Bread Hairy Bikers' Best of British

We believe that Britain has the best food in the world.

-Not only can we boast fantastic ingredients.

-Piece de la resistance!

-Which is which?

-Lamb. Mutton.

Outstanding food producers.

It's brilliant, isn't it?

-Innovative chefs.

-But we also have an amazing food history.

-Oh, brilliant.

Oh, wow!

Don't eat them like that, you'll break your teeth.

Now, during this series, we're going to be

taking you on a journey into our culinary past.

Everything is ready, so let's get cracking.

We'll explore its revealing stories. Wow!

And meet the heroes who keep our culinary past alive.

Pontefract liquorice.

It's been my life, and I've loved every minute of it.

And of course,

be cooking up a load of dishes that reveal our foodie evolution.

Look at that, that's a proper British treat.

We have a taste of history.

Quite simply, the Best of British!

Today's Best of British is all about bread,

the cornerstone of our food culture.

Bread is a British obsession!

We eat our way through nine million loaves every day.

In this show, we'll be celebrating bread's place in our food history -

not just as something for our sandwiches,

but as an ingredient in classic British dishes.

We'll be looking at how the mighty white loaf

came to be our national favourite.

And the best ways of making it,

whether that's by an artisan master baker,

or by yourself at home when you're feeling peckish.

-We've cooked bread all over the place, haven't we?

-All over the world, all over the place.

We've made flatbreads on top of a Moroccan lady's roof in an oil drum.

-It tasted amazing.

-That's true.

We made naan breads and leavened the dough

on the sides of our motorcycle engines.

But we must say, there's no better place to bake bread

than in your own home.

Our foodie ancestors were baking bread thousands of years ago.

And first off in the Best of British kitchen,

we're going to show you just how easy it is to make!

And what a cracking recipe we've got for you -

sage and onion tear and share rolls.

Served up with something to dip it into -

-parsnip and Bramley apple soup.

-Delicious!

Let's start at the very beginning.

The beginning is a good place to start.

When you're making bread, you start with liquid and flour and yeast.

-He's not wrong.

-This is a rich bread, so the liquid...

Where are you going?

..is water and milk. It's a bit of a milk loaf.

Heat 150 mls of milk and the same amount of water, until lukewarm.

Now for the only other ingredients you're going to need

to make the bread dough.

400 grams of strong white bread flour.

A teaspoon of caster sugar.

A teaspoon of salt.

And lastly, a sachet of dried yeast. Then mix it all together.

I remember my mother doing this. Every Monday was baking day.

She used to make baps, big flowery baps. She would bring them out of the oven,

and I had to resist eating them. You know, I wanted to get stuck in, and she would turn to me

with flour in her moustache, and she would say,

"You've got to wait, son, until they're cool, or you'll get bellyache."

Now, just see this.

Yes, just got the chill off it.

And just make a well in the middle, and pour it in.

Just make a kind of a slop, use a fork for this.

Get your hands in it. Now, once this is combined,

this needs kneading for ten minutes.

You will know it's coming together because it will start to form

a dough that is cleaning the bowl as you go. I will show you what I mean.

Look at that, see how it's cleaned the bowl?

Now you're ready to start the knead.

When you're kneading the dough, there is a reason for that,

and it is to activate the gluten in the flour.

It gives it a really lovely, springy texture.

It's also good for stress relief.

I use a machine, I don't get any stress with that.

I think this little lovely is just about right.

Put a glug of sunflower oil in the bowl,

add the dough and rest it for about 45 minutes to an hour.

Make sure you cover it over with cling film to keep out any dust.

While that's rising, we can get on with the sage and onion stuffing.

My favourite!

First up, gently heat some oil and butter in a pan.

You'll also need to finely chop an onion.

Sage, the humble sage.

In medieval times, it was thought to have very great medicinal properties.

But, by the 16th century, all it was used for really was a culinary herb.

But now, it's firmly on our menus.

We need to chop about 12 sage leaves.

It is easier to do them all at once if you fold them together.

This recipe also works great with cheese in.

Put the onion in the pan, and let it sweat.

Have you dropped something on your foot? What are you crying for?

-I'm full of onion.

-Are you having a nice time?

-I'm having a lovely time.

Now I'm going to add

a clove of garlic using one of my favourite kitchen toys.

