BakeOff

Well, the drama kept coming last week, didn’t it? I had endless conversations in the office about the rights and wrongs of bingate, and whether or not we thought Iain would be reinducted in this episode (spoiler: he didn’t). I also got the closest I’m likely to get to Bake Off fame, when Howard quoted me (eeek!) on An Extra Slice. Not by name, sadly, but he mentioned my Alan Bennett comparison and later confirmed on Twitter that I was the reference. Exciting times. (Extra Slice people, if you’re reading, I would definitely come on the show. Just saying. Any time. I’m ready.) (Any time.)

But enough about me – let’s go on to the Bake Off – which I watched at my friend Adam’s house. His Mum made Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood scarecrows for her village, which shows his excellent credentials as a GBBO host. I’m still waiting for the photos ADAM, but hopefully they’ll appear next week.

“All drama; zero gimmicks” say Mel and Sue in their increasingly contentless introduction to the show – and that’s a fair assessment of the show, I think. Even the in-jokes aren’t really gimmicks. I would have preferred it if they’d said “No gimmicks; all gimlet eyes” and panned to Paul’s piercing blues, but we do not live in a utopia. I’m also very intrigued by that ‘private’ sign that seems to be facing the wrong direction, so that people see it as they leave the grounds. Are they trapped?

Stuck in a Book: asking the questions that matter

In this line, the news that Diana has been taken ill and won’t be returning to the competition is delivered in the least sensational manner possible, even if the pan of the bakers arriving is performed, once more, in the midst of some foliage. It’s voyeuristic and unsettling, cameraman. Stop it.

A few of the bakers talk about how they’re going to miss her, and Martha says that Diana is ‘her grandma in the tent’. What about Universal Grandmother Mary Berry??

The judges and presenters line up to announce the first challenge – custard tarts, gladdening the heart of Lionel Hardcastle – and Blazer Watch has never felt more necessary. Mary and Mel have both gone neon,while Sue appears to be recycling last week’s blazer. C’mon, Sue. Give a recapper something to work with. Paul not only continues to forego a suit jacket, he’s also gone cuff crazy this week. As always, he looks ready for a line-dance.

Is Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen well-known enough internationally to make for a successful reference?

The first reaction to the challenge is, as usual, Chetna being very nervous, and apologising to the cameraman for no obvious reason. Chetters, you’ll be fine, don’t worry!

Paul and Mary waffle about pastry textures in the garden (“If they make holes, the custard will leak out” – do feel free to grab a notebook if you want to jot down these insights) and we see lots of bakers playing with flour and butter. Frankly, it’s not a difficult challenge. But I look forward to seeing them dramatise.

First off we come to Norman, who is making a tarte au citron. He’s obviously of the opinion that making something foreign – and saying actual foreign words – is plenty fancy enough, and he won’t be wanting to show his face in the Aberdeenshire Working Men’s Club for a month of Sundays, thanking you kindly. “I first tried it in France twenty years ago, and had never had anything as exotic as that at home,” he actually says. Is he trolling us? It’s pastry and lemon, Norm. Mary Berry Reaction Face:

Wut?

It’s so simple that Mel actually includes ‘dusted with icing sugar’ in her voiceover description of it.

“…and served on a plate.”

He says that he’ll be stretching himself tomorrow, and so he’s keeping it simple today. Paul seems ok with that (“if you’re stretching, you need to warm up, and this is your warm up”) but his hesitant face says different. Just you wait and see, Paul… #becarefulwhatyouwishfor

Martha isn’t sure about the challenge. She doesn’t like making pastry. “It’s one of those things that you make if you’re a bit older. People like Nancy make pastry a lot.” She could so easily be given the bitch edit, so I admire the BBC for being kind to her – and I still think she’s fab. Having said that, we get a good reaction face from Nancy (which was probably filmed long afterwards):

Watch yourself.

In justice to Martha, we almost immediately hear Nancy saying how much she likes making pastry. And hers sounds amazing, combining three of my favourite flavours – chocolate, coconut, and passion fruit. I might steal this recipe if poss. Some pastry purists don’t like the chocolate version, but I do a mean choc pastry myself, so I’m all for it. And it gives BBC Colouring Pencils Man a chance to break out a different colour. His pastry colour must be running down.

May contain Minotaur.

Montage time, and the same levels of dramatic music that were given to the #bincident are accorded to Luis pulling clingfilm, Norman advising people to chill pastry, and Martha (perhaps eavesdropping) putting her pastry in the fridge. She takes a leaf out of Voice of Doom Mel’s book and says that she could ruin her tart if she chills the pastry for too long or too little time, which is nonsense. These are the low level stakes we know and love from GBBO.

#drama

Alex/Kate is making almond and rosemary pastry for her rhubarb and custard tart, which sounds a bit much to me, but M and P are all over it (and she claims it’s ‘simple’). She, wonderfully, continues to treat every moment as an opportunity for am dram. In this image, you might think, she has just dropped her tart, or had her home repossessed. No, she is simply talking about rhubarb.

“And… scene.”

Luis is making a ‘Tropical Manchester Tart’, presumably named by somebody with the good fortune never to have gone to Manchester (bad Simon). My friend Hannah, with whom I watched, is a card-carrying Northerner, and was Not Happy about the tart being messed with. (Incidentally, my friend Malie also watched, having never seen it before. The appeal took some explaining beforehand, but I think she enjoyed it.)

Richard is poaching figs (I suggested at this juncture that nobody liked figs, but was shouted down by my companions). More importantly – where is the pencil?  It’s in the shot before this, and the shot after, but not here. Guys, what’s happening? We have lost the only consistent element of the known universe.

Is this a Dumbo/feather situ?

More on the pencil later, building stationery fans.

I’m super jealous of everybody’s pastry, and the way they are able to pick it up and line the tins. Lest we forget, here is an early stage of the quiche my friend Lorna and I made last year:

Nailed it.

It is tarts week, of course, and you might have thought that Mel & Sue – five series in – would have exhausted the comic potential of saying ‘tart’ and winking at the camera. How little you know this programme. But this year’s is rather special. Mel and Nancy have a brilliant conversation about looking like tarts, and having tarts’ hairstyles. I love both Mel and Sue, but Mel is the best at forming galpal friendships in the tent.

Also, Nancy’s top has handbags all over it. Presumably she’ll do you a good price for them.

Martha talks again about not liking making pastry, which fills us with nerves about her security in the competition. Then we see lots of bakers trim their tarts, while Mel intones about the importance of keeping it neat. Any voiceover about neatness and perfectionism can only end in one place – a swannee-whistle and a shot of Norm.

“That’ll do” is something a life mantra, isn’t it?

“A steady hand is vital for pouring the custard,” warns Mel. It really isn’t. It’s quite a large target, isn’t it? And gravity, despite being Iain’s nemesis, lends a helping hand here. And cue montage of pouring. Mel looms over Richard while he carries his tart, making the whole thing more difficult. And then, this:

You can see why he’s grown to be one of my faves, can’t you? At least he didn’t dunk a biccie in it.

Kate does some extremely impressive swirling, while Norm looks at her bewildered by all the fanciness, and then she collapses over the desk – because of course she does. You can just see a glimpse of Norman, and it looks a bit like she’s unsuccessfully trying to hide from him.

“If I can’t see you, you can’t see me.”

But, bless her, she gives Martha a helping hand getting her tart (which closely resembles a tomato quiche) out of its tin.

We see Luis with a stencil, Nancy doing intricate piping, and Norman… dumping a bag of icing sugar on top of his tarte au citron.

Dusted with icing sugar? Really?

During the judging, Paul says Norman’s looks a mess (sad face), and he takes it stoically. Nancy’s looks as amazing as I’d hoped. Chetna is told “I think you could have cooked your rice a bit longer,” which doesn’t strike me as something anybody should say during a custard challenge.

“It’s custard” is one of the helpful comments Paul makes, to Alex/Kate.

Richard describes himself as “a clumsy blad”, and I can’t work out if he’s using some sort of gangland slang, or reverting to ‘lad’ after starting with a naughty word. Or perhaps he’s referring to himself as a promotional flyer or mockup for a product? Either way, Mary gets her flirt on, talking about his steady hand.

“If I were sixty years younger…”

Martha gets her first criticism of the series, really, and – bless her – she’s upset. One of Paul’s criticisms is that “it’s quite tart” which, given his propensity to mix up parts of speech, could be exactly what they should have been doing. “It’s very bread,” and “Not quite cake enough” are, I feel certain, things he has said in the past.

The bakers repeat all the things Paul said, but standing in the garden.

Bride cake was apparently once a thing, and was to be broken over the bride’s head. In case those words mean nothing to you, we have a two-second reconstruction:

And thereby two Equity cards were earned.

