The 2014 Great Sport Relief Bake Off – episode 4

Tonight Ed Byrne’s floppy hair is in charge of presenting duties.

Sleb #1: Severe fringed comedy lady, Doon Mackichan

Sleb #2: Saturday, and ‘wife of Marvin JLS’, Rochelle Humes

Sleb #3: Ex Blue Peter and Sport Relief adverturess, Helen Skelton

Sleb #4: Impressionist, Alistair McGowan

Doon’s in a James Shetland tanktop, only with a more garish colour palette.  I suspect it isn’t Fair Isle either.  Rochelle’s make-up is terrifyingly pristine.  It remains perfect throughout.  Hurrumph.

Signature bake: A family-sized pizza.

Pizza?  Interesting.  Frankly, simple is best where pizza is concerned - you can’t go wrong with a margarita, if you ask me.  Anyone who forgoes lashings of cheese should be forcibly ejected from the tent.

Doon’s making a Black Olive and Anchovy Pizza and is garlic-ing it up with five cloves.  Wowsers.  Good work Doon – on garlic, go big or go home.  She's cracking on in a confident manner, but perhaps there's a bit of front going on, as, in a surprise move, Paul comes along and offers Doon some advice.  Yes, you heard that right: Paul Hollywood and actual baking advice.  Sure, the advice is mainly ‘it’s too late to save this’, but STILL – a new Paul?

No word on Rochelle’s garlic situation, but she is adding beer to her Vegetarian Caribbean Pizza.  It’s also going to contain plaintain, peppers and caramelised pineapple.  The judges stand round looking confused then decided to reserve judgement (in that judgy way that only they know) whilst Ed steals Rochelle’s beer - Perks would be proud.  Rochelle then overjerks her sauce and worries about making Mary Berry cry from overspicing.  She adds sugar – who knew?

Alistair does an impression of... not sure.  I’m guessing a TV chef.  (This will become a theme.)  He’s calling his pizza Prima Pizza, as it’s the first one he’s made - erm, branding needs work, McGowan.  It’s pesto based, which I’m on board with, as well as stilton (yes), walnut (ok) and... peas.  PEAS?  And apple.  APPLE?  Hmmm. 

Helen proclaims that she’s basically improvising and has NOT prepared one earlier, which any Blue Blue stalwart should know to be a schoolboy error.  She’s spooning out pomegranate and talking about chicken and fruit - suddenly Alistair’s pea and apple combo seems delicious.  Helen's attempting Chicken, Pomegranate and Halloumi Pizzette and she’s adding pomegranate for “colour”.  Ed kindly points out that pomegranate is “a similar colour to... tomato”.  Oh Helen.  She forges on, oblivious.

Rochelle’s pizza is heart-shaped.  She looks concerned, post-cutting, and asks “does that look like two boobs?”  Yes, Rochelle, it sincerely does.

Doon sings some opera.  She’s not half bad at the singing, but I think it's supposed to be funny, which... less so.

As the finish-line approaches there are fears as to whether the pizzas are sufficiently "family-sized".  Rochelle points out that her family is her, her equally svelte pop star husband and a five month old, so it’s amazing there’s any pizza there at all.

Helen has created too much mess to place her pizza on her own counter top.  Oh Helen.

Sig-bak judging: Doon calmly confirms to a teary-eyed Paul that, yes, she has put five cloves of garlic in her pizza.  Although the base is “too thick”, “it’s a good eat”.

Mary tells Helen her chicken, pomegranate and halloumi pizza is “bland”.  That, I was not expecting (but they have just channelled five cloves of garlic).  Paul is anti-halloumi.  He is WRONG, because halloumi is, no question, a Top 5 cheese.  It’s the bacon of cheese and i will not hear a word against its squeaky cheese-meat goodness. Mmmmmetc.

Alistair’s base is a bit doughy, but the flavours are “really, really tasty” and “gorgeous”.

Rochelle has put sweetcorn on her pizza, which is a criminal offence, because sweetcorn is literally the worst food there is.  Oddly, the judges don't comment on that and, instead, Mary says the pizza is “totally different, but I do think it goes together”.  Paul agrees.

It's a close run thing then.  Bar Helen.

Technical challenge: Ten Eccles Cakes.

There’s an actual storm going on outside and I’m not sure the tent is going to hold.  Thunder rumbles and Rochelle screams - in spite of being a fully grown adult woman, she is scared of storms.  Helen, however, starts to feel at home due to the extreme nature of events, although she’s slightly confused about the concept of canvas walls, telling us "I'm outside in a tent".

“I’m not doing what anyone else is doing” she then worries, before reflecting “but then, that’s not unusual”.   Oh Helen.  She seems adorable, but not the sharpest knife in the Ikea knife block.  Rochelle still decides to follow Helen’s advice on adding flour to her dough to make it more manageable.  It might not be the worst idea as Alistair, rigidly sticking to the recipe, is engaged in a series of futile attempts at folding liquid dough.

