly crisp on the outside.

And when you press the shell of a meringue,

you can still feel that there's

something very marshmallow-ey inside.

Meringues are really quite sweet,

so I want a slightly bitter chocolate.

Not a milk chocolate, but quite a dark one.

I've got lots of friends who swear by the microwave,

but I like to do mine in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.

I want my raspberries to sit snugly in these meringues.

I could've made little nests of these meringues.

But rather than that, I just thought I would crush the tops of them.

And then the chocolate is trickled over to finish.

Meringue and chocolate - works very well.

Raspberries and chocolate is a marriage made in heaven.

So when it comes to using things up, half a dozen eggs

and some dangerously ripe fruit...

I don't think it comes better than that.

This is how Fridays in the kitchen should be.

A little bit spontaneous and just going with my mood.

Really is my end-of-the-week treat.

It's seriously wonderful.

Now THAT is how you make the most of a few eggs.

Now for something intriguing.

Normally when you hear the word "custard",

you'd be expecting a pudding, but here is Glynn Purnell championing

British cheese, with a baked Cheddar custard and beetroot salad.

So, for the first part of the dish,

what we need to do is get the custard going.

So we need the cream and the grated Cheddar.

All right, custards are normally sweet,

but this one is a savoury one.

It's a bit like a quiche but without the pastry,

and starts with double cream - quite a lot in fact.

I'm going to grate some of that delicious, sharp, mature Cheddar.

I'm going to grate a little bit of the rind into it,

-because the rind has still got...

-HE SNIFFS

..the smell of the farm, and almost the orchards over the back.

So if we grate it down...

Once you've got a big enough handful,

chuck it in with the cream and give it a good stir...

to encourage it to melt.

Now it's time for some bold, punchy flavours,

starting with a pinch of ginger.

And then a tiny bit of English mustard, just to bring

the flavour of the Cheddar out.

Not too much, don't want to blow anyone's head off.

So what I've got now is a fantastic consistency,

almost like a cheese sauce sort of consistency.

So what we need to do is add the eggs.

This will be like our setting agent and will give

a fantastic consistency and let the Cheddar really sing out.

Once the eggs are whisked in,

pass the mixture through a sieve to make sure there's no lumps.

Then pour boiling water into a baking tray

around an ovenproof dish...

and tip the custard into the submerged dish.

This will make sure it cooks slowly and evenly.

So a little bit more grated cheese on the top,

to really get that almost cheese-on-toast taste

on the top of it,

because it slightly colours and melts onto the custard.

I'm going to cook that at about 160 for about 40-50 minutes.

So whilst that's cooking, we can get on with the beetroot salad.

Beetroot is a perfect partner for cheese.

There's lots of different varieties out there,

like these colourful little beauties.

And when I was a kid,

whenever you had a cheeseboard or a ploughman's, you'd always have,

like, pickled beetroot or some sort of crunchy red cabbage to go

with it, so this really is sort of reliving that sort of flavour.

Just going to have a little splash of really reduced balsamic.

You can see I've got the beetroot, got a lot of crunchy veg,

to go with the real creamy, sharp Cheddar.

I think we're just about ready. My Cheddar custard.

Got that cheese-on-toast smell and as you can see,

it's just started to colour on the side, which is absolutely fantastic.

So I can't wait to taste that now.

I just hope I've done that Cheddar the justice it deserves.

But that, to me, sings.

Great British Cheddar.

Quite an unusual dish from Glynn,

and there's a bit of a twist too in this recipe from the Hairy Bikers.

Scones and strawberries - nothing unusual there.

But the boys are adding peppercorns.

-It's our strawberry and pepper sco-ho-ones, or scones.

-Yeah!

Just slather with clotted cream.

It's the most mega grown-up

strawberry and cream scone you could ever taste.

Right, for the raw strawberry and black pepper scones,

you're going to need 400g of hulled and halved strawberries.

But what you do, you see, you mix sugar and strawberries

with some pepper, ground black pepper, and then you bake them.

Magic, isn't it?

It sounds a bit weird and wonderful, but remember

when people first suggested putting mint and balsamic vinegar

on your strawberries, you thought that was peculiar too.

You never thought that with cream though, did you?

No, strawberries and cream.

It's just one of them things that you do do, don't you?

What we're doing, really, is, we're dehydrating them

to intensify the flavour and, honestly,

when you put that in a scone mix with the pepper,

you get the spice, you get the fruit, you get the... Ohh!

Seasoning, you see.

Yeah, and when you get this little nugget of flavour

in your golden scone...

your eyes light up. Strawberries - hulled, halved, on a baking tray.

'Now sprinkle or grind about a teaspoon of black pepper

'over the strawberries.'

Pepper's been around, it's been precious for such a long time.

Going back to Roman times,

Pliny complained that white pepper cost twice as much as black pepper.

-Oh. Well, Alaric the Goth...

-Who?

-Alec the Goth?

-No, ALARIC the Goth.

Oh, aye.

As a ransom for Rome, he declared,

"I want 3,000lb of pepper, please,

"then you can have your city back."

-Until then, it was...

-HE MAKES CRUNCHING NOISE

-COMEDIC NEW YORK ACCENT:

-..curtains.

-Right.

-See?

-Sugar.

Couple of teaspoons of sugar.

'Now, what can I come up with to trump Kingy? I've got it.'

Did you know that in the 12th century, a pound of pepper

was the equivalent of a carpenter's weekly wage?

-Was it?

-Yep.

And did YOU know that pepper, when it was introduced into the UK,

was blamed for gout?

Ohh.

Because it held all of the toxins - or so the medics thought -

around the joints.

Hmm!

So put your peppered up and sugared up strawberries into the oven.

About 120 degrees C, or 100 degrees if you've got a fan oven.

