Having her cake and heating it! Mary gives in to blowtorch craze

THEN . . . A MERINGUE HARANGUE. NOW . . . SHE’S ALL FIRED UP

SHE has long disdained the blowtorch as a needless ‘fancy’ extravagance – but Bake Off star Mary Berry has now turned up the heat in the kitchen with an extraordinary U-turn.

Tomorrow night the doyenne of British cooking will be seen brandishing the controversial gadget to glaze ‘wickedly delicious’ cupcakes in her BBC2 series Mary Berry Everyday.

And she candidly tells viewers: ‘I have finally succumbed to a blowtorch. I’ve always had a grill up until now. But I have to admit it’s rather efficient.’

Last September, the 82-year-old Great British Bake Off judge spluttered with disbelief on the show as eventual winner Candice Brown and other contestants used blowtorches when finishing off their meringues. Ms Berry complained

‘I have to admit it’s rather efficient’

to fellow judge Paul Hollywood: ‘I am not too happy that they are nearly all using a blowtorch, and to me meringue topping is best put in the oven to get a crunchiness.’

Her remarks followed a similar outburst two years ago on the show when she provoked uproar during one of the signature challenges by introducing a one- off ban on ‘these fancy blowtorches’ before the contestants glazed their creme brulees.

She told them: ‘There weren’t such things as blowtorches when I was young. You did it under a grill.’

Eventual champion Nadiya Hussain was left reeling, telling Ms Berry: ‘It will be interesting to see what it’s like in the grill because I’m used to the blowtorch method.’

But an unrepentant Berry told her: ‘Not everyone has a blowtorch.’

Yet Ms Berry has abandoned her former hard line for tomorrow’s show, in which she prepares cakes to celebrate the 50th anniversary of her wedding to Paul Hunnings.

She uses the torch to give her lemon meringue and strawberry cupcakes a glaze.

Her turnaround will be welcomed by some viewers who had objected to her creme brulee ban.

At the time one tweeted ‘But the blowtorch is the best bit – that’s why you make brulee!,’ adding that Ms Berry was a ‘spoilsport’.

Several members of the public also pulled her up on her contention that blowtorches hadn’t been around when she was young. One wrote: ‘The blowtorch was invented in 1797. Mary Berry is more than 200 years old.’

The blowtorch is traditionally used to caramelise sugar, heating it to the point that it melts and then cools as a hard glaze.

Ms Berry’s blowtorch U-turn is a fitting end to a series that has courted controversy.

Her admission that she preferred to add white rather then red to a spaghetti bolognese – along with cream – divided opinion, and she was criticised for baking a potato, leek and cheese ‘pie’ which lacked a pastry bottom. Her critics claimed she had simply made a casserole with a lid.