The Great British Diet

Welcome to the Great British Diet website, a place where the food that has shaped many a Brit's life is celebrated. From traditional fare like Toad-in-the-Hole and Cottage Pie, to those foreign dishes that we have adopted as our own, to those iconic products we grew up with, to the memorable packaging and media of our best-loved brands...all will be discussed.

Happy Easter!!

Feature articles:

Hot Cross Buns (Homemade)

Watching an episode of 'The Great British Bake Off' promises two things: one, it's going to make my mouth water; two, it's going to make me want to get in the kitchen baking as soon as possible. In this sense, the latest Easter special certainly did not disappoint with a number of very tasty looking recipes from co-hosts, Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. However, what really made my mouth water was Paul's apple, sultana and cinnamon hot cross buns. In fact, I was so taken by these that I forwent the usual bread machine recipe I resort to at this time of year - which usually produces excellent results I must say - and adopted a more traditional, hands-on approach. Of course, this is rather more labour intensive than other options but the result is truly magnificent. Indeed, one of my fellow taste testers exclaimed these were the best hot cross buns they had ever eaten and, even though it may seem like I'm blowing my own trumpet, I have to agree wholeheartedly.

Recipe (Paul Hollywood)

Ingredients

Buns:

10fl oz (300ml) whole milk

1lb 2oz (500g) strong white flour (I used Allinson's Strong White Flour)

2½oz (75g) caster sugar

1 tsp salt

1 sachet of fast-action yeast (7g)

1¾oz (50g) salted butter (softened)

1 medium free-range egg, beaten

2½oz (75g) sultanas

1¾oz (50g) mixed peel

1 eating apple, cored and chopped in to reasonably small chunks (I ended up using a Braeburn apple)

1 orange, zest only

1 tsp ground cinnamon

sunflower oil, for greasing the bowl and clingfilm

For the cross:

2½oz (75g) plain flour, with extra for dusting

Method

Heat the milk in a saucepan until its reaches a boil then remove it from the heat and leave it to cool to hand temperature (this is worth doing early on as it takes a while to cool).

Take a large bowl and mix together the dry ingreaients (flour, sugar, salt, yeast and softened butter) making sure that salt and yeast do not touch when first put in to the bowl. Add the beaten egg and continue to work it in with your hands.

Make a small well in the centre of the mixture and begin to add the milk slowly. You often won't need all the milk - I didn't - as you want to add just enough to form a sticky dough that holds together.

Add the sultanas, mixed peel, chopped apple and orange zest in to the mixture and work in a bit so everything is loosely worked in.

Flour your work surface and place the dough on to it to start the kneading process. Knead for a good 5 minutes or so until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with oiled cling film and leave in a warm enivironment (for example, an airing cupboard or an oven set to a very low temperature like 30 degree C) to prove for about an hour, or until doubled in size. The amount of time you leave it will naturally depend on how warm the enviornment is. Mine ended up looking like the following:

Lightly flour the work surface again, remove the dough and knockback for about 1 minutre or so. Stretcth out the dough lengthways, gauge the middle and cut in two. Proceed by taking each half and rolling them out:

With a cutter, mark each half in the centre and then in to thirds each side of the centre mark - this should give you 12 buns in total. When you are happy with the spacing of your marks, slice the dough to give you your buns.

Note: At this stage I weighed each of my buns so the 12 pieces of dough were all the same - mine all came to 104g. This does involve taking some time to shift around little pieces of dough so everything is the same but it does help immensely in terms of things cooking evenly in the oven.

Once you have your 12 pieces of dough, shape them in to balls by cupping your hand around them and rolling them in to roughly the same shape. Place each shaped bun on a baking tray lined with baking parchment and leave a small space between them so they have some room to expand but will end up pressing against one another as they rise. Something like this:

Finally, place them in a warm environment to prove for another hour - again times will differ greatly depending on how warm it is.

