So here we are then: series six. Ahh, that tricky sixth series. We can only hope this will be a reliable, Seinfeld-style series six as opposed to a Sex and the City series six, all drunk on its own success and gadding about Paris in a frothy petticoat.
Mary has a husky new voice, Mel has a twirly new up-do (can we all take a moment to appreciate how far Mel’s hair has come, please? In series one it was like a child’s drawing of Mel C’s punk phase) and the Marquee of Dreams is back at Welford Park, Berks – but will there be berks inside to match? Or just recipes more retro than that insult?
Let the carb war commence!
Back, snack and crack
In keeping with five years of Bake Off tradition, freshers’ week is cake week. As is also tradition, they’re lulling the bakers in with a false sense of security – the signature challenge is simple Madeira, a cake so boring you could mistake it for a washing up sponge and be halfway through eating it before you realised.
But of course boring doesn’t mean easy, and the Madeira cake should have one distinctive feature: a steamy crevice, right along the top.
'Hopefully the taste will be good, and my crack will show,' chuckles Ugne. Ladies and gentlemen, a new Bake Off record! A mere four minutes and 35 seconds into the series, we have our first innuendo – SOUND THE (CREAM) HORN.
You can sense the artist formerly known as ‘Suephemism’ Perkins looking on, aghast. You shouldn’t have let her slip that one in, Sue. Or that one! See, it’s easy!
Back to the more wholesome matters at hand, three of the bakers are sticking with the Madeira cake’s traditional citrus vibe, while the rest risk the wrath of the judges and the Daily Mail by adding exotic new flavours like cardamom, coconut and fig.
Flora and Marie are both early contenders for Adorable Scot of the Series, a mantle previously worn by Normal Norman and James ‘jumper crumpet’ Morton before him. I would say they’re the only contenders, but who knows – they could both turn out to be a total dicks and someone might have an uncle from Arbroath. Let’s wait and see.
There’s Mat, a tidy-haired fireman who laces his cake with seven shots of gin (our sources are yet to confirm whether he’s a real life man, or some kind of humanoid dreambot manufactured specially for hen parties) and Paul, a prison governor who’s out to prove that if orange is the new black, lemon and ginger is the new orange. Or something.
Then there’s Sandy. “I’m quite random,” says Sandy. “You know, I can be making a cake and you have a meat pie by the time I’m finished.” We’ve all been there, Sand. One minute you’re sifting flour for some shortbread, the next thing you know there’s blood on your apron and a curious barber shop’s opened upstairs. Tch, random!
Speaking of blood, trainee anaesthetist Tamal is using a syringe to add rosewater syrup while the nation squirms on its sofas and tries really hard not to think about plasma. I am 93% sure I’m going to fancy Tamal.
Once the cakes are all safely in the oven (of course Flora has an Aga at home, of COURSE she does), it’s time to twitch nervously in front of the doors. “Looking for crack!” sniggers Ugne, who has clearly decided to audition as the self-saucing pudding of the series. You’ve done that joke once, love. Don’t think we’re not taking notes.
Come the judging, Paul, Stu and Ian’s Madeiras are more ‘oh dear-a’, but Nadiya, Tamal, Flora and Marie have nailed it. That’s the thing about crack; it’s pretty moreish.
'Paul and Mary were much more critical than I thought they would be,' pouts Stu, which seems a touch optimistic for a man in a leather coat and trilby.
Walnut whipped
The first technical challenge of the series is Mary’s frosted walnut cake, a triple-layered retro iceberg of a bake that sinks or swims on its evenly-distributed filling. Suddenly we’re seeing more people panicking about the size of their nuts than the average walk-in clinic.
Caramel is a cruel mistress, too. While Ugne is casually whipping up a bonus sugar basket like some kind of goddess, Alvin and Stu can’t manage enough melted sugar to coat a nut between them. And then there’s the icing – a brand new kind of special impossible marshmallow meringue, dreamed up by Mary and sponsored by Polyfilla.
Few can master the correct Mr Whippy effect, and the judges crunch their way through frosting grainier than your auntie’s Instagram feed. Maybe the newspapers and Davina McCall have been right all along, maybe sugar IS the very devil!
This time it’s Ugne and Alvin who come out triumphant (there’s a danger Ugne could become Smugne, but for now we’ll put it down to rookie enthusiasm/exercise endorphins), while Nadiya has sunk from top to bottom quicker than a roughly-chopped fig after failing to ice her sides.
And Stu’s in a stew, coming second to last and taking inspo from the humble walnut: he’s bitter.
Sweet dreams are made of trees
We’ve started the retro revival so we may as well finish! The first showstopper challenge of the year is Black Forest gateau, and you can practically FEEL grannies across the land gleefully digging out a tin of cherries jubilee they’ve had since before decimalisation.
The trouble with this stage in the competition is that there’s just so bloody MANY of them and they’ve all searched the same thing on Pinterest. That one’s doing chocolate trees, how original! Oh, so’s that one. And that one. And those six.
You know what WOULD have been imaginative, bakers? Setting fire to a heap of chocolate on the judging table and calling it ‘a comment on deforestation’. I think we all know that’s what Iain ‘the bincident’ Watters would have done.
This year’s Ian, the Dalai Lama’s personal photographer and a man so peacefully unassuming that I worry we might mistake him for a scrubbed pine shelving unit, is making a huge macaron to put his gateau on and piping critters round the edge. And Stu is deploying his hipster survival rations already, with a ‘purple forest gateau’ made from beetroot. 'What, you don’t think the original sponge is moist enough?' asks Paul, eyes flashing. QUICK, tell him it’s moist enough! LEAVE IT STU, IT’S NOT WORTH IT.
'I don’t know what I’m looking for, I’ve just seen everybody else doing it,' admits Mat, waggling a thermometer in his melted chocolate, which is an approach you have to hope he doesn’t use while fighting fires. Meanwhile Sandy cements her rep as tent funster by employing a cheeky hand slip with the booze bottle. Is it in her eyes? Is it in her arms? No, as Cher sang – it’s in her kirsch.
Shoulda, wood-a, coulda
As everyone else’s gateaux take shape, Dorret’s is feeling hot under the acetate collar. Her Black Forest is slopping out forlornly on the table and she’s fighting back tears as hearts break for her across the nation. There’s mousse loose aboot this hoose, and not even a handy pensioner to blame.
'No need to get upset! It’s just a cake!' trills Sue, in the cheery voice people use to tell you to buck up after your dog has died. Come on Sue, you know the deal. Is Dolly Parton JUST a country singer? Was Da Vinci JUST a painter? Although actually in this case, we’re talking more like a full-on Monet…
But Sue’s right in the end – there’s not use crying over spilt mousse, and Dorret lives to whisk another day! Instead it’s poor Stu and his purple goo who bid ‘adieu’. Ah, poo.
Next week: Tamal puts custard in a colostomy bag. Perhaps.
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Follow Lauren on Twitter @LaurenBravo
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.