Mary Berry

by A. S. Dagnell

  ‘Mary’s angle is home baking; mine is professional, so we meet in the middle but with all the same passion and drive,’ Paul said in an interview with the Daily Mail. Although he admitted he’d learnt a lot from her – specifically to use Stork margarine, which she had come to know after working for the brand all those years ago at PR firm Bensons. ‘I always used butter in my cakes before, but Mary said I should use a mixture of butter and Stork – you get the flavour from butter but the Stork sustains the crumb, making it lighter,’ Paul told the Daily Mail.

  Mary herself has been quite forthright about the differences between her and Paul’s approaches to the judging process. ‘Paul makes brilliant bread, and I’ve learnt from him, but I don’t agree with him on lots of things,’ Mary said in one interview. ‘Paul takes a more professional line: every biscuit must be identical. It’s not like that in real life; we’re amateur bakers, and if there’s one that’s a bit of a wobbly shape or overcooked – not all ovens cook evenly – well, Mum has that one.’

  She added: ‘When I was asked to be a judge, I said I wanted to be myself. I didn’t want to shout like some other television judges. I also said I was a very bad bread maker, so would the programme makers find someone to help on the bread scene? I admire my fellow judge Paul Hollywood enormously, though we often argue. He believes presentation and uniformity are paramount; I’m more interested in taste. I don’t mind if one bun is smaller than the others, or if there’s a little pastry cracking, though I don’t want a soggy bottom.’

  And that was perhaps the only thing, it seemed, that could rile Mary – a soggy bottom. While her criticism was always measured, a soggy base to the pastry quickly became the sure-fire way to get Mary’s goat. This would be a phrase that Mary would return to, time and time again, as subsequent series of GBBO returned to the screens. Even in interviews she would repeat it. The soggy bottom was once even described by the Guardian as Mary’s ‘nemesis’, while Mary called it her catchphrase. Meanwhile, her loyal fans would often discuss the perils of a soggy bottom. It was, as far as Mary was concerned, the ultimate faux pas – the way to immediately set yourself up for possible elimination from the show. The phrase seemed to have such a cult following that Kirsty Young pressed Mary quite hard on it when she appeared on Desert Island Discs. Asked whether soggy bottoms were the ‘greatest sin’ in the kitchen, Mary replied: ‘Soggy bottoms are … if there is one thing I really don’t like in a quiche. And you can imagine, when I go to charity lunches and things, [the committee always] make things like quiches. And you lift it up and it is just underbaked and it is horrible to eat, but I can never just tuck it under a lettuce leaf, because somebody is going to be hurt when they clear the plates.’ On the topic of how to avoid the soggy bottom, Mary added: ‘A soggy bottom you avoid by baking blind, and then I always put it in on a hot baking sheet, nice thin pastry underneath, dry it out, then put the filling in.’

  Soggy bottoms and the occasional tussle with Paul aside, Mary quickly adapted to filming and enjoyed the process immensely as the first series progressed. ‘The atmosphere is lovely. If people are in a panic, Mel and Sue will help them,’ she said in an interview with the Daily Mail. ‘And the contestants support each other, which is delightful.’

  The other stars of the show agreed. Speaking to the Daily Mail, Paul described the atmosphere on set as ‘lovely and completely genuine’, adding that Mel and Sue are like his ‘naughty sisters’. He added: ‘They’re always pulling faces, or winding me up and I have to say, “Hey, you two, shush!” We have some real giggles … A couple of times I’ve rolled out of that tent in tears from laughing so much.’ And Sue admitted she loved her new role, not least, she joked, because it wasn’t one of her most demanding. ‘We just have to pop up and ask “what’s the crumb density on that focaccia?”’ she told Broadcast. On a more serious note, Sue said that she could tell the series was destined to be a success. ‘It’s open and it’s warm,’ she told Broadcast. ‘There’s no censure and they’re all real characters, not screeching TV presenter wannabes. These people want to do things well; they tell us they like baking because it gives them two hours to do nothing else but focus on the task at hand. And ultimately, our job is making sure ten people are happy doing it.’

