A WHAT CROQUE

Mel Buttle and Claire Hooper talk baking triumphs—and disasters—with Dan Stock

They’ve tasted sublime sponges and luscious lamingtons, dunked their spoons into terrific trifles and gone a little bonkers for brownies fresh from the oven.

As hosts of The Great

Australian Bake Off, Claire Hooper and Mel Buttle have eaten their way around brilliant buns and creative cakes in the quest to find Australia’s best amateur bakers.

So after three seasons of savouring all the sweets after watching the best in action you’d imagine they’d both be pretty handy in the kitchen. Not quite. “My brain is Teflon coated when it comes to baking. It actively refuses knowledge in that area,” Claire says. “Someone will be talking about their process (on the show), and I’ll be nodding along, but I’ll be thinking ‘Oh, it’s a great idea to frame a vintage tea towel’. I’m just looking at other things when they’re talking. But I do now know how to ask the right questions. I asked one of the bakers how he got his scones so fluffy. I wouldn’t have thought to ask that before. It was nice for him, as he got to explain his process, while I looked out the window at the trampoline and thought about getting one for my backyard. But I’m very present at tasting time, I’m right in there!”

But Claire says she has learnt one thing on the show — baking is all down to magic.

“Just following the rules is not enough. I’m all about mathematics, and baking should be about maths. If you measure it right, you time it right, it should work. But it doesn’t and it makes me furious. Baking is magic.”

Add break

While simply following the rules in the kitchen hasn’t worked out for Claire, Mel’s problem bakes are more a matter of numbers.

“I’m really bad at maths. My teacher in Year 11 told my parents, your daughter does not need to do Year 12 maths. It’s too stressful for the teachers,” she says. “I once tried to make a pecan choc chip biscuit. I read the recipe and thought it was 800g of pecans when it was obviously 80g. I went back to the shop and bought three more packets, thinking it’s a lot of nuts … put all the nuts in, there was hardly any flour. But I persevered, because I’m not too bright. They were terrible of course.”

She has a simple solution. “I just buy dessert. I don’t even pretend I made it, either.”

Top tips

But Mel has picked up a few handy tricks from the judges on the show, Matt Moran and Maggie Beer.

“Toast your nuts before you put them in anything. Leave fat on meat when making a sausage roll or pie, because fat is flavour. And if you’re making a cake and you don’t want the fruit to sink to the bottom, for instance a cherry cake, toss the cherries in a bit of flour before adding them to the mix, that stops them falling to the bottom.”

“I just buy dessert. I don’t even pretend I made it, either” MEL BUTT LEON HER BAKING SKILLS

Brownie points

“When you smell a brownie baking, it’s the smell of fat and sugar combining. It’s so hypnotic,” Claire says. “Everyone eats brownies, so it’s a good one for the novice baker, good for confidence. But I don’t know how anyone who’s made a brownie can eat a brownie, because you see what’s in them. You can be a baker of a brownie or an eater of a brownie. You can’t be both.”

Choux fly

While both hosts are happy to try anything the contestants dish up, there are a few creations they’re more than happy to skip.

“A neenish tart, I don’t get the point of them,” Mel says. “And I don’t like choux pastry very much, because by the time you eat them they’re all soggy and gross.” “I’ve never liked a cheesecake,” Claire chimes in. “It’s just sweet cream cheese, what’s the point. And I say I don’t get biscuits, I mean, why cook a cake until it’s crunchy? But Mel and I have eaten so many delicious biscuits on bake off. Sometimes our longstanding hatred of foods is because we only have access to bad examples in the past.”

Book of revelations

“I have a fraught relationship with pineapple,” Claire says. “But there was the most amazing pineapple trifle on the show. It was a pineapple masterpiece! It was pretty, but everything was in balance You’d have to hate pineapple not to like this.” The recipe for that showstopping pineapple trifle can be found at lifestyle.com.au. Mel says bread and butter pudding was her biggest conversion. “The old-fashioned desserts, I didn’t like because when I was little they weren’t very nice, when Aunty Marg and Aunty Bev would just phone it in.

“Now I think baked custard can be nice.”

Dessert island

As for her desert island dish, Claire says she’d be perfectly happy with fresh multigrain sourdough.

“I could live on bread. I mean, imagine having a croquembouche on a desert island. You’d feel like a queen on the first day. After three days you’d be kicking them around, piffing them in the ocean. You’d be so furious that that’s all you got to eat.”

Laugh tracks

Mel Buttle will be performing at the Spiegeltent in Hobart, along with Susie Youssef and Anne Edmonds, for one huge night of funny this Friday.

Join in on a three-way attack on contemporary culture with some of the sharpest minds in comedy in Australia today.

“When you smell a brownie baking ... it’s so hypnotic” CLAIRE HOOPER ON THE FUDGIE TREAT