Christmas Special The Great British Bake Off

It was the week before Christmas,

and all through the house

not a creature was stirring, except in the kitchen.

-Gosh, it looks rich!

-It does, doesn't it? Look at the colour of that.

In this Christmas masterclass, Mary and Paul will guide you

through some of their favourite festive dishes.

-One, two, three.

-That's cracking, that.

With practical tips to feed family and friends over the holidays.

That smells lovely.

Christmas is all about baking with family,

get all the young ones to help you,

and I can see children putting all sorts of sweets round here.

The main thing is not to get too stressed.

Don't do too much at one go,

it's a matter of calming down and enjoying it.

I was wondering if you'd turn up in a Father Christmas outfit

-because I know you've got one.

-Yeah, I have got a Santa suit.

For me, Christmas is all about the kitchen. Oh, yes!

Look at this! What we're going to show you is some real classic bakes.

Once you've learned how to do the basics, then you can twist it

and make it your own, make it your own way,

make it your family tradition. But we are here to show you

how to bake some great Christmas goodies.

I think that looks wonderful, well done.

Mary and Paul will share traditional classics

and modern alternatives for your table this Christmas.

Mary turns the trusty mince pie into an original tray bake,

her mincemeat streusel can be made beforehand to feed friends

and family, making this Christmas classic go much further.

Paul bakes a traditional German stollen,

packed with fruits and a swirl of marzipan.

If you've not yet made your Christmas cake, Mary has the answer.

Her Tunis cake made from a light Madeira,

topped with a thick layer of chocolate ganache

can be made last minute in time for Christmas.

Paul's Scottish bake for New Year's Eve.

The black bun, a fruit cake wrapped in delicate shortcrust pastry.

The whole family, young and old, can get involved

in making Mary's traditional gingerbread house.

And finally, Paul has a great way of using up the Christmas leftovers

in his hot water crust pie.

An impressive centrepiece for your Boxing Day table.

Well, Mary, finished all your shopping?

More or less, more or less.

There's always last minute things to do. All the food is organised,

I start my list early. I find out how many people are coming for Christmas

and then set it out and try and get things in and get organised.

-I haven't even started yet!

-Haven't you?

I always leave it until the last minute. December 24th.

I'm the lunatic that's running around seeing all the shops closing

going "Noooo!" and just grabbing stuff.

But what does Christmas mean to you? Because for me

I think it's the smell of the turkey cooking,

it's the smell of the stuffing in there.

It's the smell of the kitchen.

It's wonderful, and also perhaps a bit of mulled wine,

I love the smell of all those spices coming through.

And everybody says, "Can I help?" And I'm afraid I accept graciously,

it's a time when everybody gets involved and I love it.

I feel exactly the same, my big job always leading up to it

is mince pies, I seem to be on mince pie duty from mid-November,

so I'm up to HERE with mince pies. I still like them,

but I'm nearly coming to an end, so not far now.

Well, I've got the answer to it.

I'm really tired of making individual mince pies,

so I'm going to show you a mincemeat streusel.

Far quicker than making mince pies,

you can have a lot of brandy butter with it, delicious.

Typical, you with your brandy butter again.

Mary's mincemeat streusel, made with a delicate pastry base,

layered with a home-made mincemeat filling

and topped with a light and crumbly streusel.

-OK, you want me to do anything, then?

-I do.

So I'm going to make my own mincemeat,

now that's not something I always do.

Sometimes I buy it and add a bit of stewed apple to it

and a few more spices. Perhaps we'd have a go at making it ourselves.

So, if you can weigh the fruits, and I need 100g of currants first of all.

Is it worth it making your own mincemeat?

It's a bit of a pain, isn't it?

It's lovely because everybody likes home-made mince pies

but, of course, you do have a choice of all the fruits that you like.

You will then need to add 100g of raisins,

100g of sultanas and 50g of mixed peel.

Mary's mix is personalised with an additional 100g of dried apricots

and 100g of dried cranberries.

I know one wouldn't use dried cranberries in the past,

but that's something that's different now and a different flavour.

And then I've got these apricots, now I have made them fairly chunky

because I like to come across them. Then I would like an apple.

I can remember at home when I was young,

Mum bought the mincemeat and she'd add a lot of stewed apple to it.

-Did your mum cook a lot?

-She did but, of course, as you know,

I'm quite ancient and it was just after the war

when most of the cooking was done. And things were short,

-so the apple would spin it out. Can you just grate that for me?

-Yep.

I mean, tangerines, satsumas,

I'd be tempted to put that in instead of a lemon,

because that always reminds me of Christmas.

-Always had a satsuma in my stocking.

-Right at the foot.

But it was always wrapped up like a present,

so I'd get really excited about it,

thinking, "Wow, that's an extra present."

Rip it open, it's a satsuma!

Squeeze the juice of half the lemon into the mixture

along with 125g of muscovado sugar, 25g of roughly chopped almonds,

a quarter of a teaspoon of cinnamon and half a teaspoon of mixed spice.

Tip all that into the pan, so in there like that,

and then 75g of butter. I find that most people

like to use butter rather than suet.

You've got butter in the fridge, anyway.

If you buy a packet of suet then you're left with it

unless you're making treacle syrup pudding or something.

So, all I've got to do is gently heat that

so the butter is melted, it helps to plump up the fruit.

Cook the mincemeat gently over a low heat for about ten minutes

until the butter has melted and the ingredients are well combined.

You must then leave it to cool,

before adding a little winter warmer.

I'm going to add a little bit of brandy to it.

It's up to you, really, how much you add,

-just a good sprinkling.

-We're going to have a Mary Berry amount.

Where's the rest of the bottle? That's not full.

Sprinkle it in over the top, just like that, and then stir it.

