Original subtitles

[lighthearted music]

GREGG WALLACE: Whether you like puff or shortcrust

pastry, fruit or nut-filled, us Brits

love our sweet pies and tarts.

CHERRY HEALEY: We tuck into over 10 million of them every week.

Spending more than 125 million pounds each year,

everyone's got their favorite.

You know what, Gregg?

I love a cherry Bakewell.

Well, you're in luck.

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

I'm Gregg Wallace.

I've got cherries.

This time, I'm unpacking the production

secrets of these tiny tarts.

I can't believe that you actually bake

the whole thing in its tin.

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

Don't tell me.

You put the cherry on once you got it inside the box.

CHERRY HEALEY: I'm Cherry Healey.

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

STUART FARRIMOND: Ideally, you want between three

and five millimeters.

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

But I don't often have a ruler in the kitchen

to measure pastry.

GREGG WALLACE: And historian Ruth Goodman is sniffing out

the origins of the fragrant filling that gives

Bakewell tarts their heart.

RUTH GOODMAN: Oh, a lovely new pair of red gloves.

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

[machinery whirring]

GREGG WALLACE: In the next 24 hours,

this factory will produce over a quarter

of a million cherry Bakewells--

CHERRY HEALEY: --getting through over five tons of pastry.

GREGG WALLACE: Welcome to "Inside the Factory."

[vocalizing]

[light rock music]

[machinery whirring]

[upbeat music]

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

Staffordshire.

This 10-acre site produces over 50

tons of baked goods every day.

That includes iced slices, fruit cakes, and pies.

But we're following production of one

of their bestsellers, the Mr. Kipling Cherry Bakewell.

[upbeat music]

[machinery whirring]

Production begins with a delivery of flour.

[truck shifting gears]

Three times a week, a lorry does an articulated dance

to maneuver into position.

[back-up beeper]

Greeting it is production manager Mark Burnett.

- Hi, Gregg. - Mark.

Pleased to meet you.

Gregg.

How much flour on a truck?

27 metric tons.

GREGG WALLACE: What pastry is in a Bakewell tart?

It's a shortcrust pastry.

Anything particular about this flour for the shortcrust?

Yeah, it's a low protein flour.

CHERRY HEALEY: Right.

High protein flour is more suitable for bread.

GREGG WALLACE: How many tarts are you likely to make today?

MARK BURNETT: Over a quarter of a million.

I want to see this.

Be my guest.

Can I just say--

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

[chuckling]

Thank you.

GREGG WALLACE: Enough larking about.

These Bakewells won't make themselves.

We need to get the flour off the lorry.

Right, which one?

It's the green button.

GREGG WALLACE: The one-- the green one that

- says "start filling," right? - That's the one.

- I was never that bright. - OK.

Can I?

Yep.

[timer beeping]

[machinery whirring]

The clock is ticking as compressed air

pushes our flour up into the 17-meter-high silos.

[machinery whirring]

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

where the appropriately-named Paul

Baker is the mixing manager.

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

pastry.

Paul?

Hiya.

Nice to meet you.

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

Why does it make it short?

The "short" is about keeping the protein

chains within the pastry literally

short to stop it being tough.

How does that work.

Would you mind telling me?

I've got no idea how that works.

OK, so when-- if you use a higher proportion

of fat to flour, it wraps all-- all

the flour particles up in fat.

So they can't all get together and make a stringy, gooey mess.

Right.

Simple.

No one's ever explained that to me.

Oh, OK.

GREGG WALLACE: That's what it is?

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: Swerving this stringy disaster zone

requires computerized precision.

PAUL BAKER: The recipe for cherry Bakewells pastry

is number 8.

So you press 8.

And now that should start putting

ingredients in the mixing bowl.

GREGG WALLACE: Right.

What's going in there first?

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

GREGG WALLACE: 40 kilograms of margarine

are automatically dropped in.

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

buy at the supermarket-- just without

its familiar yellow coloring.

What is that sitting on?

PAUL BAKER: That is a weigh scale.

So the recipe, let's say it wants 96 kilos of flour.

It waits till the scales has read off 96 kilos.

And then it stops.

GREGG WALLACE: On top of our margarine

goes 13.5 kilograms of sugar, followed by 13 liters of water.

The computer is also controlling the temperature,

making sure the margarine is soft enough

to mix properly with the flour.

PAUL BAKER: We try and sort of hit a pastry temperature

of around 25, which is the optimum temperature for the fat

to work.

So the computer also takes the temperature

of all these bulk ingredients, does

a clever little calculation, and then

blends hot and cold water to try and keep it

around the 24, 25 degree mark.

- Genius. - Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: Absolute genius.

The flour's gone in now.

