I'm Prue Leith, cook, caterer, restaurateur, cookery school founder, and writer of 16 cookbooks.

Prue: This looks so delicious.

I'm absolutely dribbling.

Prue, voice-over: I'm in my 80s, so I haven't got time to waste.

This series is all about the things that really matter to me-- family, fun, food, and friends.

Ha ha!

I've got to let it out when I can.

♪ Ah da da da ta da ♪ Prue, voice-over: We'll be sharing simple home-cooked recipes... Oh, I did it.

And what does that do?

Well, unfortunately, it's not quite doing it.

Ha ha ha!

Prue, voice-over: and celebrating the best produce.

I'm lucky enough to live in the astonishingly beautiful Cotswolds with my long-suffering husband John, and now he's agreed to join me in the kitchen, too.

[Pop] Ooh!

Prue, voice-over: Coming up today, Professor Tim Spector will be spilling the beans, or rather, the peas, with his herby pea pancakes... It's all about using very simple ingredients, cheap ingredients, a freshness, and an exciting new thing for me, really.

Prue, voice-over: John goes in search of rare breeds... King Charles has given them a royal status, the first ever animal.

-Oh, gosh.

Prue, voice-over: and I'm going to show you how to make a beautiful ice bowl.

All you need are some flowers and water.

In the seventies, this was a very fashionable thing to do.

People absolutely loved it and were fascinated by it.

Welcome to my Cotswold kitchen!

♪ With over 60 years of cooking under my belt, I've seen a lot of food fads come and go, and some of them make the price of simple restaurant dishes skyrocket.

♪ If you go to fancy restaurants at the moment, you might notice that the fashionable thing, especially for starters, is whipped something-- whipped goat's cheese, whipped feta, or whipped lard.

It may sound strange, but they are absolutely delicious, but they are incredibly expensive in a restaurant, so I thought I'd show you how to make them very simply and not so expensively.

♪ So we're going to do whipped lard.

I've got this lard from a local charcuterie maker.

If you want to use supermarket lard, that's fine.

Prue, voice-over: Add one or two tablespoons of fresh rosemary finely chopped, one tablespoon of olive oil, one crushed garlic clove, and whip it all up with a whisk.

When it's nice and fluffy and it's holding its shape-- like that--see-- then we want a little bit of salt and pepper.

That's my whipped lard.

♪ Now we want to make some crackers to go with the whipped lard.

♪ First thing I want to do is to just chop up a few herbs to go in there.

Prue, voice-over: Chop a teaspoon of rosemary and a teaspoon of thyme.

It's quite important to chop rosemary quite finely because it's a bit scratchy and hard, even very fresh leaves.

As long as it's very fine, it'll just feel crunchy in the crackers.

Now these crackers are called lavash, and that's an Armenian bread.

I think they're absolutely delicious.

Right.

That'll do, so I'll stick that in there.

The other ingredients-- plain flour with one teaspoon of baking powder in it, a little bit of wholemeal flour.

Prue, voice-over: I'm using 200 grams of plain flour and 50 grams of wholemeal.

Quite a lot of pepper... and salt, and then in here, I've got a mix of olive oil and water.

Prue, voice-over: I've used 60 mils of extra virgin olive oil and 120 mils of cold water.

Combine all the ingredients using your hands.

So it all comes together quite nicely, and then we're gonna roll it out.

So we'll put a little bit of oil on the board.

You want to keep working it until there are no more pockets of flour in it, and then just squash it out a little bit and then chop it up into pieces about the size of a walnut.

It's quite simple to make your own crackers.

You could use this dough as a flat bread.

Roll it out really thinly and put it in a hot frying pan.

Just brush it with oil, cook it on both sides.

We're going to bake it right through so that it's dry and a proper cracker.

Prue, voice-over: Roll each ball thinly into a long oval.

I quite like this.

It's good fun.

This sort of thing is very good for mindfulness because it's stress relieving.

My go-to thing-- if I'm unhappy, I want to cook.

If I'm happy, I want to cook.

I mean, I just--it's what I want to do all the time.

I think because I've got a sort of fairly relaxed nature, I don't stress very much.

I'm just a bit bad-tempered when I'm tired, that's what.

