Amber gets started on her set cream, adding heated double cream and sugar to oven roasted hay.

Amber: "Hay feels like a weird ingredient to use, but it's like roasty, toasty, nutty, yummy."

Amber: "Working in a school now, I don't get quite so much time for fine dining pastry. Okay, so we'll see if I've still got it."

Simon Rogan: "The title of your dish, please? And the inspiration?" 

Amber: "The title is "Books, the mind's food." It's a line from one of Hannah Moore's poems. Hannah Moore was an abolitionist and also an education kind of pioneer in the Southwest, and I went to one of Hannah Moore's infant schools when I was a child."

Simon Rogan: "So what are you cooking for us?"

Amber: "Honey fermented strawberries, and I've also got a hay set cream strawberry gel. There'll be a white chocolate disc that links back to the brief. And there will also be a little ice cream sandwich on the side."

Simon Rogan: "What's the ice cream?"

Amber: "Fermented honey parfait. Lots of honey, lots of strawberry."

Later still ...

Amber adds eggs to a parfait base of fermented honey, double cream, sugar and gelatin.

She checks on the hay smoke infused cream.

Amber: "It's not quite at that nutty point that I'd like. It needs a touch longer with the hay.

She pours and places the parfait in the blast chiller to set.

Amber thinly rolls chilled charcoal sablé biscuit dough. She cuts it with a stencil to achieve a uniform shape. She begins to temper white chocolate. It will be heated, cooled and whisked several times to give it a silky texture and shiny appearance.

Amber: "I'm rubbish at tempering chocolate. Don't know why I thought I would do it here. I need to bring it down to 27 or 25, I think. And then back up again a little bit so that it's workable. Absolute nightmare. Who would temper, hey? Only fools like me."

Amber: "This is a thickening agent, this strawberry puree. It'll still keep its vibrancy and fresh flavor without me adding lots of stuff to it."

Amber, speaking to Simon Rogan

"I've got a little bit of strawberry gel for you to try. I didn't want to use out of season strawberries. Puree offers a ripeness and season option."

Amber: "I'm currently focusing on this white chocolate. I'm not very good at tempering."

Simon Rogan, speaking to the camera behind the scenes

"So I tasted Amber's strawberry gel. Really lovely depth of strawberry and a little bit of acidity as well. I think that's going to be a real great addition to the dish."

Plating

First to serve is Amber. Strawberry gel is added to hay smoked set cream.

Amber: "It should just add a bit of freshness to the dish."

Honey fermented strawberries are next. Small bites of honeycomb. Sprigs of lemon thyme. Beautiful white tempered chocolate is added. Parfaits. And finally, a honey parfait sandwiched between two charcoal sablé biscuits is added as a side. All set in traditional school desks with vodka and strawberry cocktail "ink".