96 kilos of flour, yeah.

So the weight we've got there now is?

PAUL BAKER: It'll be around 165 kilos.

GREGG WALLACE: This super-sized mix will make enough pastry

for 7,500 cherry Bakewells.

But it's not quite ready yet.

We add 600 grams of salt, followed

by 160 grams of baking powder.

You would normally put this baking powder in something

that you wanted to rise.

Yes, but what we're doing is using the baking powder

to open up the pastry texture to allow the moisture to drive out

to allow it to bake quicker.

Not enough to let the pastry rise?

PAUL BAKER: No, no, no, no, no.

But enough to open it up?

PAUL BAKER: Absolutely.

GREGG WALLACE: Ingredients complete,

we can mix them together.

Two hydraulic arms lift our mixing bowl off the floor

and into position.

All the way up?

Yeah, yeah.

[machinery whirring]

GREGG WALLACE: It'll take just 90 seconds

to combine all these ingredients into soft, crumbly shortcrust.

[slow rock music]

While my pastry's getting a good workout,

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

And she reckoned it was a good bet

to start in the Derbyshire town that

gave them their name, Bakewell.

[playful chamber music]

RUTH GOODMAN: This place is packed with bakeries.

But there's something strange going on.

It's funny.

All these Bakewells in all these bakery windows,

and none of them have icing on.

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

I may be in Bakewell, but I can't

see a cherry Bakewell anywhere.

Morning.

Morning.

Have you got any cherry Bakewells?

[sighs]

We're actually famous for our Bakewell puddings rather

than our cherry Bakewells.

Oh, is there a difference?

Oh, yeah.

It's quite a significant difference.

The pudding's actually the sort of locals' product.

It's got a similar sweet almond-y flavor and a layer

of strawberry jam at the bottom like your Bakewell tart,

but no flour.

So rather than rising up like a sponge,

it kind of sinks into a rich, gooey, decadent, almond-y

sort of egg custard mixture.

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

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

[playful jazz music]

RUTH GOODMAN: I'm hoping that investigating

the origins of the pudding will help lead me

to the cherry-topped version.

Well, there's another one.

We just keep passing places selling Bakewell puddings.

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

I mean, how did the pudding in the town

get so closely entwined?

Well, we're heading to the Rutland Arms.

And the story goes that a member of staff

was ordered to make puddings.

And she misread the recipe and, by mistake,

invented the Bakewell pudding.

RUTH GOODMAN: Just got it wrong and something

edible came out of it?

REGULA YSEWIJN: Exactly.

She thought, well, this is nice.

We'll just call it a Bakewell pudding.

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

RUTH GOODMAN: When would this have been?

REGULA YSEWIJN: Around 1851, 1857, in between that time.

What a great story.

Yeah.

Is it true?

Oh, it's not that easy.

It's not that simple.

RUTH GOODMAN: Regula has found evidence

suggesting that something very like a Bakewell pudding

was being made and eaten all around Britain

well before this date.

There is a recipe in this book.

"The Compleat Housewife" is written in 1727.

RUTH GOODMAN: So that's a full century earlier.

REGULA YSEWIJN: The only difference is, it's called

a sweetmeat pudding here.

But if you look at the ingredients and the method,

it's exactly the same as a Bakewell pudding.

[playful chamber music]

RUTH GOODMAN: Its fruit layer is candied peel rather than jam.

But the proof's in the pudding.

It's good.

Mhm.

RUTH GOODMAN: The flavors are there, aren't they?

It's just missing the name Bakewell.

So how did this sweetmeat pudding become

associated with the town?

I think it's because the railways came here--

and with it, a lot of Victorian tourists.

And everyone went to the nearby spa towns

of Matlock Bath and Buxton.

And Bakewell wanted a piece of the pie-- or the pudding,

so to speak.

So they kind of put Bakewell with the pudding

to lure in the tourists.

Because--

Saying this is our regional specialty?

This is our-- yes.

Because if you're-- if you're on holiday, you want

to eat the local specialities.

An invented local speciality to haul in the tourists?

Yes.

I would never have guessed.

[upbeat music]

The creation of the Bakewell pudding

was a masterstroke of marketing--

so successful that the word "Bakewell" became a shorthand

for this winning combination of almond and fruit flavors

in all its forms.

How does it become a Bakewell tart?

Well, in the recipes, there have been some differences

towards the 20th century.

And one particular one here in Mrs. Leyel's book

is very significant.

Because this is the first time that the recipe

of a Bakewell pudding starts to look exactly like a Bakewell

tart.

So it's getting more cakey?

REGULA YSEWIJN: It's getting more cakey.

We are moving towards a more frangipane version

that we know today as a Bakewell tart.