So then we need to just brush them a little lightly with a bit more olive oil, and then I'm going to put some sesame seeds on some of them.

So that's white sesame.

You could use black sesame, but as I'm going to put nigella on the others, which are black.

They're a caraway seed, and they do taste a bit like caraway.

I expect you could use caraway.

I think these are a lovely basic example of crackers.

You can put any herbs you like into the dough, and then you can put any seeds you like onto the top.

You could use caraway seeds.

You could have cumin seeds, black sesame, anything you like.

Put them in a preheated oven at 180 for 15 minutes.

Be sure to keep an eye on them as they're very thin, and they'll burn fast.

♪ As an alternative to the whipped lard, I thought we'd do a whipped cheese.

♪ I'm going to use goat's cheese.

Prue, voice-over: Blend together 200 grams of soft goat's cheese, 100 mils of double cream, black pepper, a little salt, a teaspoon of lemon juice, and a teaspoon of honey.

♪ I'm going to serve the goat's cheese with two toppings, so divide the whipped cheese between two plates, smoothing it down with a spatula.

First one is going to be roast beetroot.

These beetroots, all we did was put them in a hot oven in the skins and roast them with a bit of oil on them until they were crackly and easy to peel.

Prue, voice-over: We roasted these at 180 degrees for an hour and a half.

You could cook them in the microwave and then roast them for the last few minutes because you need that sort of roasty taste.

Peel them when they're done and then chop them up into little cubes.

I don't think there's a lot of difference in flavor between the yellow beetroot and the red beetroot, but I just love the color.

Well, of course I do.

I mean, I'm a color nut, but I do think if you see any yellow beetroot buy them.

♪ Prue, voice-over: Mix the beetroot in one tablespoon of olive oil and one tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.

Remove the lavash crackers from the oven.

You can see that they've changed color a bit.

They're a little browner, and they're totally crisp.

There's no softness there at all.

It's a proper cracker.

Prue, voice-over: Spoon the whipped lard into a bowl and top with smoked paprika and rosemary.

♪ The two whipped goat's cheese, we'll put the beetroot on one maybe just scattered about...like that, and we'll put the dukkah.

Prue, voice-over: Dukkah is a spice mix that can be traced back to ancient Egypt.

It's traditionally made with nuts, seeds, and spices.

So what we have here is sesame seeds, hazelnuts, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, dried thyme, and salt and pepper, but you can have paprika in there, you can have a little chili flakes.

You can have anything you like, and then I'm going to put a few pomegranate seeds on here, as well.

Prue, voice-over: Pomegranates are packed with antioxidants and vitamin C. I love pomegranate seeds, not just for the color, but because they have a wonderful sweet taste and they pop in your mouth, and so the texture is lovely with the creamy cheese and the pomegranates.

Prue, voice-over: To finish, drizzle a little oil around the whipped goat's cheese with dukkah and pomegranates.

Serve all 3 with the lavash crackers.

This is my version of the fashionable restaurant whipped snack, which is lard and whipped goat's cheese with toppings and homemade crackers, and you know what?

That is what I would like for lunch.

♪ Mmm.

That is really good.

♪ Prue, voice-over: Coming up, Professor Tim Spector will be sharing one of his new recipes... I'm supposed to watch, but I'm such a bossy woman.

Well, I'm very glad you are here to take over these crucial stages.

I immediately want to do it myself.

Prue, voice-over: And I'll show you a hack to avoid the juice of a pomegranate squirting all over you.

So I'm bravely wearing a smart shirt to prove to you that you can do it without seeds going everywhere.

♪ Prue, voice-over: I always think that adding a splash of color to anything gives it a boost, whether it's clothing or decor or food.

Earlier, I showed you how pomegranate seeds lift the look of a dish whilst adding a bit of flavor, but pomegranates are one of those fruits a lot of people shy away from because they think they're fiddly and messy.

I promised you I'd show you a good hack for getting the seeds out of pomegranates.

♪ Main thing about if you just hack them in half and sort of break them apart is they're inclined to spurt juice all over you, so I'm bravely wearing a smart shirt to prove to you that you can do it without it going everywhere.

Prue, voice-over: Slice the top off the pomegranate and then carefully cut down the sides into quarter segments, trying not to cut into the flesh.