Helen continues her catalogue of interesting moves – from chucking in berries and sherry with no regard for the measurements, via innocently (allegedly) trying to nick Doon’s dough, to cutting out ten circles, but stitching some of them together to inadvertently half the number of bases available.  Fortunately Ed is on hand to ‘help’ her rip her Eccles sandwiches asunder to get back on track...  The moral of the story is that Helen has ended up with a range of Eccles sizes whilst generally not really understanding what the hell is going on.  She also makes the most Blue Peter swear of all “Oh shhh-sugar plum fairies”.  Clearly she will be last.

Except she won’t, as Rochelle has used salt rather than sugar.  Literally amazing.    Poor Rochelle.

Come judging, Paul takes his usual great pleasure in spitting the salt out.  The judges aren’t that impressed with the four attempts, though Mary sympathises that the Eccles cakes were hard to make.  "No they weren't Mary" scoffs Paul.

Rochelle's salty produce comes last, Helen's assorted sizes incredibly scrape the podium, Alistair is second and Doon first. "I got very confused with 'cut across'" explains Alistair. Mary is tickled by that: he gets the full crinkly eye.  Do I hear Twitter complain about the Berr-McGowan cheat-flirting?  DO I HECK.

Foodistory does Sport Relief: Over half the children in South Africa live in poverty and one in five is orphaned. Sport Relief funds a safe park where kids who have had to take on parenting duties at a shockingly young age can just be kids again.

Showstopper: A tiered cake - at least two tiers - which must represent sporting equipment.

Rochelle has decided that her equipment is 'the Olympics'.  Um.  She's baking a Tiered Olympic Cake, a two-tiered chocolate cake that will look like a podium, finish line, long jump pit, etc. It will also have decorative balls, namely tennis, cricket and hockey balls which are all the same sized. “It’s just a nod to balls” summarises Ed.

Alistair launches into another impression.  The subtitles kindly describe it as “FRENCH ACCENT”.  His sports equipment cake is a Hawkeye Tiered Cake, after the Wimbledon technology.  Seeing as Wimbledon also use an actual hawk, this is mildly disappointing.  The cake is made of strawberries and cream though, which sounds delicious.

Doon is an outdoor wild water swimmer, so she’s going to make a Lido Tiered Cake with tangerine flavoured icing.  Tooting Lido to be precise.  The main thing to note about this is the particular delight Doon takes in fashioning buttocks for her marzipan swimmers.

Helen has never made her Ski Slope Tiered Cake before, but she hopes it will look like a mountain and skiers.  It's also a peppermint cake.  Doon takes a cheeky finger to the bowl and her face is clear: not a success.  I could have indicated that a toothpaste flavoured cake might be an issue.

So our sports equipment is: the Olympics, Hawkeye, a pool and a mountain.  Hmmm.  It’s a slight stretch, isn’t it?

Back in the tent, Helen spots Rochelle’s doweling (kebab sticks) and wants in.  Rather than just, you know, having one cake sit on the other, Helen has decided that it must be necessary to provide unnecessary extra support in the form of pointy sticks speared through the cake - perhaps to offer the eater the added excitement of injury through eating.   (Oh Helen.)  She then decides to make it more mountain-like by cutting out random chunks from her own cake and stabbing it through the ‘doweling’.  Did someone shout 'hot mess'?

She’s also made an upside-down snowboarder, who looks like his legs are, well... he makes Sir Chris Hoy look like a spindly supermodel, calf-wise.  Inexplicably, Helen is still feeling very confident.  Clearly ‘denial’ is the main trait needed to make it to the South Pole.  It figures.

To be fair, no-one’s having that great a time: Rochelle’s fondant doesn’t entirely cover her cake and Alistair’s has to be viewed from a very specific angle to look non-wonky.  Doon can't get her water to look non-municipal.

Sho-sto judging:  Berrywood compliment Rochelle’s texture, which is “bang on”; they like the taste of the chocolate.

Alistair needed “thicker icing”, but the bake of his sponge is a hit: “You’ve baked a very very good Victoria sandwich”.

Mary is relieved that she can’t taste the peppermint in Helen’s cake and Paul thinks it’s underbaked.  It's a state, but Mary kindly tells her “I think this would appeal to children”.

Doon’s cake does look like a pool, but it’s not a two tiered cake.  It’s also “overcooked and that is making it very dry”.  Paul can’t speak for a moment as his mouth is wielded together due to the dryness – pros and cons.  “But it’s fun and creative” adds Mary.

Star baker: It’s the closest one yet, I think (bar Helen, duh!), but the apron goes to .... Alistair!  The power of a good Vicky sponge!  He’s well chuffed.  I think Mary had a crush, frankly.

