Like a brandy biscuit that’s lost its snap
BraVO Prue, you great big flapjack of half-baked folly. you’ve cooked up the blunder of the year. yesterday morning, of course, Prue leith prematurely revealed in a tweet that it was ex-army girl Sophie who’d won the competition.
Her gaffe completely ruined the final for millions of fans who enjoy the tension of the baking competition’s annual climax. But you see, this is what happens when you let anyone over the age of 17 onto social media.
On the other hand, it was the funniest and most exciting thing that happened on the Bake Off this year.
The move from BBC to Channel 4, the departure of HrH Mary Berry plus the replacement of sparky hosts Mel and Sue with Halloween tribute act Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig has resulted, for me at any rate, in a diminution of delight.
like a brandy biscuit that has lost its snap, a loaf that won’t rise, something vital is still missing from the Bake Off tent. last night, as always, Franken-Noel and his hobgoblin sidekick Sandi were touring the baking benches like minor royals on a visit to an almshouse. ‘Is that enjoyable?’ Sandi honked at one contestant, who was frantically icing a biscuit.
‘What is that?’ Noel wondered, when another tried to cram fistfuls of roasted garlic into a plait of dough.
The pair of them seem nice enough but oh- so-very distant; vaguely interested in cake, but much more fascinated in the trajectory of their own careers. Mel and Sue, by comparison, always gave the impression that they would kill their nearest and dearest unless they got to sample everyone’s efforts – and then go back for seconds. Meanwhile, Prue leith is pleasingly headmistressy and a crisp, exacting judge – but there appears to be zero chemistry between her and Paul Hollywood, who increasingly looks like a sugar-frosted version of his previous self. and of course, she is no Mary Berry.
Mary! Mary would never have pre-tweeted about the winner, because Mary thinks that tweeting is what the birdies do when she feeds them lemon drizzle cake crumbs in her garden. and Mary wouldn’t be gallivanting around South asia anyway like Prue. She would be at home in Buckinghamshire, doing up the buttons on her pastel cardigan, arranging some dried hydrangeas in a sea grass basket from John lewis, and preparing soup for a warming family lunch.
Perhaps what makes Prue’s error even worse is that the 2017 Bake Off came right down to the wire – there was so little between the contestants in terms of baking talent throughout the show that everything depended on what they produced in the final bake.
‘Whoever wins the Showstopper will win the series,’ trilled Prue, which only added to her later mortification. The three finalists, Steven Carter-Bailey, Kate lyon and Sophie Faldo, crashed through the signature bake (complicated mini-loaves) and the technical challenge (complicated iced biscuits) with little between them. For the Showstopper they had to make entremets – a delicate, multi-layered confection once served as a dessert between courses. It had to contain a mousse, a jelly, a sponge, a meringue, some thick or whipped cream or a mixture thereof – imagine the key members of Theresa May’s cabinet, replicated in cake form, and you are nearly there.
‘This is the most unforgiving Showstopper in Bake Off history,’ boomed Paul – but was it really?
TWO
of the finalists managed to produce near-perfect specimens, although sweet Kate was hampered by an icing butterfly that fell off, and a broken chocolate collar. However, it was Steven who let the side down. a fierce competitor, he was always first to charge into the tent, climb into his apron and get his ferocious bake on. determined to win at all costs, his anguish when Kate or Sophie did well was piped across his face in black-hearted icing – but the promise of riches and fame now guaranteed by this once-innocent show can turn a young man’s head.
alas, his Showstopper was a disaster, a squelch of creme brulee, hazelnut sponge, chocolate and bananas, topped off with a mirrored glaze that failed to set. The end result looked less like a cake and more like he’d just performed an appendectomy on a squid. His layers were bleeding, and he was dying inside.
In the end, it was cool and capable Sophie who triumphed with her Ode To a Honey Bee cake. ‘I just love honey, I find it fascinating,’ she said, while whipping, gelling, whisking and mixing all at the same time. ‘This is what we call concurrent activity and it is the principle of war,’ said the former royal artillery Officer and trainee stuntwoman, as she slapped a spatula on the counter.
Honestly, I thought she should have won for that bit of military magnificence alone.
So the baking battlefield now lies fallow for another year and, in truth, this was not a vintage series. ‘I think I am going to cry,’ said Sandi Toksvig right at the end. Me, too, but for very different reasons.