Sweet Indulgence Hairy Bikers' Best of British

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

Not only can we boast fantastic ingredients...

There we go! Look at them!

..outstanding food producers...

Look at that!

..and innovative chefs...

..but we also have an amazing food history.

That that's what the Romans brought to us -

the art of cooking itself.

Absolutely.

It's like a savoury summer pudding.

Now, during this series,

we're going to be taking you on a journey into our culinary past.

Let's get cracking.

-We'll explore its revealing stories...

-BOTH: Wow!

And meet the heroes that keep our food heritage alive.

Pontefract liquorice has 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.

That's a proper British treat.

Looks good, tastes good, that's going to do you good.

-Quite simply...

-BOTH: The Best Of British!

Today's show is all about eating exactly what you want,

when you want it.

It's for those moments when only the most luxurious, the tastiest,

calorie-laden food will do.

We're celebrating indulgent treats,

whether it's the best of sugary goodness,

or a savoury meal to make your taste buds go nuts.

From artery-busting desserts to some great classic British delicacies.

We'll be showing you the best, the greatest

and the naughtiest dishes from British food history.

I can't wait!

For our first recipe, we will dazzle you with a savoury feast,

the likes of which would even have lords and ladies looking on in envy.

It's an opulent,

meaty dish that's about showing off and tucking in with aplomb.

Are you ready for...the grandeur of a triple crown roast of lamb?

With fruit stuffing bejewelled in the centre

and napped with the most wonderful, beautiful, savoury

red wine minted gravy!

Variations of this centrepiece have been served from mediaeval times,

Victorian times, the 1970s perhaps,

to our present-day tables.

My friend here is going to butcher.

I will make the stuffing.

He'll make the crown. I'll make the jewels.

-Then we'll have the Crown Jewels.

-SI LAUGHS

Now, I'm going to French trim this.

All French trim means is to clean the top end of the bone.

That's all it means. We're going to put a little incision along there.

Stick your knife in.

Don't throw away these trimmings.

What we're going to do is put those in the roasting tin for the gravy.

Then the bits in the middle. Cut them off.

Stuffing starts with an onion in the pan, being sweated down.

Now we need to clean these.

Take the back of a knife and just...

That bone needs to be nice and clean because this is about presentation.

If you've got a good local butcher worth his salt,

say you're going to do a crown roast of lamb,

he'll do this for you, so all you do is stuff it.

He might give you the little white hats.

And don't forget to ask for the leftover trimmings for the gravy.

It's a dish of grandeur in the middle of the table. It looks regal.

That's just about right.

To the onions, add some flaked almonds.

We'll toast these off with the onions for a minute.

In next goes a chopped English russet,

but you can use any dessert apple.

Apple goes in.

It's time to pack me jewels in.

The rubies, that's cranberries.

Dried apricots.

And me opals, sultanas.

The stuffing starts to resemble a Christmas pudding.

-How are you getting on?

-We're getting there.

-Nice work, mate. Look at that!

-Clean as a whistle.

-It is.

Now time for the Spice Girls. A teaspoon of cumin.

A teaspoon of coriander.

Half a teaspoon of cinnamon.

A quarter teaspoon, or a pinch, of cayenne.

Now we get fruity.

Now add the zest of an orange and the zest of a lemon.

Stir in your zests and grate in a couple of cloves of garlic.

The atmosphere in the kitchen begins to smell like a party.

To the fruity stuffing mixture, throw in some fresh thyme.

The herb of choice at the minute.

What's nice about thyme is it goes across so many flavours.

You can even use it in puddings. I think that's great.

-Who said the British were dull eaters?

-Never us, mate.

-No.

My father wouldn't eat tinned chicken soup.

He thought it had garlic in it.

It was traditional tastes in those days.

-"I know what I like and I like what I know."

-Aye!

Good old curly parsley.

A good handful. That is all the colours of the bloomin' rainbow.

If it tastes as good as it looks, I'm laughing.

Black pepper and some sea salt flakes.

You see how these pieces of sinew are coming off the bone?

Take the time to take those off.

You want that lovely bone to be really, really clean.

We put an incision along there like that. And then...

Watch what'll happen.

DAVE SINGS FANFARE

-Got it?

-That's magic, mate.

You can see by the amount of work

why these racks are quite expensive.

-The butcher spends a lot of time prepping them.

-Assemblage!

'Now to make the crown shape.

'First, cut a small incision at the base of both ends of each joint.

'Thread kitchen string through the holes and tie the meat together.

'Simple!'

And we maintain that circular shape by tying these cross ribs together.

-That's not wonky.

-That's a minter.

-We need to pop this now...

-Thank you.

-..onto there.

I've put a bit of baking parchment on the bottom of the roasting tin

to make it easier to lift it out.

And now it's time to bejewel, to bedazzle our crown!

SI LAUGHS

All you do is, you fill that crater with the stuffing!

Beautiful!

Cover the stuffing and ends of the bone with foil to stop them burning.

We'll take these off because we've got another little thing.

We're going to put those little white paper chef's hats on!

That's the trimmings that's come off that rack of lamb.

That's gonna make ace gravy.

We pop this into a pre-heated oven,

190, 200 degrees Celsius,

and cook it 45 minutes for rare,

an hour for medium rare, an hour and a quarter for medium,

and beyond that, forget it!

