(upbeat music)
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- Hello, welcome to fridge cam.
I'm Jamie. This is Mike.
- In today's episode, two unsuspecting normals go
head to head to try and create amazing macarons
without a recipe.
- And this is them finding out for the first time.
- It could be us.
- I don't know. - We don't know yet.
- Yay, it's me.
- Yay, it's not me!
(laughter) - You know how these work.
We have weighed out a bunch of ingredients for you
that are required for one particular recipe
which the pair of you now have two hours
to prepare, recipe-less.
- We would like you to make macarons.
- We'd like half a dozen identical macarons
with a filling of your choice prepared in two hours
and your time starts, now!
- Great.
- Straight off, two hours is a long time,
but that is because there's lots of--
- I've already spilt my eggs. - [Ben] waiting and cooling.
- Have these been weighed out?
- Yes, they've all been weighed out.
Mike?
(laughter)
- You'll have more luck with your hands.
What's he? What are you doing? (laughter)
Why have you?
- Oh, Barry Taylor's going with confidence.
Big confidence.
- You are moving too quickly for me.
What are you doing?
You're just doing stuff.
- I just saw this and this is here obviously for a reason.
I remember you start off by blitzing your almonds
and your icing sugar together.
- [Mike] Is that true?
(mumbles)
- There's a pineapple over there.
Do you think that's there for a reason as well?
(laughter)
(food processor whirring)
- Okay.
- [Jaime] Mike, what are you starting off?
- I still don't know what to do,
so what I know I need to do is sieve the icing sugar,
and while I sieve it, I'm gonna try
and remember what on earth happens,
'cause rubbish macarons have a lumpy batter.
(tapping)
- Really can't do anything.
- Do you not like that sieve? - No.
I don't like it.
- Interesting.
- Can you empty this?
- [Barry] Fine, fine. - [Mike] Great.
- Oy, oy, oy, oy!
- I'm having your bowl then, fair?
- Where are my almonds?
- You've got plenty you can share.
- Where are the rest of my almonds?
- They're there.
- Where's the bowl that I--
- It's there.
(laughter)
- What're you gonna do with them?
- I'm gonna put that in there.
I only wanna put half of that in there.
- Yeah, so do I.
- But I can't work out how to...
- How do you separate half.
- [Barry] They're so gloopy, it's going to be really hard.
- [Mike] They're you go, look at that.
- He's in.
- [Mike] You've gone in, that is bold.
- Oh no wait a minute, I've just remembered,
don't stir it.
- Ground almonds, icing sugar sieved, half my egg whites,
I think that might be two egg whites, in.
Leave it.
Don't need to stir it, doesn't make a difference.
Leave it.
Okay so, I know that we've got to make a sugar syrup
and that's got to get up to something like
aw I've done this before, like a 117 degrees C.
(splashing)
(laughter)
You're copying me.
- No, you're copying me!
- You're copying me.
(laughter)
While that's heating up,
I'm whisking up egg whites to stiff peaks.
Guys, who is policing this?
- What's wrong?
What's wrong?
- You drain me.
- [Barry] Well, I didn't want it to heat up
(mumbles) so I took it off the heat for a little bit.
- Well why didn't you turn it off?
- I didn't need to, it's quite chipper in here.
- [Mike] No, it's not!
It's boiling.
- Boys, you've got about an hour left.
- [Mike] Ah, I have an issue here.
- [Barry] What?
- This only goes up to 100 degrees.
(laughter)
Okay, I'm going for it.
- Can I help? No, no, no, no.
No, that's not how...
(mixer whirring)
- A lot happens in the chemistry of sugar.
- Yep.
- Crystallisation between 110 and 120 is
is actually aiming for.
(upbeat music) (mixer whirring)
- [Barry] Done that.
- [Mike] Think I might have gotten away with it.
- Can I just point out one thing though?
(laughter)
What is this?
What are you doing?
- I am so sorry.
I am a dirty hypocrite.
(laughter)
- I'm surprised Mike's has worked if it only went to 110.
- Now you're gonna think I'm just saying this
but that was actually what I was looking for.
- 118 go, go, go, go, go, half off,
and dribble in.
- What I should have done is add the colour
while it was in the mixer.
So, I'm just gonna go for it, and then we beat it.
And if I over beat it, there's no going back.
You've ruined it.
- So my thinking here is, I'm gonna go for
a fiery hot ginger macaron
- [Mike] Whoa!
- in a yellow shell.
(mixer whirring)
Mmm yolky.
(laughter)
- So unlike a lot of confectionary, pastry and desserts
when you've whipped air into something
this is one of the few things that
it's actually not a problem to get rid of some of that
as you work it in,
it is gonna lose its consistency.
It is going to become a bit looser.
And you don't want it runny.
- It's not turning white at all.
So if I can get it as white as possible
with this last stir, I'll be happy.
And then it will just have to be
all about taste and texture.
So yes, I'm screwed.
- What kind of diameter are you looking for?
- I don't know.
Don't know.
(funky music)
- [Mike] Look how shaky I am.
- You've got one hour 15 remaining.
- Let them sit for basically long enough
so they start to get a skin on the outside.
Okay right, filling, let's think about filling.
- What're we thinking?
- My thinking was
a lemon and ginger, hot ginger.
- Into what?
What's your vehicle that's going to carry these flavours?
- Cream.
- Now they tend not to have dairy fillings.
That's not to say that these guys couldn't do that today,
but they have to consider, will it hold?
- I've had a brainwave, so I'm going to make ice cream.
- Oh brilliant, I'm back in the game.
(laughter)
- Hot ginger ice cream to go into my macaron.
- Hot ice cream, interesting.
