Episode 3 Junior Bake Off

Hello and welcome to Junior Bake Off,

the show that's going to flour,

mix and sprinkle its way to find Britain's best young baker.

The Bake Off tent is home to the greatest baking battle on earth.

32 of the country's finest bakers

will be pushed to their baking limits.

But who will rise?

I'm happy with those.

-And who will crumble?

-That is a problem.

The bakers will whisk, fold and ice their way

through cakes, biscuits and bread.

It's up to them now to battle it out

cos only one can be crowned Junior Bake Off Champion.

But standing between them and the title are our two judges -

queen of cakes Mary Berry...

I'm looking for the very best junior bakers.

I want them to work hard to achieve the finest results.

..and master baker Paul Hollywood.

I expect it to be quite a hard battle

and certainly for Mary and I, it will be a hard decision.

Oooh, that was close.

-Have you washed your hands?

-ALL: Yes.

-Are you sure?

'I'm Aaron Craze. I'll support the bakers...'

You've got 15 minutes to pull this back.

Be very careful. Very careful. That's it.

..as 32 are whittled down to just one.

In today's heat, four hopefuls face two tough challenges.

They'll go head to head

following one of Mary and Paul's recipes.

Today, they have to make carrot and walnut muffins.

Then, they must wow the judges

by baking the most incredible cake they can

inspired by today's theme, festivals.

It's going to be tough, cos only one can make it through

to the semi-finals. But who will it be?

Let's meet Kieran from York.

I enjoy baking because I like experimenting with food.

When I'm older, I'd like to be a chef and own some restaurants.

Yeah, I'd like that.

Holly from Oxford.

I like baking because it's fun and it tastes nice.

I can't wait to show the judges what I can make

and hope it's good enough to get through to the next round.

Sylvia from Bristol.

The reason I like baking is

I can be on my own, trying new flavours

and just being myself.

I'm excited about the competition but I'm nervous, as well.

And Hari from Dudley.

I would feel excited

for a professional to try my food

because I know how good my food is.

My mum and dad just say it's good.

They don't know all the good bits inside it.

But professionals will know.

It's time to stop the talking and let the Bake Off begin.

For the first challenge, the bakers must make

twelve carrot and walnut muffins

topped with buttercream icing and orange zest.

We want a well-filled cupcake that's been well mixed together.

A good bake.

Nice frosting on the top with a little bit of finesse.

And most important - the taste.

They have the same ingredients and time to bake,

but their muffins could end up different.

Now, junior bakers,

your carrot cake muffins will be judged

on texture, technique

and most of all, taste.

You've got one hour to impress our judges, OK?

On your marks, get set, bake.

These guys know their way around the kitchen,

so if you fancy baking, make sure you ask an adult.

Our bakers kick off by combining flour, baking powder

and spices into the bowl.

They then add butter, oil and a beaten egg.

Finally, add the all-important ingredients -

carrots and walnuts.

For 9-year-old Hari, who wants to bake for the Queen,

this is taking him out of his comfort zone.

If I made something, I'd make cupcakes.

I haven't made muffins before.

But for Sylvia, who loves to sing and dance,

it seems this challenge is playing to her strengths.

I've made loads of muffins before, so, I'm confident.

I first made muffins with my grandma when I was about five.

I had lots of fun making a mess.

Kieran wants to become a superstar chef,

so he's checking out the competition.

I'm seeing what the others are doing.

I'd be worried if it all goes wrong

and yeah, I'm just hoping that it goes right, really.

The baking cases should be filled evenly and not to the brim.

As it cooks, the mixture will grow to become big, fluffy muffins.

I'm feeling really excited and a bit nervous

just in case they don't like it.

There's no time to spare.

Once the muffins are in the oven, they must get on with their icing.

Holly loves horse-riding and playing the trumpet,

but she's yet to master the electric whisk.

I was standing over there,

and then, I couldn't see anything. There was this white cloud.

I turned the mixer on too hard and the icing sugar went in my face.

Have you got enough in there? Is it coming together all right?

It's coming together well.

