Original subtitles

This is egg white, sugar - mixed up into a marshmallow product.

What, like you get in a tin? Exactly.

Condensed milk? Condensed milk.

This will be condensed milk.

That'll do.

Our next ingredient is also upstairs.

Wahey!

This will help our icing set and make it shiny.

It's like a meringue mix. Yes.

That will give your texture, taste.

Once it's cooled, we add another ingredient.

reducing down and thickening up.

It simmers in this heated mixer for 20 minutes,

OK, start the machine.

I only did two knocks, he's playing a tune.

There we go, he's knocked on there to tell you that it's all in.

That's probably about five cups of tea for me!

432 kilos.

There's quite a lot of topping coming out.

On the edge.

What, here? All the way on the edge.

Now, all you're doing is scraping the lip off.

Now, work the scraper.

HE LAUGHS EXCITEDLY

Look at that!

Whoa!

MUSIC: Ride Of The Valkyries by Wagner

Here's your sugar now.

Do I need to be scared of this, John?

I'll give you that.

We're going to tip it out and if you can stand here,

Another good mix for 30 minutes and it's ready.

Yes.

So that's why we add that. Creamy and rich!

When you're eating it, it tastes quite creamy, yeah?

Er, 42 years.

to make sure that they don't run out.

It's a challenge every day,

What do you like about working here?

The mix itself, no.

The size of the mix, yes.

No.

Has the recipe changed in that time?

42 years! 42 years.

As quick as they make cakes...

How long have you been icing Cherry Bakewells, John?

94, 95, 96. That'll do, that'll do.

You don't take your eye off the ball!

Because if you take your eye off the ball, you're going to mess it up.

Why is this not done automatically?

and it will cover 64,000 cakes.

So, it'll probably last the plant around one hour 30,

How many Cherry Bakewells will this icing mix cover?

above you, the metal part.

That's the one.

Just two taps.

What's your normal tap?

That's the most important tool of all.

and I've got to get the sugar by tapping on a pipe?

All this million pounds' worth of industry,

He's waiting for me to tap it? Yes.

So that it will drop down the sugar, into the bowl.

This is a good job.

So, what we need to do now, take this and tap on that pipe

Liquid ingredients in, we close the lid before we call for the dry ones.

THEY LAUGH

That's the one!

Correct! You are the icing on the cake.

You pride yourself in always giving them the icing.

They want it, we've got to make it.

That's incredibly thin!

# I do, I do, I do, I do, I do...#

Do you play Abba in there? No!

Take them into the wedding room? Take them into the wedding room.

So, now these are ready, where do we take them? To the wedding room.

Now we airbrush on the blush effect, using a dye made of beetroot.

It does look like a flower.

Well, it does look like a rose, at least.

But it quickly starts to go hard, so I've got to work fast.

Christine, I hear you're the woman to talk to about

So, it's really just a millimetre thick. Yeah.

pliable enough to shape into delicate petals.

A special ingredient called tragacanth gum makes this icing

Yeah.

I can see you've layered them, and then you've twisted them round.

Shamima Akhtar is showing me how to make one.

a blush rose for one of their wedding cakes.

My next challenge is another flower,

that's quite heavy, to stick precariously

royal icing got its name after it was used to decorate

A mix of icing sugar, egg whites and lemon juice -

Edible cement. Edible cement!

Because it sets hard. So, it's like cement. Yeah.

Why do you use royal icing?

What's that icing? Royal icing. Royal icing.

Just this icing. OK, just the icing? Yeah.

onto the side of a cake?

Sort myself out? Yes!

How on earth do you get this rock-solid rose,

So, here's a much nicer one.

I don't think Riz would accept that!

No!

Look, that can be your first rose, to go on the cake.

I've brought one for you specially.

assembling a wedding cake. Yes.

Hi, Riz, lovely to meet you. Hi, lovely to meet you.

So, that gives you a lovely tulip... Yeah.

The nozzle. The nozzle? Yeah.

There's three things - the texture of the buttercream. Mm-hm.

What is the secret to a perfect tulip?

Andrea Grady makes it look easy, and I can't wait to get started!

First up, it's the tulip cake.

at some of her bestsellers.

Production manager Riz Ali is challenging me to have a go

..shape, OK, what else?

for Marks & Spencer.

where 60 specialist decorators top over eight million cakes a year

Oldham, Greater Manchester, is home to Park Cakes,

Cherry is steadying her hand at one of the country's biggest producers.

Last year, we spent over £2 billion on birthday and wedding cakes.

I love icing and iced cakes - and I'm not the only one.

I like this. This is a great job!

Oh, OK.

Do you think I'd be sent home to have a day off? I think so, yes.

Would that get past quality control? It wouldn't.

But what does Riz think?

If you close your eyes a little bit, then it looks amazing.

Oh, look at that! There you go.

Shame about the other ones, never mind!

You've just got to do it lightly. Hello, there!

Oh, look! There you go. That's a good one!

No, no, you turn it off, same as you turn it on.

Instead of pushing down, just bring it up.

That's the saddest tulip I've ever seen!

Lift.

In the middle. In the middle.

And then, do that. OK, here we go.

That hand there, that hand there. OK, great start!

And the holding of the bag.

David's helping me cook up the very earliest written recipe

So, take some flour and cook it in your milk.

which dates back to 1651.

It's from La Varenne's Le Cuisinier Francois,

Yes.