Once the mincemeat filling is made,

you can prepare the sweet shortcrust pastry

for the base of the streusel. Add 175g of plain flour,

one-and-a-half tablespoons of icing sugar,

and 100g of butter to a food processor.

So tip all that in, all the flour.

And mix until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

Then I'm going to add some cold water to that,

about one-and-a-half tablespoons,

and just whizz it until it comes together.

So, if I could have a little flour just to bring that together.

That's it. Hardly needs any kneading at all.

So this is going to be the base?

That is the base, and that just needs to chill

so that I can roll it out.

And now, for the streusel topping, I need 75g of self-raising flour.

The streusel topping goes above the mincemeat

and streusel in Germany means "to scatter, to sprinkle".

And then 40g of semolina, that gives a nice crunchiness to it.

And 40g of caster sugar.

And then I've got some melted butter here,

if you just pour that in like that,

and it doesn't matter that there's a sediment in the butter,

you don't have to clarify it.

So work that all together, you see the consistency of it,

-looking a bit like a soft marzipan.

-Yeah.

So, if you just put it in the freezer until it's frozen solid,

-and you'll be able to grate it on top.

-That's a nice idea.

-Don't mess about with it, just put it in the freezer!

-I'm not!

-I'm going to roll it up!

-There we are.

-In the freezer?

-Yeah.

Once both doughs have chilled down sufficiently,

roll out the sweet shortcrust pastry

as thin as you can and use it to carefully line

a greased Swiss roll tin.

Then spread a generous layer of mincemeat over the base

before trimming off any excess pastry.

So, Paul, streusel topping.

That has chilled and I'm going to grate it straight on the top.

It looks lovely, it looks as though you're putting grated cheese on top,

which, of course, you're not.

And that sort of soaks down into the mincemeat

so if there's been any extra moisture from that brandy,

and the apple, it absorbs it, and it gives a very light topping.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees fan,

and bake the streusel for 25-30 minutes.

You're looking for the pastry to crisp up,

and for the streusel topping to turn golden brown in colour.

That smells lovely.

Pale golden round the outside, good colour on top,

and I'm going to leave that now to be cool enough to cut.

And it's lovely with brandy butter or even brandy cream.

I'm starving, hurry up and cool, PLEASE!

So, here's my mincemeat streusel,

it's much easier to make than the individual mince pies.

-You get more mincemeat inside.

-It's more like a tray bake, isn't it?

It's a quick way of knocking up 16 mince pies in half the time.

Exactly, and it's home-made mincemeat, as well.

-Oh, yes. I'm looking forward to it.

-It holds together when you cut it,

-have a try.

-Let's see what this is like.

That's cracking, that.

That's lovely.

The secret is to have a very thin layer of pastry underneath

and lots of home-made mincemeat, and the top is all crispy.

Nice one, Mary.

-Well, it was our first recipe and I'm glad you enjoy it.

-Mmm.

Another of our now much-loved Christmas bakes

also has German connections.

Stollen was first known to have been baked at the Saxon Royal Court

in 1427, but it was very different to what it is today.

Originally, stollen was made for fasting rather than for feasting.

It consisted of just flour, water, yeast and oil,

and it was called stritzel at the time.

Now, it was due to a decree that was passed by the Roman Catholic Church

forbidding the use of butter and milk during the period of Advent,

so leading up to Christmas.

It was only Pope Innocent VIII in 1491,

he wrote a letter stating that milk and butter could be used

with the blessing of God. This is really the time when stritzel

turned into stollen.

The inclusion of milk and butter into the recipe

was followed by the inclusion of all sorts of other ingredients

such as dried fruit, such as almonds, such as sugar and so on.

Stollen became associated with Christmas in Germany

as it started to be sent to loved ones living abroad

as a reminder of home. This tradition held a particular

significance with soldiers during the First World War.

By Christmas 1914, the First World War had been raging

for the best part of four months.

The British Army had been fighting furiously

and on Christmas Eve, as far as the British soldiers were concerned,

it was going to be business as usual.

But all of a sudden they started to see lights appearing

on the German trenches, and Christmas trees were being put up

on the German parapet, and what it was was a great indication

of what was to come the following day.

Christmas Day morning dawned frosty and cold,

and it was very misty. And when the mist started to clear,

the British soldiers saw Germans already standing

in no man's land near their trenches.

Then some of them started to get closer and were calling to them

to come and join them. The British soldiers, they got out of

the trench, and some of them went and met the Germans halfway

across in no man's land. As both sides came together,

they started swapping and trading photographs, Christmas gifts

that families might have sent from home.

To the German army, stollen was a really sentimental gift,

and the idea that a German soldier who was sent that stollen

by his family, that he would then give that away and exchange it,

really does sum up the Christmas spirit that was around

in the trenches in Christmas 1914.

Paul's heavily spiced and fruited version of this Christmas classic,

features a swirl of marzipan running through the centre.

Now, can you weigh up for me 500g of strong white flour, please?

And strong white flour because you always use strong flour for bread.

This is going to take on board a lot of fruit

so it needs to have some form of gluten in there,

some strength in there to be able to bond all that fruit together.

A weak flour just wouldn't be able to do it.

Do you like stollen, Mary?

I absolutely love it, I like it heavily-fruited

and I love the marzipan that goes through it.

You're going to love this, then.

He will then need to add 150g of softened butter,

10g of fast action yeast and 10g of salt.

Sweeten the dough mix with 100g of caster sugar

and gradually pour in 250ml of whole milk as you start to mix the dough.

Now I really begin to try and form the dough in the bowl,

and it's gone lovely and soft because the butter's begun

to soften.

Could you just pull my sleeve up for me, Mary, please?

I will. Just like with the children.

And that one?

OK, well, I'm glad to think you're not getting mucky. That's it.

Right. A little bit of flour if you could, Mary.

