Party Food James Martin: Home Comforts

'If there's one thing I look forward to at the end of a busy day,

'it's the thought of getting back to my kitchen at home.

'For me, nothing beats cooking some simple, heart-warming, food.'

Oh-oh-oh, it is so good.

'The kind of no-nonsense grub that brings people together.'

Cheers, everyone.

'The dishes I turn to when I want to put a big smile on everyone's face.

'These are my home comforts.'

For me, there's nothing more rewarding

than creating mouth-watering party food for friends.

I love entertaining at home, and I certainly don't want to spend

hours in kitchen when the party is in full swing, so I've got a few

simple show-stopping recipes up my sleeve so I can join in the party.

There's nothing better than seeing the smiles on people's faces

as they tuck in to my tasty, home comfort treats.

I'm going to cook up some of my favourite party dishes,

and there are no half measures in my house.

And I don't mean smoking little bits of meat, I mean smoking half a cow.

Food historian Ivan Day creates a Georgian party cake

to beat all party cakes.

And it turns out that wild boar are very polite party guests.

Although I might put two buckets of food down,

if they only want one, they'll only eat one.

'Unlike my friends.'

Check that out, look at that.

He stripped that like some vulture, look.

THEY LAUGH

Some of the best party food is bite-sized,

and my first recipe is no exception.

Now, one of my favourite meals at home has to be fish and chips,

and it's quite difficult to do that for a dinner party

because we've always got sort of smallish deep-fat fryers.

But you can do amazing dishes like goujons and scampi.

Now, scampi are one of those things I was kind of brought up with

as a kid.

But rather than strips of fish or prawns or lovely langoustines,

what I'm going to use are these. Now, these are cod cheeks.

These are amazing nuggets of gold, which sit right here.

Fantastic pieces of meat.

Now, the French prize these and they're really sought after.

They're about a tenth of the price of cod loin,

but they're just delicious.

If you can't get hold of them, try fish fillet chunks instead.

Now, I'm going to deep-fry these. And for this, I'm going

to create a lovely little coating with it.

Now, normally scampi's just done with breadcrumbs, but this is

the best bread in the world, in my opinion, this is sourdough.

'You'll need to slice the bread and then blitz it into crumbs.'

You get this amazing, almost like treacle sort of taste to the bread.

It really is a unique flavour, really,

one that lends itself so well to make crumbs out of.

Now, just to complement the flavour nicely, you can

put a touch of lemon zest in.

This is kind of very different to the scampi and chips

I used to have as a kid in a basket, together with chicken in a basket.

Do you remember that? How cool was that?

Blitz the mix a little longer, to spread that zesty

flavour into the crumbs, and get prepped to bread your cod.

You'll need a bowl of plain flour, seasoned with salt and pepper,

and a bowl of three beaten eggs.

The French call this to 'paner'.

It's just a basic coating, really, to coat these little nuggets.

And what you end up with is this fantastic crumb.

This makes an amazing stuffing as well. So into flour first.

Dust off any excess. And then into the egg.

Now, the great thing about doing this for a party is that you can

prepare these in advance cos one of the things you don't want to

be doing is rushing around at the last minute.

Everything really with this is prepared and in the fridge

and then at the last minute,

all you've got to do is drop them in the fryer.

You can serve them with whatever you want.

I'm going to create a lovely little pea salsa with this.

'For the salsa, first chuck some defrosted frozen peas into the

'blender, along with some roughly chopped mint

'and two green chillies.'

As much or as little as you dare, really, with the chilli.

Chop this up quite fine first of all because I'm not going to

puree this too much, I'm just going to pulse it, so if the chilli's

too chunky, you won't get that through the whole mix.

So a good pinch of salt.

A bit of black pepper.

Always with salsa, you need some form of acid - vinegar,

that kind of stuff.

I'm going to use some lime and then all that I'm going to do is

just blend this with some thick creme fraiche.

You need the thick creme fraiche.

None of that low fat stuff cos the minute you put it in here and blitz

it, it'll split, so put the lid on and just pulse it,

just a little bit.

Pretty good to me.