So, this is our recipe?

Look. Marvellous! Ready to go.

Oh, I see you've got everything here!

for frangipane.

The ingredients of this 370-year-old recipe are similar

To get a taste of 17th-century Paris for myself,

A fashionable scent becomes a fashionable flavour.

Smells like frangipane.

And the pair of them, the gloves and the tart, have a similar smell.

So we've got the same name being applied to a particular tart.

for the almond-filled tart. Ah...

his master, and applied it to this much older recipe

Legend has it that his maggiordomo - his butler - took the name of

Would you put in more, or...?

And it smells like gloves!

Now, that does look good, doesn't it? Mm!

Ooh, look at that!

25 minutes later, it's cooked.

I can't be trusted with anything that has to look pretty!

I'm leaving the beautifying to you. OK.

SHE LAUGHS

1653, at the price of sugar - no, I wouldn't!

But how does that translate into food?

I've put in about two tablespoons of sugar.

No spelling, no measurements.

None of them, that's the way I like cooking, no measurements. Exactly!

Yeah, none of them! Right.

and it has all the measurements and the weights...

Now, you'll notice that this is very scientific

to those you'd use in a modern frangipane.

..who has brought an unusual gift for me.

when this square was built.

And they were the rage in the 17th century,

They smell of almonds. Very strongly of almonds.

And what do they smell of? They smell of almonds.

Yes. Sniff. Oh, yeah! They are perfumed, aren't they?

Now, these are perfumed gloves. Oh, really?

But what on earth has that got to do with frangipane?

Ooh, a lovely new pair of red gloves!

At that time, Paris was a rather different place.

David! Nice to see you.

I'm meeting French food historian David Downie...

To discover the origins of this aromatic filling,

Or frangipane.

..a great waft of sugar and almonds.

and pastries - is the smell...

that hits you - besides the beautiful array of cakes

If you step into any French patisserie, the first thing

Now, here's the recipe for making those gloves,

with the fashionable almond fragrance he perfected.

Pompeo Frangipani was a perfumer whose name became synonymous

A favourite of Louis XIII,

There is a Marshal of France named Pompeo Frangipani.

So who on earth was this...Frangipane?

Oh, goodness!

And if we look at them, they are called frangipane gloves.

from the royal perfumer, a book.

SHE LAUGHS

They wore it on their clothes and, specifically, on their gloves.

And the nobility, who could afford it, wore perfumes. Right.

I believe you say "pong" in your country.

So there was a certain tang to the air,

Almost half a million people were crammed into a city without sewers.

Wow!

For one thing, the population density was about 20 times what it is today.

I can't believe that you actually bake the whole thing in its tin,

..so, I'm heading to the factory's icing room,

for the outside world...

These tarts are still a little underdressed

We're not that good!

HE LAUGHS

inside the box!

Don't tell me - you put the cherry on once you've got it

and I can't believe you put the icing on once it's in the plastic.

to sort out their topping.

that they'll leave the factory in.

They drop six at a time into the trays

FUNKY MUSIC PLAYS

ready for another step class.

When they emerge, they're at a comfortable handling temperature,

where our tarts enjoy a six minute blast of cool air.

The conveyor then passes through this big yellow fridge,

No, it's good.

We're going to use this machine today.

Will this automatically stop when it's had enough?

And the first ingredient is 96 kilos of glucose syrup.

We're mixing up a batch of luxurious soft fondant icing.

Yeah, take the hose into there.

This one's 1,000 litres!

And I thought I had a big mixer at home!

Yes, I'll show you.

Right, OK, the great big witches' cauldron. Does that open up?

Tell me you're not impressed by this - that's fantastic.

Where do we make that?

Right, we're making icing, right? Fondant icing, yeah.

Hello, Gregg. All right, John. Morning!

I'm meeting icing technician, John Harding.

Round the corner.

I am, it's me. How do I get up?

Hello, Gregg. Are you John?

and crisped up the pastry.

and what we're looking to achieve at this point

So, with a hand-held temperature probe,

we need to check they're fully cooked.

Before we can allow them to continue their journey,

HE LAUGHS

I could eat them without the icing, to be honest!

Do you feel good about that? Yeah, they look really good, yeah.

They march out 15 at a time with their new all-over tans.

is a temperature of a minimum of 95 degrees.

Eight and a half minutes in the oven has firmed up the frangipane

are looking suitably regal.

Almost three hours in, our Cherry Bakewells

Cake is king! Absolutely.

But thanks to this fragrant filling, Frangipane's name has lasted longer.

Mm, oh, that's nutty!

The fashion for perfumed gloves was a short-lived craze.

And that is a perfectly dry,

Come on, I know you see this every day.

This ensures the pastry hardens without cracking.

their temperature gradually drops from 75 Celsius, down to 45.

As they saunter along 22 and a half metres of conveyors,

Test passed, the tarts are allowed some time to chill out.

HE CHUCKLES

Come on, I'll nibble this if you're not looking!

cooked all the way through, tart bottom. Yeah!

Queen Victoria's wedding cake in 1840.

That has not stuck to the tin, like I thought it would. No.

Yeah, that's what I want to see. Come on, then.

no soggy bottom.

The next part of the bake check is to ensure that there is

that the baking profile has been achieved.

that the Cherry Bakewells are food safe,

The reason it's 95 degrees, is we're looking to ensure

You can really see the difference.

