I'm Prue Leith-- cook, caterer, restaurateur, cookery school founder, and writer of 16 cookbooks.

Prue: This looks so delicious.

I'm absolutely dribbling.

Prue, voice-over: I'm in my 80s, so I haven't got time to waste.

This series is all about the things that really matter to me-- family, fun, food, and friends.

Ha ha!

I've got to let it out when I can.

♪ Ah da da da ta da ♪ Prue, voice-over: We'll be sharing simple home-cooked recipes... Oh, I did it.

And what does that do?

Well, unfortunately, it's not quite doing it.

Ha ha ha!

Prue, voice-over: and celebrating the best produce.

I'm lucky enough to live in the astonishingly beautiful Cotswolds with my long-suffering husband John, and now he's agreed to join me in the kitchen, too.

[Pop] Ooh!

♪ Prue, voice-over: In today's episode... Can I put it in here?

It seems safer.

Yes, you do.

Prue, voice-over: John has pressing business with our homegrown apples... John: That's going to be a real treat.

Ruby wax brings her irrepressible spirit and reluctant cooking skills to my kitchen... Ruby: Can I try that?

Yeah.

Ooh, I did it.

I'm really impressed.

and I have a surprising hack for turning leftover jam into cocktails.

And you really have to shake it a lot.

Delicious.

Welcome to my Cotswold kitchen.

♪ I might now live in the Cotswolds, but I love to bring a bit of France to the table where I can.

It's where I fell in love with the cuisine and where I decided to make food my future.

Today we're making a pud that is so simple and easy, you won't believe it, but it's somehow sophisticated and French and has a bit of ou la la... we hope.

It's called a clafouti, clafouti.

And if you can make a Yorkshire pud, you can make this.

♪ A classic clafouti is made with cherries.

But we have so many plums at the moment in the orchard that my beloved John has been nagging me about them, so I thought we'd use a few for this.

And I think John will be quite pleased to see that at least I'm trying to get rid of some of the plums in the orchard.

But the truth is we have far too many of them.

And what I end up doing because I run out of time is I just shove them in a big plastic bag and put them raw and whole in the freezer.

And then when I have the time, I turn them all into jam.

Cut the plums in half and remove the stones.

The trick is you cut them where the sort of dent is and then twist.

Butter a pan.

Just grease it a little bit, and then you fill it up with fruit just dotted all around.

I first ate clafouti when I was in France as a student.

♪ I'd actually gone to France to take a course at the Sorbonne University, which was going to qualify me to be a translator at the United Nations or something.

And so I was headed for this sort of academic degree, but I fell in love with food, and it was eating things like clafouti that did it.

And I decided to be a cook instead.

Put all the batter ingredients into a liquidizer.

Add a teaspoon of vanilla, 50 mils of double cream, three eggs, 100 grams of caster sugar, 250 mils of whole milk, and 60 grams of plain flour.

Then you whizz them all up together.

[Whirs] You just pour it.

Pour over your plums very carefully.

Otherwise you'll float them, and they float about and spoil your pattern.

Don't worry if you sink your plums, because with any luck, they'll pop up at the end and you will see them again.

Put the clafouti in the oven at 180 degrees for about 30 to 35 minutes.

While the plum clafouti is in the oven, I want to show you another version of it, but we're going to use dried apricots.

It's really useful because you often have dried apricots in the store cupboard, so you can make a quite quick pudding if you want to.

Ideally, the dried apricots, you can either buy those very squashy, ready-to-eat ones, in which case you can just put them straight in.

Or you, if you've got harder dried apricots, you need to plump them up.

And I prefer that because then you can get some booze into them.

So what you do is you put the dried apricots in a saucepan in an even layer like that, and then you put a bit of booze in there.

In this case, I've used amaretto just because I've got it.

I mean, it could be brandy or any liqueur you happen to have in the back of the cupboard, and a little bit of sugar.

This is actually icing sugar.

But again, any sugar will do.

And then you need to add just enough water to just about cover them.

Bring the apricots to a simmer, and they should plump up beautifully.

I love this version of a clafouti because dried apricots don't cost much money.

The rest of the batter ingredients don't cost much money either.

And it's quite quick and easy to do, and it seems so special.

And it's delicious!

Place the plumped apricots into a buttered pan and cover them with the batter.

