Great British Bake Off 2016: episode one

It’s taken us until series seven to discover that Paul’s favourite cake is a moist drizzle. Hordes of past bakers weep that we never had the recipe to satisfy him. Sadly some of this lot fail to raise a smile too.

Mary points out that Lee’s mixture has separated and the camera zooms in, in search of the evidence. Lee bravely half-smiles in the face of surgically invasive bowl scrutiny.

Tom’s G&T cake includes a curd filling made with boiled down tonic water, which he claims won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it’s his gin drizzle that makes the judges wince. ‘That’s been killed off by the alcohol,’ says Paul. Surely there are worse fates for a cake?

Louise’s Cointreau and lemonade domes are deemed too dense, Val’s contribution is ‘very dry’ and Paul can’t taste the lemon in Andrew’s cake or the blackberries in Kate’s. The judges are confused by the taste of Rav’s yuzu drizzle but Selasi’s flavours are ‘fantastic’. He shrugs like a man who’s used to such compliments.

The technical challenge is to produce twelve Jaffa Cakes – discs of orange jelly are perched on fatless sponges and topped with dark chocolate. Instructions are typically vague and the bakers aren’t sure which way up they should go. Cheerful Andrew plumps for the bottom and finishes in bottom place. Val decides on the basis of what she describes as ‘one of those epiphanies’, Jane quickly changes sides after one miscreant, but it’s smooth Selasi’s level-headed batch that takes the top spot.

The debut bakers’ first showstopper is a mirror-glazed beauty that must include a foundation of Genoese sponge. Mary says she’s looking for ‘sheer perfection’ – her first of the series! It won’t be her last.

The bakers soon discover they’re getting beaten by the super-whipped Genoese. Tom, Val, Benjamina and Michael all start again. Candice says she would throw her flat sponge out of the window if she were at home. She settles for bouncing it off the wall of the tent, like a Frisbee of disappointment. Benjamina blubs as her Swiss meringue buttercream runs towards neutrality.

Rav’s mocha mirror is polished but the cake beneath is too dry. Selasi’s raspberry, sloe and white chocolate cake is judged to be beautifully flavoured but not a shining example.

Poor Tom can’t get the balance right – after inebriating the judges with his boozy drizzle cake, he’s now told his Black Forest showstopper needed more kirsch. Mary sniffs at the grassy scent of Michael’s matcha tea-flavoured cake.

Bleeps abound but it’s Candice who produces the best cake-aimed expletive – ‘Oh you Mother Hubbard,’ she curses.

In the end, most disasters are offset by redeeming features – Paul thinks that swallow-obsessed Kate’s decorations look more like penguins but Mary likes the sharp gooseberry flavour. Louise’s white chocolate trifle cake is mirror-less but delicious, Benjamina’s simple shiny creation brings smiles all round and Andrew’s salted caramel and orange cake is ‘absolutely stunning’.

Presenting what is in effect a big glossy classy Jaffa cake, it’s Renaissance woman Jane, that gardening, baking, sewing machine who is made the first Star Baker. She looks exhausted! Lee, who created something called a Strawberry Surprise, seems unsurprised to be the first to leave and accepts his fate with good grace. Who knows if he’s a little relieved, when next week’s trailer heralds the largest gingerbread structures ever attempted on the Bake Off. It promises to be a challenging week. Selasi shrugs.