I like this medium rare.

Cooked on the outside. Touch of pink in the middle.

-So let's go for an hour?

-Let's do that.

Goodbye, we will see you later, mon liege.

Ten minutes before the end of cooking time, remove all the foil.

This allows the bones to dry out before it's served.

After an hour...

# Hallelujah! #

..our crown roast is done.

-You could wear that on your head.

-You could.

Now for the gravy. Don't forget to take this out. It's easy to forget.

First thing we need to do is get some flour.

Just put a heat underneath the roasting tin.

About a tablespoon.

This needs to be mixed up with that lovely fat.

Mate, I'm ready for that red wine.

-Couple of good glasses?

-Easy.

-I'll deglaze.

This is going to remove those pearls of taste sensation off the pan.

-That's enough?

-Yeah. Smashing.

This is a red wine lamb mint gravy.

I've got a bunch of mint.

Shred it very fine.

-That's thick, mate.

-It is lovely.

Now we throw a jug of stock into that.

This is chicken stock.

Any stock will do, really.

I love the scent of mint. It's a scent of Britain.

It's an English country garden.

Bit of seasoning, mate.

Bit of pepper. Bit of salt.

We're there on the gravy front. People find making gravy difficult.

That's gravy.

I'll go and get a sieve and a saucepan.

'Finally, sieve the gravy into a clean pan and there it is.'

Look at that! It's a good old pan of gravy!

Our triple crown roast of lamb with a jewelled fruit stuffing

with a minted red wine sauce.

This lamb roast may look impressive but it's worth the effort.

It's a magnificent centrepiece for any special meal.

The leftovers have made it back to the kitchen!

Should I plate it up and make it nice?

No! What goes on in the kitchen stays in the kitchen, dude.

-Lovely. It's sweet and sour, fruity and nutty.

-Almonds! Boom!

Indulgent food isn't just a modern obsession.

It was in Victorian Britain that we were first introduced to

a treat us Brits adore - ice cream.

We're off to the Lake District to see a man who knows

all about decadent grub of days gone by -

our Best Of British food historian, Ivan Day.

We're going to make some ice cream.

-Isn't that gonna take ages?

-No. We'll use the original method.

In the 17th century in Italy, in the 18th century in England and France,

they made superb ice creams and didn't have electrical freezers.

They understood that if you mix chemicals like sodium chloride, common salt, into ice,

it makes the temperature go down.

-A mystery we've been thinking about.

-How did they get the ice?

Right, well, in the winter, even in a hot country like Italy,

Naples, big mountains.

They would collect the snow, bring it down,

and they stored it in huge underground pits called ice houses.

The technique they used in the 17th century is this one.

The temperature in that is about minus ten. Put your hand in.

-You're going into the Arctic for a moment.

-Yeah. That is very cold.

-Wow!

-It's a miniature freezer.

-That cream you brought.

-Yes.

-What we're going to do with it is... Half a pint of single cream?

-Yeah.

I've got some syrup that I've made.

The earliest name for an ice dessert in Europe was a sorbetto,

an Italian name.

One of the key ingredients was a sugar syrup.

So I put that into the cream.

And here, I've got the juice of three lemons.

We're going to make a lemon sherbet.

We're going to grate the peel of an orange.

If you could put it into our mixture.

I'll just pour a small amount in to begin with.

-You can see a freezing already.

-It is. Up the sides of the vessel.

Even after a couple of seconds it's beginning to congeal.

If I spin this around in the ice, it'll agitate the mixture.

By the 18th century, every major country house had an ice house.

Everybody wanted ice cream, but it was very much an upper-class thing.

'It was the Italians who introduced ice cream to the masses

'in the mid 19th century.

'Italian immigrants had their own tradition of ice cream making

'and made a living by selling it on the streets from painted handcarts.'

The most popular way of serving it was in one of these glasses.

This is a ha'penny lick.

-That's a penny lick.

-Beautiful.

They're made of pressed glass. The bit the ice cream was in was tiny.

You get an optical illusion and think you've got more than you have.

You don't have a spoon, you literally...

lick it, you see.

Italian emigres were getting blamed for cholera and typhoid epidemics

because people thought that this was unhygienic.

These glasses were then replaced by...?

Ice cream cones. You ate the container. There was no infection.

'For the upper classes, there was a more refined way

'of presenting iced desserts.'

One of the things that starts to happen is they start using moulds

-in the form of fruits.

-Is that a fig?

-That's a fig.

You could put a fig flavoured ice cream in it.

Sometimes, they would even paint them with edible colourings

to make them look realistic.

I've already done that with some.

Including...

-..this monster.

-Wow!

This is not an ice cream. This is a water ice.

Lemon water ice flavoured with bergamot,

the oil they put in Earl Grey tea.

This is the difference between an ice cream penny lick or cone

-and a lolly.

-Yeah.

This is a very, very posh lolly.

-We're going to dip this in here.

-That's cold.

If you put it in warm water, it's a disaster.

Isn't it lovely seeing that mould used for the purpose for which it was intended?

If I'm very careful, I can prise it open...

-BOTH:

-Wow!

-Oh, hey!

-This is the tricky bit.

We've got to get it out.

It's a nightmare.

-Yes!

-Well done, that man!