That goes into a preheated 180-degree oven for about half an hour, and it'll come out looking fantastic...I hope.

♪ But now, the great thing to remember, if you're serving anything in a pan like this and not taking it out, or you're doing anything with it and you've just cooked it in the oven, the handle will be blazing hot.

So for goodness' sake, cover up the handle so that you don't forget and touch it.

So I'm just gonna leave that like that.

You know how I said, if you make Yorkshire pudding, you can make this.

I mean, it's basically a sweet Yorkshire pudding.

And it has that sort of dips and dales of Yorkshire, so that's how it's meant to be.

It always rises more around the edge, and it should rise a bit in the middle.

And it's puffy and delicious, and it's lovely warm.

It's better warm than cold.

And that will serve six people, and it would cost less than £4.00.

Obviously, if you put a lot of double cream on it and lace the double cream with amaretto, it'll cost a little more.

Ha!

But it's just delicious as it is.

So just before you cool it, when it's still hot but not blazing, put a bit of icing sugar on the top.

And then we'll have a bit.

It's very light and fluffy.

A blob of clotted cream.

Breakfast.

I don't mean that, but I could eat it anytime.

And historically, people did.

In France, this is a traditional breakfast or brunch.

I mean, it's the sort of family Sunday lunch pudding that is always popular and absolutely delicious on Sundays.

Mmm.

Just heaven.

And it's so simple, but it's light.

And, well, you know what Yorkshire pudding is like.

It's like good Yorkshire pudding, only it's sweet.

I just want to get the other one out, oh, with the apricots.

Whoops.

The apricots are rather buried in this one.

They don't seem to have risen to the top.

Clafouti means "to fill," and it's certainly done that.

So there we have a plum clafouti and an apricot clafouti.

Oh, it's delicious, really good.

Bon appétit.

Coming up, I'll show you a handy hack to cut down the cooking time of your chicken... If you're roasting it, you can take 30 minutes off the roasting time.

Prue, voice-over: ...and my dear friend Ruby Wax joins me in the kitchen.

Now I see why you have your own show.

[Laughter] ♪ Prue: The kitchen is definitely the heart of my home.

I spend hours in here, whether it's prepping for dinner or messing about, turning leftovers into gastronomy.

And I'm all about making the complicated simple.

So here's an easy hack to get food on your plate a whole lot faster.

I'd like to show you how to spatchcock a chicken.

♪ Spatchcocking a chicken simply means removing its backbone so that you can open it out flat, and that means you can cook it in half the time.

If you're roasting it, you can take you 30 minutes off the roasting time, sometimes even more.

And it's great on the barbecue.

Take a knife and just cut right down next to the backbone.

When you get to this nice lumpy bit, try to stay on the inside of it so that when you open it up, that piece will stay on the leg, because that's the best bit of the whole chicken.

It's called the oyster.

So you're going to go down like that.

And down this side.

Same thing.

I'm going to stay round the oyster.

Using kitchen shears, chop down each side of the backbone... ♪ and remove the bone.

Going in there to make chicken stock with.

Now, when you turn it over, you, in order to flatten it nicely, you have to just press down on the breastbone, and it should make a nice crack.

[Crack] Cut off the excess skin and chop off the wings... and also the drumstick ends.

You have to be a bit rough.

And then you have this nice-looking chicken.

You can put it in a marinade, leave it overnight, roast it the next day, or just brush it with some lemon and butter and grill it.

Lovely.

♪ John and I are mighty sociable.

We like nothing more than hearing the house noisy with laughter, whether it's a visit from the grandchildren or an old friend.

My guest today is a household name.

She is an actress, a comedian, an academic.

She has an OBE for services to mental health, and she's just an amazing woman.

She is the one and only Ruby Wax.

Hello, darling.

How are you?

Hello.

Nice to see you... Prue, voice-over: Yes.

That's right.

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that Ruby is wearing a pair of my glasses.

Always the comedian.

Prue: You are an angel to come.

So, are you a cook?

Not at all.

But I'm a pointer, so that's a good thing.

Oh, you're going to say "Do that.

Do that."

Well, I'll say--you know, I won't be doing.

I could chop, but that's about it.

I'm sure you can.

So what are we cooking?

We're cooking Asian beef and tofu salad.

Is that a challenge?

Uh, you know what?

The lovely thing about those sort of recipes is they seem very complicated because people are put off when they see a recipe with dozens of ingredients.