And what you end up with is this delicious salsa.

Whenever my mum comes down, she says,

"Are you doing that cold, mushy peas again?"

It is kind of like that really, I suppose,

but it does taste pretty good.

Now, just before your party guests arrive, get the deep fryer on

and fill 90% of it with vegetable oil,

then top it up with the secret ingredient - beef dripping.

Now, it sounds really unusual, deep frying in beef dripping, but the

reason being that if you deep-fry fish in fresh oil, you don't

get the colour and you certainly don't get the flavour with it.

Now, the oil is set quite high,

so you just want to pop these straight into hot oil.

They'll only take about sort of one, maybe two minutes to cook.

And cook them in batches as well, cos otherwise they'll all

stick together and you won't get them lovely and crisp.

Almost the waiting's the hardest bit, really,

cos you know that these are going to taste fabulous.

When they're golden, shake off the excess oil,

tip out onto some kitchen paper and do your next batch.

And then, just as they come out of the fryer,

good pinch of salt over the top.

And then to serve them, we can just chuck them on a plate.

Little bit of lemon and then of course,

you've got some pea salsa with this.

Particularly in hotels,

you have these canape parties where you've got...

This poor girl has got a tray about three-foot long, carrying these

sort of random bits of dried up bits of salmon and bits of dried bread.

I just wish they'd serve stuff like this.

In a basket.

The simple succulent taste alone will impress.

There's no need for fussy presentation.

I grew up on a pig farm in Yorkshire,

so naturally, I look to pork for party food inspiration.

But when I want something for a really special occasion,

I look a bit further afield.

All pigs are descended from wild boar,

and there are some people in the UK who still breed them,

like award-winning Lake District farmer, Peter Gott.

About 25 years ago, my brother gave me

four wild boar females as a daft birthday present.

Now I've got over 150, which just shows you what can happen

when you put a male and a female together.

I think the fascination is that, once we started to keep them,

we enjoyed them.

We saw their characters, we saw how much brains they have,

how intelligent they were, and it just led to continuing

the cycle. And it is a niche market, but is also something that is

truly rewarding when you're out here on a day like today.

Come on. Come on.

Peter is dedicated to producing full flavoured, quality meat,

as well as preserving the genetic diversity of pigs.

Good girl, come on, come on.

Commercial farming has to feed the world, but now

and again, something a little bit old-fashioned,

something that's very traditional, I believe, tastes a lot better.

And I think harking back to some of the old, traditional breeds,

and to wild boar especially, you really do get a taste.

You don't need as much on your plate.

Wild boar differ to domestic pigs not only in taste,

but also in temperament.

Come on, what you doing in there? Come on.

Peter must hold a dangerous wild animal licence to breed them.

They've got used to me as the farmer because I'm actually feeding them.

They do respond, like any animal, to food. And the old saying,

"empty bellies tame lions

"and empty pockets tame men," is very true.

So they've come to me this morning because they know I'm bringing them

food and they aren't as dangerous as they would be in the wild.

Good girl.

Eh. And we thought you were vicious.

HE WHISTLES

They might be the wild cousins, but their table manners are far

more refined than their domestic relatives.

Although I might put two buckets of food down,

if they only want one, they'll only eat one, whereas generally,

a pig will eat until it's completely stuffed and get fatter quicker.

But wild boar, lean and mean, will just take enough

and then they'll trot off into the environment

and have a bit of a wallow and a very good time.

Intensively farmed pigs are slaughtered at 16 weeks, while

Peter's boar mature slowly and are ready for the table at one year old.

The taste and flavours are there because the animal is older.

Slow-grown, naturally-reared, the relaxed environment gives you

better quality meat, and a happy pig is a tasty pig.

The wild boar meat is prepared at the butchers' market hall,

down the road, in Barrow-in-Furness.

The good thing about wild boar is it's actually two meats - so as

one, it's a fresh meat as steaks and roasts, and in another, it's actually

cured like pancetta and back bacon.

And this is all hand cured.

This is like it would have been done a hundred years ago.

And what we want to end up with - the finished product -

is the wild boar pancetta.

