Binging with Becca
Hello darlings! In this month’s edition of Binging, we are going to be talking
about my new personal favorite… The Great British Baking Show!
This masterpiece of reality television, of all television, is a BBC original. It is
exactly what you would expect from a baking show … a weekly competition
consisting of specific baking tasks that, once completed, are judged before
kicking the least talented baker off the show. It is also exactly what you
would not expect from a reality baking competition. There is none of the illwill,
gossiping, or back stabbing that is typical of reality television. No waiting
for someone to fall for a laugh and a sneer. This show is full of teamwork,
inspiration, and hope.
Each season of the show begins with twelve of the best amateur bakers
the UK can find. They all get together in “The Tent.” The magic of the tent
cannot be described, so I suggest if you endeavor to comprehend magic, you
begin watching this show immediately. Each week a variety of challenges,
focused on one theme in baking, is tasked to the contestants. Bread week,
pastry week, cake week, biscuit week, and so on and so forth. The contestants,
whose names take no time at all to learn, and who you will no doubt wish to
spend an evening drinking wine and eating your favorite pie with, spend each
weekend completing three challenges.
The first is a signature challenge, vague and full of room to show off their
own personal styles and flavor preferences. During the second, a technical
challenge, each contestant is given the same ingredients, the same tools, and
the same incomplete recipe to create a very specific baked good. Hopefully they
have heard of it before, already know how to make very specific ingredients,
and know the techniques from their own personal baking experience. If they
don’t, well, at least they can look around the tent at their comrades and try to
glean clues the recipe doesn’t reveal. The third, the showstopper challenge, is
always the grandest. Make a wedding cake. Make a stuffed bread centerpiece,
make three dozen donuts to be the center at a family gathering. It is a huge
undertaking, and they are given hours to complete it, but it also provides
the most wiggle room for invention, creativity, and pizzazz. It can make or
break your favorite baker’s chances at survival. It’s their last chance to prove
themselves to the judges, because each week is its own competition. You can
be the star baker week one, thanks to your perfectly flaky croissants, but if
your Baked Alaska doesn’t set properly during week two… well, you’re out.
In this aspect, the judges can appear cruel. They forget the magnificent lion
you crafted out of nothing but bread and a dream and tell you it’s time for you
to leave the tent for something as simple as a slightly runny custard or shoddy
decorations on your cupcakes. They can look at your pastry and tell each other
to not even take a bite of that during judgement, it’s raw and shouldn’t be
eaten… the fact that the world is watching be damned. But they are also
loving. This is raw, but just two more minutes in the oven, just another pinch
of spice, it would have been perfect, and my goodness the color on this loaf is
perfection. They are fair. They want every contestant in that tent to succeed…
and continue baking after they leave. Bluntness and tenderness come served
with every éclair, every tart.
This isn’t only a reality television show. It’s a lesson. A lesson in technique,
process, inspiration, and baking. A lesson in love and passion. Let’s be honest,
love and passion is what baking is all about. No one bakes simply to eat. We
bake for the meditative process. We bake for the life it brings to our palettes.
We bake to share the joy of it with the ones we love.
The hosts jostle around the tent loving and helping everyone with everything.
Yes, they have their hosting duties. They announce the challenges, they kick
contestants out of the tent and they announce star bakers. But they also act as
assistants. They help ice cakes, find freezer room for the crème patisserie that
is not quite set, and help hide little mistakes beneath glitter and fondant. They
run around the tent giving encouragement and laments like only annoying
older siblings can - lighthearted, giggly, and compassionate. They help provide
entertainment to us viewers when the bakers are too time crunched to worry
about playing to the camera, and they give the gift of a well-placed joke to the
baker who is on the verge of tears after their sugar globes have all shattered
five minutes before the judges walk back into the tense tent for the final
judgement. They are the sugar glue holding the entire show together.
If you are looking for something exciting to watch, something fun, something
that will keep you on the edge of your seat with lighthearted glee, and
something that sometimes makes you shout at your television… well, The
Great British Baking Show is for you. This pinnacle of reality TV has no match
(none that I have found anyway). And if you haven’t yet been able to shake the
holiday spirit, they have just released a holiday special on Netflix.
So… On your marks… Get set… BAKE!
Accountants on Tybee
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ACCOUNTING & TAX SERVICE
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TYBEE BEACHCOMBER | JAN 2019 17
Bingeworthy Baking
By Becca Smeltzer
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