HESTON Blumenthal, the three Michelin-starred chef and TV personality, has enlisted the help of an Essex factory to make a giant Christmas pudding in a cement mixer lorry.
Blumenthal, who is known worldwide for his multisensory-based dining, has been filming a new series about food nostalgia in time for Christmas.
The owner of the renowned Fat Duck restaurant and his production crew filmed the final episode of the series, which will culminate with Heston making a two-and-half-metre high Christmas pudding, to serve up to service men and women working over the festive period.
Supplying the dried fruit – all 600kg of it – free of charge for the giant pudding, was Demos Ciclitira Ltd / George Harker & Co, a specialist in dried fruit and seeds, based in the Park Drive Industrial Estate, in Braintree.
Director of the company Andrew Ciclitira, whose grandfather Demos moved the company to Braintree 40 years ago, said: "George Harker is probably one of the oldest dried fruit companies in the country.
"We were very excited when we found out Heston would be coming. We have not exactly been asked to do something like this before – not with a cement mixer, at least."
Two-hundred kilograms of Greek currants, along with 200kg raisins and 200kg sultanas from Turkey formed part of the pudding's ingredients.
It will be made at Cole's factory in Saffron Walden, which is supplied by George Harker, and is where Heston's candied orange Christmas pudding is made for Waitrose.
For Heston Blumenthal, it was the first time he had visited Braintree.
He told the Chronicle: "I have never been to Braintree before. My mum's an Essex girl. so it's good to be here.
"This series has been great fun to film. It's been very ambitious so far.
"What we are planning to do with the pudding is to make a kind of grotto that we can break up and give out to people working over Christmas. Then we can bag the rest of it and give it out to the homeless.
"Last week, I met this loony pyrotechnic from UCL, who was showing me how to use chemicals to make green and red flames, and, if you spin the pudding, you can create a vortex of the coloured flames. That's what we're going to try to do with this."
Having selected the ingredients from the George Harper warehouse, the 46-year-old chef Andrew and his team loaded it onto a forklift truck and were lifted six feet in the air to unload the fruit into a commercial cement mixer.
"Oops, a plastic bag went in," said Heston, as one of the blue plastic bags containing currants ended up being spun around the cement mixer.
To whoops and cheers, mainly from the female workers at the factory, Heston took his shoes and jacket off, was handed a torch and went feet-first into the cement mixer to dig out the bag.
Truck driver John Carroll, 60, had driven the new truck all the way from Telford.
"Usually people have to go in to scrape the concrete off, but this is brand new and has been lined with Teflon especially for food – although I'm not sure what health and safety would have to say about it," he said.
While one member of staff was wearing her new Christian Louboutin shoes to celebrate the occasion, and another had arrived clutching their own Heston Christmas pudding to be autographed, others were happy with a handshake.
Colin Mayes, 55, who has worked at George Harker for 18 years, said: "Heston shook my hand – I'm not going to wash it now!"
When filming had finished in Braintree, Heston and John made their way to Saffron Walden, where the production of the pudding was to take place.
The Channel 4 series starts on November 12 and will end with the Braintree-based episode on Christmas Eve, on Channel 4.
