When we tune in to watch The Great British Bake Off, there are certain things we're counting on happening. We want plenty of innuendos (Nigella's got us covered this season with very sensual commentary). We want to experience intense cravings for cake, biscuits, and other baked goods. And we definitely want the drama of failure. Tears! Cake collapses! Mini breakdowns in front of the oven!
We hope for these things, but we never expected to be treated so well in the very first episode of season 17. The new series kicked off with exceptional Alison Hammond moments, a brilliant new vibe brought by Nigella joining as judge, and not one, not two, but three disasters.
It might sound a bit mean to say, but we do enjoy watching the bakers get things very, very wrong.
The first mishap occurred in the signature challenge, which saw the contestants putting their own spin on a Nigella classic: a chocolate stout cake. It was 31-year-old accessibility coordinator Molly who was the first victim of the Bake Off bad omens. Molly seemed to be getting on splendidly at first, eagerly taking her chocolate sponge out of the oven.
That was when disaster struck. Having only put on one oven glove, Molly lost her grip, allowing the perfectly baked sponge to tumble to the ground. It landed cake side down, crumbling all over the carpet. Molly looked understandably distraught. 'I'm going to cry,' she said.
Thankfully, Alison Hammond was on hand to cheer the contestant up, and Molly didn't let the failure hold her back. She got stuck in to making a fresh sponge, which ended up being rather tasty. She later performed very well in both the technical and showstopper challenges. There's a lesson there: when life chucks your cake on the floor... just keep baking.
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The next blunder was not so enjoyable to watch. Project planner Shannon, 29, was taken down ill and was thus unable to complete her showstopper. Boo!
But the final cake collapse was pure cinema. After adding the finishing touches to her entirely vegan self-portrait cake, Danni stepped out of the tent along with the other bakers. While outside, the bakers watched through the window in horror as Danni's multi-tier cake started to lean to one side. Then it slid. Then it slid more. And then... bam. The entire top layer fell off and smashed on to the floor. Oops.
Nigella and Paul were still able to taste the cake, thankfully, and they pointed to the vegan ingredients as a potential cause of the structural issue.
And we don't have to feel too guilty for laughing at either of the cakes that ended up on the floor, because everything worked out fine in the end. SPOILER: at the end of episode one, none of the bakers were sent home. A fair decision, considering not everyone got to compete in the final round.
Next Tuesday we'll get to watch biscuit week. So while there'll be no more cake topples for a while, perhaps we'll get to watch some broken biscuits or crumbling cookies. Here's hoping.