  Despite the cosy on-set atmosphere, Mary quickly realised that there were pitfalls involved in judging a baking competition: specifically, the fact that you had to taste so much cake, repeatedly and over a sustained period of time. Mary had always held health, fitness and well-being in high regard. Indeed, over the course of three series of the Great British Bake Off, putting on weight is not something Mary’s risked. As early as the first series Mary said she developed a technique to keep herself from piling on the pounds. ‘I love cake, but I have no wish to be large and for people to say, “I don’t want to get like her; she’s the one who makes the cakes,”’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘Doing Bake Off, I have to taste a fair-sized piece of each cake, which can mean 36 slices a day. So when I’m filming, all I have for lunch is soup, and I’m very careful the next day.’

  Finally, after months of filming, the series had its transmission date scheduled – 17 August 2010. Despite all the hype and preparation, no one knew whether or not the Great British Bake Off would be a success. However, the good news was that it did prove to be a hit – both in the ratings figures and with the critics. The first episode attracted a very respectable 2.24 million viewers. And, after rave reviews from critics, viewing figures shot up to a very impressive 3 million for the second episode, which was then sustained for the rest of the series. The controllers at BBC2 and the producers behind the show couldn’t have been more delighted.

  The reviews were overwhelmingly positive as well. In particular, they focused on Mary’s on-screen relationship with Paul. Despite their ups and downs, they made a formidable duo. The Guardian described their double act as the ‘secret weapon’ of the show, going as far as to say that it was potentially one of the best judging combinations to have appeared on a reality TV show. And others agreed. The Leicester Mercury declared: ‘Think MasterChef but with bread and cakes. With the competition being judged by Mary Berry, the undisputed Queen of Cakes, and Paul Hollywood, one of Britain’s leading artisan bakers, the ten contestants have a lot to prove as they push their baking skills to the limit.’ The series prompted debate about the relative merits of different approaches to baking. Later in the series, Anne Harrison, from the Women’s Institute, wrote in the Guardian: ‘The judges on the Great British Bake Off have very different styles. Mary Berry is someone even I would be nervous to cook for. The other judge, Paul Hollywood, has obviously spent his life in commercial baking. I don’t always agree with him. To test a scone, the WI teaches that you don’t need to cut it with a knife – you should be able to pull it apart along its natural split. Hollywood said that was wrong – but if you cut a scone with a knife, it compacts the texture as you press down. It’s the same with gingerbread.’

  For her part, Mary was delighted with the response to the show. Not only had her career as a TV star been rejuvenated, but more importantly to her, baking was once again being talked about.

  ‘I’ve been “rediscovered” at the age of 76,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘I’m joyfully surprised by how successful the Great British Bake Off has been. I think people enjoy it because it’s entirely genuine. Paul and I decide who stays and who goes. The producers would probably like a chap in the final and people from different regions, but it’s never mentioned.’

  If that was the case, it was a happy coincidence that right up to the final of series one, men and women from all over Great Britain were represented. Eventually Edd Kimber, a 26-year-old debt collector who worked for a Yorkshire bank, was crowned the greatest amateur baker in Britain. An unlikely star baker, you might think, but he succeeded at every stage of the competition. His bakes, Mary and Paul agreed in unison, were the best by far. Neither could fault him. But Edd had double the reason to be delighted with his win – it meant he could giv
e up his day job, which he loathed. ‘It was the worst job ever – I absolutely hated it,’ Edd said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph some months after his win. ‘People would swear at me hourly and they’d send you round to people’s houses in pairs in case things turned nasty. I used to spend most of my time looking up recipes online; I’m surprised they didn’t fire me.’ Perhaps the real power of the Great British Bake Off was proven by the fact that within 12 months Edd was no longer a debt collector but instead had a recipe book in the shops, was running a series of cookery classes and was even appearing on food roadshows up and down the country. He had launched his own brand of baked produce too, simply called The Boy Who Bakes. Explaining the thought process behind the name, Edd told the Daily Telegraph with a laugh: ‘Well, I am a boy and I do bake. I wanted to make it clear that anyone can bake. In the past it’s been associated with housewives and the Women’s Institute; but these days you get bakers from all walks of life.’

  And that, it seemed, was the beauty of GBBO. Finally, baking didn’t appear to be something reserved for housewives in the kitchen. It was cool, trendy; something that even young men could enjoy. After ticking all the boxes – ratings, great reviews and cultural impact – it was no surprise that BBC2 was quick to snap up a second series of Bake Off for 2011.