This is the really... Could you grab that for me, Si?

Fantastic. OK, so there is our basket of flowers.

That's beautiful.

There's fruit juices in there, strawberry and raspberry.

And saffron for the yellow.

You just mix a little bit of the colours

in with the semi-melted water ice, and filled up part of the mould.

For centuries, us Brits have created magnificent food in times of plenty.

How fabulous.

Can you feel it coming? Perfect.

Stand it up next to the pineapple.

Can you imagine a Victorian child's face

being presented with that on the table for the birthday tea?

-It would be magic.

-This is advanced stuff.

I'm giving you two swan moulds.

So dip it in.

One, two, three.

-OK?

-Yeah.

If you can get these out in one piece, I'll be really impressed. This is tricky. Gently, Si.

-Beautiful.

-Oh, wow!

Just tip it out onto your hand. Hold it by the body.

Ah! I've lost the neck! I failed.

-Never mind. I've got a stumpy swan.

-There's no way you can stick it on.

A gentle flick with it. Do you feel it moving?

-Yes.

-Now, very carefully,

turn it round and gently...

-Yes!

-Well done.

That is so satisfying!

-Now put it...

-At the front.

..over the ugly duckling!

A vision, eh?

'That's one up to you, Si, but Ivan was about to outdo us both

'with a recreation of an exotic dish

'that has all but disappeared from our culinary repertoire.'

This is made with cream, milk,

a flavouring called maraschino, which is Marasca cherries.

Let's hope it just comes out OK.

Oh, wow! That's stunning, Ivan. What a wonderful dessert!

And I think we must have a tasting.

We should start with the one that we made first.

-The creme de la creme ice cream.

-Which you made from scratch.

-Yes.

Let's have a look at it and see whether it's holding up.

-It's not melting.

-It's perfect.

-Tangy, isn't it?

-It's nicely grown-up.

-That's wonderful.

-Not too sweet.

-There is a really acidic tang which is beautifully balanced with sweetness.

-It is tangy.

-That's delicious.

-Absolutely superb.

Now this one, it's not so much a true ice cream

as a kind of Bavarian cream, almost like a frozen blancmange.

And it's got in it bits of lokum, the Turkish delight.

DAVE AND SI GASP

This is an iced pudding, rather than an ice cream.

The taste is amazing. That is a fantastic pudding.

It's interesting because it's a new flavour to us.

But it is a whiff of a bygone era. It's stunning.

You have the pineapple. You got that one out.

-And me swan?

-He's gone!

-Ah! Never mind, never mind!

This, to me, is one of the most refreshing water ices

-that's been invented.

-Ahhhh!

-Isn't it?

-That's a super-charged ice lolly!

-Like a Zoom with attitude.

IVAN LAUGHS

What I've loved about this, I think it sums up what you do, Ivan.

You have the source material.

Without the implements and techniques, you'll never get it right.

It's a fascinating taste of the past.

It's very sophisticated tasty food.

-Thank you for sharing it with us.

-It's been a great pleasure.

Nice to have such good students. LAUGHTER

It's a hard job, but somebody's got to do it!

Now, when you need a bit of cheering up,

there's one luxurious guilty pleasure we love more than any other.

And our obsession goes back a long way.

# The closer you get The better you look, baby... #

It's official - we are a nation of chocoholics,

eating more of it than any other European country,

and 1.5 times as much as the second biggest chocolate-lovers - the Germans.

Finally, there's something we do better than the Germans!

Does anybody NOT like chocolate?

Indeed. So, how did the seeds of the Theobroma cacao tree become Britain's favourite indulgence?

Cocoa has been cultivated for at least 3,000 years,

but spent much of its early life as a drink.

The Mayans and Aztecs were the first chocolate aficionados,

grinding up cocoa beans, adding water, spices and chillies

to create a bitter brew called xocolatl.

In the 1500s, Spanish conquistadors brought chocolate back to Europe,

where it was immediately popular.

But there was one nation that took to it like no other.

It reached England in the 1650s. Chocolate houses opened in London,

peddling the exotic new drink to the aristocracy.

Then a Bristol company changed the way chocolate was consumed forever.

In 1847, a physician called Joseph Fry

discovered if you mix cocoa butter with cocoa powder and sugar,

-it made a paste that could be pressed into a mould.

-Bingo!

-The chocolate bar was born.

-And it really took off!

The chocolate distinguished with a glass and a half of milk

in every lovely half pound.

In 1905, John Cadbury created Dairy Milk.

It became the company's best-seller.

At last, a luxury the masses could afford. British production boomed.

Recipes for new bars would be carefully researched

and kept firmly under wraps.

REPORTER: Every big industry has its back-room boys,

where research and science take over.

The confectioners and chefs prepare not for today, but for tomorrow.

'No matter what went into it,

we couldn't get enough of the brown stuff.

I never get tired of KitKat.

And in the '60s, chocolate even became sexy.

-Careful, Dave. You know it's a family show.

-Sorry.

Flake, Cadbury's Flake.

A heaven all of your own.

The appeal of chocolate was so great

people confessed to being addicted to it.

I decided I would have some death by chocolate cake, 36 portions.

When I'd eaten all of it, I felt it was a bit piggish, really,

but it's so moreish, you just can't stop.

