Teatime Treats The Hairy Bikers' Cookbook

Are we ready for another two-wheeled adventure, mate?

Ready? I'm ready for a cuppa.

Well, we're heading for the right place, then.

The Henley Royal Regatta.

Let's bake up a proper tea.

Ooh! Going posh, then, are we?

I need to dust off my blazer and boater.

On this trip, we're going to get out the best china,

and put out a fancy tea for the guys from the Tees Rowing Club.

That's my neck of the woods, that.

On the menu, super-chocolatey cookies baked right there

on the river's edge.

It's a tea-time treat to end all treats.

It's a tea-time treat for toffs.

We've decided to seek out the golden rules of baking from the WI,

the Women's Institute.

Here, baking is practised to benchmark perfection.

If you've not made it this way before, we're going to weigh the eggs in their shells.

Dude, she's weighing her eggs. That's a worry.

So, whatever ingredients, that's your fat, flour and sugar,

will weigh exactly the same.

She's only got four. We've got seven in ours.

Ours'll be richer, it works.

Within these corridors of culinary power, one learns

that the WI's Victoria sandwich is always made with raspberry jam

and dusted off with castor sugar, never icing sugar.

Tough bunch of ladies, these, for a couple of free form bakers like us.

Right, tips learned, pinnies on, time for a right hairy

Victoria sandwich with a few naughty extras.

Well, nothing I thought we'd get a black mark for.

-Oh!

-Tight.

-LAUGHTER

Being given the opportunity to wear this pinny,

it's like being accepted.

-By you?

-Well...them.

-What...the WI?

-Aye.

Here we go, step one.

Sugar, butter, unsalted. Loads of it.

-That means flavour.

-Flavour.

Just start off nice and gently and what we're looking for, it needs to go pale.

It needs to go virtually white.

It's gone white, like a polar bear's bum.

By using seven eggs, naughtier but nice.

Just to give it a bit more flavour. I've got some vanilla extract.

Just whisk this in. Nobody'll know.

Wait a minute.

Go.

'Fold in the self-raising flour to add some air.'

The thing about making a cake like this,

you kind of love it, don't you?

You take it and possess it. It's lovely.

Forget meditation, forget yoga.

Bake a cake.

'Then splodge equally into the baking tins.'

It's good, that cockerel.

-Never let me down yet.

-Nope.

-Da da-da da.

-Right, we need to make our butter cream cinnamon icing.

(Don't say it too loud. Sh.)

Jam as well.

Cinnamon. Cinnamon.

Butter cream icing. Icing sugar. Half a pack of butter.

Bit of warm water.

'Mix it all up till it's a lush paste like a posh face cream.'

We're doing this which is dead cheeky.

We're putting some cinnamon in, it's great.

Like passion cake, it's got that cinnamon butter cream icing.

It's not strictly right, but it's dead tasty.

-Right, lads, how you getting on...?

-Ooh, hello, Cath.

Smashing, the cakes are in and it's gone perfectly fine.

-And your timer?

-Yeah.

Yeah. We're ready, we're ready.

-We'll be jamming up later when the sponges come out.

-Jamming up.

Whoo! Bob Marley. We're jamming.

# Can't you see?

-# How happy we will be...? #

-Ready?

-They're perfect.

Yes! Absolutely perfect. Look at them.

And just as the dust settles over your cooled cake,

the heat goes on.

Time to whip out a doily

and sandwich your sandwiches, then just hope that your cake

makes the grade for judge Jill.

Dear, oh, dear. The thing is all the other ladies' cakes are like pillows,

big and fluffy and gorgeous.

Ours is like a carpet tile. Now on with the butter icing.

Go on, layer it up.

'Mm. Might get marked down for that butter icing.'

# With tea for two

# And two for tea

# Just me for you... #

Ours has got cream in it.

You're not supposed to tell the judge what's in it.

Kingy, the only judge you ever spoke to has been behind a bench.

Don't worry, Dave, I've got this judge wrapped round my little finger.

So, what's the verdict on our hairy Victoria sandwich with cinnamon butter cream?

You've given me a problem, you two.

What do you mean?

Well, this cake is not according to schedule.

-It was on time.

-It was. Aye, what's the matter?

It's not a Victoria sandwich.

I beg your pardon, madam.

-'So just...'

-HE BLOWS RASPBERRY

-'..let the taste buds decide.'

But as a cake, it's lovely.

With that lovely cinnamon flavour.

As a Victoria sandwich...

it's not quite there.

Because it's got the added extras.

Perhaps, you know, if you renamed it or something.

Biker...sandwich.

Love you. I quite like that.

CHUCKLING

You haven't finished yours. What's the matter with it?

What's the matter with it?

Rah! Disqualified for a layer of butter cream.

Outrageous.

Our tea-time journey has given us such a sugar rush,

I think Si and I could pedal our bikes to Henley.

