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4th November 2013

The Great British Bake Off Debate

Faye Waterhouse and Ben Walker go head to head in a no-holds barred battle to decided whether the Great British Bake Off has the perfect consistency and a satisfying flavour, or languishes at the soggy bottom of food TV.
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Faye Waterhouse: in favour


The Bake Off is building to a grand finale, and oh how I’ve enjoyed flexing my culinary muscles and buying bags of sugar and flour and washing more bowls than I even knew I had.

‘The Great British Bake-Off’ is on the television. Whether you like baking or prefer the eating you can’t help but be drawn in by the success of the show. There is something undoubtedly comforting about switching off from the outside world, making a cup of tea, and settling down to watch someone turn ingredients into something tasty.

For those who are oblivious to the show first of all, where have been! The show is split into 3 challenges: a signature bake, a technical challenge where the bakers try and replicate a recipe from Mary Berry or Paul Hollywood, and the showstopper that usually is something that resembles a work of art. Each week is separated into sweet and savoury with one contestant being named ‘Star Baker’ and another being asked to leave.

Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins couldn’t be more perfect for presenting the programme–they are forever hopping from baker to baker and generally run amok in the tent. The moment when Mel caused Francis’ biscuit tower to collapse was particularly amusing. However, the best double-act has to be Mary and Paul. Dare I say it but their on-screen chemistry makes the cakes and breads seem even more appealing! Not so appealing however is Paul’s strong aversion towards Ruby the youngest and prettiest baker in the tent—need I say more?

One of my favourite contestants has to be Howard from Sheffield, the baker who was forever using alternative ingredients which when went well went very well and when went bad went very bad. Hemp loaf was never going to be a classic was it. Howard won the public’s vote when Deborah ‘accidentally’ stole his custard. In the baking world this was a cardinal sin and Deborah was soon given the boot by Paul and Mary.

Now it is just women left in the competition and the pressure is on to be consistent every week. The signature bake is always interesting with the bakers often coming up with unusual flavours and interesting recipes. The technical challenge is, I admit, perhaps a bit too complex. I had never even heard of some of the names of the recipes, never mind tasted them. I find myself sometimes wishing it might be nice to see something simple baked to perfection such as a Victoria sponge cake that way a normal person like me can attempt it but that’s not the idea of the technical challenge.

We tune in because we want to be amazed by what new culinary creations they can come up with in the time it takes us to sit back and relax and slurp our tea.

Ben Walker: The non-believer

The Great British Waste of Time, that is the Bake Off by the way, is a nadir in food and drink programming. If I want to see patisserie perfection then I’ll seek out Mr Blanc or Roux, not Beca from the Valley’s or Mark from Magnet. Food TV should either whisk you away to the dizzying heights of Michelin magic—a fantasy land of culinary escapism, or it should act as Sherpa and guide us to achievable home-cooking (see Nigel Slater). Yet the GBBO is caught in the wardrobe, neither in Narnia or reality, but trapped in the hinterland—the show dares to stretch its fingers to a fantastical world but all too often sinks into boring mediocrity. Here I shall draw my scimitar and carve a savage polemic against the scourge of Tuesday night broadcasting.

 First, the concept is terrible. Asking retired Christine to produce Religieuse is like asking Pierre Koffman to make a series about the best technique for pouring milk onto ones cereal—a waste of time. Unless of course the GBBO audience is comprised of sadists who exact great pleasure out of seeing an old age pensioner sweat over her inability to make choux pastry.

Second, twee does not cover half of it. A marquee, a meadow, a stately home, gingham and Mary Berry all add up to sickeningly sweet tele; a hell that is the equivalent of being trapped inside a Cath Kidston factory. So many pastel colours, nice little patterns, and bows and ribbons add up to an overdose for those who were not raised in Darling Buds of May. If this was really baking in Britain then it should be filmed in the brutalist Park Hill estate in Sheffield or out of some new build affordable housing complex in Slough.

Third, I shall prove that Hollywood is not kneaded. That big galoot wanders around squeezing and prodding, pulling and poking everyone’s dough—who knows where his dirty mitts have been? I certainly would lash out, angled spatula in hand, if his intrusive sausage fingers came near my rye bread mixture.

Fourth, Ruby is so annoying. Last episode she upset me so much I became distracted and split my ‘crème pat’. As it stands, she is clearly a big favourite to win yet every little thing she does is coated in self doubt and misery and whining—‘it’s not proven enough’, it’s over baked’…Modesty soon becomes very infuriating when the person proclaiming their inadequacy clearly knows they are actually quite good.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but hopefully I have made clear that the BBC need to seriously reconsider filming another dire series of Bake Off.

 


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