Remove them from the oven and turn up the temperatire of the oven to 220C (no fan)/425F/Gas 7. These are what my buns looked like:

To make the cross mixture, take the flour and mix it together with five tablespoons of water in a bowl to form a thick paste - be careful here to not add too much water or will be too wet and runny. Take a piping bag and proceed to pipe a line of paste down one row of buns at a time beginning vertically and then going horizontally. My ok-ish attempt is below.

Place the buns in the centre of the oven to bake for 20 minutes or until they are golden brown.

Note: I would suggest watching them like a hawk here - especially after all this work - and if they start to brown too quickly on top then get some heat proof paper and lay it over the top so they continue to cook without burning.

Remove the buns from the oven when done. Whilst they are still warm, gently heat some apricot jam in a sacuepan, sieve the jam to give it a smooth consistency and brush the top of the buns with it to finish.

Leave the buns to cool, get some butter - no margarine here please - and tuck in to these beauties.

Web Links:

BBC Food 'The Great British Bake Off' Recipes

'The Great British Bake Off' Facebook Page

PG Tips (Brooke Bond)

As I said in my Tetley review, growing up Brooke Bond PG Tips and Tetley were the two brands of tea and it was no coincidence that both were supported by very strong brand characters. In the case of PG Tips it was the rather amusing affairs of a certain group of chimps styled as a typical British family that first endeared me to this brand. Whilst the so-called 'Tipps Family' didn't provide the same level of feel good narrative and warmth that the Tea Folk did, they never failed to make me laugh and I found the whole concept really quite charming.

Nowadays, much has undoubtedly changed about PG Tips but the reason I and, in my opinion, so many others still love it is that, at its heart, it remains the same: it puts a smile on people's faces with fun, engaging brand characters and, most importantly of all, it knows how to make a decent, affordable cuppa.

Packaging

Yesteryear:

(Above: Screenshot of third party YouTube video)

A beautiful piece of packaging featuring the elegant tea lady graphic on the right, the classic PG Tips logo on the left along with the name 'Brooke Bond' - a respectful nod to the creator of PG Tips - and, finally, the smart green banner along the bottom. Everything is kept nicely uncluttered and, in turn, conveys a sophistication and elegance that befits the tradition of tea drinking perfectly. I can't say that I don't sorely miss this age of PG Tips packaging.

Today (2012):

The all-over design of tea leaves, white clouds and blue sky immediately sets the tone by conjuring up notions of naturalness and freshness. This is reinforced with a written description of how PG Tips is "100% natural" and uses only the finest quality ingredients. PG Tips work with the Rainforest Alliance is also touched upon in order to paint a picture of responsible brand that addresses such issues as conservation, workers rights etc. Finally, the theme of taste is also addressed with graphics and an explanation of the pyramid bag design as well as the classic slogan, 'It's the taste'.

Overall, this design isn't a complete departure from that of old: the PG Tips logo looks very similar, the tea leaves still have distant echoes of the tea lady in her field; both white and green still play a primary role in the colour scheme; and the tea bags continue to come, the way they should do, in card based packaging. However, the tea lady graphic is still a big loss as I came to associate it so closely with the brand. Moveover, the respectful nod to "Brooke Bond" has disappeared completely which, regardless of what they wanted to do with the packaging, should have remained in my opinion. Finally, and more generally speaking, I think the modern design has lost that charming sense of sophistication and elegance that was so quintessentially English.

Today (2012 Magazine Giveaway Packaging):

Fantastic piece of packaging. Earlier iterations of the modern design very much had that middle ground feel: they had lost that sense of elegance and sophistication the old tea lady designs had about them and moved over to something just a bit too plain and okay-ish. However, with their 2012 magazine giveaway, PG Tips tarted up their boxes wonderfully with Monkey featured centre stage - the tea leaf dotted wallpaper idea was a particularly nice touch - and lots of fun little graphics on the various panels. I still think that "Brooke Bond" should be there in these modern designs but, really, hats off to the designers on this one.