After curing with salt for approximately a week, the product

is then air-dried and home-matured for up to three weeks and then

it's smoked, and then it's sliced or diced, ready for the customer.

Peter's produce goes from farm to fork.

He supplies London restaurants, farmers' markets and festivals.

I believe in looking after animals in the best possible condition,

giving them the freedom to roam and, at least on this earth,

before they depart for the pie in the sky, they've had a good life.

Peter's wild boar are perfect for my next recipe,

so I've invited him down to my kitchen.

Up in your neck of the woods, that has to be the perfect

environment, doesn't it, for the wild boar?

Yeah, they enjoy our 16 acres of woodland.

It's cool in summer and it's warm in winter,

so, you know, it's a natural environment.

I thought I'd do something really simple but really tasty.

'I'm going to use Peter's boar meat

'to put my spin on an old school party dish.'

Now, for too long they've been sort of ruined, I think,

by stuff that you get in sort of

high streets and stuff like that and particularly sort of service

stations, but made with wild boar, it can taste fantastic.

Starting off, we're just going to use some onion with

a bit of garlic and some brandy.

That's really it and it's just really the quality of the meat.

It's a lot leaner than pork of today, and that's

because it's been running round.

A bit like venison, you know, it's actually a very active animal.

I always say, it's a bit like keeping sort of Labradors

and whippets.

The whippet is the wild boar and the Labrador is the big, fat,

-intensive pig.

-A whippet?

You're saying a whippet and you live in that neck of the woods.

-Well...

-Opposite God's Own Country and all that sort of stuff.

We don't just have ferrets, flat caps and whippets, by the way.

But what I'm going to do now

is just sweat off the onions and the garlic.

We don't want any colour for this, this is just to soften them up.

'For the filling, sweat them in the pan for five minutes,

'pour in a glug of brandy and stand well back.

'Then pop to one side for later.'

Now, we're going to make my puff pastry here.

This is really simple, to make your own puff pastry.

A lot of people think it's complicated.

But this is a proper puff pastry recipe.

Every time I've seen it done with puff pastry, somebody's bought it.

-This is the first time I've ever seen it made.

-Ever seen it made?

Absolutely, because everybody cuts the corner, buys it,

-unrolls if from the freezer.

-Precisely. But this great.

You make a big batch of it and then freeze it.

'Simply add a pinch of salt to 250 grams of plain flour, then

'using your fingertips, rub together with 50 grams of chilled butter.'

Now, you don't need to be too thorough

cos this is only a small amount of the butter that I'm going to put in.

And then we want 150 ml of cold water.

Now make a well, stick this in,

and you're bringing this together to form a nice pastry.

'Once your pastry has come together, pop onto a lightly floured

'surface, then roll out a 20 by 30 centimetre rectangle.

'Then get a 250 gram block of chilled butter,

'and then sandwich it between two sheets of grease-proof paper.'

Right, now you're just going to take the butter and you whack it down.

But the idea behind this is you've got to think of a book.

-Bear with me on this one.

-OK, well I'm worried.

Bear with me on this one, all right.

You place, in the centre of the book, the butter. Right?

Then you fold this over and fold that over.

You fold that over, like that.

That's one book turn.

Now, you can imagine what's happening,

every time you do that, with the layers.

You need to flatten this out and repeat the process again.

Every time you're doing this, the layers are building up

and the idea of puff pastry is the butter melts,

it creates steam, it's trapped in between the layers of puff pastry,

causes it to rise, it's done.

I always understood that it was layers and layers.

I didn't realise how you got it to that stage.

No, you don't realise why you put weight on

if you on all day and eat about 24 croissants for breakfast, either.

Cos this is made exactly the same sort of way.

'I like to brush off the excess flour.

'Then book-turn the pastry, as before, and then roll it out again.

'One more book-turn, and one more roll,

'and that's your puff pastry done.'

There's a lot of work doing the pastry properly.

There's a lot of work, yeah, exactly. That's why pastry chefs

are always strong in the arm, you see, you know.

-And weak in the head.

-Yeah, it's a bit like that.

Puff pastry's done. And what you do need to do now

is just leave it to rest.

