(egg cracking)
(sizzling)
(triumphant music)
- Hello, and welcome back to Sorted Food.
Now, today we are very lucky,
because we've got a special guest, Ravneet Gill,
expert pastry chef, TV presenter,
and author.
Question is, have you any idea of
the carnage that is about to unfold?
- I'm excited, I worked with junior bakers all summer.
- Oh, you'll be fine.
(giggles quickly)
- How well trained are these juniors?
- They haven't had 10 years of practise like you guys.
- Some of them were born after we started training.
(laughs loudly)
- So look, this is how it's going to work.
Today we are going to thoroughly examine Jamie and Barry
on their patisserie skills and knowledge
by asking you to cook up two recipes from Rav's book.
- Oh my, why two?
That's unnecessary.
- One's enough.
- 'Cause they pair beautifully together.
But we're not gonna give you the book.
They're just going to get very basic
method instructions from Rav herself,
and we've divided the kitchens so they can't peek and cheat.
- So today you're going to be making
a strawberry mousse and Viennese whirls.
We're going to be testing you
on your Italian meringue making skills.
If you can whip cream, make a puree,
use gelatin, and also your piping skills.
- That sounds more like a dance move.
A Vietnamese swirl?
- [Both] Viennese.
- Whirl.
- [Barry] Viennese or Vietnamese?
- Before we have any more nightmares,
maybe we just start.
Give them the first instruction in three,
two, one,
bake!
- I want you to make a strawberry puree.
Please. (giggles quickly)
- That's blended up strawberries if I'm not mistaken.
- Cut some tops off some strawberries,
or can I put them in there?
- Like a tablespoons worth?
Or do you want a mug, I don't know?
- So Rav's been really nice.
Although she's not giving you the recipe,
we have given you all the ingredients pre-weighed out.
- A puree, double checking--
- [Rav] I think you can chop those faster.
Sorry, but you're taking so long.
- Now's a perfect time to point out that, you know,
we haven't been in a professional kitchen for many,
many years,
but that is your forte, right?
- Yes.
- Speed is everything, as well as the precision,
the finesse.
- And I don't like all this wastage around the green.
By the way. (laughs quickly)
- The first instruction, a puree,
seems pretty simple.
Just hulling out my strawberries, taking the green bit out,
and then I'm going to blend it up with a squeeze of lemon.
Low, medium,
high?
Medium.
(blender whirring)
- I'm going to do lemon juice, to taste.
- I feel like today is all about attention
to detail and demonstrating skill so they
can win their patisserie skills badge.
I love the quote from you, pastry is an art.
- Told you it wasn't a science.
(laughs quietly)
- I feel like it's a bit of a science too,
but it's also about having fun, and enjoying it,
and putting your own flare on things.
I think if you stay so confined, then you'll never grow.
You know?
- Oh, we're talking the same language.
- I want you to get the gelatin into the puree.
That's all I'm gonna say.
(upbeat music)
- Got to do that thing where it, like,
bloom, has to bloom,
and then you put it in there,
so I'm just gonna let that bloom for a little while.
- [Rav] In the meantime, get going on your Italian meringue.
- Get going on the Italian meringue?
- [Rav] Yes.
- Just get going on it?
- [Rav] Yes.
Just make an Italian meringue--
- Yeah, cool.
- Here I am, I'm in Italy.
(laughs quickly)
I fancy a meringue.
(laughs quickly)
No one ever knows when they split eggs
which bowl you're gonna end up using for the yolks,
and which bowl you're gonna end up using for the whites.
So it's good to have two of the same sized bowls,
so that whatever happens, you're okay--
- What do you mean whatever happens?
- Well 'cause you don't know, do you?
- Of course you know.
'Cause you're trying to get whites in one,
in the bigger bowl?
- He forgets every time.
He goes, oh,
wrong bowl!
- [Rav] Have you used your gelatin yet?
- [Barry] Yes, chef.
