Every year Bake Off comes around, and every year I forget how much I love it. Mary’s floral fashion is inspirational, and Mel and Sue’s banter is what gets me out of bed in the morning. Let’s ignore Paul, he’s unnecessarily cruel.
The first few weeks are great; the bakes wash over you as you try and suss out the strongest contenders and best personalities, and bread week is especially important for this. Paul Hollywood is an expert in bread baking, and often the contestants who excel in filo pastry and muffins falter at plaited loaves. Paul noted that the star baker of bread week has always gone through to the final, so it was interesting that Tom won it, but winning with his curiously genital-shaped Thor’s hammer loaf was another example of why we love Bake Off so much.
This year’s Mary Berry wannabe, Val, is scraping through every week, and sadly I think we have a lot in common. Her ark shaped loaf was so undercooked Paul refused to eat it, but when she is told it is over salted she insists that was the plan – ‘like the sea’. Nice save, Val. Queen Mary keeps reminding me why I want her to be my grandma though – she kindly says it’s “it’s not a mess, it’s informal”. Same, Val.
Candice’s lipstick game is so strong – she bravely came on TV for the first time wearing dark purple, but she is fluctuating – in biscuit week, she was star baker with a solid pink, but in bread week, her loaf is raw and she is a contender for leaving wearing a classic red. Also, what make up she wears has nothing to do with her baking skills, obviously.
My favourite is naturally Selasi, though, because he remains completely calm throughout, hopefully serving as a stark reminder to the other weeping contestants (and maybe viewers) that, at the end of the day, a Dampfnudeln (German dumplings) is just a Dampfnudeln.
The preview clip of the following week is really the best part of Bake Off, condensing all the drama into about 30 seconds – plus, next week it’s an unprecedented batter week. I glimpsed a lot of Yorkshire puddings of various shapes and sizes, and an intricate heart-shaped pancake flip. Can’t wait.
Image: miss_yasmina on Flickr