Yeah, exactly, and what you can see is that it's got a really

This one actually sits on top of it, like that?

So, right inside there we have these two stones.

So, this right here is our mill.

ready for milling.

As well as intensifying the flavour, roasting dries out the nuts -

Yeah. And nutty and sweeter. Yeah.

It's very intense, it tastes all toasted.

thin gap between the two stones. Right.

Oh, it's gorgeous! Yeah, exactly.

They took their time. Yeah. Was it worth it?

The roast takes two hours.

which really enhances, like, the nuttiness in the almonds.

react with each other and it creates new flavour compounds,

called the Maillard reaction, which is where the sugars and the proteins

specifically it's a special reaction that happens,

The roasting process brings out all the flavours within the almond,

And then, here, it's liquid.

0.4% of salt.

Butter created, there's only one other ingredient for our huge batch,

completely rich in monounsaturated fat.

Yeah, and it's all good fat, so it's, like,

Yeah. And out it comes.

Yeah. And then give them a little grind.

When you look at an almond, you can't automatically see the oil.

The natural oiliness of the nuts is crucial to this transformation.

and create the butter from those?

I know.

roasted for two hours, it looks like the driest thing on Earth.

What's so incredible is when you see it roasted,

Oh, yeah, look at that!

The mill pulverises the almonds into a smooth paste.

and eventually get turned into kind of, like, liquid.

And it's that tiny gap which the almonds are being pressed through,

called a tree shaker.

This hi-tech machine scans each almond with lasers,

a laser machine.

So, this is the optical sorter, which is a fancy word for saying

So, what is this machine?

At the factory, today's delivery is getting a once-over.

..then graded and shipped out.

..collected up...

They are sun-dried...

weeding out any damaged or discoloured nuts.

where they are harvested by a machine which is very logically

80% of the world's almonds come from California,

even though we classify it as a nut, if you buy it.

No, technically part of a fruit, and the inside of the almond is a seed,

So, an almond isn't really a nut?

which is a seed.

which is soft, and then inside, you've got the almond,

If you look at it when it's on the tree, it has a green outer shell,

With the simple pull of a tag...

Why not just take them in their raw state

Why do you roast the almonds?

where they're roasted at a low temperature.

..then travel into the 15 metre long oven,

The almonds pour into the hopper below...

Whoa!

SHE LAUGHS

Ah! Woohoo!

So, is that it? Yeah.

Into the wild!

Right, are we ready to release the nuts? Yeah.

A tonne of graded nuts heads to the roaster.

onto this belt and they go into a very big bag.

and into this bucket, but all the good ones get passed down

and they use air to shoot them out, and they'll come down

So, there's two lasers that detect any bad almonds,

Yes.

I've met some great people here.

closely followed by southerners.

While back in the UK, northerners are the keenest consumers,

and even Australia!

From this factory, they head as far afield as Spain,

Now, it's time to ship them out to our shops and supermarkets.

It's taken a touch under four hours to make our Cherry Bakewells.

That's today's quota and more.

I mean, this is a very big factory, full of hi-tech equipment,

265,000?!

265,000 individual Cherry Bakewells.

I don't suppose you know how many individual Cherry Bakewells?

That'll be 4,200 boxes.

How many cases, how many boxes?

There'll be 52 pallets when it's full.

How many pallets on there?

Full of Cherry Bakewells by the end of the day.

..into waxed jackets.

SHE LAUGHS

Oh, smells like linseed oil!

..and Ruth sniffs out the history of waterproofing.

That's breathable? That's it.

So, that is my waterproof jacket? Yeah.

Cherry soaks up the science of staying dry...

CHERRY SHRIEKS

And here's my moleskin pocket. Yep.

Right, is that truck going to be completely full of my tarts?

Oh, you can feel the power of it!

..I'm helping transform raw cotton...

That's obviously supposed to happen, right? Yes.

Next time...

but they still put every single cherry on top by hand.

and they put the icing on when it's in the tray,

but what surprised me is, they bake the pastry inside the tinfoil case

Our completed Cherry Bakewells take one final journey

It helps us with that, yeah.

That's why it travels so far, just to give the icing time to set?

actually enables us to assure that the topping is set.

The layout of the factory and the distance that we've walked

Why do those Cherry Bakewells have to travel so far?

Mark, that's quite a long walk.

in the factory's rafters.

towards the packing area, on an elevated conveyor high up

After their 70 metre stroll, our tarts have arrived

since our flour delivery.

In Staffordshire, it's been three hours and 49 minutes

of gooey almond butter.

have transformed six tonnes of nuts into 30,000 jars

Two ingredients and eight hours of processing

Yeah, for almond butter, that's all we do.

Just almonds and salt and nothing else?

I'm surprised they actually don't dent the tarts.

Are those my Cherry Bakewells? They are.

where I'm meeting factory manager, Steve Morton.

..before racing to the distribution area,

and then into cardboard cases, ten at a time...

Now, the tarts slide into their red boxes

That's correct. Gotcha!

Ah, they're hitting those bits?

What the suckers are doing is coming down and sucking on the tray.

These almonds are from California.

with a fair amount of force.

Those suckers seem to be coming down there

are going to take a bashing.

I'm getting worried my beautiful Bakewells

But are the robots getting carried away?

Each tray of six is wrapped in a film to help keep them fresh.

at the packing department, where we're picking up the pace.

That's right.