(giggles quietly)
- How do you normally use gelatin, Barry?
- You put it in something warm.
- [Ebbers] What happens if you put it in something cold?
- Just nothing?
- Nothing.
- (whispers quietly) I don't know the difference between
meringues in Italy and meringues in Switzerland.
- So all through this year,
all of our normals are competing to improve,
put into practise everything they've learnt in 10 years,
and to improve in certain elements.
And today they have the patisserie
skills badge up for grabs,
so you are entitled to award either, or both,
or none of them the badge,
based on their understanding and knowledge,
and then execution.
- Puree's just about bubbling.
Gonna add my gelatin, let that dissolve,
then take it off the heat.
Sugar in a pan with water creates syrup.
Pour that syrup into some whipped egg whites.
Get that to, like,
80 degrees, then start that,
and by the time that's at 120, that should be ready.
- Here's something we forgot to tell you.
If you want, you both have one lifeline.
If there's any point from here on in
that there's something niggling you
that you're just not quite sure about,
you can ask Rav.
- Whip the double cream to soft peaks.
- Rav, what temperature do I need to take my sugar to?
- You were correct with your second temperature.
At any point, you can just get them whisking--
- Does it matter, can you over whisk this?
- No, not for this.
You'll be fine.
It's good to get some volume in here,
and then when you reach your 121, it goes in here.
- 121? - Yes.
- Bloody hell.
- But when you pull it off at 120 or 119,
it should reach 121 by the time it goes into there.
- I think I just wasted my life.
- You should be whipping your cream right now.
- But I was doing?
- Am I really strong or is this cream quite warm,
because that's?
- (whispers) He did that so quickly.
- He did do that very quickly.
- Rav, what's the next instruction?
- Fold everything together.
- Okay, great.
(tense music)
- So we are being a little bit harsh on you guys today,
because we want you to think like a chef
and that's all about, as we've said before,
multitasking, and juggling,
and cleaning as you go, and all that kind of stuff,
but, I mean,
Rav, you've worked in many,
many professional kitchens.
What are you seeing here that you just
wouldn't get away with in a proper kitchen?
- Barry's standing there with a thermometer in his sugar.
I would never allow that.
And, you know,
usually in professional kitchens,
how I work when I set a team up,
I give them all of the ingredients, no method,
because everybody knows exactly what it is that we're doing.
- 119, off and over.
- So when the sugar reaches temperature,
you should be pouring it down the side of the bowl
so that it doesn't touch the whisk,
because if it touches the whisk
it's gonna go all over the bowl,
and we need as much sugar in the egg whites as possible.
- Here's my predicament.
Do I pour this strawberry puree
into my mousse mixture and let that down?
Or do I pour my mousse mixture into my
strawberry puree and thicken it up?
- Now Rav has chosen some glorious glasses to put this in
so that you can keep it absolutely perfect.
Now Rav, like we said,
we're not giving them the method,
but we are giving them the equipment
that should give them the clues.
- Yes but, Ebbers,
if I put it in there,
it would have just dripped out the bottom.
- Probably says more about the mousse.
- (chuckles quickly) Yes.
Like most things in my life,
I started strong and with confidence,
and then I crumbled.
- It's about room temperature, it's perfect.
- Once your mousse in in your glass,
get in into the fridge to set up.
Rav's got a tasting spoon.
- Let me get one of those lumps on there and see what it is.
(laughs quietly)
- Oh, I scraped against the sugar on the side of the bowl.
- Tastes a bit fizzy, doesn't it?
I don't know how you managed it.
(tense music)
- Now, we did a here's what we made earlier to your recipe.
Fingers crossed we got it right.
- It looks voluminous,
all of the seeds are dispersed nicely,
it doesn't look lumpy.
I'm excited to try it.
- Hopefully airy.
- Mm, it's so refreshing.
- I know what you mean about the texture
of the seeds still being in there,
kind of natural strawberry.
- I love how it's not too sweet.
You've got the perfect balance of lemon juice in there.
