The Great British Bake-Off

[Jenise]

Anyone else a fan?

Bob and I are absolutely in love with it, which is saying a lot in that Bob doesn't cook at all and I have no sweet tooth whatsoever. But it's entirely delightful. Each episode is nicely long, an hour to an hour and a half and commercial-free, so you can dig in and have a good long watch with the contestants who one cannot help learning to love like old friends over the course of a season.

And it's so low-key, so unlike anything done in America. No visiting celebrity chefs, no ever-changing panel of celebrity judges, no enmity between contestants and no nasty stares. Just the contestants, two hosts who not only do the announcing they run around the room dispensing encouragement and occasionally lend a pair of helping hands when someone's showstopper teeters dangerously, and two judges which consist of the elegant-grandmotherly Mary and the hunky, precise Paul Hollywood who looks like anything but a professional pastry cook.

We DVR'd the season and have just the finale left to watch. Though we rarely eat sweets at home, I might just have to bake a pie for this one.

I haven't seen it nor do I know when it is being shown around here. I'll look.

But I do know that one of the TV networks is already planning a US ripoff, I mean, version.

It is a great show isn't it!
Judges who are expert and consistent and the contestants are talented amateurs who cook their $&@'s off without hysteria or histrionics.
We both love it with not a sweet tooth between us either. I do a bit of bread, and sweet stuff for guests sometimes.
Plus I am a fan of sue Perkins, she is mad as a cut snake and great fun.
If you like Sue look out for a BBC show called The Supersizers ; a look at food in history.

I haven't seen it nor do I know when it is being shown around here. I'll look.

But I do know that one of the TV networks is already planning a US ripoff, I mean, version.

Jeff'
I stream the current show(s) with the PBS app. No need to be tied to some schedulers schedule. Also, the first season is now on Netflix.

[Jenise]

It is a great show isn't it!
Judges who are expert and consistent and the contestants are talented amateurs who cook their $&@'s off without hysteria or histrionics.
We both love it with not a sweet tooth between us either. I do a bit of bread, and sweet stuff for guests sometimes.
Plus I am a fan of sue Perkins, she is mad as a cut snake and great fun.
If you like Sue look out for a BBC show called The Supersizers ; a look at food in history.

It is! It has a very distinct, earnest charm about it that the typical over-produced American show never could. Bob has picked up Mary's term 'scrummy' and laughs just about every time Mel opens her mouth because he adores her dry, self-deprecating humor. Oh, and while he doesn't at all have what one would call a juvenile sense of humor, he was beyond delighted to learn about the long tube of English pudding with dried black currants called 'spotted dick'.

We're previously unfamiliar with Sue Perkins, but we did see her on Halloween in a live London stage version of the Rocky Horror Show.

I understand that this show is SO popular in Britain that this season's finale drew the most viewers of any show ever.

Jeff--currently on PBS here. They picked it up from the BBC channel which is where we got into it last year toward the end of the season. I've read that a new American baking show was in the works, didn't realize it was based on this. I'm sure it will be terrible--they'll Guy-Fieri it into the ground.

[ the long tube of English pudding with dried black currants called 'spotted dick'. .

Just ordinary currants, i.e. dried grapes.

Spotted Dick is a steamed suet pudding. My mum made it as a tube, rolling it in a dishcloth, I think, but the recipe books say muslin, but you can do it in a basin.

In the tube shape she cut slices off which you could have with custard or better still spread liberally with butter which melts and its gorgeous. I've not had a decent Spotted Dick since I left home, and I expect no matter who cooks it, it will never match my memory.

Recipe here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/spott ... star_87835

[Jenise]

[ the long tube of English pudding with dried black currants called 'spotted dick'. .

Just ordinary currants, i.e. dried grapes.

Really? I am misinformed then! Probably just bad presumption on my part, in that the things I met as currants when I lived there were smaller than our raisins and they contained a certain gritty inner element I presumed to be tiny seeds--American raisins have none.

Thanks for the recipe. Love the memory of your mom's.

Watching the first episode as I write this. It's a really fun show and I love the fact that they don't eliminate anyone after a round.

[Edit] Oh! Guess they eliminate someone after each episode. Still, very fun show.

[ the long tube of English pudding with dried black currants called 'spotted dick'. .

Just ordinary currants, i.e. dried grapes.

Really? I am misinformed then! Probably just bad presumption on my part, in that the things I met as currants when I lived there were smaller than our raisins and they contained a certain gritty inner element I presumed to be tiny seeds--American raisins have none.

In the US, the word "currants" is complicated:
http://www.currantc.com/index.php?src=gendocs&ref=Are%20They%20Currants%20or%20Raisins%3F&category=v4_Health_Benefits

There was an article in Art of Eating, some issues ago, about the fellow whose site this is, Greg Quinn. He is the one who proved that the ban on currants could be lifted. Other pages on that site say more about it.

Anyway, it is my understanding that real black currants are rarely used in dried form.

[Jenise]

Watching the first episode as I write this. It's a really fun show and I love the fact that they don't eliminate anyone after a round.