Then cut off the bottom.

And then I'm going to break it open.

Obviously you can pick out what seeds you can, but the easiest way to do it is to do it underwater because the seeds can't spurt everywhere, and they will sink to the bottom... and the pithy bits will float to the top.

When you get a brown bit in the middle of a pomegranate, usually the pomegranate seeds are absolutely fine.

These are.

You can see they're perfectly fresh and nice, but you have to watch it because in another week or two that will start to go bad where it's going brown, and then you have to not to use those seeds.

If they stick at all, put your hands underwater because then they won't explode and put juice all over your shirt.

Prue, voice-over: To dislodge any remaining pith, give the water a good stir with your fingers and then let the pomegranate seeds settle.

You can scoop the pith off the top.

Prue, voice-over: Then drain your pomegranates.

Honestly, I'll tell you what.

If you buy pomegranate seeds already done in a packet, it's fine if you're going to use them within two days, but they ferment really quickly.

They don't keep well, and also they're really expensive.

I always buy them whole because, first of all, I can do this if I want to separate them, but if I want to just keep them in the fridge, break your pomegranate in half, take a quarter of it off, use that for your salad or whatever you want, and just put the whole pomegranate into the fridge as it is.

Don't wrap it or anything, just put it in the fridge.

It will keep for ages.

I mean, weeks literally.

The skin begins to look a bit wrinkled, but the seeds stay as fresh as a daisy as long as they're still attached to the pith.

So there we have pomegranate seeds.

So do we have are any bits of pith left?

No.

I think we've pretty well done it.

Good.

♪ Prue, voice-over: Like me, my next guest is all about simple foods, but he's particularly keen about the ones that are packed with goodness for our guts.

So today my guest is a doctor, a scientist, an epidemiologist, and he's very famous for worrying about the bacteria in our stomachs.

His name is Tim Spector, and welcome to my Cotswold kitchen.

Thank you very much.

It's an absolute pleasure to do my cooking debut with you.

Ha ha!

Right.

So, Tim, what are you cooking?

Well, we're gonna cook two recipes.

One is herby pea pancakes, and the other is sauerkraut.

Prue, voice-over: Taken from Tim's latest cookbook.

Tell us about sauerkraut.

Why is it a good thing?

Sauerkraut is basically fermented cabbage, and I wanted to showcase it because it is about the simplest ferment you can make.

It's incredibly cheap, it's incredibly quick, super simple.

It's just cabbage.

it's just salt, and it's a bit of some seeds.

That's it.

And this is something that the bacteria in our guts likes.

They love fermented foods.

We know that if you have 3 portions of fermented foods or more a day within two weeks your immune system has had a real benefit.

Inflammation is down everywhere in your body, and increasingly, the power and the potential of these foods are being shown.

OK.

Good.

Let's go.

-And it's tasty.

-And it's tasty.

Prue, voice-over: Tim's removing the outer leaves of the cabbage, keeping a leaf aside for later.

We're using this to push down the ferment to make sure that air doesn't get into the jar.

Oh, I see.

So it's just a lid.

Prue, voice-over: Thinly slice 600 grams of cabbage.

Any cabbage will work for this recipe, and then add 12 grams of sea salt.

Massage the cabbage leaves until they soften.

What's amazing is the salt here is breaking down the cells in the cabbage and releasing fluid, liquid that in that juice are actually sugars.

This is the whole essence of fermented food is that you're liberating the microbes that are already there that naturally live off cabbage but just have a rather boring life, so suddenly you're giving them a feast of sugars.

You're exciting them into an absolute frenzy.

They're gonna breed like crazy.

I can see it's getting really wet.

Yeah.

So in no time at all, I can squeeze this out.

Amazing.

Prue, voice-over: Mix in one teaspoon of caraway seeds before pressing the mixture firmly down into a jar.

Top with the reserved cabbage leaf.

The key is to get the water level above the top of the cabbage so there's no oxygen now because the good bugs survive without the oxygen, and the ones that need oxygen are the bad ones, so they get killed off, so we're basically just changing their environment.

So after about a day or two, you'll know if it's working from the little bubbles.

Yeah, and then you just release it, shut it up again... -Yes.

Exactly.

do the same thing in two days' time or something?

