Next week, we have Mo Farah, Motsi Mabuse, Ben Miller and Katherine Kelly - what a line-up! PLUS, Derry Girls is back immediately after the episode ends. What a time to be alive! See you all then x
Can the same be said about his fellow contestants? “He really needed something new to brag about”, notes Annie with a wry smile.
It was a remarkably open field really - Matt was the only one who survived the technical, but then his Showstopper was arguably the worst. On balance, I think it was perhaps between Ed and Example? Either way, I’m happy for him.
Didn’t expect that. He was consistent, though. Paul Hollywood was also pretty matter of fact about the technical and how they all terrible they all were, so it was a fairly open field.
The winner is ...
Example! Huh?!
What do we think BTL? I genuinely have no idea.
WHO WILL GET STAR BAKER?! I honestly have no idea after all that. Matt’s was surprisingly tasty but his Showstopper was the least impressive, Annie has outdone herself but her first two challenges: errrrrrrr … not so much. Could Example or Ed Gamble clinch it? Who knows?
Matt’s done a fairly good job too – though the figure looks a little like it lost a battle with a steam-roller ...
From “he’s a baby!” to “he’s a babysitter!”, here’s @realmattlucas’s Sofa Cake Showstopper! #GBBO pic.twitter.com/rFrnKYbiRZ
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) April 5, 2022
Sentences you would only hear on Bake Off:
Ed Gamble: “And that is real carrot in the sick.” Good to know.
Featuring Ghost Paul, Sozzled Noel and Post Vom Ed, here’s @EdGambleComedy’s Pub Cake Showstopper! #GBBO pic.twitter.com/AenD9XVHI4
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) April 5, 2022
Annie’s looks so good too! What’s going on?!
You’d bedder believe it - here’s @AnnieMacManus’s Chambermaid Cake Showstopper! #GBBO pic.twitter.com/bxCPFJ2aFG
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) April 5, 2022
It is the Showstopper Judging.
And after the hopelessness of the first two challenges Example’s is first. He’s setting a good example (sorry) with quotes saying “delicious” and “fantastic.” Suddenly, the competition is a bit more open.
Everybody kneads good neighbours. Here’s @Example’s Australian Landscape Showstopper! #GBBO pic.twitter.com/RMd2DtMOX3
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) April 5, 2022
My favourite comment of the night thus far.
Maybe I wasn’t listening, but why is there a ghost behind Ed’s bar? He says it’s Paul Hollywood as if that makes sense, but I’d argue it doesn’t.
I think it was a very good idea on Matt’s part to switch from fondant to icing. Looks more like fabric, too.
Updated
Ed Gamble’s fondant work looks absolutely fantastic. Matt Lucas, meanwhile ...
I like that Example has been seated for the majority of this challenge. He knows he isn’t going to win, so he’s just enjoying the ride.
Both Example’s Australian accent and carved cakes are remarkably impressive.
Is it “fond-ant”, or “fond-ont”?
“That’s me. In Australia …” directly before Example’s fondant head falls off then rolls all over the floor. Is there anything that hasn’t touched the carpet this week?
Are there any scientists out there that can confirm whether this is true or not?
Fun fact, by the end of the next regular series Noel Fielding will have presented more episodes of Bake Off than anyone else.
— Olly Perris (@ollyperris) April 5, 2022
I don’t know if the 10-second rule counts when the whole cake has touched the carpet.
Oh god Annie Mac just DECKED an entire layer of her cake on the floor. “I was worried about coming third then,” responds Ed.
Ed is channeling Val the cake whisperer! Never forget.
Val - The Cake Whisperer. #GBBO pic.twitter.com/uScP8jidO1
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) December 25, 2017
Annie was a chambermaid in Germany?! She never stops surprising me. Icon.
Annie has managed the pile of sick that Ed’s been struggling to make. Jokes aside, if you make sure your ingredients are all the same temperature and add a tablespoon of flour with the eggs, you’ll avoid your cake mixture splitting. You’re welcome!
Has Example watched Bake Off before (pt 1975)? “This is the first time that I have ever baked a cake.”
I’d say it’s ambitious for one of the regular (read: skilled) bakers to make a cake in the shape of Australia, never mind someone who – in their own words – has “never made a cake before”.
Noel: “The pub features a couple of regulars.”
One of the customers is face down on the carpet.
Prue’s necklace looks like liquorice allsorts, doesn’t it? Delicious.