This is a really fine grater, but what's "great", ha, is that...

if you put your garlic through it,

it just infuses the whole dish, as opposed to

having big lumps of it, when you haven't chopped it properly.

Sweat the onion and garlic over a low heat for ten minutes. And finally,

add the cleverly chopped sage and cook for two to three minutes more.

There is something elemental about the smell of garlic, onions, butter and oil, isn't there?

I think there is something elemental about sage and onion.

Right, this is ready now. Oh, the last thing - black pepper.

Black pepper with sage, oodles of black pepper.

Once it's done, leave the mixture to cool, ready to be folded

into the dough. You can't rush it, but there's no loafing around here!

Your daily bread has quite a story to tell.

Our rolls are based on a white bread recipe,

which is by far the most popular type of Great British loaf.

But it hasn't always been King of the crust.

Ah, the good old days...

The picturesque mills, powered by the breeze,

or the gentle flow of the stream, slowly grinding flour for the miller.

Oh, aye, can you imagine how good the bread must've tasted?

Or maybe not.

LOUD BANG

Up until the Industrial Revolution,

the problem with the wholemeal bread most people ate was that the flour

wasn't very refined and contained lots of heavy bran,

cornstalk and grit.

If you wanted a soft white loaf, you had to be minted.

Sieving out all the rough bits in the flour made it expensive

and exclusively for the well off.

But all that changed in the 1870s with a canny Swiss invention -

-roller milling.

-It ran like clockwork, separating

the grain out into different parts

and making the flour much easier to sift.

White bread could now be afforded by anyone and it brought about

a golden age of tasty white loaves baked by your local baker.

By the 1900s, only five percent of the population

were still eating wholemeal.

It was now more expensive than white.

What came next would be the best thing since sliced bread.

Sliced bread!

But there was one problem with white bread -

-it wasn't very good for you.

-And in the 1930s,

the government tried to get kids

to switch back to wholemeal.

# Brown bread is the thing for you

# It's better than white

# For you'll grow big

# And you'll grow strong... #

Not surprisingly,

the kids weren't convinced. They needed a little more persuading.

During the Second World War,

wheat imports were crippled by U-boat attacks.

There was a wheat shortage, and so to make flour stretch further,

the whole of the grain had to be used in the bread.

The government banned white bread

and introduced the wholemeal national loaf.

It might have been good for them, but nobody really wanted it.

As far as the nation were concerned, white bread rocked.

When the national loaf was abolished in 1956,

the public went straight for the white stuff.

To satisfy demand, big business took over from the local baker.

Mass-market production methods developed during the war

turned the bakery into a full-scale factory.

Only once has this bread been touched by hand, in the twisting,

which gives the bread an even texture, and avoids crumbling.

Then, in the 1960s, scientists discovered

the "Chorleywood Process."

By adding more yeast and other agents to the dough

and mixing it at high speed, production time shrank from

three hours to just one.

Chorleywood gave rise to a completely different type of loaf.

But some recipes sound more like plastic,

with a whole host of unpronounceable additives such as -

-Fungal Alpha Amylase.

-Transglutaminase.

-E481.

-E920.

-E282.

-E220.

-E300.

-E260.

-Vegetable fat.

-Dextrose.

-Phospholipase...

But the British public loved it.

# I'm a happy knocker-upper and I'm popular beside

# Cos I wake 'em with a cuppa

# And tasty Mother's Pride. #

Today, a whopping 80% of our bread comes from the large factories,

though less people actually eat white now than they did in 1900!

There are more than 200 types of bread to choose from in the shops,

and the local artisan baker is also making a bit of a comeback.

It's all about choice, and whether it's white,

brown, or shaped like a turtle,

British bake it.

Well, the sage and onion mixture is cool enough now

to mix into our dough, so we'd better get on with it!

-Lovely.

-Dr Frankenstein, we have life in that bowl. Look at that.

Now, let's make baps!

BOTH: Woo-hoo!

Next, you've got to "knock the bread back."

What we do, we flatten it out.

Just pull it a little bit.

-There we are.

-Now, spread...

the sage and onion and garlic mixture onto the flat side.

What we need to do is knead it, but we also need to

make sure that it is evenly distributed

-all the way through in the bread.

-If it starts to get a bit

kind of soggy, like that,

put some more flour on.

Once it's ready, cut the dough into eight equal portions.