Right.

So hang on now.

We're nearly there.

But we're not quite there, are we?

Because you're saying a Bakewell tart.

But you don't mean the cherry Bakewell-- not yet.

Not yet, exactly.

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

We first have the sweetmeat pudding, 1727.

RUTH GOODMAN: Yeah.

REGULA YSEWIJN: And then it moves

on to the Bakewell pudding.

RUTH GOODMAN: Yeah.

REGULA YSEWIJN: Then we have the Bakewell tart.

And now we have the cherry Bakewell,

which is the last stage of our journey, really.

NARRATOR: I saw a lot of cherries

in the bakery the other day.

And I asked what they were for.

"To put on top of my new cherry Bakewells, of course," he said.

REGULA YSEWIJN: This is another piece of clever marketing.

It was invented in the 1970s.

They made it into an iced Bakewell

tart, which you can keep for longer and mass manufacture.

So everyone, even outside of Derbyshire,

can enjoy a Bakewell tart.

Fabulous.

[chuckling]

GREGG WALLACE: Back in Stoke, we're one hour, 19 minutes in.

And my massive 165 kilogram batch of shortcrust pastry

has been mixing for 90 seconds.

Now that is a beautiful pastry mix.

But this big bowl of dough would clog up the delivery chute.

So it's sent through what they call the nibblers--

[machinery whirring]

PAUL BAKER: There she goes.

GREGG WALLACE: --where 672 rotating teeth

chew it up into little bits.

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

No, not at all.

In fact, it will eat probably 1,000

kilograms, actually, an hour.

GREGG WALLACE: A ton an hour?

PAUL BAKER: A ton an hour.

GREGG WALLACE: From the mixing bay,

gravity drops our pastry to the floor below

and the start of our cherry Bakewell production line.

Fabulous-- where I'm rejoining Mark.

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

That's absolutely right, yeah.

So the paste that you made upstairs earlier you

placed onto the nibblers.

It's actually now in this chute.

GREGG WALLACE: At the bottom of the chute,

the pastry is divided up 21 grams at a time,

ready to head into individual baking trays.

MARK BURNETT: For the next part of the process, we use foils.

GREGG WALLACE: Are they the--

the little foils that are actually in the box?

MARK BURNETT: That's right, yes.

The uncooked pastry goes straight into the little foil

that we take out of the box?

MARK BURNETT: Correct.

GREGG WALLACE: And you cook them in there?

MARK BURNETT: Correct.

Now I never knew that.

So do you grease these?

MARK BURNETT: No.

Well, how does the pastry not stick to them?

One of the key ingredients is margarine.

Margarine heats up.

And it releases the oils.

So it stops the pastry from being baked in.

GREGG WALLACE: 15 foils at a time

are dropped down onto the conveyor belt.

The pastry drops in.

[machinery whirring]

[slow rock music]

Then metal punches called dies press down, push up the sides,

and imprint the crimps in the top.

[machinery whirring]

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

is the pastry sticky?

Yeah.

Why doesn't it stick to the die

when it comes back up again?

Predominantly because the die's hot.

It's heated.

And the margarine causes separation of the die

from the pastry case.

[machinery whirring]

GREGG WALLACE: Now our plain pastry cases get tarted up

with a slick of color.

[machinery whirring]

[slow rock music]

How much jam goes in each tart?

Five grams.

GREGG WALLACE: Now I would have thought that would

have been strawberry jam.

Is it?

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

GREGG WALLACE: Can I taste that?

MARK BURNETT: Absolutely.

Sweet.

Yeah.

Little bit sharp.

I wouldn't have tasted plum.

I'd have got raspberry.

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

No.

I can have another bit.

Why did you use plum and raspberry?

It's readily available, for consistency,

and it also helps to enhance the overall flavor.

GREGG WALLACE: How do you stop the jam trickling

over the side of your tart?

You get an injection, a pulse of jam

with a very clear cutoff.

So there's almost like a blower.

So a little jet of air--

Yeah.

- -pushes out each spoonful?

MARK BURNETT: That's correct.

GREGG WALLACE: Squirt, air, squirt, air.

- Yeah. - Squirt, air, squirt.

[machinery whirring]

It's like Bob Marley--

jamming.

[machinery whirring]

[slow lighthearted music]

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

I can guarantee one thing.

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

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

So how do you avoid the dreaded soggy bottom?

Over to Cherry.

[light rock music]

CHERRY HEALEY: Whenever I buy a pie,

the base is crispy and delicious.

But when I make them at home, it's way more miss than hit.

In search of solutions, I'm meeting food

scientist Dr. Stuart Farrimond.

- Hi, Dr. Stu. - Cherry.

