The Great Mary vs Prue Bake Off: Prue Leith is the hot favourite to take over Mary Berry's TV role, but which cookery queen is the star baker? 

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Victoria Sponge

This should be renamed the Mary Sponge. The British classic is in her bones. 

Her first job was at an Electricity Board showroom, demonstrating how to make Victoria sponges in an electric oven. 

It has featured in the GBBO’s technical challenge, where Mary’s criteria are a substantial rise and a good crumb.

Food writer Lucy McDonald and her daughter Sophia, eight, taste their attempt at Mary Berry's Victoria Sponge to decide which cookery queen is star baker

This should be renamed the Mary Sponge. The British classic is in her bones. The cake takes ten minutes to make and 20 minutes to bake and I am beside myself when it comes out of the oven. Hurrah for Mary

Mary Recipe

Mary sometimes uses margarine because it gives a lighter sponge. There is no such wantoness in the recipe I used and 225g butter goes in with four eggs, self-raising flour and baking powder.

The cake takes ten minutes to make and 20 minutes to bake and I am beside myself when it comes out of the oven. It has risen magnificently – each sandwich 5cm high at its peak. Hurrah for Mary!

But it doesn’t stop there. Berry sandwiches the two cakes with piped buttercream and home-made raspberry jam, and although this cake is a labour of love, it’s worth it. 

It tastes buttery and familiar, like the best cakes from childhood, and received a hearty seal of approval from my daughter Sophia, eight, who declared it the best ever.

Ease 3/5 Taste 5/5

Although the self-raising flour is folded in, no extra baking powder is added, resulting in a pancake of a confection with each sandwich only 2.5cm high at its peak. It’s sandwiched together with shop-bought raspberry jam alone. No cream or icing.

Prue Recipe

Prue’s sponge is a measly, mealy-mouthed affair. 

Although the self-raising flour is folded in, no extra baking powder is added, resulting in a pancake of a confection with each sandwich only 2.5cm high at its peak. It’s sandwiched together with shop-bought raspberry jam alone. 

No cream or icing.

Ease 4/5 Taste 3/5

Despite the pretty look, Mary's shortbread was inedible – like a dry, tasteless pie crust

Shortbread

Shortbread is Britain’s best biscuit. 

In the same way that Andy Murray is Britain’s best tennis player. 

We all know they are Scottish, but claim them as our own. 

Although not officially a biscuit, it is really a crumbly, sweet pastry, and quite hard to get perfect.

Mary Recipe

This time I gave Mary and her love of margarine the benefit of the doubt – and was rewarded with a shortbread that even my dog turned up her nose at. 

Instead of cooking it in a round, it was piped (Berry seems obsessed with piping, which is a fiddle) into skinny biscuits.

Despite the pretty look, it was inedible – like a dry, tasteless pie crust. Oh Mary!

Taste 1/5 Ease 2/5

Prue uses a combination of plain and rice flours. It is sprinkled with caster sugar and baked in the round, which looks pretty until you come to cut it, when it crumbles into fine sand. Or at least mine did 

Prue Recipe

Prue uses a combination of plain and rice flours (I bought mine from Morrisons) and adds a generous pinch of salt, which balances the sweetness nicely.

It is sprinkled with caster sugar and baked in the round, which looks pretty until you come to cut it, when it crumbles into fine sand. Or at least mine did.

Thank goodness I’m not on Bake Off. What would Paul Hollywood say?

Nonetheless, it has a wonderful grainy crumb.

I had to double the cooking time as, after the first try, it came out underbaked.

Taste 4/5 Ease 4/5

Lemon Tart

Lemon tart was made famous by the Roux brothers in the 1980s and has now achieved ubiquity. 

A pastry case filled with a citrus-infused, baked custard, it is a GBBO favourite – not just because of the danger of the tart having a soggy bottom, aka an undercooked base: sacrilege in Mary’s beady blue eyes. 

Both recipes require home-made pastry. Eek.

She may be queen of our hearts, but Mary is not the queen of my tarts. My lemon tart was soggy-bottomed, burnt around the edges and lacked citrus sharpness to cut through the sugar

Mary Recipe

She may be queen of our hearts, but Mary is not the queen of my tarts. 