I put a little bowl underneath because if it is full you might get a bit of fluid coming out as the fluid increases, but you can start to taste it after 3 days.

It's safe, and then 5 to 7 days later, you've got perfect sauerkraut.

♪ Prue, voice-over: Put it somewhere cool to ferment.

Prue: Now, about these pea pancakes.

-Should we do them?

-Absolutely, yes.

It's all about using very simple ingredients, cheap ingredients, a freshness, and an exciting new thing for me really.

Prue, voice-over: Blitz 1 egg and 120 grams of cottage cheese together until smooth.

♪ Add most of your 200 grams of frozen peas to the mixture.

We'll leave a few, OK, for the texture at the end.

♪ So using frozen peas-- often there's a misconception they're not as healthy as the peas you might get, you know, out of a pod, but by the time you're seeing them, unless you're actually on a farm, these are gonna be fresher.

They're frozen really super fast, which means they have all the nutrients and the polyphenol defense chemicals, so they're really good for you.

Frozen peas are good.

All that--peas, pulses, lentils, beans that we're not eating enough of.

Prue, voice-over: In a separate bowl, put 50 grams of wholemeal spelt flour, 4 spring onions finely sliced, the remaining peas, and 60 grams of mixed chopped herbs.

For this we picked mint, basil, and parsley.

♪ Prue, voice-over: Add the zest of a lemon and some salt and pepper, and then stir in the cottage cheese.

We're gonna need a little bit more water just to get all that flour mixed in.

What do you think, Prue?

Should we put a little bit of water in there?

Yeah, definitely.

Doesn't it look great?

I think this is lovely because it's nice and chunky.

There are whole peas in here and bits of spring onion, and your taste buds respond to texture just as much as taste.

I mean, it can be really boring if textures are always the same.

I'm supposed to watch, but I'm such a bossy woman, I can't help getting my hands in.

Well, I'm very glad you are here to take over these crucial stages.

But I'm so bossy.

I immediately get-- you know, want to do it myself.

Anyway, that looks perfect to me.

♪ Prue, voice-over: Heat one tablespoon of olive oil over a medium heat and drop generous spoonfuls of the mixture into the pan.

Cook for two minutes on each side until golden.

All these recipes are designed to have that balance of healthiness with tastefulness and also speediness.

I think this is pretty well as cooked as it's going to be.

Yeah.

I love this dish because you can actually have it for breakfast, for brunch, for lunch, for dinner.

Healthy eating is fine 80% of the time, and if you do something, whether it's your overnight fasting or it's your fermented foods, I'd rather you do it 80% of the time for the rest of your life than 99% of the time for a short period of time, so I think that principle's really important to not beat yourself up if you-- if you can't get it all together.

Prue, voice-over: Tim tops the pancakes with yogurt.

♪ Drizzle some chili oil round the sides... ♪ add some soft poached eggs, and finally the sauerkraut.

So I'm using this sauerkraut that was made 10 days ago, and it's nicely tender and really soft and beautiful and smells great.

Mmm.

Shh!

Ha ha!

-Well done, Tim.

-Well done.

I think it looks lovely.

Yes.

Great teamwork.

♪ Mmm.

Very good.

So for me, this is the perfect combination of, you know, healthy food that's also a comfort food.

-And is quite quick to do.

-Yeah, and if you make more of the batter, you can just keep that in the fridge and have it the next day.

What--the revelation to me is how good the sauerkraut is with it because it's a real contrast, the acidity and-- When you've got a pancake base that's quite sort of savory, if you add in that extra bit of acidity, that's also, you know, basically a super health food... -Yeah.

-I think it's amazing.

So I'm finding more and more excuses to add my ferments to any dish and see what it tastes like, you know, just experimenting.

This is an example of a well-balanced meal that's giving you something exciting for your palate, and it's also a treat for your microbes.

-And a treat for us -And for us.

So, Tim, thank you for coming.

I know how busy you are, and you've got this empire to run now, but it's been great to see you.

Been great to visit.

♪ Prue, voice-over: Coming up, my food heroes today are on a mission to change the story of fish in the UK.

Man: The idea was reborn when Charlotte shouted out the window "The tinned fish idea!

That's what we need to do!"