For about an hour and a half. Very slooow.

'Et voila - an hour and a half later, dried strawberries.'

-They are absolute flavour bombs.

-They are super, super strawberry.

They are, aren't they? Let's make scones.

'Now for the scone mix.

'You are going to need 100g of cooled butter.'

Thank you. Now, just cube the butter...

'Then you'll need 500g of self-raising flour.'

For scones, you always must have self-raising flour.

If not, you need to put baking powder into ordinary flour.

And sometimes we've been known to sneak...

If it's a heavy scone, an extra teaspoon of baking powder,

it makes your scones go, "Whoooop!"

So, we put the butter in, and then we rub that butter...

Put the sugar in first before you rub.

'Oops, Dave's right. So in goes 50g of caster sugar.'

And some salt. Well, we've got pepper, we've got to have salt.

Seasoning, you see?

-Goes together, like the saying, Dave.

-Yeah.

Rub.

And just rub it together until it resembles breadcrumbs.

The strawberries, which we did yesterday,

you have to scrape off the paper.

This is serious, serious flavouring on here.

Concentrated strawberries.

Phwoar!

All those kind of jammy bits, we want them as well.

Let's put the dried pepper strawberries in there.

And work them through as well, as evenly as you can.

I tell you what, Dave, the smell of these strawberries is more

strawberry than strawberry, if you know what I mean.

-Powerful, aren't they?

-Yeah, they're really good.

Right, I've got me flour ready for dusting.

What's the fastest food in the world, Kingy?

-Dunno.

-"S-gone"!

That's...

HE CLEARS HIS THROAT

-So how do you say it?

-"Scone".

-Yeah, me too.

-There is a north-south divide, isn't there?

-There is.

-"Scowne."

-It's not a scowne.

-It's a scone.

-Scone.

Now add 300ml of cold milk. If it ends up being too soggy,

put a bit more flour in. If it ends up too dry, put a bit more milk in.

-It's not hard, is it?

-No.

# Scones that can be as light as a bee

# Are lovely things to eat in the afternoon

# But they can be better when you pick them up with pepper

# You have them with cream They're a dream. #

'Eat your heart out, Paul McCartney.'

Did you know that scones, for years, in their various forms,

were always cooked on a griddle? They weren't baked.

-Baking scones like this is relatively newfangled.

-Is it?

-Yep.

-Go on, that's it, man.

-Woo!

-Look at that.

-Mr King.

-Yes, sir?

-That dough...

-It's light, innit?

-Yeah, it's great.

And as they say, with bread, the softer the dough,

the lighter the loaf.

It's like my belly, that.

-Twice as lumpy.

-'Now, it's time to cut out the scones.'

You need to be quite firm with this,

because if there's a strawberry in the way, it would just drag.

But if you're bold and butch, it won't.

SI GROWLS

-Look at that.

-Oh, man.

-ITALIAN ACCENT:

-It's a beautiful thing.

-I'm quite en-scone-sced with meself.

-Oh...

Look at that. Oh, that's got a big hunker in the middle.

But you know with the traditional scone,

-where you have strawberry jam and cream...

-Yeah?

..are you a jam first and then cream, or cream first and then jam?

It depends on me mood.

If I feel like being unctuous and watching the jam fall over

the mound of clotted cream that I've stuck on my scone, yes.

If not and I'm in a hurry, I just put jam on, cream on,

and then stuff it in me gob.

-Oh, it has got to be jam first and then cream.

-Has it?

'If you say so.'

Set your oven at 180 for a fan, 200 ordinary, Celsius.

Brush these with milk.

I'm going to bake these for about 15 minutes. Right.

Why don't we sit down and I'll just teach you

a few things about strawberries?

Ahh, you think so, do you?

MUSIC: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Theme by Ennio Morricone

And did you know that in medieval times, strawberries

-were thought to be an aphrodisiac?

-Were they?

And were served in a soup of strawberries, borage and sour cream?

You're getting competitive now about your strawberry facts.

I can see it by the tone of your voice.

-Well, do you give up?

-No.

And did you know, the myth and legend

of Ancient Egypt suggested that

if you consumed a vast amount of strawberries, you may turn into a...

Rragh.

..an evil cat?

HE HISSES

Did you know another myth, that if two people consumed together

a double-crowned strawberry, they will fall in love?

We haven't eaten one of them, have we?

Tell me another. You've got nowt, haven't you?

-No, no.

-Do you know the weight of the world's biggest strawberry?

-575 kilos actually.

-Rubbish, that's over half a metric ton.

What is it?

-Well, I...

-You don't know, do you?

No, but neither do you.

I do know that it was a big...strawberry.

-TIMER RINGS

-Nearly done.

Ohh. Look at that.

Ohh. Scones. They don't get...

Ahh! ..much better than this.

Now, just leave them to cool.

-I'll go get the cream.

-Right. Look at this.

SI WHISTLES

Oh, yeah.

-Yes.

-Lovely. Look at the strawberries.

They've kind of rehydrated a little bit in there, haven't they?

-Bit of the old crusty clotted, eh?

-Go on, my friend.

-Now, that's one of the best of British, isn't it?

-It certainly is.

Strawberries and cream - British institution -

-combined with scones.

-Yes.

Now, salt and pepper, in seasoning, in a way you wouldn't have thought.

Would you ever believe?

Do you know, Kingy, the way we've done these strawberries,

combine that with the pepper,

they're really intense flavours,

and as you eat the scone, they just burst on your palate.

-Where's yours gone?

-I've eaten it.

-Oh, have you?

-Yeah, it was lovely.

'Si's may have s-gone, but fortunately,

'we made plenty of these tasty treats.'

I hope you've seen lots to inspire and excite you,

and do join me again for more fantastic baking next time. Bye.