[Edit] Oh! Guess they eliminate someone after each episode. Still, very fun show.

I hope you keep watching. You'll be surprised how attached you get to the contestants.

We watched the finale last night. I was actually choking back tears, I felt so bad for the two who didn't win (though I agreed that she who did, should have.)

[ the long tube of English pudding with dried black currants called 'spotted dick'. .

Just ordinary currants, i.e. dried grapes.

Really? I am misinformed then! Probably just bad presumption on my part, in that the things I met as currants when I lived there were smaller than our raisins and they contained a certain gritty inner element I presumed to be tiny seeds--American raisins have none.

Thanks for the recipe. Love the memory of your mom's.

That 'divided by a common language' strikes again

In UK there are are three types of dried grapes, used in cooking, snacking and in the famous Cadbury's Fruit'n'Nut chocolate bar.

Currants
Raisins
Sultanas

I use Sultanas in my scones because they are seed free and soft. They are the easiest to define as they are dried seedless grapes af the 'Sultana' variety, or 'Sultaniye' "named after the Ottoman sultans to whom the precious grape was offered" (Jancis in Wine Grapes). They are large and pale brown or yellow and these are, according to Jancis, known as Raisins in USA.

Currants and Raisins are both smaller, more wrinkled and dark almost black in colour. I'm not clear myself of the difference between them to be certain which is seedless. One type has, in my experience, seeds in them and that would be the gritty things you encountered. The books say Currants are dried seedless grapes from the Black Corinth variety grown on Zante, name currant being a corruption of Corinth, leaving Raisins to be dried grapes that are not Sultanas or Currants and presumably with or probably increasingly these days, without seeds

[Jenise]

Peter, having lived there I can vouch for the fact that what you guys call sultanas is what we call golden raisins, and they are indeed many hues of gold and tawny. Where here the word 'raisin' all by itself refers to an all brownish-black guy which is quite different in texture and size to your currants. And that's pretty much it here, two colors, similar in size and shape, flavor a little different--goldens tend, to my palate, to be a bit sweeter.

Watching the first episode as I write this. It's a really fun show and I love the fact that they don't eliminate anyone after a round.

[Edit] Oh! Guess they eliminate someone after each episode. Still, very fun show.

I hope you keep watching. You'll be surprised how attached you get to the contestants.

We watched the finale last night. I was actually choking back tears, I felt so bad for the two who didn't win (though I agreed that she who did, should have.)

We also watched episode 2 last night as well. I'm incredibly impressed by Martha, the 17 year old. Excellent skill set and more poise than many of the older contestants.

Sorry I'm late to the discussion, but we LOVE LOVE LOVE this show! Hands down the best cooking "reality" show out there, and often times the highlight of our week. Haley loves to bake and gets loads of inspiration watching the different items they have to produce. I love that it is free of the drama and cattiness of other cooking competition shows - just mouthwatering fun and you really get attached to the contestants. Cheers to the Brits for such a well done series!

[Jenise]

Joy, a few days ago I walked into the room and saw Bob, frowning. What's wrong I said. "There's no more baking show," he answered glumly. Of course, he was really pondering something else and just said that to make me laugh, but it does speak to just how much he enjoyed watching that show that it was still on his mind a week or so after watching the finale. And he's a real John Denver of a guy--everything's positive, can't stand mean/catty behavior at all. The show really is, to put it in a word, sweet in every way.

So I was in the ophthalmologist's office for my one week post-op cataract surgery visit this morning. The TV was on in the waiting room and it was showing The Great British Bake-Off. Competition cooking shows aren't at all my cup of tea. But I was surprised (indeed, shocked) to see Noel Fielding co-hosting the programme. I know him from the surreal British comedy The Mighty Boosh.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

He's great! But I only know him from this show.

He's a brilliant comedy actor and writer. Along with Julian Barratt he created The Mighty Boosh, a surrealistic comedy performance troupe that started with live shows, then a six episode radio series, and finally 20 television episodes originally aired 2004-2007, followed by live tours both in the UK and the US.

The first TV series is set in a zoo (The Zooniverse) run by an obnoxious, crass American named Bob Fossil. Fielding and Barratt play two low-level zoo employees. Barratt plays Howard Moon, an aspiring jazz musician and author. He has a very high opinion of himself. Fielding plays Vince Noir, a laid back, deceptively easygoing young man obsessed with trendy youth pop culture. Both are idiots in their own way. The other recurring characters are Bob Fossil, who runs the Zooniverse, Naboo the Enigma, a shaman, and Bollo, a talking ape. The second and third series are set in the Nabootique, an second-hand store run by Naboo.

The Mighty Boosh is offbeat and surrealistic, but not in the wacky Monty Python sense.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Has he always dressed this way and worn make-up? I can't figure out if this is an outer personae (because show business) or how he really is IRL.

I only have that one programme as a sample, but what I saw was rather close in appearance to his Vince Noir character from The Mighty Boosh. Both Fielding and Barratt played a whole host of widely different characters in Boosh. No idea what Noel Fielding is like IRL.

-Paul W.