And that's that - our Bake Off week is over.  *sob*  Man, it’s been a fun old series – and all for a good cause.  If you’ve not yet donated, maybe you’d like to: www.bbc.co.uk/sport relief.  Aprons are available too, for all your fantasy I won Celeb Bake Off needs.  Bake happy people.  Until next time...

The 2014 Great Sport Relief Bake Off – episode 3

Omid Djalili announces cake battle today.  Ooooh - a man about the cake house (tent).

Sleb #1: Olympic cyclist and famed weeper, Victoria Pendleton

Sleb #2: Pop starlet and unexpectedly good panel show member, Jamelia

Sleb #3: Musicals luvvie, Michael Ball

Sleb #4: Broadcaster, and Comic Relief royalty, Emma Freud

Victoria Pendleton, looking a picture in Heidi plaits and a neat white collar, shrugs and utters the famous last words: “How hard can it be? It's only baking.” 

Oh Victoria. Oh Victoria.  Dangerous words for a teary woman.

Signature challenge: A tray bake. 16 slices.

Omid delivers his opening spiel with all the monotone energy of Rob the Engineer when he wasn't discussing Daleks.  He makes up for it by announcing “Bake!” with an unexpected flamenco hand flourish.

Victoria reveals that Emma Freud has already been bragging that she’s going to win - which, frankly, is NOT ON.  An openly competitive streak has no place in the sanctuary that is the Bake Off tent - the values we cherish are 'overcoming baking adversity' and 'really pleasing Mary by adding lots of booze'. I've got my eye on you, Freud.

Mind you, all four are going straight for the Berry jugular, each boozing up their produce with a different tipple.  

Victoria’s Pecan and Apricot Blondies include apricots soaked in Cointreau.

Jamelia is making an Apple and Amaretto Tray Bake for almondy booze goodness. 

Michael’s not only adding alcohol, but intends to invent a cure for the common cold through the power of cake by making a Hot Toddy Tray Bake full of whisky, ginger, honey and other old wives' ingredients.  Yes, I'm on board with that.  So long as it's not a Berocca cake.

Competitive Emma is baking Bourbon and Bacon Brownies - which, to me, is a CLEAR attack move! You don't go unusual (bacon?!?) unless you are a silent kitchen assassin (or incompetent and desperate).  Freud wants that apron and she’s taking no prisoners - nor offering any help. 

In fact, her I MUST WIN attitude is so brazen, that she's happy to break a sacred Bake Off law - taking delight in another contestant's woe, as Michael’s cake mix curdles.  TUT TUT TUT TUT.  Fortunately, baking karma is immediately brought into play as Emma burns her bacon and makes Mary choke by forcing her to eat sour cherries.  Mary looks utterly utterly pissed off.

Elsewhere, Jamelia takes an opportunity to show that no-one has yet put a ring on it and she is keen to recruit a husband.  Men of the 1950s stand by to assess her baking skills.  (Ha! They wish.)  Turns out the audition’s going badly, as her tray bake is just not cooking, no matter how many times she opens up the oven to test the mix (hmmmmm - anyone else sense a problem?).  She decides that it’s all a bit much, so pours herself a nice slug of Disaronno in a mug and tells us she’s having a ‘coffee’.

Emma has another unsympathetic pop at Michael, telling him “you’re going to lose”.  Again, retribution is swift – she burns a Bake Off pan and a hole in the carpet.  Mortification ahoy? No no, Emma follows it up with a good slag at Michael’s offering: “it looks horrid”.  OK, I know Emma does A LOT for charidee, but she’s not coming off great just yet.  Things aren’t helped by her sidling up to Victoria’s station, ignoring Victoria and sneering “that’s annoying, her’s looks great”.  She completes her trio of Queen Bitchery by smugly telling Jamelia “OH YOURS IS STILL IN THE OVEN! YOU’RE NOT GOING TO GET YOURS CUT IN TIME!”.  Hmmmmm.

No-one’s happy with their offering – surprising, given the calm, encouraging, mutually-supportive atmosphere in the tent.  Ahem.

Sig-bak judging: Mary thinks the apple in Jamelia tray bake makes things “liable to be a bit heavy”, but Paul really likes it. “They look awful but they taste really nice”.

Victoria has a good consistent bunch, but Mary can’t taste the booze.  Disaster!  No, it’s ok, she likes it anyway.

I can’t say I’m too sad about the backhanded compliment Mary delivers to Emma: “I’m glad they’re small.  They’re very, very rich.”  But “it’s a hit” for Berrywood anyway, in spite of the inexplicable cowboy boots Emma has placed by her bakes (nothing says delicious like stinky old Texan shoes, eh?). 

Michael has produced a “good bake” thinks Mary.  Paul then tells Michael: “I don’t like that”... *dramatic pause* ...“I love it”.  Michael is delighted.

Foodistory does Sport Relief: The life expectancy in South Africa is 53 years.  Nicola meets a little girl who lost her father to AIDS and whose mother is also ill.  Sport Relief is funding an education programme to inform kids about the disease and bring a bit of joy in their lives.