Baking tray, with silicon baking parchment.

Nothing will stick to that.

Now, this is how to form the perfect bun.

You've got to press down hard. When you press, it will form a ball.

Then turn the edges under, so you get a nice smooth top.

Look at that, a little ball of lovely.

You want these to touch. When this bakes, it's going to stick together,

and you tear it apart, that's why it's called tear and share!

Cover the dough balls in oiled cling film.

Now, we've got to wait for this to double in size.

Which will take about 45 minutes, which gives us just time enough...

To do the soup!

The soup we're going to make to go with our rolls

is creamy parsnip and Bramley apple.

Peel and roughly chop three large parsnips

and a couple of medium-sized onions.

Add a glug of oil to the frying pan and

gently fry them both for 15 minutes, until the onions are softened.

A good tip is, if you want to liven it up a bit more,

put some curry powder in,

and make a good old-fashioned curried parsnip and apple soup.

That's lovely in the winter, isn't it?

-Now for the apples.

-A bobby dazzler! There you are, mate.

-Thanks very much.

-And the mighty Thor was garlanded with Bramley peel.

You'll need two large Bramleys - peeled, cored,

then chopped into chunks.

Chuck in two peeled and sliced cloves of garlic

and stir for two minutes.

-Stock?

-I would say so.

-Chicken?

-Yes.

For vegetarians, you could, of course, use vegetable stock.

Bring the stock to the boil

and cook the whole lot for about 25 minutes, until the parsnips are very soft.

And by now, the rolls should be ready to go in the oven!

The mighty baps have risen. Look at those little belters.

-Oh, they're mint.

-They're all puffed up with pride and bonhomie.

They want a nice little finish on this, so what we need to do,

we coat them with milk first,

and then eight small sage leaves.

To cover the eight parts of our tear and share.

You kind of know when you're cooking something,

whether it's going to taste great or not.

And this has the whiff of something

that is going to be mouth-wateringly fabulous.

Pop them in the oven at 190 to 210 degrees centigrade

for about 20 minutes.

Which gives us just enough time to finish off our sloup-de-loupe.

While they're cooking,

use a hand blender to whizz the soup until it's smooth.

It's quite a thick soup, you could add cream, but what we're going to do is we're going to add milk,

just to kind of enrich it and also get it the texture we want.

Season with white pepper and a bit of salt...

Now, we've just got to wait for your rolls.

-Oh, yes!

-He, he, he!

Tear and share. Not sure I want to share.

It's such a homely smell, isn't it?

But that looks like the ultimate

-homely, comfy supper.

-Yes.

'All that's left is to serve up and tuck in.

'Ooh, I'm hungry!'

Ah! There is nothing better, is there?

The sage, the onion, it's awesome.

Look at that.

That's kind of just warm enough for the butter to melt.

Well, what can I say?

-There you are.

-Bon appetit.

-Cheers.

Look at that.

That...is epic.

-Mmm.

-Oh...

-The soup's fabulous.

-Do you know what's lovely, mate?

-Mmm-hmm?

You've got that big savoury hit with the sage and onion bread,

and then you've got all those lovely earthy notes in the soup

with the parsnips and the bramley apples,

and they complement the bread superbly.

And, you know, bread and soup are one of those things

that we've eaten for centuries.

And they're indivisible. They go together, hand in glove. Love it.

But above all, this is a really good example of modern British food.

-Food can't get much better really, can it?

-No.

'Our sage and onion rolls are just as delicious made plain,

'or with your own combination of herbs.'

'And although they're called tear and share,

'they're so tasty, you might want to keep them for yourself.'

'Not everyone has the time to bake their own bread,

'but it's not the only way of getting a quality handmade loaf.'

'As you know, most of the bread we buy in Britain is made

'quickly and cheaply in large factories,

'using a long list of additives.'

# I really likes bread and butter... #

'But there's a growing movement of high street bakers

'who, like us, believe the more traditional ways of making bread are best.'

# ..I like bread and butter... #

'Today's British food hero is Caroline Parkins.

'She runs an award-winning bakery in Bridport

'and it's her mission to get the good stuff back on to our plates.'

'Bakeries like mine are about slow, proper mixing

'and not putting anything else in the bread.

'Bread made traditionally,'

in what you might call the old-fashioned way,

without additives and made slowly,

and allowed to prove and mix for a proper amount of time

is undoubtedly better. It has a better flavour,

it's better for you, it's just a different animal, really.

