My Great British Bake Off fail

The research found among Bake Off fans, when it comes to the judges Mary Berry beats Paul Hollywood in the popularity stakes.

The research found among Bake Off fans, when it comes to the judges Mary Berry beats Paul Hollywood in the popularity stakes.

Published Oct 17, 2013

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London - My son, aged six, is furious with me. The gingerbread men are a “flippin’ disaster”, he says, hand on hip, accusingly. It's raining, it’s Sunday, what are we doing? We're cooking, of course.

He's right. They're one-legged, burnt at the edges and as inedible as polystyrene. Mabel, aged two-and-a-half, regards them suspiciously. “Idiots,” she says. It's her new word, which is oddly appropriate on this occasion but was wholly inappropriate in the queue at Morrisons earlier (I don't know where she picked that one up).

Frankly, the boy doesn’t understand the pressure I'm under or he wouldn’t be so harsh. I blame the bloody Great British Bake Off - it's making parenting even harder.

This is a generation of children who know what the word “consistency” means. My son expects me to throw a few bits in a bowl and pull a star-baker souffle out of the oven.

The gingerbread men - who look like escapees from the broken biscuit factory - are a let-down, but worse still, they make him question all my parenting skills. I can see him thinking: “Why should I go to bed on time for a woman who can't make biscuits?”

Once upon a time, you just made jam tarts (with pre-prepared pastry) with your kids. But because every other TV show is a cook-off, now they expect Mum (and Dad) to have culinary super-powers.

I think my son would be more impressed if I managed to cook a firm meringue than if I beat Mo Farah in the 5 000 metres (the latter is more likely). TGBBO is doubling my maternal stress - I am not equipped to deliver the expectation it has created - and unless The Great British Hand Print Painting Off becomes a hit TV series some time soon, I will continue to fail in the eyes of my “kid critics”, as they have dubbed themselves.

At meal times the four of them have started to “mark” their tea out loud, like mini-Masterchef judges: my roast potatoes got nine out of ten on Sunday, but the homemade gravy got a grim two (what can I say - we'd run out of Bisto). The eldest even wants to start a cooking blog. If she does that, people will start to question if we really are related given my lack of expertise.

She's been inspired by a girl who started critiquing her Scottish school dinners at the age of nine.

Martha Payne's blog became an internet sensation and she won Human Rights Young person of the year in the 2012 Liberty Awards.

Our 11-year-old wants a piece of that pie, but apart from setting up the blog - which I can do - there's nothing more I can contribute (I am the woman who once grilled a frozen chicken leg).

And cooking brings out the worst in me. I'm impatient, hot-tempered and illogical. It was only when I had the third child that I realised I didn't have to do all the things I hated just because they wanted to do it.

I won't play Monopoly (it's boring) or computer games (they can do that with Dad). But I love sticking, gluing, glitter and drawing. I love a swimming pool or an indoor play centre. Swings and roundabouts, as they say.

However, on Sunday I broke my “can't cook, won’t cook” rule for the gingerbread men - we'd run out of films to watch and games to play and, annoyingly, we had all the necessary ingredients.

We followed the instructions, and apart from the chilled ball of dough dropping on the floor and being nosed around by the dog for a few seconds, I have no idea why they turned out to be mutants.

“We would never win anything with those,” the children chorused.

“Idiots,” Mabel concluded. - Daily Mail

Lorraine Candy is editor-in-chief of ELLE.

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