So that’s it for another week! Many thanks for keeping me company – I’ll be back next Wednesday for the final show in this series. In the meantime you can find me on Twitter @heidistephens, so do come and say hello. Enjoy the rest of your week! Hx
And it’s GERI who wins the Star Baker apron – her tart was one of the best Paul has seen on Bake Off EVER. Praise indeed.
Time for judging! Paul liked Geri’s idea, but it looks more like a beach than a long jump. The biscuits taste good, however. In an unexpected twist, John’s biscuits are scrumptious, despite looking hideous. Louise’s football pitch looks great, and her biscuits have a lovely bake – the base is a bit cakey, however. Jermaine’s post-apocalyptic Wembley has a great flavour, but it isn’t a sporting moment and there weren’t 12 pieces. Still, he seemed nice.
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John looks mutinous, he seems to have given up. Jermaine’s having a shocker, but Geri and Louise seem to be holding it together. Louise’s football pitch looks great, and I love Geri’s biscuit crumb sand. She offers to hold John’s up, and he perks up for a second.
John’s just cracked open the champagne. This is the effect Geri has on him, clearly.
Jermaine is making a soft meringue, but looks thoroughly fed up with the whole business. Geri is painting Paul’s face onto a biscuit, but one of his legs has fallen off. Louise is drawing her football pitch, but doesn’t know where the lines go. I’m not even sure where to start.
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Everyone has started on the decoration apart from Jermaine, who is struggling with his curvy biscuits. John’s latest grumble is that the recipe isn’t detailed enough. Wait, it’s YOUR recipe, John, you brought it.
John is making Andy Murray’s Wimbledon win out of an old family recipe, something about expeditions in South Africa in 1830-something, sorry I dropped off for a minute there.
Louise is making a football pitch, because her husband is a footballer. Jermaine is making a gingerbread Wembley, which is less of a sporting moment and more sporting monument. Maybe his ears need syringing.
Geri is recreating Greg Rutherford’s olympic long jump. She’s using ginger spice, because she’s hilarious.
I’m quite nervous about what John is going to deliver here. He may crumble like a stale digestive.
Day two has dawned, and it’s time for the Showstopper Challenge! Today’s brief is to make a 3D model of their favourite sporting moment. OR, a 3D model of any sporting moment that’s possible to render in biscuits, I’ll wager.
There doesn’t seem to be a comment thread on the BBC liveblog, so please don’t leave me.
John is in fourth place, Louise in third, Jermaine is in second and Geri is in first! So the first two tasks go to Geri, can she hold it together for the Showstopper?
Judging time! Louise’s cakes are all different sizes, and the beetroot has bled into the icing. Geri’s look nice, and they have a nice light texture. Jermaine’s icing tastes good, but his decorations have crystallised. John’s hearts look like butterflies, and they’re different sizes. The sponge has been over-beaten, but the flavour is OK.
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Louise’s cake has flumped out of the tray and broken in half. Jermaine has overboiled his beetroot hearts, they look slightly over-caramelised.
Geri is counting 12 slices. “It’s all about maths, sometimes”. This is counting to 12, Geri, you’re not doing advanced algebra.
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Skewers are being poked into the sponge to see if it’s done. John is poking his fingers in again, because this whole experience is entirely beneath him.
Next job - making a beetroot heart to go on the top of each cake slice. John is grumbling that the ingredients are in metric; he’s a pounds, shillings and pence kind of guy.
Louise is still beating her icing. By the time she’s got the lumps out, Eternal will beon their third reunion tour. John’s icing looks like sick.
Everyone’s cake mix is in the traybake pan, and in the oven. John has seen nicer-looking lava, and nobody knows how long to bake it for.
Our celebrities are now making the cream cheese icing, which firstly requires beating cream cheese with butter. Geri doesn’t know what cream cheese is, although I find it hard to believe she hasn’t crawled back from a club and eaten an entire tub of Philadelphia with a spoon. We’ve all been there, right?
Everyone is beating their icing by hand in a bowl. There is a big shiny food mixer with a very powerful whisk attachment right in front of them, but instead they’re going at it like your nan. Needless to say everyone’s icing has lumps.