♪ Prue, voice-over: John and I do like animals.

Our two dogs, Tattie and Teasel, are a big part of our lives, and as much as I'd love another cat, there's no replacing my 20-year-old Magnificat.

Poor old Mags.

I'll never forget him.

There's no shortage of animals in the Cotswolds, and today, John is in his element.

There'll be lots of beasties where he's going.

John has gone off to see Adam Henson at the Cotswold Farm Park.

I just hope he doesn't come back with a llama or a bunch of wild rabbits or something.

He's quite capable of it.

♪ Adam's father Joe opened the farm in 1971 to save native farm breeds in danger of extinction.

Spread over 50 acres and with over 50 rare breeds, Adam took over the business in 1999 and continues his father's obsession.

John: So what was the inspiration for your dad to just start off?

I mean, that's a kick off for a farmer in the Cotswolds.

Post World War II, we put our foot on the accelerator for food production, and we moved away from some of our old-fashioned breeds, our dual-purpose cattle that could do beef and milk, and we changed our rotational farming systems, and we went for out-and-out production, and a lot of the breeds here were whittling down, so dad started collecting them, and then his business partner said, "Look, Joe.

This is a very expensive hobby," and Dad said, "Well, why don't we open to the public?"

Whether he saw it as a vision as a business, or just as a way to pay for his hobby, I'm not entirely sure, but for now, for us, it's a really important part of what we do on the farm tenancy.

Prue, voice-over: The rare breeds they farm are very special.

They even have a royal seal of approval.

Adam: Yeah, these are Golden Guernsey goats.

You can tell by their lovely color.

King Charles has given them a royal status, the first ever animal to have a royal status, so they've moved from being a Golden Guernsey goat to a Royal Golden Guernsey goat.

So what persuaded him to do this?

They are incredibly special.

I mean, obviously from the Channel Islands .

-OK.

-Produce an amazingly beautiful, rich, creamy milk.

So, Adam, how many Royal Guernsey goats are there in the UK?

There's about 1,400 breeding females now, so still very rare, and there was a lady called the late Miss Milbourne, who actually hid her herd from the Germans so they didn't get eaten, and that saved them from extinction.

Oh, gosh!

That's how the story goes anyway.

Prue, voice-over: It's not just rare goats being saved.

Hit by foot-and-mouth disease and demand for single-use cattle, Albion cows were facing extinction.

Even now, there are just a few hundred left worldwide.

John: How many did you have to get to start it-- start it up again?

Well, there's about 200 cows in the country, and we've got 8 on this farm, so we've just got a small herd, but actually as a percentage of the national herd, that's quite a lot... -Yeah.

-but I think they're magnificent animals.

They can produce really good quality proteins, beef and milk, from rough pasture, and with the sort of new look at sustainable farming systems, I believe that these are the sort of animals we should be farming.

♪ Prue, voice-over: There's one breed on the farm that appeals to John's Scottish roots, and these Highland cattle apparently stole the heart of Queen Victoria.

John: I mean, I always heard that because she fancied the orange or red ones, that everybody bred the red ones, but their natural situation is to be black or dark brown.

That's right.

Yeah.

So the dun and the black ones were very common... -Yeah.

-until she saw the ginger ones.

-Yeah.

-Made her statement, and then, yeah, everybody started breeding the red ones.

Tell you, with your handsome crook there, give him a scratch on his back.

-OK.

-He just loves that.

OK, we'll give him-- Kook at the way he puts his head down.

Just, "Ooh.

Lovely."

He's got lovely sort of, um, you know, curly hair.

Yeah, he has.

What they have with their coat to live up in the Scottish mountains is these long guard hairs on the surface, and then there's a downy underlayer, so they're really well-insulated, and of all the cattle breeds, their skin would be one of the thickest.

You know, really thick skin.

That's why they can live up on the Scottish Highlands come, you know, snow, sleet, or--heh--or rain.

And the weather's similar to this.

It is.

Yes.

They'll be feeling at home, won't they?

♪ Thank you, Adam.

It's been absolutely marvelous.

I love it.

Prue, voice-over: Glad you didn't come home with a Highland cow, John.

♪ As well as cooking good food, I do like to make it look good, as well.