Great to see you.

How you doing?

I'm not that great.

OK.

Because I have a really bad case of soggy bottom.

With your pie?

Yes, with my pie.

Yes, OK.

Thank goodness.

CHERRY HEALEY: According to Dr. Stu,

there are five scientific golden rules to help

you swerve the sogginess.

Rule number 1, preheat the oven.

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

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

Most people think that they're preheating the oven.

But they're not really.

They turn it on.

And then as soon as the light goes out,

they put their baking in.

But the light is there for a reason.

The light tells me it's pie time.

It's not true.

But it means that the air temperature

is at the temperature that you've set it at.

But the oven itself, the walls, are still cold.

So leave it on at least 15 minutes so the metal

walls are up to temperature.

You need to get that pastry cooked quickly

if you want it to be crispy.

[light rock music]

CHERRY HEALEY: Rule number 2, maximize

the heat below your pie dish.

STUART FARRIMOND: Another tip for you

for getting the temperature as high as possible

is to use a pizza stone.

CHERRY HEALEY: Why would you put a pizza stone in your oven

if you're making a pie?

If we put in a pizza stone--

or if you haven't got a pizza stone,

just use a heavy metal oven tray.

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

the bottom cook very quickly.

[upbeat music]

CHERRY HEALEY: Rule number 3, choose the right dish.

STUART FARRIMOND: OK, that's your pie dish?

Yes.

It's not great for pies.

Why is it called a pie dish, then?

OK, this is a ceramic-style pie dish.

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

Some of the fats will melt and come out.

And we'll get a soggy bottom.

CHERRY HEALEY: If that isn't good for a pie, what is?

STUART FARRIMOND: We want to get for metal,

so something like this.

CHERRY HEALEY: You are blowing my mind today.

A metal pie dish?

Why?

STUART FARRIMOND: Because it will heat up quickly.

And also, you want a black dish.

Because if it's silver, it'll reflect some of that heat away.

Another great pie dish is one that

is made out of tempered glass like this one.

And this is great.

Because if you've got your pizza stone or thick oven

tray underneath, then the radiated heat

will pass straight through.

And it will help bake the bottom of the pastry.

And you won't have a soggy bottom.

CHERRY HEALEY: Which pie dish are we going to use today?

STUART FARRIMOND: The black metal pie dish.

[upbeat music]

CHERRY HEALEY: Rule number 4, roll the pastry

to the correct thickness.

How thick do I want my pastry?

Because I have to say I guess every time.

STUART FARRIMOND: Ideally, you want something between three

and five millimeters.

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

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

I've a great little hack for you.

Two 20p's--

CHERRY HEALEY: OK.

STUART FARRIMOND: --on top of each other--

CHERRY HEALEY: OK.

- STUART FARRIMOND: - -will give you

an ideal depth for your pastry.

What a brilliant tip.

[upbeat music]

Has my pastry passed the test?

Your pastry has passed the two 20p test.

Yes.

After lining my dish with pastry,

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

and stick it in the oven, which brings us

to rule number 5, blind baking.

STUART FARRIMOND: So what we're doing

is that we're part cooking the pastry

before we put the filling in.

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

there's a danger that the pastry won't be cooked by the time

that the filling is done.

CHERRY HEALEY: We prick the pastry with a fork

and cover it with greaseproof paper weighed down

with rice, which stops air pockets forming

and the pastry bubbling up.

- Preheated oven. - Great.

In we go.

CHERRY HEALEY: Lovely.

STUART FARRIMOND: Towards the top.

CHERRY HEALEY: 10 minutes near the top of the oven followed

by three to four minutes without the paper and rice

gives us a golden brown base.

STUART FARRIMOND: Oh, look at it.

OK, on the to.

That's lovely.

CHERRY HEALEY: Blind baking partly

cooks the pastry, which stops the gooey pie

filling seeping in.

Lift.

Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

Hey. STUART FARRIMOND: Amazing.

CHERRY HEALEY: Yay.

Look at that.

STUART FARRIMOND: In she goes.

[upbeat music]

CHERRY HEALEY: 30 minutes later, the moment of truth.

Smells good. It looks good.

It smells amazing.

But what we're really here to see

is whether it has a soggy bottom.

STUART FARRIMOND: Yep.

CHERRY HEALEY: Wow.

STUART FARRIMOND: Look at that.

CHERRY HEALEY: My first-ever pie that

doesn't have a soggy bottom.

[upbeat music]

Mhm.

Mhm.

That's a good pie.

CHERRY HEALEY: It is, isn't it?

STUART FARRIMOND: Mhm.

[piano music]

GREGG WALLACE: Back in Stoke on our industrial pie production

line, I've been sent to a high security zone

to collect the next ingredient.