When this is done, I'll have to zest the orange

and then, I'll have it ready for when I get my cakes out

and they're cooled, to add on top.

A-ha-ha! Kieran.

I've been meaning to come over to you. How's it going?

Fine, thanks.

You remind me of a friend of mine. A young Jamie Oliver.

-Has anyone said that before?

-Not really, no.

-Do you cook like him?

-I'm better.

-Yes, that's what I like to hear.

Holly's checking on the progress of her muffins,

when she spots a problem.

Her muffins have risen so much,

they've got themselves jammed at the top of the oven.

How am I supposed to get that out?

She's got no choice but to go in for a rescue mission.

I think I put them in too high. Something's squished.

They can't stay in there forever.

She needs to get them out before they burn.

Right.

Blimey. Oh, no.

Killed. OK.

It will take a lot of icing to cover up that problem,

but first, Holly has to get her muffins back in the oven to finish.

That is a problem.

OK, guys, there's 15 minutes left to go.

It's the moment of truth - time for the bakers to find out

-if their muffins have risen.

-Nearly there.

I'm happy with those. They look good.

I'm quite happy with them,

except from that one cos that one's gone a bit wonky.

I don't know why it's gone wonky, but it just has.

'But Holly's are still baking.'

Wow, yeah. That's, erm...

-Yeah.

-Yes.

-Fingers crossed.

-Yes.

-You've got 15 minutes to pull this back.

-Yeah.

At this crucial stage of the competition

the judges are watching closely.

Mary has spotted a potential problem for Hari.

Wait a minute. What's that on the table?

He hasn't put his walnuts in.

Hari, have you noticed that you've got some walnuts here?

-Did you forget to put them in?

-Yeah.

They're all set up and weighed.

There's no reason for them to be sitting there. That's a shame.

There's nothing he can do

except serve the walnuts on the side.

OK, guys, you've got five minutes left to go.

The last stage of the recipe is to add the icing

and finish with strips of orange zest.

Sylvia's having trouble with her zesting.

She's doing little short cuts instead of getting nice threads.

Holly's got her work cut out

to try and cover up her brush with the oven.

At this point, everyone's feeling the pressure.

I'm a bit nervous that I need to get it done on time.

I'm going to keep calm and get on with it.

Guys, it's time to plate up. One minute left.

His walnuts may have to be served on the side,

but Hari's muffins are finished.

I'm really happy. I've just finished my cakes.

As time slips away,

Holly's chances of finishing all her muffins are fading away.

If they're not on the finishing plates,

get them on there now. You've got 20 seconds left.

OK, you've done all you can. Your time is up.

Please step away from your worktops.

Who would have thought that making muffins could be such a drama?

The first challenge is over and the bakers will face the judges

for the first time.

They are looking for well-risen muffins

with a moist blend of carrot and walnut,

finished with icing and strings of orange zest.

We have an interesting array of muffins.

But we'll start at the end with Hari.

Hari forgot to add the vital ingredient of walnuts to his muffins

but will the quality of the bake be enough to impress the judges?

They look good.

Hari, it tastes good.

It does need the walnuts in there, but the frosting on top is good.

If you've got anything left, go through your recipe.

You must read each line to make sure you've got all the ingredients.

The oven sliced off the top of Holly's muffins

and she's only finished five.

She's hoping they'll be enough to show the judges her potential.

-We'll try the frosted ones on the top.

-OK.

The taste is excellent. Frosting's good.

Good zest. The appearance has been let down,

-because you've lost the top.

-Yeah.

-But the texture's very good.

-Very good and very nice.

Kieran managed to finish all 12 muffins,

but to impress the judges,

he'll need quality as well as quantity.

You've got nice zest on here.

A lovely bake.

I got the walnut. I got the carrot.

The frosting is very good. The bake is very good.

-I like those.

-I think it's really good.

Kieran's going to be a hard act to follow

but has Sylvia saved the best till last?

I saw you putting the icing on very neatly.

The zesting could have done with bigger.

You know, move it down and get longer zest on the top.

That looks good.

