So it’s back. And not just on our television screens: Bake Off seems to incite people to action in a way other shows never could.
Maybe it began with Twitter hashtags – #teamnadiya for example – bringing people together like a giant internet version of the Harry Potter Sorting Hat, but people like Jackie Heaton and Rob Allen have taken it a step further. Their hashtag #GBBOtwitterbakealong sets a weekly baking challenge for people to join in.
“I thought it would be nice to get people to bake along together,” says Heaton. “Plus those who are a little better can help the newbies. Each week, you pick a bake you fancy off the show, and we retweet it.” This may seem like a small reward but, given that Bake Off’s only prize is winning itself, one entirely in keeping with the ethic of a programme for which the best descriptor does seem to be the word “nice”.
“It’s just so nice – and that’s the point,” says Nikki Shepherd. “Nice people who love baking has such a joy about it. Why wouldn’t you want to be part of that?” She enjoyed the fantasy Bake Off league she created for friends and family last year so much that she has turned it into a full-blown website where anyone can sign up to play. As with a fantasy football league, you collect points for predicting who wins and who loses, with bonus points based on potential scenarios in each episode to be won. Again, the prize is victory itself.
There is a rather less wholesome spinoff, too: the proliferation of Bake-Off-related drinking games. Writer and artist Kate Dreyer designed a Bake Off bingo card last year that was retweeted by former contestants after she searched and failed to find a definitive version. “Because it’s been running for a few years, you see similar things each series, which makes it perfect for playing at home,” she says. “It’s an extra bit of fun that brings people together and, because the contestants sometimes fail spectacularly, it takes the pressure off us who are watching.”
Bella Qvist has persuaded her friends to film themselves watching and commenting on Bake Off, Gogglebox-style, for the past two seasons, cutting together the highlights as The Side Dish, broadcast on her YouTube channel. “It’s the people’s programme,” she says. “It’s not the Olympics, with people who have trained their whole lives. You can almost see yourself in their position, and so you really feel for them. You can have a go on the weekend, and you don’t have to be perfect. It’s fine.”
Of course there will be traybakes and sponges galore arriving for judgment and devouring in offices and workplaces of companies the length and breadth of Britain, as people set up their own mini bake-off competitions, and make their own attempts at baking glory. Do you plan to play along? However you decide to show your devotion to the show – drinking, baking, filming, competing, or even writing your own fan fiction – just remember to keep it nice, OK?
