The Great British Bake Off is more insipid than ever

As 12 new amateur bakers troop into the Bake Off tent for the show’s 16th series, I brace for a deluge of the inoffensive nice-ness with which the show has become synonymous. And sure enough, with its bloody bunting soaring into view within seconds, the opening episode of the year proves as insipid as ever.

Rest assured, Bake Off’s three-challenge format remains (incorrigibly) intact. That’s right, it’s the same programme over and over again, despite a promise in the intro that judges “Paul [Hollywood] and Prue [Leith] have set challenges that have to be seen to be believed”.

If that strikes you as comforting rather than mind-numbing (guess which camp I’m in?), you’ll be delighted by the first signature challenge, in which contestants are charged with making decorated Swiss rolls: a prettier version of something everyone watching will have eaten. What’s more, while the bakers themselves are technically new, many feel as familiar as the tasks they’re set.

Treading a fine line between precision and anal retentiveness reminiscent of last year’s Christiaan, London entrepreneur Tom soars with his concoction of blueberry and mascarpone beneath a hyper-neat tartan-patterned inlay. Scientist Hassan, meanwhile, struggles to translate his lab accuracy to the tent, resulting in a delicious roll that “looks like it’s been dropped out of a tree”, per Hollywood. Nee naw, nee naw – sound the plucky-underdog-cooking-from-the-heart alarm, obligatory on every series of Bake Off since the first, 15 years ago!

While the technical challenge come as close to a twist as Bake Off dares (the bakers had to guess the ingredients for their fondant fancies by tasting samples, rather than reading the usual laminated recipe), I nonetheless found myself daydreaming about all the actual surprises a show like Bake Off could pack in. What if one player’s flour was laced with hallucinogens? Or the judges assessed the cakes based on “vibes”, rather than how they tasted?

Something, anything, to break the doughy monotony – though I know that, for the series’ fan base, that’s part of its appeal. While I prefer my entertainment with more bite than crème pat tends to offer, the allure of a cocoon wherein the worst-case scenario is a split custard isn’t lost on me. What’s more, chirpy presenters Alison Hammond and Noel Fielding are undeniably charming (even if Fielding’s Mighty Boosh-ier lines make me wince: “His eyes are like sapphires in a naan bread,” he says of Hollywood). When all is said and done, comfort is what Bake Off does best.

Even the episode’s denouement hinges on the merest whispers of jeopardy, with contestants busily crafting landscape cakes for the showstopper challenge. Twenty-nine year-old software engineer Iain’s sponge collapses, but luckily he was aiming for a craggy shoreline anyway and manages to save it. Liverpool hairdresser Nadia, meanwhile, uses too much agar in her island paradise cake, resulting in a suboptimal texture. Nightmare! Really, it makes a change from thinking about the cost of living crisis, though.

Whether or not Bake Off represents “good” or “bad” television is a deeply personal question, one that gets to the heart of what we turn to entertainment for in the first place – a way to understand the world, or escape it? No doubt, Bake Off delivers the latter in spades. Personally, it takes more than caramel to pull me out of an existential spiral, and I can’t be the only one.

With Hassan sent packing and Ukrainian wunderkind Nataliia pronounced star baker, the episode concluded with appropriately little in the way of surprises. I was relieved to be released back to reality, but die-hards will be delighted to return to their annual floury burrow – as insulating as ever, for better or for worse.

‘The Great British Bake Off’ continues next Tuesday at 8pm on Channel 4