Now that Bake Off is in its 16th series, on its third TV channel, and has baked and punned everything under the bun as you might say, I fully expected that its latest run would confirm that this televisual confection had, finally, gone stale. Indeed, I’ve said as much a few times over the past few years, tiring of the rigid format, as unchanging in its liturgy as the Roman Catholic Mass or the state opening of parliament, and not much more exciting.
How wrong! The show has risen to the occasion like a rampant soufflé when I, certainly, least expected it, and on the evidence of this first episode, I can see why it’s happened. The unchanged set of presenters and judges – Alison Hammond, Noel Fielding, Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith – are all very well, but they are, if not the icing on the cake, not the tastiest bits. The essential ingredient of any show such as this is its contestants, and this time the producers have excelled themselves. This diverse group would make Nigel Farage choke on his fruitcake. Leighton, a queer Welshman, likes to play with traditional Welsh/British and American flavours. Pui Man, born in Hong Kong, is a perfectionist when it comes to the design of her bakes. And Jessika, a drag king whose act is apparently quite “explicit”, also loves to push boundaries with her cookery creations.
Whether by nature, accident or design, this diversity results in an emotional rollercoaster for contestants and for viewers. I don’t mind admitting that it leaves me in salty caramel tears once or twice. Without getting all soggy-bottomed about things, Ukrainian contestant Nataliia – who moved to Britain before the Russian invasion, but whose family is still caught up in it – really does stop the show with her showstopper. The contestants are asked to construct a “landscape” cake as a model of somewhere special to them, and Natalia creates the most magnificent topographical map of her homeland, with forests, rivers and sunflower fields, all based on chocolate sponge with whipped cream, cream cheese and cherry jam. “Where’s Kyiv?” asks Paul. “Where the heart is,” replies Nataliia, brightly, pointing to a scarlet jelly. “Where we should have the heart,” adds Prue. Very moving – a real bittersweet, emotional moment for all in the Bake Off tent.
The tears of laughter, meanwhile, are triggered by poor Hassan, a nice chap from Yorkshire who produces what must surely be one of the all-time GBBO disasters. His swiss roll – an admittedly trickier challenge than it looks – deserves to be down there in the GBBO hall of shame with “Custardgate” (2013), the Great Baked Alaska Scandal (2014) and, of course, the Gingerbread Disaster that so marred biscuit week a couple of years later. Mary Berry, they say, has never got over it. The most charitable thing that might be said of Hassan’s unrecognisable swiss roll is that it resembles a chocolate roulade, even though our judges found the taste “stunning”. However, Paul has to tell Hassan that “it looks like it dropped out of a tree”, though in truth it actually looks more like it dropped out the back of a dog.
Once again, and not just because of Hassan’s unfortunate mess, I have not been inspired to bake anything as a result of consuming an hour of GBBO, but this time around at least I’ve been entertained way, way beyond expectations. So, yes, I think I will have another slice, thank you.
