After the last season of the Great British Baking Show (for Trademark Reasons) got heaps of criticism for its half-baked Mexican Week, the producers promised that they were going to scrap the themes of countries and/or nationalities and that this season would have a “back to basics†approach. We throw our hands up to the gray British sky in praise of this decision.
But before we could even get back to the basics, there was a large order of admin to get through at the very top of the hour. In a cute (question mark) parody of The Godfather called The Breadfather, Paul Hollywood played Donut Corleone and welcomed a new addition to the family, co-host Alison Hammond. I feel like after Sandi Toksvig and Matt Lucas, Noel Fielding just wanted a collaborator he could look in the eye without bending down.
American audiences will most likely be unfamiliar with Alison, who is the first non-comedian to hold a position running around telling the bakers how much longer they have to make some pastry whose name you wouldn’t be able to spell even if you knew how to pronounce it correctly. Hammond got her start in the early 2000s as a contestant on Big Brother, so she’s a reality-TV veteran. She was so beloved by the nation that she then went on just about every celebrity reality show you can imagine and started hosting ITV’s This Morning, which is like the U.K. version of Good Morning America. She may not be able to do stand-up, but she’s wonderful and an utter delight, even if she didn’t shine in the premiere.
After introducing Alison, it is back to basics we go, and it is a great place to be. The signature challenge is a little odd: make a vertically layered cake. Actually, it’s just a giant Swiss Roll, a rolled-up cake with frosting in the middle, stood on its side so there will be vertical stripes when it’s cut into. Because of the cylindrical shape, it looks like a regular cake with a surprise inside. No, don’t worry. It’s not a gender reveal. This isn’t something one would normally bake at home, but unlike many of the challenges from the last several seasons, there is no engineering degree required to make it.
We go around the tent, meeting the bakers and learning about what they’re making. The one that most immediately stands out is Tasha, who is deaf and has a British Sign Language interpreter named Daryll to translate for her. She’s making a Genoise sponge because she saw it on Bake Off, which seems like a bad idea. Don’t we want to make things that the judges have never seen before?
As the vertical cakes stack up, a few are gorgeous-looking. Rowan (archetype: youngest baker in the tent) makes a magnificent raspberry cake that looks like something you could serve at a wedding. Dan (archetype: straight guy with a technical degree) makes a Pepto-Bismol–pink rhubarb and custard cake, which is based on a traditional English candy that most Americans would spit right into the gutter. Keith (archetype: messy working-class dude) also stunned the judges with his chocolate and orange cake that looks just like a little slice of Halloween.
There are some bad cakes, too, including Tasha’s wonky Genoise cake, which Paul asks if she sat on. Saku found a way to get some good flavors out of a blueberry, but her cake was more slanted than an entire op-ed section. At least she got a hug from Paul Hollywood (a hug from Paul Hollywood?!) as a consolation prize. Amos (archetype: mama’s boy) makes a drip cake where the chocolate drizzle on the outside looks like something you would find at a crime scene.
The technical challenge is wonderfully meta. The bakers have to make the chocolate-fudge cake covered in fresh raspberries that we see in the opening credits under the show’s title. While the title might differ based on your country, the cake is decidedly the same. They keep going on about the missing raspberry, though. I had no idea it was there? How have I watched 14 seasons of this show and never noticed the missing raspberry? Now, it will be the only thing I see, like when I learned that Arby’s is called Arby’s because it’s a homophone for R.B., which stands for roast beef.
I feel like for so many seasons, for the technical, they were traveling the world looking for obscure pastries that none of the bakers had ever heard of before. This season, every single person watching this show knows exactly what this cake looks like, and if the bakers can’t make a basic chocolate cake with ganache, then they probably have as much business being in the tent as Chef Boyardee, who only knows how to make Spaghetti-Os.
There are no major disasters, though Dana (archetype: cheeky Essex gal), Tasha, and Nicki (archetype: dotty older lady) wind up at the bottom. At the top are Abbi (archetype: forager), Amos, and Dan, the winner.
The signature is to create an animal out of cake, so it’s basically a challenge where everyone with a dog makes a cake of their dog, and everyone with a cat makes something else because living with an animal that shits indoors has made them hate all cats. This is the kind of 3-D baking challenge I usually hate, but it’s not like they had to make a biscuit mobile or a bread easel meant to stand on its own. Yes, some next-level baking skills are required and maybe a dowel or two, but again, everyone could leave their engineering degrees at home. So far, I’m loving back to basics.
Nicki must have a cat because she’s making a beaver. I feel like the producers pulled her aside and said, “We’ll give you £500 if you make a beaver cake just because we want all of the puns and jokes.†When she finally presents her gorgeous cake, which looks like if Crash Bandicoot had a beaver as a cousin, Prue says, “Nicki, tell us about your beaver,†and suddenly it was the best £500 anyone on the set had ever spent. Sadly, the cake is too dense and dry, so our new Alison Hammond has to say, “No one likes a dry beaver.†Solid work, sister. Welcome to the team.
Those who, like Nicki, went a little bit more cartoonish I think fared better than those who went for a photorealistic representation. Josh (archetype: rugby lad who bakes and probably supports Tottenham) made a Highland cow, his mom’s favorite animal, that looks straight out of an anime. Abbi should change her name to Mary, because she made a little lamb that looked absolutely adorable.
If there’s a dark horse, it’s Tasha. No, she didn’t make a dark horse; she made the most amazing-looking robin with frosting feathers and hints of tahini in both the cake and the buttercream. It was so good that Prue almost flew away. Dan also made a wonderfully realistic version of his dead dog, Bruno. He should have put some candy-bar chunks on it and called it a Bruno Mars cake. (ZING! I’m here all season.)
Not everyone fared so well. Matty (archetype: lads, lads, lads) can’t get his food coloring to make his buttercream black, so he ends up with a sad-looking gray dog instead. Saku’s turtle looks so good you could pull a plastic straw out of its mouth, but the judges say it tastes disgusting. Dana also makes a cake inspired by her dog, but it is very flat, and she says it’s because so is her dog. Good save.
But ultimately, Amos and his pokey orca end up in last place. His cake is too stodgy, too overbaked, and when he covered it in fondant to make it look like the pride of Sea World, he just condensed the cake further. He’s sent home, and just now, as orcas are having a moment. I hope the orca mafia ramming boats in the Mediterranean don’t find out about this and come for Amos.
Unsurprising after his great signature, a win in the technical, and his very-good-boy dog cake, Dan is named star baker. Since it’s the first episode, it’s hard to meet everyone and find people to root for, but I’m so happy we had some nice, simple, and entertaining challenges for the time. I would hate to be basic, but it looks like going back to them is just the right place to be.