Bakes

This Hairy Bikers Manchester tart swaps the usual pastry for an oat flapjack base, then layers raspberry jam, vanilla custard, coconut and cherries on top. And from Everyday Winners, it makes 9 squares in about 5 hours with cooling and chilling, at about 505 calories each by my sums. But if you want the classic …

This Hairy Bikers cranachan layers whisky and honey cream with toasted oats, flaked almonds and fresh raspberries in tall glasses. And this lighter version is from their BBC series Best of British, serving 6 in 40 minutes at about 445 calories a glass. In the words of the BBC write-up, half-fat crème fraîche goes in …

Hairy Bikers millionaire shortbread layers a buttery base, a condensed milk caramel and a thin coat of chocolate in one square tin. So I cut 16 squares of about 275 calories from the Mums Know Best recipe, and with my setting times it’s ready inside 3 hours. It’s billed as “a truly decadent treat”, with …

Hairy Bikers Welsh cakes start with 100g of dried cherries soaked in hot whisky, then go into a buttery dough and onto the griddle. And this Chicken & Egg recipe gives you 20, each about 140 calories by my estimate, in roughly 1 hour 45 minutes. Whisky takes Welsh cakes to “another level of deliciousness”, …

Hairy Bikers Christmas cake is a last-minute fruit cake of dried pineapple, apricots, cherries and cashews soaked in white port, in a cardamom-spiced batter. So from British Classics you get 12 slices in about 10 hours, soaking and cooling included, at my estimate of 985 calories each. A Christmas cake traditionally “has to be made …

Hairy Bikers ginger biscuits are crisp gingernuts with chopped stem ginger, made by melting golden syrup and butter into self-raising flour and brown sugar. And one batch makes about 24 biscuits of roughly 100 calories each in 25 minutes, from the recipe in Brilliant Bakes. They call the gingernut “a total classic”, but they add …

Homemade treacle ginger cake, black cherries, amaretti, custard and cream are the layers in Hairy Bikers ginger cake trifle, finished with slices of stem ginger. In Ultimate Comfort Food it’s called ginger cake and black cherry trifle, and it makes 8 portions of about 440 calories in roughly 3½ hours. For them, cherries and gingerbread …

Baked rather than steamed, Hairy Bikers sticky ginger pudding is a dark treacle sponge with stem ginger and red chilli, topped with hot toffee sauce. And in Great Curries, where it’s called sticky chilli ginger sponge, it makes 8 portions of about 690 calories in just over an hour. They admit “we’ve even managed to …

Gruyère, Parmesan and sweet red onion go into this Hairy Bikers cheese scones recipe, printed as cheese and red onion scones in Everyday Winners. And it bakes 12 tall ones in about an hour by my clock, and by my count each comes to roughly 305 calories. “We love a good cheese scone and these …

Four hours and 730 calories a slice is what this Hairy Bikers pecan toffee cheesecake costs you, and it earns both. Because Best of British builds it as a pecan and chocolate digestive base under a white chocolate filling shot through with caramel, cut into 12. There is no jar of caramel anywhere in this, …