Bake Off has proved it pays to stick to the recipe
At 9.10pm on Tuesday evening, either bookies’ favourite Steven Carter-Bailey, coolly consistent Sophie Faldo or Scouse dark horse Kate Lyon will become the first Great British Bake Off champion to be crowned on Channel4. There will be tension, tears, trembling hands and soggy bottoms. It will also put the cherry on top of a triumphant year for the floury-fingered phenomenon.
This was a crunch series for the cake-making contest. Bake or break, if you will. Over on the BBC – which always felt like this charmingly twee hobbyist franchise’s natural home – it had risen like a well-whisked soufflé from cult BBC Two concern to surprise BBC One smash, eventually becoming Britain’s most-watched show with a jaw-dropping 14.8million of us tuning in for last year’s final.
For the eighth series, though, creators Love Productions “followed the dough” to rival broadcaster Channel 4, signing a muchbemoaned £75million, three-year deal and losing three-quarters of the show’s stars in the process. On a new channel with a largely new cast, would this delicate confection still taste as sweet?
The answer has proved to be an emphatic yes. Thanks to a clever combination of imaginative casting and if-it-ain’t-broke format consistency, the marquee magic has miraculously remained intact. Changing channels at the peak of Bake Off’s powers was a risky move. Thankfully for viewers, as well as Channel4 bigwigs, it has paid off.
Replacing much-loved pun-flingers Mel and Sue as presenters was a tough task but new duo Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding had instant comic chemistry, with the impish Fielding invariably stealing the show from his drier co-host. The hipster-goth surrealist’s giddy excitement and warmth seemed to spread to judge Paul Hollywood, with whom Fielding has built an endearing bromance.
At the silver-bearded master baker’s side, where the mighty Mary Berry used to stand, has been Prue Leith: a similarly experienced and authoritative foodie, firm but fair, if something of a slow-grower. It wasn’t until past the series’ halfway point that “the Prue pat” became a coveted congratulatory gesture alongside the “Hollywood handshake”. Leith’s signature colour-blocking, statement specs and chunky jewellery haven’t yet become a style sensation to rival Berry’s floral jackets but give her time.
Many devotees worried that cutting to commercial breaks would interfere with the show’s hypnotic rhythm. Such fears have proved unfounded. Episodes have been extended to 75 minutes to accommodate the ads, so we still get our full hour of in-tent, apron-clad, oven-peering action. Intervals have been impeccably timed to build tension rather than break the flow. They also give viewers time to make a quick cuppa or raid the biscuit barrel – and what could be more Bake Off than that? Although come to think of it, those Dr Oetker sponsorship idents are distinctly irritating.
Wisely, Channel4 resisted the urge to tinker with any other ingredients in their acquisition’s winning recipe. The familiar marquee has remained pitched in the rolling grounds of Berkshire’s Welford Park. A dozen bakers have battled it out over the same three rounds. We have still been treated to those oh-so-BBC-ish segments about the history of baking.
Was poaching Bake Off from the Beeb worth all that money? Despite the mind-boggling figures involved, you’d have to say yes. It’s rather like football transfer fees, which sound obscene but make a sort of cartoonish commercial sense.
This incarnation has exceeded its ratings and financial targets. Bake Off is comfortably the channel’s mostwatched current programme and among its all-time top 10. Sponsorship deals and advertising revenue mean it’s already started to recoup its costs.
Sure, ratings have dipped a bit, from a BBC average of 13million to nine million now – but by a fraction of how far they would have fallen if the show had been snapped up by Sky1, let alone streaming services Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. (Just ask Jeremy Clarkson or Test cricket fans how frustrating it can be when your favourite programme disappears behind a paywall.)
Bake Off 2017 has been a typically compelling series, too. The amateur bakers have been as likeable and easy-to-root-for as ever. They’ve been on journeys of self-discovery and developed cockle-warming camaraderie. Accidental innuendoes have amused as always (who can forget Noel’s exposed bottom or Julia’s phallic snail?).
The baking also happens to have been the highest standard yet, regularly producing spectacular show-stoppers that have lit up social media and left the judges lost for words – see Flo’s watermelon illusion cake, Kate’s meringue rainbow or Steven’s bread handbag.
Many fans would prefer it if cult hero Liam Charles, this year’s youngest baker and most lovable character, hadn’t been knocked out in the quarter-final. Yet that’s the beauty of Bake Off: it’s not a popularity contest or a manipulative case of who can spin the saddest sob story.
It’s a meritocracy which is all about the cake – and, in Forgotten Bakes Week, Liam’s offerings were either raw or flavourless.
So to Tuesday’s grand finale. Will creative overachiever Steven become the first male champion in five years? Might steady Sophie win the race or can mercurial Kate defy the odds? And perhaps most importantly, will ratings rise like a sculpted centrepiece or sink like a poorly-proved loaf? On your marks… get set… and for the last time in this new-look series, bake!