Because this has got butter in it, if I use olive oil on there

it'll emulsify onto the bench, so I'm going to pop it in

the middle there, roll it around in the flour just to start off with

so it's got a good coating on it,

and then begin to manipulate the dough.

So what you're doing at this stage is building up the gluten strands

and stretching it out so at the moment it doesn't look mottled,

it looks nice and smooth.

For the filling, he will need 200g of raisins, 100g of currants,

125g of mixed peel, a pinch of ground nutmeg,

and a pinch of ground cloves to give it a really festive aroma.

-Could I have 55g of the blanched almonds, please, Mary?

-Certainly.

This is going to add a lot of texture to it,

so you've got a lot of soft fruit,

so this is going to add a little bite and crunch to it as well.

Finally, add half a teaspoon of vanilla extract

and just a couple of drops of almond extract.

Now we're going to add that to the dough.

Now the way that you do that, push your dough in

and begin to fold your dough and push at the same time.

What this does is it forces all the fruit into the dough.

So, you grab the outside,

push it down and then you eventually fold it into the middle.

Do you know, that's the opposite way that I would do it,

I would have the dough out, put the fruit there

and sort of knead it in, and you're doing it just the other way round,

which seems a sensible way, you can get more force in the bowl...

-You're forcing it in.

-Right.

-That didn't take very long.

No, it didn't.

So, your dough's in there, so what we're going to do is smooth it off

a little bit, gently just roll it up using the whole part of your hand.

Return the dough to the bowl, cover with clingfilm to prevent a skin

from forming, and then leave to rise for one to two hours,

or until it has doubled in size.

OK, Mary, there's the dough that's risen.

It's been sitting there for about an hour-and-a-half, actually.

Lovely and soft and light.

So we're going to get a little bit of flour,

this is where you turn a lump of dough into a stollen.

You start off by flattening it down with your hand first...

Coat it with a bit of flour on both sides.

So most of the work's already done

before you invite Mr Rolling Pin into play.

There's real power behind that...

-You just missed me!

-Sorry, Mary.

-Did I?

-Yes.

There's real power behind the rolling you're doing.

What you want to do is, try and get this about the width of your tray,

and the height of one of the sultanas, which is about right.

A little bit more stretching, it's going to be a bit weak

cos there's so much stuff in there, so if you get a rip,

don't worry about it, it doesn't matter.

You're going to roll that up, anyway.

Take 225g of marzipan and roll out into a rectangle.

The length of the marzipan should roughly fit

the width of the stollen dough.

Now you can play around with the volume of marzipan.

If you like marzipan,

you've got absolutely as much as you want in there.

You can colour the marzipan if you want

so you've got a colour going through the whole thing.

Over here, I've got some melted butter.

For a little bit of flavour and for a little bit of bonding

for the marzipan, just rub a little bit of butter in there.

Ah, I see, yep.

OK. Now we're going to roll it up.

So roll over the top and then you begin to roll up the marzipan.

So the aim is to get the marzipan in the middle?

-Yes.

-Gosh, that looks a big stollen.

Transfer the stollen to a baking tray and cover with a plastic bag.

Leave your loaf to prove for about an hour,

leaving you plenty of time to wrap presents and warm the mulled wine.

There we have it, Mary.

It's got a little bit of bounce to it, it's nearly doubled in size.

Now that'll go into the oven, it'll colour quickly.

It's got lots of sugar in there, it's got butter wrapped up,

it's got fruit in there which is going to ooze all its juice

from it as well, it will go dark but stick with it, OK?

And the marzipan will creep out here.

And you'll see it pouring out the side, exactly.

I'm going to pop that into the oven now...

..and we'll have a check later.

Bake the stollen for one hour, at 190 degrees centigrade,

or 170 degrees on the fan setting.

OK, that's the finished stollen. Except one last bit.

That little bit of luxury.

Melted butter, poured onto the top

and it just softens up that crust a little bit.

It looks just wonderful. Would you serve that cold or warm?

I think it's best when it's cold.

The marzipan begins to solidify and it is delicious.

-Would you like to have a go?

-Yes, come on.

I'll go right in the middle there. Look at that.

That really does look lovely.

So, we've got the marzipan working its way through it,

and lots of icing sugar on the top.

Lots of icing sugar, again, a little bit of sweetness.

Packed with fruit and it's got all those spices in there, as well.

Mmm! I love all the spices, and that marzipan,

just adds to the moisture of it.

You can imagine, a little bit of a break on Christmas Day

or any time over Christmas with a cup of tea,

a slice of this and it'll keep moist

because of the amount of fruit in there. You just wrap it up

-and it'll keep for about four, five days no problem.

-Lovely.

To be honest, Mary, this is the sort of thing you could leave out

-for Santa on Christmas Eve.

-I think he'd like it

and I think he'd like a big slice.

You'd probably find half of it disappearing overnight somewhere.

So. Paul, I've got an alternative to our fruited Christmas cake,

it's Tunis cake.

I think it first appeared in the '30s,

but after the war when fruit was short, it became very popular.

Mary's Tunis cake features a light, lemony Madeira cake base,

topped with a rich chocolate ganache icing,

and hand-crafted marzipan decorations.

So Paul, first of all four eggs.

Do you want me to put four eggs straight in?

Straight in, that's right.

I knew you were going to do that,

and no dripping on the side of the bowl.

Perfect.

And then 225g of self-raising flour,

225g of caster,

and then 70g of ground almonds.

That adds moisture to it, and it gives it stability too.

Little bit of flavour I'd imagine, as well.

I use ground almonds a lot, I think they're brilliant.

225g of softened butter.

Then I'm going to put some grated rind of lemon

and that can go straight in. It gives a really nice flavour.

I think at Christmas time it is nice to have a cake that isn't too rich.

Well, you think of Christmas things, you tend to think of dried fruits,

you'll think of marzipan, and they're all dense, heavy cakes.