The less said about the rest of the Pies Through The Ages the better. We’re back to the tent, and they’re making… mini-pear pies. Poached pears in pastry. C’mon, GBBO. This isn’t a thing. Go home, GBBO, you’re drunk. It started with the proving drawer and it’s getting out of hand. (Was this challenge chosen just so we can hear Norman say ‘poached pears’ a lot? It’s great in a Scottish accent.)

Btw, I live for pastry, but I can take or leave pears, so I can’t get excited about this challenge.

The soundtrack at this point appears to be performed by a double bass and a pair of maracas.

“Something scientific probably happens to it,” says Nancy, of the pastry. Oh, guys, I love everybody in this tent. It’s a really fab group of people, isn’t it?

My boy Luis (win me that £15, Luis!) keeps explaining how things actually work, and why certain actions are being performed, giving Mel and/or Sue very little to do in the voiceovers – other than, of course, warning that slight adjustments in temperature or pear placement will inevitably result in the tent burning to the ground.

1. Does anybody ever sit on those outdoor chairs? 2. It looks like the freezer has a very intricate handle

Richard and Chetna have a discussion about whose pears are on which shelves of the fridge. We can but learn from the mistakes of others, so well done guys.

Norman is no fan of the poaching wine. “Too sweet for me,” he says, with the exact same expression that he had when saying how delicious his dessert was last week.

Horrilightful.

Chetna tests the maxim that watched pears never poach.

Lovely Martha, as usual, is anxious about what everybody else is doing – and revealingly says “I’m doing what isn’t allowed, and looking at other people’s.” Has there been a rule against this all along, brazenly ignored by absolutely everyone?

Including, in fact, Martha in this next shot – while Mel makes a ‘nice pear’ joke that Luis completely ignores. Good for you, Luis. Mel’s better than that.

(She really, really isn’t.)

She does make a very good ‘cutting it fine’ joke at this point, which is only slightly ruined by that blue bandage.

Now we have a montage of people wrapping pears in pastry (“It’s like I’m mummifying a pear,” notes Martha, stealing joke potential from me). This is up there with stuffing a mushroom in the life’s-too-short stakes, surely, and the ultimate reward is so small. And it’s not going well for our Rich.

I’m pretty sure this is what that London 2012 sculpture looks like.

OH NOOOOOOOOO.

No, sorry, THIS is what the London 2012 sculpture looks like.

They are all presented. Mezza Bezza and Paul aren’t very impressed, on the whole. Richard’s is a hot mess, and obviously comes last (he is very witty about it in the post-challenge interview, suggesting that he’d have done better if he’d set the tent on fire.) Martha redeems herself by coming top of the rankings.

We come to the final challenge, and it’s raining. Everybody has an umbrella, seemingly, except for Luis. Questions must be asked.

The steps continue to be an inadequate substitute for The Bridge.

They’re making tiered pies. This, again, isn’t a thing. Have they run out of baked goods that actually exist? It does give me an opportunity, though, of crowning the winner in my Facebook Pun Competition:

Well done, Adam. Proud day for you.

Paul is obsessed with stating the obvious this week: ‘this is a pie challenge’. At which point we immediately cut away to someone stuffing a chicken. And it’s not even Nancy and her penchant for East End greasy spoons!

Pie, schmie.

Several of the bakers are making hot water crust pastry (I don’t know which of those words should be joined together, so I’ve spread them all apart) including Richard. “You could build a house out of it, probably!” he says, in an amazingly shoe-horned-in manner, for which I can only admire him. Truth be told, they’ve mentioned the building profesh less than I thought they would.
(This is famous last words, isn’t it?)
(Ah… yes. Moments later, he’s making ‘posh builder’s pies’.)
(Are these posh pies for builders or pies for posh builders? Enquiring minds must know.)

Kate (who is using prunes and rhubarb – good grief, why?) warns us that the pastry mustn’t be too hot or too cold. It’s just dawned on me that all five series of GBBO – with all their dire pronouncements “not too long in the oven, or too little time”, “not too much kneaded, or too little”, “not left to prove for too long, or too briefly” etc. – have essentially been a longwinded retelling of Goldilocks.

On a similar theme, Martha is making a ‘Three Little Pigs’ trio. My friend Malie wondered if she was going to make one tier out of straw, one out of wood, and one out of bricks – gosh, can you imagine the triumphant display Frances from Series 4 would have produced? – but instead she has gone the macabre route of adding insult to injury and mocking dead pigs by subverting a story in which they figure as (well-meaning, if stupid) heroes, as well as eating them. Martha, you big bad wolf.

You can tell I’m a vegetarian, can’t you?

So what is Norman making? Three steak and kidney pies, you’d assume, if that doesn’t sound too exotic. But – no! He really is pulling out all the stops. By which I mean that he is putting every single flavour he’s ever heard of into this creation – haggis, duck, venison, spinach, haddock, cheese, raspberry, passion fruit, and lavender. Seriously. This is what we call going from one extreme to another. Brilliantly, he calls it his Pieffel Tower.

For Nancy, they just reuse footage from bread week, as far as I can tell.

“I call it Lots of Meat in Carbs.”

Paul reminds Chetna of her flavouring mishaps in the Signature Challenge, and she appears to dither back and forth over whether or not to stab Paul through the heart.

Mel calls Norman ‘Normski’, and he quotes Robert Burns. There’s no way I can improve on that.

Richard: “I’m just knocking up the final pie… I mean lovingly crafting the final pie!” He cracks me up. But all the wit and self-awareness in the tent is making it difficult to write recaps, guys. And then comes my favourite moment of the episode, and one which entirely brings me around to Richard’s Ways. Nancy is on the hunt for a pencil. Guess who has one to hand? Or, should I say, to ear?

And the tent hosts the smallest ever relay race.

Bless them. I have accepted the pencil.

Dramatic musical instruments now – tuba and xylophone?

Pies are coming out of ovens everywhere – I’m starting to realise how much Paul and Mary are going to eat. Things aren’t looking good for Norm, as there is the first ever instance of Sue stealing a baker’s food and not liking it… in this case, lavender meringue.

“…but why?”

Martha’s pie has sprung a leak! Wasn’t she listening to those wise words about holes in pastry letting things go through them? CATASTrop… no, wait, apparently it’s fine.

Luis has a spirit level, thus treading all over Richard’s schtick.

I’m enjoying the different ways the bakers are incorporating tiers. We have plastic, wooden, and cardboard tiers – and then some (Chetna and Martha) are just dumping their pies on top of one another in a big PIEle. Pie. Pile. Geddit? (Leave me alone… it’s better than Sue’s ‘surpies!’ which means nothing in or out of context.)

Somewhere Frances is watching and she’s ANGRY.

A PIE FALLS OVER.

My friend Hannah shrieked at this point, which was terrifying, but Luis’ pie is resilient and he just shoves it back on top. And… time is up!

Here are my two favourites:

Quite a lot of compliments, but not for poor old Norman. The lesson here, to quote The Simpsons, is: never try. Richard’s is burnt, Martha’s needs three people to carry, Kate’s is a festival of floral eccentricity, and Chetna is recrowned Flavour Queen.

The judges and presenters repeat everything they’ve already said, backstage, and bring up the idea that Diana’s absence might mean nobody goes home. Mary is firm in refusing to reveal anything, and also says perhaps her harshest criticism yet: “I’ve never had lavender in meringue before, and I don’t think I want it again.” Ouch.

So, who is star baker? It’s Brighton’s finest (“I am as southern as they get”):

And going home? With a catch in my throat…

He needs an umbrella for my tears.

And, like that, the Great British Beige Off ended, losing both its contestants in one week. And, uncharacteristically, in a whirl of lavender-flavoured egg. Oh, Norman, it’s not going to be the same without you! You are already a national treasure.

See you all next week!

Wow, guys, WHAT an episode. Who’d have thought that this baking show would make headlines across the country? It leaves me quite a lot to live up to, particularly since I’m used to making high drama from very little in these recaps. In this week’s episode, there actually is high drama. But we’ll save that for later, and treat things as normal for the moment – which means sunny opening shot of Mel and Sue, reference to Mary’s bomber jacket, and it’s all bakers present and correct for pudding week.

But things are tense already. Seldom has a montage of people putting on aprons been filled with more foreshadowing. Chetna is looking anxious, Luis is nervous, and Alex/Kate looks (if she doesn’t mind me saying) like somebody who once ran a marathon. The biggest question on my lips, though, is – did these four deliberately match the shade of their jeans?

Probably not.

Time for Blazer Watch, of course. Sue’s is getting suspiciously slack. That’s one step away from a cardy, love. And, while Paul’s continuing lack of suit jacket is our first indication that it’s very warm, Mary knows that art is pain, and continues to button up. As Beyonce once said, Pretty Hurts.