Strawberry, fruity,
fresh, creamy.
What do you think?
- I think it'd decadent considering it's just three things.
Italian meringue, whipped cream,
and fruit puree.
- Genuinely though, you did a very good job.
- Thank you.
So, Viennese whirls.
You're gonna give them three basic steps.
Step one?
- Step one is to beat the butter and sugar together.
(upbeat music)
You know what?
Getting that professional experience,
I was daunted by it when I first entered kitchens,
but it was so invaluable to my career,
and also to learning.
I feel like I spent so much time doing mundane things,
but really they were building blocks
that set me on a really good journey.
- [Ebbers] Which is exactly the logic of the cookbook.
- Exactly.
I designed the book as a way of teaching
people all the fundamentals of pastry,
without the need to go to cookery school.
Because I know that when I went,
I had to save up and work so hard to get there.
I'd love to pass that knowledge on in a fun way.
(whisk whirring)
When your butter is really soft,
and pale, and fluffy,
you need to add in all of your dry
ingredients and mix them together.
- Just adding my four indistinguishable white powders.
- Rav asked you to add in all your dry ingredients.
- [Jamie] She did.
- Any idea what they were?
- One was salt, one was flour.
Flour off of wheat, or bicarb.
I reckon it was plain flour and baking powder separate,
so that we could control the rise.
Am I right?
No, right,
absolutely not, cool.
- [Rav] Custard powder.
It looks pink, but it's not.
It's just custard powder.
- This is your kind of little cheating hack to this recipe,
but why does that secret ingredient help?
- The custard powder adds colour to things,
it adds a texture, it's quite short.
It's a fun way of using cornflour.
Okay, now you should pipe them.
Okay Jamie, talk us through it.
- I've eaten a fair number of Viennese whirls in my time.
Never made them, but I've eaten them.
So I kind of know what I'm aiming for,
which is probably a problem
because I know how they should look.
- Lovely.
So what I normally do is I would pipe them in,
like, whirl shapes.
You know what I mean?
- You mean like the name of the biscuit?
- Yeah, just sort of start in the middle and just go round.
But they were both sort of going on top.
- [Jamie] Oh, I mean,
that does look awesome, but that's not right.
- You want consistency,
so if a whole table ordered, you know,
a mousse with the Viennese whirls.
If you ordered from Jamie you'd get
a variety of different shapes,
which is--
- A talking point?
- Exactly.
Great job, Jamie and Barry.
Let's get them in the oven and get them baked.
The oven's preheated for you at 175 fan,
and hopefully they're gonna turn out great.
(sighs loudly)
- Knackered!
(laughs quickly)
- So again, our food team have prepped up a batch.
Have a taste and tell everyone what it is we're looking for.
- These look great.
They're not too crumbly, nice and golden all the way round,
and they hold their shape.
Oh, but they're crumbly when you break them up,
which is good!
- Super short.
- They should melt in your mouth.
- [Ebbers] Practically disappear.
- Mhm.
Brilliant.
- So we've seen how theirs were piped.
Now let's see how they're baked.
Fingers crossed things have baked,
cooled, and set.
We're gonna give you a couple of minutes
to get them onto plate and garnish if you like.
Off you go!
- Moment of truth.
- Are you as worried as I am about Jamie's meringue?
- Yeah.
He tried to set it like this,
and I have a feeling that it's just all gonna droop down.
(lighthearted music)
- That took me 20 seconds to do.
The fact that he's still going is really concerning.
- Five, four,
three, two,
one, step back.
- And I'm done.
- I can't wait to try these.
(tense music)
- Only one thing left to do.
- Can't wait to get started.
- Barry Taylor!
- Sorry, I'm just excited to by it.
Come on--
- [Jamie] Barry!
- [Barry] Bring it over here, let me try some.
- [Ebbers] Let's start with Jamie's.
- Careful, Ebbers.
- Right, do you want to have,
do you want to dig in and have a scoop,
and have a biscuit?
