Isn’t it the law in Bake Off that only Mel and Sue do double entendres? If so, Candice Brown didn’t get the memo. “Do you need a hand?’ asked Andrew in biscuit week. “Yeah, can you come and grab my jugs please?” she replied, pouting at the blushing engineer as he retreated in giggles.
At first, thanks to such saucy moments, I had Candice pegged simply as a cheeky minx of a baker with intriguing lips. Which is how I like my women, and indeed men. These qualities would have been enough to cheer up Wednesday evenings. But there proved much, much more to the secondary school teacher who lives in Bedfordshire with boyfriend Liam and pug Dennis (or maybe it’s the other way round).
In the same week she made Andrew blush, she did something that, baking-wise, floated my fougasse. She produced a gingerbread replica of her parents’ old north London pub for her showstopper, piping the name, King Billy IV, in icing. In a show in which mimsy contestants bake oversized breads evoking Norse legends or witter smugly about using eggs from their own plot, how refreshing that Candice created England’s answer to Proust’s madeleine – an edible boozer evoking her youthful memories of pulling pints.
But it was a detail in the gingerbread pub that really got me. The carpet. It was made from ginger, and slightly sticky. Is there anything more British than a pub carpet, soaked with who knows what kinds of toxic material, holding for all eternity the odour of fags and disappointment? No, there isn’t. Then what genius it was for Candice to alchemically transmute this abject icon of British culture into something beautiful and filled with bittersweet childhood memories.
Of course, even though she’s the bookies’ favourite to win, some people don’t like Candice. They don’t like that she changes the shade of her lipstick for each show. They don’t like that she sometimes bakes in heels. I’m not saying they’re all misogynists, but the safe money says many are.
“Figured it out!” tweeted someone unpleasantly. “Candice reminds me of Greta from Gremlins #GBBO #Candice.” No she doesn’t – you’re just being mean (Greta, in case you don’t know, is a mutant with green hair that matches her scaly skin, an ill-advised leopardskin bikini and a smear of lippy over her frog-like lips). Fortunately, Candice has a skin thicker than Henry VIII’s game pies: rather than getting hurt by the hate, she superbly retweeted this toxic blah.
And when someone else tweeted unpleasant stuff about her lips (She pouts! Get over it!), Candice counter-tweeted an image of Daffy Duck, adding: “Night all!!! Loveliness appreciated as always!! Time to rest the duck face #daffy #loveliness #itsjustmyface.” The haters, as Taylor Swift realised, gonna hate; but the bakers, as Candice knows, gonna bake.
And then there was Peacockgate, in which Candice was accused of copying 2015 winner Nadiya Hussain’s peacock for her Tudor week showstopper. Allow me to retort. First, Nadiya’s peacock was made out of Rice Krispies, marshmallows and a pinch of desperation and, what’s more, unacceptably, contained no cake, while Candice’s peacock was a shimmering work of art fashioned from Tudor marzipan and – finally! – cake. And second, why was Twitter bleating about Candice’s bird when it should have directed its attention to the historically ludicrous Mexican fillings in the otherwise delightful Benjamina’s purportedly 16th-century Tudor pie?
I don’t want to go on about this, but Candice’s peacock tail demonstrated the marvellous truth about her approach to Bake Off: she always fulfils the brief and then keeps going. Her peacock had a marzipan tail made of yellow lemon flavoured feathers and green feathers that tasted of mint. Plus inside there was a surprise of fresh blueberries. “You’ve ticked all the boxes and then some,” said Paul Hollywood. Which doesn’t make any sense but I know what he means.
Candice is a better baker than her fellow finalists, more of an artist even than Jane, the garden designer, and as skilled an engineer of edible forms as Andrew. Plus, she’s much better telly than the others: I love the way she pep talks herself (“Come on CB!”), and now that Selasi has been evicted, she’s the only remaining contestant with the moxie to work the camera.
In the semi-final, Candice was still going beyond the brief. She made two kinds of fondant fancy for the showstopper, one involving chocolate praline, the other a cherry Bakewell. Neither was as showy as the pub or the peacock, but rather something the TV audience couldn’t appreciate – they were delicious. “You’ve made,” said Mary Berry, between mouthfuls, “two cracking fondant fancies.” Personally I could die happy if I knew that was going to be my epitaph. But such praise wouldn’t do justice to Candice’s talents. Only the Bake Off crown can do that.