Technical challenge: Eight ringed iced doughnuts.

Emma unendears herself little further by refusing to help a begging Jamelia.  Eventually, worn down by a million Brummie “PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSEEESSSSSSSSS”, Emma grudgingly and pointedly looks down to what she is doing, to hint at the songstress that WHY DOESN’T SHE JUST COPY?  In fairness, Jamelia could have probably worked that one out herself.  To cheer herself up, Emma sexually harasses Omid into spooning her, Ghost clay stylee.  Michael, meanwhile, is taking out the frustrations of bad review on his dough.  Kimberley nods sagely from her home.

Whilst the others stand around gossiping about Strictly (Victoria: "I was basically shit at dancing"), Jamelia takes 'the oily plunge', to everyone’s horror and panic.  Everyone stops discussing Victoria’s difficulty with latin (oh so much difficulty) and runs to their stations to get doughnutting.  NO FUN.  ONLY VICTORY.   Well, except for Michael, who knows his doughnuts are no-nuts, so resorts to writing “I love you Mary” on the side in icing.

He still comes last, with Jamelia third, Victoria GUTTED to come second and Emma actually quite modest in first.  She admits that her doughnut eating habits helped.

Showstopper: a layered cake in the theme of their favourite sporting hero.

Ooooh, good one.

Victoria’s theme is cyclist king Chris Hoy – an excellent choice.  She’s making a Sir Chris Hoy Chocolate, Vanilla and Coffee Cake, as he’s apparently a coffee fiend.  It will have six layers to represent his gold medals, a sugar spun bike and will be equal in size to his thigh girth – a whopping 67cm.  HOLY MUSCLE BATMAN.

Jamelia’s heroes are the Jamaican sprint team, who scooped all the medals in the 2012 Olympic 200m race.  Her One-Two-Three Cake will be coconut sponge with pineapple jam.  The inside will represent the Jamaican flag.  She’s also going to make Usain Bolt and co out of icing, which I for one cannot wait to see.

Michael has opted for “an homage to one of the greatest sporting heroes this or any country has ever had.”  Care to take a guess?  Yep, bring on the Big Daddy Cake, shaped like a wrestling ring and featuring Big Daddy right down to his nippled moobs. 

Finally to Emma – who, of all the female sporting heroes out there, has decided to go for... that tennis girl in that poster from the seventies.  Yup, her of soft-focus, naked itchy bum fame. 

*sigh*

So basically, Emma's admiration is reserved for someone who’s not actually sporty at all, or indeed known for any sporting process, or indeed (indeed) has an actual face.  But she does have a peachy bottom and plays tennis with no knickers on - I mean, why go for Olympic achievement when you could pick a faceless blonde scratching her bare arse?  It's... disappointing.  

So I'm afraid I don’t really care how delicious her Rose and Almond Tennis Girl Cake ends up being (probably not very – I mean, rose, blurgh), as the whole concept just makes me feel sad.   She’s serving the whole thing up on a giant tennis racket.  Seriously Emma, if it was all about using your expensive prop, you could have made an Andy cake.  A scowl and Scottish monotone would have been lovely – he is flipping Wimbledon champion after all.

I do take some solace in the fact that Emma is fashioning her tennis girl out of icing and it looks like plasticine testicles on a cartoon string of sausages.

Michael seems to have made mashed potato to fill his cakes.  Still better than smacking feminism in the face.

Victoria takes seven million attempts to spin sugar successfully. The determination in her eyes is incredible. She will not rest until she's created a bike from spun sugar. To be fair, without it, it's just a cake the size of Chris Hoy's thigh.

Sho-sto judging:  Big Daddy is likened to Mr Blobby (accurate) but Mary thinks Michael’s cake is "such fun".  Which is a kind way of saying it's a hot mess.  For me, any cake which inspires tears of joy is a triumphant hot mess. Berrywood think the flavours are "good" but the sponge is "over-mixed".

Emma's bare bottom lady has not lost its testicular effect and she looks like she has giant nads under her miniskirt - albeit one is undescended.  Hilariously, Paul doesn't think Emma's done enough decor.  Her cake is “dense” and like a trifle, but Mary likes it.  Paul chimes in that “the flavours are good”.

Jamelia has had to seat her Usain, Yohan and Warren, cause of their spindly icy legs, but they look kinda slumped (i.e. pissed).  Mary thinks the cake is dry, but the pineapple juice “helps moisten it up”.  Paul likes the design and the colours.

Victoria can’t look as Paul slices in to Sir Chris’ thigh.  Mary thinks her cake “looks the part” and she was “clever to make so many different flavours”.  It’s dry, but the buttercream counters that.  Paul is happy with the flavours: “very very good”.

