Don’t fear simplicity

Like a doom-monger from the depths of despair Paul Hollywood uttered the words: “If you can’t produce a decent chocolate brownie, there’s going to be problems.” Inciting fear into the hearts of each and every baker and making them overload their cakey creations with every sweet thing known to humankind – including ‘freezer juice’ c/o Lottie.

And the results were an unmititgated disaster with comments ranging from: “very tough” and “I don’t like the flavours either” to Sura. And: “They don’t look good at all. It does look a mess” to poor old Marc. Indeed every contestant got a “hammering” and as Lottie observed, “We’ve all made it harder than it needed to be.”

It’s a good reminder that we don’t always need to make things tougher for ourselves. Keeping things uncomplicated is okay, sometimes it’s even better than okay, it’s exactly what is necessary. Brownies don’t need bells and whistles, the joy is in their intrinsic brownie-ness. Just as the brilliance of you is in your absolute you-ness.

Also, and this is an important point, just because someone (Paul) says something is simple, it doesn’t mean it is. You are the only one that gets to decide if something that you are doing is simple.

GBBO: the four life lessons we can learn from a very tough chocolate week