Love the GBBO? Make Bedfordshire Clangers (2024)

ByLauraPublished onNovember 27, 2018March 11, 2024Updated onMarch 11, 2024

This is it, the bake that sparked my Great British Baking Show Bake-Along, the Bedfordshire Clanger! This bake was the signature bake for Forgotten Bakes Week and I wanted to bake with other bakers so much I decided to make a group to do just that!

I watched as the bakers made their “Bedfordshire Clangers” and they talked about how this was a Traditional Bedfordshire Hand Pie for agricultural or metal workers; I wanted to make a Clanger SO BAD.

So I made Bedfordshire Clangers

But I didn’t just want to make one; I wanted to part of a bake-off or group baking project and make Clangers. Boom, look where we are, right in the middle of my wish to participate in the Great British Baking Show, make clangers and fortuitously use up our leftover turkey. This week is winning for me, how about you?

Great British Baking Show Bake-Along

Is an easy, fun way to make new foods, meet new friends and hone your baking, frosting, steaming, cooking and decorating skills. Plus we even have our own weekly Star(Bucks) Bakerwho wins a 10 dollar coffee card. It’s been so much fun,and Ihope we keep having fun with new bakes in the new year, join us!

Bedfordshire Clangers

In the show, they said that Clangers were a baked lunch hand pie sent with agricultural or metal workers. But a little research showed that perhaps they started life as a boiled dumpling and that the hand pie on the show was an invention of the 90s when a bakery made and sold them.

I don’t know about that; a hand pie sounds a lot better than cold boiled dumpling for lunch out in the field.

The Clangers on the Great British Baking Show were roughly 10 inches long and 2-3 inches wide. One end of the clanger gets filled with a savory filling, and the other end was a sweet pie-like filling. They were roughly 2/3 savory and 1/3 sweet with a little dough wall dividing them.

Leftover Turkey

For my Clangers I used leftover turkey, potatoes and a bit of gravy for the savory end.You can use ANY leftovers for the savory filling, plan on about 4-4 1/2cups of filling to fill the Clangers and make sure it’s not too wet.

If you’re mixing up leftovers, I highly recommend warming them to pull them togetherand then let the mixture cool off before filling and wrapping.

I gently heated the chopped potatoes and then add the gravy and leftover turkey and mixed them well. Then I tasted it, adjusted the seasonings and set it aside.

It’s important to cool your filling before using it. Too hot of a filling will start your hand pie dough melting before it gets a chance to bake.

The Sweet End of a Clanger

For the sweet endof the hand pie, I used four apples on the edge of being too ripe to make a bit of an apple pie filling. You’re going to need roughly 2 1/2 cups of filling for the sweet end. Each hand pie will get a nice full 1/3 cup or so of sweet filling.

You can ABSOLUTELY use a can of pre-made pie filling. I haven’t done that but you could. It may be juicier than you want but it would work!

Hand Pie Dough

And don’t worry this recipe includes the Hand Pie Dough recipe as well. Flaky crispy and perfect for rolling hand pies. It’s not sturdy enough to pack to the field but it will make it to your plate! Enjoy!