The Hairy Bikers’ Brilliant Bakes

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Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and add the onion. Fry over a low to medium heat until the onion is translucent but still has a little bite to it. Stir in the thyme, sage, and apples and continue to cook for another 3 or 4 minutes. Add the cider, apple juice, or water, together with the cider vinegar, sugar, and allspice. Stir to combine and then bring the mixture to the boil. Simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated and the texture is verging on jammy. Dust your work surface with flour. Take two-thirds of the dough and roll it out to fill a 20cm round cake or pie tin. Put the pastry-lined tin and the remaining dough in the fridge to chill until ready to fill.

I certainly am now, given the hand that’s been dealt me this year,” Myers says. “I think about the past with huge, great jealousy, and affection. Watching some of our old episodes on the telly when I’m ill, I don’t look like myself. And I look at myself there with my best mate, thinking, you know … I remember I said to Lil, ‘That used to be me.’ ‘No,’ she said. ‘That is you.’” But over the seven months since his diagnosis in late March, it must have been hard to keep his old self in mind.

Si and Dave have been on a mission. They've travelled the world to discover the very best meat-free recipes that shake off the dull and add the delicious. There's no meaty sacrifice here, just fantastic food. For the Hairy Bikers, nothing says love and home like the smell of a cake in the oven, a homemade loaf or a hearty, freshly baked pie.

With their unique blend of tasty recipes, cheeky humour and irresistible enthusiasm, the Hairy Bikers have become Britain's favourite food heroes. Myers can relate. His daughter is in the process of buying a first flat and confronting the “possibility that the mortgage may double”. As a student, he used to sit in Karl Marx’s chair at the British Library – was that a statement of ideology? “No,” he says, “it was nothing political.” He just thought it was cool. When Myers began chemo, did King consider shaving his head in sympathy? ‘If he’d asked us, I probably would have’ The Hairy Bikers’ Brilliant Bakes has a lovely selection of breads too. There is a simple Sourdough loaf; Cheese and Chorizo Tear-and-Share Buns are perfect for lunch; Cinnamon Rolls make a great breakfast and especially when one has weekend guests; Lahmacun is a topped flatbread so a meal in itself.From the ultimate veggie curries to the perfect crowd-pleasing tray bakes, satisfying soups, pastas and pies to a veggie twist on burgers, barbecues and a banging breakfast brunch, The Hairy Bikers' Veggie Feasts is bursting with meat-free delights you'll turn to time and time again, all made with ingredients that can be bought easily and won't cost the earth. Born and bred in Barrow-in-Furness, Dave Myers' versatile skills have taken him to some unusual places. He worked in a steelworks as a student, to finance his studies in Fine Arts, and later joined the BBC as a make-up artist, specialising in prosthetics. The recipes here are sensible. Nothing is too cheffy. These are goods that we can imagine ourselves making and enjoying. All the ingredients are readily available and nothing outrageously expensive, well, apart from the butter.