What is this?
- Sorry, sorry--
- Rav actually shivered.
Take a biscuit as well.
- It might be a bit more of a pour.
- Oh, the silence is horrible--
- I'm gonna dip the biscuit.
- It's definitely got a short, crumbly texture.
- I think the biscuits are really good,
they are so crumbly, short,
like, perfectly baked actually,
and I would buy a box of these.
I love them, I love them.
- Excellent.
- But I feel really sick at the thought
of having to eat the mousse.
- Right.
(laughs loudly)
- No, no,
now with the compliment sandwich,
we need another good one underneath.
- The strawberry on the plate is great.
(laughs loudly)
But it's not really mousse.
It's more like a sauce.
It tastes like a strawberry milkshake, same consistency.
I just think the use of the Swiss
meringue was incorrect here,
'cause it didn't give it the,
it didn't stabilise it in any way.
- Yeah, there's no structure to that at all.
- It's too loose.
- Right, shall we try number two?
It will be more of a challenge to pour that one.
- Yeah.
I think this is really nice.
I do.
I think that the biscuit,
because you baked it flatter, this one was quite big,
it's just baked really perfectly the whole way through.
And the mousse?
I mean, your Italian meringue was not right,
but I just really love the fact that you knew what to do,
you tried really hard,
and if you had nailed that Italian meringue,
this would have been perfect.
- So would it have been a lot stiffer, or?
- Yeah, you can see almost like raw meringue in there?
That's not what we want.
But if you had just made the meringue properly,
you're there, because the strawberries,
like, and the acidity,
and the balance is perfect.
- Which makes it quite tough to
pick a winner and decide who,
if anyone, we award badges to.
And I think we might need to confer.
- That's fine.
Well, I've had a great time.
This has been brilliant, thank you very much.
Think we're back in filming tomorrow, aren't we?
So I'll see you then.
Lovely to meet you.
(laughs loudly)
- I feel bad, was I really mean?
- I'll leave you to--
- [Ebbers] Don't feel bad.
Yeah, off you pop.
Strawberries are good.
- Yeah, the strawberries are good.
- So this was quite a deliberately tough challenge
to test lots of different skills,
and in the year of improvement,
we want you to demonstrate that you understand
and can deliver on those skills.
With that in mind, Rav,
first of all, who,
if anybody,
are you going to dish out the basic patisserie badge to?
- Today, I'm going to be dishing out
the basic patisserie badge to no one.
(laughs quickly)
- I think that's quite fair, I accept that.
- Our logic was you both knew what questions to ask,
you just didn't have the answers.
However, who are you gonna award the winner to?
- The winner is Barry.
- Thank you very much.
I can take some pride from this.
- Too right!
I think we can all agree that was quite a journey,
and we've all learnt loads,
so thank you so much for coming down.
Have you enjoyed it?
- Genuinely, I've had such a good time.
- Oh, good!
- You were so fun, both of you,
honestly, and the whole team.
I really, really have had a good time.
- Awesome.
And more importantly,
where can people find out more about you?
- You can just follow me on Instagram.
- Amazing.
We will put all of the deets in the description box below.
Make sure that you give the video a like.
- Also, if there are any other chef's
that you think we should get onto the show,
then let us know by commenting downstairs.
Do you want a doggy bag for this?
'Cause you haven't finished your?
- We could mix the mousses together!
- Oh, that would make a good one.
- It would make a really good one, yeah.
- [Mike] Have you tried out Meal Packs app yet?
- It helps you cook better and spend less
by giving you a great choice of easy recipes,
sorted into weekly meal packs which use up all of your
weeks ingredients so nothing goes to waste.
It's completely free for you to try for a whole month.
All the info is below.
(high pitched beeping)
- A level up from the junior bakers I was with this summer.
- That's something to aim for.
- A level up. - A little level.
- You were turned away from that programme--
- Shut up.
(laughs loudly)
- So this is how it's gonna work.