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- Hey, today, we're going to put two of our normals,
Jamie and Barry, head to head in a battle
to recreate a dish that you guys have requested so much.
It's sweet, we've picked one up from a bakery nearby.
All you have to do is recreate it,
and we have given you
the most simple set of instructions to follow.
- Now, the recipes we have given you are quite vague,
but we thought we'd put your skills to the test.
So would you like to lift the cloche
and see what you're making?
- Put it back.
Put it back.
What was that?
- [James] That is a Swedish Princess cake.
- Right, sorry... sorry,
(sputters) what!?
People have--
that's the most requested dish?
- Yeah, nothing to do with us.
- [Barry] Wait a minute, it's kind of like,
it looks a bit Bakewell tart-y,
but then, you've put some sort of curd or a custard and...
Sorry, is that a cake on top of a cake?
- How is that so light?
- That is beautiful.
- There are going to be two very disappointed
Swedish Princesses later.
- Okay, it's pretty hot in here today,
so I wouldn't hang about.
We've given you all the ingredients weighed out
and we've given you a very basic recipe.
It's on your boards.
Off you go!
- I'm thinking if I leave now,
what's the worst that could happen?
- First step here is to make a creme pat.
Or I should say,,
the step before that is to remember
how to make creme pat, then try and make it.
I'm going to separate my eggs first,
and then I'll work the rest out.
- A couple of weeks ago,
you made creme pat for mille feuille,
and you did it completely wrong.
- I know, I know, I know, I know.
- So remember what you did wrong
and learn from your mistakes.
- [Barry] Last time I forgot the eggs.
This time, I'm starting with eggs.
I've just forgotten everything else.
Why can I not access the part of my brain
that happened last week?
I've been standing here for about two minutes,
holding this jug, thinking,
"do I pour this into this pot full of cornflour?"
And now you're pointing a camera at me, I've got no choice.
- There's many things I would have done,
but that wasn't one of them.
I think I'm overthinking this.
I put my sugar into my separated eggs
because that's a thing.
It may not be the thing, but it is a thing.
I've put this white powder into my eggs and sugar mix.
This is corn flour, right?
So what if now,
I put that into a pan, and slowly start heating it?
Whoo...No, I would've done that.
- Just amazes me.
- Literally don't know.
Little bit of vanilla.
- The way to make creme pat is to heat up your milk,
infuse with vanilla, and then pour over your custard base,
and your custard base is egg yolks, sugar,
and in the case of creme pat,
corn flour to stabilise it. - The corn flour in the eggs,
not in the milk.
Okay.
- Hot milk onto egg yolk mixture,
whisk, back into the pan,
cook until it's cooked out and thickened.
- So I feel like I did everything right,
it's the way I take it.
Apart from the fact that I put the corn flour into the milk,
rather than into the eggs.
I've now put the starchy milk into the eggs, mix it up,
going back onto the heat again
warm this up til it thickens a bit more,
and then I'm gonna pass it.
- I started heating my custard mix
as Ebbers lost his patience
and finally explained how to make creme pat.
At which point, it was quick enough for me to divert
and pour my custard mix back into the bowl,
and instead heat up my milk,
which I'm now going to pour into my custard mix
whilst whisking.
To be honest, I stopped listening.
- The butter is a slight curve ball in this recipe
and is to be whisked into the creme pat right at the end,
and it sets up in the fridge
to make it even more glossy and firm.
- We are not getting glossy or firm cream pat then.
- I've got some spare egg whites.
Now I think they are for my,
I'll use those in my sponge later on
to make it extra light and fluffy.
In with my very sloppy butter.
Right, covering it.
Aww, it's bloody hot, that is.
Covering it so a skin doesn't form on it,
and it's going into the fridge.
- And then the bit from inside the sieve
that hadn't been sieved got thrown in as well (laughs)
- Well, that's a waste of everyone's time, wasn't it?
- You've both got step one out of the way!
- You're seeing a man at his very weakness right now.
- Genoise sponge is from a Swiss roll,
and a cake for a Swiss roll is incredibly light and airy,
so I'm gonna separate my eggs
and I'm gonna whisk the egg whites separately.
- [Barry] We both could be looking very silly right now.
- Yeah, 'cause I'm sure the Swiss roll batter
didn't have any fat in it,
so I'm confused by the butter.
- Just put marzipan over that, mate.
- Sugar's going into my egg yolks.
I'm gonna whip that up until nice and fluffy.
I think I can go in with my flours now.
Right, corn flour is now going in
and my baking powder,
going down.
And then in with butter.
I think.
- I'm gonna whisk my sugar into my egg yolks.