The handshakes are the final straw for you. These weird challenges are the final straw for me!
The Showstopper Challenge Dart-board has spoken!
The bakers must make a novelty cake which represents a job they did before they were famous.
Imagine coming into the blog cold, not having watched the episode. Absolute carnage.
These Sainsburys ads are very good aren’t they? Much better than the annoying gingerbread people from Aldi.
I have been thoroughly enjoying this episode. All we need now is for someone to flip over an open-topped pie and I’ll go to bed a happy boy.
Oh, and… 4. Annie Mac. 3. Ed Gamble 2. Example. 1. Matt Lucas!
Michael!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Tight and heavy”. A recent review of mine from a date who I made pay for dinner.
Prue [reviewing Annie’s bake]: “Could you try to be a bit kinder?”
Paul: “No.”
Prue: “This is not a good doughnut.”
I am not sure Annie Mac is going to get Star Baker.
Be they doughnuts, breasts, testicles or pakora, it’s time for the judging …
… and may God help us all.
Annie has baked testicles. There’s no other way of saying it.
I think Matt’s secretly very competitive. And he’s the only one doing a half-decent job.
Michael, I think you meant to type those phrases into Google and not into this liveblog.
“My balls are the wrong size”. “There’s all these folds”. “It’s knowing when to pull out, isn’t it?” It’s hard to know where to look.
Also I am sure that proving something doesn’t involve taking it out of the drawer every five minutes while yelling “IT IS NOT RISING.”
Very Nadine Coyle “behhking and stuff, working wi’ floyurr”, isn’t it?
Annie Mac pronouncing kneading as “NEDDING” because she doesn’t know the right way to pronounce it has SENT ME!
“That’s pretty wet babe”. The morning after that night out in Soho.
To be fair to the bakers, making them knead an enriched (read: soggy and sticky) dough by hand is a bit rough.
I couldn’t possibly comment. Though if I was going to, I’d probably mention the use of a phrase I’m very familiar with: “round top”.
Are we sure Paul Hollywood is talking about doughnuts, here?
Like Annie, I love doughnuts. I can’t explain how much I want to eat all of these, no matter how they turn out. Though those deep fryers do bring me out in cold sweats.
On to the technical... They have to make six iced raspberry doughnuts.
And yes, deep fried! This might be Celebrity A&E.
Accurate. *puts graphs away forever*
Let’s not ask Michael what he thinks, lest he finally make good on his threats to storm out.
This seems to have kicked off a conversation BTL. What’s the best or worst flavours to include in a hot cross bun? I, for one, am uniformly against any inclusion of chocolate.
As a side note, I always make a HCB loaf at easter, and use it for egg-dipping soldiers, coated in marmite. Yum.
We all know someone who has left us too early. Thinking of my mate Sarah today.
It really brings it home, hearing the celeb bakers’ ties to cancer – the reason we’re all here. Remember you can get involved and donate to Stand Up to Cancer here.
Even Prue’s had enough of these handshakes. Maybe she’s a live-blog lurker.
I was waiting to see whether we were going to make it through alive without any handshakes. And... we did not.
Updated
PAUL. GO IMMEDIATELY TO JAIL.
Michael is entirely responsible.
Two for two, thanks to Annie’s messy fish-scuits. Can Paul keep his hands to himself the whole way around?!
We’ve made it through one judgment sans-handshake. Well done everyone (apart from Ed, and his undercooked biscuits).
M-I-C-H-A-E-L
Time to judge some stained glass biscuits!
My prediction is handshakes all round.
MICHAEL.
“It looks great but doesn’t look like something you’d want to put in your mouth”, says Annie, summing up the end of that night out in Soho.
Michael …
“I’m not going to get a handshake because they’re not all the same”, notes Matt. Well, I wouldn’t say that. Last week someone got a handshake simply because it was baked.
Updated
Has Example watched Bake Off before (pt 95)? “This is down to the wire!!!”
Has Example watched Bake Off before (pt 94)? “This is actually really stressful.”
I think Ed’s idea is my favourite – though Annie Mac’s punny “fish-scuits” come a close second.
“Very soft. This is probably the worst it’s been”. Sounds like another night out in Soho.
“One more unicorn, four more holes”. Sounds like a night out in Soho.
FORBIDDEN INGREDIENT DECREE!