The flavour's excellent. The taste is good.

The texture is nice and moist, as well,

which is what we look for in carrot cake. Well done.

Your first challenge is complete.

You've just got one more to face,

but everything to bake for.

What I'm going to do for the next challenge

is read the recipe carefully,

so then, it'll make the cake go right.

There was a bit of a crisis in the last round,

but the next round, I know what I'm doing

and I'm pretty confident that it'll go well.

Hopefully, I'll pull it all back.

I think the judges really liked my muffins

and the only thing they didn't like

was the small bits of orange zest on top.

I think that everyone's were fairly similar and good in different things

and I think it's all to play for in the next round.

OK, bakers, this is your second test.

You have to make your own cake inspired by today's theme,

which is festivals.

Paul and Mary will be judging on brilliant ideas,

intricate decorating and most of all,

they've got to taste really good. Are you ready?

-ALL: Yes.

-Get steady...

..bake.

The bakers have an hour and a half to make the cakes they've practised

and Sylvia's going to need every second of it.

I'm making a white chocolate and rose Valentine's Day cake.

I've only practised it once before

and it took me two hours and that's half an hour too much.

So, I've taken a big risk doing this cake.

Sylvia's cake is especially tricky because it's fat free.

She's not adding butter, so she'll have to work extra hard

to make sure the ingredients blend.

That's about done.

Kieran's mix is looking slightly scary.

I wonder what festival that's for?

It's a Halloween Pumpkin Trick and Treat cake.

We've got some green...

That's the trick - it's actually a chocolate and orange cake

but the trick is, we thought green's like a Halloweeny colour,

-so we thought, the trick is...

-Slimer from Ghostbusters.

..you expect green to be mints and chocolate,

-but it's orange flavoured.

-You want to play with their brain.

With a place in the semi-final at stake,

Hari is hoping to impress the judges with his Diwali Cake.

Diwali is a Hindu festival which is a festival of light.

I decided to bake this cake because

it's a nice festival to me and my family

and the reason I've done colourful inside

because that's different colours.

Holly's celebrating fireworks night.

She's making a sponge with a difference.

It's going to have a bonfire on the top of it

made out of chocolate stick things.

OK. My favourite, by the way, I like the mint ones.

-It's orange.

-Yeah, the mint ones are better, though.

You'll probably think to yourself, "Aaron, can you go away, now?

"I'm trying to bake". I know that. I can sense it.

-No, well, you've been very helpful but...

-I know.

But go away.

With the pressure on, everyone's cake mixture is coming together.

I feel really confident about the sponge mix.

How's it going? Oh, no, that's a new shirt!

This is white chocolate. It's got all the...

You might think it was cheese.

Holly's already had a disaster with the oven,

so she's not taking any more chances.

I'm just about to put my cake in the oven.

I'm putting it on the bottom this time.

So there's hopefully no more catastrophes.

Once all the cakes are in the oven,

there's nothing the bakers can do except wait.

There's loads of festivals that have their own cakes and bakes.

But just how long do they take to prepare?

CHRISTMASSTYLE MUSIC

For a bakery in Whitby, Yorkshire,

Christmas is in the air in the middle of summer.

There's a rumour going round that you make Christmas cakes in August.

That's true, we do, yes.

We have to start making them in August

because we have over 30,000 cakes to make before December,

and we're only a small bakery.

'This might be a small bakery, but they've got some big baking toys.

'I'm going to use them to help me mix 140 kilos of ingredients -

'that's twice my body weight in fruit cake.'

And that is about as much sugar as my mum has in her tea!

'And that's more butter than she has on her toast!'

Know what? I just got a pain right there.

I've never had to drive a mixing bowl.

He got it in straightaway.

'If you want to try making this, you'll need a really big bowl...'

Beautiful. '..or you could use a bath.'

300 eggs. There we go.

'And now for the festive five-a-day.'

We've got 300,000 grapes in there.

'Once mixed, it all goes in big cake tins,

'which bake in an oven the size of my bedroom.'

This is the biggest oven I've ever seen in my life.

