The Great British Bake Off

So. The Great British Bake Off is pulling in viewers in the millions. Cue multiple newspaper think pieces wondering why this is - what is it about the nation's obsession with cake and biscuits (hello? How have newspapers only just woken up to our prediliction for sweet and fattening comfort food??), and b), golly gosh how is it that so many men, even unreconstructed football fans, are into the programme? Well, I have no insights to offer into other peoples' motivations, however neanderthal the bulk of their daily existence. But I confess to being a Bake Off fan, and I am not a massive one for foodie programmes. I dip in and out of the Hairy Biker escapades, usually on the days when they encounter cheesecake. I can become a bit avid about Masterchef, though all the spin offs - Junior Masterchef, Celebrity Masterchef, and Masterchef Australia, leave me irretrievably cold. I don't watch any others, though there was a time a few years back when the kids and I would watch Nigella Bites amid howls of laughter as we sent up her come-hither look and her tits to the wind. But TGBBO has me hooked and here is what it is about. It is categorically not about the presenters, who consistently annoy me. As a keen, verging on obsessive baker, I know exactly how irritating it can be to have someone wittering over your shoulder, distracting you from the exacting and alchemic task at hand, while shoving their fists into your batter and making unfunny suggestive comments based on cheap double entendre oooh, what a lovely pair of buns...). I am wildly unimpressed by the setting - marquee somewhere in Somerset shouts unbelievable tweeness, which goes right over the cliff edge whenever the camera does a close up of a Cath Kidston inspired KitchenAid mixer. Yurch. Nope. Here is what it is. When I watch Masterchef I am awed by the skill - it is a show put on for me to admire, because I cannot hope to emulate it. It is therefore like Mastermind, or the Olympics, or Jane Austen novels. But Bake Off? Yup, I can do those things. I can  make spicy crackers, herby breads, party cakes and occasion cakes, and I bet if I were asked to create an inspiration out of gingerbread I could , given time, come up with something that would knock the Colesseum or the derelict barn complete with caramel cobwebs, into a cocked gingerbread hat. It's the world of possibility that has me hooked. I note from the programme that Mary Berry has never baked with potato flour, for example, and my eyebrows shoot past my bangs because I do, every year at Passover, and I know how to turn out perfect almond cakes with the stuff. Shock horror, I know something the judges do not know! I find myself disagreeing with Nick Hollywood or whatever his name is when he contests that you cannot make a decent cheesecake with half fat cheese. I immediately run off to make it so I can disprove him, and I do. I watch each contestant's technique, looking for tips. It is not their celebrity status I am interested in. This is not vicarious stuff. I am learning here, it is a non stop GCSE in Domestic Science, cake baking option. It is a remarkable programme for depicting the doable. Thus it is that after every programme I can guarantee my family will find themselves sitting down to the week's technical challenge, an eclectic range, from croquembouche to doughnuts. It is the ultimate achievable dream, it is the London Fashion week of baking - weird, wacky and wonderful recipes to add annually to my repertoire. Roll on next week - I still have three pages of my recipe book to fill...