Drum roll please – and it’s close between Competitive Emma and Pendletears.  The Star Baker apron goes to.... Emma.  Oh, bah.  I’m sure the almond tennis ball was yummy, but I can’t help sulking about the promotion of arse over sporting achievement.  Victoria woz robbed – she calmly announces she will never bake again.

Omid waves goodbye and suggests we visit  www.bbc.co.uk/sportrelief.  

Next time: it's our last trip to the Sport Relief Bake Off saloon and apparently they’re making pizza. Huh?

The 2014 Great Sport Relief Bake Off – episode 2

It’s Jo Brand holding the Bake Off reins tonight, ready to make the requisite pun and cake-eating jokes.  But will she reach Perkins levels of Hollywood bantathon?

Who's-a-bakin' tonight then?

Sleb #1: Husky voiced Desert Island Discs maestro, Kirsty Young

Sleb #2: Ice-dance and lycra judge, Jason Gardiner

Sleb #3: Little Voiced Bubbles, actress Jane Horrocks

Sleb #4: Olympic gold medal winning long jumper, Greg Rutherford

Signature bake: Twelve gingerbread biscuits.

Jo provides the essential background: laydees used to give gingerbread biscuits to the knights they fancied; in short, gingerbread men are the Medieval equivalent of sexting.

Jason is using lemongrass for his Choc-Dipped Lemongrass and Gingerbread Biscuits, and no-one thinks this is a good idea, least of all Jo, who outright tells him it sounds revolting.  She speaketh the truth, for his mix looks like it’s incorporated the muddy hay scrapings you'd find on the edge of your wellies after a rainy summer walk.  Mary kindly tells him that they’ll wait and see, but, consummate professional that she is, even la Berry can’t quite keep her dry heave down.

Jane, going for Barbara Highland’s Ginger Biscuits (Barb’s a friend of her mam’s), displays Northern cliché 101, proclaiming that she “doesn't like any fuss on a biscuit”.  A spade is a spade and a gingerbread biscuit is a dry, decor-less, plain, round biscuit made of ginger.  ALRIGHT?  Jason, who is putting chocolate on his gingers, is therefore ahead in my book – and that’s in the full knowledge of the lemongrass controversy.

Kirsty is baking Gingerbread Paul and Marys in tribute to the judges.  Judging by the picture, Gingerbread Paul is dressed in a tux waistcoat with no pants and Mary is in Y fronts.  (It’s an interesting take on the floral bomber jacket.)  Kirsty is accused of looking too glam so throws flour on her own face. She looks literally no less glam.

Greg is making Gingerbread Soldiers and ‘Dippy Egg’, which is gingerbread fingers with chocolate and coconut melted on to the end, runny yolk style.  And he’s got a lemon curd dip to boot - it sounds impressive, but will it prove too ambitious?  In short, yes.  After telling him his cho-conut mix looks like hummus (tru dat), Jo takes mild pity, and starts thickening Greg's curd (not a euphemism).  From the back of the tent, Jane (half jokingly, half seriously) protests at the extra aid - seeing as it took Jane ten minutes to complete her bics and she’s now just sitting at her station, waiting it out, this seems mildly churlish.  She then turns her attention (boredom) to Jason, trying to mess him up with innocently delivered kindly advice she then tells him might well be sabotage.  Jason’s brain explodes a bit and he knows not what to do.  Jane Horrocks is an evil genius.

Kirsty tells us she has yellow icing "for Mary's blonde hair" (which is *slightly* generous.)  She then worries that the pink icing for Bezzer's scarf is too vivid.  You're fine Kirsty. I mean, check out Exhibit A:

Sunglasses on chaps.

Yep, I think hot pink is fine.

Elsewhere, Jason tries his own biscuits and his face takes on a strangled expression of tortured disgust.  He then drinks an entire bottle of Evian before calmly announcing that, apart from the chocolate, his biscuits are inedible.

Sig-Bak Judging:  Kirsty failed to decorate all her gingers, but the finished Marys depict Bezza in either Mexican wrestling pants or a chastity belt - it’s hard to say.  Mary tells Paul that Kirsty’s grey goatie blob and spotty grey hairline has perfectly recreated his follicle stylings.  Bakewise, however, Kirsty's men are undercooked.  She puts up a good flirt with Paul in protest and rips the piss out of him and ginger-him.  She’s ace. 

Paul and Mary tell Greg his offering isn't ginger enough AND NO-ONE MAKES ANY GAGS ABOUT HIS HAIR COLOUR AND THE IRONY.  Sure, it’s a sign of the Bake Off’s evolved state when it comes to cheap stereotyping, but COME ON.  Perks would have gone there and she is briefly, but deeply, missed.

Berrywood like Jane's biscuits, but, seeing as she sat on her arse and played mind-games for over half the task, they feel like they have to through the motions of criticising the lack of decor.  Jane, who has had time to prepare her defence, attacks with a pointed: 'does your mum decorate hers?'  She does not, Paul admits.  Round one to Horrocks and the message is CLEAR: Jane likes a no frills ginger.  Like Easyjet.

