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...