Try your hand at classic challenges from Bake Offs gone by

The Great British Bake Off is back — and this time it’s got something to prove. In 2010 it was just a cute little game show launching on to BBC Two, one that sounded, frankly, old fashioned. Baking? Isn’t that something your granny does? And Mary Berry, well, she was more Aga than X Factor.

But you know the story: the first series defied expectations by raking in 2.77 million viewers for the final, and since then ratings have risen faster than those perfectly mixed Victoria sponges on series seven’s final Technical Challenge. That episode hauled in nearly 16 million viewers, making GBBO the mostwatched television show in Britain for the second year running.

So, what is it about Bake Off? The headlines are all about the money — the £75 million that Channel 4 paid to swipe it from the BBC, the doubling of Paul Hollywood’s salary, the boost in sales for baking goods reported by John Lewis this week, and the three million viewers that Channel 4 needs to pull in on Tuesdays at 8pm in order to break even.

But the Bake Off magic is in more than just the lolly. Cast your mind back to 2010. The general election had given us the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition, Kate and Wills got engaged, and sourdough was something you ate in San Francisco. Supermarket baking aisles were more about cake mixes than actual baking, and gin and tonic flavour frosting was just a gleam in a product developer’s eye.

Now, it feels like there’s an artisan baker in every town. The shelves are packed with edible gold leaf, liquid glucose and half a dozen different kinds of high-quality cooking chocolate. When I asked for a madeleine tin in a kitchen shop last week no one batted an eyelid. And all of this is down to Bake Off, which is enough for me to forgive even that gin and tonic frosting that winked not-so-alluringly at me from the display the other day.

This isn’t just about food porn — watching chefs strut their stuff on telly while tucking into a takeaway, or buying cookery books to read but never use (yes, I do that too) — what Bake Off has given us is a real enthusiasm for actual baking. And we’re not simply churning out another batch of brownies. We are trying our hands at great British classics, Victoria sponge and Bakewell tart, as well as fine European bakes such as Viennese whirls and American bonanzas such as hummingbird cake).

And the point is that all of these take effort. No random rush for sugar and fat this: the processes are elegant and careful, the antithesis of bish-bash-bosh cookery. It has become cool to spend time, to take trouble, to concentrate on food, all vital when making excellent cakes or producing a perfect loaf of bread. It’s proper old-fashioned attention to detail. Baking’s reputation has gone from granny to groovy.

And thanks to the (mostly) goodhumoured contestants — and we’ll draw a veil over Iain and his liquescent baked Alaska — it’s OK to fail, too. When a contestant on Tuesday’s show looks at her soggy sponge and declares, “I’m going to have to make it again,” I want to hug her. That’s the thing about baking. It takes practice. There are few instant triumphs. If at first you don’t succeed, bake, bake and bake again.

The processes are elegant and careful, the antithesis of bish-bash-bosh cookery. It has become cool to spend time, to take trouble, to concentrate on food.

MARY BERRY’S VICTORIA SPONGE CAKE

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