Everyone then forces themselves to take a teeny nip of Jason’s bake.  After a pause, Mary kindly says “the lemongrass let you down” as she makes a face like she’s been made to eat a sponge produced from a Tesco Value pre-prepared cake mix pack.

Technical challenge: Banoffee pie.  

One of my absolute favourites, especially as made by my mate Saskia (hint hint Sass).  For me the perfect banoffee pie eschews pastry for digestives and butter – I therefore sneer at Mary’s pastry base (and fully expect to be taken to the Tower).  Having said that, Paul is barely speaking he’s so into spooning Bezzer’s banoffee in his gob, so it must be half ok.

The main event of note during the technical bake is that Jason gets mildly turned on by the texture of his pouring toffee.  The real disasters are reserved for presentation – Greg has produced a banoffee fountain, as the innards decoratively pour out of the hole-ridden pastry sides forming a pool on the tablecloth.  Jason’s has just, well, fallen apart.

Greg misses out on the podium; Jason DOESN’T COME LAST; Jane is second and Kirsty is top.

Animal shot: squirrel nicking a nut.  It’s highly sheep-free to date.  Perhaps they got added to mint over the seasonal period.

Foodhistory does Sport Relief: Nicola finds out about a surfing project designed to support street children in Durban. 

Showstopper: A chocolate cake which represents their job.  

(We are all relieved that no-one from TOWIE is baking today.  Then again, we are missing out on a chocolate orange vajazzled stiletto.)

Jason is making a Chok-ovsky Swan Lake Cake (pun alert!); a chocolate mousse cake with chocolate ganache and a lake and meringue cygnets on top.  This seems to involve pipping out a series of ‘2’s to somehow recreate a swan shape.  Whatever – it’s a chocolate mousse cake, so I’m in.

Greg is going for a Salted Caramel and Peanut Brittle ‘Long Jump’ Cake, where the praline top represents a sandpit.  Mmmmm.  Delicious sand.  It’s also round, which Mary’s totally going to have a pop at – come on Greg, you can bake a rectangle!

Jane is baking a ‘Little Voice’ Chocolate Cake, which will look like a record with a sugar paste figure on top (not made from scratch - immediate points off).   Though Mary’s eyes light up when Jo suggests it might have Michael Caine on top – and we’re talking Christine levels of Brian May crush here, maybe even beyond.

Kirsty then implies that her daughter bakes hash cakes, though I’m fairly sure that’s not what she meant.  She is offering up a ‘Dessert Island Dish’ (DESSERT! DESERT!  GEDDIT!) complete with lime-flavoured cream, coconut sand and eight chocolate records.  And a gallon of rum.  Mary’s eyes will pop out their sockets!  Berrywood glide over and they all gloss over the fact that Mary, Jo and Jane have done DID, but Paul hasn’t.  Awks.

Greg has some peanuts in something sticky in a pan.  It looks like sick.  The other contestant in the sand-off, Kirsty, is frying up some coconut.  I’ll go to Kirsty’s beach please.

Jason is openly laughing at his own cake and this is before he puts the swans on and one immediately flops over with a broken neck.  It’s beautifully followed by a shot of some actual ducks looking well unimpressed.

Sho Sto Judging: Greg’s peanut butter brittle “looks good” and the filling is nice and generous, but the cake “isn’t done”.  He looks crestfallen.

Kirsty’s cake is “baked beautifully” and the butter cream is great.  But, surprise, surprise, Paul thinks it has “far too much rum.  It’s overwhelming everything”.  In the background Mary is silently shovelling the cake in with a smile on her face and a Michael Caine-inspired light in her joyful boozy eyes.

Berrywood think Jane’s cake looks too simple, but it is “beautifully baked... perfectly baked”.

Jason...  Oh Jason.  Paul “likes the blue lake” and calls the swans “interesting” (then, erm, “mutated”).  Although the cake underbaked, they like the taste (it's chocolate, so... well, you know) and they compliment the ganache.  Jason then dances the dying swan in the tent, which involves some lively twerking and a fall to the floor with twisty legs.

And the Star Baker is... Kirsty!  Only Jane had much a fight to put up, really.  Jane pretends not be upset by doing comedy OTT sobbing and telling people to run for charity and not bake – on some level, though, I think she means it.  Jason has a much more measured reaction and decides he’s going to have his entire kitchen ripped out rather than go through that again.

Jo signs off by telling us we can buy a Sport Relief apron at www.bbc.co.uk/sportrelief - go on, it’s for charidee.  Sport Relief Bake Off service resumes tomorrow, with Omid Djalili hosting show three.  Soggy bottoms up!

