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  • The Atlantic

    <em>The Great British Baking Show</em>’s Technical Challenges Are a Scourge

    Over several seasons, they’ve evolved from a basic skill assessment into a meandering tour through Europe’s most arcane pastries.
    by Sophie Gilbert Oct 03, 2019 4 minutes
    Source: Netflix

    Once upon a teatime, The Great British Baking Show was a baking competition. Contestants gathered in a big, unfailingly over-warm tent, clad in their Marks-and-Sparks separates and their greige aprons, awkwardly enthusiastic about being on television but entirely committed to proving themselves as Britain’s best bakers. Mary Berry still had glasses. Paul Hollywood still had pigment in his hair. For the technical challenges that make up the second act of the show, contestants were required to make nothing more complicated than a perfect scone, a whisper-light soufflé, or a precisely balanced Cornish pasty.

    Those days are long gone. Mary has been replaced by Prue Leith, a genteel home-cooking guru with an acid trip of a wardrobe,. Paul has metamorphosed into a divorced dad’s interpretation of the Night King. And the technical challenges have become the of cookery competitions: obscure, devilishly challenging, and almost impossible to finish. Have ever made a maid of honor? You know, the puff-pastry tart filled with cheese curds and beloved by Henry VIII that’s a typical part of every home cook’s culinary repertoire? How about a ? Or a ? Maybe a Cumberland rum nicky? Or 14 identical ?

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