Hey. Khalid?

- Hey-up. - All right, good.

Great.

I've come to get me almonds, right?

I'm meeting mixing bay operative Khalid Hussain.

Why are they in a--

why they in a cage here?

Why are they locked away?

Oh, we keep them separate.

Because it's a nut product.

We don't want it to cause contamination

with anything else.

GREGG WALLACE: Because people have nut allergies, right?

KHALID HUSSAIN: Yeah. GREGG WALLACE: I got you.

I got you.

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

KHALID HUSSAIN: Yeah.

Frangipane, of course, is an almond-flavored cream.

Yeah.

It goes into lots of cakes.

It's one of my favorite flavors in the world, actually.

So how much of that do we need?

KHALID HUSSAIN: Two kilograms.

GREGG WALLACE: Right.

And it's important to be precise, right?

KHALID HUSSAIN: Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: Got our beautiful almonds.

Where do we go now?

KHALID HUSSAIN: From here, they go to the sieve area

to get sieved.

GREGG WALLACE: Our ground almonds

are shaken through a 2.5 millimeter mesh

and passed over a strong magnet to make

sure the batch is clear of any fragments of shell or metal.

[machinery whirring]

KHALID HUSSAIN: That's it.

Now what?

Now we take it to meet the frangipane.

[machinery whirring]

GREGG WALLACE: From the nut room,

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

where Dave Alcock is as nutty as I

am about this fragrant filling.

I've got the shaved almonds.

What's this?

Have you started making the mix without me?

- Yep. - What's in there?

DAVE ALCOCK: Flour, water, fat, sugar, egg--

just waiting for yours now.

Just tip it in, yeah?

DAVE ALCOCK: Yeah.

[machinery whirring]

GREGG WALLACE: Can't have frangipane without almonds,

can you? DAVE ALCOCK: No.

GREGG WALLACE: But there's still more to go in, including

an unexpected ingredient.

So what's this?

Coconut.

GREGG WALLACE: Coconut?

Yeah.

Why coconut?

DAVE ALCOCK: It's like the almonds--

for the texture and the flavor.

GREGG WALLACE: Coconut also helps thicken up our mix.

DAVE ALCOCK: Now there's just the flavor to go in.

Almond essence?

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: I've got almond essence at home in

a little glass jar like that.

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

DAVE ALCOCK: Yeah.

What, all of that?

Yeah, all that.

GREGG WALLACE: 655 grams will flavor

all 148 kilograms of mix.

- Strong, ain't it? - Yeah.

But it's beautiful.

I could spoon that out now.

[machinery whirring]

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

[piano music]

A quick 60-second blast transforms it

into a smooth paste.

[machinery whirring]

Now the challenge is getting it from this big tub

to our little tarts.

Hang on a minute.

Hang on a minute.

Hang on a minute.

So what is that?

Is that going to go through the floor?

Yeah, it's a delivery pipe down to the hoppers

underneath on the line.

GREGG WALLACE: Just through a hole in the floor?

DAVE ALCOCK: Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: How do you know it's in the right place?

DAVE ALCOCK: Look.

[inaudible]

You literally have a look?

It doesn't clamp in place?

No.

So if we start pouring and we move that,

we are going to have an almighty mess?

DAVE ALCOCK: Yeah.

If you just want to slowly open the valve--

GREGG WALLACE: I'm a bit nervous.

That'll do.

Whoa, ho, ho, ho.

Whoa.

[laughing]

Our gloopy almond mix flows down a pipe

and into a hopper on the main production line.

[piano music]

[machinery whirring]

One hour, 34 minutes in and I'm following my filling

downstairs to catch up with Mark.

Mark.

Hi, Gregg.

That's my frangipane.

MARK BURNETT: That's right.

GREGG WALLACE: That goes into there.

And then it comes through these pipes.

How many of them?

MARK BURNETT: 15.

GREGG WALLACE: And it squeezes just the right small amount

into each tart?

MARK BURNETT: Yes.

How much frangipane into each of these tarts?

MARK BURNETT: Nine grams.

GREGG WALLACE: And that batch that I made upstairs,

how long will that last?

MARK BURNETT: 20 minutes.

Just 20 minutes?

20 minutes.

GREGG WALLACE: Now our cherry Bakewells

have their pastry case, jam layer, and frangipane filling.

It's time to step things up a bit

on this strange-looking contraption.

[machinery whirring]

[upbeat music]

Right, what's happening here?

They seem to be lifted up row by row.

MARK BURNETT: It's a Franklin transfer system.

[machinery whirring]

GREGG WALLACE: This complex system of cogs and levers

is doing a very simple job--

transferring our tarts from one conveyor belt to another.