What we'd end up having to do is put more of the fondant icing in,

No, that's right.

to the top of the tart?

as much as it normally does, then your icing won't go

What happens if, say one batch of the frangipane hasn't risen

of my precious icing onto each tart.

These precision dollopers are dishing out 13g

That stops anything dripping over the side.

to achieve the correct fill level.

So, there's a little bit of air in between each squirt.

Yes, it's exactly the same. Eh, I'm learning!

must be the same principle as the jam?

The way that's going on there, and not dripping over the pastry,

Hey, my beautiful icing!

Hello again, mate. Hi, Gregg. You all right?

on the main production line.

up to a delivery tank, because Mark is waiting for it

spot on.

Kirsty Meakin.

Then they're given a once-over by cherry checker,

Can I help? Of course you can!

Kirsty, cherries, yeah? Yes, cherries.

French glace cherries are washed clean of their sticky syrup.

..the cherry on top!

the cheeky final touch is...

Stage one of their beautification complete,

I'm hooking my 841 kilos of sweet fondant icing

No need to turn the tap up today, as we've got our proportions

Is it? It is.

of the Cherry Bakewell.

The fondant icing is the most expensive bit

That's all right, it's not an issue, is it?

That's right, yeah.

Just by turning it up a little bit, like a tap, is that right?

don't stick to the cake, basically.

OK, now wiggle.

OK. Is that enough? Yeah.

Is that enough? Yeah, let's go.

OK, ready?

Three fountains keep our molten chocolate at 40 degrees Celsius.

Extreme speed!

We've come to extreme icing.

Are we revving things up a bit? So, we're revving it up now.

So, you're going to give it a little shake,

Because the chocolate sets and then the chocolate components

We don't have long to decorate this. Why? So, the key is...

So, this is our Chocolate Caramel Dribble Cake.

But now for my ultimate challenge!

You've done a good job, yeah.

That's really good. Isn't that amazing? What do you think?

Ta-da, it's finished!

this is probably the least bad, but I did not dribble well.

We're three hours, 35 minutes into production of my cakes.

PIPES CLANG

than decorating them, but I can live with that!

Well, I think I can safely say that I'm better at eating cake

Go on, then.

I don't know about that! Oh, go on!

Are you saying I have to go home with this one?

No, and that's another one doesn't pass quality control, I'm afraid.

What have I got to do?

Of all of the cakes that I've iced today,

on the top before it sets.

It's a race against time to get all my chocolaty baubles

It's all in the wiggle!

A little bit faster, so you can...

Why won't it go?!

so the chocolate falls down the sides.

Do you like it? I love it!

There's certainly something to sing about -

# The poet says...

# It's cherry pink and apple blossom white

# When your true lover comes your way

# And apple blossom white

# It's cherry pink

Is there a song you sing to go with it?

Why? It's good fun, nice people, easy job.

all my Bakewells baked well!

12 years? Yeah.

How long have you been here? 12 years.

I wish!

Since you were 12.

About 13 years now. 13!

How long have you been on here, doing the cherries?

I don't do it like the others do it, I prefer doing it my way.

you're kind of like a double hander.

where they make 350 tonnes of almond butter for Pip and Nut each year.

Where do these almonds come from?

Millions and millions of almonds. Yeah.

About 16 bags of almonds sitting right here.

That is a big bag of nuts.

Boy, oh, boy!

Lovely to meet you. So nice to meet you too.

Hi, Pip. Hey, Cherry.

Pippa Murray is guiding me through the process.

You've got a massively quick technique,

I'm visiting Petrow Foods, near Cambridge,

Cherry couldn't resist checking out how you turn nuts into butter.

over the last year.

Almonds are big business, with sales shooting up

but the basis of their filling is flavour of the month.

These tarts were a nostalgic favourite,

# The story goes that once a cherry tree... #

But someone's going to get a Bakewell tart with only a quarter

260 tonnes a year.

you go through here?

I don't suppose you know, do you, how many cherries

Right, they don't get thrown away? No, no waste.

They go upstairs, they go in the flapjack.

What happens to the cherries we're discarding?

I'm sure they won't.

of a cherry and they're going to think I'm responsible!

I wouldn't have imagined there were that many cherries in the world.

I will. If you've got an eagle eye.

I'm going to miss bits. I'm sure you won't.

Can we slow the machine down? No.

They'll come on the... Hang on, hang on, that's too fast!

Tip it there.

We have to take the bad ones out.

We basically have to sort through them.

Mate, I haven't stopped washing my hands in here.

Oh, I see.

the cherries on the right way round, with them being half cherries.

Um, no, we haven't found a machine yet that'd be able to put

Here, surely you can get a machine to do this, right?

but make sure you're putting them in the middle.

Get a handful of cherries, go all the way along,

Now I want to get stuck in, and Sue Lawton is showing me how.

All our staff regularly wash their hands.

..and, of course, sweet pastries.

No, that's right, Gregg. Have you washed your hands?

They're not wearing any gloves.

A team of 12 places each individual half cherry by hand.

Can I put them down? They're heavy!

Hey, I've got cherries!

You'd be surprised.

I know!

The flavours are there, aren't they?

because... Saying, "This is our regional speciality"?

so they kind of put Bakewell with the pudding to lure in the tourists,

and people wanted a piece of the pie - or the pudding, so to speak -

And everyone went to the nearby spa towns of Matlock Bath and Buxton,

a lot of Victorian tourists.