TV Advertising

PG Tips have come up with some gems over the years and, fortunately, YouTube is chock-a-block with their ads. Therefore, I have selected but a handful for your viewing pleasure and suggest you pay a visit to Youtube for more. Enjoy.

Monkey's Christmas Message

Wallace & Gromit PG Tips Advert (2006)

PG Tips 75th Anniversary Advert

A Question of Taste Advert

Chimps at Christmas (1992)

Spin-offs:

PG Tags

(Above: Screenshot from third party Youtube video)

Launched in 1985, PG Tags were simply the brand's regular tea bags attached, by string, to a little tag featuring the classic PG Tips logo.

The accompanying advertising broke away from the popular Chimps format entirely by opting for a more youthful and upbeat presentation. This was echoed in the product packaging which featured the word 'Tags' scrawled, as if handwritten, across the box and an all-over background design which looked like school or office work paper.

PG Tags "Easy as One Two Tea"

PG Tags "Blah Blah Easy PG Tags"

The New Ones

(Above: Screenshot of PG Tips advert for 'The New Ones')

Of course, many UK readers will already be at least partly familiar with this product range due to the funny 'Monkey and Al' ad that's recently been on (see below). For those that don't know, 'The News Ones' represents a range of three teas ('The Delicate One', 'The Fresh One' and 'The Strong One') which have been created by pressing the tea leaves at different stages to vary the strength.

Personally, I am yet to try any of these teas (I'll update this section with text and imagery when I do); however, I have seen the packaging and I have to say it's a bit of an improvement on the pyramid bag one. The presentation is smarter and the colour schemes have been chosen well to reinforce the strength of the tea.

History (see here)

Related GBD Articles:

PG Tips History

Brooke Bond

Web Links:

PG Tips

UK Tea Council

Tea Advisory Panel

Nostalgia Hit

RSS Feed

More Articles

News Archive

Fellow food bloggers:

Foodstuff Finds

Jim's Chocolate Mission

Chocoblog

Candy Blog

It's All About Limited Edition

Snackspot

Let Her Bake Cake

Delicious Delicious Delicious

Welcome to the Great British Diet website, a place where the food that has shaped many a Brit's life is celebrated. From traditional fare like Toad-in-the-Hole and Cottage Pie, to those foreign dishes that we have adopted as our own, to those iconic products we grew up with, to the memorable packaging and media of our best-loved brands...all will be discussed.

Happy Easter!!

Feature articles:

Hot Cross Buns (Homemade)

Watching an episode of 'The Great British Bake Off' promises two things: one, it's going to make my mouth water; two, it's going to make me want to get in the kitchen baking as soon as possible. In this sense, the latest Easter special certainly did not disappoint with a number of very tasty looking recipes from co-hosts, Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. However, what really made my mouth water was Paul's apple, sultana and cinnamon hot cross buns. In fact, I was so taken by these that I forwent the usual bread machine recipe I resort to at this time of year - which usually produces excellent results I must say - and adopted a more traditional, hands-on approach. Of course, this is rather more labour intensive than other options but the result is truly magnificent. Indeed, one of my fellow taste testers exclaimed these were the best hot cross buns they had ever eaten and, even though it may seem like I'm blowing my own trumpet, I have to agree wholeheartedly.

Recipe (Paul Hollywood)

Ingredients

Buns:

10fl oz (300ml) whole milk
1lb 2oz (500g) strong white flour (I used Allinson's Strong White Flour)
2½oz (75g) caster sugar
1 tsp salt
1 sachet of fast-action yeast (7g)
1¾oz (50g) salted butter (softened)
1 medium free-range egg, beaten
2½oz (75g) sultanas
1¾oz (50g) mixed peel
1 eating apple, cored and chopped in to reasonably small chunks (I ended up using a Braeburn apple)
1 orange, zest only
1 tsp ground cinnamon
sunflower oil, for greasing the bowl and clingfilm