- [Barry] When I say ice cream, it's just cold cream.
It's not gonna be ice cream. (laughter)
I'm starting to rethink it, I don't know anymore.
I've started now.
- Mike, how are you going to win this battle? (laughter)
- Barry's just won it for me.
(laughter)
- What I'm gonna do is make something
that I know will work,
a chocolate ganache.
It's the right consistency to go in the middle,
it will hold, it will cool, it will taste lovely.
I'm gonna chop up some dark chocolate,
I'm gonna heat some cream up,
and then I'm gonna melt the chocolate,
using the cream, in a bowl.
- I feel like when it comes to the personalization bit
that's the time to play to your strengths
because, the theme itself,
macarons or swiss roll, whatever that is,
might not be your strength.
- Baz, I'm going in.
Which one do you want?
- Don't mind me, whatever you want.
- [Mike] Go in.
Okay. (laughter)
- I was thinking of infusing
my ganache with something a little bit naughty.
- [Barry] Oh, Cassis?
- Kirsch.
- There's kirsch.
- [Mike] What are you playing at?
That's light soy sauce.
(laughter)
- The bottle says kirsch on it.
- [Mike] You literally can't even
get standing on the sides right.
- How is that my fault?
It's in there, in a bottle that says kirsch on it.
- [Mike] That was more than I hoped for.
- How long have your macarons had?
- [Mike] They've had ten minutes.
- Ten minutes.
How long do they need to have?
- [Mike] I think ten minutes.
- Okay.
- Oh no, mine look terrible.
Those look excellent.
Well played sir!
I've had a shocker here Baz.
Oh, I've had a real shocker.
They have not gone well.
- 35 minutes left.
- [Mike] I want this to cool up in time
just to start to solidify.
So, I'm gonna wack it in the fridge
for a little bit, not too long.
(playful music)
- [Barry] I just found some crystallised ginger.
Really tasty, Really warm (bag crinkles)
- What's amazing about these formats is
that you watch us mess it up and learn the lessons
so that, if you ever do this,
hopefully you don't make the same mistakes.
Oh no, not so good.
This one,
go away Ebbers,
this is between me and the audience.
No.
Baz, I'm telling you now, twenty minutes remaining,
you can only screw this up.
(laughter)
- What happened?
- [Mike] I don't know.
- How can that, that can't happen.
- How close are you to finishing?
- I'm literally just covering mine in glitter now.
- Now in the cupboard, I found
some cherries, soaked in kirsch.
Thought I might chop them up.
- [Ben] Good techers there Baz.
- [Barry] Thank you very much.
- I'd forgotten that method.
- I just peel them off gradually.
They look great, still a bit holey.
- One minute left.
(rock music)
Ten,
nine,
eight,
seven,
six,
five,
four,
three,
two,
one.
- I feel like I've nailed that. (laughter)
- Let's get me to the sexies. (phone alarm)
(intense music)
- Well...
- What a tough two hours that was.
- What, to watch?
- Yeah. (laughter)
- Which one should we start with?
- This guy here.
- Thanks J.
- So before we even cut into it,
nice flat top, slight glitter shine,
not sure if that's done quite what you wanted.
- Not quite right, more shiny. (laughter)
- Very passive aggressive Ebbers.
- Some good feet, a pied, and a good filling.
(knife slicing)
You wouldn't normally cut one
but I wanted to show a cross section.
So we've definitely go that outer shell
what hopefully might be - (mumbles)
a little chewy in the mouth.
- Very soft Barry.
- The flavours are amazing on that.
Really good.
Well it didn't really matter how that went,
(laughter)
because now we're about to eat these.
Aw.
- Straight off, I like the shine of the ganache,
I like the shaving of chocolate 'cause
I actually think that worked better than the glitter.
Also got a fairly flat top, also got feet.
My thumb's already gone through it,
they're a bit softer.
- Yeah. (laughter)
- These were baked the exact amount of time,
the exact temperature, and the same oven.
- Uh oh.
- A bit chewier, a bit softer, still eats well though.
- Yeah, not my best work.
_ I saw the grating of chocolate at the top,
I didn't see the sprinkle of salt,
but I taste it, it's there.
(lip smacking)
There's plenty of it.
And that's quite good because otherwise
it's a very, very, very heavy, rich ganache.
Definitely a bit more chewy as opposed to melt in the mouth.
So a few degrees on temperature,
and a few grams here and there on mismatch of ratio,
and it's amazing the difference it makes.
- But today, I think we're probably in agreement here.
- I think so.
- I think that's fair.
- Our winner--
- Oh.
(laughter)
- is the lemon and ginger.
Well done Barry.
(applause)
- Thank you, thank you.
- Comment down below, let us know
what should we tackle recipe-ness next?
Did I say reci-penis?
Let us know, what should we
be cooking reci-penis next?
- You did it again.
- What should we be cooking recipe-less next time (mumbles)?
- And if you want to give tried and tested
macaron recipes a go, then we've got a couple online
using various different merengue methods,
or our latest one, in To The Beat cookbook.
Link's down below.
- Wow, that was quite a journey.
- All of these themes come from your ideas,
so thank you very much for sending them.
Please, keep commenting down below.
What recipes should we do recipe-less next?
Keep punishing each other.
- [Narrator] Yes, To The Beat is available right now.
It's a load of great recipes, styled, themed,
and chaptered by genres of music from
punk to country and classical to pop.
It's bold, it's a load of fun,
and comes with the bespoke Spotify playlists
for you to play whilst you cook.
So go and grab it now at sorted.club.
And now a blooper.
(beep)
- So confusion began when the French macaron
was moved into the English language.
And the English language, we much prefer the double o.