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The Great British Baking Show Season 16 (aka Collection 13) has returned to its autumnal Friday residency on Netflix.
It’s a sign that an infinitesimal part of the world is healing one ounce of lemon chord at a time. There’s nothing more comforting than sitting on the couch, window open, the cool, crisp breeze wafting through your house like a batch of freshly baked cookies as Paul, Prue, Allison and Noel welcome us back into the famed tent.
As a society we are ready to see a Hollywood handshake, clutch our imaginary pearls over bakes that are stodgy, claggy or have the dreaded soggy bottom, and drool like the proverbial Pavlovian dog over epicurean delights.
As we’ve said before in previous iterations of this column, The Great British Baking Show is like a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. It’s reliable, delicious and just hits the soul and senses in the most British way possible.
Yet, sometimes you have to innovate on the recipe.
Last season, the series was given a surprising surge of creativity and stakes from the sheer talent of the bakers. It was light years ahead of the previous season, where the first few weeks would see contestants succumb to the most embarrassing, and sometimes heartbreaking mistakes in the kitchen.
The Great British Baking Show Season 16 has tweaked the recipe once again. In the premiere episode, they decided to make the technical challenge way harder. They allowed contestants to taste the bake — an almond and raspberry Fondant Fancy. Once they tasted it, they were given a large number of ingredients (some needed, some not), nor were they given specific recipes. So this was a very blind challenge, and added to the tension of the episode. It’s unclear, to this reviewer at least, if this trend will continue throughout the series, but it is a nice wrinkle to a tried and true formula.
Look, this series is not reinventing the wheel when it comes to any form of television. It’s just a wonderfully nice, warm, welcoming and visually tantalizing series that’s the perfect pop culture blanket that you can enjoy having wrapped around your metaphorical shoulders. And sometimes, especially given the world we live in today, you need just that.
The Great British Baking Show Season 16 (Collection 13) is now streaming on Netflix.
