There is joy at my house: The Great British Bakeoff is back

For years, I’ve stayed up late at night watching television shows which I recorded so I would not have to admit watching. I didn’t want anyone to know that my time could be taken up folding huge mounds of butter into dough, overlapping, and then rolling out again… over and over. I’ve been hooked on baking done by adult amateurs, professional pastry chefs, home bakers, and owners of cupcake shops around the world.

Each contest includes a dozen or so episodes in which one person is weaned out and sent home. As one of the judges said, “You don’t have to be the best, just don’t be the worst… that day.” It’s true. A few seconds of distraction can overbake the cookies. A dip into the wrong bowl can wind up with a cake full of salt, and no sugar. Over stirring can result in flat pancakes or a meringue which will fall flat.

Some of the sessions require the bakers to come up with an outstanding “showstopper.” Some of these turn into show “enders,” but it is amazing what someone came come up with in a few hours. Also included in the British baking series is a technical project. Most of the contestants have never heard of these concoctions and must wing it with the ingredients provided and a prayer they’ll come close.

In the end, the winner goes home with lots of praise and a crystal cake stand… engraved, of course. In some of my research for this column, I found that the winner also goes home with a big chunk of money. This only seems appropriate.

This show, and others, have opened my world to a whole new range of cooking. As a child our kitchen produced a few fancy recipes… like when lemon Jell-O was combined with cottage cheese and pineapple. We mostly ate things like meatloaf, Sunday Roast, fried chicken, and bologna sandwiches. We had tuna fish and a few other treats, but I can’t remember ever fixing Bangers and Mash, Sticky Toffee Pudding, or a Battenburg cake.

I’m pretty sure mother could have handled that Bangers and Mash. We had potatoes and wieners often. Mother once cooked the wieners in a skillet, planning to top them with barbeque sauce and serve with corn. She poured the sauced wieners into a cake she was whipping up in the mixer next to the range. She baked that “wiener cake, and we ate it. She would probably not have made it to the next round.

Some of the assignments are well known to the British contestants. Where we are well acquainted with burritos and empanadas, the people of England, Scotland, and Wales know the “pasties” which were packed in the lunch buckets carried down into the mines each day. Ask one of the contestants to whip up a Victoria Sponge and there will be no problem. A sponge is a cake. The Bakewell Tart looked like a thin, one crust pie. The Sticky Toffee pudding looked like a gooey cake. All the puddings looked like cake. As a matter of fact, I heard them refer to any desert as a “pudding,” if it were served after the meal.

I do not feel moved to make one of these recipes… even a sponge named after an old queen. My joy comes in getting to know the contestants, cheering for the best, and groaning for the ones going home each week. I think it’s like being a football fan. I don’t want to miss a game, I’ll cheer for my favorites, but I am not going out on that field and kick a field goal.