The Bake-Off final!

Tonight it is the final of the baking competition which has been on our TVs for ten weeks, it is the last episode of the Great British Bake Off 2015. it is one of my favourite programmes, not just because I love food, cooking and food and cookery programmes, but because it is a little more than that. The ten contestants start as strangers to each other and to us the audience but within a few weeks their personalities emerge; the British version has a great balance of cooking and humour – it is serious, of course it is, but there is banter and fun as well.

Similar versions of the programme have appeared across the world, and I would be interested to know if they all had similar elements; the British programme is definitely ‘nice’ despite the competition being fierce and the bakers being very serious about what they are doing.

I was interested in the different titles of the different shows; Australia, Ireland and South Africa have the same ‘Bake Off’ title, The Great Australian Bake Off, The Great Irish Bake Off and The Great South African Bake Off, another couple of countries have very similar titles, The American Baking Competition and Bake Off Brasil – Mão na Massa (Hands-on).

There are another group of which are along the same lines:

• Koko Suomi Leipoo  The Whole of Finland Bakes
• Heel Holland Bakt – All of Holland Bakes
• Bake Off Italia
• Hele Norge Baker – All of Norway Bakes
• Hela Sverige Bakar ^– All of Sweden Bakes

Then there are a couple which are very similar:

• Polski Turniej Wypieków – The Polish Baking Tournament
• Великий пекарський турнір – The Great Bakers Tournament (Bulgaria)

There are some TV programmes which have created completely different titles, which no doubt put over the flavour of the competition in their own language:

• De MeesterBakker – The Master Baker (Belgium)
• Den Store Bagedyst – The Great Bake Fight  (Denmark)
• Le Meilleur Pâtissier  – The Best Baker (France)
• Das große Backen – Great Baking (Germany)
• Ver Fırına – which I think translates as  Good Company (Turkey)

I’m not going to speculate on the winner of the British 2015 contest – I like all the contestants and think they have all done splendidly right from the beginning; the programme is heavily edited so the personalities we see have sometimes been a little ‘adjusted’ to present a contestant in a certain way. They are all extremely talented, and have been great fun… and of all the programme titles, I think apart from the original, I like Den Store Bagedyst, the Danish programme title the best – the Great Bake Fight! Marvellous!!