“The Great British Baking Show” has angered Goths everywhere — and taken another of its increasingly gimmicky turns — by eliminating fan favorite Helena Garcia.Firstly, I am involved in the casting. We must interview 400 to 500 people for each year. The baker-to-be will bring in something that they have baked at home and we chat [with] them to get a feel for their personality. My role is to make sure they know what they’re talking about, baking-wise.
How specific can you get? If someone is like, ‘I only use this brand of Sicilian lemon oil,’ is that allowed? It’s a funny one, because I can’t help the bakers, because it’s a competition. If they’re making a ganache and it’s split for the thousandth time, though it does break my heart to see it, I can’t tell them what’s going wrong. However, I can say, “Would you like more ingredients? It’s going to be OK,” and just be supportive. It’s a fine line. I can be helpful to a point, but not instructive.You must keep lots of extra ingredients on hand.
In [Season] 2 or 3, I woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night and I just said, “Pomegranate molasses!” Obviously, my subconscious had been working during the night and I had remembered it in a dream or something. It was like gold dust to find, and I did actually get my hands on it somehow. But now you can buy it in a normal supermarket in the U.K. The baking section[s] of the supermarkets are just huge now. You can buy things like starred nozzles and piping bags.