Tastes and traditions vary in the extreme when it comes to celebrating the Holidays. Religious organizations will argue over minute details in doctrine, social media will go into a rage over the lack of “Christ” printed on the outsides of their grande peppermint mochas, and singles will lament after Aunt Barbara has asked for the twelfth time why they haven’t brought a spouse home yet. It’s all rather inevitable.
What’s also inevitable is the fact that everyone—foodies, health nuts, vegans—will chow down on baked goods of some kind or another in the next few weeks. Baking becomes the great unifier of the holidays, and there is no better time to turn our eyes back to The Great British Baking Show, now they’ve released a two-episode holiday-themed series just for us.
The Great British Baking Show (GBBS) is teaching us all how to fall in love with the kitchen and the simple act of making once more. Across the country, people are dusting off their aprons and checking the expiration date on the baking powder they bought four years ago, ready to take on the challenge of crafting desserts even Paul Hollywood couldn’t scoff at. In these two short episodes, we get some of the best the GBBS has to offer. Paul skulks around with his fierce blue eyes judging and praising without saying a word, the two hosts maintain a rapid dialogue and elicit laughs from contestants and audience members alike, and the creations themselves are so lovely that you can almost taste them through the screen.
That’s to say nothing of the contestants themselves. As any good American, I love an underdog story, and that’s just what this series was about. In this holiday season, stories of redemption, second chances, and hope tend to be all the rage and this show is no exception. We get to watch contestants who previously failed to gain special recognition in the tent now compete for the title of Christmas Star Baker, including the truly inspired choices of fan-favorites such as Salasi, Benjamina, Paul, and Val! Bringing these contestants back into this cozy, friendly atmosphere develops an immediate sense of homecoming that is rare on most any reality television shows, food-related or not.
In all honesty, GBBS has always striven to maintain an atmosphere of hominess and welcome. Most of the participants of this series dress in cozy jumpers, and even the formidable judges sport a reindeer or two. They create classics such as mince pies and yule logs, foods that have appeared on many a table during the Holiday season throughout history or at least have popped up in favorite Christmas stories and films before. All the action is peppered by stories of the contestants’ triumphs, failures, traditions their own families kept whilst growing up, and the development of their unique spins on each challenge’s standard recipe. That is, after all, what the GBBS is all about. It is a marriage of the classic, tried and true recipes with new visions and inspiration that comes from a variety of cultures and backgrounds. Britain, that dear old dame, has finally learned to embrace and integrate the various classes, races, and even ages in this show so that each contestant has full freedom to toss their own twist into the old mix.
Along with this, the GBBS strives to create a deep sense of wonder and coax everyone’s inner child to wake up and play as they present challenges such as the sugar-spun snowglobes, Kransekake, or iced “Winter Wonderland” cakes to the bakers. Christmas and other winter holidays are meant to tease us out of our mundane lives and into believing in something special, so what better way to do that than to watch people shape sugar and water into glass-like orbs or create a sweet scene out of cake and fondant? Their challenges become our challenges and we become fully engaged in the story they tell, even in the space of a baking competition.
The Great British Baking Show — Source: BBC
We believe in the bakers. When they begin to stack the delicate rings for the Kransekake (a Scandinavian dessert shaped like a Christmas tree), we bite our knuckles and shout at the television and wonder how we might do it better. We let our imaginations run wild as we take in their initial sketches and watch them stumble their way through rolling sponge cakes or torching their meringue. This belief, peppered with teachings on the baking process, gives us courage to give it a try ourselves.
So we whip out our rolling pins and crack open the rusty old recipe boxes gifted us by sweet older relatives upon reaching adulthood. We find a way to connect across time and space with generations of others, creating the same delicious baked goods they did before. Perhaps some of us toss in gluten free flour or sub bananas for eggs, or maybe we decide that tart would be improved by adding zest, but the heart behind it remains the same. When we watch Salasi gently rolling his cake together, we bite our lips, push up our sleeves, and throw caution to the wind as we follow with our own.
And hey. If it cracks, we all know there’s nothing a little icing, dusting of powdered sugar, or decorative fruit can’t fix.