[machinery whirring]

That's got to be the oven, right?

That's right.

That's going into baking?

Yeah.

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

Not at this stage-- not pre-bake.

Because that's because the icing and the cherry

doesn't need cooking, right?

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

things are hotting up for our pastry cases.

Why is it so long?

It's to enable us to bake the product as quickly as we

do and as thoroughly as we do.

GREGG WALLACE: Inside, our tarts head through a series

of different heat zones.

MARK BURNETT: They regulate for 195 degrees

in the first burner, going up to 210 for burners 2 and 3,

and back down to 195.

GREGG WALLACE: This variable temperature

baking ensures the pastry cooks evenly

and crisps up on the bottom.

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

It's 8 minutes, 24 seconds.

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

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

Whenever I'm in a factory, it always

amazes me that we must be consuming them as fast

as you're making them.

[upbeat music]

[machinery whirring]

The tarts in the oven wouldn't be the same

without their almond filling.

But where and when did it get that strange name,

"frangipane"?

[lighthearted guitar music]

Ruth headed across the channel to find out.

RUTH GOODMAN: Ah, Paris, home to the Eiffel

Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and, of course, sweet pastries.

If you step into any French patisserie,

the first thing that hits you besides the beautiful array

of cakes and pastries is the smell, a great waft of sugar

and almonds or frangipane.

To discover the origins of this aromatic filling,

I'm meeting French food historian David Downie.

David, nice to see you--

who has brought an unusual gift for me.

Oh, a lovely new pair of red gloves.

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

Now these are perfumed gloves.

- Oh, really? - Yes.

Ooh.

Oh, yeah.

They are perfumed, aren't they?

Yes, and what do they smell like?

They smell of almonds--

They smell of almonds

- -very strongly of almonds.

And they were the rage in the 17th century,

when this square was built.

[classical music]

RUTH GOODMAN: At that time, Paris

was a rather different place.

DAVID DOWNIE: For one thing, the population density was about 20

times what it is today.

RUTH GOODMAN: Wow.

Almost half a million people were crammed into a city

without sewers.

So there was a certain tang to the air.

I believe you say "pong" in your country.

And the nobility who could afford it wore perfumes.

RUTH GOODMAN: Right.

DAVID DOWNIE: They wore it on their clothes,

and specifically on their gloves.

Now here's the recipe for making those gloves from

the royal perfumer, a book.

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

RUTH GOODMAN: Oh, goodness.

So who on Earth was this Frangipani?

DAVID DOWNIE: There is a marshal of France

named Pompeo Frangipani.

[classical music]

RUTH GOODMAN: A favorite of Louis XIII, Pompeo Frangipani

was a perfumer whose name became synonymous with the fashionable

almond fragrance he perfected.

But how does that translate into food?

Legend has it that his maggiordomo, his butler,

took the name of his master and applied

it to this much older recipe for the almond-filled tart.

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

And the pair of them, the gloves and the tart,

have a similar smell.

Smells like frangipane.

A fashionable scent becomes a fashionable flavor?

Absolutely.

[light rock music]

GREGG WALLACE: Almost three hours in, our cherry Bakewells

are looking suitably regal.

8 and 1/2 minutes in the oven has firmed up the frangipane

and crisped up the pastry.

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

Before we can allow them to continue their journey,

we need to check they're fully cooked.

So with a hand-held temperature probe--

and what we're looking to achieve at this point

is a temperature of a minimum of 95 degrees.

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

that the cherry Bakewells are food safe, that the baking

profile has been achieved.

The next part of the bake check is to ensure

that there is no soggy bottom.

Yeah, that's what I want to see.

MARK BURNETT: OK. GREGG WALLACE: Come on, then.

[machinery whirring]

That has not stuck to the tin like I thought it would.

MARK BURNETT: No.

GREGG WALLACE: And that is a perfectly dry,

cooked all the way through tart bottom.

- MARK BURNETT: Yeah. - Come on.

OK.

I'm going to nibble this if you're not looking.

[chuckling]

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

As they saunter along 22 and 1/2 meters of conveyors,

their temperature gradually drops from 75

degrees Celsius down to 45.

This ensures the pastry hardens without cracking.

Come on.

I know you see this every day.

Tell me you're not impressed by this.

That's fantastic.

MARK BURNETT: No, it's good.

GREGG WALLACE: The conveyor then passes

through this big yellow fridge, where our tarts enjoy

a six-minute blast of cool air.

When they emerge, they're at a comfortable handling

temperature, ready for another step class.

[upbeat music]

[machinery whirring]

They drop six at a time into the trays

that they'll leave the factory in.