Ah! And a new word entered the dictionary.

Chocoholic.

Chocolate has come a long way from the Central American cocoa drink.

Our love affair with the stuff shows no sign of dwindling.

Chocolate isn't the only self-indulgent food with ancient roots in Britain.

Centuries ago, if you really wanted to spoil yourself, you turned to the fruits of the sea.

And seafood delicacies are still rightly celebrated in some of the places that do them best.

There's one town in England that has devoted itself to preserving a seafood ritual

that dates back 1,000 years.

It's Whitstable, in Kent.

A town made famous by its oysters, and now its oyster festival.

Over the course of one week in July, 80,000 oyster-lovers

come to consume hundreds of thousands of this seafood delicacy.

The native Whitstable rock oyster was first prized for its distinctive taste by the Romans,

who shipped them back to Rome, and the Whitstable oyster found international fame.

So, by the middle ages, Whitstable had grown into a thriving fishing port.

Oysters provided the main income for hundreds of local fishermen.

And the oystermen of Whitstable depended on the elements for a good catch.

But since the elements were controlled by God, getting him on side was crucial.

So, every July before the oyster season began, a blessing of the oyster catch took place.

Today, centuries later, vicar Simon continues the tradition with a symbolic ceremony.

It's a good excuse to put his best clobber on.

We're about to set off walking to the sea

to do the landing of the oysters.

It's an annual event and this is where I put on my big robe. Which one am I wearing today, Barry?

Where is it?

That's not Barry, was it?!

The oyster festival still takes place

around the feast day of St James, the patron saint of oystermen.

I really enjoy this every year. It's always got a real buzz to it.

The whole town comes out to this landing of the catch.

It's a fantastic event, full of vitality,

and I really enjoy doing this.

They're getting ahead of me. Can you wait a bit, please?

Today, religion and tradition combine to make a great family event which draws a big crowd

of both locals and tourists alike.

Oysters - signs of your wonderful creation.

We ask your blessing on these oysters.

In lots of Britain today, religion is not nearly as widely seen as it used to be.

But in this particular festival, there is still a place for the church,

which is really great. And that's because Whitstable's kept lots of traditions from the past.

We bless the oysters as they come in,

the church is welcomed to be part of it, and we are one with the town,

so we all mix in together, really.

We ask this in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit

and we give you thanks through Jesus Christ, Our Lord.

Once the serious business of blessing the catch is over,

the fun can begin.

Hey, mate, did they have samba bands back in the Middle Ages?

No, but they definitely had alien insects on stilts.

I think they're meant to be octopusses!

Oh. Well, I suppose this is meant to be a celebration of the sea.

The main purpose of the parade is to close the medieval ceremony.

The mayor presents local restaurateurs with the newly-blessed oysters,

-which are then enjoyed by thousands of people, served fresh, straight from the shell.

-Lovely.

It's a great event,

you can come down here and enjoy the day, enjoy the sea breeze, everything else -

most of all, the food.

We've been down the road to the harbour and it's quite crowded down there, isn't it?

We thought we'd come back here and find the oysters.

Oh, it's beautiful.

Got to treat them right. Nice piece of lemon on 'em.

Lovely. Lovely and fresh.

Oh. They're supposed to be an aphrodisiac.

I'll let you know about that tomorrow!

It's not just the fantastic oysters that draws crowds to the festival.

When the oystermen were using them and if we go back to, say, 1880,

if you imagined yourself here then,

you would have seen about 100 of these moored out in the bay.

They also come to get their fix of local tradition and history.

# We've suffered years of much abuse

# And we say so, and we hope so... #

Mark Lawson, a member of the local sea shanty group,

loves to keep these Whitstable traditions alive.

-Mate, I tell you what, I'm getting beard envy!

-Whoa, me too!

I think the reason the town keeps the tradition going

is that oysters are very much core to Whitstable's identity.

It was the major industry in the town. At the height of the oyster fisheries,

in the 1880s, we were sending 1.25 million oysters to London alone

and another 750,000 round the rest of the country and abroad,

so, although it was a scruffy little working town,

Whitstable was very, very prosperous -

it just didn't look it!

What I love about this festival is the way the people of Whitstable keep all those traditions going.

ANNOUNCER: Go!

CHEERING

They even make indulgent new traditions like this oyster-eating competition.

I've been coming to Whitstable Oyster Festival for five or six years now,

and I always take part in the oyster-eating competition, although it is a terrible waste of oysters

because oysters should be savoured, crushed delicately against the roof of your mouth

and allowed to slip down but this is all about opening your throat and throwing them down,

it's a speed event.

CHEERING

Well, the Whitstable oyster certainly gets its dues at this festival.

It's been blessed, dressed with lemon

and truly indulged in.

Yes, it's been eaten by the thousand.

They've eaten so many, they're won't be any left for me.

Oh, dude, don't be so shellfish!

I think it's about time we paid our own tribute to luxurious seafood, eh, Kingy?

Sounds good to me, mate!

Next up in the Best Of British kitchen,

we're going to show you a dish that epitomises the spirit of decadence.

-There's nothing really more decadent...

-No.

than a Scottish lobster.

And this is the little beauty. His name's Caesar.

We're going to turn this upmarket ingredient

into a beautifully smooth and very lavish lobster mousse.

