A post from Kelli–
It’s no lie– I love binge watching TV shows. With feeling sick so much lately, its something that keeps me occupied and not thinking about how crappy I feel.
Lately I’ve been sucked into The Great Brittish Bake Off.
The premise is that they take 12 to 14 home bakers for each season and they bake.
Each week has a theme and each episode has 3 parts. From what I’ve gathered, it’s not a show where they are there for the whole time that they are filming, but the just film on weekends and then the contestants are able to go home during the week. I think they might know what the upcoming weekend’s theme is because occasionally, they’ll make comments about “this past week I practiced…” or “I had a busy week and was only able to read about…”
Each episode starts with a signature challange. This part allows the contestants to make a dish of their choosing that still fits within the theme. Some of the things that they come up with seem a little odd to me, but I’m not Brittish and I’m a fan of cosmic brownies, so I wouldn’t necessarily say I have a refined palate.
The second challange that they have is called the technical challange. During this challange, they give the contestants ingredients and part of a recipe, but not the full recipe. Often times they leave out vital information like oven temperatures or specific measurements for ingredients. It seems like if it’s really important that the oven be set at a high temperature, they just say high heat instead of giving a number. They try to bring to light easily missed areas that can greatly impact the outcome of a recipe if someone’s never made it before. The techinical challanges are also judged blindly and ranked beginning with the worst and moving towards the best.
The final challange is the showstopper challange. The showstopper challange is meant to pull out all the stops. Often times the final products for this part are big or have a different twist on them so that the contestants will make an impact on the judges.
As with any competition show, a contestant is eliminated each week.
I think part of the reason that I love this cooking show–and many others–is that I used to work in the restraunt industry and really enjoyed it. At the time, I was in college and the hours worked well with my classes. I was also quite a bit more social at the time and this allowed me to be while getting paid. For a long time I wanted to have a bar and grill type restraunt and name it Cosmo’s after my high school nickname, but as time went on, much to mom’s delight, I began to see how impracticle it was. I remember one time I was driving home from Minnesota with mom and I was telling her how I wanted nothing more than to own a bar. She told me that she hoped that I never would. At the time, I wasn’t able to see her point of view, but now as a (slightly) more responsible adult, I can completely see how having a family life would be quite difficult. I can now say, that I’m glad things worked out the way that they did.
Anyways–If you are looking for something interesting to watch, I definitlely recommend this! It’s on Netflix–And I love it!
GBB Show is fantastic. Even my husband likes it. The people including judges are so kind.
If you get Youtube, you can watch almost all the old ones, and even if you are lucky, the new season that has not been shown here. There is also the Great Irish, Kiwi, Australian and American Baking Shows. Lots of others but not in English. They sold the “show” around the world.
Love this series! No yelling and calling people stupid. I thought I had watched all the seasons and then realized I’d never seen Season 1. I have watched all the others at least 3 times.
LOVE that show! Ana is right, everyone is so kind. So different than so many shows on TV. If you go to the BBC website they have the actual recipes and easier versions of some of the recipes. Great fun to try while we are stuck inside for winter!
Who knew that baking could be so exciting. The Great Canadian Baking Show recently finished it’s second season. So fun to cheer for a hometown contestant, and neat to see so many men competing, too.
Wait until you get to seasons 5 &6 with the new hosts and judge. You will LOVE them. It is very entertaining, more relaxed, we watched the whole season in one sitting.
We love the British Bake off, too. I think what resonates with us is how supportive all the bakers are of one another. Where have you ever seen a cooking or baking competition show where the contestants truly seem to care for one another. They help one another out and become friends in the process. We could all learn a lesson from these bakers.