The Great Pottery Throw Down - 2015 - Week 1

The dramz and smut levels in the Great Pottery Throw Down are up there with Bake Off, so I made a number of notes on my iPhone, which can only mean one thing.  I must mini blog.

Our presenter: I have enjoyed Sara Cox's work since she presented Eurovision off her boobs on lambrini.  In the very fine Mel and Sue and Claude tradition, she has a lovely mix of supportive and mocking, particularly when bantzing with an older gentleman.  Case in point: Sara merrily chatted to Nigel about whether his wife had shown any interest in joining him pot, as he stroked a wet phallic piece of clay in a downward motion.

Our judges: The Mary Potter is Kate Malone, the arty potter. She believes pottery is better than sex.  The Paul Potter is Keith Brymer Jones, who makes mugs for the stars. He does not believe pottery is better than sex.  In the fine tradition of male judges, Keith has a proud look involving rather individual hair and shirt detail (balding greased spikes/Ray Winston at a Summer wedding). Keith also cries with emotion at the pots, so HE'S ACE.

Kiln keeper: I think Rich, the kiln man, could gain quite a cult following... I will be watching Rich's appearances with great interest.

Our Great British location: The pottery tent/haberdashery is... Stoke on Trent

Our contestants: Everyone immediate claims not be a typical potter. One thing is clear - they are all typical Great British Something competitors. Funky hair or funky facial hair - tick; builders, decorators etc - tick; sexy arty posh lady designers - tick; sexy gay medic (for animals) - tick; well to do army man - tick; some mums - tick; some community/key workers - tick; all seemingly absolutely lovely - tick tick tick.

Task #1: The Main Make. 

Five bowls which fit into each other. For which they have four days! The bakers must be sneering at such time-based luxury to mould, bake and decorate summat. I josh. There's wheeling, drying, wheeling and cutting, drying, kilning, AND decorating involved. The number of stages at which things can go wrong is perilously high. The dramz!

Task #2. The Spot Test.

A short period of time to show a basic clay skill. This week, it's making and putting handles on traditional and modern mugs.  This involves pulling, which, frankly, is wanking off a clay penis by any another name.

Task #3: The Throw Down

A competitive speed challenge - five kilos of clay and twenty minutes to make as many egg cups as possible.  Clearly this is brilliant television.

Smut-watch: HIGH. My God, so high. SO HIGH. We had wetting, wedging, slapping and pulling in the space of about five minutes. Pottery really is all about sex - no wonder Ghost was so successful.

Thrown out: Rehka. She gave it a good go - disguising less-than-perfect pottery as conceptual art by writing 'wobbly bottom' on a bowl with a, yep, wobbly bottom - but it was not to be.

Top Pot: Major Tom. He was the speediest at egg cups.

2015 GBBO mini blog. The Final

And the winner is: Nadiya! Yay!!!! Well t'was only right - anyone else and I fear there'd have been a social media riot which would have blown the #bincident out of the water. So well done lovely Nadiya, with her brilliant baking, gorgeous kiddies and, most important of all, her infinite range of incredulous facial expressions. 

Am sure that was a tear in Mary's crinkly eye...

Final highlight #1: Yes yes, they baked some stuff, but the best bit was the photos from home. Baby Tamal was unspeakably cute, but Ian's kids sitting in pans on an Aga whilst he brandished a giant knife and pitchfork... Amazing middle-class comedy work. (BTW comedy photos is the whole point of having children.) Clearly there's a reason he's the Dalai Lama's personal snapper.

Final highlight #2: The revelation that Ian keeps a journal. 

Final highlight #3: Tamal calling Nadiya "little chum".

That's yer lot: I had to watch the final on silent with the subtitles due to a sleeping baby it was unwise to move. I'll be honest, it wasn't the same without the dramz music, but when the winner was announced I, like the nation, was totes emosh. It's been a lovely series - Great British Stuff. *contented sigh* And as ever, we go from a dozen lovely, talented, intelligent, kind and generous people to the polar opposite...

Next week: The Apprentice is back...

www.cadprentice.blogspot.com

2015 GBBO mini blog. The Semi-final

Bye bye: Flora, for overdecorating AGAIN, this time with duff macaroons, and not masking the taste of raising agent - heaven forbid! I'm not sure I ever got over the head girlness, but she's 19, remember. 19!!!!!!!!!! At 19, my main culinary achievement was ordering chips, cheese and mayo from Hassan's kebab van.

Lucky escape: Ian. But it was right that he stay - that chocolate well was chocolate well amazing. I'm sure I spotted a Mary eye-twinkle. I think Paul purposefully snapped the handle in all-out envy. 

Ma Baker: Nadiya was so delighted to get the handshake she received it double-handed. It was a rollercoaster week for our Nads though - when she teared up after the technical, I wanted to hug her through my telly. Surely she's the favourite to win, not least for the line "Why have I never made a soufflé before? Oh yeah, cause it's a TOTAL PAIN IN THE ABSOLUTE ARSE!" (I paraphrase.)

THE TENSION: That staggered technical challenge sent them into such a panic! It was awesome. Ian looked like he couldn't even remember what a wooden spoon was. Nadiya decided it was worse than childbirth. (We're nearly four months into parenthood - I can *almost* take such comments.) 

Face-watch: It was Mel who had the cartoon face action this week. She kept lurking behind the bakers looking really worried and not knowing what to say. Poor Mel. You know it's tense when even Mel'n'Sue don't have the bawdy jokes on tap. Though Sue was mainly busy stuffing chocolate. 

