Chapter Text
The baking challenges in this chapter are based on The Great British Bake-Off Series 5, Episode 1
Jack focused his camera on the mama duck leading her ducklings across the grass and into the clear creek. The babies all but fell in, then started paddling frantically, working to keep up with their serene mother as she floated above the pebbly bottom.
Once all the ducklings were swimming in a line, he stopped recording and turned to face the house. There were Ransom and Holster leading this season’s bakers across the lawn from the farmhouse to the huge white tent set up in the backyard. Even from this distance, he could hear Holster making jokes about being careful crossing the farmyard — despite the fact that the stables, dairy barn and goat pen were completely on the other side of the property — and how no one wanted to put their foot in it with Hall and Atley.
Ransom walked next to him, backwards, making sure all the bakers stayed roughly in line and in Johnson’s shot. Johnson was walking backwards, ahead of the group. Foxtrot walked next to him, making sure the way was clear, carrying a clipboard that matched Lardo’s.
Lardo herself was waiting at the entrance to the tent with Shitty, who already looked like he wanted to give some of the bakers a hug.
Jack should probably head over. He’d spent time getting footage all around the farm in the early morning light: flowers and trees and goats playing and horses being exercised. He was calm and ready for the action.
Johnson had warned Jack that he would be needed in the tent, especially for the first few weekends, until the number of bakers was winnowed down to a more manageable number.
“Dude, you’re like our best video guy,” Johnson said. “There’s no way this show works without you, or this plot either. I know you like the babbling brooks and fuzzy bunnies more, but trust me. There’s plenty of cute to shoot inside, too.”
Jack hadn’t really followed what Johnson meant, but then, he didn’t really have to. He just had to turn up in the tent with his camera before the bakers were turned loose at their benches.
Jack stationed himself near the back of the tent, between a tall, willowy redhead whose skin was so pale as to be almost translucent, and a short blond guy with big brown eyes and a determined expression.
“I can do this,” the blond guy was muttering. “It doesn’t matter that I’m the last one they picked. I am an award-winning baker. I deserve to be here.”
Unfortunately, the guy’s insecurity just marked him out as being likely to go home in an early episode, Jack thought. Maybe Jack only had two seasons under his belt, but he’d learned that calmness and consistency were key to success in the tent. Too bad for the guy — kid, really. He looked to be the youngest by at least a couple of years.
Jack checked his plan of the tent. The young guy was Eric Bittle, who was now looking all around the tent, like he wanted to memorize everything before he had to leave. His eyes caught Jack’s, and he quickly looked away.
The redheaded woman behind Bittle, in the last row, was Mandy. Next to Mandy was a woman who seemed so aetherial as to not be all there. She was named Jenny. Next to Bittle was a tall Asian guy with a blinding smile. Christopher, with “Chowder” in parentheses on Jack’s chart. Who would choose that for a nickname?
There was a general ruffle as the doors opened again and Alice Atley and Rob Hall stepped in.
“Ladies and gentlemen and bakers of other and no gender, I present our esteemed judges,” Holster was saying.
Alice Atley looked like what she was: a force to be reckoned with. Despite her small stature — she was shorter than Bittle, maybe even shorter than Lardo — she had an air of authority. Her clothing was always neat and perfectly in place, her voice never wavered and she gave the impression that her eyes saw everything. Even what was happening behind her.
“Welcome, bakers,” she was saying. “We’ve set some real challenges for you in the weeks ahead, and we certainly hope to find that you are up to them.”
She didn’t sound like she expected that to be the case.
Rob Hall, a barrel-chested man whose enthusiasm provided a foil for Atley, jumped in. “You’re one of the best groups we ever assembled. More than 10,000 people applied to be standing where you are, so you’re all already winning bakers in our eyes. I can’t wait to taste what you make for us.”
Bittle, for some reason, had gone pale when the judges arrived, Jack noticed. If that was how he responded to were supposed to be confidence builders, how would he react to criticism?
“Your signature challenge this week is to create a Swiss roll,” Ransom said. “You can make any flavor sponge, any flavor filling, cream or jam. Ready, get set —”
Marty and his camera followed Atley and Hall to the small tent they used to while away the baking time. He would shoot them briefly discussing what made a good Swiss roll before coming back.
Jack started capturing video of the bakers measuring flour and whipping eggs. Johnson was trailing Holster as he visited individual benches and Tater was following Ransom, who seemed a little distracted and off his game. That meant Jack was free to shoot what amounted to B-roll, mostly staying to the rear of the tent.
He had trouble keeping Mandy and Jenny in focus; no matter what he tried, they either seemed blurred at the edges or were maddeningly slipping out of the frame.
Christopher — Chowder — seemed to have a lot going on with his cake, more than most of the other bakers at least, but he never lost his sunny smile. The trick with him would be to show off his good humor without making him look goofy.
That might be difficult given how hard he was working to get the attention of the woman in front of him.
“Cait! Cait, how long are you going to bake your sponge for?”
Cait, who had just been kneeling in front of her oven door and peering in the window, said, “Until it’s done,” like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Chowder looked a bit crestfallen, but only for a moment. Then the sunny smile returned as he started stirring something, probably for his filling.
The bench next to Cait was occupied by a tall red-haired man who had put his muscles to good use in the egg-beating stage. It looked like he was going for a traditional Swiss roll, with a vanilla sponge and strawberry jam filling.
The air filled with the smell of sugar and jam and chocolate as the sponges baked and the bakers stirred and tasted and tested their fillings and icings.
The sponges were starting to come out of the ovens. Jack made sure to capture the moments when Bittle, Chowder, Mandy and Jenny pulled their cakes out, watched them roll the cakes loosely to cool, then roll them tightly with the filling.
