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(whooshing)
(Christmas music)
- Hello, welcome to "Sorted".
- James, why is Christmas our favourite time of year?
- Because it's full of pretentious ingredients, Mike.
- So today we have Barry,
the King of pretentious,
and our resident chef Ben
testing these festive ingredients
and seeing whether they think
they are pretentious or not.
- When did I go that crown?
- When you buy Manuka honey in a weekly shop.
(whooshing) (Christmas music)
- Would you like to lift the cloche?
- I can't wait,
I love a pretentious Christmas.
What?
- This is what I expect,
small little gold rimmed boxes full of delights.
- Eggnog Truffles.
I don't really understand.
Eggnog's a drink, isn't it?
An alcoholic Christmas-y festive drink.
(Ben sniffing)
- I think you could get drunk off sniffing 'em.
They look like little snowballs.
- These are Eggnog Truffles by Charbonnel et Walker,
sold in this case by Harvey Nichols.
These rich and creamy white chocolate truffles
pack a generous wallop of Brandy
and a Christmasy grating of nutmeg,
making them a stunning present
and a very merry accompaniment
to festive tea and tipples.
- I'd be well happy if that came in my stocking.
- That is an expensive stocking filler... spoiler alert.
- Yellow truffles feels a little bit weird,
because I guess it's white chocolate
but with eggnog turns them a little bit yellower.
What's in eggnog that makes it yellow?
- Eggs.
(laughing)
- Hmm.
- That is very pleasurable.
- Sometimes white chocolate as a truffle
can be very sweet and rich.
This is that,
but with the kind of warming spices,
like the nutmeg and the brandy
that it kind of mellows it out.
It's good, it's a good pairing.
It's super tasty.
- Where do you think these play a role
in the Christmas festivities?
- So I think these have the place of sitting there
to look opulent
and indulgent
and festive.
But nobody dares have one,
because there's only a handful.
- You'd either bring them out on Christmas Eve
or after dinner on Christmas day,
replacement to an After Eight.
- For those of you who don't know,
an After Eight is a wafer thin chocolatey mint
that you consume after dinner.
What maybe even more impressive for you
is that Charbonnel et Walker
were established in 1875
and they were one of Britain's
first and foremost chocolate makers.
They have a Royal warrant,
so they have served many members of the Royal family,
very distinguished and drenched in history.
- Their champagne truffles are excellent.
- Are they?
- Yeah.
- Now who's the pretentious king?
- I used to get them in my stocking from my granny.
- Did you?
- Wait a second.
- I'm out numbered.
(laughing)
That box weights 115 grammes,
you get 10 truffles inside.
Do you want to take a guess
as to how much these were purchased for?
- A good chocolate truffle
you can pay a couple of quid a pop.
20 pounds... is a lot for a very small box of truffles,
but they are quality truffles and they have a Royal seal.
So I'm going to go with 19.95.
- I'm gonna go bold and say 2 pound a truffle,
so 20 quid.
- Ebbers, your Christmas has come early
because this is 14.95.
(bell ringing)
- There you go.
- Would you buy it?
- Well then I'd buy one to share and want to stash.
- 15 pounds, now I've said out loud,
it does feel very expensive.
- It's very expensive. - It's quite expensive.
- But I've never seen anything else
out there like that before.
So it's quite unique.
- Do you think they are pretentious or not?
- For me, what I've done there
is they've taken two very simple things,
truffle and eggnog that aren't pretentious,
but by put them together in that packaging,
at that price tag, for me that is now pretentious.
- This is where I'm going to struggle
with pretentious ingredients at Christmas,
because I think Christmas is the most pretentious holiday.
It is a holiday for gifting and we all buy into that.
And I want these in my home at Christmas.
(whooshing) (Christmas music)
- Pitch and lift, all the kids are doing it.
- Ta-da, oh.
- What?
This is a Fortnum & Mason Christmas Coal.
- But I've been a good boy this year.
- Here we go again with another basic format we love,
a chocolate, or cinder toffee.
- I thought you were talking about pretentious ingredients.
(laughing)
- And then something grabbed at
from Christmas stories and Christmas nostalgia
and Christmas festivity,
and put in so that there's another product
we can sell this year.
That's what I love about Christmas.
All the novelty... providing it delivers.
- This is Fortnum & Mason's Christmas Coal,
cinder toffee dipped in smooth milk chocolate
and covered in black lemon sherbet
for a deliciously distinctive flavour.
Our coal is made with seasonal local honey,
when it is available.
- That sounds phenomenal.
- I am so curious as to what this is going to be like
that I'm excited for it already.
- It's a very pretty piece of coal.
It's really light.
I had no idea that this was toffee.
(upbeat Christmasy music)
- That is giving me fireworks in my mouth.
