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- Hey, welcome to "Sorted."
Now, today we are revisiting
our first ever ultimate battle from 2015
to see if our home cooks, Jamie, Mike and Barry,
have improved.
Let's remind ourselves what they got up to last time.
- In the first pancake battle
I made the fluffiest pancakes ever
with a bacon weave and maple syrup on top.
It won, but it wasn't perfect for Ebbers.
So this time I'm going to make it perfect.
So they're gonna be more fluffy.
They're gonna have bacon in the pancakes,
and they're going to have the most amazing sauce
Ebbers will ever have seen.
So it's perfect.
- Last time, mine was an attempt at pancake art,
but let's face it, I let myself down.
This time, I'm adding substance to style
and I'm going for beetroot, salmon, and dill.
I'm mixing the entire thing up
and I'm going a bit crazy.
I'm going bold, but I think it might win me this battle.
- Last time I made salted caramel pretzel pancakes.
Ebbers said it was too sweet and the pancakes didn't deliver
but what really stays with me after six years
is that I lost to a Barry Taylor spillage.
So I'm taking the exact same recipe,
but just refining the technique
and hopefully some of the flavours this time,
because I've got it all to do.
- So evidently room for improvement.
Here we are six years on.
They've each worked with our food team
to tweak the original recipe
with all the tips and tricks they've learned over the years.
- Aargh.
- 30 minutes to whip up your pancakes
and your time starts in three, two, one, pancake.
(buzzer sounds)
- First up, oven preheating to 200 degrees Celsius.
I have a baking tray with a cooling rack on it.
Our bacon is gonna go in there.
No weave today.
The fat is going to drip through the cooling rack,
onto the tray,
and we're gonna use the fat later for some pecans.
- You complained last time that my pancakes were too sweet.
So I've tried to alleviate that
with flavours like brown butter.
So, I'm heating off a massive chunk of butter.
Basically, cook it down until it becomes brown and nutty.
And I'm going to use that
to try and take the edge off some of my sweetness.
- Pancake art relies on incredible skill by artists.
I realised very early on I didn't have that skill.
So I tried to hide that skill
by throwing it at a piece of paper
and pretending it was Expressionism.
- You did put the caveat
of blaming the diner. - I did.
- You said, I wouldn't expect you to understand.
- Best thing, as the years have rolled by,
I don't feel like it's just my skills that've improved.
Also, I feel like I've understood more
about the judge in front of me.
How sophisticated and how incredible your palate can be.
So I've designed this dish purely for you, Ben.
- As before, gonna sift my flour.
I want these pancakes as fluffy as possible.
And that means air.
Baking powder, pinch of salt, eggs,
and last little addition, Ebbers,
some maple syrup in my batter.
Add some flavour, add some sweetness.
- I can't even remember whether I did this last time.
- You've always been a crowd-pleaser though, Mike.
This was a fusion of kind of cookie dough,
salted caramel, pretzel.
You were just taking everyone's favourite things
and put them into one plate.
- It was very Internet-y, wasn't it?
As we know, wet into dry,
and that is three eggs and milk, a little bit at a time.
Whisk it together to get all that air into it.
- That's not how you did it six years ago.
- That's true, actually.
I've already improved.
Here to point out,
I'm making two different types of batter.
All will become evident very soon.
Two batters, two whisks.
The other thing I've learned
is multitasking is really important in the kitchen,
And I've absolutely nailed it.
So, another sprinkle of sugar in both.
- Oh, it's - That's salt.
- That's salt, thanks mate.
(Barry laughs)
Evenly season both.
Also important to point out
that I am making savoury pancakes.
Work this hard, get rid of the lumps.
Running some butter through this as well.
- Now, I feel like, over the years,
beyond just learning about basic recipes,
we've learned a lot about the science of cooking as well,
and why we do certain things.
Learnt anything about pancake batters or batters in general?
- Cooling time is important
- Or resting time.
- Resting time.
- So, yes, the cooling, resting, time is important.
Do we remember why?
- Uh, because of the air and the gluten
- The gluten.
You've just beaten it up,
you want the gluten to kind of relax
and hydrate with the liquid.
- Now, I'm looking for ribbons
that will stay in the batter for a few seconds,
'cause that thickness is what's going to help me
create thicker, more fluffy pancakes than last time
- I love it when the butter sort of laces its way,
all the way through the batter.
- Just leave that to rest, just here.
- Hey, I'll tell you something completely unrelated, Ebbers,
about cooking in butter,
and that's to wait for it to stop sizzling
and to stop bubbling.
And once it's stopped making a sound, then to cook in it.
Oh, that is looking amazing, though.
That is a good pancake batter.
- You've had seven minutes.
- One batter done, into the fridge to rest up.
Now, the second batter.
This is where it gets a bit crazy.
And I dunno if this is going to work,
because I've never made this before.
We're replacing the milk with beetroot juice.
