The Great British Bake Off - Channel 4 edition

Yes, but normal brownies are actually hard. Hitting gooey centre and crusty top is hard and the time limits in these seasons are short. In the early years it was common to see people redo signatures. That doesn’t happen anymore.

I miss Mel and Sue too. I never fully warmed to Noel, he never seems interested in the baking even to taste and doesn’t seem to understand what the contestants are going through. It must be possible to find a British comedian who bakes.

Edit: looking at previous celebrity winners I would like Jennifer Saunders and Teri Hatcher to host please

Just popping in to say I’m loving this season, and while I miss the ladies, I have very much warmed to the lads.

So, Japan Week.

I rather think they all went into this week intending to have fun, and the banter between Lottie and Mark L (High grade banter it was too) certainly indicated that most of the them were enjoying themselves for the most part.

However it was also very noticeable that right now they are all more or less at the same level as each other. Now that's a very good level I would say - certainly any one of them could have won last year's competition at a canter (and I challenge anyone - without looking it up on Google - it give the name of last year's winner) but non of them are pulling clear of the field.

That's great because it means you have no idea who is going to win or lose week to week, and this week it was definitely small margins for the both the star baker and this weeks eliminated contestant. One slip up and they were gone basically. A great shame , but as I've now reached a stage where I'll be sad to see any of them go it's now par for the course.

80s week next week. Yeah, me neither.

David was last year's winner. Didn't have to look it up. Some friends and I (that I'd normally be watching with) had a contest to pick the final 3 and the winner. If you picked the winner, we'd all go out for burgers and cover yours. They all picked Steph, but I correctly predicted she'd melt down and that David would stay cool under pressure and win. I won all the noms.

Good episode imho. Lots of good baking, but people on top doing poorly and on the bottom pulling themselves up. I much prefer that to seeing, say, Sura bomb and get booted.

Peter continues to be so extremely solid to great that I have a tough time seeing anyone else winning.

First thing I thought when I saw Japanese Week was that it's just going to mean Matcha Week. At least the signature didn't have any and it was great.

Such a great week. It was a lot of fun to watch. So glad to see Lottie get Star Baker. She’s been my favorite this season.

So, 80s week.

Today there were some really exceptional bakes, and some absolute unmitigated disasters. The star baker was thoroughly deserved with probably the best individual performance so far this season.

The person leaving? You’ll cry too. In the end it was too much and their somewhat erratic performances caught up with them. Doing an ice cream cake on the hottest day of the year is always a challenge, and in the end their ambition got the better of them.

I feel like I have to point out to our cousins across the Atlantic that air conditioning does exist in Britain. Even air conditioning solutions that exist for temporary structures like a marquee. I know because I spent the entire episode Googling for companies. Here’s a company in Hampshire that hires aircon explicitly for wedding marquees.

I hate watching people struggle against the elements for no real reason. Worth pointing out that Professional Bake-off is done indoors in a real kitchen (still at a Grand Country House). That bull**** was on purpose.

DoveBrown wrote:

I feel like I have to point out to our cousins across the Atlantic that air conditioning does exist in Britain. Even air conditioning solutions that exist for temporary structures like a marquee. I know because I spent the entire episode Googling for companies. Here’s a company in Hampshire that hires aircon explicitly for wedding marquees.

I hate watching people struggle against the elements for no real reason. Worth pointing out that Professional Bake-off is done indoors in a real kitchen (still at a Grand Country House). That bull**** was on purpose.

Yes. But Ice Cream week has always been done on a really hot weekend. Remember Bingate? It was boiling then too. Why take away the drama by putting in air conditioners!

Is the Prof Bake Off any good?

Sorbicol wrote:
DoveBrown wrote:

I feel like I have to point out to our cousins across the Atlantic that air conditioning does exist in Britain. Even air conditioning solutions that exist for temporary structures like a marquee. I know because I spent the entire episode Googling for companies. Here’s a company in Hampshire that hires aircon explicitly for wedding marquees.

I hate watching people struggle against the elements for no real reason. Worth pointing out that Professional Bake-off is done indoors in a real kitchen (still at a Grand Country House). That bull**** was on purpose.

Yes. But Ice Cream week has always been done on a really hot weekend. Remember Bingate? It was boiling then too. Why take away the drama by putting in air conditioners!

I think we're simply seeing part of the grieving process.

garion333 wrote:

I think we're simply seeing part of the grieving process.

The question you should be asking is: how do they always get the weather to be hot that specific weekend? This is the British weather we're talking about - it's completely random.

There's some weird hokey Druidic crap going on there I can tell you. I reckon they're down at Stonehenge in the middle of the night dancing about in the altogether the week before to guarantee a heatwave.

Possibly.

My friends and I are doing a betting pool again. Halfway through we pick our final 3 and who we think will ultimately be the winner. 3 of us have picked Peter to win. If he does, it'll come down to a point system we've devised based on your final 3. I had Lottie in my final 3 so I'm pretty much guaranteed to lose if there's a tie. D'oh!

She was getting better and also aimed a bit higher than many of the others. I was hoping that trend would continue to at least get her to the final. Plus, she was obviously the one that Paul was into (there almost always is one. eww) so I hoped that would have helped too.

I hate that my favorite left.

garion333 wrote:

Is the Prof Bake Off any good?

I like it a lot. It’s not as much about the personalities of the contestants, it’s more about the amazing stuff they can do. There is huge amounts of complicated sugar and chocolate work. The judges are somehow nicer while expecting a much higher standard.