-A different vegetable.

-SHE LAUGHS

# Got to live up Got to bake a sub... #

'Caroline began her mission to change our eating habits when she bought the bakery ten years ago.

'But her business still has family connections

'back to the original owners.'

'Jo is the granddaughter of the man who set up the business in 1914.

'She still works there part time and has fond childhood memories.'

We had a great life up here. The staff were all friendly with me

and my friends came in and we used to race, we probably got in the way.

I used to rollerskate up and down here as well!

Jo was even here when some of the key equipment

that gives the bakery a better tasting loaf first arrived.

The mixer, nicknamed Gilbert, has been in use

ever since, and only works at one speed - slow.

I remember this one being delivered in 1962,

and it's been going ever since.

Old, but useful.

The mass-market Chorleywood process mixes the dough

for three minutes at high speed.

Gilbert, on the other hand,

mixes the dough slowly for around 20 minutes.

Caroline believes this allows the gluten longer to mix

with the other ingredients, resulting in a better taste.

One of Caroline's most popular loaves uses spelt,

an ancient type of wheat.

When they dig up neolithic sites - 5,000, 10,000 years old -

they find that people were eating spelt then.

There are husks and seeds of spelt found on those sites,

so it has been eaten for a long, long time.

This grain was regularly used in bread up until the 20th century.

It fell out of favour because of mechanised farming.

It has a lower yield per acre than bread wheat

and its harder outer husk was more difficult for millers to mill.

But in recent times, spelt has been making a comeback,

as it has a few advantages over modern bread wheat.

It's higher in protein than wheat. It has more of the B vitamins,

which is one of the most important things

we get out of our bread, and has less gluten than wheat.

So altogether, it's a great grain,

and people like the flavour of it.

It has a very nice,

slightly nutty flavour.

And what better way to prove its quality

than to see if the public prefer it to white bread?

We eat loads of bread. I like the white bread. It's lovely.

I prefer the brown, it's nice and chewy and crusty.

I like my brown bread, but I think this one is better.

I think this has got more flavour.

I prefer that one, it's softer.

With a glass of wine, either would be absolutely fabulous!

The white one.

I like the brown one.

Well, it may not be the most scientific test in the world,

but spelt did all right against the nation's favourite.

Some people liked the white, which, you know, some people will.

It's not a battle. I see it as a choice, and I just provide a choice.

Good bread will go on being baked.

It is too important a part of our diet.

And good bread, it's a miracle. When you see yeast and water

and salt and flour put in a machine,

mixed, moulded, weighed, scaled,

it's a miracle what comes out of the oven.

Watching cookery programmes on TV is a bit of a British obsession.

Over the years, TV chefs

have helped shape our cooking and the nation's attitudes to food.

Even humble bread.

However you make it, one of bread's best qualities is that

it can also be used as an ingredient

in savoury AND sweet recipes.

We're taking a trip down memory lane with '90s TV chef Pat Chapman,

who gave us an Indian take on one of our favourite bread puddings.

You'll find it in the Indian home, and it owes its ancestry to

the Anglo-Indian occupation of India, and here we have a pudding

which is called Shahi Tukri, bread and butter pudding.

You know, this wasn't a new thing for Pat Chapman, this was '98.

He founded the Curry Club in 1982,

so it was basically a lifelong mission to bring the cuisine

of India, rather than just the curry house thing, to British people.

Into that, I'm going to put

a can of condensed milk,

and I'm going to continue...

-It's going to be rich, isn't it?

-Yeah, I love condensed milk.

The spices that are so important, saffron,

the world's most expensive spice.

I'm going to take about half a gram of this stuff,

which would probably cost about 50p, and stick it in...

-It'd be more than 50p now, Pat.

-Oh... What?!

Those were the days, weren't they?

Certainly were. That's £3 worth now.

The next thing is, I'll use some concentrated vanilla.

This is expensive vanilla, not the cheap stuff that's diluted.

About three or four drops...

Pat Champan is interesting,

because he really pushed Indian cuisine on,

because it's such a fabulous, fabulous cuisine,

and he thought it was undersold.

I always remember the Curry Club, where you could buy the spice

packets, with them all blended up, and people got into the habit

of using fresh spices rather than bought pastes and mixes, really.

