So this week I’ve been watching old episodes of Great British Bake-Off and Kirsty’s hand-made Britain.  GBBO markets itself as the competition for amateur bakers.  We follow people who like to bake at home as a hobby.  Now these people are home bakers.  When I think of home baking, I think of scones, butterfly cakes, victoria sponge.  None of it looks perfect, it all looks a little lopsided and well, home-made.  This is not allowed on the GBBO.  Contestants must push the envelope, take risks and above all, their finished result must look professional!  Anybody else notice that paradox?  The amateur home bakers must be professional!!!  But that’s not enough,  whilst the lovely Mary Berry likes traditional, Paul Hollywood likes contestants to take risks, try something they’d never tried before (possibly not the best tactic for a baking competition…). The first series semi final they had to make something elegant that would suit a traditional afternoon tea.  Miranda made perfect little lemon fairy cakes, beautifully iced and decorated and professional looking.  They were…… elegant.  Ruth and Ed decided to experiment.  Now I love both Ruth and Ed and would eat anything they produced,  but what was produced that day can only be described as disaster, a dogs dinner.  So who went through to final?  Miranda who fulfilled the brief perfectly and whose amateur buns were finished professionally?  Of course not, she was booted out.  And so began my confusion with the GBBO.

Kirsty Allsop on the other proudly proclaims herself to be an amateur.  In the first week of her show, she entered a cake baking competition.  She had to produce an afternoon tea and she also entered the single cake competition.  The judges (and who had no idea who had baked what as the programme was at pains to tell us several times) noted that Kirsty’s (anonymous) scones were overdone (some of us would say burnt, I prefer caramelised) as was her caribbean fruit cake.  Somehow, she managed to get second place with the afternoon tea and first place  with the fruit cake.  Now I shudder to think what the other offererings were like if burnt scones and cake are what passes for winning entries.

So my confusion about competition baking remains.  Am I going for professional and beautifully finished?  Or burnt/looks like a dog has vomited on a plate?  I think I may just stick with looking home-made!