- I think as we've all adapted, none of us like washing up.
It's about efficiency too.
Interesting you've gone for two whisks.
- The biggest thing I've learned is how to multitask.
So I'll just show that element off.
I can't multitask multitasking, can I?
- It's wonderful and vibrant now.
What happens to it when it cooks?
- Now, last time, I went very, very simple.
I went for maple syrup, and then right at the last minute
I poured over a load of bourbon
and, for some reason,
blow torched it, - Yeah.
which didn't have any effect. - No.
- This time, I'm gonna take it up a level.
I'm going to make a butterscotch sauce.
It starts with the caramel, heating sugar up in a pan.
No water.
- What I want to do is split that browned butter.
Can tell this is right, because it separates
and you can start seeing some of the bits at the bottom.
And that shows that it's good to go.
No!
Just as I poured it, it turned itself off.
(Ben laughs)
Right, let's try again.
That'll do.
It's lovely and smooth, and, because it's a batter,
it needs to take on all that flavour and rest.
- Whilst they're resting, I'm gonna put my pans on.
When I say my pans,
I've actually bought in my own pan from home
because I don't trust the pans here.
I've used it a lot and it definitely works, so.
- I've never had a problem with the pans here.
- For my flavour pairing to go with my pancakes
I'm going for a lemon cream cheese filling
with smoked salmon on top.
Sophisticated, much like yourself, Ebbers.
- There's something on your nose.
- Just gonna mix this together
and start loosening it up.
This is just cream cheese, lemon zest.
Bit of lemon juice.
- [Ben] You have had 12 minutes.
- The final element of my dish,
that's gonna go on top,
are some roasted pecans.
Now, roasted pecans in themselves are delicious,
but what about if those pecans are roasted in bacon fat?
Better.
- This all looks wonderfully calm and controlled.
- Oh no, oh no.
Caramel's coming.
- [Ben] A lot of smoke coming off that pan.
- I think it's okay.
- I'm gonna put my butter in, give it a nice stir.
Looks like honeycomb.
Go in with scotch.
- Are we gonna get a little flambé?
- Now, where?
- [Ben] I think it's probably gone now.
- Nope, too scared.
- And he lets us all down.
You're such a tease.
He's not learned anything
about nonstick pans and metal spoons, has he?
- It's beautifully rich, creamy, and really, really smooth,
apart from the big lumps of crystallised sugar.
- Gently heat it up
and it'll all come back together eventually.
- [Jamie] Pancake pan, I'm going to oil it,
and then kitchen towel to get rid of the excess grease.
- Nice even layer, and then you can use that paper
time and time again, in between each pancake.
- Look, it's beautifully smooth now.
Stop getting your knickers in a twist.
- Nice colour though.
- And also, the smell does have that richness of the scotch
which I'd worry that you'd lose
if you burnt all the alcohol off.
- So cheat's cookie dough.
Last time I got in a mess.
So I'm going flour, sugar, vanilla extract,
the rest of my brown butter, into a blender.
Add a tiny bit of milk.
(blender whirs)
Oh, look at that.
That is cheat's cookie dough.
Chocolate chips go straight in there.
I'm going to give it a mix, use it as a bowl.
- Halfway through.
- The first one always goes wrong for me,
so I'm not expecting big things,
but what I am gonna do is put this one on the bottom
and then get tiny little bits of cookie dough
and just place them in the batter.
So don't need too much.
I am just smoothing over bits of cookie dough now.
Once it starts bubbling, it's time to flip it.
- [Narrator] If this has got you in the mood for pancakes,
then check out the amazing sweet and savoury recipes
from our Cookbooks app.
It's completely free for a month,
including the other Sorted Club products.
You know the drill, all the info is below.
- I wanted to put pretzels through this batter,
and I forgot, which is why we call that a test pancake.
So I'm going to take some pretzels.
I'm gonna crunch them up
and they're gonna go through my pancake batter.
Hopefully, that saltiness will cut through the sweetness
once I add dulce de leche.
- Here, it's all about
getting a nice delicate spoonful of batter and then
Pollocks, Pollocks, Pollocks.
This is where I start panicking because, in my head,
this was going to be bonkers and irregular
but it's just not splatting the way I thought was going to.
I'm gonna marble it instead.
My thinking here is
cook one side a little bit more than usual,
because as soon as I flip this, the color's gonna go,
and I want to keep
as much of that beautiful ruby red as possible.
- 10 minutes left.
- Okay, right, now, it's time to multitask
because while that's doing there,
I need to whip up cream and some icing sugar.
Because again, to take the edge off some of the sweetness
I want some fluffy cream sandwiched in between the pancakes.
- Eight minutes remaining.
- Okay, well, after the seven minutes
it takes me to whip this cream,
I might be okay.
Looking good.
Goes into the oven.
- Oh, that was good.
One worked, one did not.
- Okay, so straight off here.