But the point about an Asian salad, it's just a lot of chopping, and it is a lot of ingredients, but it's not complicated to do.

And when you've done it, it's so pretty and it tastes so great.

♪ Shall we start with the veg... Yeah.

and chop all that?

Somebody has kindly already chopped up the peppers, so... OK.

So that just goes in here?

Yeah, that just goes in there.

OK, I can do that.

So if you just get the pith out.

Well, you're doing that.

I'm just doing this bit.

All right.

OK.

And then you slice it all up like that.

Oh.

Like that.

OK.

And then... This is the first.

Chuck it in there.

Yep.

And I will, um... I'm gonna grate the carrot.

See, I just don't have time for doing this in my life.

But it's really--you know, you're deep into mindfulness, aren't you?

Yeah.

And you're always... worrying about people's mental health.

Well, my recommendation for mental health is cooking.

I've heard that before.

I think it's so relaxing.

You have what I would call a healthy mind and body.

That's very good.

OK.

Now, all of that can go in there.

OK.

I'm the shoveler.

Then the next thing we're going to do is the onion.

Oh, no, I'm not doing the onion.

All right.

I'll do the onion.

All right.

The trick about chopping an onion... Is?

is... to take the outer skin off.

Take the pointy tip off but leave the root there, because the root is what's going to hold it all together.

But what makes you cry?

What makes you cry is the molecules of onion that get in your eye.

But if you do start crying, if you eat something... Oh, really?

put something in your mouth, you can't salivate and cry at the same time.

Prue, you're so good at this.

You're so good at this.

Who knew?

So... Put anything in your mouth?

Yeah.

Well, anything that'll make your mouth water.

Yes.

All these years... A sweetie.

all these years of weeping over an onion.

OK, so we're gonna have a sliced onion.

We sometimes put chopped onion, but I like--red onion is so mild, I think it can be eaten... Yeah.

in big chunks, raw.

OK.

You can chop this.

All right.

Oh, like this?

Yeah.

Just bang it out.

OK.

Ruby is chopping up the Chinese leaves.

I've got bean shoots here.

So, in they go.

Chop a red chili using as much or as little as you like.

Ruby: Oh, that's very good.

Just that much.

Now I see why you have your own show.

[Laughs] Prue, voice-over: Roughly chop some coriander and mint.

Once all the vegetables are chopped, fry the steak in a tablespoon of oil.

I'm using 250 grams of beef fillet, but you can use any cut you like.

Prue: When the pan is really hot, you put the steak in there... [Steak sizzling] Ooh.

push it down.

And then we need a bit of salt... a bit of pepper.

You make this easy.

I guess that's what you're doing for a living.

You know what?

It's easy because I love it.

People often say to me, "Oh, you don't want to cook.

You've been working all week," though, actually, that is what I want to do.

I love to cook, so I still love cooking.

You're so different from me.

By the time I'm finished with you, you're going to finish cooking that steak.

I'm going to be in that pan.

You're going to finish that--doing that steak.

Right.

Let's make the dressing.

Combine sriracha sauce... oil, lime juice, soy sauce, sugar, fish sauce, and rice wine vinegar.

And give it a good stir.

But the best salad tossers are your fingers.

Really?

And when you have dinner parties, you just go...?

I do it before they come, so they don't know.

But you know what, the French have an expression about If somebody is really innocent.

They say, "Elle tourne la salade avec les doigts," which means "she turns the salad with her fingers."

It means she's a virgin.

Oh, no.

Really?

She is so innocent and virginly that it's perfectly all right for her to turn the salad... Oh, how funny.

Because she's pure as the driven snow.

So that's a way to tell if somebody's-- If somebody says... Prue, I didn't know you were a virgin.

Ell tourne la... [Laughs] Who knew?

Yeah.

Exactly.

But the fact is fingers work best.

OK.

Prue, voice-over: Sear the steak on both sides, then keep cooking gently for 4 to 7 minutes, depending on how you like it, then leave it to cool before thinly slicing it, cutting it against the grain.

Prue: Do you see it's evenly pink all over now because we let it rest?

Oh, that's why.

That's why.

See, my husband would have made it into lederhosen.

[Laughter] He just doesn't know how to do meat.

Now, I'm too mean to ever throw the juices away from any kind of roast.

In this case, they go into the dressing.