  Viewers couldn’t wait to see Mary and Paul back on their screens. The demand was so high that BBC2 also commissioned a one-off documentary called The Great British Wedding Cake. This aired on 20 April 2011, and saw Mary and Paul explore the history of wedding cakes around the country. They charted the history of the wedding cake, from its earliest incarnation as the Tudor bride cake that weighed a ton and was baked wrapped in pastry. They also revealed the story that is said to have led to the creation of the classic tiered wedding cake – a baker who spied a London church from his window fashioned his wedding cake in its image. On top of that, Mary and Paul recounted stories about how Queen Victoria introduced the world to royal icing, and revealed that it was the rise in second marriages which led to the huge range of different wedding cakes available today. Interspersed throughout the documentary, Mary and Paul were reunited with the three finalists from the first series of Bake Off to set them a one-off challenge to bake a wedding cake. The ratings were moderate at 1.6 million, but served to build excitement and anticipation for the second series of the Great British Bake Off, which was just around the corner. And while the first outing had been an unrivalled success, the show was about to get even bigger.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE BAKE OFF CONTINUES

  It came as no surprise that the Great British Bake Off was to be re-commissioned and would return to TV screens across Britain the following year, alongside a raft of other cookery programmes. After the success of the first series, it seemed like an obvious, natural progression for the show – and, of course, for Mary. The combination of Mary with Paul, Mel and Sue was a vital ingredient in making the first series such a storming success. They were all invited back for the show’s second outing and preparations for filming soon got under way.

  The show’s producers were keen to capitalise on the popularity of the first series and make the second outing even bigger and better than before. The first change they made was the number of contestants. It was decided to increase the number of people competing from 10 to 12. The long audition process kicked off, and eventually an eclectic group of would-be master bakers was selected, after just as much deliberation as before. They included Janet Basu, Yasmin Limbert, Mary-Anne Boermans, Holly Bell, Joanne Wheatley, Keith Batsford, Simon Blackwell, Robert Billington, Jason White, Urvashi Roe, Ben Frazer and Ian Vallance.

  On top of that, the series consisted of 10 episodes, rather than six. The four extra episodes were in response to the public’s obvious appetite for the show. The first series had been an unknown quantity – when the BBC commissioned it, they’d had high hopes, but didn’t know how it would fare with viewers. But after overwhelming support from fans of the show as well as critics, it seemed natural to order more episodes. The new series was starting to take shape.

  The final ingredient in the pre-production process that the producers had to work out was where they were going to film the second series. Having spent the first series travelling the country’s baking hot spots, had the novelty worn off? They couldn’t do the same thing again for the show’s second outing, surely? What’s more, constantly moving filming around the country was fine if there were only six episodes, but could become tiring and expensive when there were an extra four to film. So it was decided that, rather than turning GBBO into a roadshow, the whole series would be filmed in one location. After toying with various possible settings, the producers decided on Valentines Mansion, a large seventeenth-century house in Valentines Park, in Redbridge, London. The Grade II listed building was built in 1696 for Lady Tillotson, the widow of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but centuries later underwent extensive refurbishment financed by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the London Borough of Redbridge Council. The beautiful house, steeped in its rich history, would provide a quintessentially British backdrop for GBBO, and it was here that the TV crews behind the show prepared for what would prove to be another hugely successful series in the early summer of 2011.

  And, as the series started to air in August that year, it seemed to be even more popular than the first. The viewing figures soared. The first episode attracted more than 3.1 million, rising steadily to a peak of just over 5 million in episode eight. These were better figures than anyone could have hoped for. And the critics seemed to think they knew the reason for the show’s following – Mary. Even more effusively than before, they gushed about her on-screen chemistry with Paul, while newspapers and magazines across the country rushed to book interviews with her. No longer was Mary merely a cookery writer and occasional presenter of TV cookery shows. She was a star.

  Of course Mary, with her usual modesty, continued to shrug off her new-found fame. It was, she said, just part of her mission statement to bring baking to the masses. And she was certainly succeeding.