[machinery whirring]

I can't believe that you actually bake the whole thing

in its tin and I can't believe you put the icing on

once it's in the plastic.

Don't tell me.

You put the cherry on once you got it inside the box.

MARK BURNETT: We're not that good.

[machinery whirring]

GREGG WALLACE: These tarts are still

a little underdressed for the outside world.

So I'm heading to the factory's icing

room to sort out their topping.

I'm meeting icing technician John Harding.

- OK, Gregg? - Hi.

John?

Morning.

Right, we're making icing, right?

Fondant icing, yeah.

Where do we make that?

JOHN HARDING: We're going to use this machine today.

GREGG WALLACE: Right, OK, that great, big witch's cauldron.

Does that open up?

Yes.

I'll show you.

GREGG WALLACE: And I thought I had a big mixer at home.

This one's 1,000 liters.

JOHN HARDING: Yeah, take the hose into there.

GREGG WALLACE: We're mixing up a batch of

luxurious, soft fondant icing.

And the first ingredient is 96 kilos of glucose syrup.

Will this automatically stop when it's had enough?

No, no.

You turn it off same as you turn it on.

How many cherry Bakewells will this icing mix cover?

So it'll probably last the plant

around about one hour, 30.

And it will cover 64,000 cakes.

GREGG WALLACE: Why is this not done automatically?

Because if you take your eye off the ball,

you're going to mess it up.

JOHN HARDING: Well, you don't take your eye off the ball.

94, 95, 96.

JOHN HARDING: That'll do.

GREGG WALLACE: How long you been icing cherry Bakewells, John?

42 years.

42 years?

JOHN HARDING: 42 years.

Has the recipe changed in that time?

No.

The size of the mix, yes.

The mix itself, no.

What do you like about working here?

It's a challenge every day to make

sure that they don't run out.

As quick as they make cakes--

They want it.

We've got to make it.

You pride yourself in always giving them the icing.

Correct.

You are the icing on the cake.

That's the one.

[chuckling]

GREGG WALLACE: Liquid ingredients

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

JOHN HARDING: So what we need to do now--

take this.

And tap on that pipe above you, the metal part,

so that it will drop now with the sugar into the bowl.

He's waiting for me to tap it?

Yes.

All this million pounds' worth of industry and I've

got to get the sugar by tapping on a pipe?

That's the most important tool of all.

What's your normal tap?

JOHN HARDING: It's two taps.

That's the one.

[upbeat music]

Here's your sugar now, 432 kilos.

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

Hey.

There we go.

He's knocked on there to tell you that it's all in.

I only did two knocks.

He's playing a tune.

[upbeat music]

OK, we start the machine.

GREGG WALLACE: It simmers in this heated mixer

for 20 minutes, reducing down and thickening up.

Once it's cooled, we add another ingredient.

JOHN HARDING: This is egg white, sugar mixed

up into a marshmallow product.

That's like a meringue mix.

Yes.

GREGG WALLACE: This will help our icing set

and make it shiny.

Yeah, hey.

Our next ingredient is also upstairs.

JOHN HARDING: That'll do.

This will be condensed milk.

GREGG WALLACE: Condensed milk? JOHN HARDING: Condensed milk.

GREGG WALLACE: What, like you get in a tin?

JOHN HARDING: Exactly.

That'll give you your texture, taste.

And when you're eating it, it tastes quite creamy.

Yeah, so that's why we have that.

GREGG WALLACE: Creamy and rich.

JOHN HARDING: Yes.

[classical music]

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

JOHN HARDING: And we're going to tip it out.

And if you can stand here, I'll give you that.

Do I need to be scared of this, John?

There's quite a lot of topping coming out.

[classical music]

Oh, ho, ho, ho.

Look at that.

[machinery whirring]

[laughing]

JOHN HARDING: Now work the scraper.

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

What, here?

JOHN HARDING: All the way on the edge, on the edge.

This is a good job.

I like it.

This is a great job.

[machinery whirring]

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

I'm hooking my 841 kilos of sweet fondant

icing up to a delivery tank.

Because Mark is waiting for it on the main production line.

- Hello again, mate. - Hiya, Gregg.

You all right?

Hey, my beautiful icing.

The way that's going on there and not

dripping over the pastry must be the same principle as the jam.

MARK BURNETT: Yes, it's exactly the same.

GREGG WALLACE: Eh, I'm learning.

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

MARK BURNETT: That's right.

GREGG WALLACE: And it stops anything

dripping over the side?

These precision dollopers are dishing out

13 grams of my precious icing onto each tart.

What happens if, say, one batch of the frangipane

hasn't risen as much as it normally does?

Then your icing won't go to the top of the top.

No, that's right.