♪ When did we meet?

I don't know.

No, I don't know.

But we fell in love pretty quickly.

We did, we did.

I think that what is extraordinary about you is that you are many Ruby Waxes.

People said, "Oh, you're so pushy.

You're so American."

And so I became that kind of person.

And that's why my career only lasted 25 years.

[Laughs] There's something magnetic about you, even when you're doing your full eyes and teeth.

Am I doing that now?

No.

Not at all.

OK.

Not at all.

Eyes and teeth American, full on, it's still so watchable.

I wish I played it more straight.

Now, there was a period when you were a serious actress working at the RSC.

I'm not saying you're not serious now.

No, I was not a good actress.

No, you were a good actress.

I wasn't.

You don't stay with the Royal Shakespeare Company for five years if you're a bad actress.

But I started writing my own shows, and Alan Rickman directed them.

And so they thought my shows were so interesting that they kept me on but started to wean me off the Shakespeare, and I did my own shows.

Well, obviously, people wanted to watch you.

So I started talking about mental health... Yeah.

many years ago and did shows.

I think I was the first where I said, "Here's what's going on," but I made it funny because otherwise it's called whining.

Because I spoke out loud, then people started-- people who weren't in, you know, who didn't have illnesses-- started saying, I want to talk, I want to be heard."

So I created Frazzled Cafe, which is my charity, where I run it every two weeks, people come online and they speak from the heart, and they don't--we don't talk about politics, and this isn't therapy, but it's a community where people feel free enough to say, "I'm not fine.

"This is what's going on in my life.

This is what's happening."

They haven't got a mental illness.

They're just frazzled.

And so as soon as you speak, you see people going... [Heavy sigh] "I'm not the only one."

I think that's really interesting.

That's my baby.

Ruby, I think you're absolutely brilliant.

Thank you.

A love fest.

I'm gonna pay homage to you again, OK... You know, they really suits you.

You should have big glasses.

Should I?

- Prue Leith has been a beloved judge on The Great British Baking Show since 2017.

And now Prue returns to PBS with a second season of her warm, funny and informative series, Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen.

You can stream both seasons That's 20 episodes with PBS passport.

It's our most popular member benefit, and you can take advantage of it today by making a qualifying contribution to your PBS station.

Give now by scanning the QR code or visiting the website on your screen.

- That's enough.

Come up.

Stop Don't turn it off first.

Otherwise... pssshh - Since Julia Child first aired in the 1960s, PBS has been your home for cooking and how two shows, science programs and documentaries so you can learn how to make a new dish, fix up your home, understand our world, be an informed citizen, and more And that's been made possible.

Thanks to viewer support.

You can continue this tradition by making a contribution to your local PBS Station by scanning the QR code or going to the website on your screen.

Don't forget that you can stream all twenty episodes of Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen with PBS Passport.

One of our terrific member benefits.

PBS Passport programs are available for you to enjoy on both the PBS app and online, and along with Prue's new series you'll be able to stream so many of your PBS favorites like All Creatures Great and Small, Antiques Roadshow cooking and how TV shows, and so much more.

Hi, I'm Prue Leith and welcome to my Cotswold Kitchen.

Join our culinary adventure only here exclusively on PBS.

Take it from Prue and join this culinary adventure by giving to your local PBS station right now.

Just scan the QR code or go to the on screen website to make your contribution.

Thank you.

♪ Prue, voice-over: This salad is really versatile.

Here's a delicious vegetarian option using tofu.

Tofu is a bean curd made from soya that is packed with protein and takes up flavor really well.

I've dusted it in 1/2 a teaspoon of chili powder, 3 tablespoons of plain flour and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Fry it for a few minutes in a little oil until golden brown and crispy.

I think it's rather good to have what the French call a salade tiède.

Basically, it's a cold salad with warm ingredients or hot ingredients tossed on top.

Ruby: I love this.

Come on.

I love that you're cooking for me.

The tofu is not crisp yet.

I love that, that you can do that.

Can I try that?

Yeah.

Come on.

No, what if it falls on the floor?

Well, it won't be the first time.

Then we'll start over again.

We have a very clean floor.

OK.

What do you do?

What's the secret?

Let me tell you the trick, is to hold it that way so that it can... OK.

All right.

I always wanted to do this.

Ooh, I did it.

You did it.

Let me try it again.

I'm getting-- You're getting a bit too brave.