  But while Mary’s popularity off screen grew, on screen the drama as GBBO neared its climax was reaching fever pitch. As more and more people tuned in to witness what culinary delights would be conjured up week after week, the competition became increasingly intense. After Janet Basu unexpectedly crashed out of the competition, three women remained – Jo Wheatley, Mary-Anne Boermans and Holly Bell. They were all popular, both with viewers and critics. Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Tom Parker-Bowles noted this, as well as the way in which baking had given rise to a level of drama that simply could not be scripted. He wrote: ‘The final three contestants are eminently likeable, and talented too. There’s Joanne, the pretty housewife who longs for a career. And Holly, precise and methodical, a perfectionist to the very marrow. And Mary-Anne, a culinary bibliophile who veers towards the experimental. All are modest and, in a thoroughly self-effacing way, desperate to win. TV chefs may shout, curse and hurl pans. TV bakers, on this evidence, are the epitome of good manners. Maternal is very much the new macho. But that is not to say that the contestants aren’t, at times, overwhelmed by their emotions. There may not be tantrums, but there were plenty of tears as the weeks wore on. This is because baking itself is temperamental. It is a matter of science rather than art. Unlike a stew, where exact measurements are unnecessary, if you put the wrong amount of yeast in your bread, disaster follows. I have always been rather afraid of baking. I may be utterly confident about throwing together a pasta sauce, grilling a fish or roasting a joint, but ask me to make puff pastry and I will run for the hills. But, right now, baking is very much back in vogue.’

  But while all three contestants were likeable, it was Jo who would triumph when the final was screened on 13 October. Aged 41 at the time of filming, she was affectionately described as the ‘youngest grandmother in the competition’. From Essex originally, she had rediscovered her love of baking thanks to her nan. ‘My nan has always been my inspiration fo
r baking,’ said Jo in an interview with the Brentwood Gazette. ‘She would always make pastry and is a really good baker. I would go over to hers most weekends – she would make tarts and give me the offcuts of the pastry to make jam tarts. I’ve always baked, ever since then.’ Jo had married her husband Richard at the age of 17, and settled down to have three boys, Billy, Jesse and Dylan. Rather than pursuing a career, she had dedicated her life to being a full-time mother and housewife, and a big part of this was her love of baking. She was totally self-taught through cookbooks and by watching TV shows like Mary’s, and often baked up to 10 times a week for her family. On the show, Jo had explained how her children would give her marks out of 10 for their meals … but would find it particularly funny to give her low scores. In Jo’s typically down-to-earth manner, which made her a hit with viewers, she said: ‘It makes me feel like putting their heads in the dinner.’ Jo had also experienced tough times in her life. Her husband had got involved in crime and was sentenced to seven years in prison for his part in a money-laundering racket – something the tabloid press would later seize on after Jo became popular on Bake Off. In her typically dignified manner, Jo kept going, and after 25 years of dedicating her life to her family, Jo’s sons and friends had encouraged her to apply for the show. ‘I just entered on a whim, I didn’t think too much about it … I googled it and got the application form,’ she told the Brentwood Gazette. ‘I did wonder about entering or not, but I clicked the “yes” button in the end.’ The show’s producers loved her back story and, despite her nervousness, she went down a storm with Mary and Paul at her final auditions. She was selected for the competition and it was her time to shine.

  Described in the press as ‘sweet-faced and preternaturally girly’, her bakes were almost always near-perfect throughout the series. That’s not to say she didn’t make mistakes and, at times, even seemed to come close to letting the pressure of the show get to her. This was particularly apparent on one occasion. During week six of the competition, and moments before Mary and Paul were due to start the judging process, Jo hit disaster. She had made a tower of cream-stuffed profiteroles as well as a limoncello and white chocolate croquembouche, the classic French choux pastry dessert. But suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, it had collapsed. It couldn’t be salvaged. But Mary concluded that the bake’s ‘outstanding deliciousness’ would allow Jo to survive. Perhaps Mary, a mum herself, recognised something familiar in Jo’s ambition and determination. It wasn’t the only near-miss that Jo had, though. Another week, when Jo took on the task of making brandy snaps from Mary’s own recipe, she encountered more problems. All seemed to be going fine as she placed the mixture in the oven to bake. The only snag was that she hadn’t realised that the oven had been set to the ‘defrost’ function, meaning the snaps didn’t rise. But once again, despite the blunder, Jo’s talent shone through and she was saved. ‘It was funny – in the final I baked like I do at home,’ Jo told the Brentwood Gazette. ‘I think I felt that by then I’d done the whole thing and experienced every bit of it. So on the final day, I didn’t put the pressure on myself, I just enjoyed it. I didn’t mind whether I came first, second or third, I really was just happy to have got that far. I didn’t think I’d won. I heard them call out my name but I thought maybe they were doing it in reverse order. I looked up and saw my kids jumping up and down and my friends all cheering, and then I realised. It was an amazing feeling.’