Oh crumbs - Hot Home Bakers

Though family and friends may praise their tin-filling efforts, it takes more than a perfectly baked cupcake to impress some people, two Tauranga television contestants tell Julie Jacobson.

Paint it black, the Rolling Stone's mid-60s anthem to suffering, blasts from Dyani Ellwood's cellphone.
Telly fans will know Ellwood from reality series Nestle New Zealand's Hottest Home Baker.
The Tauranga woman was dumped two weeks into the new season, following a testy exchange with judge Dean Brettschneider.
He called her aggressive and untidy. He said her bread - one of his recipes - had been "abused". She retaliated. "You want abuse, Dean, it's coming your way."
Today, however, Ellwood is charming.
The mum of one has just got home from a work trip to Sydney.
"Sorry if I'm a bit slow, but I got back in the early hours of this morning," she says without a hint of diva.
Given her portrayal as an uppity drama queen - much is made of her kneading technique and the green food colouring added to her cupcakes - all this bonhomie is a little unsettling.
"I know Dean was carrying on about the colouring and my bread looking like it had been dragged through a lawnmower or something, but my cupcakes were actually rated second-best in terms of their consistency, and the bread well, I took the leftovers home and my husband reckoned it was the best bread he'd ever had," Ellwood, who was a drama prefect at Tauranga Girls' College, explains.
"What the audience didn't see was that five minutes before Dean had been showing me how to do it. It was Dean's technique that I was using."
Ellwood wasn't angry, she says, but "just focusing really intensely on what I was doing".
Another Bay resident - and the show's only male contestant - Stephen Christian, also missed out on a place in the final. He was eliminated on Thursday.
Like Ellwood, he's philosophical about his ousting, which followed a "mystery box" challenge in which he had to produce something from ingredients that included fennel, sausages, chillies and meringue.
"I think I deserved it, [but] I was disappointed as it was a mistake I made under pressure, not because I had baked badly."
And, he points out, his cupcakes (lemon and white chocolate, and coffee and hazelnut) did get the thumbs-up in the previous episode, with one of the judges, Australian "cake star" Jade Lipton, noting they were cooked to perfection.
So what makes people - people like you and me - put their hand up for these things?
Both say they auditioned because they have "always baked" - it's a passion.
"It comes from loving to eat," says Christian, 26.
"My family is all about food, on both sides.
"Every family occasion I've ever been to there's been an abundance of food, way more than anyone's going to eat, and we all choose to eat more than we should."
Ellwood recalls weekends spent at her Austrian "hausfrau" grandmother's home in the Waikato, cooking rosti, apfelstrudel and kipferl, and making puddings and slices with her own mother using recipes from the Edmonds Cookery Book.
"My Oma just lived for food.
"We would go and stay with her and we'd eat all weekend. Feeding her family and friends was what made her happy."
Friends also played their part, with Christian applying in the hope it might stop a colleague's insistent "nagging" .
The impetus for Ellwood came after mates suggested "I'd be good at something like that ... I entered on a whim really.
"I just sent the application through one afternoon and then thought nothing of it."
She won the producers over with her tangy lemon slice and peanut butter chocolate brownie, Stephen with his take on Magic Slice a biscuit base covered with dark chocolate, slivered almonds, shredded coconut and caramelised condensed milk.
Interestingly, it was condensed milk that almost saw the former Otumoetai College student voted off in the first episode his banofie pie (meringue-topped banana and caramel tart) started leaking just moments after he pulled it from the oven. "Dean had said he was into toffee, caramelly things, so when it first came out I thought, yes, I've nailed it because the meringue was perfectly cooked.
"Then I took it out of the tin and you could see the pastry base was uncooked. There were definitely some nerves then."
Timing continued to prove problematic for Christian. Chocolate cheesecakes - small versions of one that members of his family often requested for birthdays - were served up minus any decoration; his olive and cumin-flavoured Tuscan bread, hurriedly thrown on to a plate just moments before judging, was given the thumbs-down for presentation.
Ellwood felt pressured from the start and believes expectations were higher this year than in 2010.
"Contestants on the first season had to make one thing [each episode]. We were having to make three.
"No one discussed it, but it was sort of implicit that you had to up your game and keep doing it."
Though neither was fazed by prepping and cooking under the bright lights, watching the judges critique their food with the cameras on them was a different story.
Christian: "It was pretty hard if they weren't giving you any praise. At times you had to rein in your emotions, especially if you'd made a recipe that was a personal favourite and they bagged it ... but then that's [the show].
"What you like might not necessarily be what someone else likes and you're having to impress judges who not only have huge experience in their field, but have their own preferences as well."
Ellwood, who has a 3-year-old son, Quinn, says she found it difficult to cope with the show's schedule because she was so tired. Contestants spend up to 10 hours filming.
In the evenings, at home, they are expected to test-run what they will be making the next day.
"It was the sleep-deprivation that got me, I think. Back before I had a family I would have been okay, but when you have to go home after a really long day filming and there's kids and you're supposed to do more cooking ..."
It's here that she confesses that, actually, she didn't practise.
"She watched her mum baking instead.
"She was staying to help with Quinn and would show me how to do it. I'd be sitting there with a bottle of red wine moaning and groaning."
Despite their love of food, both she and Christian - who has fond memories of regular forays to KJs bakery in Cameron Rd for cakes and slices during his high-school years - have no ambitions to take it further. Cooking for family, and in Christian's case flatmates, is reward enough.
"During my uni years and the first years I was working, I didn't have a lot of time to cook," says Ellwood.
"But I've picked it up again in the last few years and now Quinn's older he comes home from kindy and we make things together.
"Plus having worked in restaurants during uni and experiencing the reality, the hours, the hard work, it doesn't hold a lot of appeal."
Says Christian: "I didn't really ever consider baking as a profession.
"I've done it because I love doing it, it's something that makes me happy and there's always the thought that might change if I made it my career."
And who should viewers be keeping an eye on?
Although the pair reckon Opotiki's Gretchen Lowe could be the one to watch, they're not writing off some of the other contestants just yet.
Ellwood's picking 35-year-old cattle farmer Catherine Rawnsley as a possible winner and Christian is gunning for "the most consistent".
"In the first episode after we finished cooking, I looked across at what some of the women - especially Gretchen - had pulled out and thought shit, I'm going to have to lift my game here.
"There's definitely a few standouts, but then it's all about consistency, and that can chop and change from week to week."
Top tips for would-be bakers
From host Colin Mathura-Jeffree:

I'm not a judge, just the greedy host, but to me it's to do with comfort food. Whether you're baking it, giving or receiving an item that is baked, there is a reason behind it, and it's always wonderful. Baked food is a true representation of affection. The way to anyone's heart is through their tummy.
From Dean Brettschneider:

Have passion for what you do, and a thirst to absorb information like a sponge.
Baking is like creating a picture, you must have a vision of what you are trying to achieve; so thinking ahead, along with creativity, is important.
Challenge yourself. Baking is a science, so having a connection with how and why things work is important.
Always be open to asking questions and learning from others.
Baking is all about pleasure, so bake with yumminess at the forefront, but remember looks are important, too.
Have fun and enjoy what you do.
The show: Nestle New Zealand's Hottest Home Baker, Thursdays at 7.30pm, TV3.
The book: New Zealand's Hottest Home Baker, Penguin, $35.00