Only one.

Only one.

That's OK.

Only one.

I'm really impressed.

I mean, I have taught lots of students to do that.

Really?

And I've never known a student who didn't, on the first attempt, throw it everywhere.

I think that's crisp enough.

So now we want to put the dressing in.

Prue, voice-over: Dress the salad and give it a good mix before tipping the hot tofu on top... Oh, now the nuts.

A few nuts.

Why not?

Why not all of them?

And this?

Some sesame seeds.

Oh, nice.

Prue, voice-over: Squeeze in some lime juice.

Add the beef to the salad and serve.

♪ Mmm.

Fantastic.

Really nice.

It's really good.

It's really good.

It was worth coming on, and for you.

I loved doing it.

Ruby, you are a delight.

♪ Prue: Still to come, John makes the most of our homegrown apples... Probably a hundred varieties of apple in here.

167.

167.

...and I'll show you a hack to make the perfect cocktail from leftover jam.

Everybody has jam in their cupboard.

[Rattling] ♪ When we first came here, I was determined that we would grow heritage apples and pears.

And it turned out to be much more difficult than I could have imagined.

But John has found a way of turning all our apples-- good, bad, and indifferent-- into liquid gold.

♪ Prue: Tim is a local farmer and friend of my husband John, who every year helps John harvest his apples and get them juiced.

John: What's the yield this year, do you reckon?

Tim: I reckon this year, we'll take away 250 kilos of very usable fruit.

And I think from memory, last year we went home with less than half of that.

I feel we left here last year with about 100 kilos of fruit.

And we got about what, 36 bottles?

Yeah, but you got 36 bottles, but I probably hid another 36 or 40 bottles from you and--ha ha-- used them myself.

You got what I would describe as a generous sample... Oh, good.

for allowing us to come and scrump your apples.

Good.

Well, it was delicious and so much better than anything that was in a carton.

Really, really good.

Well, this is what happens, you see, from orchards like this.

From the apples that we have collected today, from these-- whatever there are-- Probably a hundred varieties of apple in here?

167.

167 varieties of apple in here, we will probably make 3 or 4 different batches of juice.

So you will have 3 or 4 different batches of flavor, texture, smell and color.

Fantastic!

We will find out how many bottles of juice we can make out of it.

[Indistinct conversations] John: Morning, Richard.

Good morning.

Lovely weekend.

What a incredible machine and set-up.

Prue, voice-over: Richard has been pressing apples for private growers for over 15 years, helping to reduce fruit waste and turning apples and other fruits into amazing juices.

Richard: If you think of a community olive press on the Mediterranean, we are the apple equivalent.

Why are so many apples going to waste?

People don't appreciate what they've got in their gardens.

They move into a garden.

There's apple, there's leaves, there's trees.

They don't see it as food.

Unless it comes in plastic, it's not food.

But the key thing is that homegrown apples have approximately 50% more nutritional density than even a commercial apple.

And organic.

And naturally, inherently organic.

Who sprays a homegrown apple?

So their root ball is that much bigger, it gets more nutrition, more enzymes, more minerals.

It's so much better for you.

And beyond that, the range of apples we have in gardens is off the scale.

There are 4,000 varieties of apples in the UK.

Major supermarkets have on average about five different UK varieties.

We've got enough fruit here to keep us going.

Prue, voice-over: Apples are packed with vitamin C and are a natural antioxidant.

And if that's not enough, they're cheap and pretty low in calories.

John: Loads of people are going to suddenly think of the apples in their garden.

Yes.

How do they find out where to get them commercially pressed?

You'll find, though, that our burgeoning numbers of community orchards, which will be getting their own pressing kit, but when you get up to a certain scale-- and we've been going for 16 years-- then you need a scale such as this piece of kit.

This can do three tons a day, which means this year, hopefully, we'll do 100,000 bottles of apple juice that would otherwise go to waste.

Shall we go and watch making them?

Delighted.

Delighted.

Come this way.

OK.

Richard: The apples have been chopped up with the top of a cheese grater.

They go down through the hopper and then onto the belt press.

It's squeezing the juice out and squeezing the juice out.

Right.

It's just a... a mechanical mangle.

Yes, it is.

Prue, voice-over: After being filtered and pasteurized to kill any bacteria for a longer shelf life, the juice is ready for bottling.