What we would end up having to do

is put more of the fondant icing in to achieve

the correct fill level.

GREGG WALLACE: Just by turning it up a little bit like a tap?

Is that right?

MARK BURNETT: That's right, yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: Well, that's all right.

That's not an issue, is it?

MARK BURNETT: The fondant icing is the most expensive

bit of the cherry Bakewell.

Is it?

It is.

GREGG WALLACE: No need to turn the tap up today as we've

got our proportions spot-on.

Stage 1 of their beautification complete, the cheeky final

touch is the cherry on top.

[tango music]

Kirsty, cherries, yeah?

Yes, cherries.

Can I help?

Of course you can.

GREGG WALLACE: Then they give it a once-over by cherry checker

Kirsty Meakin.

What have I got to do?

KIRSTY MEAKIN: You basically-- we have to sort through them.

We have to take the bad ones out.

Tip it there.

And they'll come out out-- GREGG WALLACE: Hang on.

Hang on. It's too fast.

Can we slow the machine down?

No.

GREGG WALLACE: But I'm going to miss bits.

KIRSTY MEAKIN: I'm sure you won't--

I will.

- -if you've got an eagle eye.

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

a quarter of a cherry.

And they're going to think I'm responsible.

I'm sure they won't.

What happens to the cherries we're discarding?

They go upstairs to go in the flapjack.

GREGG WALLACE: Right, they don't get thrown away?

KIRSTY MEAKIN: No. No waste.

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

cherries you go through here?

260 tons a year.

I wouldn't have imagined there were that many cherries

in the world.

I know.

[chuckling]

You'd be surprised.

[upbeat music]

GREGG WALLACE: Hey, I've got cherries.

Can I put them down?

They're heavy.

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

They're not wearing any gloves.

MARK BURNETT: No.

That's right, Gregg.

You washed your hands?

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

MARK BURNETT: All our staff regularly wash their hands.

GREGG WALLACE: Now I want to get stuck in.

And Sue Lawton is showing me how.

SUE LAWTON: Get a handful of cherries.

Go all the way along.

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

GREGG WALLACE: Yeah.

Surely you can get a machine to do this, right?

SUE LAWTON: No.

They haven't found a machine yet that'd be able to put

the cherries on the right way around

with them being half cherries.

GREGG WALLACE: Oh, I see.

You've got a massively quick technique.

You're kind of like a double hander.

I don't do it like the others do it.

I prefer doing it my way.

GREGG WALLACE: How long have you been

on here doing the cherries?

About 13 years now.

13?

Since you were 12?

I wish.

GREGG WALLACE: How long you been here?

12 years.

12 years?

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: Do you like it?

I love it.

GREGG WALLACE: Why?

It's good fun--

nice people, easy job.

GREGG WALLACE: Is there a song you sing to go with it?

[upbeat music]

[machinery whirring]

There's certainly something to sing about.

All my Bakewells baked well.

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

since our flour delivery.

Our completed cherry Bakewells take one final journey

towards the packing area on an elevated conveyor high

up in the factory's rafters.

Mark, that's quite a long walk.

Why do those cherry Bakewells have to travel so far?

The layout of the factory and the distance

that we walked actually enables us to ensure

that the topping is set.

GREGG WALLACE: That's why it travels so far, just

to give the icing time to set?

MARK BURNETT: It helps us with that, yeah.

[upbeat music]

GREGG WALLACE: After their 70-meter stroll,

our tarts have arrived at the packing department, where

we're picking up the pace.

[machinery whirring]

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

Now the tarts slide into their red boxes

and then into cardboard cases 10 at a time--

[lighthearted music]

[machinery whirring]

- -before racing to the distribution

area, where I'm meeting factory manager Steve Morton.

Are they my cherry Bakewells?

They are.

GREGG WALLACE: Right, is that truck going to be

completely full of my tarts?

STEVE MORTON: Full of cherry Bakewell by the end of the day.

GREGG WALLACE: How many pallets on there?

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

GREGG WALLACE: How many cases?

How many boxes?

STEVE MORTON: That'll be 4,200 boxes.

I don't suppose you know how many

individual cherry Bakewells?

265,000 individual cherry Bakewells.

265,000?

Yes.

[light rock music]

GREGG WALLACE: That's today's quota and more.

It's taken a touch under four hours

to make our cherry Bakewells.

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

From this factory, they head as far afield as Spain

and even Australia while back in the UK,

Northerners are the keenest consumers, closely

followed by Southerners.

[light rock music]

I've met some great people here.

I mean, this is a very big factory,

full of high-tech equipment.

But what surprised me is, they bake the pastry

inside the tinfoil case.

And they put the icing on when it's in the tray.

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

[upbeat rock music]