Last year I self diagnosed myself with a mild to moderate case of BOBOS(BORED OF BAKE OFF SYNDROME).  Towards the end of series six of The Great British Bake Off I had grown really tired of this very formulaic show.  In fact I had become that bored of it that I think I only watched half of the final.  Series seven started last Wednesday night on BBC1 and I was not sure how I felt about its return before it aired.  I had to watch it though didn’t I, namely because it felt like everybody else who lived in United Kingdom would be too.

As the ending credits rolled I am pleased to announce that I am now FREE of BOBOS.  Yes, as expected it was all very samey again but I had enjoyed watching it.  I do not think that it is the greatest TV show that has ever been made, however I do love the quintessentially British nature of it.  For example, I love the glorious leafy green Welford Park setting.  I love all the Union Jack bunting that is proudly on display in the marquee where the bakers bake.  I love the lack of vulgarity amidst the odd amusing innuendo or two.  Only in Britain could we have invented a show where people CRY over baking a cake for crying out loud but I also love this aspect about it.

This first episode started off well due to some of the contestants in the intro saying amusing things such as, “I have shouted at pie” and “the last time I was this nervous I was about to give birth”.   There was definitely an aura of ‘the spectacle’ about the show.

We were told that there would be twelve contestants on the show this year.  The judges as always were Paul Hollywood(now aka Mr Dunker) and the people’s cake Queen Ms Mary Berry.   Comediennes and double act Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc were the presenters once again.  This comic due are as central to the success of this show as Paul and Mary are in my opinion.  The humour that they provide is an essential aspect of the show.   Mel(who is the funnier of the two for me) reminds me at times of the late, great Victoria Wood. I guess I cannot pay her any greater compliment than this.

They started off the series doing ‘Cake Week’ and their first signature bake was to make a drizzle cake(Paul’s favourite apparently).  It was in this first segment that we got introduced to all of the new contestants.  First up was Val, who is a retired head mistress from Somerset.  I absolutely adored her with all of her amusing eccentricities.  Already I think we have seen my favourite bit of series seven when Val stated,

“and I listen to my cakes and they’re not ready….they sing and they say, not ready, not ready”!

Got to be honest and admit that PE teacher Candice got right on my wick throughout this first episode.  I think it was a combination of her being very over-the-top, appearing to like the sound of her own voice a bit too much and crying at the end because she thought she might be going home due making a right pigs ear of her genoise, i.e she made a rubbery sponge.

For their technical challenge the contestants were asked to bake twelve Jaffa cakes.  The highlight of this section was when a somewhat affronted Mary Berry looked on in horror as Paul Hollywood DUNKED one of these cakes in a cup of tea.  Almost with a straight face Mary said to Paul, “we don’t do that in the South you know”.

As usual with the technical, the efforts of the bakers were judged blind and ranked from worst to best.  Ghanaian born and that chilled he could have charmed the pants off a rolling pin and a Jaffa cake….AT THE SAME TIME, Selasi came first.  Again, we had the tension building orchestral music as the contestants rushed to finish in time. I loved the post match, I mean post technical bake comments.  It was like the baking version of Match of the Day, I was waiting for one of the bakers to say something like, “well it was a Jaffa cake bake of two halves but I’m sure I’ll find the back of the net soon, I mean oven”!

The final round as usual was the all important showstopper.  This week is was all about them baking a mirror glaze cake.  We had the intense drama(not really) of seeing if any of the bakers under or over cooked their genoise cakes.  Repeatedly,  initial poor efforts were thrown across the tent and dumped in the bin, this was high-octane stuff this!

I enjoyed watching it in all seriousness.  I mock them for crying over making a rubbery sponge, but if the bakers did not care as passionately as they do then this show would not work as well as it does.  At the heart of this show is a sense of pride.  Pride in our cultural, historical and cooking heritages which have thus shaped us as people and this makes for an interesting watch at times.  It would be a pointless watch if the contestants did not really care about the state of the things that they baked.

After all the cooking was done it was decided that garden designer Jane from Kent, was star baker for week one.  Contrastingly, after three pretty lame efforts church minister Lee from Bolton was on his way home and the first person to be eliminated.

I do wish the producers though would change the sad music bit which accompanies the elimination news .  This is because some years ago I watched an exceptionally moving documentary about the Holocaust by Claude Lanzmann called Shoah.  It’s an outstanding piece of work but throughout it has a similar violin/strings sequence to this closing bit of music that we hear on every episode of The Great British Bake Off. Therefore, I think of this brilliant but at the same time traumatic documentary every time I see somebody going home from The Great British Bake Off……..JUST FOR MAKING RUBBISH CAKES argh ,i.e poles apart mood and subject matter wise.

By the end I had really enjoyed seeing this programme return.  I duly checked myself for symptoms of BOBOS(BORED OF BAKE OFF SYNDROME) and could not find any to my great relief.  Hooray, I have been CURED I think…….WELL, FOR THE TIME BEING AT LEAST! 4/5.