Now, at this point, you can pop it in the freezer.

I'm going to put mine in the fridge. And I've got one that's been done.

Right, and then we've got this wild boar.

-Is this from the shoulder, then?

-Shoulder and a little bit of leg.

'Mix your wild boar mince with your cooled onions and garlic,

'six sprigs of roughly chopped tarragon leaves

'and a generous seasoning of freshly milled black pepper and sea salt.

'Then, lay out your pastry and assemble the rolls.'

Just cut this into oblongs. Ideally, you want them kind of like

the length of the tray that you're going to put them with.

I'm going to make these whole, not little, poncey little,

fiddly little things.

Cos parties at my house, I don't do canapes.

I do chunks of food, that's the best thing for it.

Grabbing some of your lovely wild boar meat,

the idea is you just basically lay this in the centre.

You can, of course, get one of your sausages

and put it in there as well, but that would save a lot of time,

to be honest, it's already done.

So what else do you farm, as well as the wild boar?

Well, we've got the indigenous Herdwick sheep.

We've got a few of the old-fashioned pigs.

We're actually, currently, rearing British Lonks.

There's less pure breeding stock of British Lonks than

there are breeding stock of giant pandas, so they are a rare breed.

-LAUGHING:

-Right.

And I do believe in trying to keep some of these old-fashioned

breeds alive, because once they've gone, they've gone and, you know,

in something like the last 50 years, we've lost about 30 species of

domestic farm animal that basically wasn't commercially viable, so...

-It's such a shame though, isn't it?

-It is.

Once your sausage meat is laid out, brush one edge with egg mix,

join the two sides together and press down to make a seam.

Trim off the excess with a knife.

And then we lift it and fold it over like that

and then fold it back over on itself.

-So it sits on that.

-It sits on the seal.

'Finally, I like to brush the rolls with egg wash

'and then pop it in the oven,

'at 230 degrees centigrade for 20 to 30 minutes, until golden brown.'

Now, these are great, hot out of the oven, but better

if you just let them cool, ever so slightly, before you serve them.

But I don't think you and me can wait, can we?

These are fantastic. I can't believe it.

Anyway, tell me what you think. Dive into that.

It'll be hot. But anyway, I'll chop this up for you, too.

Straight out of the oven.

Mm, that's really meaty.

-It's hot, but it's damn good, isn't it?

-Gorgeous.

Really, this is great party food.

Finger food, but proper finger food, not little...piddly, little bits.

Sausage rolls will never be the same again, trust me.

So, from a bite-size British party dish

to an exciting French one that's taking Edinburgh by storm.

When you're looking for cutting-edge food trends,

party food often leads the way.

And no party is complete without a sweet treat.

The cupcake might have hogged the limelight for years,

but Edinburgh-based artisan producer Rachel Hanretty is

determined to replace it with a little piece of Parisian perfection.

Macarons are a delicate French patisserie,

made up of a creamy rich flavoured filling,

sandwiched between crisp and colourful almond meringues.

Very chic and perfect for parties.

Mademoiselle Macaron started when I was living in Paris,

and I saw people come out of these wonderful little shops

with their fancy, fancy bags that contained little bites of heaven.

Women may be skinny in Paris, but because the macaron is small,

they still get their little sweet treat.

And when I got back to Scotland, I was very sad that these

little bites of heaven weren't widely available,

so it was my duty to bring them here.

I started out very, very small.

It was really just an idea. And I'd started making

macarons in my own kitchen, in my flat, which is not massive at all.

Every surface in my flat, practically, would be

covered in trays of macarons.

And as food fashions go, macarons are now very much in vogue.

From starting her macaron revolution in market stalls around

Edinburgh, Rachel's just managed to secure the lease on a cafe.

Macarons are hitting the high street.

You know, they replace that fad for cupcakes that happened

a couple of years ago, so it's just that next thing that excites

and interests people in the food land.

Macarons are guaranteed to make a statement at any party.

They give a little bit of a wow factor. They aren't available

everywhere, so when you invite your guests in and they see that

they're lying there in a massive tower on a buffet table, their

immediate reaction is, something different, not seen them everywhere.