The 2014 Great Sport Relief Bake Off – episode 1

Sue’s back! Minus Mel (booooooo), but looking delighted that there will be no cake sharing.  It’s Great Sport Relief Bake Off – we’re back in the tent, and an array of celebs (and ‘celebs’?) are to bake for our televisual pleasure and for charidee, whilst we all judge them very, very harshly. But will they live up to our requisite middle-class standards?  (They’re competing for an apron, so it’s looking good.)  Onwards!

Sleb #1: baldy unbearable radio loudmouth, Johnny Vaughan.

Sleb #2: Lady Downton Outnumbered Moneypenny, Samantha Bond.

Sleb #3: quite simply, the man who performed this LEGENDARY jive - Michael Vaughan (I am led to understand he also plays a sport known as cricket).

Sleb #4: Ginny ‘Harry Potter’ Weasley, Bonnie Wright.

Signature bake: Twelve sandwich biscuits.

Bonnie scores the first hit on the GBBO middle-class bingo game, for she is using cardamom.  And she displays a cavalier attitude to measuring it, to boot. She is making Cardamon Shortbreads with Greek Yoghurt and Peach.  (Erm, is the rest of the competition even necessary?)

In contrast, Johnny is wearing a Sainsbury’s deli counter paper hat. I believe the appropriate term is: *cough*plonker*cough*

Samantha is approached by the judges and takes a gulp of fear - she's suddenly remembered that the concept of the show is not: make some nice biccies in private for your lovely non-judgmental sweet-toothed chums. However, middle class points ahoy, for her biscuits are inspired by something she found in her “local shop” which she helpfully clarifies is “near where I live”.  It’s an elephant cookie cutter (NICE), so she tells us "and then I thought, well, elephants like peanut butter”... and sorry, huh? Wot? Is that a thing?  Apparently so, as we’re getting Jam and Peanut Butter Elephant Biscuits, made with homemade jam, unless that goes wrong, in which case she’s got shop bought jam. Confidence.

So far, the best bit is the judges asking the contestants to describe what they are doing, and the contestants responding by saying, ‘well I’m putting flour and butter in a bowl with some other stuff and mixing’ or ‘well, this is a dough’, like it’s the most terrifying high tech bake technique known to man and womankind.  Well, except for Johnny, who wasn’t asked, but is nonetheless booming "CREAM TOGETHER THE BUTTER & BROWN SUGAR UNTIL LIGHT AND FLUFFY" ad infinitum, to no discernible reaction.  He who shouts loudest on Bake Off is... well, basically only Sue is allowed to shout loudest and not seem like a bit of a knob. “OOOOH IT’S GETTING FLUFFIER! THAT’S FLUFFY” yells Johnny, as Bonnie roundly ignores him. Her back was turned, but I reckon there was some serious - and justifiable - eye-roll going on.

Michael’s kids were responsible for the design of his Blueberry Jam Smiley Face Biscuits – essentially jammy dodgers with a smartie and a smear for decor.   Much like his sense of timing whilst jiving, Micheal has forgone the sugar and has to botch it in, last minute.  Mary takes pity and provides advice on how best to do this, though clearly she has never forgotten an ingredient in her life – she is MARY BERRY.

Johnny booms a bit more and claims not to have baked since the age of 7. Samatha asides to the camera and cries ‘liar’.  It will become clear, very quickly, that Johnny is a truthful man.  Or an incompetent.

He then performs a skit whereby he recreates proper TV chef behaviour – it mainly involves throwing utensils in the sink.  It is strangely accurate.

Also, Michael drops half of his biscuits on to the floor on their way into the oven.  HOW I LAFFED.   How we all laughed.  Especially the Food Standards Agency, as Michael simply picks 'em up, dusts 'em off, and chucks 'em back in the oven, to be served to Mary Berry at a later date.  Hopefully heat trumps hygiene.

Anyway, to judging!

Samantha messed up her jam, but her biccies have a “nice snap” and the peanut flavour is praised.

Mary tells Michael “at least you got twelve biscuits when you forgot the sugar”.  Paul likes the flavour.  Sue is going to take “the Cyclops with the monobrow” for her lunch.

Bonnie’s got a soggy bottom.  Yoghurt is to blame.

Johnny’s Chocolate and Raspberry Sandwich Biscuits are, well, inedible.  Not even Sue will eat them.  Let’s move on, eh?

Technical Challenge: Tarte Tatin.  Time for baked apples, ruff tuff puff pastry, pouring-the-innards-from-the cake-into-a-pan-to-make-caramel disaster potential and turning-out-sticky-cake-argh-it's-stuck-shit-get-Sue-to-smack-the-bottom-hard-with-a-spatula-it's-out-phew ahoy!

Johnny is last (shocker), Samantha is third, Michael somehow grabs second, and Bonnie wins (shocker).

Animal shot: nope, but a man in tinted shades silently glides by on a bike at 28 minutes, as Johnny has a nearly-weep.  It's utterly sinister and WAY better than the sheep footage.