The Henley Royal Regatta has been part of the summer season

since 1839.

The team we were here to cheer on were in the red tops,

the Tees Rowing Club from Si's neck of the woods.

They'll need some feeding up.

They're doing all right, the Geordies.

They're not Geordies, man, they're Teesiders.

Whatever, northerners. They think the chip shop's shutting, they're putting a spurt on.

-Go on, boys, go on.

-Chips, chips, chips.

-Stottie, chips and peas.

-The Post Office must be open for their grants.

THEY LAUGH

-Go on, boys.

-Come on, the Tees!

Come on, lads, we've got better pies up north. Come on!

Apparently, the Teesiders have reduced the stroke.

To half a length. Don't understand lengths.

I've got no idea at all what's going on.

You just have to dress up as a berk and bake cakes.

This rowing lark's a whole new world for Dave and me.

But them that's in the know say the Henley course is a straight mile

and takes seven minutes to cover.

With eight mates and a handful of oars,

that's hungry work.

Aaaargh!

Aaargh!

That's me upper-class roar.

Whilst the racing continues, we'd better crack on with the finishing touches

to our afternoon tea for the rowers.

Ooh hoo! Our tea-time table treats is building up bazonkers.

-It's brilliant.

-I've just chopped this chocolate. Nice and chunky.

Nice white chocolate, lovely dark chocolate.

That's not cheap chocolate, is it? That's proper chocolate.

You need posh chocolate for our cookies.

They're laced with sour cherries, cherry brandy,

white chocolate, dark chocolate. If Rich Tea biscuits are at one end of the scale of frugality,

these super-chewy sour cherry cookies are at the other.

These are an opulent cookie, the big one.

The basis to any good cookie or cake is our sugars.

-And our fat.

-It's creaming your fat with your sugar.

So, I've got some dark brown muscovado sugar

to go into the golden castor.

Between you and me, the secret to super-chewy cookies is oil.

The sort that are cooked but they're still a bit soft.

Put a couple of spoonfuls of sunflower oil,

nice and pure, into the mixture.

Cream away, Horatio.

It should cream slightly easier, actually, with the oil in it.

'We're adding two tablespoons of vanilla paste to an egg,

'then stirring that into our sugars and butter.'

You know...it's a tea-time treat to end all treats.

It's a tea-time treat for toffs.

'Lush. So, dry ingredients.

'Some flour, baking powder for lift-off,

'a tad of salt,

'and mix it all up.'

'Then you get the basis of your cookie dough.'

Now these are dried soured cherries.

They're not dry now cos we just soaked them in a bit of water

just to rehydrate them.

To drain these, I just hope it doesn't splash on me flannels.

To cheery up the sour cherries,

a splash of good, French cherry brandy.

Look at that. Go on, go on, don't be shy.

Now...whip those into your dough.

Next ingredient is a handful of slivered almonds.

And now some chopped hazelnuts.

Don't forget my chocolate chopping board.

Chocolate chunks.

Fit for a king.

Like dead men's teeth.

Now, this has to be the most luscious dough on the planet.

It's extravagant, isn't it?

Roll it out about a centimetre thick.

Keep it quite thick cos when they bake, they'll spread.

If you want big cookies, use a big pastry cutter,

they'll come out bigger, they'll come out like soup plates.

But we're at Henley, so we want quite dainty ones.

We use a glass because it's nice and there's one to hand always.

And just pop 'em out with this.

Right now. On a non-stick baking tray,

you can put them said cookies on 'ere.

So, all we do now is stamp, lift...

Two trays of perfectly-formed cookies.

There we are. To the fiery furnace.

Just in time. Perfect.

We've got to get a move on, Kingy, because the rowers are coming over in a minute.

Thing is here at Henley, they pause for tea.

They don't "take tea", they "pause" for tea.

-One thing.

-What's that?

-We have no savouries.

A-ha!

Cucumber sandwiches, thinly sliced.

# Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic... #

-Tea!

-Tea's ready.

Did your mam used to call you in? Come on, your tea's ready.

The 60,000 million dollar question. Tees rowing club, did you win?

Yes!

-There you are, look at that.

-Oh-ar!

So, do you lads have a special diet? Do you have to watch the calories?

Or do you just go for it and bulk up weight?

Thankfully, I fall into the heavyweight category where you try and eat as much as you can.

-6,000, 7,000 calories a day.

-What?

So, plenty of cream, anything rich.

Chocolate, fat.

6,000 or 7,000 calories a day?

Body's a temple, dude, body's a temple.

Yeah, that's what we do, but you've got to go rowing to get rid of it.

We should do that. We could be like this. It's not too late.

Oh!

All this whingeing on about rowing, I don't know what the problem is.

Nor me. Look, get an engine.

Then you really can have your cake and eat it.

It's hard work when you're cox-less.

Oh, tell you what. Does this join on to the Tyne?

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