With lots of enticing flavours to choose from,

available in pretty much any colour, it's no surprise that they

go down really well at big events like weddings.

But the sheer number of macarons needed

to form a Technicolor display keeps Rachel more than busy.

I've got one entire tower of macarons for a wedding,

but I'm missing one flavour.

So I'm going to start making shells for a gin-flavoured macaron.

So let's get whisking.

Whisking up egg whites and sugar into a thick meringue

is the starting point for all macarons.

I'd say that's almost ready,

and I'm just going to put the spatula in it and if the spatula can

stand up on its own, it means that the egg whites are stiff enough.

Having a range of macarons in different colours is

extremely important.

I mean, macarons are almost like jewellery to some people,

only they're not quite as expensive as a Tiffany's box.

Because I'm making a gin-flavoured macaron, I thought

I'd go for a nice cucumber green.

Once your macaron is coloured, adding some finely sieved

almond flour completes the basis for the shell.

I couldn't possibly tell you how many batches of macarons

I had to make until I got it bang on.

This can then be piped onto a tray,

where it's left to form a crispy skin, before being baked.

And so these ones look ready to go in the oven.

So I'm just going to put them in for six minutes.

With her colourful macarons baking,

it's on with the gin-flavoured filling.

I heat some cream, add some cornflour and milk.

And that'll thicken really, really quickly.

Take it off the heat and pour it over some white chocolate.

This is the exciting part. Add your gin.

Most importantly for us at the moment,

we're getting a lot of private orders for weddings,

birthdays, anniversaries, school leaver parties.

Everything at the moment seems to be celebrated with macarons.

The answer to most of life's problems,

and to this flavour at the moment, is more gin.

It's these intriguing fillings and colours that Rachel hopes

will not just impress the wedding party she's catering for today,

but maybe start a macaron revolution across Scotland and beyond.

Everyone can get one.

They don't have that usual thing about not wanting to be

the first to take a slice of the cake.

Although, I think if you disturb the rainbow, you might be noticed.

I've got a couple left over, so I'm going to go and let some of the

visitors and guests have a sample before everyone else gets one.

When people try the macarons,

the reaction is not so much words but noises.

Mm, ridiculously good. Mmm.

Just a really nice soft filling, just kind of melt in your mouth.

Really, really nice.

I quite like gin and tonic, so...

I just love the texture, they just sort of melt in your mouth, but

they're sort of slightly crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside.

Great party food.

Really on trend at the moment and I just think it's something

a little bit quirky, a little bit different.

So really nice, yeah.

Always exciting to bring the macarons out of the kitchen

and into a party, because I think I get really used to just

seeing them. But when you hear people's reactions and they say

all the right things, it makes it all really worthwhile for me.

Nothing beats the satisfaction of rustling up a treat for other

people, and this next dish will do wonders for anybody's cooking cred.

It's guaranteed to be a real hit at parties.

Now, in my mind, party food is sharing food, and one dish that

really epitomises that, particularly in my parties, are barbecued ribs.

Now, you wouldn't normally do these at home, but once you realise

how easy it is, you'll all have a go because it's really straightforward.

Now, I learned this while over in Texas,

the home of the barbecue, and particularly one guy called Jack,

who had this amazing smokehouse and because in Texas barbecues is

the big thing. But smoking meat... And I don't mean smoking little bits

of meat, I mean smoking half a cow. Mainly, what they do is just take

the hooves off and whack it into a smoker.

But this massive oven that they had was hot smoking these ribs of beef.

It was fantastic to watch.

But he taught me, the best way to cook this would be to poach them

and they have the most amazing flavour and particularly

the texture is really important because you want the meat to

almost sort of fall off the bone.

And you get that by poaching the ribs.

Add to the pan...

one onion, a whole bulb of garlic,

two red chillies, a couple of celery sticks and 250 ml of apple juice.

Next, top up the pan with cold water, pop on the lid,

bring to the boil.

I like to gently simmer this for about an hour,

an hour and a quarter.

And now when these ribs are ready,

you've almost got to treat these with kid gloves

cos they should just be nice and tender, almost falling off the bone.

