Watching children beam with pride over disastrous desserts helped me overcome my own perfectionism
The prospect of a televised competition that pits knife- and blowtorch-bearing children against one another is not exactly a relaxing one. And so, for years, I stuck to the adult version of The Great British Bake Off, for fear of seeing a nine-year-old set themselves on fire or experience the disappointment that was already devastating enough on the face of a 46-year-old banker from Brentwood. But, deep into one of the lockdowns, I gave it a go, and found I had been entirely wrong – this was, in fact, the Bake Off that the format was born for, and it would change my outlook on more than just baking.
Where the adult competition is now populated by quasi-professionals, the bakes in the junior tent (whose latest series concludes on Friday evening) are often hideous, usually inedible, and only very occasionally impressive. The two hosts – Ravneet Gill and former adult Bake Off contestant Liam Charles – deserve some kind of television award for eating them all without gagging. (Then again, they are also responsible for choosing the challenges – you want to eat multiple rounds of glutinous frogs poached in syrup? Cooked by children? Really?) And yet despite the lurid mush they regularly serve up to the judges, these children appear to be made of steel. There are occasional tears, and downcast moments, but they bounce back instantly – they are, as it turns out, far more resilient than their adult counterparts. On coming seventh out of seven bakers in a challenge, this season’s Poppy shrugged and said: “At least I didn’t come eighth!”