For the cross:

2½oz (75g) plain flour, with extra for dusting

Method

Heat the milk in a saucepan until its reaches a boil then remove it from the heat and leave it to cool to hand temperature (this is worth doing early on as it takes a while to cool).
Take a large bowl and mix together the dry ingreaients (flour, sugar, salt, yeast and softened butter) making sure that salt and yeast do not touch when first put in to the bowl. Add the beaten egg and continue to work it in with your hands.
Make a small well in the centre of the mixture and begin to add the milk slowly. You often won't need all the milk - I didn't - as you want to add just enough to form a sticky dough that holds together.
Add the sultanas, mixed peel, chopped apple and orange zest in to the mixture and work in a bit so everything is loosely worked in.
Flour your work surface and place the dough on to it to start the kneading process. Knead for a good 5 minutes or so until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with oiled cling film and leave in a warm enivironment (for example, an airing cupboard or an oven set to a very low temperature like 30 degree C) to prove for about an hour, or until doubled in size. The amount of time you leave it will naturally depend on how warm the enviornment is. Mine ended up looking like the following:
Lightly flour the work surface again, remove the dough and knockback for about 1 minutre or so. Stretcth out the dough lengthways, gauge the middle and cut in two. Proceed by taking each half and rolling them out:

With a cutter, mark each half in the centre and then in to thirds each side of the centre mark - this should give you 12 buns in total. When you are happy with the spacing of your marks, slice the dough to give you your buns.

Note: At this stage I weighed each of my buns so the 12 pieces of dough were all the same - mine all came to 104g. This does involve taking some time to shift around little pieces of dough so everything is the same but it does help immensely in terms of things cooking evenly in the oven.
Once you have your 12 pieces of dough, shape them in to balls by cupping your hand around them and rolling them in to roughly the same shape. Place each shaped bun on a baking tray lined with baking parchment and leave a small space between them so they have some room to expand but will end up pressing against one another as they rise. Something like this:

Finally, place them in a warm environment to prove for another hour - again times will differ greatly depending on how warm it is.
Remove them from the oven and turn up the temperatire of the oven to 220C (no fan)/425F/Gas 7. These are what my buns looked like:
To make the cross mixture, take the flour and mix it together with five tablespoons of water in a bowl to form a thick paste - be careful here to not add too much water or will be too wet and runny. Take a piping bag and proceed to pipe a line of paste down one row of buns at a time beginning vertically and then going horizontally. My ok-ish attempt is below.
Place the buns in the centre of the oven to bake for 20 minutes or until they are golden brown.

Note: I would suggest watching them like a hawk here - especially after all this work - and if they start to brown too quickly on top then get some heat proof paper and lay it over the top so they continue to cook without burning.
Remove the buns from the oven when done. Whilst they are still warm, gently heat some apricot jam in a sacuepan, sieve the jam to give it a smooth consistency and brush the top of the buns with it to finish.
Leave the buns to cool, get some butter - no margarine here please - and tuck in to these beauties.

Web Links:

BBC Food 'The Great British Bake Off' Recipes

'The Great British Bake Off' Facebook Page

PG Tips (Brooke Bond)

PGTips

As I said in my Tetley review, growing up Brooke Bond PG Tips and Tetley were the two brands of tea and it was no coincidence that both were supported by very strong brand characters. In the case of PG Tips it was the rather amusing affairs of a certain group of chimps styled as a typical British family that first endeared me to this brand. Whilst the so-called 'Tipps Family' didn't provide the same level of feel good narrative and warmth that the Tea Folk did, they never failed to make me laugh and I found the whole concept really quite charming.

Nowadays, much has undoubtedly changed about PG Tips but the reason I and, in my opinion, so many others still love it is that, at its heart, it remains the same: it puts a smile on people's faces with fun, engaging brand characters and, most importantly of all, it knows how to make a decent, affordable cuppa.