I want to show you a hack to make your presentation amazing.

I'm going to show you one of my favorite hacks, ice bowl, which is full of flowers.

♪ For a while in the seventies, this was a very fashionable thing to do, and I used to have a restaurant then, and we served balls of ice cream in a bowl from a trolley, and people absolutely loved it, were fascinated by it, and would ask the waiters about it and how you make it and so on, but you only got that at the beginning of the evening because after an hour and a half in a hot restaurant, I'd need to put it back in the freezer, so if you came late to the restaurant, you never saw that.

♪ Prue, voice-over: You need two bowls, one bigger than the other.

Take the smaller bowl, turn it over, and sellotape your flowers onto it.

When we get the water in, we don't want the flowers floating up.

These are all flowers from the garden.

You sellotape a lot of flowers on the bottom of the bowl, turn the bowl round, and stick it in there.

Then tuck in flowers round the edge.

Then you fill up the outside with water.

It's going to float the bowl, but that's fine.

This isn't cooking at all, is it?

It's just having fun.

Prue, voice-over: Once the bowl floats, push it down so the rims are level and sellotape in place.

Put in some rocks to keep it exactly the right level and add more water to bring it up to the edge.

It's a good idea to put the rocks in gradually because if you put all the rocks in at once before you've got the water in, it'll squash the ones on the bottom.

You need to let it float a little bit, and then you put it in the freezer.

It would take, I reckon, all night to freeze really, really well.

Then you'd bring it out.

♪ Leave it for about half an hour to begin to melt around the edge, and if it won't melt, if it doesn't loosen like that, get a towel, a small towel, dip it in boiling water.

Wear rubber gloves so that you're not-- and put a hot towel inside here and a hot towel round the edge, and that'll help it loosen.

♪ So that's my hack for a floral ice bowl.

♪ There's nothing wrong with using canned seafood as long as it's good, and today's food heroes have perfected the art of canning good seafood and fish.

♪ In Bridport, Dorset, lies a craft fish cannery, the first operating in England since the 1940s, set up by Charlotte and Angus, who, having both worked in hospitality, fell in love with canned fish whilst on a trip to Europe and set about elevating the humble tinned fish into something exquisite.

Angus: We didn't have a lot of money.

What we did have was a good eye for a quality can of fish--heh heh-- so we lived off tinned fish, bread, tomatoes, and that started in Brittany with canned sardines, and we went all the way down into Spain, where there was a lot more shellfish and a huge variety of different species being canned.

That was the real inspiration for Sea Sisters.

We had a dream, an idea at that point, and it was really exciting, and then as life goes on, it kind of gets put to bed, and it was only in lockdown in 2020 that the idea was reborn when Charlotte shouted out the window, "The tinned fish idea!

That's what we need to do!"

You know, you're at home, and you start to have all this time of reflection and realize actually being together as a family is more important than the hours of hospitality, so that's what really spurred us on, and when we started the research and development, we didn't realize that there was no one actually manufacturing tinned fish in England, and we really wanted to bring about this idea of conservas to the UK, and actually, it's become bigger than that.

You realize that 90% of the species that we eat here in England and around the UK are all imported, and all the fish that is landed ends up being exported to other countries, so what we're trying to do is through all of these delicious recipes that we pair with the fish to try species that the UK has to offer like hake and mussels and whelks, and it's really wonderful that we get to experience people's first ever... -whelk.

-Whelk.

♪ I was excited about using my skills as a chef and translating that into the limitations of a tin can, and trying to get the most amount of flavor in there as possible.

Angus: We do a garlic and bay leaf-infused oil.

We do a chili and garlic bay leaf oil for the mussels.

Aside from oil, we do a hake with butter and dulse seaweed with lemon.

So we've got a quality extra virgin olive oil that we're going to infuse with rosemary and garlic.

This is to pair with the Cornish hake, so it's a very Mediterranean style can, simply hake, which we've salted, and then we've got the rosemary garlic oil and a few little briny capers just on top.

Beautiful new rosemary.

You can see it's kind of new season growth, super fresh, vibrant, and it's gonna create a wonderful, aromatic oil.

So I'm just gonna pop this into the oil, and then we're gonna go in with some lovely Spanish garlic and pop it on.