And don't forget, you've probably had a huge turkey, stuffing,

roast potatoes, cranberry, the whole thing.

And you want something that you can nibble on,

this sounds perfect for that.

I think this is a pleasant change.

Beat the ingredients on a high speed until they are well blended.

Then spoon into a deep 20cm cake tin,

greased and lined with baking parchment.

Paul, I'd level that off absolutely flat,

and the paper's above the tin because, once this is baked,

I'm going to put chocolate ganache on the top

and it'll go up against the rim and it'll make a very clean finish

-when I pull off the paper.

-OK.

Bake your Madeira cake in a preheated oven at 160 degrees fan.

It'll take about an hour,

but it's a good idea to check the cake after 45 minutes,

and cover the top with foil

if it looks like it's browning too quickly.

Beautiful.

Looking at it, it looks well risen

and it's just shrinking away from the sides of the tin just a little.

So, I'm going to leave that to get cold, I'll put it up here.

And then if you'd be kind enough to go to the fridge

and there's 300ml of double cream

and I'm going to heat that ready for the ganache.

So in that goes.

Once the cream is very hot but not bubbling,

remove from the heat and add 400g of plain chocolate.

If you don't want your ganache to be too bitter,

it's best to stick to a chocolate with a cocoa content of around 40%.

Right, now the heat of the cream will melt that chocolate.

Remember, as I'm sure you've heard me say before,

chocolate melts in a child's pocket.

The big mistake in making chocolate ganache

is to get the chocolate too hot.

And then it'll go granular, has all sorts of problems.

Keeping the temperature low makes it work.

Now already that is...

Well, you can see, it looks pretty sort of curdled now.

But I can assure you it's not, just go on working it together.

Keep stirring your chocolate and cream until they blend together

in a smooth, silky ganache.

Now you can see that shiny, glossy, no air bubbles in it, just perfect.

And because we've got that collar all the way round,

it will set level over the top.

Once your cake has completely cooled,

pour the ganache over the top.

The chocolate should settle evenly to give a smooth, level surface.

What I'm looking for is a beautiful, shiny top.

And I'm going to leave that to set

and while that's setting I'm going to make the decoration.

So now to the marzipan leaves that I'm going to do.

When I was looking at some of the original Tunis cakes,

they're all decorated with different fruits made out of marzipan.

You could make Father Christmases and all sorts of other things

if you're good at moulding,

but I quite like the idea of just having leaves

and then if we've got some green colouring...

And I thought you could get your hands green rather than me.

Oh, thank you. If my hands go green, Mary....

Actually, when you get the colouring on your hands...

-Yes, like this.

-..lemon juice will get it off.

Oh, thanks very much, will you get some lemon juice for me, Mary?

I'll get it all ready for you and I also will show you it comes off.

-That looks brilliant.

-OK.

I know you're going to complain, if you go to the sink

while I'm just rolling this out

-you'll be able to get all that colour off.

-Will it all come off?

I think it will. Go and have a jolly good try, anyway.

To fashion your holly leaves, roll out the green marzipan

and cut out the leaf shapes using a cutter or a template.

If I pop that down there...it's just like doing pastry leaves.

You can add detail to the leaves by scoring the marzipan with a knife.

And then if I give you that rolling pin,

you just put them over the top,

then they'll take the shape of the rolling pin

and they look more natural than flat ones.

Dye a little extra marzipan red and mould into additional holly berries.

And now the grand finale - decoration. So, here it is.

Firm and set.

I need to get the tin off, so if I put that like that,

put it in the centre, it's a loose-bottomed tin,

it should come down.

You can see there is a really generous layer of chocolate

on the top there.

Carefully arrange your marzipan holly leaves

around the edge of the cake...

Once we get two on like that...

..before adding the red berries for a perfect festive finish.

It looks a great-looking cake, Mary.

Very simple, and a nice change from having a heavily fruited cake.

So here we have Tunis cake.

It's quicker to make than the classic Christmas cake,

and I think rather nicer and lighter.

I like that layer of chocolate with the sponge,

looks impressive, doesn't it?

It does, and I think it's just really rather different.

Right, that sponge is so soft!

Yep.

That chocolate's delicious.

It's rich, and then you hit that slight lemon,

as well on the Madeira, which I think just lightens it, as well.

It's just so simple, it's so different.

I think Christmas sometimes with all that fruit,

it's just nice to get back to a little bit of lemon,

a little bit of sponge, and a little bit of chocolate.

While Tunis cake may have dipped in and out of favour over the years,

there's one festive bake from Scotland

that has been treasured for centuries.

The earliest incarnation of the black bun as we know it today

can be traced back to the 1500s.

In those days it was a fruit bread laden with currants,

laden with spices, so different from the shortcrust pastry casing

of nowadays.

In the latter half of the 1500s

black bun was enjoyed on Twelfth Night as the designated king cake.

This was a tradition that Mary Queen of Scots brought over

cos she spent her early years in France,

and in France it was a very popular tradition.

At the end of the dinner, the king cake,

which in Scotland was the black bun, would have been cut open

and a piece given to each member of the party.

The person who found the bean or the charm which was baked into

the black bun was then pronounced king or queen

and ruled for the entire evening.

The black bun soon became a centre of controversy, however.

Protestant reformer John Knox led the Church of Scotland to pronounce

that Twelfth Night and all Christmas rituals associated with Catholicism

were overindulgent and wicked and had to be banned.

Stripped of its role of a Twelfth Night king cake,

the black bun became a celebration cake without a celebration.

The people of Scotland, however,

soon found another date on which to focus their festivities.

Well, with the banning of Christmas after the reformation,

people weren't going to be denied their festive time,

and after the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1600,

festivities centre on the eve of the 1st of January, the new year.

And this festival became known as Hogmanay.

