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.