The first challenge is: self-saucing puddings. This gives Mel and Sue carte blanche for Carry On Baking vaudeville throughout. The bakers find it hilarious, including future best friends Norm and Martha.

Why aren’t these two on Celebrity Antiques Hunt yet? I even renewed my TV licence today like a fool.

It also seems to be entirely open to interpretation. The sauce can be under, in, on top of, or vaguely near the pudding. (NB #selfsaucing was trending on Twitter at this point. What a time to be alive.)

Mel says they have to make eight ‘individually portioned’ self-saucing puds. No idea what individually portioned could mean, let alone self-saucing puds, but Paul is on hand to explain. He says the key thing is to keep the sponge nice and light. “Timing is everything”. (No mention of the sauce so far.) Mary steps up with the helpful advice that it has to ‘have the right consistency, and – for me – it has to have some texture to it’. Everything has some sort of texture, and I don’t know what she means, but it’s Mary, so I assume she wants alcohol involved.

“Where’s my gin at?”

Luis says that puddings are not his strongest area (this is dessert week, Luis, puddings will be another time! Yes, I know that nobody outside of the Bake Off scheduling people really use those words differently) and it doesn’t help that he seems to be boiling potatoes.

“Fancy” – Norman. (That’s the only one I’ll use this week.) (Maybe.)

Martha is adding peanut butter to her fondants, which is a big no-no for me. She’s also in the middle of her A Levels, which is pretty impressive.

Nancy: “this is the chocolate mix for the centre of my pudding. The sauce, if you like”. She’s caught on to the buzzwords of the episode perfectly, hasn’t she? She still seems delightfully unbothered by the whole process. Then she engages the judges in a keen game of charades.

“Third word…”

She says she’s going to push the envelope. My friend Emily, watching with me, perspicaciously commented “You don’t have to push envelopes. People want envelopes.”

“I need to get a wiggle on” – Alex/Kate. Surely the expression is ‘wriggle’?

Watching again, I see that we have all sorts of omens. Kate slowly wanders over to a freezer. Iain tells us that timing isn’t his forte. There are shots – so subtle as to be almost subliminal – of ice caps melting, polar bears looking forlorn, and Alaska sinking into the sea.

Also, I’m sure his beard and head hair started off as the same colour. One seems to be getting lighter, and the other darker, as the series continues.

Science doubtless has the answers.

He’s making something with chocolate, lime, and raspberry, which are three wonderful flavours. Paul likes chocolate and lime together, and so do I – chocolate and lime sponge cake is one of my favourite things to bake. Truth story from real life.

Guess who’s decided to keep it simple this week?

Well, that plan’s worked beautifully so far, why not? (In his defence, sticky toffee pudding is amazing.)

The cameraman remains curiously obsessed with Diana’s trainers. A couple of series ago the BBC was slapped on the wrist for showing the logo of Smeg fridges too much. Have Nike now got an underhand deal with the Beeb? Or is this some sort of unclear foreshadowing again?

Or is to show that something’s AFOOT??

The puddings go in the respective ovens, and it’s time for Sue to give us the history of cake. It’s the most heavy-handed link yet (“I like desserts. So does Paignton!”) and self-saucing puds aren’t mentioned, presumably because they were made up someone in a BBC office in a panic.

Also, Sue apparently thinks it’s appropriate to chat with an aged historian on deckchairs while wearing a blood-stained skull T-shirt.

And we’re back in the tent. Dr. Paul Cleave has got a ‘proof of the pudding’ joke in there (the PUN KLAXON taking an unprecedented trip to Devon) but they’re staunchly avoiding it in the tent. Must save something for next week, you can see Mel thinking. There seem to be some mini, individually portioned, catastrophes… but these are quickly glossed over. This, if nothing else, should have warned me of what was to come. Usually a bubbling pudding would have been previewed half a dozen times, and made the centrepiece of the show.

#drama

Kate, of course, hams it up no end.

Richard, meanwhile, checks to see if his prop is in place.

Instruments that the soundtrack have brought into play: french horn? Not sure – something unduly brassy.

Bakers dust and press and tweeze and place, the camera spins dizzily around every bake and zooms in unnervingly close to corners of puddings, then everything is ready for judging.

Paul uses ‘drop through’ as a noun.

“Now that’s what I call a sauce pudding!” Mary says of Richard’s pud, clearly having been as at sea as the rest of us, and relieved to have been given some indication of what one might be.

He does well. Martha glues Paul’s mouth together. Luis’s sauce is more of a liquid. ‘Almost a wet liquid’, says Paul, which leads one to wonder – what could a dry liquid possibly be like?

They’re not very impressed by Norman’s presentation – quelle surprise! – but I’d love to try it. And I do wonder if they’d have mentioned it for any other baker (they look a darn sight better than Martha’s peanut splodges, for instance).

Over with the other Great British Beige Off contestant – Diana gets good feedback on her orange surprise thingummy, which looks a little like it’s enacting Ode on a Grecian Urn, and she is pretty euphoric about it.

Nancy, on the other hand, isn’t happy with her critique – saying (in a way that rather misses the point of being in the competition at all) that puddings get eaten so quickly that it doesn’t really matter if they don’t have any sauce.

“Four puddings a pound, a pound, lovely puddings”

Meanwhile, Martha is having an exam-fuelled breakdown. “I try and be a tough cookie. Sometimes it’s a bit hard and the cookie crumbles.” I think she’s babbling rather than distraught. Norman, on the other hand, is unaffected by his critique – saying that sticky toffee pudding isn’t meant to look nice. He suggests it is the opposite of the sort of person who looks nice and is ‘rotten in the middle’. That took a turn, didn’t it? His interview is beautifully juxtaposed with this sheep:

Technical challenge time: Mary’s tiramisu cake. CAKE? That doesn’t sound like a dessert to me. Food etymology fans, did you know that tira mi su is Italian for ‘pick me up’? Which suggests, to me, that Mel and Sue can be translated as Mel and Up. (Sorry.)

“I think I’m the only person that’s made it before in the whole room, and I’m the youngest by far,” says Martha, and somehow doesn’t come across as appalling. She is super lovely. (But, fyi, Richard has now taken the coveted second place in my affections – behind Norm, obvs – as I love how resolutely cheerful he is all the time. Martha is in at third.)

“It is quite tricky to make,” says Mary – get used to that line, it’s not the last time we’ll hear a similar sentiment. “What I’m looking for is every layer to be evenly soaked in the coffee and brandy mixture.”

Where’s my brandy at?

Iain says something that just sounds like a series of vowel sounds to me. Luckily my lovely Northern Irish housemate Laura is on hand to translate. It’s something about flour. She’s not here as I recap, and I can’t remember.

Norman’s mixture has ‘a few spots of flour, here and there, but you always get that’. He’s not what you’d call a perfectionist, is he?

“Right – in the oven,” says Diana, taking it upon herself to provide audio commentary for the blind.

BUT WHAT FOOTWEAR DOES SHE HAVE ON?

This week’s to-prove-or-not-to-prove-that-is-the-question is clingfilm vs. baking paper. This could probably have provided twenty minutes of nail-biting controversy if we hadn’t been steaming through the challenge to get to the #bincident.

Alex/Kate slams her oven door closed – Alex/Kate! If Mrs Poll taught me one thing in GCSE food technology, and she did just about teach me one thing, it’s that you close oven doors gently to prevent a rush of cold air. (I got an A, thankyouverymuch, thanks for asking.)

Everybody is preparing to slice their sponges in half, and Richard has run into difficulties…

(Insert building pun here.)

He throws it in the bin. FORESHADOWING. Iain has problems. FORESHADOWING. Diana talks to herself. FORESH–, wait, no, that doesn’t happen again.

Nancy is making a layer from ‘remnants’. I love how little she cares.

Mary’s recipe doesn’t specify how much brandy/coffee mixture to add but, c’mon, this is Mary. Pour a whole bottle in, and she’ll quite literally lap it up. We also see the first of Martha’s many anxious looks-around-the-tent…

#side-eye

Wonderfully, Luis has drawn out a diagram saying sponge/cream/sponge/cream/sponge/cream. Mel makes fun of him in an adorable way.

He is a graphic designer, after all.

Even Marth isn’t sure what temperature the tempered chocolate should be. “Even a few degrees out, and the chocolate will lose it’s shine and be difficult to work with.” LIKE SUE, AM I RIGHT, AMIRITE?  (No, not really.)

Finishing touches are done all round – special mention should be made of Luis’s wonderful chocolate calligraphy…

…and Sue hears ‘the gentle padding of lady moccasins’. Mary is returning. The challenge is over. Norman says he is “surprised by how good it looks”, which can only mean that they’ll think it a mess. He’s always so optimistic.