One aspect of Hogmanay that's endured is first footing,

and this is where we see black bun incorporated into the tradition.

The first footing describes the ritual where the first person

after midnight who visits the home will bring gifts - whisky,

coal and black bun.

Hogmanay is still a very important tradition in Scotland,

perhaps more important than Christmas for some,

and we still go visiting one another's houses after midnight

bringing drink, bringing food and bringing black bun.

Paul's take on a contemporary style black bun has a rich fruit filling

and is beautifully wrapped in a melt-in-the-mouth shortcrust pastry.

So we're using a shortcrust pastry which we're going to make now.

In this bowl I have 300g of plain flour.

Now I'm going to put into that 75g of lard and 75g of butter.

A mixture of butter and lard makes the shortest of shortcrust pastry.

-Yeah.

-It's quite old-fashioned. It always used to be half and half

-and then people went off lard.

-Got it from my

-nan. Oh, right.

I'm just rubbing this together lightly first.

I remember once, I think I was about 23

-and our big mixing machine broke down.

-In a bakery?

In the bakery, and we had, I'm not kidding you, about 20lb of flour,

and there was three bakers in a trough doing this by hand.

OK, that's pretty much crumb stage at the moment.

A little pinch of salt,

and then I've got...

Mary, can you do that for me?

I will.

-It's come off, just.

-Thank you very much indeed.

I didn't know I had such strength.

I didn't know you had such strength either!

What I'm going to do is add half a teaspoon of baking powder in there.

Four tablespoons of water,

and this is where you start to scrunch it all together,

and then I'm just going to work it slightly.

Now, it's still short now, you can see all the breaks in it already.

It's the lard that does that.

It's a beautiful pastry to work with.

Now I'm happy with that.

I'll just shape it into a ball and I'm going to wrap it up,

pop that in the fridge, just to chill it down a bit,

get that lard back to being a little bit stiffer again.

With your pastry resting in the fridge,

you can prepare your fruity filling.

Weigh out 200g of plain flour, 300g of raisins

and 300g of currants before adding the spices.

A quarter of a teaspoon of the black pepper, please.

-Black pepper?

-Yeah.

-Are you sure? Gosh.

Black pepper. Again, a little bit of spice.

It's just a little bit of flavour in there

but there's so many things going in this now.

To add a real pungency to the mix, add half a teaspoon each

of ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground allspice and mixed spice.

Enrich the filling with 100g of dark muscovado sugar

and then measure out 100g of mixed peel

and half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.

And you'll love this bit, Mary.

Oh, yes, I can definitely see what it is.

Two tablespoons of whisky, please.

You've got to have whisky, it's Scottish.

Do I have to measure it very carefully?

No, I'm sure you know exactly how much to put in.

No, no, no, I'll do it very carefully.

Ooh, is that a bit too much?

Is that a bit too much? That's fine.

OK, let's give that a bit of a mix.

I just need some liquid putting in there. Can I have one egg please?

And three tablespoons of the buttermilk.

If you hadn't got buttermilk, would it make an awful lot of difference?

-Sour cream?

-I was thinking of yoghurt.

Just thinking of what people have got in the house at Christmas.

Yeah, yoghurt or even milk.

So actually it's like making a Christmas cake

inside a shortcrust pastry.

So I'm going to get my hands in there.

Just gently bring this all together.

And that'll all work together, will it? Oh, yes, it is now.

So give it a good mix in.

Gosh, it looks rich.

It does, doesn't it? Look at the colour of that, it's lovely.

Line a 900g loaf tin with greaseproof paper,

leaving a little overhanging the edges to help you lift the bun out

of the tin once baked.

Then placing one third of the chilled pastry aside for the lid,

roll out the remaining two thirds into a rectangle large enough

to cover the base and the sides of the tin.

Right, I'm going to roll it out.

Carry on turning it. You know, when you're doing pastries like this

you've just got to keep on moving it.

You see a lot of people just going like this all the time.

And then it's stuck to the bench, you've got to keep rolling it out

evenly, flipping it over.

Try and keep it as rectangular as you can,

thinking of what it's going to go into.

If I put that there and then drop that down that side...

and drop it down that side, it's nearly there,

I'll try and straighten it up a little.

Looks pretty good.

Carefully lay the pastry over the tin

and gently ease it right down the sides, pressing it into each corner.

Don't worry if it tears slightly,

just patch it up with a little extra pastry.

I'm happy that's nice and thin all the way down the sides.

Now what I want to do is get my mixture, pop it in.

And press it out, I suppose.

I want it down right into the corners.

And that will firm up during cooking, the egg will set it,

so when it's cooked you'll be able to cut through.

Exactly, yeah. OK, I'm happy with that.

Now this is going to be the lid.

I'm just going to shape this and roll this out.

That's about it.

Use a little water to bond the pastry, position the lid

and press down to seal the edges.

Slice off the excess pastry and finish with a decorative crimp,

using the prongs of a fork.

That looks lovely.

OK, that's our basic black bun.

We can just bang that into the oven as it is.

You don't need to pierce it either.

But, it's Christmas, so what I'm going to do first,

I'm just going to have a little bit of water there and there,

so the first job is get my leftover pastry and roll it out

with a rolling pin. I'll show you what I'm going to do with it now.

It just makes it look a bit prettier, that's all.

I'm intrigued as to what you're up to.

I'm just going to make a nice incision.

Look at the length of that.

Right, so I've got one like that...

That's a bit better. All right?

Then I'm going to make a couple of bows.

Oh, right, I see what you're up to.

So you're making it a bit like a Christmas present

with a nice bow on the top.

Yeah, so you're going to have one side there...

-Right.

-Like so. The other side like so.

So are you quite helpful with wrapping Christmas parcels

-at Christmas time?

-Who, me?

-Yes.

-No.

Well, I can see you're not the speediest at wrapping parcels.