OK, it's out the oven, it's cooled down,

all I have to do now is make it look as beautiful as that.

I've got a half a tonne of almond paste and a small rock of icing

which we'll stick to our cake with yummy apricot jam.

If you're wallpapering at the same time, don't mix brushes up.

'The cake is covered in a piece of marzipan the size of a small duvet

'and tucked in with a sheet of icing.'

Now, I should be good at this cos I used to be a carpet fitter. Lovely.

'Now it's time to fast-forward to Christmas.'

Now, that is what I call a nine-pounder Christmas cake.

Only in Whitby!

Back in the Bake Off tent there's a crisis.

In the last round, Hari forgot to add walnuts to his muffin mix.

Now a crucial ingredient has been left on the side.

You seem to have a lot of self-raising flour left,

but you've got no icing sugar.

Have you put icing sugar in instead of self raising flour?

-Yeah, I got them mixed up.

-I think you've got them mixed up.

Without flour, Hari's cake

is just a plate of colourful, bubbling sugar.

I think you should start again quickly. OK?

We'll get some more butter for you,

and we'll try and get this cake done as quickly as possible, all right?

It's going to be tight

but there's just enough time to make another cake.

And Hari's not the only one with his cake hanging in the balance.

Kieran's risking everything

on a terrifyingly difficult Italian meringue.

The trick to get this meringue right is to keep it moving

all the time whilst is on the heat.

Otherwise, some bits cook and some bits don't

and it'll end up looking like scrambled egg.

When the pressure's on in the kitchen, every second counts.

I do have a timer for the oven

but it's a bit covered in icing sugar so it's quite hard to see.

Sylvia's Valentine sponge is first out of the oven.

The judges are circling, ready to pounce on any mistakes.

-How are you going to decorate this?

-With that icing

and grated white chocolate and those decorations.

I am a bit worried. When she was making her sponge,

I noticed she had big lumps of flour in the bottom.

And we won't know till we cut that cake

-whether there are going to be pockets of flour.

-Yeah.

-As the other sponges come out...

-Phew!

..Hari's new, improved Diwali cake is just going in.

I'm really nervous, because I haven't got much time left.

Your cakes should be out of the oven

because you've got 15 minutes left to go.

Oooh, that was close.

To give his meringue the edge,

Kieran's got a secret weapon

that he hopes is going to blow the competition away.

-Kieran, everything all right? What is that?

-It's a blowtorch.

-Right. So it's got fire involved in this one?

-Yeah.

OK, I'm just here to supervise. So...shoot.

'This is a risky operation, even for a confident baker like Kieran.

'It's something you definitely shouldn't try at home.'

-What's this going to do? Add like a crunk...?

-Like a crisp, yeah.

'While Holly's putting another log on the fire,

'Hari's feeling the heat.'

Oh, careful.

'If he wants to get his cake finished, he's got to work quickly.'

Take your time now.

One minute to go.

If you're in third gear, you need to put it into fourth.

OK, stop what you're doing!

Time is up. Stand away from the cakes, please.

The cakes are baked and the ovens are cooling.

This is the last time three of our bakers will face the judges,

as only one can go through to the semi-finals.

Hari, you're up first.

'Hari got his flour mixed up with icing sugar but started over

'and produced a multi-coloured Diwali cake

'covered in almond icing and iced flowers.

'But has he done enough to impress the judges?'

There was a problem with some of the ingredients you put into the mixer.

-How do you think it went, Hari?

-It went wrong,

but then I managed to rescue it,

and now I really like the cake.

Isn't that lovely? What a lovely surprise when we open it.

Bright, colourful.

Well, it's certainly freshly made, straight out of the oven.

Just about cool in time.

I think you've done extremely well to rescue it

in the time that you had.

Well done.

After a disaster in the first round,

Holly's hoping to steal a place in the semi-final

with a fireworks night sponge cake,

topped with a chocolate orange bonfire.

It's very 3-D. It jumps off the actual cake board, which is nice.

But what is the cake, exactly? What's the cake itself?

It's a simple, plain cake but it's more on the decoration for me,

and the presentation.

