Paul Hollywood has discovered TikTok. The curmudgeonly “The Great British Baking Show” judge posts recipe tutorials, taste tests and other bits of baking information to the social media platform.
I’ve watched all 30 of Hollywood’s TikTok videos. His cheeky personality comes through as he corrects the baking illiterate on the proper names for popular treats, the traditional method for making a Victoria sandwich (don’t call it a sponge!), and tutorials on his own recipes.
Out of Hollywood’s TikTok clips, I pulled a few standout tips for you, so you don’t have to watch all of them.
While we’re still waiting on Hollywood to make a TikTok on how to avoid soggy bottoms, these four baking tips from his TikTok are worth the watch.
1. Don’t refrigerate bread
Putting a fresh loaf of bread in the refrigerator is a common method used to extend the life of the loaf. But according to Hollywood, putting bread in the fridge does more harm than good.
“If you put your bread in the fridge, it will stale three times quicker,” Hollywood says in a TikTok. “Because you’re drawing all the moisture out of the loaf. Let’s be honest, I just put it in a brown bag and leave it to the side.”
Hollywood is right. The cold temperature of the fridge causes starches in the bread to crystallize and lose moisture, said Kimberly Baker, a Food Systems and Safety Program Team director at Clemson University, per Southern Living.
Baker recommends keeping bread at room temperature in air-tight packaging to make the most of its shelf life.
2. The difference between a biscuit and cookie
In the U.K., there are biscuits and soft biscuits. A soft biscuit is what Americans consider a cookie, Hollywood explains in a TikTok clip.
To Americans, biscuits are soft and bread-like and often served with butter and jam. In the U.K., these are called scones.
If it’s a cookie, “that means it’s normally got a lot of butter in there. Butter gives you softness. Sugar gives you a snap in a biscuit,” Hollywood said. “Biscuits tend to be more crispy than not. So that’s the main difference. It’s the language more than anything else.”
Let’s take a look at popular cookies and biscuits for an example of the difference.
Cookies:
- Lofthouse pink sugar cookies
- Chips Ahoy
- Girl Scout Samoas
Biscuits:
- Walker’s shortbread
- Digestives
- Lotus Biscoff
3. The quickest loaf of bread you can bake
Put your sourdough starters to the side. Soda bread can be made in just 40 minutes and has a “beautiful flavor,” according to Hollywood’s TikTok.
“I’m gonna show how to make an absolutely beautiful soda bread. It’s the quickest that you can make,” Hollywood said in a TikTok tutorial.
Hollywood adds parmesan and Irish cheddar cheese as well as onion to the bread for a more interesting flavor. He tops the bread with more parmesan before baking.
The dough comes together quickly and bakes for roughly 25 minutes.
“These things are a quick fix,” Hollywood said. “If you want some bread, and you’ve got no bread in the house and you want a 40-minute loaf, there it is right there. The soda bread.”
Here is Hollywood’s recipe for soda bread: Soda bread by Paul Hollywood.
4. ‘It’s called a Victoria sandwich’
“There’s no such thing as a Victoria sponge. It’s called a Victoria sandwich,” Hollywood claims in a TikTok tutorial.
There is debate over whether the classic English cake is called a Victoria sponge or a Victoria sandwich. Hollywood is entitled to his opinion, but both names are generally accepted.
“The Victoria sponge was named after Queen Victoria, who regularly ate a slice of sponge cake with her tea, each afternoon!” says the Royal Family website.
Hollywood sandwiches his two sponge cakes with raspberry jam between them — adding no cream to the center, because “it’s the classic one” that does not use a cream filling. He tops it with caster sugar, which is the “traditional method.”
“You don’t get more classic than a Victoria sandwich,” Hollywood said. “The thing is, when you cut into it and take a slice with a cup of tea, there’s really nothing better.”