Richard: When the juice comes through here, it'll be about 80, 82 degrees.

Nice and hot.

So if you'd put the caps on.

OK.

♪ Can I put it in here?

Seems safer.

Yes, you do.

And actually, they don't sit quite right, so you lay it down.

Lay it down flat.

Lay it down.

OK.

Because what happens then is that the heat in the liquid will sterilize the inside of the cap and the top of the bottle.

Got it.

Prue, voice-over: All that's left to do is to add our personal label.

Here are your homegrown apple juice.

Well, I must say, that's going to be a real treat to take home.

Enjoy.

Enjoy.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll be so healthy.

Ha ha!

Thank you for coming.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

♪ I like it better than last year.

Goody-good.

Prue: That apple juice is delicious.

I love turning our fruit into juice.

You know me.

I don't like anything to go to waste.

And that extends to store cupboard leftovers that can be transformed into a bit of naughtiness.

So today's hack is a strawberry jam daiquiri.

♪ A daiquiri is basically a really great cocktail made with rum and lime juice and some other flavor.

And what we're using today is strawberry jam as a flavor.

Why a jam cocktail?

Because obviously, you could use strawberry puree or strawberry liqueur or anything else, but everybody has jam in their cupboard, and very often, you have lots of little bits of jam stuck in the bottom.

And you know me.

I want to use them up.

So what you do is you take the cocktail shaker and you fill it 2/3 with ice.

If you don't have a cocktail shaker, don't worry.

You could use a large jar with a little screw-top lid.

Add 120 mils of white rum, 4 tablespoons of lime juice, two tablespoons of strawberry jam, and two tablespoons of sugar sirup.

And you really have to shake it a lot.

[Rattling] You'll notice that it sounds a little bit different.

[Softer rattling] It sounds stiffer, and it doesn't sound so rattly.

When the sound changes, you should be done.

If you're using a jar, use a sieve to pour the cocktail through.

♪ And then we're gonna decorate it with a couple of strawberries.

Strawberry jam daiquiri.

I have to have a sip.

Can't wait.

♪ That is so delicious.

♪ John and I are so blessed to live in such a beautiful part of the world.

And we do like loafing around together and soaking up the views.

We might be in the middle of England, but since my husband is a Scot, we're not short of a wee dram of whiskey in this house.

Today's food hero is a distiller just down the road.

[Buzzes] ♪ Nestled in the fields of the Cotswolds, you can find one distillery turning the local barley into whiskey.

Its founder is Dan Szor, an American who developed a deep passion for whiskey after visiting distilleries in Scotland over the years.

Dan Szor: My wife and I had bought a small farm in the Cotswolds, not far from where the distillery is now, and one day, I looked out the window at a neighboring field of barley and I thought to myself, there's local barley here.

Maybe we could be the first to make whiskey here in the Cotswolds.

Prue: Green Farm has been growing barley for over 30 years and has been supplying Dan for over six.

Rob Patchett has worked for the distillery for seven years and is on site today to see how the crop is doing.

We've always been committed to using farms within this region and only in this region.

So the quality of the barley that we get from this farm really does contribute not only to the final product but also the relationship with local farmers, local produce, cutting out the carbon emissions.

Prue: But to turn barley into whiskey needs a whole lot of equipment.

So where to source the right kit for the job?

Dan: The equipment we have here is all made in Scotland, and we are incredibly proud of the fact that we can really have the best stills and distilling equipment here in the Cotswolds.

Prue: It's here that the magic happens.

The grain is mashed, fermented, distilled, and then placed in barrels for three years to mature before being allowed to be called whiskey.

Producing whiskey at volume creates a lot of wastewater, which the distillery are putting to good use.

Dan: We decided to create this wetlands treatment system, which basically involves creating a series of terraced ponds and planting thousands of different plants, so for a very diverse kind of a habitat, along with a whole bunch of willow trees.

Willows--very famous for their ability to absorb moisture, to absorb liquid.

And basically, this series of ponds and this willow coppice altogether will basically absorb 100,000 liters a week of our effluent.

Prue: Overseeing all aspects of the production process is head of whiskey, Alice Pearson, one of the UK's youngest master distillers.

I've been working at the distillery for six years.

I finished my A-levels and just needed a job over the summer.

The distillery was closed to me, so I joined the bottling line as a bottling operative and then after the summer never left.

