It was as serious as measuring fondant fancies can get ...

AFTER ten weeks of tears and tortured tortes; of bagel twists and oodles of strudels; of soggy bottoms and a hideous spaghetti of eightplait loaves that looked like glazed cow’s innards, the hour of reckoning finally arrived.

Last night, amateur bakers Brendan Lynch, John Whaite and James Morton climbed into their aprons for one last time, ready to do battle in the final of the Great British Bake Off.

The three men had negotiated their way thus far with great charm but varying degrees of baking skills. Brendan was always meticulous and proved himself to be a word-class piper of icing; John was brilliant but inconsistent; while James was experimental and bold with his bakes.

Or, as he liked to put it most weeks: ‘I’m winging it.’

Perhaps all you needed to know about the mettle of each man was his choice of building construction in the gingerbread house round in week eight. Brendan opted for a Bird House, complete with fondant bluebirds, John constructed a giant Colosseum fashioned entirely from gingerbread, while James went for a Derelict Barn, complete with caramel cobwebs.

No, the latter might never catch on in tea shop circles. Except perhaps as the depressive’s first choice for a teatime treat. ‘I’ll have a slice of Derelict Barn, please. It sums up my life.’

Of course, for the final, the mood in the Bake Off tent was serious and focused. Well, as serious as grown men measuring their fondant fancies with a ruler and trying to portray the year 2012 through the medium of cake can ever get. Which is extremely serious indeed!

For the first challenge, the contestants were asked to make pithiviers – an enclosed pastry pie, savoury in this instance – with judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood looking for ‘ a really good flake’ and ‘ impressive layers’ on the rough- puff pastry required.

Mary pointed out that she was looking for a classic scalloped edge, just at the moment that James breezily announced he wasn’t going to bother with the pesky scallops. Talk about pastry skills perversity!

When James’s chicken and chorizo effort came out of the oven, Paul Hollywood drew his knife across the base like a cut-throat finding a particularly attractive neck. And he did not like what he found. ‘Soggy bottom,’ he said, while also pointing out that the pastry on top was underdone, too.

‘Annoying,’ said James, whose flourspattered desert boots were an omen of the horror to come.

The technical skills round that followed was perhaps the most challenging of the entire series, with all three contestants coming a cropper with their fondant fancies.

‘Sponges and accuracy, which I do have some skills in,’ said Brendan rather smugly. By the end of the round, he was splashing about in pink fondant like a five-year- old. ‘Not my finest work,’ he said, regarding a pile of fancies that looked like gastric surgery. Mary was not best pleased with any of their efforts. ‘The fondant didn’t look sharp on the corners,’ she said. ‘Not a very high standard at all for all of you.’

In the end, it all came down to the final showstopper bake, which had to represent some aspect of 2012 that meant something to each of them.

Shetland-born James got all political with a United Kingdom of Cake; a plea for unionism with cakes representing each country of the UK, although no one quite knew where the Turkish Delight filling fitted in, including James. ‘It’s like putty,’ he complained.

Just when one was fondly imagining how Alex Salmond would feel if offered a slice, calamity struck.

ONE of James’s cake countries slid to the floor before it had even been half baked, but that’s Wales for you. In the final stages of the programme, it was clear the real battle was between the two remaining chiffon cakes; Brendan’s Family Reunion and John’s fantabulous Heaven and Hell extravaganza.

At differing points, John had tilted his head to listen to his 15- egg cake, melted the chocolate on it with a hairdryer and then decorated it with gold leaf. Brendan’s heart–shaped offering, the fresh berries glazed with jam that he made himself, the piping pernicketly perfect, simply could not compete.

Certainly, there were often moments during the series when it seemed the technically superior Brendan had been marked down in favour of more fashionable, younger and groovier contestants. Yet on the day, the best cake won. And you can’t say fairer than that.