In goes the bread, and I've pre-shaped my bread,

and we'll take the bread and fry it for two or three minutes...

-Fry it?!

-Fried bread.

Lovely, crusty bread, so you get that really crusty...

Crikey, talk about calories!

And I'm going to pour the milk over it.

It's very, very straightforward to pour the milk over it...

-I bet you couldn't eat much of that, could you?

-Oh, no.

Here it is, straight from the oven, bubbling, golden and fragrant.

-That looks nice.

-It's like a golden ingot, isn't it?

This edible silver leaf was invented by the Moghul emperors...

-That's a dear old pudding, that, really.

-Yeah.

And it's quite expensive, but it's fun.

I'm just going to brush it around.

It has a je ne sais quoi...

I mean, it's nice and interesting.

Garnished with nuts, a bit more garnishing, a bit of pistachio nut.

-Look at that.

-A bit of toasted almond, because it looks so nice.

Sprinkle it round and make the plate interesting.

A little tiny bit of

the remaining custard. Work that round...

So, it's a right royal piece, that.

The cost of it, with all the saffron, silver.

-Vanilla and cardamom.

-I cannot get away with the silver thing.

I think people like Pat,

they are really food heroes.

They're on a mission and don't lose sight of it.

It's interesting food.

It's a fascinating pudding. Fried bread in condensed milk.

Perfect.

It's fascinating to see how the humble British loaf

made it into amazing Indian food.

But we've come to love bread from other countries just as much.

We've adopted breads from all kinds of different cultures,

like chapatis, tortillas, naans and pittas.

But to get the best of one of our favourites,

you've to go to London.

Britain's immigrant community have always introduced

new types of food into our culture, especially new types of bread.

And London's thriving Jewish community is no exception,

and there's one little bread roll in particular

that's made it onto our high streets, the bagel!

The bagel is now as much of a British staple as crumpets and bloomers.

So to find out more about these little savoury beauties,

we've come to Hendon Bagel Bakery in London, where they still make them

the traditional way.

Clive Lawton works for the London Jewish Cultural Centre,

and he knows all about the history of bagels.

Clive, where does the bagel come from and what's its history?

Well, the short answer is, nobody knows,

but the most popular story, which I don't believe,

is that in 1683, or something like that, the Turks attacked Vienna

and they were repulsed by the Polish King, Jan.

He was a famous horseman, apparently, and, in gratitude,

a Jewish-Viennese baker baked a roll in honour of Jan,

and he made it, apparently, looking like a stirrup.

And the old German word for stirrup, I'm told, is beugal.

One way or another, by about the 1800s,

they were this remarkable pre-boiled bread,

and then they travelled with the Jews from Eastern Europe, that huge migration,

about two million Jews moved from Poland and Russia and around there,

in the 1880s and 1900s, across Europe, all the way to America.

Not all the poorer Jewish families made it as far as America.

Large numbers of them landed at London's East End docks

and chose to settle in the area.

They set up a new life and brought a new food culture to Britain.

Clive, we believe that there's a bit of confusion about the name.

Well, in London, they never used to talk about bagels.

-They talked about beigals.

-Bigals?

Beigal was the word for London Jews.

Bagels is this American import,

and they used to spell bagel b-e-i-g-a-l.

So we should be saying "beigals"?

In London, but if you have Northern influences,

the Mancunians talk about bagels.

Whatever they're called, we want to find out how they're made.

And if anybody can tell us, it's Avi Avatal,

who's been running the bakery for over 25 years.

-Thank you.

-Good to see you, mate.

-Nice to meet you.

-What a treat.

-OK.

First, the dough needs to be shaped by giving it a twist.

Esaf shows us how it's done.

Oh, that looks easy.

Time to put your money where your mouth is, mate.

-OK?

-Not really.

It's like a West Highland Terrier's been going by.

Look at that! It's a minter, that one.

It's not easy, this. It's hard.

I'm trying to get the action.

'Ours might be a bit rough and ready,

'but Avi and his team bake 2-3,000 a day!'

That's better.

Is any cultural significance to the shape of the bagel,

or is it just round because it's round?

It's round because it's round. It's not easy to make it square!

-That's fair enough!

-Yes, yes.

'But there's only one thing I want to know.'

Avi, whose bagels are better?

They're not mine.

They're not mine... That's mine.