I think it's because the railways came here, and with it,

So how did this sweet-meat pudding become associated with the town?

It's just missing the name Bakewell.

Yes, because if you...

It's good. Mm.

but the proof's in the pudding.

Its fruit layer is candied peel, rather than jam,

it's exactly the same as a Bakewell pudding.

but if you look at the ingredients and the method,

The only difference is it's called a sweet-meat pudding here,

So, that's a full century earlier.

It was written in 1727.

Well, in the recipes, there have been some differences towards

Right.

version that we know today as a Bakewell tart.

It's getting more cakey. We are moving towards the more frangipane

So it's getting more cakey?

starts to look exactly like a Bakewell tart.

the first time that the recipe of a Bakewell pudding

here in Mrs Leyel's book - is very significant, because this is

the 20th century, and one particular one -

There is a recipe in this book - The Compleat Housewife.

How does it become a Bakewell tart?

this winning combination of almond and fruit flavours in all its forms.

so successful that the word "Bakewell" became a shorthand for

The creation of the Bakewell pudding was a masterstroke of marketing,

I would never have guessed.

An invented local speciality to haul in the tourists? Yes, yes.

If you're on holiday, you want to eat the local specialities.

sort of egg custard mixture.

I mean, how did the pudding and the town get so closely entwined?

I've enlisted the help of food historian Regula Ysewijn.

We just keep passing places selling Bakewell puddings.

Oh, there's another one!

will help lead me to the cherry-topped version.

I'm hoping that investigating the origins of the pudding

and it's the one that the town's famous for.

It's actually the one that's made in the town,

Well, we're heading to the Rutland Arms.

it kind of sinks into a rich, gooey, decadent, almondy,

but no flour. So rather than rising up like a sponge,

and a layer of strawberry jam at the bottom, like your Bakewell tart,

it's got a similar sweet, almondy flavour

The puddings, actually, the sort of locals' product,

Oh, yeah. it's quite a significant difference.

Oh, is there a difference?

We're actually famous for our Bakewell puddings, rather than our Cherry Bakewells.

When would this have been? Around 1851-1857, in between that time.

well before this date.

a Bakewell pudding was being made and eaten all around Britain

Regula has found evidence suggesting that something very like

It's not that simple.

..it's not that easy.

Mm...

Is it true?

What a great story. Yeah.

So, hang on now...

And that's how Bakewell got full of Bakewell puddings.

"We'll just call it a Bakewell pudding."

She thought, "Well, this is nice."

Just got it wrong, and something edible came out of it? Exactly.

and, by mistake, invented the Bakewell pudding.

and she misread the recipe

And the story goes that a member of staff was ordered to make puddings,

So the paste that you made upstairs earlier,

The uncooked pastry goes straight into the little foil

That's right, yes.

Are they the little foils that are actually in the box?

For the next part of the process, we use foils.

21g at a time, ready to head into individual baking trays.

At the bottom of the chute, the pastry is divided up,

It's actually now in this chute.

you placed onto the nibblers.

that we take out of the box? Correct.

That's absolutely right, yeah.

This is when it starts to look like cakes, right?

..where I'm rejoining Mark.

Fabulous.

and the start of our Cherry Bakewell production line...

From the mixing bay, gravity drops our pastry to the floor below,

A tonne an hour? A tonne an hour.

No, not at all. In fact, it'll eat probably 1,000kg, actually, an hour.

15 foils at a time are dropped down onto the conveyor belt,

And the margarine causes the separation of the die

Predominantly, because the die's hot - it's heated.

..why doesn't it stick to the die when it comes back up again?

..the pastry's sticky... Yeah.

Tell me, where that die pushes down on the pastry... Yeah.

and imprint the crimps in the top.

..then metal punches - called dies - press down, push up the sides

the pastry drops in...

It doesn't take long for it to eat that, does it?

so it stops the pastry from being baked in.

Margarine heats up and it releases the oils,

One of the key ingredients is margarine.

Well, how does the pastry not stick to them?

So do you grease these? No.

Now I never knew that.

And you cook them in that? Correct.

Then we have the Bakewell tart,

It was invented in the 1970s.

This is another piece of clever marketing.

"of my new Cherry Bakewells, of course," he said.

MR KIPLING: "To put on top

the other day, and I asked what they were for.

TV AD: I saw a lot of cherries in the bakery

which is the last stage of our journey, really.

and now we have the Cherry Bakewell,

They made it into an iced Bakewell tart, which you can keep for longer

And then it moves onto a Bakewell pudding. Yeah.

We first have the sweet-meat pudding...1727. Yeah.

This gives us a really good insight into how food can evolve.

Not yet, exactly.

the Cherry Bakewell? Not yet?

Because you're saying a Bakewell tart, but you don't mean

..we're nearly there, but we're not quite there, are we?

Back in Stoke, we're one hour, 19 minutes in,

..where 672 rotating teeth chew it up into little bits.

There she goes.

so it's sent through what they call the nibblers...

But this big ball of dough would clog up the delivery chute,

Now that is a beautiful pastry mix.

has been mixing for 90 seconds.

of shortcrust pastry

and my massive 165kg batch

HE SIGHS DEEPLY

..they're very tasty.

they all have one thing in common...

but whether the Bakewell in all its forms was dreamt up here or not,

The town may not claim the cherry version as its own,

Fabulous!

can enjoy a Bakewell tart.

and mass manufacture, so everyone - even outside of Derbyshire -

Anything particular about this flour for the shortcrust?