Interesting thing about lobsters.

The bigger claw is the crushing claw.

This one here is the cutting claw. Crush, cut. Cut, crush.

We're going to make something very lovely with him.

-This will enable us to feed four people out of one lobster.

-Yes.

It's a time of plenty but not that plentiful. We haven't got your three brothers, have we?

First, we use gelatine with which to set the mousse.

I put five leaves of gelatine to soak in cold water.

So just put one, two,

three, four, five in cold water

and wait for it just to go like a spineless jellyfish.

That will take about five minutes.

'Gently heat 100ml of water,

'add two teaspoons of lemon juice and the softened gelatine.

'Once the gelatine has dissolved,

'put it aside to cool, but don't let it set.'

-Should I crack on with the lobster?

-BOTH LAUGH

Give it a right good...crack.

'Now, carefully remove all the precious meat,

'making sure not to get any shell into the mix.'

-It's like a parrot's beak!

-Little chop there. Little chop there.

Ooh! Look at that! Nice one!

That's crustacean ecstasy.

There's a sense of occasion with lobster, like champagne as opposed to white wine.

Which is why we are going to be serving this with a champagne sauce.

Ooh.

I absolutely cannot get anything else out of that, Si.

-Shall we start to build?

-Mousse it up.

'To the lobster, add four king prawns and a whole jar of mayonnaise.

-'Then blitz it up to make a smooth paste.'

-'A WHOLE jar!

'After all, it's a time of plenty!'

-Looking good.

-It is, isn't it?

Here, I've got the water, lemon juice

and I've dissolved those leaves of gelatine and it's quite cool.

I'm just going to trickle this in.

200ml of cream. Double.

We need to whip this till it's solid.

I'm going to put a TOUCH of salt in.

It's interesting, Dave, how in times of plenty,

we developed...well, just fantastic dishes for celebration

and for opulence and for a kind of status, didn't we?

I remember, if your dad had had a bonus at work

-or you had a raise, you'd often treat the family with food, which is a lovely thing to do.

-Yeah.

I remember my Uncle Norman turning up on Christmas Eve

-and he had two wild salmon steaks.

-Ooh.

I must have been seven years old. Salmon, in my head, came in tins.

This was the real thing, and that,

-that kicked Christmas off to a...

-Absolutely.

It's beautiful. What we do now is we fold that into the cream.

-I love the colour of this.

-Lovely, isn't it?

I've got these little moulds, ones for steak and kidney pudding.

If you were being very frugal, you could have eight small ones.

But I want a decadent, lobster mousse.

Put a little bit of oil in each mould.

Cos remember, once this is set, we've got to get it out.

Just wipe that oil around the mould.

Like so. Nice, thin coating.

-Big spoon!

-Yes.

-And we'll start by filling the moulds.

-Oooh!

'Next, it's into the fridge to chill for six hours or so.'

Let's make champagne sauce!

-AMERICAN COWBOY ACCENT:

-Yesh! What a good idea, sonny!

This is a shallot.

And this is a saucepan.

First off, melt some butter.

About 25 grams.

And chop this shallot very finely.

-Chop it finer than a hummingbird's hairpiece, Mr King!

-I will.

Garlic. This is fine food.

I love posh food. I was born to it. I just ended up in the wrong womb!

SI CRACKS UP

Mustn't burn the garlic.

-You've got delusions of grandeur.

-No.

You have delusions of grandeur.

-You call the people on Twitter disciples.

-Shh!

Now, tell me that that's not fine.

That's worthy of this sauce. Now this needs to be sweated gently.

The garlic and that immaculately chopped shallot, just sweated down.

It's time for the big one now, the champagne.

Like so.

'Add 225ml, or half a pint in old money, to the shallots.

'Add one bay leaf and a few sprigs of thyme,

'and simmer for about four minutes.'

Champagne sauces can be a little tart,

so we're going to put in a right good pinch of caster sugar

and 200ml of double cream.

The big one!

Then we're going to simmer this away for about four minutes.

It's going to be a hot champagne sauce with chilled mousse.

Don't forget, in times of plenty, opulence, fats, calories...

clean out the window.

'Strain the sauce into a clean pan and finely chop some chives.'

Oh, yeah.

This'll bring the sauce to life.

We use white pepper in sauces like this

cos we don't want them to look all speckly and black.

'When it has set, remove the mousse from the fridge

'and hold in boiling water for three seconds.'

Give it a go.

Dude, do you remember Sooty? Izzy wizzy, let's get busy.

'Now, ever so carefully, release it from the moulds,

'smoothing the sides where the mousse has melted.'

You've got to melt it a bit or you'd never get it out of there.

I've got a little crown for you. Top it with salmon roe.

Salmon roe's great.

They're not expensive. You sometimes get it on sushi, the gunboat sushi.

They're really sticky and tangy and lovely.

We're just going to put some air through that sauce.

WHIRRING

It's not foam. It's not that pretentious.

It's just to make the sauce lighter.

-That's lovely, isn't it?

-Lush.

'Gently spoon the sauce around the mousse

'and add a dainty sprinkling of chopped chives.'

'Look at that!

'Lobster mousse with a warm champagne and chive sauce

'served with crisp Melba toasts and a salmon caviar garnish.

'Whoa! Class on a plate!'