After following her recipe to the sugar-coated letter, my lemon tart was soggy-bottomed, burnt around the edges and lacked citrus sharpness to cut through the sugar. 

She opts for a sweet shortcrust pastry in a large tin – whose size I blame for the wet undercarriage.

Ease 3/5 Taste 2/5

Prue's lemon tart pastry has a high fat content, which makes it crispy but also hard to work, and I can’t get it thin enough to cover my tart tin without cracking, so downsize to small tins

Prue Recipe

Most sane home cooks would avoid this recipe like the plague, as it has three different stages on three different pages and uses a pastry I’ve never heard of – a pâté sucrée. 

This is made by piling the ingredients (flour, eggs, sugar, butter) on the worktop and mixing with your hands. 

It is only when I get to the end of the recipe that I see a footnote suggesting that this could be done in a food processor. 

It has a high fat content, which makes it crispy but also hard to work, and I can’t get it thin enough to cover my tart tin without cracking, so downsize to small tins. 

In GBBO this would be automatic failure. Despite a too-thick crust, the tart is good.

Ease 1/5 Taste 4/5

Chocolate Roulade

The secret to a great roulade is levity. It is a fatless, flourless, skinny sponge made to be stuffed with whipped cream and rolled. 

Is there a dessert more of a faff or more naff? I’m not sure who makes these outside of the GBBO tent.

Mary’s version is trickier to make as the chocolate has to be melted in a Bain Marie first, but otherwise the recipes are similar

Mary Recipe

Mary’s version is trickier to make as the chocolate has to be melted in a Bain Marie first, but otherwise the recipes are similar. 

Mary uses cocoa to Prue’s coffee and calls for a Swiss roll tin, which I don’t have, so I improvise. Badly as it turns out. 

My sponge is much fatter than it should be, but rolling instructions are better than in Prue’s recipe, and it only cracks once. 

Mary says part of a roulade’s charm is the inevitable split down the middle, but mine is more of an earthquake.

Ease 2/5 Taste 4/5

My attempt at Prue's roulade may be ugly but it is the tastiest. Cracks aside, top marks for Prue-dence – she makes her sponge using an everyday roasting tin

Prue Recipe

When Leonard Cohen sang ‘there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in’, it is as if he had my roulade in mind. 

As I peel off the baking paper it was cooked on, it breaks into five pieces. 

I’ve cooked many roulades but none as catastrophic. Semi-salvation comes through judicious use of cream and a liberal sprinkling of icing sugar. 

I have low hopes for its taste but it is the best roulade I’ve ever eaten. It contains dark chocolate and a shot of coffee, which give it a depth of flavour. 

It may be ugly but it is the tastiest. Cracks aside, top marks for Prue-dence – she makes her sponge using an everyday roasting tin. 

Along with short ingredient lists, not having to buy special kit ranks highly.

Ease 2/5 Taste 5/5

Scones

Scones, a staple of afternoon tea, are an essential part of GBBO too.

Mary's recipe is thorough, with little assumed knowledge, and she advises on what size and shape of cutter to use and how twisting the cutter to release the dough will mean less of a rise

Mary Recipe

Over the past 50-odd years, Mary has written many scone recipes. 

When a dish is this simple, the ingredients matter, but even as recently as 2013 she recommends margarine. 

After the shortbread saga, I ignored her and used butter instead and was rewarded with a light, crumbly scone. 

Her recipe is thorough, with little assumed knowledge, and she advises on what size and shape of cutter to use and how twisting the cutter to release the dough will mean less of a rise. We loved these.

Ease 4/5 Taste 5/5

Prue's scones were god-like. Tall, bronzed and beautiful with the best rise of any scones I’ve made

Prue Recipe

Wow. These scones were god-like. Tall, bronzed and beautiful with the best rise of any scones I’ve made. 

They contained more baking powder than most recipes and needed to be rolled an inch thick. 

They were the kind you dream of eating, hot from the oven slathered with jam and cream. 

Prue also washed them with beaten egg – as opposed to Berry’s milk – which gave them a sheen. 

My daughters preferred the taste of Mary’s and said Prue’s were a bit bready.

Ease 4/5 Taste 4/5