I think everyone has done a brilliant job – and Mezza and Pazza don’t have many criticisms to give, on the whole. Mary complains that some of them don’t have enough ‘coffee mixture’. She keeps using the words ‘coffee mixture’, when we all know that she means…

“…where’s my brandy at?”

With no disasters, there’s not much to say. Diana comes last, followed by Norm. Luis is second, and lovely Martha comes top. “Well done!” says Mary, as though addressing a toddler. But she doesn’t give as good shocked face as Luis.

Imagine if he wins?

The showstopper challenge is… Baked Alaska! Since nobody has made one of these since 1974, the bakers can be forgiven for being pretty relaxed in how they interpret it. (Somewhere – presumably at an ABBA-themed party, with olives and bright orange cupcakes – The Brend is gnashing his teeth and wondering why he wasn’t asked to make a Baked Alask.)

At this juncture, I’d like to express my disappointment that nobody uses this joke: “What does Mary think?” / “I don’t know, Alaska.” Ahahahaha.

“It’s a sponge base and an ice cream; what could go wrong?” asks Luis
“There are many things that can go wrong in a Baked Alaska,” answers Paul. Only he’s sat outside, and it was probably filmed on a different day, so it can hardly be called a conversation. “There’s Joconde, there’s Victoria, there’s Genoise,” says Paul, apparently having forgotten the names of any of the contestants.

Fans of repetition are treated to both judges and most of the bakers telling us that it’s hot in the tent; ideal weather for making ice cream. But nothing can stop daredevil Norm from pulling out the stops. Not satisfied with dabbling in the exotic world of pesto, this week he’s using… strawberry. Oo-la-la.

The surprise is that it has the exact ingredient mentioned in the name.

Martha’s making a sort of key lime pie Alaska, with coconut, which sounds in every way amazing.

Chetna mournfully tells us that she used to have mangoes all summer.

Iain is using black sesame seed ice cream – because who doesn’t want their food to be grey? Mary Reaction Face time.

Nancy’s has three stripes (two ice creams and a parfait) which Mary suggests will be like a football jersey, and Nancy believes will closely resemble a rainbow. Have either of them ever seen either of these things?

Alex/Kate says that she’s making a very kitsch Baked Alaska. So far, so tautological – but it’s difficult to see quite why she believes hers is more kitsch than anybody else’s. She even references her ‘fellow Brightonians’. Ugh. Shameless, Kate; you’re better than that.

Iain talks about wanting to put his ice cream in the freezer, which is numbingly obvious at the time, but significant after the event…

Norman looks absolutely disgusted by his ice cream, but apparently this is a look of pleasure.

“I could have been born in Italy” – actual thing he says.

MYSTERY CHEST FREEZER ALERT.

Never mentioned again.

There’s lots of stuff about them making meringues, but there’s not much to say – although mention must be made of Norman’s statement ‘A year ago I didn’t know what an Italian meringue was’ – presumably the same sentence would have held true with either ‘Italian’ or ‘meringue’ deleted – and this shot of Luis multitasking:

Norm is the king of photobombing

Alex/Kate tells us it’s hot. Going for a variation on a theme, Norm speaks of the warmth of the tent. Ever the scientist, Sue opts for “It’s 25 degrees.”

Ladies and gentlemen, we come to the crux of the episode. Which I shall narrate in images.

Poignant, no?

On re-watching, it becomes clear that Iain asked about freezer space, and Diana/Nancy knew it was his when they took it out… and… well, you know by now. It was left on the side. It *looks away from camera; sheds a tear* melted.

(I should say at this point, I think Diana has suffered enough, and my blog is intended to poke gentle fun at the whole thing, not be cruel – so don’t expect any witch-hunt or meanness from me.)

Accompanied by guttural scream

Diana: “You’ve got your own freezer, haven’t you?”
Iain: “Why would you take ice cream out of the freezer?” (which invites the response: to eat it.)

I can do no more than state the facts. I can’t believe how fraught and emotional this was. My friends and I were screaming at the television. I feel like we are part of history. “Do you know where you were when Iain found out his ice cream was taken out of the freezer?” we will say to each other through time. Children will tire of their parents talking about it. Grandparents will reminisce. This is truly the defining moment of the third millennium AD.

My biggest question, though, is why – knowing that it was not frozen – Iain chose to take the tin off. What did he think would happen? Was he hoping that his vendetta against gravity (so clearly evidenced by his hairstyle) had finally been successful?

Sue desperately tries to calm him down, but… #BINCIDENT. #MELTDOWN. #PASSPORTTONEWSNIGHT. He storms out. It’s not frozen, Iain, you should let it go. (Geddit? Frozen. Let it go. Wit.)

And then my favourite moment of the whole show – Richard and Kate have a gossip in the corner. “Iain threw his in the bin!” says Kate. “He didn’t!” from Richard. He sounds every bit like an archetypal spinster in a Miss Read novel and I LOVE it.

“Oooo – he never did! Well, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs.”

Chetna is very lucky that Iain has stormed out, as her ice cream has also melted everywhere, and she’s trying to put it back in place with her hands while Martha anxiously stands behind her. Unsurprisingly, it’s not very effective.

Iain – presumably having been refused the bus fare away from this house in the middle of nowhere – wanders back into the tent.

Does anybody care any longer about these Alaskas? Well, I do, and these were my favourites:

When it comes to Chetna’s turn, she presents a melted mess, but Mary says that she ‘has a smile on her face, which is what it’s all about!’ No, Mary, it isn’t. (But I still love you, Chetters!)

It looks rather like a blobfish. Google it.

Incidentally, loving Richard’s cajz lean against hedge. (Yes, cajz is how I’m abbreviating ‘casual’. We all need to make our peace with that and move on.)

Cajz.

Then the music gets all tinkly and sombre, and for some reason Iain processes up with the bin. Chetna and Luis have their heads in their hands (in clips probably filmed some hours earlier). Iain is a gent, and doesn’t mention Diana at all (so far as we see.)

Mary is very sweet to Iain at this moment, beaming away and saying that everybody makes mistakes. It’s a different tune in the backstage debrief. “I think that’s sort of unacceptable.” Ouch. Somewhere a fairy has died.

As you’ll probably know by now, going home is…

Mr Tumnus

Sue and Mel seem genuinely heartbroken by the news.

Star baker, more happily, is Richard.

It’s been an emotional rollercoaster this week, baking fans. I don’t know if can keep up with this excitement.

(And can you spot where this week’s OxfordDictionaries.com update word is, Helen??)

See you next time!

Guys, it’s happened. Only two episodes in, and a bunch of the GBBO bakers have started reading the recaps… hello to anybody reading from the tent! I’m very fond of you all. I hope that’s obvious!

Before we get onto the episode, there are a few things I need to clear up. Firstly, I was told off by my friend Hannah for not liking Richard, and I realised that it might well have come across that way. I actually love Richard, but… not the pencil. Hate the sin, love the sinner, and all that. (I should also mention how delightfully long it took Hannah to learn which was Mel and which was Sue – “Mel; Sue” she’d say, pointing left to right. When told this was wrong: “Sue; Mel?”, pointing right to left. We got there in the end.)

Secondly, I’m now officially cheering on Luis, as I drew his name in the office sweepstake that somebody suggested we do. That somebody was me.

Thirdly, my friend Meg pointed out that last week Mary did her usual pirate-eating… of a biscuit pirate. How did I miss this?

Fourthly, my friend Rachel lent me Mezza Bezza’s autobiography today. Excited.

Right, ready for bread (bready, if you will)? On with the show…

Things kick off with our usual shot of the bakers processing along the lawn, which this week seems like a mix of the animals marching into Noah’s Ark and the schoolgirls of Madeleine walking in a crocodile (which, incidentally, meant nothing to me as a child, and always seemed curiously macabre). The cameraman also seems to have hidden in the undergrowth to film this shot.

Mel and Sue make a curiously laboured joke about the word ‘rise’ – in the world of potential bread puns, this is the one they keep returning to – and then make several references to the ‘tropical heat’, which (one must presume, given their enormous parkas) is in ironic reference to the coldness of the day. I’m not sure topical jokes about the temperature work well on a programme shown months later.

Blazer watch: they’re all back in ’em, except Paul. The colours seem to have run on Mary’s, though.

They’re making… rye buns! “Above all else, they must be identical,” says Mel, in a phrase calculated to bring an inferiority complex to a non-identical twin like myself.

There are some great Reaction Faces from the baker this week, and it kicks off with Norman’s stony-faced boredom.

“All this talkin’ is suspiciously… fancy.”