Using two pairs of tongs,

lift them very gently onto a roasting tin, and then

leave them to cool while you get on and make your killer barbecue sauce.

The way to make barbecue sauce is quite simple, really.

It uses a ketchup base with addition of sugar... I'm going

to use a little bit of Worcester sauce. But in my mind, the key

to this is bourbon or single malt, but particularly American bourbon.

It's got a unique flavour

and one that lends itself really well with this.

In a hot pan, add 150 grams of dark muscovado sugar

to 125ml of ketchup, and cook it for two to three minutes,

until the sugar has melted.

Then add two tablespoons of Worcester sauce.

And then the heat comes in the form of two different

types of paprika. I've got the hot one, they both look identical,

so you've got to really read the label.

But the hot paprika and the sweet one.

It's just got a much milder flavour than the hot.

A little bit of white wine vinegar. This is where you get that piquant,

that sort of sharp taste with barbecue sauce.

A bit of black pepper, some salt. But really what it does need

is the magic ingredient - bourbon - and this is where you get this

wonderful sort of flavour. You can be quite heavy-handed with it

cos the alcohol's going to burn off, and the taste is great.

Mix well, and brush the sauce onto both sides of your ribs.

Then chuck them in the oven

set really high, at 250 degrees centigrade, for ten to 15 minutes,

until they're charred and lovely and sticky.

And while those are cooking, I'm going to do a lovely little slaw.

Now, this is kind of like a French style slaw, really, I suppose,

called celeriac remoulade,

which is a mixture of mustard, sliced celeriac and mayonnaise.

It's a classic sort of accompaniment that they normally do with

terrines, pates and bits and pieces, but it's one that I always do

here in my kitchen, because I just love the flavour of it.

You could use shop-bought mayo, but it's easy to make your own.

In a blender, simply whizz up three egg yolks,

one tablespoon of Dijon mustard and two tablespoons of vinegar.

I like to use a bit of cider vinegar.

Traditionally it would be white wine vinegar,

but I think the cider works really well with the pork ribs.

Next, slowly drizzle 300 ml of rapeseed oil into your mixer,

keeping a steady stream going throughout.

And voila, mayonnaise.

Now for the celeriac.

This is one of the most underrated veg, in my opinion.

You can use it for soups, sauces, raw, it's just a fantastic veg.

And you can turn this into all manner of different things.

I'm going to turn this into what the French call julienne,

which is thin strips.

But there's things like macedoine, brunoise, which are small dice.

So this would be little julienne.

Nice, thin strips.

Not that, that's a baton.

Thin strips.

And this is kind of one of the first things you learn

when you're training to be a chef at college, with your new, starched

jacket on and your tall chef's hat, with your brand-new knives,

which six weeks later, the kind students in your class nick 'em all.

Once your celeriac is all chopped, mix it in with your mayonnaise,

add a handful of chopped parsley, and season with salt and pepper.

Finally, add a good squeeze of lemon juice,

then get your ribs out of the oven.

Mm-mm-mm!

Barbecued ribs. You can't beat them for a dinner party.

Just chuck 'em in the middle of the table and almost stand back

and watch everybody fight, because it is a bit of a fight.

You see, what could be better than that.

They just sort of fall apart, which is what you want from ribs,

and you get that by poaching them first.

Now, I know with cookery programmes,

and I've been doing them a long time - nearly...

nearly 20 years - and people say, "How do you get excited about food?"

Well, just look at this. I mean, who wouldn't want that?

But the flavour you get from this sauce

and particularly from the bourbon...

It's the best barbecue sauce I know.

You can't get a more hearty party dish than barbecued spare ribs.

And you can't have a party without a cake.

It's actually the law in my house.

But when did cake become such an important part of our celebrations?

Food historian Ivan Day shares the story of a cake that

brightened up parties for centuries.

One of the earliest celebratory cakes in this country was

the wassail cake, which was eaten on Twelfth Night, the 6th of January.