Next week: The Final. And no preview reel... Tamal and Ian are both so sweet, but this year I have a firm, firm favourite: #GoTeamNadiya. 

2015 GBBO mini blog. Quarter final

Pâtisserie week.

Bye bye: Paul the Baker, undone by both real and synthetic bananas, and being ever so slightly boring on the telly. 

Lucky escape: Good TV provider Flora - controversially, I thought...  No no, of course I'm not just saying that because I had Paul in the sweepstake.

Ma Baker: Nadiya, in spite of daring to use that most non-middle class of flavours, bubblegum. That Mary could overlook such a blatantly artificial ingredient shows how awesome Nadiya is.

Timely references: Flora was minus six when Madonna wore her cone bra, so clearly didn't have a clue what Mel was on about when it came to shaping pastry horns. But she was oh so polite about it.

Smut-watch: Dudes, it's Cream Horn week and we got a shot of a grown man trying to pipe a thick banana yellow substance into some pastry whilst groaning really really loudly and muttering, "It's thick, all right". It does not get any smuttier than that. Indeed I refer you to... 

Nadiya's face-watch:

Bezza v baking powder: Mary continued her crusade against raising agents by only allowing them to use egg. Someone at Borwick's must have really slagged one of her bombers.

Next time: Semi-final - chocolate and centrepieces. 

2015 GBBO mini blog. Week 7

Victorian week.

Bye bye: Lovely Fireman Mat. Nooooo! Not before we get to hear more about Dangerous Dave's mum Sheila and how she obtained her Victorian pie tin!

Lucky escape: Paul - in spite of seemingly over or underbaking all of his wares, as well as filling his charlotte with fake blood rather than jelly. 

Ma Baker: Dr Tamal, who was especially adorable when he immediately called his mum to announce his prize. You see, it's totally justifiable to let my three month year old watch Bake Off when there are such lessons of mum/son morality to be learnt. 

Flora the Superhero: Never fear, here comes... Bird Girl! 

Special powers: winning a pheasant baking contest at school. (My God, that tells you A LOT about Flora's school.)

Who are all the pies? I WILL! I WILL EAT ALL THE PIES. Nothing makes me cravy like pie week.

Ian's "passion": Road kill. 

Tennis cake puns: Marion Tartoli was my best effort. Twitter came up with Martina Navratipalova and Roger Fadeira. Any more for any more?

Next time: Fiddly fussy pastry week - patisserie time. 

2015 GBBO mini blog. Week 6

Pastry week.

Bye bye: Sweet sweet Alvin, who needed perfect vol-au-vents to survive, but didn't quite hit the mark. Somewhat unexpectedly, Alvin's father is a retired Filipino army general. 

Lucky escape: Nadiya, who had to offer up unfilled volz, as Mel would no doubt abbreviate them. Though I think there's something to be said for self-scooping delicious filling into your own pastry cases. Paul certainly loaded his up. 

Ma Baker: Mat, whom Mary Berry clearly fancies; she double-punched him in the stomach as congratulations - a classic move from the Primary School Book of Flirtation. Her seduction chat might need work though - not sure mentioning that his perfect egg yolk was so good "it dripped down my hand" was quite the right angle.

Smutwatch: Alvin arranged his plums nicely but they were sadly undercooked.

And the first soggy bottom goes to...: Nadiya! Cross it off your bingo sheets everyone. 

Top Two Sandwiches: Like all good hipsters, Tamal loves pulled pork, but what was his other bestest sarnie?!? (For the record, mine are the 800 calorie ham and brie baguette from EAT and the 'Rubenesque', a sourdough, pastrami and cheese triumph from my local caff, the Archie Parker - which is excitingly run by Mrs Simon from Trev and Simon.)

Flaouna: a) a celebrity baby name, b) this summer's hottest dance craze or c) a Cypriot pasty. 

Next time: Bakes of the past. Cue many a joke about Mary's age.

2015 GBBO mini blog. Week 5

Alternative ingredients week.

AKA: 'Free from' week - and atypically free from much tent smut, until Mel got to inspect Ian's hanging nuts and Paul's marzipan bikini gusset.  Until then the only 'high point' had been Flora discussing her buche.

Bye bye: Ugne and her perfect haircut.  She tied her hair back for the Showstopper and I knew the game was up - thwarted like a Bake Off Samson to Berrywood’s Delilah.  Or perhaps it was because her peanut butter ice cream and grape jelly roll looked, shall we say, a bit mushy. 

Lucky escape: Wunderkind Flora, who failed to use enough sponge for Bezza's liking. Mary didn’t rate Flora's narrow sponge landing strip at all - she was clearly hoping for a fuller, seventies buche.

Ma Baker: After several weeks of producing great own-bakes, but always coming bottom in the technical challenge, Nadiya was top of the technical class, making gluten-free pitta breads that presumably tasted marginally less disgusting than anyone else’s.

Agave nectar: nope, me either...  What's the point of a sugar-free cake if you are forced to add other incredibly sweet ingredients which can't be any better for you.  It’s a cake!  No amount of probiotic/microbiotic/madeupbiotic alternatives are going to make it healthy, whatever the Goop newsletter might promise.

Next time: Pastry time.  IT'S SOGGY BOTTOM WEEK, PEOPLE!