Thank you.

I really like that bald head and glasses look, Mark.

Can I just say...?

I want to see this. Be my guest.

Over a quarter of a million.

How many tarts are you likely to make today?

High protein flour is more suitable for bread.

Yeah, it's a low protein flour. Right.

Enough larking about...

It's a shortcrust pastry.

What pastry is in a Bakewell tart?

How much flour on a truck? 27 metric tonnes.

Hi, Gregg. Mark. Pleased to meet you. Gregg.

Greeting it is production manager Mark Burnett.

a lorry does an articulated dance to manoeuvre into position.

Three times a week,

Production begins with a delivery of flour.

as compressed air pushes our flour up into the 17-metre-high silos.

literally short to stop it being tough.

The "short" is about keeping the protein chains within the pastry

Why does it make it short?

Tell me, what is the "short" in shortcrust?

Paul. Hiya. Nice to meet you.

He's going to turn it into light, crumbly shortcrust pastry.

..where the appropriately named Paul Baker is the mixing manager.

From there, it's pumped directly into the mixing bay...

..the Mr Kipling Cherry Bakewell.

The clock is ticking,

Yeah.

I was never that bright. Can I?

The green one that says "start filling", right? That's the one.

Right, which one? It's the green button. The one...

We need to get the flour off the lorry.

..these Bakewells won't make themselves.

..cos that's exactly what they make in this huge factory!

I'm Cherry Healey...

it inside the box!

Don't tell me...you put the cherry on once you've got

and now you put the icing on once it's in the plastic.

I can't believe that you actually bake the whole thing in its tin,

This time, I'm unpacking the production secrets of these tiny tarts.

I've got cherries!

I'm Gregg Wallace.

Oh, look at that!

Well, you're in luck...

I LOVE a Cherry Bakewell.

Do you know what, Gregg?

Everyone's got their favourite.

Spending more than £125 million each year.

We tuck into over ten million of them every week.

us Brits LOVE our sweet pies and tarts.

fruit or nut-filled,

But what on earth has that got to do with frangipane?

But we're following production of one of their best sellers...

That includes iced slices, fruit cakes and pies.

This ten-acre site produces over 50 tonnes of baked goods every day.

This is the Premier Foods factory in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

Welcome to Inside The Factory.

Getting through over five tonnes of pastry.

this factory will produce over a quarter of a million Cherry Bakewells.

In the next 24 hours,

How does that work? Would you mind telling me?

Ooh, a lovely new pair of red gloves!

the fragrant filling that gives Bakewell tarts their heart.

And historian Ruth Goodman is sniffing out the origins of

..but I don't often have a ruler in the kitchen to measure pastry.

I don't want to sound like I'm not committed...

Ideally, you want between three and five millimetres.

..and I'm learning how to swerve a soggy bottom in my home baking.

You would normally put this baking powder in something

Ingredients complete, we can mix them together.

Absolutely.

No, no, no, no. But enough to open it up?

Not enough to let the pastry rise?

to allow it to bake quicker.

the pastry texture to allow the moisture to drive out,

Yes. But what we're doing is using the baking powder to open up

that you wanted to rise.

Two hydraulic arms lift our mixing bowl off the floor and into position.

followed by 160g of baking powder.

We add 600g of salt,

..but it's not quite ready yet.

This super-sized mix will make enough pastry for 7,500 Cherry Bakewells...

It'll be around 165 kilos.

So the weight we've got there now is...?

The flour's gone in now. 96 kilos of flour, yeah.

Genius. Yeah. Absolute genius.

This place is packed with bakeries...

Have you got any Cherry Bakewells?

Morning! Morning.

but I can't see a Cherry Bakewell anywhere.

I may be in Bakewell,

And they certainly don't have a cherry on top.

and none of them have icing on.

It's funny. All these Bakewells in all these bakery windows,

..but there's something strange going on.

hot and cold water to try and keep it around the 24, 25 degree mark.

that gave them their name - Bakewell.

And she reckoned it was a good bet to start in the Derbyshire town

Ruth is checking out the history of these cherry-topped tarts.

While my pastry's getting a good workout,

into soft, crumbly shortcrust.

It'll take just 90 seconds to combine all seven ingredients

All the way up? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Made from vegetable oil, it's very similar to the stuff

40 kilograms of margarine are automatically dropped in.

That's the margarine going into the bottom of the bowl.

Right, what's going in there first?

..and now that should start putting ingredients in the mixing bowl.

so you press eight...

The recipe for Cherry Bakewells' pastry is number eight,

Swerving this stringy disaster zone requires computerised precision.

you'd buy at the supermarket,

Oh, OK. That's what it is?

Right. No-one's ever explained that to me.

all get together and make a stringy, gooey mess. Simple.

it wraps all the flour particles up in fat, so they can't

If you use a higher proportion of fat to flour,

OK, so when...

I've got no idea how that works.

I love this!

bulk ingredients, does a clever little calculation, and then blends

So, the computer also takes the temperature of all these

which is the optimum temperature for the fat to work.

We try and sort of hit a pastry temperature of around 25,

making sure the margarine is soft enough to mix properly with the flour.

The computer is also controlling the temperature,

followed by 13 litres of water.

On top of our margarine goes 13.5 kilograms of sugar,

from the pastry case.

