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!