'Dodgy' Bakewell Tart recipe has Bake Off viewers fuming

You’d think the hoo-hah surrounding Bake Off’s shocking switch to Channel 4 would make mundane rows over icing and pastry pale into significance, wouldn’t you?

Not a bit of it. Viewers took to Twitter last night to vent their fury at Mary Berry’s controversial bakewell tart recipe, which many fans claimed was, in fact, a recipe for a cherry bakewell.

Bakewell tarts, cherry bakewells – yes, there’s a WORLD of difference, OK?

The offending ingredient was a layer of slick white icing which Berry claims tops any Bakewell Tart worth its salt. But as any committed cake-eater knows, a bakewell tart is ALWAYS topped with a layer of flaked almonds. RIGHT?

“You don’t put a layer of fondant on a Bakewell Tart, you tarts #GBBO,” remarked one armchair baker on the social media site. “Am I the only person that doesn’t put icing on my Bakewell tart? I’ve always used flaked almonds #GBBO #bakeoff @PaulHollywood,” said another.

Sounds like Bake Off bosses need to put in a call to Mr Kipling for a bit of clarification.

Last night’s episode was also marked by a bit of cross-generational sparring – again over the controversial frangipan-heavy tart – when Selasi conspiratorially whispered that the winners of the round were likely to be “aged”.

“There are people in the room who KNOW how to make a Bakewell tart,” claimed Benjamina, like it’s a skill anyone over 50 is automatically blessed with, like cross-stitch, knitting or growing marrows.

Luckily Val was on hand to disprove the theory by serving up a lump of uncooked pastry.