..the computer's doing the same thing? The same thing.

Like at home, we would tip in the bag and look at the reading... Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

the scales has read off 96 kilos, and then it stops.

So the recipe - let's say it wants 96 kilos of flour - it waits till

That is a weigh scale.

What is that sitting on?

just without its familiar yellow colouring.

Coconut? Yeah.

That doesn't all go in there, does it? Yeah.

in a little glass jar like that.

I've got almond essence at home,

Almond essence? Yeah.

Now there's just the flavour to go in.

Coconut also helps thicken up our mix.

It's like the almonds, for the texture and the flavour.

Why coconut?

What, all of that? Yeah. All that.

So, what's this? Coconut.

including an unexpected ingredient.

But there's still more to go in,

You can't have frangipane without almonds, can you? No.

Just tip it in, yeah? Yeah.

We're just waiting for yours now.

Flour, water, fat, sugar, egg.

Yeah. What's in there?

Hang on a minute, hang on a minute, hang on a minute...

If you just want to slowly open the valve?

an almighty mess? Yeah.

So if we start pouring and we move that, we are going to have

You literally have a look? It doesn't clamp in place? No.

How do you know it's in the right place? Look.

Just through a hole in the floor? Yeah.

Yeah, it's a delivery pipe down to the hoppers underneath on the line.

So what is that? Is that going to go through the floor?

What's this? Have you started making the mix without me?

to our little tarts.

Now the challenge is getting it from this big tub

A quick 60-second blast transforms it into a smooth paste.

Or...maybe it's better that we get it mixed first?

I could spoon that out now.

Strong, isn't it? Yeah, but it's beautiful.

655g will flavour all 148kg of mix.

All right, good. Great.

Frangipane, of course, is an almond flavoured cream. Yeah.

So we're getting the ingredients together for the frangipane.

Because people have nut allergies, right? Yeah. I gotcha, I gotcha.

We don't want it to cause contamination with anything else.

Well, we keep them separate cos it's a nut product.

Why are they in a cage here? Why are they locked away?

I'm meeting mixing bay operative Khalid Hussain.

I've come to get me almonds, right?

It goes into lots of cakes.

Khalid? Ey-up.

Hey.

I've been sent to a high-security zone to collect the next ingredient.

Back in Stoke, on our industrial pie production line,

That's a good pie. It is, isn't it?

Mm-mm! Mm-mm!

My first-ever pie that doesn't have a soggy bottom!

Wow! Look at that!

and passed over a strong magnet to make sure the batch is clear

I've got the sieved almonds.

where Dave Alcock is as nutty as I am about this fragrant filling.

I'm taking my ground almonds back to the mixing bay,

From the nut room,

Now we take it to make the frangipane.

Now what?

That's it.

of any fragments of shell or metal.

I'm a bit nervous.

Our ground almonds are shaken through a 2.5mm mesh,

From here, they go to the sieve area to get sieved.

We've got our beautiful almonds - where do we go now?

Right. And it's important to be precise, right? Yeah.

Two kilograms.

So, how much of that do we need?

It's one of my favourite flavours in the world, actually.

Not at this stage, not pre-bake.

They regulate from 195 degrees in the first burner,

Inside, our tarts head through a series of different heat zones.

and as thoroughly as we do.

To enable us to bake the products as quickly as we do,

Why is it so long?

things are hotting up for our pastry cases.

As they begin their journey through the 38-metre oven,

That's cos the icing and the cherry doesn't need cooking, right?

going up to 210 for burners two and three,

But you haven't got the cherry on it, or the icing?

That's going in to baking? Yeah.

That's got to be the oven, right? That's right.

in a consistent and an efficient fashion.

We haven't managed to find anything that will replicate this

Are you absolutely sure this is necessary?

and placing them gently down.

but keeps on lifting them at the middle and the back,

Whenever I'm in a factory,

the Arc de Triomphe...

..home to the Eiffel Tower,

Ah, Paris...

Ruth headed across the Channel to find out.

..but where and when did it get that strange name - frangipane?

The tarts in the oven wouldn't be the same without their almond filling...

as fast as you're making them!

it always amazes me that we must be consuming them

It's so clever how it lifts them at the front,

going through that oven as we're looking at it now.

And in that time, there's 6,000 Cherry Bakewells

It's eight minutes, 24 seconds.

How long does it take from one end of the oven to the other?

and crisps up on the bottom.

This variable temperature baking ensures the pastry cooks evenly

and back down to 195.

Our gloopy almond mix flows down a pipe and into a hopper

And squeezes just the right small amount into each tart?

How many of them? 15.

That goes into there, and then it comes through these pipes.

That's my frangipane. That's right.

Mark. Hi, Gregg.

and I'm following my filling downstairs to catch up with Mark.

One hour, 34 minutes in,

on the main production line.

Yeah.

It's even more incredible that you can see it below. Yeah.

It's quite incredible that this goes through a hole in the floor.

Oh!

It's the inspection hatch.

Dave, what's that?

Oh!

That'll do. Ho-ho-ho!

..it's time to step things up a bit...

transferring our tarts from one conveyor belt to another.

This complex system of cogs and levers is doing a very simple job,

His name was Franklin? Yeah.

some 40 years ago.

This whole set-up was designed by one of our project engineers

It's a Franklin transfer system.

Right, what's happening here? They seem to be lifted up - row by row.

..on this strange-looking contraption.