It developed into something really quite complicated

by the 18th century, when people were making what were called

great cakes and decorating them with a profusion of ornaments,

little figures and amazing swags and drops around them,

so they looked like Georgian ceilings, and believe you me,

these cakes were really great.

The recipe I'm using comes from a book that was

published in the 1820s.

It was written by a food writer,

a very eccentric man called Dr William Kitchener,

and his recipe for a Twelfth Cake demands precision.

It's a big, big cake, with a lot of ingredients. And it needed to

be big because there were many guests at Twelfth Day parties.

This monster cake needed two pounds of my favourite ingredient -

butter - but I'm not so keen on the idea of whisking it by hand.

Every man, his own electric mixer, before electricity gets invented.

No-one was going to forget this cake in a hurry.

The next ingredients were two pounds of sugar and 18 eggs.

Each one of those had to be mixed in one by one.

There's a wonderful idea which is from the Regency period.

One of the confectioners from that time tells you,

when you have a lot of eggs and butter to mix up,

is to make a whisk out of bamboo cane, which is incredibly strong.

Some of the recipes actually tell you to whip this for about an hour.

You'd end up getting Twelfth Cake elbow, I think,

as a repetitive strain injury.

Adding a good glug of brandy and spices like ginger,

cinnamon, allspice and coriander

meant that the cake was sure to have a kick.

There's another spice which I've got to put in,

which will be familiar to everyone, and that's nutmeg,

which was really the favourite spice of all.

Nutmeg was a very popular spice for one particular reason -

you could carry it and the nutmeg grater in your pocket.

A lot of gentlemen carried one around cos

they could actually grate it into their punch.

Four pounds of currents, along with a generous quantity of candied

peel and chopped almonds were then mixed in.

Most of the ingredients in these cakes are things

we can't grow in England.

They're all exotics that we have to import.

So they're expensive. And it was a time, actually,

when the wealthy often used to share with the poor. And the poor

often would experience a taste of spices and currants and raisins.

The rest of the year, they were just living off turnips

and porridge and stale bread. So it was a big treat for them.

Twelfth Day was a day of celebration,

when people used to dress up,

rather like playing charades in costumes and, in order to tell

you who you were going to be, they would put an object in the cake.

So, for instance, if you were going to be the king for the day,

you would find a bean.

And if you were lucky enough to find a pea in the cake,

you would be the king's queen for the evening.

By the end of the 17th century,

we learn that there are other things they put in the cake.

So what happens to the bean and the pea?

Well, they get transformed into the silver threepenny bit that

was put into the Christmas pudding.

All that was left was to pour the cake mixture into a lined mould

and pop it in the oven for three hours, which left more than

enough time to get cracking on the incredible decoration.

In front of me, I've got about a dozen moulds,

all of which I'm using to decorate one cake.

They were often carved by the confectioners themselves,

so they were brilliant woodcarvers.

I've pressed some paste into it, which is

the magical material that was used.

The confectioners then called it gum paste and it was made with

a mixture of powdered sugar and a gum called gum tragacanth, which

literally turned it into something that resembled chewing gum.

You try and tease them out

and then gradually you can pull it all out of the mould.

If I'm quite clever with this, I can just turn it out onto the board.

And, hey presto, I've got beautiful Prince of Wales' feathers.

Sometimes...

days, not hours, of work went into making them.

It's not surprising that these cakes were so expensive.

I've already iced it and I've started to decorate it,

and I'm now in the finishing stages.

By about 1860, the Twelfth Cake no longer features on English tables.

The theory is that Queen Victoria didn't approve of Twelfth Day

because it was a day of misrule, gambling and excess,

and the cake shifts 12 days earlier to Christmas,

where you still get the figures but they are really a folk memory

of the much grander figures that the Twelfth Cake was decorated with.

It's a bit sad, really, when you consider what a beautiful

architectural feature these Twelfth Cakes used to

be in our Christmas holiday. But perhaps we can revive them.

Well, I'm not sure I can match Ivan's amazing Twelfth Cake.

But I'm going to make a party cake later with its own wow factor,

and I'm going to serve it up to an expectant crowd.

Ralph's getting into the party spirit too -

he's getting all spruced up for the event.