Some of our earliest memories of food

are about moments of sheer indulgence.

-Eating your favourite sweeties...

-That sense of being rewarded with a burst of flavour...

..then demanding more.

It's with us from childhood and you never forget it.

We've got a little treat in store.

A bit of a sweet treat, haven't we?

We're heading to Somerset and...

one of the most dramatic places in Britain, Cheddar Gorge.

But we're not here for the cheese, are we, Kingy?

No, we're not! We're here for something slightly sweeter than that, mate, aren't we?

Over the centuries, regional sweetie makers have sprung up across the UK

to satisfy people like us,

each producing their own unique recipe

as well as some good old national favourites.

We're about to meet two such people, our Best Of British food heroes Mark and Martin

from the Cheddar Sweet Kitchen.

# Sweets for my sweet Sugar for my honey...

# I'll never, ever let you go... #

-BOTH: Hello.

-Good afternoon. Welcome to the Cheddar Sweet Kitchen.

Hello, Martin and Dave. Pleased to meet you.

'Some of the sweet-making methods Martin and Mark use

'date from as far back as the 19th century.'

We've been going for 100 years now, through five generations of the family.

We've got lots of recipes that have been handed down through the generations.

'They're helping to preserve some truly British traditions

'and we salute them for that.'

We still believe that the old-fashioned way is the best way.

The nostalgia, it's overwhelming. The flavours...

Maybe when you're a child, your taste buds are intense. It takes you back!

'And Mark and Martin are about to take us back even further.'

Today, we're making some brown-striped mint humbugs, the original ones.

When I was kid, I always wondered, "How do you get a stripe in your humbug?"

I think that's about to be revealed.

We're going to cook up, then.

'Mark's humbug mix contains water, brown and white sugar and glucose syrup

'at a whopping 155 degrees centigrade.'

If you just stand back slightly... That is your boiling-hot molten sugar.

'He's adding caramel, dextrose and peppermint oil to his hot mixture

'and then he gets to work - fast.'

-I can smell the mint.

-You can smell it now.

-Yes, it's beautiful.

Aw, that's incredible. What a lovely thing to do!

-It's like a sheet.

-It doesn't look real, does it?

No! It's like molten madness!

Within a couple of minutes now, we'll be able to start handling it.

I love things like this. The humbug is a great British classic.

We've had them since we were children.

This is how you make humbugs!

It's a mystery until you see it done.

-You don't know how the stripes are going to end up yet.

-No!

-I have no idea!

-Neither do we, so don't worry!

-Oh, really?

We cut it in half and that will then form the centre of the sweet

-and this piece will form a casing, the outside layer.

-Right!

That, believe it or not, is going to be your stripe.

-It's surreal, isn't it?

-It is. It's unbelievable.

It's a process we actually call sugar pulling

because we're going to pull the sugar on the hook.

-You can see the colour changing.

-Yes!

-That's amazing!

-Fantastic, isn't it?

It is only air bubbles getting in the sugar now which change the colour.

'Look at that! I think I've died and gone to sweetie heaven.'

And there, we've got the changed colour of the sugar.

That's the first secret out of the way.

We need a base on which to lay the stripe.

We're going to stretch the sugar out into a long rope,

just zigzag the sugar backwards and forwards.

-That's fantastic.

-There's your stripes.

-SIMON LAUGHS

-And then that goes on the top?

-No.

We need to make sure these stripes end up on the outside,

so we turn the whole thing upside down.

We'll drop that into the middle

and then we can just wrap the whole thing up.

-There's your humbug.

-The world's biggest humbug!

THEY LAUGH

This is what we call a batch roller.

-You can see how it thins as it comes out.

-Yes.

-This is how we size the sweets.

-Yes.

We'll still finish off the sizing by hand.

-I had no idea.

-I had no idea either. It's brilliant.

-Absolutely amazing.

'Time to suck it and see, as they say.'

-You cannot get a fresher sweet than that.

-No.

-Oh, they're mega!

-That is the taste of nostalgia, isn't it?

-Mm!

While the humbugs wait to be bagged up,

we're off to see where Martin and Mark sell the sweets that they make.

Come in this way, lads. I'll show you what many believe to be

the largest selection of old-fashioned boiled sweets in the country, all made on the premises.

Ahh! I'm in heaven!

All those names that you know and love -

-mint bull's-eyes, chocolate limes...

-Black and rasps!

Mint shrimps. That's something I've read about and never had!

There were originally made for the miners in the Somerset coalfields.

-In the Northeast, it was always the black bullets.

-Black bullets, yes.

South Wales were the Welsh mints. Here, it's always been the mint shrimp.

-Freshened your mouth up, didn't it?

-It kills off the dust and the dirt in the atmosphere.

-Super-sour blueberries.

-Cola cubes. Sherbet lemons!

# The candy man can... #

'Ah, man, we're like two kids in a sweet shop!

'Hang on. We are.

'Well, two very big kids, anyway.'

Sherbet pips, man! You cannot whack them!

Live the dream. I'm full of mint shrimps!

-Are you there? In your head. Close your eyes.

-I'm there.

-You are four years old.

You have shorts on.

You still have an attitude, but you are full of sherbet pips.

He's there. He's living the dream.