- I'm gonna put some of my egg whites in for funsies.
But not all of them..
- There aren't many food channels out there
that you would watch through
and see people doing it so wrong in order to learn.
I think that's something we offer.
- Jamie, whatever you do, don't do what I'm doing.
It just doesn't look right or feel right.
- He's been copying you the whole time, dude.
(Barry laughs) - I'm gonna fold some flour
into my eggs and sugar.
- How you feeling, Baz?
- All my egg white is now in,
and now to try and fold this without losing too much air.
- Mine looks very different from yours,
but also just as wrong.
- [Barry] Are you making a dough?
- I'm trying to turn my bread dough into a cake batter
by adding my egg whites slowly.
- So now you're both at roughly the same stage.
A genoise sponge is basically a Swiss roll sponge
that then has melted butter folded through at the end.
But remember,
a Swiss roll sponge is whole egg whisked up with sugar
until it's about three times the volume.
Then you carefully fold in the flours,
and then in genoise,
you carefully fold in the melted butter.
So you didn't need to separate out your eggs,
you just need to put loads of volume
by whisking together whole egg and sugar.
- [Jamie] What is that!?
- [Barry] I don't know what this is.
- It looks terrible.
- It looks like a vomit cake.
Anyway, that's going into Jamie's oven.
- Cartouche lad.
That is a smooth cake batter,
so I'm gonna pop this into my oven,
180°C for 20 minutes and then check it.
- This is my only hope now.
This is what I've got to save this dish.
This is going to be the best rose I have ever made.
Red dye into the middle, then mix it through.
- I'm gonna start with my leaves
because I'm putting my rose off.
There's more colour on my gloves
than there is on this fondant.
- So we've given you the sugar paste already done.
All we need to do is colour it and shape it.
Barry's found his stride now.
He's kind of just like, cracking on.
He thinks he knows what he's doing here.
- Barry's doing a fantastic job, isn't he?
It's all Barry at the moment.
- For the first time ever,
I have a confidence in this field to go,
"screw you and screw you too."
- I've done some leaves.
I've got some red, I'm gonna make some roses.
My timer's just gone off, my cake has had 20 minutes.
Not done yet.
- [Ben] You've got about an hour and 15 minutes remaining.
- [Jamie] Oh my goodness, this is so floppy.
- Next up, marzipan.
In front of you,
you've got everything you need.
Ground almonds, icing sugar,
sugar, eggs, and almond extract.
- One, two, three.
Next step.
One, two, three.
- It's almost like a ballet, isn't it?
So many ballets were written about princesses.
- Together, we have added our almonds,
our sugar, and then our icing sugar.
- Almond extract.
- No, it is super easy.
Whole eggs beaten into icing sugar,
ground almonds and sugar with almond extract.
As long as you've got the weights and measurements correct,
the rest will happen.
- Hmm... this feels wrong.
- It's going quite green.
(driving electronic beat)
- Okay,
most of the stuff you've made is now cooled or rested.
We're gonna give you 30 minutes to construct
and do those finishing touches.
Off you go.
Oh J, have a look at where you're going.
- You are standing on the sidelines,
giving us crap for something
that you've not done yourselves.
- Oh, how close, how far do I go?
- We have stiff peaks.
Are they stiff enough? - They look good, yeah.
If you'd cut that into three instead of two,
like you're supposed to, whoao, you'd be on a roll.
- I have cut it into three.
- That's trim, that's not a slice.
- You want me to do that in half again?!
- You could go half again, yeah, for sure.
(Barry snickers) - Aaaah!
- I think you'd end up with a better finished product
if it was half that thickness again.
- I think the video would end up
the better, finished product.
- Whether you can do it or not.
- I could just make do with what I've got.
- Stick to your guns.
- Now, in theory,
the genoise is you get a lot of height
and it's a really soft sponge.
You've got more sponge to work with
in order to cut it into three.
- I think I have cream and not butter,
but at this point, who cares?
- 25 minutes remaining.
- It's construction o'clock, ergh.
So, I'm going to just follow these instructions.
Cake, jam, cake, custard, mound of cream,
cake, cream, chill.
- I'm focusing, please don't talk to me.
- 15 minutes remaining.
Barry, you've spent five minutes slicing one layer off.
- As far as creme pats go,
that's quite patty, isn't it? (laughs)
- Remember to leave yourself time to roll out your marzipan.
(Jamie and Barry shouting)
- I've sliced my cake as thin as possible,
but I have got three layers.
- Eight minutes. - [Barry] Jamie,
what am I doing?
How the (beep) do I shape that into a dome
without losing all of this height?