Foodhistory does Sport Relief: The wonderful Nicola Adams goes to Soweto to see the work Sport Relief is doing to support kids going through tough, tough times in tough tough places.  Nicola gets to box with some of the kids, who are part of a boxing club funded by Sport Relief.  Yup, the tears were a-wellin’.  We’re invited to text ‘BAKE’ to 70005, to donate a fiver.  And so I did.

Showstopper: a 3D novelty cake (I’m instantly reminded of Christine’s guitar and Brian May crush) in the shape of sporting landmark.

Michael, of course, is making a Lords Cricket Pitch Cake.  It's a chocolate sponge with chocolate fudge filling covered in greenery.  He’s making stumps out of cigarette sweets, by the looks of it.  Paul nicks one - well, he's had a stressful few months.

Bonnie reveals that she’s probably north (or should that be south?) of middle class (a Harry Potter star, posh?!), as she and her family regularly sail and her cake is a Cowes Week Regatta Cake. (I know Cowes is posh, as I saw it on Made In Chelsea).  It’s a three layer Vicky sponge filled with blackcurrant jam and vanilla butter cream.  It looks awesome.

There’s more posh, as Samantha reveals she’s making Putney Bridge at the start of the boat race.  Her aptly-named Putney Bridge Boat Race Cake is Maderia sponge (70s baker Brendan nods in silent approval) and she is going to attempt her own fondant icing.  Given jam-gate, she’s got a back-up plan: “packet”.

Johnny’s Stamford Bridge Stadium Cake will be lemon sponge with butter cream filling and green water icing.  Borrrrrred now.  Less boringly and far more hilariously, it turns out that he was grilling everything yesterday.  Hahahaha!  Johnny's relief that his baking (grilling) isn't utterly terrible, just a bit idiotic under pressure, is quite touching, really.   Less sympathetically, Paul Hollywood cries real tears of shadenfreude joy.

It’s ‘stare into the oven’ time, as the stress levels increase.  Michael has produced a basically perfect chocolate sponge.  He calls Johnny over to show off.  Johnny looks amazed and despairing and like he’s been kneed in the testes.   He’s equally despairing of Sam’s excellent buns.  It’s probably best he didn’t head over to Bonnie’s station – I think we’d have seen a man tantrum.  A mantrum.

Last minute decor montage: Michael’s making a gravestone (he claims it’s a scoreboard, but IT IS GREY AND SHAPED LIKE A GRAVE.  Having said that, I don’t watch cricket, so...); Johnny’s pouring green gunk tank goo into a box of sponge, whilst imagining his own son disowning him (not inappropriate); Bonnie’s going to get slagged by Mary for not making the boat sails out of filo pastry; Samantha’s boat crew are icing sphere-peas (at least they’re dark blue - rrrah, come on Oxford, up varsity etc); then we’re back to Bonnie, who, under Paul’s TERRIFYING laser gaze, is crafting a wingless seagull out of leftover icing (the wings proved too great a challenge – what with the power of the Hollywood ice-glare on her case).

To the final judging stint!

Michael’s cricket pitch is Morph meets Teletubbyland meets someone who has taken a shitload of acid before describing the Oval to an alien being.  It features the Queen, but she appears to have been fashioned from poo.  However, cutting in, Paul tells him the chocolate cake is “fantastic”.  It properly looks it.  Cue Hollywood handshake.

To me, Samantha’s Putney bridge is a little ‘papier-maché stone post-earthquake’, but Paul says it “looks great”, so what do I know (I know I couldn't make it).  Mary praises Samantha’s attempt at making fondant icing, admittedly before she tastes it.  She finds the lemon Madeira cake “slightly dry”, but it was “a good choice”.

Mary gets confused by Bonnie’s seagull, believing it to be a seal.  The cake looks like a giant blue and turquoise foamy slab, which - given that it’s supposed to be the sea - is a compliment.  Paul says “it’s a great looking cake” and is “effective”.  They cut in, and HELLO GLENN SIZE SLICES.  Massive, massive chunk of cake.  The judging is very positive: “That’s good, that is good” says Mary and “beautifully moist”.  Paul agrees.

It's safe to say that there is something of the child’s decoration in Johnny’s football pitch, but I’m actually charmed by the ballbearing crowd effect, personally.  Mary tucks in and begins to say that she’s surprised – as the entire tent starts to shake with laughter.  But both judges think Johnny’s baked a good sponge.  Beneath all his bluster, he’s secretly well-pleased.

Under the judging canopy, Paul and Mary pretend there’s some tension and that Bonnie has competition.  Ha!  Hahahaha!

Star baker: “Ten points to the House of Gryffindor” - Ginny Weasley gets the apron of joy.  No-one cries witchcraft.

Next time: Tonight Matthew, Jo Brand is Mel and Sue and we’re getting gingerbread, banoffee pie, chocolate show-stoppers and a celeb I don't recognise, though that's possibly because he hails from ITV.

In the meantime: You can donate to Sport Relief here, baker fans.