Morrisons chocolate cake

The Great British Bake Off (BBC1, 8pm, 5 August) is back and the public is jumping for joy. Less so the contestants, who were understandably terrified as they took to the tent. 

All apart from one. This year Paul Hollywood has met his nemesis, also called Paul, a prison governor with similar facial hair and an equally piercing stare. The two men locked eyes over the judging bench as Hollywood slowly chewed on Paul’s effort. All eyes will be on their relationship from here on in. 

As for the others, most of them slowly cracked under the pressure as they tried to get their classic Madeira cakes to do just that. The technical bake also proved tricky, but it was the final challenge, to make a Black Forest gâteau, where things fell apart for Dorret, who had a meltdown to match the state of her cake. She messed up her timings and her mousse oozed out, creating a mudslide (albeit a delicious-looking one). 

But those hoping for a repeat performance of ‘bin-gate’ - the infamous baked Alaska disaster of series five - were sorely disappointed as she bravely served it up anyway. 

Sue attempted to console her by saying “it’s just a cake”. To which Dorret replied: “it’s not just a cake.” She’s right of course - it takes more than a cake to pull in an audience of millions of watchers, as well as single-handedly revive the home baking sector and send sales of baking ingredients soaring at the supermarkets. And this endlessly clever combination of cake, humour, suspense and the lingering possibility of disaster will certainly do it.