You won't be asked to do it again, will you?

Glaze with a little beaten egg

and bake for two hours at 160 degrees centigrade

on the fan setting.

This will ensure that the dense fruit cake and pastry sides

bake through evenly.

-What a glorious colour!

-I know.

-It's like good polished brown shoes.

Once baked, leave the black bun to cool in the tin

before carefully lifting it out using the baking parchment handles.

-Oh!

-It's coming.

What I'm going to try and do

is slide this off the paper

and there you have it.

A black bun, beautifully filled with all that fruit,

with a beautifully short pastry on the outside.

Well baked, no soggy bottom and it'll taste fantastic.

I think that looks wonderful, well done.

I'm going to cut into it. Tell me what you think.

I will, and it's so different.

I can't wait to see the middle of that.

There you go, Mary. Look at the structure on that, how packed it is.

How warming would that be on a cold winter's night?

Oh, yes.

That's remarkably good.

A pastry that you break through,

and it's really crumbly as well on the outside, it's short.

Well, the pastry is what makes it so different,

I think if people saw that on the sideboard

they'd think it's a raised pie,

and then you open it up and it's just that cross between Christmas pudding

and Christmas cake.

There's a reason why that bow's on, Mary - it's a surprise.

So, Paul, this is a gingerbread house.

It's a great thing to make within the family,

and you can make it as simple or as complicated as you want.

Can I let you into a little secret?

-Never made one in my life.

-Haven't you?

-Not a gingerbread house, no.

-What have you made, then?

I've made a gingerbread cathedral.

You would! It's all about one-upmanship, honestly.

Why did you make a gingerbread cathedral?

It was in a hotel I was working at.

Well, this should be a doddle. You can do it instead of me, then.

Mary's festive gingerbread house is constructed

with spiced ginger biscuit,

and brought to life with stained glass made from melted sweets

and finished with royal icing.

First of all, we need to make the gingerbread mixture.

So if you can weigh 375g of butter,

and then on top of that 300g of dark muscovado sugar.

The dark muscovado gives a really good colour to the gingerbread

and a good flavour.

Then 150g of golden syrup.

This gingerbread mixture is really scrumptious to eat.

Now I'm going to melt those all together.

As your mixture melts down over a gentle heat,

measure out one level tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda,

900g of plain flour and two tablespoons of ground ginger.

Then pour the melted mixture into the dry ingredients

and combine to form a dough.

Doesn't that look rich and gorgeous?

Very shortly, when all the flour's in, I can get my hand in there,

but it's quite hot at the moment.

And just incorporate all the rest of the flour from the outside.

-Can I give it to you to have a big stir?

-Yeah.

The nice thing with this particular gingerbread house

is that you can eat every single scrap of it.

-Even the decoration.

-Yes, that's it, it's coming together really nicely.

I might put it on the bench for a second.

You don't need any extra flour with this, it'll alter the recipe.

It's quite an oily mixture, that's the butter in it.

Now I'm going to make it into a sausage shape

and I'm going to divide it into five.

We need two for the roof, because the roof is sloping like that.

We need two for the back and the front,

and the sides are smaller, my house anyway,

and you just cut that in half.

Now it's got bicarb in, so you can't freeze it,

so you just have got to get on and make it.

So I'm going to keep one back for the front of the house

and we can put the rest in there and we'll just cover it with clingfilm

so it doesn't get a crust over it.

You can download the gingerbread house design from the website

in order to make the templates.

You will need one template for the front and back of the house,

one template for the sides,

and one template for the two parts of the roof.

Now every part of this is best rolled out on top of the baking parchment,

otherwise you can't lift it. Have you got a rolling pin there?

-I have indeed.

-So, you want to roll this out thinly,

about three quarters of a centimetre thick. Let's just put that up top.

And that fits absolutely perfectly.

Then you get a knife and you cut round that.

Just go round like that.

And the trimmings were used for trees and things, and also your chimney.

And then you can either do that with a template

or you can get a star cutter.

So pull that off and then put your star cutter just like that.

Down it goes.

So that is ready and you go on doing it with every piece that you need.

-So, you need to repeat that front and back exactly the same.

-Absolutely.

Once you've cut out all the pieces,

bake in the oven preheated to 180 fan.

After just seven minutes, take the gingerbread back out of the oven

and trim the edges if the biscuit has spread slightly.

Now you see just here I'm going to trim round those

to make them clearer and bigger.

The star shape has begun to fill in again,

so while it's warm I'm going to trim it.

Because if you don't do it when it's warm,

it crisps and you break the whole lot.

Can you take some boiled sweets there and crush them up,

and those crushed-up boiled sweets I'm going to put in the windows

and put them back in the oven.

They'll melt and they'll look like stained glass.

Now those boiled sweets, when I was little,

they used to do peppermint ones,

and we had a wood burning stove in our play room

and I used to put them on the top and they'd melt into pools

just like I'm doing in these windows.

Oh, I bet your mum was choked about that!

Well, we didn't tell her.

And so you crush them up. They don't melt if you put them in whole.

Once you crush the sweets to a coarse powder,

carefully fill each of the windows.

Don't go over the top, otherwise it'll spread round

the outside of the window and look a little bit odd.

It just wants to be level, so it's about a teaspoon full in each one.

Yeah.

And then with fingers you just push those in.

Now, those go back in the oven for four minutes

and just keep an eye on them.

When they've spread and become see-through

like the actual sweet,

then take them all out.

So all those sweets should be stained glass windows.

-How about that?

-Very nice.

There we are. If by any chance any of the sides have spread a bit too much,

you can always just, while they're warm, say take the roofs

and make it absolutely straight.

If you can just pop them over the back, we'll make some icing.

No problem.

To make the royal icing, whisk three egg whites until frothy

and then gradually add 675g of icing sugar before stirring through

three teaspoons of lemon juice.