♪ So the oil is now infused with garlic and the rosemary.

It'll just carry on infusing in the pot.

♪ Charlotte: The brand's named after the children, and we want it to leave a legacy, and we want to do things the right way.

Actually using fish when they're mature, they've had an opportunity to reproduce, and stocks are therefore abundant and managed properly means that we're part of being ethical and responsible.

We're a small cog in a bigger wheel, and that's why we're really passionate about doing it the right way.

♪ Prue, voice-over: Still to come, John gets carried away with an old French classic.

I enjoyed doing that.

I can sort of understand how people take up baking.

I might elbow you out of the kitchen.

Oh.

Well, that would be good.

Really?

♪ Prue: I've got John back in the kitchen, and guess what.

We're going to make my absolute favorite pastry, which is choux pastry.

Oh, OK.

So we're making Paris-Brest.

♪ Do you know what an eclair is?

I do.

Do you know what a profiterole is?

I do.

Paris-Brest is circular eclair, and it's filled with cream, and it can be filled with anything, but my favorite is sweetened chestnut puree, and it comes in a tin, already sweetened and in a puree, so it's lovely.

Creme de marron it's called.

You have a fiction in your head that I never make pastry or cake, but I make a lot.

Anyway, this is how you make it.

Prue, voice-over: In a saucepan, put 60 mils of water, 60 mils of whole milk, 1 teaspoon of sugar, a pinch of salt, and 50 grams of unsalted butter.

I'm not going to get sticky, am I?

I don't like getting sticky.

Don't like getting sticky.

You are a fussy fellow.

You bring this to the boil quite slowly because you want the butter to be melted before the water boils.

-OK.

And then the minute the water boils, we're going to shoot all the flour in at once and beat like blazes.

OK.

Do I stir this?

You can--your job is to get that melted but not boiling.

If it goes off, will you swear?

Heh heh.

We've got to get this right.

The thing about choux pastry is if you do each stage absolutely correctly, it always, always works like magic, but if you put in too much egg or you get the quantities of ingredients wrong, it goes flat.

It's only tricky if you don't follow the recipe, and you know that's true of so much pastry and cake making.

It's much more scientific than just cooking because you have to get all the ingredients right.

Prue, voice-over: Paris-Brest were created to celebrate the famous cycling race between Paris and Brest.

The unique shape is inspired by the bicycle wheel.

Bring it to the boil and then-- That happened very quickly.

You wait until it's a rolling boil.

I mean, a real proper bubbling.

Do you see?

It's now getting--it's boiling.

Would you say it's boiling?

-Yep.

I reckon that's a rolling boil.

As soon as it does that, you put all the flour in at once, and you beat like blazes.

Prue, voice-over: I've added 70 grams of sifted plain flour.

If you do it too slowly, you get lumps in it.

Do you see?

And then you keep going until it leaves the side of the pan.

Prue, voice-over: Allow the dough to cool for 5 minutes.

If you're short of time, you can dunk the bottom in cold water.

If you left it boiling hot and started adding egg to it, you'd get scrambled egg, and we don't want that, so now we'll probably need two eggs.

We'll certainly need one, but because eggs are different sizes and flour has different absorbency, you don't put all the eggs in at once.

You put 3/4 of it in and then keep adding it until you get the right texture, which is dropping consistency.

Lots of recipes talk about dropping consistency, and I always describe it as when you hold the spoon there and give it a slight jerk the mixture will drop off it, but it will drop off reluctantly.

So now we're going to beat in this egg.

You're gonna beat.

-I'm beating?

-You're beating.

OK.

So I'm going to put some of the egg in, but I'm not all of it.

Right.

Keep whizzing-- that you have to be quite vigorous with it, and first it'll go lumpy, and then it'll go smooth.

OK.

Do you see it's getting stiffer again?

Yep.

I can feel it's getting-- Yeah.

While it's looking like that, it needs more egg.

So I'll put a bit more in and see if it'll get too stiff, in which case we'll put some more egg.

Otherwise, we'll stop where we are.

I mean, that's very stiff.

Let me have a look.

♪ Blimey!

-Heh heh heh!

-Ha!

I didn't know you were that strong.

You didn't know I could beat the hell out of anything, did you?

-No.

