Here we are then, the most important election on the news agenda today. Three bakers stand before us. This is their last chance, to impress the judges and be crowned the 10th winner of The Great British Bake Off. The time has come for them to bake... for their life.
Of course, unlike other years, where we’ve been able to wax lyrical about Bake Off uniting the country across lines of culture, age and creed, this year’s final crop has all the texture and variation of a bowl of rice pudding with a splodge of jam on the side. It’s hard to pledge allegiances. Are you Team Steph, which is all about precision, flair and attention to detail? Or Team Alice, which is more about attention to detail, precision and flair? Or maybe Team David, which is about flair, precision and attention to detail but a man?
That’s it, those are the options. You can’t bring Helena back with an incantation, I’ve tried.
Still, there’s no escaping the undeniable loveliness of a Bake Off final, especially my favourite part: getting a peek at the bakers’ off-screen lives, with their cosy parental kitchens and proud nans. We discover that Steph, like many a finalist before her, has used baking to help her through a tough time in her life. We meet David’s partner and twin brother, at what we can assume must be Yorkshire’s handsomeness epicentre. And we discover that Alice’s parents believe that “with good management, you don’t need good luck”, which sounds like the stuff a lifetime of adult therapy is made from. But then David’s mum takes all the sugar out of his cakes, so it’s hard to say who has the most harrowing backstory.
Now we’re 10 weeks deep and emotionally invested in their every hope and dream and nervous fringe-twitch, it’s almost impossible to be snarky. But Lord knows I’ll do my best.
Ganacheville, Tent-essee
The final signature bake is deceptively simple: chocolate cake.
But not just chocolate cake. It needs to be a belt-loosening, migraine-inducing, Bruce Bogtrotter-as-written-by-Michael-Rosen-level chocolate cake. A chocolate cake to chase the womb lining right out of you. I’ve discovered my kink and it is watching bowls of glossy ganache being rhythmically agitated with a spatula.
Alice has been inspired by that other great culinary TV institution, Come Dine With Me, to top her cake with life’s third most underwhelming dessert: poached pears. She’s the only baker using just cocoa powder, not actual chocolate, to flavour her sponge – but after last week’s tenure as Ms Chocolate Starfish ‘19, it’s probably for the best.
Steph, who in a worrying twist has placed all her hopes in the existence of “baking fairies”, is complementing the UK’s largest collection of vintage shirts with an equally retro cake, Black Forest Gateau. And David has clocked that after 10 weeks of refined carbs, Paul and Prue’s insides must be moving slower than Brexit – so he’s kindly putting prunes in his cake. “Is it well distributed, or do you find it tends to lump round the bottom?” asks Paul, making me hugely regret that previous joke.
Because the level of jeopardy involved in baking a chocolate cake is fairly low compared to, say, making a 300°C sugar cabinet or constructing a lifesize chicken out of biscuits, we’re having to clutch at drama where we can find it. Steph’s nerves are jangling! David’s drizzle has boiled over!! Alice’s cake need another minute in the oven, WOULD YOU BELIEVE?? They’re making a lot of fuss over Alice’s messiness too, in much the same way an Anne Hathaway character might eat Chinese takeout straight from the container to show what a loveable kook she was.
Judging is an even-handed affair, with everyone getting a token critique. Steph’s cake is a little overbaked, David’s is a lot over-boozed, and Alice’s is “a bit clumsy”. What did you expect? She’s just an adorkable slob, guys! Doi!
Cirque du soufflé
Because I know you’re wondering: the second most underwhelming dessert is Prosecco jelly, the first most underwhelming is ‘fruit’. I strongly believe if you’re served any of these at a dinner party, you are allowed to take your wine back.
Anyway, after some ‘teachers on the last day of term’ japes from the judges that Noel and Sandi are contractually obliged to laugh at, it’s time for the bakers to tackle Paul’s final technical challenge of the series. “What we’re looking for are very proud, tall soufflés with a gorgeous golden brown colour,” he says, reading directly from his Lumen profile.
The bakers have a paltry hour and ten minutes to rustle up six twice-baked Stilton soufflés – plus a load of lavash cracker breads, which are a kind of Ryvita for people who don’t hate themselves. It’s a short challenge, but that just means things go wrong faster.
“Shaking like a leaf, all the standard stuff,” says Steph. David is calmly folding egg whites like he’s working at Gap, while Alice has never even made a roux before, which is quite surprising. But then, I’ve never read The Handmaid’s Tale. It feels good to finally admit that.
Like the straight-A student who flips out in their final exam and writes “Fuck tectonic plates!!!!” across their answer booklet, Steph is going fully off the rails. The other two are half-filling their soufflé dishes; she’s filling hers to the top. The others are filling their bain marie with hot water; she’s using cold. Does she know something they don’t? Is it a secret trick?