Beat the icing until it becomes snow white and stands up in stiff peaks.

This is a good consistency.

If you can bring me the first tray that's cold.

And then I find it best to twist that and then put it round my thumb.

I'll just see it's coming out at the end, that's it.

So to make the window frame, round the outside.

The main thing with this is to keep it upright

and let a little bit come out and then lay it down.

And then with each one we just put across the window here

and then across like that.

So then we have a window,

and if you've got children helping, they'll just love doing this.

It doesn't matter if the paint's a bit wobbly.

They can make any design they like.

Then underneath the window you can do a bit of a decoration

if you like.

Straight across and then get a bit of a zigzag.

Sort of a window box effect underneath.

You can decorate the rest of your gingerbread house as elaborately

or as simply as you like before moving on to tiling the roof.

You've got my tiles there.

Aah, I wondered what they were there for.

And I've taken a slightly bigger nozzle here to stick them on

and fortunately I have a lot, so you can amuse yourself by eating them.

Thank you.

Then you take each one and you put a blob of icing like that, underneath.

And then we just put them in a row, and you start from the bottom

so they hang down just a little bit.

Did you have tiles on your cathedral?

Er, yeah, probably about 2,000 of them.

Well, there won't be quite so many here.

You can imagine what fun children, when they get to helping,

how many will go on the roof and how many, like you, are pinching them.

If you didn't want to do them with chocolate buttons,

you could always just spread it with chocolate

and sort of do a sort of thatch down it with a fork.

So that's effectively one side of the roof.

Once you've tiled the other half of the roof,

leave all the royal icing to set.

When you're ready to assemble your gingerbread house,

spread a generous level of icing over a cake board

to give a snowy effect.

-So that's going to go on an angle there, is it?

-Yeah.

Say about there?

-The side goes there.

-So if I pipe up there, then.

And really it should be a generous amount,

and surprisingly it doesn't fall down, it does hold itself up.

We'll have a building inspection at the end.

Everything has to be quite right.

Assemble all four walls using the royal icing as glue,

then attach the front door and leave it to set before adding the roof.

So that is absolutely rock hard now, and it's ready for the roof.

Now if you look carefully here I have put some little ends

of cocktail sticks.

You see I'd only just taken the very, very end,

so you just take that piece of cocktail stick

and make a hole using the pointed end, which I've already done.

And put it back in there, pointed end out, and that will give it

something to grip on and the roof won't slide off.

So we need to pipe down all round there. That's it.

-You could do this with a knife if you wished.

-Yep.

Perfect. Now, what we have got to do, we've got a night light

to put in the middle.

We can light it up and it'll give a glow through the windows.

With a steady hand,

carefully lower each half of the roof into position using the support

of the cocktail sticks to grip it in place whilst the icing sets.

Fill the gap along the ridge of the roof with another line of icing

before adding your final festive flourishes.

Is that fairly straight? It is fairly straight.

-We'll get a bit of snow.

-On the top?

I'll try it and it can sort of streak down like sort of icicles.

There it is, just pushing it down,

so it's obviously been snowing.

And I can see children putting all sorts of sweets round here

and to decorate it too, and why not?

Such fun to do. So there it is.

We've got a few trees to put in and you can put figures if you want to,

reindeers, anything you like.

It'll be nice to see this when it's dark with those candles lit, as well.

Exactly.

Gingerbread house, finally finished. Bit of a combined effort, wasn't it?

As you look through the glass windows,

it looks very, very Christmassy.

It does, it looks great and I think kids will love making this.

They can do anything they want, it's up to them,

but we've just shown them the basics, haven't we,

so they can go ahead at home and just change it if they like.

It looks far too good to eat, though, doesn't it?

I know you don't want me to eat it because it is so pretty.

-What have you bitten off?

-Bit of a tree.

-Bit of a tree?

-Delicious! That is fantastic.

Is there a bit of tree left for me?

-Good.

-With snow.

With snow.

There it is, a good snap,

and that dark muscovado sugar should have given it a good flavour.

It's malty, it's the perfect ginger.

I mean, that dunked in a bit of tea, that's lovely.

Well, Mary, this is what I call the post-Christmas pie.

So this is all the ingredients you're probably going to be leftover

after Christmas Day in a hot water crust pastry,

and believe me, this pie is worth making.

Even if you cook a turkey just to use it in this pie.

Paul's impressive hot water crust pastry pie is layered with leftover

Christmas turkey, sage and onion stuffing

and juicy fresh cranberries.

Now to start with, I need to prepare the hot water crust pastry.

So could you weigh me up 150g of lard, please?

Now while you're doing that, over here

I have this very traditional mould. Look at that, it's beautiful.

If you haven't got one of these you can use a normal 2lb tin,

but because it's Christmas,

I thought I'll use my early Christmas present. OK?

I've got some melted lard in here

and I'm going to brush it all the way on the inside.

And I would use lard, not butter, because the butter can congeal

whereas lard would release itself in the heat. Butter can stick.

Add the 150g of lard for the pastry to a saucepan,

along with 200ml of water and heat until the lard melts

and the mixture starts to simmer.

Meanwhile, weigh 450g of plain flour,

100g of strong white flour and 75g of butter into a large bowl.

This, I'm going to just rub together.

These two different types of flour

will give you two different strengths,

so the plain flour's probably going to be around 10.5-11% protein level.

The strong flour will be more like 13,

so you're probably edging it towards just tipping over 11%

which will make the flour a little bit stronger.

OK, I'll just crumb that down a little bit now.

This is going to be ready for the hot water and lard.

This is a very unusual hot water crust pastry

because usually it's lard, water and flour and you put butter in as well?

-It's the modern version.

-Right.

But I think the butter adds a little bit of flavour to it, as well.

I can understand that.

