Heel Holland Bakt talk #5: a cake full of learning moments
Judge Janny can say something nasty in a very nice way. ‘This is a cake full of learning moments,’ she smiles sweetly at Jeroen, and sends him packing from the tent. Rightly so, because let’s be honest: the cakes pale in comparison to the masterpieces made by contestants on the parent programme The Great British Bake Off.
Yes, a Dutch theme. The people who played Heel Holland Bakt Bingo saw it coming, because regional specialities always score brilliantly on this programme. So the showstoppers referred to the candidates’ origins, with Bossche Bollen, a carnival cake with nonnenvotten and a sticky situation involving hunebeds made of meringue. Apparently Jeanette thinks things are going a little crooked in The Hague, judging by her listing cake with blueberries and hopjes, Arjen expects a can of copper-effect spray to transform a mountain of cake with buttercream into a faithful distilling kettle, and Anouk expresses how lowbrow carnival can be with her flat chocolate brownie, because we can’t quite explain it any other way. The bar seems to be set a little lower this year; let’s put it diplomatically.
Five seconds: you’re out!
The five-second rule: if something has been on the floor for less than five seconds, you can simply pick it up and serve it again. We thought that myth had long since been debunked, but in Heel Holland Bakt it turns out to be alive and well. Alina watched her coffee buns with goat’s cheese roll onto the floor, hesitated briefly and then simply picked them up. Enjoy tasting, Janny and Robèrt. Shame, penalty points, do not pass start and straight to jail, you might think, but no: none of the judges made an issue of it.
Without blue icing
Jeroen couldn’t quite get it right. His cake base wasn’t good, the limoncello tasted like advocaat, there wasn’t enough filling between his Dutch biscuits and his coffee buns were too dry because they missed their second rise. And that was without bright-blue icing, because Janny had already given him that tip – kindly, but clearly: ‘Do you think it adds anything? That icing?’ So chief inspector Jeroen has to leave the tent, and Arjen is the only man left. He won the technical challenge, for the second time in fact, so the ladies still have quite a challenge ahead of them.
Low point
Can someone ask the contestants to keep their long hair out of the batter somehow? With all those dangling strands, there’s a very real chance that Robèrt will soon be able to floss his teeth with something he fishes out of a currant bun or kletskop biscuit.
Highlight
‘What kind of Zeeuwse bolus is that shuffling into the picture?!’, André asks. It’s Janny, in traditional Dutch dress.
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