Reader, it is not a secret trick.
Soon poor Steph is turning out raw soufflés like runny cowpats onto her baking tray, garnishing them with tears. "Oh my god, what a disaster," trills Alice at her own slightly wonky souffs, which feels insensitive given the carnage happening next door. Like the friend who points out their slightly mussed-up hair in the group selfie, when your face looks like Chewbacca stepping on a plug.
Everything’s gone topsy-turvy. Alice comes second with gluey soufflé and bendy biscuits, and David is first, with near-impeccable soufflés and snappy crackers.
“I need the baking fairies to come back for me tomorrow,” grimaces Steph. If this is A Midsummer Night’s Bake, she is Bottom.
The Inferior Illusions Lounge
After the relative mundanity of the first two challenges, our showstopper is delightfully extra: an edible nougatine picnic basket, filled with ‘illusion’ bakes made from cake, enriched bread and biscuit. I don’t know what this obsession is with making food look like other food, but it’s all very Food Network Mom With Too Much Time On Her Hands.
“The bread’s going to look like cake,” says Steph. “The cake’s going to look like bread.” Will the snozzberries taste like snozzberries? I can’t wait to find out!
No sooner are we on the home stretch than poor Alice receives a distressing phone call – her parents are stuck in Dublin after a cancelled flight, and might not make it to the Bake Off tent in time for her big moment. Some might call that bad luck, but we know it’s simply bad management.
In a beautiful throwback reference, David is echoing Jamie’s terrible technical in episode two by making fig rolls that look like sausage rolls. Alice is making Prosecco jelly – I’m saying nothing – to accompany her cake shaped like a pork pie, and when the chips are down, Steph is making a cake that looks like a chicken burger. Of course, for the full illusion she should be serving it on the back of a night bus, next to a friend vomming into her own Michael Kors.
Speaking of arm candy, the bakers must now fashion their picnic baskets from nougatine; a kind of hard caramel filled with nuts and seeds. You can almost imagine it usurping the bamboo clutch as the bag of Spring/Summer ’20. But it’s macarons that turn out to be Steph and Alice’s downfall. Theirs are still in the oven with only ten minutes to go, while David is calmly hand-painting his own edible crockery.
Meanwhile, outside at the funfair, a parade of past bakers are one hand jive on the dodgems away from reenacting the end of Grease. Look, there’s Jamie! Priya! Michelle! Michael, my beloved! Rosie, her stove barely cold! They go together like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong, although I always think this part must be awkward for the bakers who went home first. Imagine, trying to laugh along with everyone else’s in-jokes. I bet Man Bun Dan isn’t even in the WhatsApp group.
And just in the nick of time, Alice’s parents have arrived! Presumably they’ve spent eight hours in the back of a van with the Polka King of the Midwest, but never mind that – they’re here, and it’s crunch time for our Olympicnic athletes.
Alice’s looks sensational. Her pork pie and Scotch egg cakes are a triumph, and the only thing the judges can find to fault is that her buns don’t look like real ice creams. She’s got 99 problems, but… that’s it. And after nine weeks in the wilderness, David’s star is finally in ascension. His hamper is “exceptional”, with plump peach buns, and a cake cheeseboard so convincing I’m almost angry it isn’t pudding. But it is pudding! And even Paul's just mad about his saffron.
Steph, however, has fallen at the final hurdle. Ohhh Steph. Her buns are underproved, her macarons flat, her chantilly cream too strong and her chicken cake bland. Should have tried 11 herbs and spices, Steph! Worst of all, she gets a sympathy hug from Paul. It’s heartbreaking to watch, although convenient as now the playing field really is level. Will Steph’s stellar track record save her? Can David the underdog fetch the stick of victory? Will Alice’s parents have justified the private jet they had to borrow off Elton John? Everyone is on tenterhooks.
Sorry, I mean tent hooks. That marquee’s just a rental – after this it’s got to do three seasons of Don’t Tell The Bride .
It’s ……….David! ATTA DAVID. While everyone else flapped, Doctor Spice has calmly swept in to take the crown. "It's been weeks and weeks of intensity, and fatigue, and intensity... but this is the best feeling in the world," he says. Enough about your workout David, what about winning the Bake Off?
While Steph is undoubtedly the Miss Congeniality of the series, David's triumph proves a few things. 1) Good things come to those who wait. 2) Minimalism really is having a moment. And 3) the nation might finally be ready to embrace beetroot in our cakes. As long as we remember the next morning that we ate it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to take a Gaviscon and sweep a lot of crumbs down the back of the sofa.