So what I'm going to do is just lift it up from the bottom

and just fold it into the middle, and you can see it's starting

to look like a classic hot water crust pastry now.

I'm just going to work this a little bit.

Could you...?

On your Christmas jumper, you've got to be pretty careful.

-Do you like my Christmas jumper?

-I think it's lovely.

I was just wondering if you'd turn up in a Father Christmas outfit

-cos I know you've got one.

-I have got a Santa suit.

You see, I'm morphing into Father Christmas. White beard,

getting chunkier, wearing red and white.

I reckon another year or two I'll be there.

I'll move to the North Pole.

So, this pastry now is beginning to bond together,

look at the sheen on it coming from the lard.

And so you've got a beautiful base for a hot water crust pastry.

Reserving a quarter of the pastry for the lid,

roll out the remaining three quarters ready to line your tin.

Now this is the tricky bit, you've got to fold it over the top

and then begin to feed it in.

You've got to drop that right down. It's going to take a little bit of

patchwork this, cos it's still hot.

So you've got to fold it all into the middle,

get down to the bottom.

So what I'm going to do is make sure it's right in all the ridges,

run my finger all the way around, nice and gently.

That's good.

Looking good.

So what we need to do at the moment is begin putting the filling in.

Now what do you normally have leftover after Christmas Day?

Turkey, dark meat, light meat, possibly a bit of stuffing,

uh, some cranberry sauce, maybe a little bit of ham.

OK, well, I've got three out of four.

The only thing I haven't got is ham.

Now, can you bring me over the stuffing, please?

This is sage and onion. Now, you don't have to use sage and onion.

Whatever you're used to at home, use that.

-So, a good handful and just throw it in there initially...

-Yeah.

..and then pack it down.

This is going to be the strength in the pie.

That's your first layer, OK?

The next layer is going to be the turkey.

Now, what I'm going to do is take a handful of that,

throw that in there, as well.

Now, if you're a vegetarian and you've done a nut roast

or whatever the day before,

or mushrooms or aubergines, you could do the same thing.

You could build it all up in exactly the same way.

So what you've got is a layer of stuffing, and a layer of turkey,

a little sprinkle of salt and a little of pepper.

Now the next thing is cranberry.

Can you pass me that bowl of cranberries, please?

-These are fresh cranberries.

-These are fresh cranberries.

I've also got a jar of cranberry sauce.

There's bound to be some cranberry sauce left from Christmas.

Now if we empty that jar into the cranberries

and then give it a bit of a mix.

You'll certainly get a decent texture with that, won't you?

Yeah. If you look at that...

-I love the colour apart from anything else.

-Well, yeah.

So the next thing we're going to do is take this

and place a layer inside the pie.

Once it's heated, and then it's cooled it'll set as a layer.

So, in fact, for most hot water crust pastry

you need to add a bit of

gelatine to it, but because it'll form a jelly you don't have to.

Continue to build up the layers of stuffing,

turkey and cranberries until your pie is packed full.

Then roll out your remaining pastry to make the lid.

Now, that's got moisture in it,

certainly coming from the cranberries which will create steam.

As it cooks it begins to evaporate and it needs a way of coming out,

so if you just make a little hole in the middle,

so if I grab this tin...

Lay this across the top.

Try and put the hole in the middle,

and then begin to put a bit of pressure around the outside.

Find the layer that sits on the top.

What I'm going to do is lift this up,

and then run the knife around the outside,

round there, the tricky bit.

You can use your finger on that one.

And then just run it round and that's it.

Now what I'm trying to do here is just tuck it in slightly,

because when I try and release this from the mould

I want to make sure that it doesn't stick.

So what I'm going to do is crimp it, put the two fingers there

and just push, push, push.

That beautiful pattern all the way around the outside.

I have to say that looks pretty professional.

You've done one or two pies in your time.

I've done a few pies in my time.

Now, this is going to go in the oven for an hour at 160 fan,

so 180 non fan.

Now, to bake this off I want a sheen.

Because it's going in for so long

I'm going to egg wash it after 45 minutes.

Just for the last bit, then.

Just for the last 15 minutes. It's going to go in the oven now 160 fan,

for 45 minutes. Bring it out, a beaten egg all over the top

just brushed. Back in for 15, job done.

If you're using a loose base or spring-form tin, it's a good idea

to use a tray to catch any liquid which might seep out during baking.

Oh, yes.

Look at this.

It looks wonderful, but the smell...

That looks amazing.

Leave the pie to cool for about 30 minutes

before releasing it from the mould.

So, there's the finished pie, Mary.

It's beautifully golden brown, nice bit of crimping around the outside.

Obviously if it's caught anywhere on the top

you just release it slightly.

I can see what you mean, just the very, very top.

I'm just going to release that there.

I can see it moving from the side.

It is coming apart. Let's see if I can...

There she is.

Doesn't it look beautiful? I love the indentations.

The whole thing is fantastic.

It's got a very classical old feel of pie.

Well, here it is, Mary.

This is all the leftovers, this is probably the last thing

you really bake, but it's worthwhile making the effort

and trying this because I think you're going to enjoy this, Mary.

It does look so stylish.

Is that crisp and crunchy?

I'm going to give you a massive wedge here.

Look at all those layers, Mary.

There you go.

That looks tremendous.

I just love those distinct layers of the cranberries,

and to think that this is made of leftovers,

it looks too smart for that. Wow.

One, two, three.

Do you know what it is?

It's the Christmas dinner plate

wrapped up in beautiful hot water crust pastry.

It's the perfect way of getting rid of all the extra things.

-In a very stylish way.

-I like to think so.

I think what we've shown is that variety of what you can do

over Christmas. Some of them classics,

some of them are twists on the classics,

but nevertheless there's enough out there for people to get stuck into.

And one or two things they've never done before.

-Exactly. Merry Christmas, Mary.

-And to you, too.