Mel voiceovers that rye is difficult to work with. Kate tells us that rye is difficult to work with. Paul adds, helpfully, that rye is difficult to work with. Mary – rebel that she is – takes a different tack and says that the bakers will probably be adding black treacle, honey, or “even cocoa” to their mixture. I’m not sure that ‘cocoa’ required the word ‘even’.

#YOLO

“The real danger is when they glaze it,” says Mary, in the voice of one who has laughed danger in the face. And, again, she’s pulling Roger Moore face:

Mary for first female James Bond, anyone?

Speaking of dangerous glazing (the name of a fairly unprofitable windows company), the inspection starts off with Martha, who is making date and walnut rye rolls (which sounds delicious) and is going to use an egg wash. If she’d said she was going to bake them by blindfolding herself, spinning around three times, and pointing a blow-torch in the direction she thought the dough might be, Paul couldn’t have reacted more strongly. “That’s very daring,” he says. Is it, though, Paul?

“And… do you have life insurance?”

Norman has drawn the consistent-criticism card this year, but it’s the opposite of the ‘don’t-overdo-it’ that Frances was told robotically every week in ’13. Instead, he will get the ‘don’t-oversimplify’ every week until he leaves. “I’m a traditional baker more than anything,” he confides to the camera. “I’m no Heston Blumenthal,” he adds, lest anybody had made that mistake. What’s nice is that, while poor Frances seemed quite upset by the constant barrage of unwonted criticisms, our Norm doesn’t give a fig. Nor would he have anything as fancy as a fig in any of his bakes, thankyouverymuch. I hope he and Diana continue to have a Great British Beige Off, until they are reduced to presenting nothing but piles of flour for the judges.

“Self-raising flour? Fancy.”

Luis, I love you, your dragon was amazing, and I’m relying on you to bring in fifteen pounds sterling for me in the office sweepstake, but we need to have words.

1.) There’s always someone who starts giving their bakes names, and these are staunchly ignored by Mary and Paul. Watch out for that. “This is my supercalifragilisticexpialidocious surprise!” they’ll say, and Mary will flintily comment on their “Vanilla tart”.

2.) Parsnips? Parsnips? PARSNIPS? Parsnips are the food of darkness and evil. Life is cruel enough without putting parsnips in bread.

Bread week is always an excuse for people to make jokes about flinging dough about being a way to get rid of stress or anger. Cockney barrowgirl Nancy adds ‘instead of on the dog!’ in a cheerful aside that should ring alarm bells with the RSPCA.

“And then I threw the cat on the fire!”

We get plenty of close-ups of bakers kneading dough – and, in case we’ve forgotten in the past three minutes, Jordan tells us that rye is difficult to work with. I only have one question: is, or is not, rye dough difficult to work with?

Inscrutable.

Alex Kingston (aka Kate – and I never credited my friend Andrea on noting the similarities to Alex K, sorry Andrea!) is pitied by Mary for being too small to work dough properly – Mary being the six foot mountain of muscle that she is – and Alex/Kate responds by getting her guns out. It’s all a bit frat house.

“The body of Ryan Gosling!” cries Sue. “Who? Sounds fancy,” says Norman.

Jordan is making lemon and poppyseed rolls. “Very much a muffin flavouring,” says Sue, showing how keenly she has acquired baking knowledge over the past five years. Richard the Builder, meanwhile, gets in trouble with Paul for referring to an American Pumpernickel. “There is only one Pumpernickel, and that comes from Germany,” barks Herr Paul.

Moving on… “There’s something called the window pane test,” says Martha. “If you can see through your dough, then it’s ready.” Call me a cynic, but this looks a lot like cheating.

Yep, I can see through that.

(“Window pane test? Fancy.” – Norman.)

Over to Diana. She seems to be getting quite disheartened by the whole process, bless her. As with Norm, of course, she’s getting the too-simple critique. And this time the cheese she’s adding to the dough might slow the proving or the baking or something. Paul, who seems to manhandle Mary every week now, pulls her away before she reveals too much. It’s a little intimate.

“We’ll always have Paris.”

Diana is rightly baffled by the whole thing. “I have not made much bread at all,” she says.

Then we get lots of shots of people waiting while their bread proves (in the ‘proving drawers’ – does anybody in the real world have these?) The bakers lean their heads on their hands, roll their eyes, shift from foot to foot, and generally make violently overacted mime stances of waiting. Norman wanders off to inspect the crockery.

“Handles? Fancy.”

Chetna seems a bit despondent too, although her pine nut rolls sound delish. It only takes a quick word from Paul and she’s back to her laughing self. I adore her moments of merriment.

And then, a vision of the queue for the Marks & Spencer cafe every Seniors’ Tuesday.

Perhaps the strangest comment from Paul comes when talking to Nancy: “The idea of the crust on top is nice.” Where else would one have a crust?

Nancy and Martha have a heart-to-heart about egg washes (“I’m going to do it anyway,” says Martha, apparently never having seen the show before) and… what is that cake doing in the background? Where did that come from? Did Series Two Holly sneak in and make it?

I don’t feel I have much to say about people cutting dough. And I don’t feel equipped to talk about Iain’s pet sourdough. Does everyone have pet dough? Am I missing out on a national craze? Is this the new loom bands?

Norman – you make my job hobby waste of time easy. He’s recording Mel’s temperature with some sort of stun gun. And then she does his. He says his temperature is going up because of Mel’s presence. It’s adorable. Unless he meant it and she’s shot him down. Awks.

Nancy’s props must have been too violent to show this week.

In musical news, someone in the soundtrack department has found a xylophone.

Alex/Kate shoe-horns in a reference to a marathon she’s done. “It’s just like a marathon,” she says about putting her bread in the oven, in a clear lie – unless her understanding of ‘marathon’ is vastly different from every accepted definition of it.  I imagine she gets this into every conversation.  “Would size shoe do you take?” says the shoe salesman. “Oh, this is just like a marathon,” says she. “Could you direct me to the post office?” / “This is just like a marathon.” “Hi, I’m Tom.” / “Funny story: marathon.”

“I’ve only done one.” #Humblebrag

Sue, referring to Paul, says it’l soon be time “to unleash The Mahogany Tiger”, to which I have nothing to add, we get the much-previewed clip of Alex/Kate dropping a roll on the floor (anticlimactically, she just picks it up and carries on – it is, we must remember, in every way exactly like a marathon), and the judges return.

Basically all the rolls look amazing. I love bread above any other foodstuff, so I’m salivating here. Let’s whip through the judging, as nobody does particularly badly. Except that all the warnings about egg-wash and so forth come to fruition. Apparently Martha’s glaze “falsely accuses the roll of being ready”, according to Paul, who obviously has a deep-seated desire to be Judge Judy. “OBJECTION!” he shrieks, at Diana’s flowerpot-shaped rolls.

Norman, of course, is told that his rolls are too simple. Mary uses the word ‘scrumptious’ again; I forget whose rolls she’s eating. And gives the critique “I like that!” to my boy Luis’ rolls. That’s why they hire the experts.

Have you ever wondered about the history of bread? No? Well, of course you haven’t.

Cake: A Secret History may be back, but where are the home videos? Where are families awkwardly gathered together to look at a baker wandering in and out of a room holding a french stick? More importantly: how am I to know what Richard does for a living?

And we’re on to the ‘nerve-inducing techncial’. Cue lots of bakers looking impressively nervous. We get Jordan biting his lip, Kate blinking a lot, these two…

…and then Iain, not bothered, who doesn’t seem to know where he is.

Paul ‘The Voice of Bread’ Hollywood gives them one instruction: ‘Be Patient’. It is delivered with the solemnity of a prophet or Disney wizard.

What are they baking? Ciabatta. Diana seems genuinely never to heard of them, going by her expression.

“Did you say… pastry triangles?”

Warning – this is the last time you will hear the word ‘ciabatta’ pronounced as three syllables. After this it is always chee-a-batt-ah, to the consternation of my half-Italian friend Andrea.

In case you’re wondering what a ciabatta is, fear not, Alex/Kate is on hand to give you a full and precise definition: ‘kind of long, oblong… bread’.

The most exciting divide in this ciabattle (thankyouverymuch) is whether or not to use the proving drawer for proving. “It’s called a proving drawer, so you’d think it was for proving,” says Martha, with an incisive logic that is hard to dispute. You wouldn’t have thought that this quandary could be eked out to five minutes of screentime, interrupted only, briefly, by this image of a rainy horse.

That is, you wouldn’t think that unless you’ve ever seen bread week before.

“I’m going to stick to my guns,” says Alex/Kate, forever and always obsessed with her biceps.

