Can you even believe it champs. We’ve finally made it to the end of what was proved to be the most tumultuous season of Bake Off we’ve ever experienced on telly. It’s been a wild ride. One that separated the losers from the winners (Paul from, er everybody else), one that created unexpected heroes of people working in the financial industry (Selasi) and one that proved, once and for all, that Mel and Sue are the greatest comedy duo since Chandler and Joey lived with the chick and the duck.
Jane, Candice and Andrew are the bakers left as we enter this the very last Final that’s going to be worth watching. Next year’s NEW REVAMPED Bake Off Final will be troubled by adverts for SCS’s sofa sale and Paul Hollywood’s sausage hands clapping the successful baker on the back with such force they fall down into their meringues. It’s going to be a disaster.
Signature Challenge
Back to this finale though and there’s a ‘royal’ theme. The first challenge is to make a ‘filled meringue crown’ which sounds like a wildly impractical item of clothing unless Queen Liz is looking for something to nibble on to stave away her boredom as she watches yet another christening of a distant relative called Allegra or Cordelia or Isabella.
Candice is planning to do FOUR WHOLE TIERS for her merignue crown which seems like a lot, whilst Andrew is making a structured design that’s got more in common with Grand Designs than Bake Off (well, when in Channel 4...). According to Mary he’s chosen a very ‘runny meringue’ too which sounds less like the stuff one decorates a crown with and more like the stuff one decorates their toilet bowl with. Not to worry though, he seems confident enough. He’s also dressed like Julian out of the Famous Five.
At the end of round one, all the meringue crowns are pretty impressive. Andrew’s crown is displayed actually ON a mannequin’s head. Not that that wins him any points. Both Jane and Candice get handshakes from Paul whilst Andrew ends up empty handed, having dodged a very clammy bullet. Nevertheless, he’s devastated.
Technical Challenge
For the technical challenge, the bakers are asked to make a Victoria sandwich with jam and buttercream. The trouble is, they’ve got no instructions. So the bakers are weighing eggs and wrangling huge amounts of butter in wild desparation. Andrew’s still whining about not getting a handshake which is odd because it's like someone whining about not being given the chance to splodge their hand into a big plate of offal.
The fact that the cake they’ve been instructed to make is super duper simple seems to be the exact problem in hand; if they bugger up something THIS easy then they’re royally fucked. In fact, to our untrained eye all the end results look exactly the same. Somehow though, the judges manage to discern differences between them and award Andrew first place, Candice second and Jane third. Andrew is chuffed, he’s back in the running and, heading into the showstopper round, it’s neck and neck and neck.
Showstopper Challenge
What with the technical round being so simple, the showstopper proves to be seriously labour intensive. The judges want a whole bloody royal picnic! They want one chocolate celebration cake, 12 puff pastry sausage rolls, 12 mini quiches, 12 savoury scones and 12 fruit and custard tarts. If the Queen’s going to eat all of that she is far more of a woman than I.
Candice has worked out that altogether this mammoth task expects them to create 49 different bakes in just five hours. Andrew’s obviously worked out an exact spreadsheet split into five minute intervals to keep his baking on track (Hermione) whilst Jane is freestyling like an absolute hero proving that it’s still totally OK to have a fake-it-till-you-make-it attitude to life at 61-years-old and be a fully functioning human being.
Because there’s only three bakers left, and half an hour of the show to go, the Bake Off Production Team have filled in the gaps in time with moving short films about the contestants’ lives. Candice’s features lots of very cute pictures of her and her nan, who taught her how to bake, and some nice bits from her mum and dad about how proud they are of her. Sadly, there’s no sight of her stone cold fox of a brother, perhaps at the winner’s picnic later?
In Andrew’s film his nan who’s provided many of the recipes he’s used across the series pops up wearing a VERY ON TREND ruffle shirt. Andrew’s mum reveals that whilst she and Andrew’s dad went to Andrew’s graduation, he missed it because he was baking. Not sure about that one, if I’d managed to get myself an engineering degree there is no chocolate cake magnificent enough to get in the way of me walking up on that stage and doing a Gwyneth Paltrow Oscars speech until I was dragged away from the mic.
Also guys, Andrew's family's lawn. I can’t handle their lawn. It’s perfectly mowed in perfect straight lines. It looks like Privet Drive. It is Privet Drive.
In Jane’s film there’s some nice old pictures of her with a lovely perm, meanwhile her (very attractive) kids are concerned that she hasn’t slept for the past 12 weeks. They say some really nice things about her being a wonder woman and juggling her own business and running the house and putting everyone else first and being on Bake Off and they don’t know how she does it and no I’m not crying YOU’RE CRYING.
Back in the tent and half way through the challenge and no-one’s having any fun. 49 bakes and one oven? Reminds me of the time my flatmates decided to cook Christmas dinner for 38 people and had to run across the road to Wetherspoons to ask if we could use their oven for our carrots. Turns out they prefer to use microwaves for their culinary offerings. Not sure what I was expecting really. Needless to say, it was a disaster.
Andrew is smugly sticking to his plan whilst Jane has got multiple timers on the go at once, they’re all going off and she doesn’t know which is for what food, she’s doing that nervous kind of laugh you do when you say ‘nice to meet you’ to someone you’ve met like six times.
Outside the tent, family and friends and previous bakers have arrived. There’s Tom, with his girlfriend! Selasi in a fetching pink shirt and Val! Val is flying the flag for Candice to win. Back in the tent though, the atmosphere is tenser than Hercule Poirot’s posterior and time is running ever nearer to crunching point. Jane’s hands are shaking, her chocolate collar is refusing to attach itself to the cake, Andrew is vigorously wafting his wares with a chopping board, Candice seems well, Candice seems very zen. Perhaps she’s taken a leaf out of Selasi’s book. As time finishes, there’s big group hug and Jane bursts into tears of sadness because she’ll never get to bake in the tent again. Jane, I literally have a tent and a gas fire, I’ll set it up in your back garden and you can bake away to your heart’s content.
The Final Judging
All of the bakers’ picnics look lovely. Much better than the traditional millennial picnic offering of an M&S bag filled with a meal deal, a gin-in-a-tin and a tub of flapjacks. Jane’s sausage rolls are a bit raw but her quiches are great. The scones are so-so but her tarts win Mary’s affection. When it comes to the cake-minus-the-chocolate-collar the judges are surprisingly understanding and give her top marks.
Meanwhile, Andrew’s sausage rolls are also a bit raw and his scones are flavourless. His quiches too get a dressing down and his tarts have a soggy bottom! It’s heartbreaking stuff to watch as Paul fingers his way indifferently through his sub-par pastries and Andrew looks ready to cry. At least Andrew’s nan’s chocolate cake gets rave reviews. Nice work nan.
When it comes to Candice though, the judges light up. Her sausage rolls are a hit – especially since she’s actually made them look like actual pigs, complete with a crackling tail, which Paul swiftly whips off and consumes before judging’s even begun. Her quiches too are top banana, whilst the scones and the tarts get only slightly less-than-perfect scores. Her chocolate cake, Paul manages to say after a pause so long it should belong to The X-Factor, is also great.
And the winner IS….
Well it’s Candice isn’t it! Consistently excellent both in the baking department and the lipstick department, she’s spent the last ten weeks bringing heart, nostalgia, excellent baking and love to the tent. She’s a true winner, well deserved and um, Candice, I love you. And you brother.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.