That is very exciting.
- What you're seeing, what you're tasting,
and what you're experiencing
don't go together.
- Interesting.
- But because it's Christmas,
because it's ridiculous,
it's really enjoyable.
- And it looks like it's actually leaving some
charcoal residue on your fingers, like proper coal.
- Yeah, the sherbet goes everywhere.
- That's really good.
- That is amazing.
You get like a deep burny caramel,
which is delicious,
chocolate completely used to that flavour.
But then this sort of citrusy sherbety fizz.
- The balance of flavour is really excellent,
the balance of different components.
So you get enough chocolate,
you get enough sherbet,
and then the honeycomb just disappears.
It doesn't stick to your teeth or anything.
- No, it's gone.
- It's great honeycomb.
Like a good Christmas film,
it's a story
and it's got something about it that draws you in
and then surprises you.
If I was hosting,
I'd probably buy these almost like a favour at a wedding.
It's that kind of experience
because I went on a bit of a journey
and I kind of want other people to go on that too.
- Barry, that pack is 250 grammes.
Would you like to let us know how much it costs?
- 12 quid.
- It's gonna have to be a similar price
to the truffles, 15 quid?
- It is 12.95.
(bell rings)
- Turns out, I'm just happy to splash the cash at Christmas.
- You love Christmas.
- You're a very generous man.
Reasonable?
I mean, clearly you think it's worth it?
- Yes.
Because where else are you gonna go to get that?
- I know we're in a pretentious ingredients format,
so I know these are going to be relatively expensive,
but I don't think that's too expensive
given the experience and the journey we've all been on.
- Is it pretentious?
- Yes.
- Right? - What?
- Based on my last theory,
you take honeycomb, not pretentious.
You take coal, definitely not pretentious.
You put them together, put a high price tag on it.
It's pretentious.
- Well it is very much pretending to be something it's not,
it's not coal,
but it's not trying to achieve anything that it's not.
I don't think that's pretentious.
I think it's actually quite cool.
- Next.
- Yes.
- We are having fun.
(whooshing)
(cheering)
(upbeat music)
- Barry, would you like to lift the cloche.
- Give it a sniff, give it a guess.
Let us know what you think it is.
- Ooh.
- We have his attention.
- We do.
(laughing)
- I'm not too familiar with this.
Is it port?
- Something fortified?
And I was going to suggest port based on its colour,
although it's not very port or ruby,
but given it's Christmas, I'm gonna say sherry.
- Ebbers, bang on.
What a nose you have.
- I don't really like sherry.
- Sherry, yes, smells like old ladies, doesn't it?
- That was gonna lead to my next question,
is that is sherry just for the older generation,
because I'm going to say right now,
I love a sherry especially on Christmas day.
- I don't think I've tried it.
I think it's one of those things
I've always went that's Nan's drink.
- I'm the most gastro in the room.
- I won't like it, it's far too grown up for me.
- You're absolutely right.
This is Gonzalez Byass Noe Pedro Ximenez Viejo VORS Sherry.
Sorry.
An extraordinarily intense, profound, sweet, sticky
Pedro Ximenez Sherry from Gonzalez Byass.
One of the world's great wines
so densely thick you practically
have to shake it out of the bottle.
- I'm a dad now, maybe I should like sherry.
- Absolutely.
I've read a couple of articles that are saying
that sherry, it's in, it's the new thing.
(Barry's lips smacking)
- It tastes like currents, like sultanas.
- It's got all of the dried ripe fruits
and vanilla
and clove and spice
of oak barrels
that is sweet sherry.
- So Pedro Ximenez are a variety of grape
that are sun dried
in order to make the sherry.
- A lot of process to get something like this.
And a lot of attention to detail for many, many years.
- That half bottle has been aged for 30 years.
- I'm not in love with it.
It's very tasty, I understand it.
But I think if you love mince pies, you're like sherry.
- We have a cheaper option that uses the same grapes,
so you can compare the two.
So this is the same grape, Pedro Ximenez,
but a different brand.
- That is the whole milk equivalent
to the Jersey full fat cream you get over here.
- Okay.
- It's nowhere near as syrupy.
- No?
So the second glass comes in a bottle,
it's 125 mils larger than the first,
and a bottle of that is 9.99.
Do you want to take a guess at how much
the Gonzalez Byass Noe Pedro Ximenez Sherry is?
It's a half bottle.
- I would have expected to have paid
15 to 20 pounds for a good bottle that size anyway.
17.50?
- 20 pounds.
- It's 19.99. (bell rings)
You're bang on, pretty much.
- (laughs) Yes.
I mean, that is a lot of money.
- That is a treat at Christmas.
It is the exclamation mark at the end of a meal.
