From the second it was announced, we knew that the Derry Girls taking part in a Great British Bake Off special was going to be a recipe for disaster – and it turned out we were not wrong.
The stars of the hit Channel 4 sitcom had a spectacularly calamitous time in the tent on New Year’s Day, as judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith put them through their culinary paces.
Cast members Nicola Coughlan, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, Dylan Llewellyn and Siobhan McSweeney were first tasked with making an alcohol-laced sharing trifle for their signature challenge, but a few of them ended up downing the booze as they made their creations.
Paul told Siobhan – who plays headmistress Sister Michael – her trifle was “all over the place and “looked like an aquarium”, while Prue conceded it did “look like slime”.
Jamie-Lee – aka Michelle – suffered embarrassment after mixing up the table spoon and teaspoon while measuring out the baking powder during the showstopper round.
She was told her cake, which was shaped like the plane Amelia Earhart landed in Derry in the 1930s, was “as tough as old boots”.
Having earlier had a nightmare with a Swiss roll, Nicola’s showstopper didn’t fare much better.
The Clare Devlin actor’s bowler hat cake inspired by the film Cabaret was branded “quite musty”.
Her attempts to grill a sponge also proved to be a point of amusement for viewers.
Dylan, who plays James, was also told his 1960s camper van lemon cake was “nearly inedible”.
Siobhan made a chocolate raspberry cake in memory of her family camping trips to Cork in the 1980s, which by her own admission was “so weird”.
And this being the Derry Girls, there was also plenty of innuendo to be had...
In the end, it was Saoirse-Monica Jackson who was crowned Star Baker, despite never having made a cake before.
She had impressed Paul and Prue with her Irish cream trifle, decorated with green sugar shamrocks, and her 1960s-inspired showstopper cake, while her salmon and beetroot blinis went down well during the technical.
After the final challenge Nicola said she was “a broken woman”, which to be fair, seemed pretty evident...
Siobhan joked: “I’ve basically ruined the memory of my mother and father, I might not go back in.”
But despite the gang’s unmitigated disaster in the tent, viewers were still calling for second helpings of their antics...
The Great British Bake Off returns to Channel 4 later this year.