Great Sport Relief Bake Off Blog - episode three

15 Jan 2014

Great Sport Relief Bake Off contestant (and all-round good egg) Emma Freud live blogs this year's series...

Thank you for joining in with the live blog! Recap below if you're behind, and please come back tonight (Thursday) because champion Emma Freud will be live blogging the final episode too.


<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_703733689">8.01pm GMT This is how it started…. Five days before I entered the tent, I was told to prepare A Signature Traybake and A Showstopper. I started to practice and with the help of my daughter @scarlykfcurtis (who bakes 1000000000000 times better than me) we created the legendary (or so we thought… *blushes*) Bourbon, Black Cherry and Bacon Brownie. I baked it again and again with differing amounts of ingredients, different cooking times, various cooling times, icing methods and presentations. I tasted every version and then spat them out because a) it turns out you can't eat brownies literally all day without puking and b) they were pretty much by and large on the whole disgusting. I dreamed that this would be a seminal week in the lives of my children who would daily come home to tray after tray of freshly baked brownies, and cakes that literally stopped the show. But after a small nibble on day one, every time I offered they just muttered 'I'm fine' (youth speak for 'NO') and reached for a jaffa cake instead. Five days later I had cooked the brownies so many times that the bin collectors had started to complain about the vats of poo-coloured goo with which the wheelies were now filled.

<span class="paragraphLabel" data-term="goog_703733690">8.04pm GMT When Michael says 'the ginger will bring all the flavours together' he is just making it up. He sings like a GOD but the amount he knows about baking could be written on the back of his box of Fisherman's Friends.

<span class="paragraphLabel" data-term="goog_703733691">8.05pm GMT Victoria is like the perfect person. She is SO neat and pretty and organized and dedicated and diligent and sorted and fit and good. Her thighs are the same size as my arms. I hate her.

<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_703733692">8.07pm GMT Jamelia is gorgeous… all lyrical and chilled and funny and relaxed and jamaicany and beautiful. Her legs are the same length as my entire body. I hate her.

<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_703733693">8.08pm GMT Reader you must be made aware that I did NOT kill Mary Berry. She is still alive to this day… despite having eaten my candied bacon. Fyi… I invented that method of candying bacon MYSELF.. it took me 11 attempts. You bathe the bacon in jack daniels mixed with maple syrup. Then roll it in brown sugar and cinnamon and roast it in a medium oven for 15 minutes. Or.. like I did in the bake off because I couldn't work the timer properly… half an hour. #burnt.

<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_703733694">8.11pm GMT Today's resolution… be like Jamelia - remember to put MORE condensed milk in food. All food. At all times. Nothing doesn't taste better thanks to condensed milk. I had forgotten, but I will remember now.

<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_703733695">8.12pm GMT I burnt the bake off tent. *hangs head in shame* *secretly wishes had kept the burnt carpet to frame for ever as excellent momento of rock bottom moment*

<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_703733696">8.15pm GMT TESTICLES… that squirrel KNEW he was in shot.

<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_703733697">8.17pm GMT Paul Hollywood's actual words (off camera)… 'they tasted ok but they looked like shit'. SHIT. HE SAID SHIT. ABOUT MY FOOD. #shit #hewasright

<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_703733698">8.18pm GMT In my dreams, Mary ate my brownies and requested the recipe. In reality, after the tried them, I said 'Mary would you like the recipe'? She said 'I would, but I don't have the time'. No time. No time in the rest of her life to spend 90 minutes making my bacon brownies. A likely 20 more years of being alive, but still no time to attempt my bake. Even after she retires. Or maybe she meant that she didn't have time to accept the piece of paper with my recipe written onto it. That would have taken her, what… 7 seconds. Just putting out her hand and receiving one typed up sheet of A4. Not even time for that. If that isn't rejection, I don't know what is.

8.19pm GMT Nicola Adams was such a perfect person to send to South Africa to show you the projects. HIV AIDS has lowered the average life expectancy there to 53. It's an epidemic which is no longer news, but is still killing as if it was. Just texting the word BAKE to 70005 will mean £5 is taken from your phone bill and the whole £5 is then given to one of our projects. Right now - your phone can buy a bit of life for someone living with AIDS. Will take you half a moment, and is the price of two muffins. That's a tiny miracle really.. Ah, go on.

8.23pm GMT All morning Paul Hollywood had been muttering 'so have you made a soufflé before'? I had googled soufflé recipes on my phone while I was getting changed, and memorized this one. Then suddenly… he springs eight identically sized deep fried ringed doughnuts on us. #stitchup

8.28pm GMT You get instructions, but they only tell you half the story. No one knew how thin to make the icing. I did. Because I have spent much of life eating them. #win

<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_703733702">8.32pm GMT This was my masterstroke… the doughnuts had to be equal in size. Mine varied from egg size to bagel size. So I arranged them on the slate tray with the smallest ones at the front, and the biggest ones at the back.. in the hope that mary and paul would think they were the same size and it was just perspective that made the back ones look bigger. #genius.

<span class="aBn paragraphLabel" data-term="goog_703733703">8.34pm GMT Just watch the Olympian's face when Mary says 'in second place…'

<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_703733704">8.40pm GMT I hadn't wanted to make a sponge at all… I wanted it to be three layers of pavlova meringue with rose jam and cream in between… but the GBBO producers said that pavlova wasn't a cake and I had to do sponge. Can you believe it?????

<span class="aBn paragraphLabel" data-term="goog_703733705">8.49pm GMT Don't tell Mary but my icing seized and curdled as it went onto the cake… so I made another batch, slapped it all over and entirely covered up the curdled layer. No one seemed to notice.

<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_703733706">8.55pm GMT The judging lasts about a minute on the show. On the day - they were discussing us for over an HOUR! Michael and I practised a dance routine from Hairspray while we were waiting. He came first in that.

<span class="aBn paragraphLabel" data-term="goog_703733707">8.58pm GMT There was an EXCELLENT moment at the end… Omid came out and did the 'and the winner is…' then left a huge pause… and said 'Michael!'. Michael shrieked 'you're kidding!!?' and Omid said 'yes I am'. Take two went better for me. It took Michael about an hour to recover.

<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_703733708">8.59pm GMT So the whole point of all this was to encourage people to bake something and sell it for Sport Relief. If you want to do my Bacon and Black Cherry Brownies (though I strongly wouldn't advise it as they are a really stupid idea and nobody will want to eat them) here's the recipe: make up a batch of brownie mixture (use a packet?), add candied bacon (recipe above), sour cherries soaked in Jack Daniels, and another slug of Jack Daniels just to annoy Paul. Bake. Sell. Send the money you raise to Sport Relief. Change a life. I love you. The end.

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