With applesauce as an egg substitute, DeAndre Jordan worried his batter would take more time to rise than his first career NBA championship banner.
It was summer, after he “sobered up a little bit” from celebrating a title with the Denver Nuggets, and Jordan was outside London … baking holiday goodies. On a tight deadline. Without any animal products. Surrounded by competitors and judges.
A perfectly relaxing way to unwind after the soaring highs of a parade in Denver.
“I was afraid it was gonna take my (stuff) forever to set and rise,” he recalled. “Just because I was using other ingredients.”
Jordan, 35, spent a week last offseason in the English countryside recording a celebrity holiday episode of “The Great American Baking Show,” a spin-off of “The Great British Bake Off.” And he made his appearance with a twist. It has been five years since Jordan, a three-time All-NBA center who won his first career championship with Denver in his 15th season, switched to a plant-based diet. He says the decision was made for a combination of environmental and nutritional reasons. In two of the episode’s three timed baking challenges, he used vegan ingredients, while the third required the bakers to use the same recipe.
That would be considered an added challenge even if Jordan was an experienced baker. But as he puts it, he arrived overseas with “no experience whatsoever baking anything, other than Nestle Tollhouse cookies once upon a time.”
He does have some kitchen credibility, however. The show approached Jordan about participating because he has his own vegan cooking program called “Cooking Clean.” He says he is working on Season 2 now. During the stay-at-home period of the COVID-19 pandemic, he started trying easy recipes. That progressed to making social media posts inspired by his culinary interests, which eventually led to his show on PlayersTV and a partnership with the company Beyond Meat.
“The Great British Bake Off” and its adaptations being a premier series in the world of cooking and baking television, Jordan’s invite to England represented a fun opportunity.
“I was familiar with the show, but I am the farthest thing from a (freaking) baker, you know?” he said. “They reached out, and we talked about doing some baking, and I said I have no experience, and that was like the fun that we were gonna have with it. … For some reason, they thought that I would go good with a group of comedians, because I guess I have that in my future.”
He was indeed the only athlete in a cast of professional performers, including comedian Joel McHale, “Saturday Night Live” cast member Ego Nwodim, and actor Arturo Castro. Jordan has kept in touch with some of them since filming.
“It ended up being a great time,” he said. “I met some really cool people. Some great actors and comedians and people who I consider friends now because we spent that time going through that task together.”
Once Jordan was committed to the special, he got on a phone call to discuss potential ideas for his “showstopper,” the third and final baking task of the episode that’s meant to have a personalized touch. The celebrities’ prompt: a multilayered novelty sponge cake decorated to resemble a favorite childhood holiday toy. Jordan chose a handheld Game Boy as his inspiration. Staying true to the theme of his participation, his chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream filling would be vegan.
“A lot of my cast mates, they loved my buttercream,” he said.
As did his wife, who joined him on the trip that was also an excuse to see a new part of England. Jordan had been to London proper but had never ventured out of the city toward the countryside. Throughout the two days of filming, his wife tried out his finished products, including sufganiyot donuts as the “technical challenge” in which contestants bake the same recipe and are ranked on a blind taste-test by judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith. Jordan finished a respectable fourth out of six.
The opening challenge wasn’t quite as smooth. Jordan made gingerbread man sandwich cookies (also vegan) but, “I had a little too much ginger in there,” he admitted, resulting in an overwhelmingly spicy flavor.
“It was definitely challenging, but it wasn’t as life-or-death as I was thinking it was going to be,” Jordan said. “But baking is extremely hard. Now when people are making cakes, or baked goods, I’m never gonna be like, ‘Well damn, this is taking a long time.’ Because I know how long it took for me to make cookies and donuts and cakes. So I’ve got a lot more respect for bakers.”
The entire time, he was judged within the context of his different approach from the rest of the cast. Jordan’s passion outside basketball in recent years has been spreading knowledge about a plant-based lifestyle. Those pandemic months made it easier to adapt to his diet and have more fun with it. When he had first gone vegan, he wasn’t cooking for himself as much, relying on restaurants instead.
“I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m doing a good job,’” he recalled. “And then I’d be like, ‘Oh, can I get this pasta? I want it to be vegan. … OK, great.’ And some restaurants, they’ll come out with it. You’ll wonder, ‘Is this vegan?’ They say, ‘Oh yeah, no meat.’ I’m like, ‘But is there like butter and cheese?’ They’re like, ‘Oh, yeah!’ Well, that’s not vegan.
“I feel like (the show) was fun for people out there who are vegan who need it.”
Jordan hasn’t baked since returning home (busy with work, he says). Nor had he watched the special the first few weeks after it aired on Roku TV because, as he reasoned, he already knew what happened. But in early December, Jordan finally decided to relive the experience.
“It made me want to bake again,” he said. “So maybe for the holidays I’ll throw a little something something together.”
Now he knows to go easy on the ginger.
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