If you enjoyed the above clip, my first guess is that you’re a fan of The Great British Bake Off (GBBO). My second guess is that you like trombone, holiday music, or Jürgen’s magnificent eyebrows. Either way, happy belated holidays and new year! Wow, this January has already felt like alot.
I’ve been in awe of the persistence of the people around me navigating challenging times who are still showing up for their friends, families, and communities. I’ve seen this same spirit of ‘getting through it’ in the 12 seasons/series of GBBO. In the low moments, I’ve turned to cheesy reality TV and feel-good programming often.
Having GBBO on (even in the background) helps me relax, and while rewatching some recent seasons a couple of lessons and themes have shone through that I wanted to take the time to reflect on.
Grab your favorite tasty beverage, and let us dig into some UK Reality TV.
There are spoilers ahead.
Things will go wrong.
Sourced from Metro
Bake Off takes place in a tent in the middle of a lawn outside of a Victorian estate in Essex.
Besides being the most British thing ever, this setting also means that the conditions the bakers are competing in are unpredictable. A heatwave or extra humidity could ruin a reliable bake. Add in being on camera (yikes), on a major show (double yikes), being under a strict time limit (triple yikes), and a weekly Technical Challenge where the bakers have to make a difficult recipe with limited instructions?
Things get messy and go wrong. It’s a perfectionists nightmare.
Going into the final of Series 10 of GBBO (Results breakdown for fans of stats), the three finalists (Alice, David, and Steph) had dealt with their share of these struggles and won the favor of tough to please judges.
Prior to being on Bake Off, Steph had overcome difficult times to even be on the show. Steph’s exceptional ability had seen her win 4 Star Baker Awards (best baker of the episode, she is 2nd place all time for this award). I remember thinking she was primed to win the whole show heading into the finale, a testament to persistence and overcoming difficulties.
At the beginning of the finale, Steph tells a story about her time as an athlete where she stumbled during a race at the last hurdle. Despite falling, she picked herself up and kept going. Hearing this story made my heart hit the floor, because I knew it likely meant Steph was about to clip another hurdle.
During the technical challenge, Steph makes a critical mistake (her bake is described as a ‘soup’, ouch). During the Showstopper/last bake, several things go unexpectedly wrong despite Steph’s preparation and expertise. Like me, she wears her heart on her sleeve and while everyone is supporting her – you can tell she isn’t in the best place.
What she didn’t do was give up.
She kept putting one foot in front of the other and still presented something incredible that many of us would be proud to have made:
Steph’s commitment to finishing when things weren’t perfect, and finding her way forward has been inspiring to me during this month. During days when every step has felt heavy, I think about this episode. I think about the way that Steph turned this outcome and her platform into an opportunity to earnestly discuss her mental health and become an advocate for positive change.
Another thing I found during my research for this post that stood out is Steph and her mother have also been an advocating and supporting https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk. Steph has described herself as a ‘Work in Progress’, and I’m aiming to bring that energy into my 2022.
(The cynical part of my brain wants to mention that while there is no monetary reward for winning bake off, the winners sometimes find lucrative work as baking personalities in the UK.)
Sometimes, the focaccia won’t rise
The most recent Bake Off Contest (Series 12) is already one of my all time favorites. For the majority season two front runners stood apart: the aforementioned trombonist Jürgen (aka Jurgy-Pops), an astounding Italian baker named Giuseppe.
There were other gifted bakers (Lizzie, George, and Amanda) and it seemed as though only Chigs or Crystelle would have an honest shot of dethroning Jürgen or Giuseppe. When Crystelle found herself on the chopping block in Week 8 alongside her show friend Lizzie, my hopes weren’t high for her.
I shouldn’t have doubted. Going into Week 9, Crystelle reframes her mentality:
I don’t want to feel pressure. I want to bake and enjoy it…and a full-body massage
This. Philosophy. Works.
Crystelle secures high praise from the judges with a Hollywood Handshake and the notes her final bake is ‘flawless’. It was a reverse of fate, and heading into the finale Crystelle had the momentum in an episode that saw Jürgen elminated.
Even heading into the final bake of the finale – Crystelle found herself at the head of the pack by the judges reckoning.
For the final showstopper, Crystelle decided to revisit a bake she had learned about earlier in the season – focaccia. She had practiced, surrounded the focaccia with some of her favorite bakes, had taken the judges feedback about adjustments to a focaccia recipe, had a rock solid mentality, and had pages of notes to refer to.
Crystelle seemingly does everything right and then some. When she displays her showstopper, the bake looks immaculate earning high praise from the judges on its appearance. Everything is going great.
Except, her focaccia doesn’t rise. It ends up being raw. Despite doing everything right, it hadn’t worked out. Crystelle doesn’t win the competition. It was heartbreaking. I’ve looked around the internet to try and figure out why it didn’t rise, and there’s not much of an explanation to be found.
I had originally written a takeaway from this experience, but Crystelle put it best in an Instagram Post:
…to address the elephant in the room – yes, I made raw focaccia in the final. Please don’t try that at home folks. I think that’s a bake off first so I’m glad to have made history 🤣 For real though, that just sums up baking – you can bake something 100 times but you can never guarantee it will always come out the same. I wish I could tell you what went wrong with that bake but, till this day, I still don’t know what happened! I do believe that everything happens for a reason though, and so I will always remain positive.
…BUT the most important thing I’ve learnt is to keep your head held high amidst any setbacks, keep smiling and to try again. I feel so much pride and happiness to have completed 10 weeks in that tent alongside such a talented bunch of friends, including my fellow finalist Chigs ❤️ Making the final was an unthinkable achievement, and I still can’t quite believe I was part of it.
Crystelle on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CWogeZyMjyh/
So, you must be a baker now – right?
In the last six months, I have failed at making upgraded box cake (yep, just the thing from the box with some extra components) at least five times. I have no patience for baking (the issues are me rushing) and still don’t have a full grasp on the ‘hot spots’ in the oven. Patience and persistence have been opportunities for me most of my life.
I’ve been failing at alot of things this month. Lately it’s been more about getting to the finish line than it has been doing things perfectly. I’ve got some perfectionism tendencies in me, and this hasn’t been an easy mental adjustment. Right now, I’m accepting I’m moving at one tiny checkbox at a time – and that’s okay
A clear example – I’ve been dragging my feet writing this post because I’ve been trying to make it ‘perfect’ (or have a picture of a good cake to post). When I started writing this post, the video of Jürgen playing a holiday song was still appropriately seasonal.
Today, I decided that progress is better than perfection. I realized that if I’m not writing for fun, I’m probably not doing it for the right reasons. As I continue to try and make my way back to doing more things creatively – I know I’m going to have to keep this perspective in mind.
As 2022 picks up speed, I have hope I’m going to find a good rhythm again soon. Many of the people I care about in my life have gone through some unexpected bumps, bruises, or changes recently – and they are still doing some incredible things.
We’re all in this together, and if you’re taking things a day at a time right now as well – we can make it through. Maybe your way of coping is watching GBBO like me, maybe it’s something else but it all counts and it’s all important. Find your next step, be it heavy or light.
I’m going to take some pages out of Steph and Crystelle’s books and keep going, knowing that this moment isn’t forever. I hope everyone is healthy and well.
Note: If audio is more your speed, or you’d like more filmmaking details – I’ve covered this show previously in the podcast Show Bros with my friend Jeff. There’s a very real chance I’m repeating things we talked about in the episode, but I don’t want to listen to my own voice so I don’t know.