I'm gonna call you sir from here on in.

Ha ha!

OK.

Now, you see, if you've got a lump like that and you--it won't come off unless you give it a little tut, and I think it's still too stiff.

More egg?

Prue: Right.

John: OK.

Now we're going to put it in a piping bag, so we're now gonna have piping lesson.

-Have you ever piped anything?

-No.

It's quite difficult to fill a piping bag like that, holding it with one hand, so I put them in a jug, but if you turn it over a jug or beaker like this, it's much easier to fill.

So here we have dropping consistency.

♪ It'll come off, but it needs a little encouragement.

Prue, voice-over: Spoon the dough into a piping bag.

Fill the piping bags and make sure that the mixture gets right down to the bottom.

So you put your fingers each side and push it down like that, and then boop.

And you hold it with one hand like that at the top.

Turn it a bit so that everything-- all the mixture is one end, and then you pipe it.

This is where you're gonna come into your own, John.

Ha!

OK.

Hold it quite close to the bottom.

I'm squeezing with the top hand.

-Do you see?

-Yep.

OK.

So you can follow those lines we marked on there.

That's right.

♪ John: Should I carry on?

Prue: Yes, please.

I've got to the bit where-- Oh, I see.

I can squeeze from-- You're a bit too low down now.

Go round one more time because, you see, this is a bit thin there.

You can go round twice?

Yeah.

Let's stop there.

-There we are.

-OK.

Do you see that some of them are a little bit fatter than others?

-Yes.

You can go around twice if you like.

Very satisfying that.

I enjoyed that.

It's fun, isn't it?

Yeah.

Trying to get that a bit rounder.

Prue, voice-over: Sprinkle with flaked almonds, bake them in a preheated oven at 160 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes until golden and puffed up.

♪ The thing about choux pastry, why it's so magical is it rises, leaving a hole in the middle.

It's just very light pastry.

You cut it in half, or you make a hole in it and pipe the cream inside, so you get pastry round the filling, so I think it's magic.

Prue, voice-over: Take the Paris-Brest out of the oven and slice the pastries horizontally in half.

Stick it in the side.

How did they get bubbles in them?

It's magic, isn't it?

I have no idea how it happened, what the chemistry is, but they always do that, and look.

This is a profiterole.

If I open it, if I just take the top off and you'll see that it's really hollow inside.

There's practically nothing in there, so there's lots of room for cream and chocolate and lovely things like that.

Prue, voice-over: Whip up 150 mils of double cream.

And how fast am I allowed to go?

-As you like.

-Really?

Now stop.

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

You're done.

Can you see You're done?

OK.

Well, you tell me how I know I'm done.

-Well, it's not moving.

-OK.

-The-- -That was very quick.

It was very quick.

It's better to stop just before it's too thick because you can always beat it with a spoon.

Prue, voice-over: Add 150 grams of sweetened chestnut puree and mix together.

I quite like to mix them not too much like that.

So that they get a stripy.

So you get a nice stripy feeling.

Prue, voice-over: Using a piping bag, pipe the chestnut cream onto the cooled bottom halves.

If the pastry is warm, the cream will melt.

Do little stars all the way round like that and then put the lid on.

Your turn, John.

-OK.

-Little stars, please.

Down the bottom?

No, darling.

Hold it much lower.

-Lower.

OK.

-That's right.

Squeeze... -Up?

-and then pull up.

Yeah.

That's right.

Squeeze.

No.

Don't go fast.

Go slowly.

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

More, more.

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

Stay low, stay low.

OK.

Pull up.

Go in the middle.

Yeah.

Prue, voice-over: Put the remaining halves on top and dust with icing sugar.

I enjoyed doing that.

I can sort of understand how people take up baking.

I might elbow you out of the kitchen.

Oh.

Well, that would be good.

Really?

I really did enjoy try that.

-That was very good.

-Good.

I mean, it's really satisfying, and if it tastes delicious and it pleases your friends and they know you made it, it's just much better than something out of a shop or out of a packet.

♪ -Good?

-Yeah.

What I like about it it's not too sweet.

♪ The best of sweetness.

Mmm.

That's heaven.

Really good.

That is Paris-Brest filled with creme de marron, chestnut puree.

♪ ♪