Yep.

jam layer and frangipane filling...

Now our Cherry Bakewells have their pastry case,

Just 20 minutes? 20 minutes.

20 minutes.

And that batch that I made upstairs - how long will that last?

Nine grams.

How much frangipane into each of these tarts?

I'm not that great, to be honest. OK.

For our fan oven, we're going for 180 Celsius...

..preheat the oven.

Rule number one...

to help you swerve the sogginess.

According to Dr Stu, there are five scientific golden rules

Yes, OK. Thank goodness.

With your pie? Yes, with my pie.

Because I have a really bad case of soggy bottom.

..but don't just wait for the light to go out.

Hi, Dr Stu. Cherry, great to see you. How are you doing?

I'm meeting food scientist Dr Stuart Farrimond.

In search of solutions,

its way more miss than hit.

But when I make them at home,

the base is crispy and delicious.

Whenever I buy a pie,

Over to Cherry.

so that the metal walls are up to temperature.

If we put in a pizza stone,

Why would you put a pizza stone in your oven if you're making a pie?

is to use a pizza stone.

for getting the temperature as high as possible,

Another tip for you,

..maximise the heat below your pie dish.

Rule number two...

You need to get that pastry cooked quickly if you want it to be crispy.

So how do you avoid the dreaded soggy bottom?

So leave it on at least 15 minutes,

that you set it at, but the oven itself - the walls - are still cold.

It's not true. It means that the air temperature is at the temperature

But the light is there for a reason, the light tells me it's pie time.

they put their baking in.

They turn it on, and then as soon as the light goes out,

Most people think that they're preheating their oven, but they're not really.

Sweet. Yeah. Little bit sharp.

You get an injection - a pulse of jam - with a very clear cut-off,

How do you stop the jam trickling over the side of your tart?

and it also helps to enhance the overall flavour.

It's readily available, for consistency,

Why do you use plum and raspberry?

I can have another bit.

No-one else is going in that pot, are they? No.

I wouldn't have tasted plum. I'd have got raspberry.

so there's almost like a blower.

Can I taste that? Absolutely.

No, it's a plum and raspberry flavoured jam.

Now, I would've thought that would've been strawberry jam. Is it?

Five grams.

How much jam goes in each tart?

..with a slick of colour.

Now our plain pastry cases get tarted up...

# Well, all right

But for home bakers, like me, it's not quite that simple.

..they'll come out of the oven with a perfectly crispy base.

I can guarantee one thing...

When the guys here get around to baking these pastry cases,

# I hope you like jamming too... #

# We're jamming, jamming

# I wanna jam it with you

# We're jamming

or if you haven't got a pizza stone, just use a heavy metal oven tray,

..Jamming.

It's like Bob Marley...

MUSIC: Jamming by Bob Marley and The Wailers

..squirt, air, squirt.

Squirt, air, squirt, air... Yeah.

..pushes out each spoonful? That's correct.

So a little jet of air... Yeah.

and stick it in the oven.

and cover it with greaseproof paper, weighed down with rice,

We prick the pastry with a fork,

there's a danger that the pastry won't be cooked by the time that the filling is done.

And the reason for that is that if we don't do it,

before we put the filling in.

So, what we're doing is part-cooking the pastry

..blind baking.

Which brings us to rule number five...

which stops air pockets forming and the pastry bubbling up.

this is when I'd usually bung my filling on top,

After lining my dish with pastry,

Yes!

Your pastry has passed the two 20p test.

Has my pastry passed the test?

What a brilliant tip!

..will give you an ideal depth for your pastry.

..on top of each other... OK.

On the top, that's lovely.

But what we're really here to see is whether it has a soggy bottom.

It smells good, it looks good. It smells amazing!

30 minutes later, the moment of truth.

In she goes.

Yay, look at that!

Hey! Amazing.

Lift... Go, go, go, go, go!

Blind baking partly cooks the pastry, which stops the gooey pie filling seeping in.

OK.

Ah, look at it. Ah...

gives us a golden brown base.

followed by three to four minutes without the paper and rice,

Ten minutes near the top of the oven,

Towards the top.

In we go. Lovely.

Preheated oven. Great.

This is a ceramic-style pie dish.

Because it will heat up quickly, and also, you want a black dish,

A metal pie dish. Why?

You are blowing my mind today.

We want to go for metal, so something like this.

..for a pie - what is?

If that isn't good...

some of the fats will melt and come out, and we'll get a soggy bottom.

It's got a long time to heat up, and will cook slowly,

because if it's silver, it will reflect some of that heat away.

Why is it called a pie dish, then?

Yes. It's not great for pies.

OK, that's your pie dish?

..choose the right dish.

Rule number three...

the bottom cook very quickly.

then you have heat coming from the bottom, which will help

Rule number four...

I have a great little hack for you. Two 20ps...

but I don't often have a ruler in the kitchen.

I don't want to sound like I'm not committed,

Ideally, you want something between three and five millimetres.

..I guess every time.

Because, I have to say...

How thick do I want my pastry?

..roll the pastry to the correct thickness.

Whether you like puff or shortcrust pastry,

The black metal pie dish.

Which pie dish are we going to use today?

of the pastry, and you won't have a soggy bottom.

will pass straight through, and it will help bake the bottom

pizza stone or thick oven tray underneath, then the radiated heat

like this one, and this is great because if you've got your

Another great pie dish is one that is made out of tempered glass,