Packaging

Yesteryear:

(Above: Screenshot of third party YouTube video)

A beautiful piece of packaging featuring the elegant tea lady graphic on the right, the classic PG Tips logo on the left along with the name 'Brooke Bond' - a respectful nod to the creator of PG Tips - and, finally, the smart green banner along the bottom. Everything is kept nicely uncluttered and, in turn, conveys a sophistication and elegance that befits the tradition of tea drinking perfectly. I can't say that I don't sorely miss this age of PG Tips packaging.

Today (2012):

The all-over design of tea leaves, white clouds and blue sky immediately sets the tone by conjuring up notions of naturalness and freshness. This is reinforced with a written description of how PG Tips is "100% natural" and uses only the finest quality ingredients. PG Tips work with the Rainforest Alliance is also touched upon in order to paint a picture of responsible brand that addresses such issues as conservation, workers rights etc. Finally, the theme of taste is also addressed with graphics and an explanation of the pyramid bag design as well as the classic slogan, 'It's the taste'.

Overall, this design isn't a complete departure from that of old: the PG Tips logo looks very similar, the tea leaves still have distant echoes of the tea lady in her field; both white and green still play a primary role in the colour scheme; and the tea bags continue to come, the way they should do, in card based packaging. However, the tea lady graphic is still a big loss as I came to associate it so closely with the brand. Moveover, the respectful nod to "Brooke Bond" has disappeared completely which, regardless of what they wanted to do with the packaging, should have remained in my opinion. Finally, and more generally speaking, I think the modern design has lost that charming sense of sophistication and elegance that was so quintessentially English.

Today (2012 Magazine Giveaway Packaging):

Fantastic piece of packaging. Earlier iterations of the modern design very much had that middle ground feel: they had lost that sense of elegance and sophistication the old tea lady designs had about them and moved over to something just a bit too plain and okay-ish. However, with their 2012 magazine giveaway, PG Tips tarted up their boxes wonderfully with Monkey featured centre stage - the tea leaf dotted wallpaper idea was a particularly nice touch - and lots of fun little graphics on the various panels. I still think that "Brooke Bond" should be there in these modern designs but, really, hats off to the designers on this one.

TV Advertising

PG Tips have come up with some gems over the years and, fortunately, YouTube is chock-a-block with their ads. Therefore, I have selected but a handful for your viewing pleasure and suggest you pay a visit to Youtube for more. Enjoy.

Monkey's Christmas Message

Wallace & Gromit PG Tips Advert (2006)

PG Tips 75th Anniversary Advert

A Question of Taste Advert

Chimps at Christmas (1992)

Spin-offs:

PG Tags

(Above: Screenshot from third party Youtube video)

Launched in 1985, PG Tags were simply the brand's regular tea bags attached, by string, to a little tag featuring the classic PG Tips logo.

The accompanying advertising broke away from the popular Chimps format entirely by opting for a more youthful and upbeat presentation. This was echoed in the product packaging which featured the word 'Tags' scrawled, as if handwritten, across the box and an all-over background design which looked like school or office work paper.

PG Tags "Easy as One Two Tea"

PG Tags "Blah Blah Easy PG Tags"

The New Ones

(Above: Screenshot of PG Tips advert for 'The New Ones')

Of course, many UK readers will already be at least partly familiar with this product range due to the funny 'Monkey and Al' ad that's recently been on (see below). For those that don't know, 'The News Ones' represents a range of three teas ('The Delicate One', 'The Fresh One' and 'The Strong One') which have been created by pressing the tea leaves at different stages to vary the strength.

Personally, I am yet to try any of these teas (I'll update this section with text and imagery when I do); however, I have seen the packaging and I have to say it's a bit of an improvement on the pyramid bag one. The presentation is smarter and the colour schemes have been chosen well to reinforce the strength of the tea.

History (see here)

Related GBD Articles:

Web Links: