Croissants
Gregg Wallace is in France at an enormous croissant factory where they produce 336,000 of the flaky pastries every day. He follows the production of croissants from the arrival of 21 tonnes of butter right through to dispatch. Along the way he learns how they use an 83-year-old strain of yeast to pack a flavourful punch and discovers the secret of pastry lamination. They layer very thin slices of butter between sheets of dough to create the famous flaky pastry.
Meanwhile, Cherry Healey is testing the best way to eat a croissant. With the help of a professor who specialises in the science of our senses, she discovers that there is an optimum way to consume them. Ideally, they will be served warm so that the butter inside oozes fat into the pastry, smothered in jam to give a sugar and fat hit, and eaten from a paper bag so that the crinkly sound accentuates the flaky texture of the pastry. She also heads to north Wales, visiting a farm and dairy where they produce a special type of ‘concentrated' butter. The butter is a whopping 99.8% fat, perfect for producing croissants with a long shelf life.
Historian Ruth Goodman is in Paris investigating the croissant's surprising Austrian origins. It is thought that it originated with a pastry called a kipferl, which Austrian bakers invented in the 17th century to commemorate a heroic victory over the armies of the Ottoman Empire. Its shape was a mocking reference to the crescent on their enemy's flag. But it took a while to transform into the modern pastry - the earliest written recipe she manages to find for a modern French croissant comes as late as 1906. Ruth also discovers that bread played a vital role in the French Revolution.
Trailer
Recently Updated Shows
Playing Gracie Darling
Playing Gracie Darling is set in a place where everyone knows each other, secrets are buried deep, and where being different is impossible to hide.
When Joni was 14, her best friend Gracie Darling disappeared during a séance and hasn't been seen since.
Twenty-seven years on, Joni is a child psychologist and has never forgiven herself for Gracie's disappearance.
Joni is haunted by her past when she receives a startling call from her childhood friend Jay, now a local cop, alerting her that another Darling girl has disappeared during a seance.
When Calls the Heart
When Calls the Heart is inspired by Janette Oke's bestselling book series about the Canadian West, the series tells the captivating story of Elizabeth Thatcher, a young teacher accustomed to her high society life, who receives her first classroom assignment in Coal Valley, a small coal mining town where life is simple, but often fraught with challenges. Upon arrival, Elizabeth befriends Abigail Stanton, a wife and mother whose husband, the foreman of the mine, along with a dozen other miners, has just been killed in an explosion. The newly widowed women find their faith is tested when they must go to work in the mines to keep a roof over their heads. Set against the wild canvas of a 19th century coal town, Elizabeth will have to learn the ways of the frontier if she wishes to thrive in the rural west on her own.
Alien: Earth
When the mysterious deep space research vessel USCSS Maginot crash-lands on Earth, Wendy and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet's greatest threat.
The Rainmaker
Fresh out of law school, Rudy Baylor goes head-to-head with courtroom lion Leo Drummond as well as his law school girlfriend. Rudy, along with his boss and her disheveled paralegal, uncover two connected conspiracies surrounding the mysterious death of their client's son.
Mysteries of the Abandoned
Some of the world's most incredible engineering projects now lie in ruins. These deserted places are home to extraordinary mysteries and untold secrets, and we revisit them to understand how they were built, and why they were abandoned.
They were once some of the most advanced structures and facilities on the planet, standing at the cutting-edge of design and construction. Today they are abandoned, dangerous, some of them even deadly. From uninhabited cities to empty factories, these long-forgotten engineering marvels are scattered around the globe. Science Channel uncovers why some of the world's most advanced architectural achievements were eventually left behind in the all-new series Mysteries of the Abandoned.
Each of the six, hour-long episodes of Mysteries of the Abandoned features stories behind engineering wonders, why they were built, and the reasons they were eventually left to crumble. Each story recalls the people who originally designed the structure, their historical significance, and why they were ultimately no longer of use. The premiere episode explores California's Goat Canyon Trestle railway, known as the 'Impossible Railroad,' that required the biggest wooden trestle bridge in the world; Ukraine's Duga, the notorious anti-ballistic missile radar, known as the 'Russian Woodpecker,' that still stands in within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone; and the Grand Goulets Road in the French Alps, an astonishingly narrow and perilous mountain passageway.