I hear the words ‘proving drawer’ so often that I’ve started to believe it’s a thing. And then there’s a waiting game while they all try to pay heed to Paul’s advice to be ‘patient’. Mel narrates it, basically documenting people standing around. It’s like Russian Roulette, only with no stakes, and nothing happening. “Chetna’s flouring!” screams Mel.

And then lots of this:

“It’s alive!”

Doughs are shaped, cut, and generally prepared. There is some anxiety about whether to get oil involved, but it’s small fry after proving-gate. The only highlight is Iain somehow saying ‘I don’t even know how to pick it up’ as one syllable.

Finally, the ciabatta are cooked and presented to the judges, with some impressive Italian from Mel along the way. Kate blows on hers, which can’t possibly be hygienic.

Diana still isn’t sure what a ciabatta is.

Paul, as always in bread week, is keen to disparage anybody who was ever made bread before, except him, and laboursomely goes through them all (one of them has, bizarrely, been ‘forced into heat’ – put in the oven?), while Mary looks oddly disgusted.

She isn’t, though. She tears into the bread with such vigour that I fear for her teeth. Most of the bakers do pretty well, although a couple ciabatta are too flat. No disastrous egg washes. Jordan comes last (apparently oil and flour don’t perform the same function; who knew?) while the top three are Martha, Luis, and Alex/Kate. She describes her baking as some sort of metaphysical experience.

The final challenge is a bread centrepiece. Obviously that’s not a thing and never has been, but let’s go with it. And they are to make filled loaves.

Diana drips water into a jug, amazed by the contrivances of modernity. I firmly believe that she has hitherto only used wells.

Everyone is making a savoury filled loaf except for Jordan, who is making a ‘strawberry and raspberry cheesecake brioche’. Obviously there’s no such thing as a cheesecake brioche, and that is one of the main reasons I am glad to be alive, so he’s onto a losing hand. “I like to take the best parts of different foods and put them together,” he says. Jord, if that were true, I’d eat nothing but chocolate cake in Yorkshire puddings with cheese. (Actually…)

This shouldn’t go in bread. I mean, obviously.

“Tell us all about your loaf,” says Mary to Diana, in the tones of one asking after somebody’s favourite grandchild. She’s making lots of pinwheels, and still sounds curiously unhappy about the whole thing. Take heart, Diana, be bold!

Norman, bless his wonderful heart, is making a loaf with chicken, rosemary-infused olive oil, and pesto. He seems to believe that pesto is at the very forefront of modern invention, and just the sort of daredevil risk calculated to win over the judges. Oh, Norm. Never change.

WAIT. Richard is using pesto too! Word has spread! (His loaf also sounds like the nicest, with walnuts and whatnot too.)

Martha is baking an entire cheese into her loaf. An epoisse cheese, which is apparently so smelly that it’s banned on public transport in France. Sure, why not?

As usual, too many bakers to talk about them all at this stage. I do like, however, that the graphics-pencils person has drawn Chetna’s loaf in the slightly misshapen way it emerged, rather than the (I presume) even shape she intended.

Also, ‘rolled and filled’ is surely part of the challenge anyway?

And then we come to Nancy. Oh, Nancy. She’s essentially just doing a fry-up. While Luis is carefully slicing olives, she’s flinging pork bangers into a pan, along with bacon, mushrooms, and so forth. She couldn’t be more Eastenders-extra if she tried. Oh, wait, she’s using quails’ eggs. Now, that is fancy.

It does reinforce the fact that a ‘filled loaf’ is basically a sandwich.

We head over to Richard – who mentions in passing that he is a builder – and then… oh, the horror, the horror. Jordan’s cheesecake brioche. Oh no, no, no.

So might a cat play with its kill.

On the other side of the tent: “I’m going for the posh rustic look,” says Norman. “If it’s homemade, it should look homemade.” Seriously, has he ever seen this show before? Everybody else is performing complex twists and plaits, and I’m super-impressed by how none of the dough is falling apart, which is definitely what would happen if I tried any of this stuff. Martha has a mini-crisis of mixing up fig and apricot dough – we’ve all been there – Luis sprays his dough with insecticide (or something), and our friend the proving drawer rears its head again.

Jordan says that in the past he has struggled to make his showstopper look ‘showstoppery’ “every single week“. Lest we forget, there have been a total of two weeks to date. He’s glazing some strawberries, but I imagine that won’t be enough to salvage a cheesecake brioche.

Everybody puts their loaves in the ovens (which is perhaps not very surprising), and then they sit on the floor and stare at their ovens. Chetna is becoming the go-to person for repeating the basics of the challenge as though they were philosophical insights.

“It’s filled inside!”

She’s adorable.

Also adorable, in a different way, is Diana – who uses the abbreviation ‘under scrute’. I love me some abbrevs. And Norman, again: “For me this is very exotic – PESTO.”

Martha and Mel have a listen to a loaf. They actually do.

“Burn the tent, you say?”

Those of you who bake – you know how you have to just do those annoying fiddly final bits before presenting your bake, like piping icing, sprinkling sugar, gilding the olives… wait, what? Luis, what’s happening? Are you trying to make this the most expensive item of food per square inch, with saffron, gold, and a crunchy diamond in the middle for one lucky young scamp?

The judging begins. These showstoppers inevitably don’t wow in the way that 3D biscuit models did, but they still look extremely delicious. There were only a couple that I really liked the look of:

He gives an extreme range of cheery facial expressions. He’s fab.

And then there’s the damp raw mess of the cheesecake brioche… oh dear, Jordan.

If it’s any consolation, my Cheesy Yorkshire Chocolate Cake was a mess too.

And the amazingly hammed-up (no pun intended) moment when Kate’s prosciutto bread gets the comment from Paul: “There’s no gap between the layers… because it’s raw.” Somebody (Sue? Maybe even Mary?) gasps ‘WHAT?’ in horrified tones. It’s glorious. Kate rises to the occasion wonderfully, gurning all over the place. (It is a shame, though, as the loaf looked wonderful from the outside.)

Incidentally, nobody has ever eaten a strawberry this menacingly before.

Haunting.

Paul and Mary follow their usual practice of repeating all their critiques again to Mel and Sue around the wooden table, for anybody who popped to the kitchen to make a cuppa during the judging. Sue announces that either Norman or Jordan had to go, which didn’t really seem to be the direction the show was going, but sure.

The star baker is:

This looked like a smile until I freeze-framed it.

Make me some money, Luis! (Alex/Kate gives a fist pump ‘yesss!’)

Going home is…

Mary gives a lovely farewell tribute to Jordan. Importantly, Norman lives to fight another day! As do I – so I’ll see you next week for Desserts Week. Hope you’ve enjoyed the recap, especially if you were one of the people from the tent… love you all, honest!

For those of you who read SIAB normally, and not just for Bake Off recaps, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to disappear again, and this won’t become just a recap blog – life has been surprisingly hectic of late, as well as being knocked for six (or at least by three or four) by some powerful antibiotics. (Also why I haven’t replied to comments – I will, honest!) But nothing will stand in the way of me recapping episode 2 – especially since it is the ever-exciting Biscuit Week, second only to bread week in its unconvincing attempts to make something fairly mundane into something ‘showstoppery’.

First of all – fans of the bridge (and which of us is not?) from last year have to put up with these rather paltry steps. They’re barely trying. They are not showstoppers.

This scene also makes it look like they’ve come from the house. Clearly they are allowed nowhere near the house.

Then there is an inexplicable fortune cookie scene with Mel and Sue, the less said about the better. And speaking of comedic misfires, Mel starts singing about ‘savoury biscuits’ in the line-up, in what doesn’t appear to be a pun of any variety (possible musical puns: Sav[oury biscuits] all your love for me? There’s no business like [savoury]bis[cuits]ness? It could never really have worked.)

Followers of fashion for the elderly, take note. Mary has exchanged her floral jackets for a side-zipping white bomber jacket (or something like that) while Paul has dispensed with his jacket altogether. Has the era of the blazer ended?

And Sue was such a trail BLAZER. I’ll see myself out.

They’re making savoury biscuits that have to go with cheese. This stipulation becomes increasingly irrelevant, as quite a few bakers just plonk their biscuits on a cheese board and have done with it, but the intentions were good.

“These are big sunflower seeds!” says Enwezor, in what the editors were obviously hoping would sound like an innuendo to anybody not paying close attention.

“It’s one thing making three or four biscuits for a dinner party,” says Paul, before going on to say that this challenge was a thousand times more difficult, but – Paul – I have to stop you there. Who makes three biscuits for a dinner party? How much mixture would you have to throw away? Or would you go through all the effort with one tablespoon of each ingredient? This makes no sense. Your dinner parties are a MESS, Paul.

It’s just dawned on me that this is how a Ken doll would age.