The judges are Benoit Blin who was Raymond Blanc’s Patisserie and Cherish Finden who has more awards that I can list. Broadly Benoit is about taste, Cherish is about precision. There really isn’t a dominant judge. Apparently Cherish has done every single challenge herself at home to check the timing. The actual contestants do it in teams of two.

The hosts don’t really get in the way. Tom Allen is fine and it’s always nice to see Liam. They don’t try to be too funny.

TL;DR It’s fun if you like watching high trained people do complicated things.

trueheart78 wrote:

I hate that my favorite left.

I super hate it too. My interest in the rest of the season just went way, way down.

So, Quarter finals and dessert week

I know I've said this before and I feel the need to say it again - this has been one of the strongest line ups of bakers they've had in quite some time. Any one of the bakers left could have easily won previous year or two (Rahul notwithstanding) and they all had moments this week which demonstrated that.

The signatures were all competent, the technicals were all a disaster (including the winner!) because it was just one of those things you'd either know how to do or not - and none of them really did. Not quite "designed to fail" territory, but certainly extremely challenging.

The showstoppers however - they all had to do a decorative jelly cake and to be honest I thought they all did exceptionally well - some of them were genuinely quite brilliant. The star baker doing so well they won this week on that showstopper alone. The person leaving was a little unfortunate I thought - there was a definite "bottom of the pile" person after the first two rounds, but the person leaving just got their showstopper all wrong. It looked fantastic, but that was about it, once again it felt like their ambition got slightly the better of them. I did think they were unlucky though, overall I thought the other person in the frame did worse over the whole weekend.

thoroughly enjoying this season I have to say, it's been really strong moving into these latter stages. And they are all just extremely lovely people who you want all to do well, and nobody to really fail. Channel 4 have got that 100% right this year, so hats off to them to listening to the criticism of last years contestants (harsh but fair) and getting it right this year.

Spot on.

That technical was stupid.

Dessert week was definitely interesting. Hermine is absolutely killing it these past few weeks (barring that technical that everyone did horrible on). Still couldn't call it in regards to who will win this year, but I'd be lying if I said Hermine's not my new favorite, especially since Lottie left.

IMAGE(https://media.giphy.com/media/qW3mz0XQ4HUJV1cBkS/giphy.gif)

Watches to see Hermine go out next week...

After last week's episode, my wife made a Sussex pond pudding and it was absolutely amazing. (FYI, I'm American so these sorts of steamed puddings are totally novel/alien to me).

Her verdict on the process was that it was really pretty easy, but they just didn't give the contestants enough time to properly steam the puddings.

We had to get beef suet from a specialty butcher because it's just not available in most stores around here.

I do think the glorious inconsistency of the bake off this year has been the thing that’s made it the best series in ages.

So, Patisserie week and the Semifinal. The star baker left everyone trailing in their wake this week - they knocked it out of the park to be honest. The technical was again extremely challenging without quite being ‘designed to fail’ territory, but it was quite close. None of the them did well at it again, with a complex set of instructions.

As for the showstoppers - there were two excellent efforts, one that suffered from a failed component, and one that was just a bit of a failure all round.

That did for the person leaving. They weren’t the worst going into the final though, and I suspect it’s one of the decisions that’s going to be controversial.

Easily the most stressful showstopper I’ve watched.

Surprised, not surprised at who left.

Star baker showed why they're almost certainly going to win, but you never know.

A bit heartbroken but not surprised by the outcome this week.

So. The Final.

2 of them were strong in the first two challenges (signature and technical) and wilted a little in the showstopper. The third had a disastrous first two rounds but really got their showstopper right and demonstrated that yes, they did actually deserve to be there despite the backlash against last week’s decision to leave them in.

In the end I can see why they said it was the hardest called they’d ever had to make. It’s been a funny year for the bake off this year. It’s been the best year in a while, with a great line up of bakers who have all had exceptional weeks, and other weeks where they’ve been lucky to get through - one of the finalists there by strength of a consistent run of ‘second worst’ admittedly, but sometimes that’s how it goes. That inconsistency itself demonstrates (at least to my mind!) how close it was between most of the bakers week by week, and the show been all the better for it.

As for the winner? Yeah they deserved it. But my word the runner up ran them close.

The end ‘how are they all doing now sequence’ was also fantastic!

I have no hot takes. I enjoyed this series so much. It’s been a highlight of the television week, a slice of normalcy. I think that the winner did deserve it on balance over the entire season. I may have been chopping onions during the final “after the show” montage,

I’m going to miss this show. I adored the contestants this series and am so happy to see Peter win it, but what a photo finish!

Fully expected him to win from week 1 on. He was consistently above the rest, mostly with his designs as they were smarty designed with time crunch in mind. The very first showstopper he did, while everyone else was busy making giants, was more compact but still looked good.

Props to Dave for making it harder on himself than he needed.

Sorbicol wrote:

The end ‘how are they all doing now sequence’ was also fantastic!

I always love these. Seeing all the new friendships makes me cry. (Then I feel bad for the first round elimination because they're usually not in these friend photos).

Seeing baby Peter was so sweet. Unlike the adults, his youth and lifelong fandom meant he was so excited to be in the final that he couldn't stop smiling. I'm sure the adults were excited to be there too, but I can relate all too well to anxiety overtaking something you're meant to enjoy.