TV chiefs made meltdown row look worse, says Bake Off granny
AT first, it had looked like a simple case of crookery among the cooks.
Viewers of this week’s Great British Bake Off saw one contestant’s ice cream pudding reduced to slush in an apparent act of sabotage by bespectacled grandmother Diana Beard, causing her rival to storm off and also be eliminated from the competition.
But yesterday the mystery of the Great Baked Alaska Meltdown took a tasty new twist – and this time it was the BBC which was feeling the heat.
Grey-haired Mrs Beard, 69, wept as she claimed the corporation had cast her as the villain, deliberately editing the show to make it look as if she had left the dessert out of the freezer for several minutes.
Adding to the pressure-cooker atmosphere, last night it emerged that she will take no further part in the show. This, however, is because of illness rather than ‘Freezergate’, after she lost her sense of smell following a fall.
The scandal is the biggest to hit Bake Off since last year’s Custardgate drama, when one contestant tearfully admitted taking another’s custard to use in a trifle.
Getting to the soggy bottom of the baked Alaska incident, however, was proving rather more difficult last night.
The story starts on Wednesday when 8million viewers watched bearded Iain Watters, 31, throw a wobbly when he found his dessert had been reduced to a splodge after Mrs Beard took it out of the freezer.
He was eliminated after he presented it in a bin to judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood, then stormed off set.
That led to Mrs Beard, from Shropshire, being pilloried as a cheat in cruel online comments. There were more than 550 complaints to the BBC.
She, however, insisted the recording had been edited to make it seem as if she had left the meringue and ice cream dessert out for minutes, rather than seconds. ‘ They deliberately misled viewers and exploited me for the sake of entertainment,’ she said. ‘The BBC should be ashamed.
‘The cake was out of the freezer for 40 seconds and I was asking who it belonged to. Then Iain walked over and took it away. It happened as simply as that.
‘Iain didn’t blame me at all. I was very disappointed and upset by how they cleverly edited the show and as a result I have people saying all sorts of nasty things about me.’ Others pointed out that Wednesday’s episode had been filmed in a tent in the May heatwave. Fellow competitor Jordan Cox, 33, said some freezers had not worked properly in the heat and added: ‘Poor Diana is a scapegoat for BBC.’
Even Mr Watters said: ‘I don’t hold Diana responsible in any way. There are no grudges, we are still friends and keep in contact regularly.’ However, he disputed the claim that the dessert was out of the freezer for only 40 seconds or so, saying it must have been longer because otherwise it would not have melted so much.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘Diana removing Iain’s ice cream from the freezer for less than a minute was in no way responsible for Iain’s departure.’
Mrs Beard’s own withdrawal from the BBC1 series comes after she fainted and banged her head before production of the next episode.
She damaged her olfactory nerve, meaning, she said: ‘I have now lost my sense of smell and most of my taste.’