Mary witters on about snap, crackle, and pop, and it’s all very endearing, if mostly filler.

Love the scarf, though.

I’ve decided to be kind about Jordan this week, which means not mentioning him in any way.
(He brought in Yorick the Yeast.) (He calls him a friend.) (He uses the word ‘passionate’.) Mary Berry Reaction Shot time:

Oh, I SEE. You’re mad.

Onto lovely Nancy. Despite the fact that she’s from Lincolnshire, I remain convinced that she is a Cockney barrowgirl, and a fantastic one at that. She also has the largest family in the world, and feeds them on the set of a budget remake of The Forsyte Saga.

I love how wonderfully unbothered Nancy is by the process, cheerfully confessing in front of Mezza Bezza that she cooks with out-of-date fennel at home. Mary, who leaps at the opportunity to be pally and adorable wherever possible, does so again. Paul notes it in his Black Book.

I had forgotten how much hair Iain had.

I’m starting to think that he’s like one of those images that makes a picture of a face whichever way you turn it.

I’m not entirely sure that he isn’t hungover. He’s using fig and something that sounds like zanzibar, but probably isn’t. He says it should bend and snap – as my friend Debs pointed out, this sounds very Legally Blonde.

This week’s get-to-know-the-bakers home videos are the usual incisive three seconds, and the theme is ‘the bakers like baking’. Truth be told, it might be more revealing if we panned to Luis in his kitchen saying “To be honest, I hate baking. Just don’t fancy it.”

But it does mean we get this adorable shot of Enwezor.

Mary gives Luis quite a warning look about him using olives in brine, rather than oil, but I’m not sure why. It is never mentioned again, in a move that uses more subtlety than usual. Usually Mary’s warning looks are the framework to hang the show on.

And then we turn to Diana. She’s the one who made a plain Swiss roll in Week One, flung it on the counter, and essentially said “Enough with your fripperies; this is what a Swiss roll should look like.” I admire her for it. This week, she’s apparently decided she’s not that bothered about biscuits, thankyouverymuch, and is making pastry instead. “Because it’s something I make.”

I’d love it if she staunchly refused to engage with any of the challenges, and just dumped a Victoria sponge on the table every week. “What’s good enough for Queen Victoria is good enough for you,” she’d say, tartly.

PUN KLAXON. Paul makes a thyme/time pun. He’s slowly cottoning on to the raison d’être of the show. Or should that be RAISIN d’EATre. No, sorry, I was right the first time. Or should that be THYME, &c. &c.

Bless Norman. He’s decided (“bravely,” Mel says) to make biscuits without any flavour at all. He and Diana are fighting it out for the “in my day all food was beige” award. And then he teaches Sue semaphore, because of course he does.

Hands up if you’re adorable.

“Martha is just 17” says Sue, and a lifetime living with Beatles fans makes me, reluctantly, mumble “you know what I mean” to myself. Horrifying. What is not horrifying is the recipe Martha is using, which sounds delicious, even if it looks like frothy custard creams:

When I said earlier that the bakers all get home videos about baking, there is one exception, of course. It’s Richard the Builder. He gets a video of Being a Builder. He will always get that video. And I’m sick of that ridiculous pencil behind his ear. He’ll turn up with a hod next week.

Look at him, dunking a biscuit, like a BUILDER.

Nancy has got her husband to make a utensil for her again.

My friends and I were a bit worried about the props that Nancy’s husband has been making for her. They definitely fall on the macabre side of things. First a guillotine, and now a torture device. What next – will she hang her croissants from a decorative noose? Will her petit-fours be neatly arranged in an electric chair?

Fans of counting get to hear lots of bakers murmur ’36’ to themselves, and then the challenge is over. Everyone seems to have done very well, except for Jordan who gets a “My issue is – it’s burnt” from Paul. Otherwise, Mary and Paul try and fail to find anything interesting to say about crackers. They don’t even address the fact that Diana hasn’t made crackers at all (a fact that leads the caption-maker, unwilling to perjure him- or herself, to describe them as ‘triangles’).

Norman is assured, by Sue, “You could sell those tomorrow!” Because who doesn’t want to buy day-old biscuits?

Tangentially, I have high hopes for a Norman/Martha best-friendship. Think of the adventures they’d have!

“Onwards and upwards!” says Diana, leading me to hope that she’ll take the John Whaite crown for platitudes this year.

The cake equivalent of Who Do You Think You Are?, but with fewer tears and more costumes and/or puns – is back. As my friend Lloyd says, it’s a good opportunity to make a cup of tea. This week it’s about ice cream cones, which is marvellously tenuous. But it’s fun to watch how long it takes the gentleman in the white coat explain that a twist cone was twisted.

Someone has stolen Anastasia’s ice creams…

He, like every person in all of these segments for five series, does his best to ignore everything Sue says. And we’re onto the technical challenge – florentines!  Which apparently makes the tent shriek with laughter. Norman asserts that he’s never made them “I don’t make much fancy stuff. Mostly bread and pies.” He’s basically writing my blog post for me.

Paul and Mary sit tête-à-tête, and the conversation reveals what this week’s arbitrary marker of distinction will be. Have you noticed that they’re always on the hunt for something pretty precise, and seemingly irrelevant (the example par excellence was the pie that, for some reason, had to have distinct layers when cooked)? This week: zig-zags on the bottom. Sure, why not?

I do admire the set design department for their delightfully whole-hearted commitment to twee.

“They give you basic instructions, but they don’t give you exactly [what to do],” says Iain, for anybody who has missed the previous four series of technical challenges.

Chetna is a sweetie, but I don’t understand her sense of humour. “I’ve never made a caramel with golden syrup”, she says, which she apparently finds hilarious. Oh, Chetna. A comedienne you ain’t.

“Caramel? More like CAN’Tamel!”

This challenge sounded quite tricky to me – always difficult to tell with the Everything Is Impossible theme of the voiceovers; “BAKERS NEED TO BE REALLY VIGILANT” – but everyone does pretty well. We do get a lengthy montage of people not knowing how long florentines need to be in the oven. This is repeated about eight times by different bakers, while a thunderous kettle drum is played in the background, interspersed with Psycho-esque stabbing sounds. But, truth be told, there isn’t much to say in this challenge. How to make a zig-zag is, of course, repeated ad nauseam, with Mel taking on a conspiratorial tone with lovely Martha.

“Don’t tell anyone!” – genuine thing Mel said.

Mary and Paul use the word ‘lacy’ a lot, without ever really explaining what they’re talking about, and debate the ‘classic zig-zagging’ until you wonder if the bakers could have just scribbled on a bit of paper to win the challenge.  There is so much crunchy-crunchy noise in the background, seemingly unrelated to any moments of actual eating, that it sounds a lot like a sound-effect. Which perhaps it is.

Mel and Sue say not a word.

Iain comes last. Oh, Iain. And Richard the Builder comes first. Apparently his florentines were ‘the proper size’, which feels quite arbitrary – but Mary Knows Best.

And now the final challenge of the day, after we’ve seen many shots of lakes and lawns, this green and pleasant land, and so forth. Paul asserts that “these bakers are bakers in their hearts”, and we get on with the show before having time to think what on earth that could possibly mean.

The showstopper challenge: a 3D biscuit scene! It’s my belief that this challenge was chosen entirely in order to make references to Richard being A Builder. But it is exciting nonetheless.

Early in the day, signs aren’t looking good for Enwezor. Mary asserts that she doesn’t want to see anything non-homemade, and almost immediately we are informed that he is using shop-bought fondant. We get a couple of exceptional Mary Berry Reaction Faces.

If this isn’t the cover of a book soon, I want to know why not.

Also, he isn’t making a structure so much as… a pile of biscuits. Does he not remember Christine from last year? (She’s still at it, by the way.)

Martha is making a ski resort out of biscuits, which is further insight into the life she leads (that ‘supermarket’ she works in is Fortnum & Mason, isn’t it?) She’s also made her structure before at home, which shows greater preparation than that demonstrated by 80% of previous contestants, who cheerfully say that they hadn’t dreamt of giving it a go beforehand, following the ‘practising is cheating’ mantra of Flanders & Swann.

Many of the bakers are making different types of biscuits, including brandy snaps, tuiles, and other extremely difficult things. As I said last week, they’re very impressive bakers this year. And there’s a wide range of ideas – from Wild West scenes to dragons to ‘Zulu Boats at Dawn’, of all things. And the guy with the virtual crayons has fun with this one:

At what point do you think they gave up trying to make it look like food?

Chetna is making a fairground and beach scene – you might remember that I have a fondness for merry-go-round imagery – and my favourite moment is when Mary asks what the central pillar will be made of: “biscuits!” says Chetna, as though talking to a confused child.