Yes, the beetroot's giving you a wonderful colour,
but I like the fact you've upped your game on flavours.
Five minutes remaining.
- Ah, I need this pan to come up to temperature.
- [Ben] They are very thick.
- It is quite thick, isn't it Ebbers?
I've added a bacon slice into the middle
and I'm gonna gently push over some of the excess batter
and top it up if necessary with some more.
- Hot spots in the pan is always an interesting one.
So I would say there the best thing to do
is to allow that pancake pan
to come up to temperature for longer, so it's more even.
- I'm gonna put my pecans in whilst I wait.
- I was just gonna say about the multitasking.
I'm glad you remembered.
How's that hot spot doing?
- This pan is all over the place.
- Six years on, and we're still blaming the tools.
- The last pancakes I made in the last battle
weren't cooked all the way through,
so I really want to make sure
that we're getting enough heat through these
and that they're cooking properly.
- Hmm, I was gonna put that vanilla extract with bits in it
in there, and I forgot, so it's going in.
I'm going to have to stir it through so, so carefully.
Otherwise you're gonna get vanilla butter.
- Three minutes left.
- You want to see some art?
And then we're gonna go for a little-
Okay, gently does it.
Dollop of beetroot on top.
Okay, ready for this?
Art.
- Lucky you've got a rimmed plate.
- I kinda like it.
It's not what I expected, but I kinda like it.
- You now have one minute.
If there's one thing we've learned,
you can always hide the naff ones at the bottom.
- That's not what I've done.
- Nuts on top.
- 30 seconds.
Interesting that you've gone for really hot pancake
and cream, in a stack that's gonna slide and dribble.
- No, no, no, it was going so well.
- 10 seconds.
- Dip your dill in some ice cold water.
Brings it to attention.
- [Ben] Five, four.
- Why is everyone laughing? - Three.
- Stop laughing everybody. - Two.
One.
- Six years on,
still got the panic.
- I've learned nothing, nothing.
- Let's get them into the sexies.
- That was unexpectedly disappointing.
- We haven't tasted them yet.
- Do you know what?
I think they're gonna taste great.
- Pancakes thrice.
Let's start with Jamie's.
I'm going to take a wedge from the middle
so I get some bacon in there as well.
- Oh, there's bacon all the way through, Ben.
- Well, I cut my first mouthful off the end,
didn't have any, which is why I made the comment.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- That is a Jamie flavoured pancake.
- There is so much going on.
The pancake actually almost gets lost, but it gets lost
around an incredible caramel butterscotch sauce.
Those pecans have got a real bacon hit to them.
Probably more so than the bacon in the middle.
You can see it's spongy, it's airy.
The baking powder has done its thing.
Relatively good, even colour on the four we've tried.
That is definitely an improvement.
If I had to pick holes,
I would say the consistency and uniformality of them
wasn't great.
- No more excuses, you're right.
- This mess.
(all laugh)
- I can't deny that.
- Cheers.
- That is an excellent pancake.
And the little bit of cookie dough in there is good.
I love the texture, which I liked before,
but I think it's even better.
through the batter and on top with the pretzel
and the little pocket of chocolate.
The cream melted a bit, but-
(Mike laughs)
- You're so generous.
- Jamie's was an improvement on last time.
Yours is a vast improvement.
Straight off, I'm glad you bothered with a plate this time.
I actually think it looks really good.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- That jumps off the plate.
I'm not getting beetroot flavour,
but I've got so much of the lemon
and the smoked salmon and the dill
that it's a very fresh, very savoury,
very delicious stack of pancakes.
- They're three banging pancakes.
- My challenge is
best plate of pancakes versus most improved.
The third best plate of pancakes,
- Kind. - rather than the worst,
isn't even a plate.
It's a basket, it's over here.
I think it's great.
I think you just, lacking a little bit on uniformality,
but it was yummy.
- Did you bump your head from that fall from grace?
- Second place is the most improved,
but Barry wins, 'cause that looks great,
but the flavour combination
is so different to what you did before and is yummy.
- Well done, mate, good work. - Well done Maz.
- But I mean, they're all good and all a huge step up,
but I think testament again, is how you can take
one pretty standard pancake batter recipe
and take it in three completely different directions,
and they're all delicious.
- Whilst I try to figure out
where my life is heading right now,
why don't you comment down below and let us know
which pancake would have been your favourite.
- Yeah, and which videos, recipes,
overall fails from our back catalogue,
should we be trying to recreate and make better?
Tweet us with the hashtag #failssorted.
- I didn't sort my fails at all.
- The nuts were a winner, a standout winner.
- They obviously weren't a winner.
- Being a pancake battle, you under-delivered.
(all laugh)
- There'll be other times where it just doesn't work.
Radio waves.
- You Ebbers and flow.
- I Ebbers and flow.
That's your DJ name, isn't it?
I just realised.
Ebbers and Flow.