We’ve definitely had matcha before, but it bears repeating considering how awful it is. The tent gods (me) have spoken!
I am not sure Example is living up to his name, being this behind.
“Annie Whack” is an excellent drag queen name. Well done, Ed.
I have found myself rooting for Matt, which is a surprise both to me and probably everyone else.
Paul Hollywood helping Matt Lucas with his bake means that we’re now in the realms of possibility of Paul Hollywood giving himself a handshake at the end of the Signature.
Annie: “Are you allowed to use your hands?”
Example: “Yes. It is baking.”
Incredible.
Ed is getting married in two days!! He’d better not end up pulling a Joe Sugg and having to squeeze a wedding ring over endless blue plasters.
when joe sugg did great british bake off and fainted pic.twitter.com/WAGrqlsPQ6
— iconic tv moments (@iconictvmoment) January 14, 2022
Example and Paul appear to have the same hairdresser.
If Matt Lucas gets irritated by being constantly interrupted by Noel during a vital baking moment, then the circle will be complete. He could barely make eye contact during the judges visit as he was too busy!
Example’s White Chocolate and Passion Fruit Unicorns look like Jammie Dodgers, don’t they? Or, as they were called last season, Jammie Biscuits *stares at Bake Off lawyers*. Example and Paul appear to have the same hairdresser.
Paul to Annie: “Are you going to have the time to do all this?”
Annie: “Probably not.”
OK, I have my favourite baker.
Feels unfair for Paul to be kneading Matt’s dough (easy, boys) but not helping the others, doesn’t it?
First handshakes given out willy nilly to the celebrities and now boiled sweets allowed to be used. Michael, you must be seething.
Fun fact - in my season we were told we weren’t allowed to use boiled sweets to make a stained glass effect as we couldn’t bring in ingredients from The Outside World. Though you could argue that all the ingredients were from The Outside World, really.
“Do you measure first, then do it all?” – Annie Mac. I’m praying for Annie.
The signature is... “A batch of 18 identical biscuits with a stained glass effect.”
It has to be cool, and not have pigeon poo on it. No, really.
Every week there is a celebrity who has obviously never seen Bake Off before, their agent books them on to Bake Off, their agent tells them to watch an episode in advance, they don’t and then the celebrity utters: “wow, this is actually really stressful” for an entire hour.
There was a LONG pause between “Three famous faces” and “... Matt”, wasn’t there?!
I’d love to see Barack Obama in the tent, though arguably Michelle Obama would be a better guest, being no stranger to fooling around with food: https://vine.co/v/OqJKZVQami9
Now for our bingo:
- Phallic biscuits
- Yonic meringues
- Discussion of ‘cracks’
- Prue dressed as a traffic cone
- Paul dressed in blue (again)
- Celebrities surprised that:
- a) baking is hard
- b) Bake Off is stressful
And as promised last week, let’s add a BTL Forbidden Ingredient to the growing pantheon of ingredients which should earn immediate expulsion from the tent. Any ideas?
They should have had Noel Fielding compete. Honestly. Matt Lucas is fine but we can all clearly tell that Fielding has not learned a single thing about baking in the four or so years he has been in the tent. It would have been excellent telly.
It’s also not the first time this has happened – two years ago, Sandi had to step in for Big Narstie, earning yet another of those meaningless handshakes for her Showstopper...
When Sandi turned from presenter to baker on The Great Stand Up To Cancer Bake Off… #GBBO pic.twitter.com/2xsIuTExno
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) March 19, 2019
This week, we have DJ Annie Mac, comedian and podcaster Ed Gamble, rapper Example and … host of The Great British Bake Off, Matt Lucas! From the sounds of it, someone dropped out of the lineup at the very last minute and a coin was tossed in Matt’s favour (or Noel’s, depending on how you look at it).
It’s amazing that the acronyms for our liveblog haven’t caught on, isn’t it Michael? It was a fairly unadventurous episode in the tent last week (although how do you follow up on Emma Willis’ piping work in week one), so let’s hope there’s a bit more carnage this time round. After all, isn’t that why we are all here for the celebrity series in the first place?
Hello, and happy April! We’re back for the snappily-titled The Great Stand Up to Cancer Bake Off Guardian Live Blog (or TGSUTCBOGLB for short). Michael here, and I’m sure Scott’s floating around the ether somewhere too. Did you know that Scott and I have never met in real life? I still have no idea how tall he is.