What is this!?
- I honestly couldn't be more glad that I'm not making this.
- I've made Ireland. (laughs)
- This is going to be tough to lift onto a cake,
but if it's thin enough,
it should just drape over.
Three minutes!
(Barry chuckling ruefully)
- Ahhh! (Jamie buzzes lips)
- I need a hand, Jamie!
- [Jamie] I have my own problems Barry.
- [Ben] Last 90 seconds. - [Barry] Don't (beep) me.
It all went wrong, so I'm now just embracing it.
- You can stop whenever you like.
- I'm terrible at this bit,
so I'm just going with the flow.
- Last 10 seconds.
Five, four, three, two, one.
(James claps) Step away from the cakes boys.
- (chuckles ruefully) Oh my god.
- Should we get them into the sexies?
(midtempo electro-synth music)
(click) (bell dings)
(crowd cheers and claps) What do you think James?
- Uh... wow.
- [Jamie] Well... - [Barry] Yeah,
I'll give you that. - Yeah, wow.
That's a great word.
- I don't often say it, but I think I prefer this one.
- I like the shape of this one and the rose,
but I like the colour of the leaves on that.
- I'm gonna take a slice out of each
and put them side by side and then we'll taste them.
(Barry and Jamie oohing)
- [Barry] Oh, it worked!
- What?! (boys laughing)
- Usually, the most tense cutting moment
I've ever been a part of
was the, up to this point was with the beef wellington.
This tops it.
Oh God! (Barry and Jamie gasp)
- Oh, poor cutting teckers Ebbers.
He's missed a bit of sponge in there.
- It looks brilliant!
- [James] You can see the custard in that one.
Mine's dribbled over the edge
a little bit. - [James] Interesting.
- I have to be honest boys.
They have got the wobble that I expect from a Princess cake.
- That layer of custard is calling to me,
but this is just... so impressive.
There was a point where I honestly thought
this might be the first time we don't have anything.
- [Jamie] Yeah. - Right.
Both try this one first? - Okay.
- Whose is this?
This is Barry's.
(cool synth music)
It's the combination of raspberry and almond,
that homemade marzipan is excellent.
Heavy on the jam.
It's almost Bakewell-y,
but what I'm most impressed with
is the thinness of the sponge layers, the genoise,
the layers and the formation.
- It's really close.
- If I was picking holes,
I'd say I'd want twice as much custard
to match the thickness of jam.
- Yeah, I'm not really getting the custard
unless it's just a bit of a background, kind of enhancement.
But that's why I want to try Jamie's now,
because I wanna see the difference.
I'm glad that you can still see the line of jam.
I thought you'd been uncharacteristically stingy.
- You made that perfectly clear, yes.
- Much more on the vanilla.
- It's very different.
- And not enough jam.
- Ooh... yeah, I think you're right.
The main difference I find is that
Jamie's is a lot more like a sponge cake,
whereas Barry's has a lot more cream to sponge
in terms of ratio,
and I feel like that's closer to the original cake
that we tried. - Yup.
- You can't do that with mine. (chuckles)
- The thinness that sponge is better.
The thickness of that custard is better.
- I don't know how, but they're both delicious.
- They might not be Swedish Princess cakes.
- Who cares? - And they're not perfect,
but what they are, are excellent.
But I think what you both just demonstrated,
despite missing a lot of technical knowhow
in the traditional way,
you've still ended up with something that's worked.
- Have you...
- We have conferred.
James? - We don't agree 100%,
but for me, has to be Barry's.
- And whilst I 100% agree on the structure
and the layers, I actually preferred the flavour of that,
and I think it's the creme pat and the vanilla.
And maybe this is unfair,
but I think the decoration was better
because of where I expected you to be,
as in you exceeded expectations,
- Handicapped? - whereas that is kind of,
yeah, with a handicap involved,
I think Jamie's was best.
(laughter)
- So it's a draw?
- So it's not up to us, it's a draw.
We can't decide, which means it's over to you guys.
Comment down below.
Who do you think, today, made the best Princess cake?
- Usually, I'd say, sitting on the fence,
we can't do that, but I'm with you.
- Both delicious. - You were in it together.
- [Mike] We've also built the Sorted Club,
where you can get tonnes of foodie inspo
using the Packs midweek meal app,
discover and share restaurant recommendations
using the Eat app,
listen and contribute to our Feast Your Ears podcast,
and send us ideas for new cookbooks you'll receive
throughout the year.
Check it all out by heading to sorted.club.
And now a blooper.
- How is this sounding in your ears?
Is it better or worse than Ebbers eating?