# Well, now, sugar in the morning

# Sugar in the evening Sugar at suppertime

# Be my little sugar and love me all the time... #

Ah, man!

'Our Si's going for a world record. Thankfully, it's time to go back next door.

'We're about to make one of our personal favourites - peanut brittle.'

'For us, this sweet is a wonderful old-fashioned treat that dates back to the 19th century,

'and this time, we're allowed to make it ourselves.'

-Do you want a go at adding the peanuts?

-Yes.

-There is a little technique.

-Right.

-You can take it in turns.

-Yes.

That's all the peanuts weighed out.

-There's about five kilos of peanuts there.

-Brilliant.

Mm-mm!

'The peanuts are being added to a mix of water,

'sugar, glucose, vegetable oil and a tiny bit of emulsifier.'

-When it starts to get thick, you'll need to lift the end of the paddle and turn it.

-It's thick.

'It's nice to see Dave doing the hard work for a change, isn't it?'

And don't flick the hot toffee on your thighs.

I'm liking the look of this.

Look at that. Nut brittle.

'It's over to Mark to do the professional bit.'

Mind your fingers...

-You can always tell a craftsman by how easy he makes a difficult job look.

-Yes.

-I'm not a craftsman, though, am I?

-You are.

-Thank you.

Wow!

I might break it into smaller pieces for you.

'Hey, we get a go again!'

Pop it onto this table and you'll need to start thinning.

'By thinning, Mark means flattening the peanut brittle out as quickly as we possibly can,

'as this hot mixture will cool and harden within minutes.'

Everyone has different techniques.

'Do you know, it's not as easy as it looks!'

-Psst! Dave!

-What?

This is chewy.

It's now starting to cool down quite rapidly.

And it will become brittle.

BOTH: Oh!

There. THEY LAUGH

You'd die if you worked in a place like this, Mr King.

-MOUTH FULL:

-I couldn't... I couldn't...

I can't even speak!

-It's not a good thing to put me in somewhere like this!

-No, no.

I've been to some of the finest restaurants in the world,

but peanut brittle, you cannat whack it, man!

'I've got to get Kingy off this stuff before he keels over in a sugary stupor.'

Taking a bowl of our nutty loveliness, we head off,

but thanks to food heroes like Martin and Mark,

the tradition of British sweet-making is alive and well.

Ah, there's nothing like a good sugar rush,

but if you like to take your sweet tooth to extremes,

our final recipe has it all.

It's one of those where, well, you really know you shouldn't but you're going to do it anyway,

stuffed full of flavours, textures and calories.

-I suppose people have varying degrees of sweet-toothness, don't they?

-They do!

If you had a sweet-tooth-ometer... Where would you be? Where would this one be?

-12.

-And a half, I think!

-It's outrageous! It's brilliant!

As well as sweet treats, it's the comfort factor, isn't it?

You've got to accept that sometimes sweet treats may be a little fattening,

a little bit unhealthy.

Standing on the diving board of self-indulgence, this one's for you!

It's a big jump! It's fat, it's friendly, it's sweet, tasty.

It is our pecan and caramel cheesecake.

People may think the cheesecake is an American creation,

but historical references would appear to prove otherwise.

After all, the earliest actual recipe for a cheesecake

is found in The Forme of Cury,

one of the oldest-known instructive cookery books in the English language,

dating back to the 14th century

and believed to have been written by the master cooks of King Richard II.

So it would seem cheesecake was discovered before America itself.

-Shall I do base and you do caramel?

-Yes!

-Let battle commence!

-OK!

Gird your loins, undo your corsets,

here we go.

'To make the caramel for our cheesecake,

'put 200 grams of caster sugar in a pan together with six tablespoons of cold water

'and heat gently until the sugar dissolves.'

'To kick off the base mix, take 100 grams of pecan nuts

'and blitz!'

I need to melt a block of butter.

This is for mixing in to the pecan nuts and my biscuits to make the base.

The pecan nuts go into a bowl.

If this wasn't luxury enough,

the biscuit of choice is the beloved chocolate digestive biscuit.

I love 'em! I love 'em!

-Are they milk or plain?

-These are milk.

But this recipe would work equally well with plain.

'Stick 150 grams of biscuits in a blender.'

Right, pulse.

I do want some texture in this. That's why I'm being quite careful.

Lovely! Put that in a bowl with your nuts

and cover with just-so melted butter.

-Ahh!

-And give that a stir.

So that's the pecan nuts whizzed up, the digestives and a slab of butter.

Put this into the tin and press.

Now, you don't need to bother buttering the bottom of the tin.

-There's quite enough there already!

-Yes!

'Meanwhile, take 150 grams of white chocolate, break into squares,

'and place in a bowl over a pan of boiling water to melt.'

-You've got some chocolate left over.

-I have.

-Cook's perks.

Press this down into the bottom with your hands.

This is a great, great cheesecake base.

And really press it quite well in.

Don't let it creep too much up the sides.

'Back with your sugar syrup. Try not to be impatient, either.'

You do want it to go a deep colour, but don't do it quickly.

Look, you can see how the heat's just going through it

and it's starting to colour up that lovely golden.

-It takes eight to ten minutes.

-It does.

And, depending, actually, as well, depending on the temperature of the sugar,

if it's a freezing-cold day, it could take a little bit longer.