“What we’re looking for,” Atley said, “is that tight roll so we get a nice swirl when we cut into it.”
“And, of course, the flavor,” Hall said.
Cait’s coffee and hazelnut cake won approving comments, as did a red velvet swiss roll made by someone named Ollie. Eric’s chocolate tiramisu seemed to come about the middle of the pack; it was rolled tightly, but the filling was too wet. Mandy was towards the bottom; apparently, her filling all but disappeared.
That seemed to be a theme. Mandy’s cherries in the technical bake (Atley’s cherry cake) disappeared again.
“Maybe I chopped them too small?” she said.
“That must be it,” Atley said.
The rest of the cakes looked fine to Jack, although the judges seemed partial to Cait’s again.
Jack and Johnson set up outside to do quick-hit interviews before the bakers were shuttled back to the hotel.
“I’ve had a brilliant first day!” Cait said. “I only hope I do well enough tomorrow to not ruin it.”
“The competition is something else,” Chowder said. “Did you see Cait? How did she do that cherry cake so perfectly? She must have done it before. She’s really something else, isn’t she?”
“It seems like I’m just … not all here today,” Mandy said.
“Maybe tomorrow they’ll notice me,” Jenny said.
“It could have been worse,” Bittle said. “I think I’m in the middle, which, given who I’m up against, is really very good, especially since cakes aren’t really my specialty. I’m just hoping to stick around as long as I can, I guess, and maybe learn some things.”
Jack was packing up when Johnson approached.
“You got Bitty?” he said. “Eric, I mean. Eric Bittle.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Seemed fine. Nothing special. Why the interest?”
“I kind of recommended him,” Johnson said. “There was a last-minute opening when a baker dropped out, and I told Lardo to give him a call. He keeps saying bless my heart, and I don’t know if he means it the good way or the bad way. And if it’s bad, I’d better stay out of his way.”
“Him?” Jack said. “Pretty sure he couldn’t hurt a fly, even if he wanted to.”
“That’s what you think now,” Johnson said. “But the path of true love never did run smooth, or something like that.”
“Right,” Jack said, totally lost now. “Catch you tomorrow.”
The first showstopper day dawned clear and warm, something Jack was acutely aware of because he was out setting up a time-lapse shot of the sun rising over the tent, with the bucolic trees and meadows all around. Jack had been up for hours when the bakers trooped into the tent, already commenting on how warm it was.
Jack was feeling it, too, and he’d been around the show enough to know that emotions tended to rise with the temperatures. He’d have to be on his toes today.
Jack was once again stationed near the rear of the tent. It didn’t seem like anyone back here was likely to be in the running for star baker, but disasters made for good TV as well.
As soon as the bakers were settled, all wearing yesterday’s clothes but with clean aprons on, the judges and Ransom and Holster appeared at the front.
“Bakers, your challenge for today will be to make 36 identical mini-cakes,” Ransom said.
“You can make any kind of cake you want,” Holster said. “Any flavor, any kind of sponge, but they must be as alike as possible. So if you want to build a three-foot tower of spun sugar on your cupcakes, go ahead. Just remember you’ve got to do it 36 times.”
“That said, the judges do want to see original decoration,” Ransom reminded the bakers.
“Get ready, get set,” Holster said.
“Bake,” Ransom intoned in a deep voice.
The noise of 12 mixers took over the tent, and Jack took a moment to focus. There seemed to be a lot of people working with lemons, Jack saw, including Bitty, who also had some thyme on his bench. Jack got him zesting lemons, then stirring something in a saucepan.
Bittle noticed the lens on him and started talking to it, almost like Jack wasn’t there.
“This is going to be a lemon curd,” he said, “for the filling. There will also be lemon and thyme in the sponge, and a lemon drizzle over the top. Here’s hoping there’s not too much lemon for the judges!”
Bittle flashed a smile and Jack nodded before he turned away.
Mandy was doing something with chocolate and cherries, and Jenny was seemed to be making four different flavors of sponge.
Chowder was also using lemons, but he appeared to be making a raspberry jam filling as well.
“I just need this to set,” Chowder was saying, more to the jam than to the camera. “Set, please set.”
It looked like Chowder was almost focused enough on his own baking to lose track of Cait, who had finished her orange-flavored jam and was melting chocolate, probably for a glaze. Next to her, Will was making what looked like miniature coffee cakes, flavored with coffee and orange.
“Fifteen minutes, bakers!” Holster said.
Jack made another circuit of the back of the tent, avoiding Ransom and Holster as they engaged and distracted the bakers trying to get their decorations done.
Chowder was hopelessly behind, it looked like, but still somehow smiling. Bittle’s cakes looked … good. Not stunning, necessarily, but consistent, like something you’d actually buy in a bakery.
Jenny’s were, frankly, messy.
“Bakers, time!” Holster called. “Step away from your cakes.”
Jack’s camera wouldn’t be needed for the judging, so he went to set up outside for the post-interviews.
As the bakers came out, it appeared that Jenny had squeaked through, due to an even bigger disaster for someone named Esther who was baking up front.
“Sometimes it’s just not meant to be,” Holster was saying to her, arm about her shoulders as he walked her towards Johnson. “Mixing up the salt and sugar can happen to the best of us. Bad luck for it to happen on the first weekend, though.”
Jack got Cait, beaming after being named star baker.
“This weekend was just perfect,” she said. “Though I suppose that makes it hard. It can only go downhill from here, right?”
“I’m still not sure I’m meant to be here,” Bittle confessed moments later to Jack’s camera. “I’ve got to get back to school and do my exams this week. But this weekend went as well as I could have expected.”
Bitty’s tiramisu cake is something like this.