That's mine!

Here, seven out of ten,

but I will give you as well seven out of ten.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-OK.

-Stage two.

-This is the boiling.

-We're going to bake-boil the bagel.

-We're following you!

Unfortunately,

we won't get to cook our bagels, as they have to be chilled overnight.

What makes a bagel so special is the fact that

it's boiled in water before it's baked.

What a great thing to do.

'Boiling them before they go into the oven gives them

'that trademark chewy crust, with a slightly denser middle.'

-Make sure all the bagel is wet.

-They are all wet.

'Once they're cooled, they go into the oven on wooden boards.'

When you come to a proper bakery like this to buy your bagels,

you're baking throughout the day, so a customer comes in,

and wants half-a-dozen bagels, and they've been made within the hour.

Bagels are always fresh, always on the spot,

people see how you're baking.

-You just flip?

-Yes.

After they've had two or three minutes in the oven,

the bagels have to be flipped over and cooked for ten more.

That is so satisfying. It's brilliant, isn't it?

'It's great to see local businesses like this thriving,

'based on great food that's freshly made.

'They're the sort of places that keep our high streets alive.'

Yes!

'The bagels are ready to eat, and they look delicious. I just love our job!'

-Perfectly-formed, mate.

-Just enough crust, not too much.

-Look at that.

-No crumbs.

Bouncy, it's beautiful.

Tear and share.

Avi, great bagels, man.

It's great to eat the fresh stuff straight out of the oven,

but bread is even useful once it's past its best.

Our final recipe today is a tribute to the great British loaf,

and the sheer inventiveness of our food heritage.

It's an autumn twist on a summer fruit pudding,

an absolute legend of a bread dish.

Instead of these wet fruits like strawberries, raspberries...

We love summer pudding, but this has apples, pears,

plums and blackberries.

It really is a forager's delight, and it's cheap as chips, this one.

You start off with a couple of Bramleys.

Chop them into juicy chunks and pop them in the pan.

Along with 500 grams of halved and stoned plums,

and a couple of lovely peeled and sliced pears.

Summer pudding is an interesting dish.

I don't know who thought of this,

but I know in Victorian times, there were references to a pudding

which the Victorians called hydropathic pudding.

A bit of a kind of a healthy pud.

But the first recorded recipe where you actually

put it together like this was published in 1902.

But I'm not sure then if it was called summer pudding.

No, but I think the first reference to it being

called summer pudding was in a book called the Diner's Dictionary,

written by a man called John Ayton.

-Right.

-And he referred to it as a summer pudding.

-When was that?

-About 1930s.

I'm going to bring the rest of the fruit up to temperature.

And the blackberries, we're going to throw in later on,

because we want to keep the shape of these, cos they're lovely.

And we've got a trick to show you how you're going to get it out of the basin,

without ending up with an unholy mess.

Yes, it's a good trick, this.

'To turn the fruity juices into a sticky syrup,

'chuck in a knob of butter and 200 grams of caster sugar

'and simmer on a low heat.'

Eh, look at that!

Isn't that just gorgeous?

Now, there's a bit of heat in the pan,

what I'm going to do is just put the blackberries in at this point.

And then just give it...

We're not stirring it, we're just folding it. Do you know what I mean?

It's going to be lovely, you're going to be able to see the shape

of all the ingredients you've put in. It's not just going to be a big gloop of fruit.

That's been on now for about five or six minutes,

-and look at the juice that's coming out of those fruits.

-Good grief!

-That's not cooking, that's leaking.

-Isn't it?

-Yeah.

That basically goes for 15 minutes.

I think it's gone for 15, hasn't it?

I think it probably has, mate, yeah.

What we need to do next is to separate the solid fruit from the syrup,

because we soak the bread in syrup as we go,

and we want to pack it with that lovely fruit.

-That's fantastic, isn't it?

-Absolutely gorgeous.

And just leave that to sit, to make sure that all of those lovely juices

come out of the fruit.

Now, really, you can't do much with this until it's gone cold

and you want it to drain so you've got all of that fruit out.

So, really, you want to leave this for 20 minutes or so,

just to do its own thing, just for that juice to naturally come out.

-Quick cup of tea?

-Oh, might as well.

-Aye.

SNORING

ALARM RINGS

-Is it ready, do you think?

-As ready as it'll ever be.