I think the moment I kind of realized I wanted to distill whiskey was seeing how much more complex the process is.

With whiskey, you only start with barley, water and yeast, and to take those things and turn them into something as exciting as a whiskey is a much more interesting process to me.

Dan: Alice, our distillery manager, had no prior experience whatsoever, and now she's running a pretty significantly-sized distillery and making fantastic whiskey.

Alice: Being a young distillery manager, I think it definitely surprises a lot of people.

But the day to day, you're doing the same as everybody else is.

So it's only really kind of when I get out of the bubble of this distillery that it kind of has any difference to me, really.

♪ Prue: Coming up, John will be joining me in the kitchen... I think that's done.

Do you really?

Come on.

You can see it's brown now.

OK.

Right.

Prue: when we'll be using some of that whiskey.

I'm getting three tastes in one.

It is delicious.

♪ Prue: So now I have my husband John back in the kitchen again, and we're going all Scottish.

You're very proud of your Scottish heritage.

Well, it's all good fun, isn't it?

Well, you do bang on about it, so you must think it's important.

[In Scottish accent] Do I?

Oh, I don't.

[Laughter] Right.

Well, we're going to do a Scottish classic.

[Kran-uh-khen] Cranachan.

Is that how you say it?

Yep.

♪ Cranachan used to be an oatmeal gruel.

It was a sort of porridgey thing made with oatmeal, a bit of cream and some whiskey.

And then gradually it got poshed up.

And now it has double cream and raspberries in it.

It's still very Scottish and delicious.

This is pinhead oatmeal, Pinhead.

It's basically the same as porridge oats, except that it's not-- A different form of grinding, isn't it?

Yes, it is.

It's not flattened.

This is just chopped up.

And we don't chop it up.

It comes like that in the packet.

Put it in a frying pan.

And you have to keep shaking it or moving it around because it, um, when it gets a little browner, what am I trying to do, is toast it, not scorch it.

And I notice it's not on full.

Well, you could do it on full, but you have to be even more careful, Obviously, you are.

Well, now, I'm not doing anything else at the moment, am I, so I can look after this.

So just watch it.

Yeah.

Good.

OK.

And then we're going to make a caramel.

The problem with caramel is that it sometimes crystallizes when you're melting it.

All caramel is is melted sugar.

You stick the sugar in a pan and do much what John is doing there.

Most chefs would just put the sugar on and wait for it to melt.

And that's all a caramel is.

If it begins to get pale caramel-colored, obviously, it begins to get more flavor, and if you leave it there too long, it burns.

It becomes bitter and horrible.

But it does sometimes crystallize, which means that the sugar forms little crystalline lumps around, and then it's impossible.

But there's a really easy way to stop it ever crystallizing.

And that's just put a little bit of anything acid in it-- a bit of vinegar, a bit of lemon juice.

The other trick is to wet the sugar, because if you wet it, it still becomes caramel, but it will dissolve before it starts to brown, and that means it's much less likely to burn.

We don't just share a love of something sweet.

John and I share a common ancestry.

All four of my grandparents were born in Scotland.

One lot--my mother's family were border cattle thieves.

I think they were very lowly, wicked people.

My Leith grandparents were very respectable, from Caithness, which is right at the north of Scotland.

We looked up your genealogy, and in five generations, you never moved more than about 16 miles, which probably explains a lot.

[Laughter] Oh, dear.

I think that's done.

Do you really?

Come on.

You can see it's brown now.

OK.

Right.

All right.

It's browning.

Don't want to do it any more.

And just keep it moving.

It's sort of smoking nicely out.

Stir it a bit... Nothing's sticking.

That's it.

There we are.

Prue, voice-over: Our shared love of Scotland meant that when it came to planning our wedding, there really was only one possible location.

We did get married in Scotland.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You insisted I wore a kilt.

So... Well, that's because we had to get married in Scotland because you refuse to wear a kilt south of the border.

Why?

Why?

Why don't you wear a kilt south... I wear trews south of the border.

Ha ha.

Prue: And then we went for our honeymoon on the Royal Scotsman, which was great because it went on a sort of whiskey tour, and it went from castle to castle, and they all make whiskey, or there are beautiful castles to look at.

We had a lovely time, didn't we?

It was great, very good.

Yeah.

As it gets closer to caramelizing, the bubbles get slower and bigger and then finally turn brown.

