Food and drink May 2011
Ready for my close up
A Food & Drink feature (May 2011)
It seems television programmes are a lot like London buses – nothing for ages then 2 show up at once.
After David headed up to London last month to judge on “Perfect”, ITV’s Countrywise Kitchen came to the South Hams for 4 days’ filming including a day here at the cookery school.
The team wanted to focus on a variety of food producers in South Devon so they had a day crabbing in Salcombe, a day at the vineyard and dairy in Sharpham, a day at a beef farm in Wembury and a day with us baking the traditional Devon split.
Not wanting to teach you how to suck eggs but for you incomers, the split is our West Country precursor to the scone and also known as the Chudleigh, Tuff, Ashburton and the Cut Round. As it’s yeasted, it takes longer to produce than the scone but most of that time is spent waiting for the dough to rise. It is, however, definitely worth the wait – creamy, light and puffy, a perfect foil to lots of clotted cream and homemade jam.
As you may know, David is Manna from Devon’s resident bread expert but as they already had 3 male presenters for that edition, the producer asked if I would present the piece. Consequently I had a crash course in the ins and outs of bread making and hoped fervently I’d be able to wing it. David has spent over 5 years developing his skills so the 5 hours the night before for my education was always going to be a close call. My favourite advice of the moment came to mind – “Keep calm and carry on”…..
Our day with Countrywise started with a phone call from the assistant producer asking if we could rearrange the shoot. The previous 2 days had been dreadful weather and they hadn’t filmed any outside shots at Sharpham or even managed to get out in the boat in Salcombe. Our answer had to be a definite “no” as we had a full week of courses lined up afterwards so they arrived sharpish at 8.30am having spent the previous night at the Royal Castle.
It took the next hour or so to unpack the bags, set up the lighting, have a look round, have a cup of tea and talk through the day. Quite a lot of time was spent getting my microphone in place and I fortunately managed to remember the wise words from Steve the sound man – “Make sure you take it off before you go to the loo”.
To save time, we had prepared 4 batches of dough, each at different stages of rising so we wouldn’t have to wait too long to film the process. Even so, filming went on for what seemed like forever as they had to take a photo of every piece of equipment used so we would know what to reshoot later for the close-ups. When they say it’s all done with smoke and mirrors, it really seems like it is.
From what I remember, there was lots of chat about bread making, the food of the South Hams and living in Dartmouth; lots of smiling but not for the camera; lots of gazing at the view from our deck and from the top of Ridley Hill; and the rent-a-mob foodies from the Kingswomen who pretended to be wood fired oven students for an hour or so – in exchange for a glass of Prosecco.
Soon enough though it was all over and they had rushed off to Sharpham to get some shots of the views that they hadn’t even seen the day before. Our kitchen was put back in place and the pile of Devon splits – about which I am now an expert – was taken to the Flavel Centre the next day for the By The Dart internet marketing seminar. Piled high with some Langage Farm clotted cream and strawberry jam from the Kitchen Garden, they were good enough to eat and much better than a scone.
If you want to see the finished programme, Countrywise Kitchen will be out in mid-July. It’s a question of don’t blink or you’ll miss it – the 8 hours of filming will be cut down to 3 minutes. In the meantime, you can try out the Devon splits for yourself with this recipe. It makes the most delicious splits – I know; I made them 4 times.
Devon Splits (as pictured above)
Makes 8-10
• 450g plain flour
• ½ tsp salt
• 30g fresh yeast or 15g dried yeast
• 1tbsp caster sugar
• 30g butter
• 285-300ml milk
• a little extra flour for kneading
• 200c 15 – 20 mins
1
Heat the oven to 200C/Gas 6.
2
Rub the butter into the flour and stir in the salt. Crumble in the yeast and add the milk.
3
Mix together and knead on a board until smooth. Place into a bowl and leave to rise in a warm place covered with a plastic bag or tea towel until doubled in size.
4
Turn the dough out on to a work surface and knead lightly. Roll it out to about 2cm deep.
5
Cut into rounds with a 5cm pastry-cutter and place on a floured baking sheet. Cover and leave to rise again until puffy, then bake for about 15 mins until golden brown.
6
Cool and cut in half, putting the cream on first, then the jam (of course).
First published May 2011 By the Dart