But first...

Now, this dessert is guaranteed to make any party go with a bang

because the secret of it, I think, is the meringue.

Start by separating six egg whites into a bowl,

then melt 300 grams of sugar.

Add this sugar into the pan and then just add enough water to

dissolve the sugar mainly. Roll this around.

You've got to take this to the exact temperature, which is

121 degrees centigrade.

So you need a sugar thermometer.

As the water evaporates off, the sugar changes its structure.

If I took it on further, you'd end up with caramel in the end.

But ideally for this, we want 121 degrees.

As soon as the sugar starts to boil, you can start mixing the meringue.

Now, the idea behind this meringue is you're actually cooking

the egg whites.

But once the egg whites are nicely whipped -

you've got to be careful but quick with this -

you pour it directly onto the egg whites

just in a nice, thin, steady stream.

Now you'll almost hear the machine kick down a gear as the sugar

starts to cook the egg whites.

If you add all the sugar all at once

you'll end up with what looks like a boiled egg.

Keep the machine on all the time now, as high as possible,

and I can feel this bowl is quite hot.

So just mix it for a good five minutes until it's cool.

Once you've finished whipping, leave the mixture in the bowl to cool.

It's important later, so it doesn't melt your ice cream centre.

The texture's very thick and it's ideally what we want.

And also really smooth.

Now I love chocolate sauce with ice cream,

so for that, I'm just going to use some dark chocolate.

Break 200 grams of it into the pan, add a splash of water

and 100ml of double cream.

And just whisk this together. Keep it on the heat.

Now, chocolate sauce at first will appear as

if it's split or separated. And really, the temptation is to think

there's something gone wrong, cos your cream starts to separate, but

keep whisking it and it'll actually start to come back together.

As soon as it comes to a gentle sort of simmer, lift it off.

You can't beat chocolate sauce, can you, with ice cream.

'Once it all goes nice and smooth, pour in the rest of the cream

'and whisk until it's combined.

'Next, I need to prepare the sponge base for the ice cream centre.'

You can just use any bits of left-over sponge if you want,

and then you can coat the sponge with whatever you want really.

I like to use a nice bit of Armagnac.

It's that hidden little secret, underneath everything else,

cos now you've almost got everything ready.

For the ice cream, I think it's better off to use a pot, really.

You just take the ice cream with a knife, cut through,

and open this up.

Now you can scoop this out if you want, to do smaller ones,

but with a pot like this,

it's kind of like the perfect sort of size.

And then you need a piping bag.

'Fill your bag with half of the meringue to use as decoration.

'I've got a star-shaped nozzle but it's your party,

'the shape is up to you.

'Before you can decorate,

'you need to cover the ice cream in a layer of meringue.'

The texture is very different to a standard meringue.

It's much more solid. Take the meringue.

Now really with this, you want, like, a thin coating over the top.

About a centimetre thick,

and this is where your icing skills come into play.

Start at the top, it all falls round the edge,

and then work your way around.

Now because you've got the ice cream in here,

you need to be a little bit quick.

Really, the clock is ticking as soon as the meringue hits the top.

And then you can really glam this up as much as you want.

Now, traditionally, this would be baked in the oven and that's

why the meringue is really important because it insulates that ice cream,

but you can get away with using a blowtorch.

If you are going to do this in the oven, make sure the oven's

really, really hot.

It wants to go in there for about 30 seconds to a minute.

It'll happen really straightaway. But with this, it's much easier.

Now, once you've finished decorating it and before you cook it,

you can actually freeze this, so pop the whole thing in the freezer

and cook it from frozen, so it's the perfect sort of party dish.

You can prepare it way in advance, so you spend less

time in the kitchen and more time with these guys.

There you go, baked Alaska to finish.

That's if you've got any room left.

So I'm just going to pour this over the top.

OOHING AND AHHING

Death by chocolate. And ice cream.

Unbelievable.

How's the ribs?

Check that out, look at that.

He stripped that like some vulture, look.

THEY LAUGH

You see, this is what parties are all about -

great company and fabulous food. That's if there's any left.

You can find all the recipes from the series on...