And then we're going to mix the caramel with the pinhead oatmeal.

Does that go in there or that go in there?

That goes in there.

OK.

Do you see the bubbles are getting slower and bigger?

And quite soon, they'll go brown.

The great thing with caramel is don't stir it because if I put my spoon in there and stir it, most of it will stick to the spoon, and we don't want that.

OK, I think it's about the right color.

Nice slow bubbles and brown.

Is it sticking to the pan already?

Yeah, it is.

Yeah... Shall I get it a bit out?

Yeah.

And do I keep it moving?

Please.

Turn--Yeah.

You've got to mix it all up.

Good Lord.

So then get it, dear, really stuck together.

And then... you want to get it done before it sets.

Mm!

Prue, voice-over: Once the oats are completely covered, turn them out onto a greaseproof surface.

What we've made here is cracknell or praline.

It's basically just caramel with nuts or, in this case, toasted oatmeal... and then bashed up.

This is going to take a while to cool, so I think we'll use this one.

And John's going to bash it up with a rolling pin.

Try to keep them close and neat.

♪ Yeah.

You're getting there.

Let's just bash the big ones now.

[Pounding] Prue, voice-over: Whilst John releases his stress, I'm going to whip up some double cream.

♪ Now, do you see?

It's just holding its shape.

And that's called soft peak.

It means that it'll make a peak but a very soft one, not a mountainous peak.

We're now going to flavor this.

So we've got some of this whiskey.

So that goes in.

And some honey.

♪ And a little bit of vanilla.

And then you have to just fold them in gently.

You don't want to do it too roughly because you'll over-whip the cream.

So that is really highly flavored double cream.

And the only other ingredient is the raspberries.

So what we're going to do, we put a bit of cranachan on the bottom.

I mean, we order this in restaurants when we're up in Edinburgh, don't we?

Yeah.

Cranachan.

Yeah.

OK.

Any more?

No.

No?

OK.

I'll get it.

A dollop of cream in each, then some raspberries in each.

Shall we say four raspberries?

Prue, voice-over: Add another two layers of praline and cream before topping with raspberries.

What you think?

I think it looks delicious.

It looks nice, doesn't it?

Yeah.

And finally, sprinkle with the last of the praline.

Cranachan with oat praline and raspberries.

This dessert goes perfectly with a low-alcohol glass of Roscato.

Shall we give it a go?

Yeah.

Ha ha!

[Cork pops] Ooh!

Oh, it's fizzy.

I thought as a sweet wine, it would not go pop.

Yeah.

But, uh, there we are.

Any observations?

It's definitely white wine, and it's fizzy, but it's not at all like champagne.

But don't tell me it's nonalcoholic because I can't bear it.

[Laughter] It's low alcohol.

It's low alcohol.

It's very nice, very easy.

A nice pop.

Yeah.

Perhaps it would be good with this because it's very sweet.

The thing that's so good about it is caramel is sweet and the honey is sweet, but because the raspberries are so acidic and it cuts right through the sweetness, the blend is absolutely lovely.

I'm getting three tastes in one.

Exactly.

I'm getting the alcohol, I'm getting the crunch, and I'm getting the strawberries... Lovely.

Well, the raspberries, the raspberries.

♪ [Crunching] It is delicious.

Well, that's one of the best cranachans I've had.

Very good.

So--ha ha.

[John tapping spoon noisily] - Perhaps best known in the U.S.

as a judge on The Great British Baking Show Prue Leith has been a culinary legend in the UK since she opened her first Michelin starred restaurant in 1969.

Now that you've experienced Prue's kitchen wizardry in this episode from her series, Prue Leith's Cothswold Kitchen, You can enjoy more from Prue by streaming all twenty episodes with our popular member benefit, PBS Passport.

Scan the QR code or go to the website on your screen to support your local PBS station and get started with PBS Passport experience today.

Along with this new series from Prue Leith with PBS passport, you'll enjoy cooking and how to programs documentaries, music and performing arts from around the world.

Science and nature programs and of course, PBS favorites like Antiques Roadshow.

All Creatures Great and Small and Finding Your Roots.

Just scan the QR code or go online to give to your local PBS station now.

Your investment makes everything you love on PBS possible.

Whether you watch on the PBS app, online, or on TV.

Thank you.

- Join our culinary adventure only here exclusively on PBS.

♪