John is softening his butter by poking it with his fingers. He doesn’t know what a stand mixer is, but “it’s standing and it’s a mixer, so...”
If Eeyore did baking, he’d be John Simpson.
First up, pulse up the beetroot. Everyone is using the cooked beetroot, apart from Louise, who is using the raw ones. She’s worked it out just in time, which is a shame. John can’t get the Magimix to work, and Geri an Jermaine are already floundering.
So this is going well.
For Geri, following instructions is a challenge. Which explains why she didn’t take heed of any sensible wardrobe advice during the Spice Girls years.
It’s technical time! This week they have to make Mary’s chocolate and beetroot tray bake, which sounds quite nice in a “do I need to include the beetroot?” kind of way.
Everyone looks highly dubious.
So what will the judges make of this lot? John’s weekend treat looks “artistic” says Paul, but he’s not happy that it’s in a tray. The dough is raw, the saffron is too potent, and Ed Byrne’s head has gone purple from the chilli. Well done John.
Jermaine’s tart has a good pastry, and it has a good flavour. Paul thinks it’s too dry, however. Louise’s summer tart is not exactly family sized, but it looks nice. It’s well baked, and it has a good flavour - Paul wanted bigger, however.
And finally Geri’s Happy Mess - Paul thinks it looks fantastic, and the pastry has a lovely colour. It tastes beautiful, Paul is really impressed and can’t find any fault with it.
“I’ve seen worse”, says John. It’s a warzone in tart form.
All tarts are in the oven. John’s is oozing, and Geri’s is burning. Jermaine has put peas on his, which I’m not sure about.
Louise’s pastry is in the oven, and Jermaine is already shredding his his jerk chicken. John loathes tomatoes, so he creates a lake of passata on his pastry. Basically his tart is a pizza made of leftovers.
Paul and Mary are showing Louise how to roll her flaky pastry, because she hasn’t got a clue. Geri’s tart is called “Geri’s Happy Mess”, which sounds filthy. She’s using a pound coin to measure the thickness of her pastry. Bit flash, that.
Jermaine is making a Caribbean-themed tart with jerk chicken. It’s got All Spice in it, who was one of the lesser known Spice Girls.
Jermaine is making a speedy shortcrust for his tart, but both Geri and Louise are going flaky. John is making a yeasted dough with saffron, for a tart that includes everything in his fridge.
“I’m going to let it snooze for a bit”, says John about his pastry. “Prove”, says Paul, witheringly. I like the idea of snoozing pastry.
First up, it’s the signature challenge! This week our celebs have to make a savoury tart in a freeform style, so no tin. Louise looks worried, like she didn’t already know what they were going to ask for. Geri hasn’t cooked pastry since she was about nine.
I think they both protest too much.
So, this week’s celebs – the BBC guy who looks a lot of like David Attenborough but isn’t (but OMG wouldn’t that be amazing?), former footballer-turned-pundit Jermaine Jenas, who I’ve never seen before in my life, Louise off Eternal who also does fashion stuff, and Ginger Spice, who is arguably the most unhinged of all the Spices.
Ooh, according to the intro man there’s a “live commentary” on the BBC website. Yeah, we’ve already got that covered.
Evening all, and welcome to this week’s Sport Relief Bake Off Liveblog! After a brief interlude last week in favour of some football or other, Celebrity Bake Off is back for another hour of marquee mayhem.
It’s the battle of the 90s girl bands tonight, as Eternal’s Louise Redknapp (nee Nurding) takes on Spice Girl Geri Horner (nee Halliwell). I get the impression that Geri really doesn’t like to lose, so I’m thinking this could get ugly. Bring popcorn.
This week’s show also features BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson and ex-England midfielder Jermaine Jenas - so far this series has thrown up a few baking surprises, so buckle in for a festival of fabulous flans and fancy fondants.
I’ll be here from 8pm keeping an eye on every signature, technical and showstopper, so please join in with a teaspoonful of wit and a pinch of wisdom in the comment box below. See you at 8!
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