Spoilers forward.
Like a cake beneath the scrutiny of Paul Hollywood, Nice British Bake Off has, by many accounts, fallen flat over the previous few years. Since I started recapping it for Eater in 2019, informative segments on the historical past behind the bakes and an emphasis on camaraderie have given option to outrageously tough challenges (biscuits…however they’re functioning toys), mind-bogglingly restrictive timeframes (make focaccia, begin to end, in 1 / 4 of the time it desires to ferment and rise), and the whole devaluation of the Hollywood handshake (he just lately gave three in a single problem). In 2020, the environment worsened when former host Sandi Toksvig’s brusque heat was changed by the cringe (and extraordinarily doubtful) comic Matt Lucas. It obtained worse nonetheless when the present began making disastrously problematic forays into worldwide cultures.
Within the run-up to the present’s 2023 season—its fourteenth—producers have admitted to (most of) these faults. This yr’s batch of bakers—whose early standouts are final-year pupil Rowan Claughton; its first-ever deaf contestant, Tasha Stones; and engineering-minded useful resource planner Dan Cazador—are getting into a courageous new period, with hopefully no extra nationally themed weeks or non-baking challenges. What’s extra, Lucas has been changed by U.Ok. daytime TV presenter Alison Hammond, and the early indicators are that she has breathed new life again into the tent.
Are these adjustments sufficient to repair GBBO as soon as and for all, although?
One of many greatest weaknesses of Lucas’s partnership with fellow comic Noel Fielding was their one-note double act. Each are greatest recognized for off-kilter nonsequiturs—collectively, they carried out a number of clownish nonsense wearing exceptional sweatshirts: Fielding’s Mr. Spoon routine, during which he harangued contestants, was notably disturbing. Hammond’s comparatively sunny, supportive disposition is a significantly better foil to Fielding, changing the earlier duo’s surfeit of self-referentialism with a real curiosity within the bakers and the way they’re doing. When Rowan mentions that he made a marriage cake for his twenty first birthday, there’s no calmly asinine quip. She simply says, “I really like you!” And are available the time to announce star baker, there’s palpable enthusiasm to crown the primary of the sequence.
[Watching Great British Bake Off? Play GBBO bingo.]
Some issues, in fact, won’t change, and this yr’s intro is simply an iota much less cringe than the Billy Ray Cyrus tribute that opened 2021. Paul Hollywood’s stint as “The Breadfather”—full with Italian gestures stiffer than his personal handshake—additionally does little to assuage the unstoppable swelling of the sourdough whitewalker’s ego. The present has resisted including visitor judges every week, which may make issues rather less inclined to private foibles, reminiscent of Hollywood’s frequent criticism of rose or matcha flavoring.
As ever, the primary episode is Cake Week, and each problem is definitely a cake: a vertical-layered signature; a chocolate and raspberry technical; and a signature cake made to seem like an animal. Baking truffles could seem to be a given, however after malt loaf’s unceremonious 2021 look, nothing will be taken without any consideration. The duties are tough, however not so tough that anybody struggles to even end, with none of them requiring performance past being truffles, and none of them requiring cooking processes that don’t have anything to do with baking; there are not any tacos being baked on this problem.