That's the base. We pop that in the fridge for about an hour until it's set solid.

See how it's going that lovely, deep, golden colour.

# Golden brown, texture like sun... #

'As soon as the caramel is rich in colour like this,

'it's ready to remove from the heat.'

Whatever you do, don't touch this! This is hotter than a hot thing.

It will make your skin flake off.

Don't worry about dribbles. Dribble is a good thing.

-It is.

-We want a random drizzle,

a bit like a Jackson Pollock painting.

It's where Blue Peter meets Fanny Cradock

in a blaze of sticky-back plastic and sugar.

-I think we're there, mate.

-I think we are, mate.

we're going to use a bit more than half of this to make some caramel crumbs.

That gives us the caramel.

The rest of it, the nice lattice bits,

we're going to break off and they'll be like sails that sit as decoration on top.

The chocolate's beginning to melt. Don't stir chocolate when it's melting.

Wait till it's just about there.

Look at this. I love this. Is that not magic?

-Isn't it brilliant?

-Is that not fabulous? Look at that.

'Break off 125 grams of the gorgeous hardened caramel

'and blitz into crumbs in a blender.'

Quite beautiful, aren't they?

-It's the inside of Crunchie bars.

-Yes.

-Don't you want to...?

-Not really, no, thanks.

-Let's build a cheesecake!

-BOTH: Woo-hoo!

Just in case there wasn't enough sweetness there, just add a bit more sugar!

'75 grams, to be exact.'

Hey, Kingy, now's the time to pump up the fat.

Here we go! It has a platter of its own!

There it is. Full-fat soft cheese. Stand by, arteries.

You could use that low-fat stuff, but you've gone this far down the line!

-Fat goes in.

-HE WHISTLES

-And some cream.

-THEY GIGGLE

Honest, this is epic. This cheesecake will serve 12 to 15 slices,

so if you look at it like that, it's not as bad as it looks.

Now, the chocolat!

-AS OFFICER CRABTREE FROM 'ALLO 'ALLO:

-I will empty it out of the bowl!

But it's that caramel crumb that gives it the flavour and the character

that is the pecan caramel cheesecake.

Don't worry if there are bits of chocolate on the surface.

It's best to have bits than burn the chocolate.

Those bits will melt when you cook the cheesecake.

As it's a baked cheesecake, it contains eggs.

It has to contain eggs

-or it would be cheese soup.

-It would.

'For this cake, use four whole eggs and two additional egg yolks and add to your blender.'

Now, put that onto your processor.

Blitz.

-Look at the colours.

-Aww, wicked!

The caramel gives this cheesecake the most wonderful caramel hue.

-IN POSH VOICE:

-Oh, it's a hue of caramel! Ohh!

-Look at that.

-Ah, man! Ohh!

Let's make the cheesecake!

'Get your chilled base and place the tin in the middle of a large piece of foil.'

'Bring the foil up to size to create a foil ball around the cheesecake

'and place on a medium-sized roasting tin.'

-Look at that.

-Ahh, man!

-Golden brown.

'Now pour your cheesecake filling on top of your base

'and surround the cake tin with boiling water,

'roughly two centimetres up the sides of the tin.'

Right, put this into a preheated oven, 160 degrees Celsius,

for about 45 minutes.

'After three-quarters of an hour, turn off the oven

'and leave the cheesecake inside for it to cool for a further hour.'

'Then grab the mighty cheesecake and stick it in a fridge

'for a minimum of three hours and a maximum of 24.'

'Whether your cheesecake is one of the baked or unbaked varieties, it doesn't matter,

'they all need to chill in the fridge in order for them to set.'

-How is the mighty beast?

-Look at this!

-And how's the cheesecake?

-Absolutely beautiful.

Absolutely beautiful!

Ooh, that's set, hasn't it? Look, no cracks.

'Gently release the cheesecake.'

We don't want to crack this little fellow.

'Tighten the edges with a palette knife

'and place your cake on a serving platter.'

Ohh! It's gorgeous in its magnificence.

And now it's ready for decorating.

I'm going to whip 300ml of double cream.

'Whip the cream into soft peaks.

'Meanwhile, break the reserved caramel into shards, ready to scatter on the top.'

'Then, using a dessert spoon,

'shape the cream into big, fluffy clouds over the cheesecake.'

White, billowing folds of cloud.

Time for bling.

'Just place the caramel shards across the top at jaunty angles.'

-Oh, wow.

-It's special, isn't it?

-Mm.

This is proper.

The caramel flavour in a cheesecake is absolutely gorgeous.

-There's no two ways about it.

-Ah, yes.

You bring that to the table after dinner

and everybody around the table is going to get that view.

It is absolutely beautiful.

There's more than enough in that to satisfy

the most critical, greediest sweet-tooth on the planet.

-And come back for more.

-Aye.

You can see why people have been tempted by a cheesecake for centuries!

This cake would befit a royal table as much as ours.

It truly is the Best Of British.

Sometimes in life, you've just got to let go and embrace some sweet indulgence.

Whether it's with a handful of chocolates, an exotic treat

or even the crown jewels made out of meat...

..the food you crave tastes so good, does it matter if you really should?

It's true what they say - a little of what you fancy does you good.

And, if you want to find out more...

Visit...

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

And to find out how to cook up the recipes in today's show.

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