The idea of the bonfire is fantastic.

The way you got the 3-D effect

-and the use of sweets to decorate it is very, very good.

-OK.

But the actual sponge itself, I think, is lovely.

It's fluffy, it's light, it's chocolatey.

It's got a lovely texture to it.

Kieran is hoping to wow

with his Halloween trick and treat marble cake

covered in Italian meringue.

But will the judges taste the secret ingredient?

-Look at that.

-Wow.

-It has that gosh factor when you look at it.

The sponge is cooked really well.

-There's a citrus coming through.

-Yeah, it's orange. That's the trick.

-It's the orange coming through?

-Yeah.

To do an Italian meringue is quite tricky.

-What sugar did you use with that?

-Icing sugar.

Because it's still a little bit grainy.

Sylvia is celebrating Valentine's Day

with a two-tiered white chocolate sponge

covered in iced flowers and sprinkled with rosewater.

But will the judges fall in love with her cake?

-It's beautifully light, isn't it?

-Mmm.

I am getting the white chocolate coming through,

and I think the sponge has been cooked well.

But what I can see here is the flour not quite incorporated well.

Can you see there? There's a block of flour.

Mmm. I think the chocolate around the outside,

the decorations are very good, and it screams Valentine's Day.

Mary and Paul have tasted the cakes

and now have a difficult decision to make.

Let's start off first with Hari.

I thought Hari's cake tasted better than I anticipated.

We know from the first time he did it he made a mistake -

he put icing sugar in instead of flour.

This morning he made a similar mistake.

He never put any walnuts in the muffin, which does concern me.

He knows very well what he's done wrong.

I'm really excited, but a bit nervous,

because I really want to win.

Moving on... to Holly's little bonfire.

I really like the idea of the stars, I like the sparkle coming out.

There's lots of matchsticks and sweets

to give it that life, that 3-D.

Do you think sometimes they get a theme

and they go right for the theme

and they forget about the quality of the baking?

I think that's right. You want it to look beautiful

and everybody to say how lovely it looks.

Her muffins were actually fantastic, weren't they?

-Well-baked.

-Such a shame it hit that top.

I hope I've done enough to make it through to the semi-final

but everybody else's was really good as well.

Now, Sylvia's. She didn't quite get it right with folding in the flour.

But she did something very inventive

of adding the grated white chocolate.

-And, yes, it worked.

-And her muffins were very, very good.

The texture was there, well distributed carrot and walnuts,

and you got those in every bite.

I think the person who will most likely go through is Kieran.

But I think I also have a good chance as well.

Coming over to Kieran.

The decoration used in the Italian meringue was great.

It was a little bit grainy. It needed a bit more cooking off.

But putting these ghosts round here and the face - it's a great cake.

He absolutely nailed it this morning, bringing out those muffins,

because the texture was absolutely spot on.

I hope I've done enough to get through to the second round

because all the other cakes were really good

and I think the judges' reaction

meant that my cake was really good, too.

There's two that stand out.

And it's going to be tricky.

'The judges have made up their minds.

'One of these bakers is about to get one step closer

'to becoming Junior Bake Off champion.'

Guys, you have done extremely well today.

You should be very proud of yourselves.

The person that's going through to the semi-finals is...

..Kieran. Well done, buddy.

Well, Kieran, you should be very, very proud.

Today, you've shown you have a natural ability

to be a proper baker.

I'm feeling really happy. I'm almost lost for words.

I didn't expect to get through to the semi-final

cos the competition was really stiff.

He worked well, he showed skill, his technique was good.

And what a result.

Overall, he showed ingenuity and talent.

He's what I would call a natural baker.

I think the semi-finals are going to be tougher,

the competition is going to be stiffer -

I'll be against a lot of other winners.

'In the next Junior Bake Off heat -

'four new bakers take on two new challenges...'

-It's harder than it looks.

-Two minutes, two minutes.

'..and the pressure multiplies.'

What's going on?

-I forgot to put the baking powder in.

-Oh, my... I don't believe it.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]