- Pretentious or not?
We're talking about the first bottle.
- For me that's not pretentious.
It is, even though I'm not a massive fan of it,
a high-quality product,
it's been aged for 30 years, that's not cheap.
And it does what it says on the tin,
it's not pretentious.
- In the UK sherry has a stigma,
but I don't think it's pretentious.
I just think we've been left behind.
- [Mike] Not pretentious?
- Not pretentious, delicious.
(whooshing) (upbeat music)
- Locked and loaded, well played.
Still enjoying that.
- I am, yeah.
- Would you like to lift the cloche,
and discover your next treat.
(laughing)
- Wow, that is a weighty pudding,
that's what we like to see. (thumping)
- Bliming heck. (thudding)
It's a Christmas pudding, but it's a
plum Christmas pudding.
- Barry, this is the magnificent plum Christmas pudding
by Fortnum & Mason,
with sweet plum jam running through the middle,
the St. James pudding has fruits soaked
in Fortnum's damson gin,
instead of the traditional cognac and rum.
Marcona almonds with a ring of cherries adorn the top,
while rings of oranges decorate the delicious sides.
A very festive Fortnum's take on the tempting tradition.
- I'm really fed up the fact that
there's a Christmas pudding every year on my table
only two of the 10 of us eat it.
I never give it a go, because I just doesn't do it for me.
But this has been mixed up a little bit.
- [Mike] Interesting. - Exciting.
- I love a Christmas pudding.
I think you absolutely need one,
because it is the centrepiece of Christmas.
Because I think the turkey might change
from household to household.
It might be goose, it might be a rib of beef.
It might just be a glazed ham.
But I think the Christmas pudding is just iconic.
- Hold the phone.
It comes with its own ceramic bowl.
- Wow, it's lovely.
- Naughty, ain't it?
- Oh, a drawstring.
- What's happening?
- He knows what I'm talking about.
(laughing)
To steam, remove the film wrap,
and boil gently for two hours.
- Could you move onto the microwave instructions, please.
- Invert the basin onto a microwaveable plate
and cook on full power for six minutes.
- Oh, okay.
- Oh.
- That looks great.
- I like this.
A little touch on the inside of the bowl.
"You really are quite magnificent".
(laughing)
- That's exactly what he hears in his head
all throughout the day anyway.
Dowse that in brandy, and set it on fire.
- Whoa, lovely.
- I don't wanna get too close,
I might singe my hat.
- Nicely done.
- Very nice, it looks great.
- It's perhaps slightly looser and more moist
than a traditional Christmas pudding, which is denser.
That said, when you lift it, it feels dense.
It weighs a lot.
- Yeah, you can see that jam.
Nice.
- The jam inside, the cherries on top,
that beautiful orange outside,
I'm looking for a journey.
- It's still Christmas pudding, isn't it?
- No, it's really gooey.
If feels almost chocolate fondant.
- Consistency and texture?
- Yeah, it's more cakey.
I don't think they're ignoring
the classic Christmas flavours.
I think they've just made it a bit more sophisticated.
- That ticks all of the Christmas pudding boxes.
It's a centrepiece, it looks good.
It smells great.
You can flambe it, until you eat it.
(record scratching)
- What, ha?
- That sounds like you're not enjoying it.
- Oh know, it's delicious,
but it's not Christmas pudding.
It tastes great.
Just don't serve it on Christmas day.
- Let's talk about price.
It's 907 grammes,
and that seems to be standard
because a supermarket version,
which is also 907 grammes is 12 pounds
just to give you some reference.
- You're paying for the wonderful, magnificent messaging,
branding, ceramic pot.
- Reusable.
- And it looks better than a Christmas pudding.
- Oh, he's no longer even referring to it
as a Christmas pudding.
That is brutal.
- 22 pound 50.
- 22 pounds 50.
- 19.99.
- It's 39.95.
(bell rings)
- For dried fruit in a cake.
- About double the price.
- You were just waxing lyrical about it.
You can't change your mind now.
- That is a lot.
- It smells fantastic, I'm sure it tastes great,
and it's been put together really well.
Still don't know whether I could justify
spending 40 pounds on it for eight people.
It's just not my thing really.
- Barry, we know you like it,
but is it pretentious?
- Still a fruit pudding for 40 pounds.
It's pretentious.
- It is premium, it is delicious,
but this one is a little pretentious.
- Yes, we got him, we got him.
Well over to you guys, comment below,
which of those do you think were pretentious and why?
- And send us your ideas for pretentious ingredients
that we can test and review next year.
Happy Christmas.
- Merry Christmas.
- Have you ever got to the end of a long day with no ideas,
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And now for the blooper.
(bleep)
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- How do you clap, I forget?
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