Look at that, that's what happens when you milk autumn fruits.

You need to boil that until it's reduced in volume by half.

And that will be the most syrupy, fruity, dollop of gorgeousness,

not seen since Adam bit into the Apple.

Mr King, I think we're there. Look at that.

Sticking to the spoon like crude oil to a penguin.

Look at that.

'Before you can move on, we've got to cool down the syrup.

'Another Hairy hint for you -

'pouring it into a flat dish makes it cool much quicker.'

'Now, this type of pudding is notorious

'for being difficult to get out of the bowl in one piece.

'So our top tip is to line the bowl with cling film,

'but make sure you oil it first.

'That way, you can slide the cling film right down to the base.

'Leave plenty over, because we're going to overlap that on the top.'

-This is the good bit, now.

-The build.

-The build.

'And for the build, it's all about one thing.'

The bread.

It can be stale, it can be cheap, it can be nasty,

it's still bread and it works great for this.

You might have noticed the bottom of the basin is circular,

so, therefore, we need a circle of bread for the bottom.

Now, we need to dip this in the syrup.

We don't want to soak it in the syrup. It's like flick and dip.

One, two. This is the brilliant thing to do with the family.

You know, kids can see the pudding being created and crafted.

Yeah, cos they can get it all over their new T-shirts.

'Luckily, Dave's dressed for the occasion.

'Now we've got the top in, we need to build the sides.

'Cut rectangles from the bread, dip them in the syrup

'and place them round the bowl, making sure they overlap.'

-Now, the fruit.

-That looks beautiful.

-Doesn't it?

Just put that... Oh, yes, man.

Now, just push it in all the corners, you know,

of those overlapping bread pieces.

But I prefer this to a summer pudding.

I like the apples and pears. It's a bit more substantial.

That is going to be gorgeous.

It's just perfect.

'Once it's filled,

'we like to be really tidy and use a plate

'to cut perfect little segments for the base.'

Oh! Happy days, Kingy.

Four of those, we've got a perfect base to our autumn pudding.

Each segment has to overlap slightly to make sure you're sealing in

all that fruity goodness.

-Isn't that lovely?

-Beautiful. Right, erm, wrap it up, mate?

-I think so.

Wrap the clingfilm carefully over the base.

What we want to do is, we want a nice seal.

And this needs to go in the fridge for about 12 hours,

overnight's great.

It's going to, kind of, just coagulate in this big fruity mass.

So, to do that, rather like you would do with a patty, or a brawn,

or a ham, we press it.

So, there's a plate.

You can use a house brick covered in foil,

you can use a can of beans, or, indeed, a seven-pound weight

is perfect. Into the fridge until tomorrow.

BIRDSONG

'Our autumn pudding has been in the fridge for 15 hours,

'and now, it's the moment of truth.'

'We need to get it safely out of the dish.'

Carefully peel back the clingfilm, don't disrupt the form.

-Oh, it's lovely, this.

-Oh, it is.

'When you're ready, hold a plate over the pudding, and flip it over.'

Are you ready?

'It's the tricky bit, this.'

DRUMROLL

Thank you.

-Hold on.

-Yes.

-Be nice, and come out.

I'll hold the clingfilm, you take the bowl.

DRUMROLL

CYMBAL CRASH

Oh, look at that!

-You all right, have you hurt yourself?

-I'm in lurve!

THAT is an autumn pudding.

MUSIC: "You're the First, the Last, My Everything" by Barry White

That's made from wonderful British fruits,

old bread and a bit of native wit.

-Now, a wedge of that with cream, what could be better?

-Nothing.

-That is beautiful.

-Oh, the anticipation.

Look at that, that's a proper British treat.

And dressed with beautiful fresh British cream.

That's full, it just fills your mouth full of flavour and fruitiness, doesn't it?

Yeah. It's a wonderful harvest festival on your tonsils.

It's great taking a British classic and giving it a seasonal twist.

What better way to use some bread you've got left over

than in a dessert like this?

You can't go wrong, man.

Where would we be without bread?

Our tastes may have changed over the years, but bread is still the foundation of our everyday grub.

It offers something for everyone, whether it's in fancy rolls,

a humble loaf, or simple desserts,

it's an essential part of British food.

And if you want to know more,

visit...

..to discover some amazing facts about the history of food.

And to find out how to cook up tonight's recipes.

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