I can’t escape from an editing eye, and noticing that ‘tuile’ has been misspelled in this image…

I DEMAND A REFUND FOR MY TV LICENCE

“This is going to go in the oven,” Chetna helpfully says of her biscuits.
“Bakers must keep a CONSTANT EYE on the clock,” says Voice of Doom Mel, in a piece of advice that, if followed, would mean the bakers achieved nothing at all.

First baking disaster is Jordan’s biscuits, which won’t come off the tin.

This is very similar to what happened with the gluten-free almond/ginger cake I made for my Bake Off party. But, since I was not set a structural challenge by Paul and Mary, I chopped up what I could rescue, and mixed it with raspberries and Greek yoghurt, in a new spin on Eton mess. (I’d have been walked out that tent faster then I could throw away burnt pieces of backing parchment.)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the fondant that Enwezor DID NOT MAKE HIMSELF.

#BrokenBritain

In quite a poignant moment, Diana realises that she isn’t using flavours as exotic as her fellow bakers. She describes the rest of the tent as “young people”, which – presumably – includes folk like Norman. Well, everything’s relative.

“Once I drew a dinosaur for my daughter,” shares Enwezor. “It was so bad that she cried.” Touching. His fondant is not the only luminous thing in the tent, however. Despite the sanction against anything non-homemade, everyone has suspiciously-matching day-glo icing bags.

The world’s least menacing mugging.

Mel finds her comments falling on death ears when the Pride of Belfast ignores everything she has to say, grunting ‘uh-huh’ every now and then in an effort to make her go away. I love that they decide to leave that in.

We get the usual montage of people saying that time is running out (it’s like 2003 Muse, amirite) and the challenge is over.  And, it’s fair to say, there are some pretty astonishingly good creations. Here are some of my favourites, although there are a lot of highlights.

Where’s Wally?

It’s a bit heartbreaking that they’re snapping apart these fantastic structures. A few criticisms here and there – ‘a bit lopsided’; ‘overdone’ – but generally an exceptional standard. A bit of debating (including the excellent neologism ‘Iain has phoenixed himself’) later, and they’ve decided the winner…

ENOUGH WITH THE PENCIL, RICHARD

…and the loser, yet again the second person the camera shows after they pause…

My friends and I gave a bit of a cheer at this point. Not because we disliked Enwezor – he seemed nice – but because the idea of a life without Norman was too bleak to contemplate. I do agree that he wasn’t on top form, though; it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a ‘biscuit structure’ when they’re just piled in a row. For my money, Luis should have won, but I’ll cope with it going to Richard the Builder, especially given the self-control M & P showed in not mentioning his profession as much as I’d expected.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this – let me know who your money is on, and I’ll see you next week!

I’m back, the internet’s back, and the Great British Bake Off is back! By popular demand – and demand really is the word – I have decided to do my recaps again this year. The caveat is that they will probably come out some days after each episode, depending on my schedule… hope that’s ok!

Well, this series is on BBC1, rather than BBC2. For those watching from abroad, that means that Mary Berry et al have become prime time stars rather than appearing on the subversive (as far as the BBC gets subversive) sister channel. It’s not before time, but there had been some anxieties that it would change them. Putting aside the fact that they probably had no idea which channel it would be on when it was filmed, the opening shots are reassuring. Mel and Sue leap out from behind a wall, and it’s only moments before Mel is saluting ‘Queen Mary Berry’ and ‘that angry man with the expensive blue contact lenses’. The bakers loom behind them, clearly not having been instructed by the producers whether to have their hands behind or in front.

Iain’s rogue hands-in-pockets is an omen of what is to come.

The breathy “here’s what’s been happening on BBC2 while you were watching National Lottery Live and Ant & Dec Take Out Pet Insurance, you dullards” voiceover is delivered by Mel while the contestants share such pearls of insight as ‘today it starts!’, ‘I’ve been baking for sixty years!’, and ‘The thing that worries me most is opening the oven and discovering that I’ve burnt EVERYTHING.’ It’s also the only time in the episode that you’ll see Claire smiling, so… treasure that.

That’s not fair, really. She was quite cheery before the first judging.

Let’s skip through all the intro – which is filled with coy innuendo from two of the older contestants, essentially saying that they will wink-wink-nudge-nudge their way through the competition.

This year the competition is held at Downton Abbey, and Mel and Sue lie on the lawn to ponder the definition of ‘cake’. It might be the first time that the words ‘love dungeon’ have been mentioned on BBC1. I keep worrying that this show will go full-circle into being so self-aware that it’s not aware at all, but… I think we’re safe for now. If Paul starts turning to the camera and winking after every comment, then we’re in trouble.

The intro to the first challenge – making Swiss rolls – also gives us the first glimpse of Jordan’s facial expressions. I should be careful what I say about contestants, after lovely Howard started reading the recaps last year, but my friends and I found Jordan decidedly haunting. His profile on the website says he has pet yeast called Yorick. As I said to my friend, “I’d be more surprised to find out he wasn’t a serial killer.”

It also gives us our first sight of the lined-up judges. Somewhere there is a blazer seller who knows where the bodies are buried – we have another selection here, from pastel pink to Mary’s trademark patterns. And, bless Dame Mary (well, she should be a Dame), she’s joining in with this clawing action.

Paul is having none of it.

Jordan starts singing “It’s only a cake” over and over to himself. Christine from last series, who thought she’d cornered the market in talking madly to herself in the tent, sticks a pin in a mini voodoo Jordan, complete with mini voodoo hair clips.

Speaking of, it’s a really eccentric bunch of bakers this year. Usually there are so many of them around at this stage that they all blur into one baking behemoth, but this series they’re nearly all mad as a box of badgers. But not in the usual reality show way (where everyone will scream at each other and push each other down the stairs) but in a village fete sort of way (where someone will probably start wearing a jam jar as a hat, or insist on inundating the bric-a-brac stall with home-crocheted leg-warmers).

Mary very sweetly says that she learns a lot from the bakers, and that she’s looking forward to finding out what she’ll ‘absorb’ this year.

Diana is the oldest contestant ever to be on the Bake Off, and she tells tales of Swiss rolls being the Sunday treat at home, while they waited for the telegraph boy to bring news of the Boer War. She’s this year’s contestant who refers to her food as ‘homely’ and ‘rustic’, ‘plain’ and ‘simple’, which means that she refuses to make anything with more than one flavour or four ingredients. But I do love her already.

“You see, pistachio hadn’t been INVENTED yet.”

She also gives us our first glimpse of those oh-so-pointless three second snippets of people’s home life. Her free time is apparently spent prodding the ground with a hoe, while her husband needlessly moves paving slabs around.

She’s making quite a simple Swiss roll, which is a bit of a relief given that a lot of people are making very complicated things. (Tell me, have you ever had a Swiss roll with a sculpture on top? Or a tree on top?) It takes nothing more than Luis mentioning Spain and aniseed to get these looks from Bezza and Hollywood:

Piercing.

Luis keeps bees, because of course he does. It’s not quite Rob’s foraging-for-mushrooms, but it delights Mary. And gives us the line “His wife Louise gave him his first bee hive five years ago.”

There are too many bakers for me to write about all of them, so here are some highlights:
— Richard is a builder. This will be mentioned every time he is mentioned.
–Jordan has a ridiculous bike, and no colleagues in his office.
–Enwezor has four adorable children
–Everyone apart from Diana seems to be madly putting in every flavour they can think of – including one with pistachio, raspberry, and praline in one, which sounds disgusting.
–Diana ‘never uses a timer at home’. She’s making the jokes too easy for me.

This series’ theatrical contestant is… no, can’t remember her name, but she looks like Alex Kingston. This action is not for a moment explained. Unless you count the fact that she’s from Brighton and restores furniture as an explanation.

Her white chocolate/red velvet cake sounds delicious though.

For some reason we are treated to a montage of trainers, presumably because nobody has had the decency to drop anything on the floor or cut their fingers off.

Martha has hit the headlines by being the youngest ever contestant, at 17, and falls into the Ruby school of so-young-she-apparently-can’t-use-a-desk. She seems rather lovely (in an off-to-the-pony-club sort of way) and I wish her well. (Her bio on the website says she is the youngest by 14 years… that means everyone else is at least 31. Surely not?)

Is it just me, or does the ‘dream’ sign seem like a terrifying instruction?

Oh, Iain. He tells Mary that scoring the sponge is the best way to make sure it rolls properly. Oh, Iain.  That may become a mantra.  Mary has to be forcibly removed from the horrendous scene, because obviously it goes horribly wrong. Sue applauds, and Mary can’t bring herself to do anything but look faintly wounded.

And then we’re introduced to Norman. Those who predicted he’d become a favourite of mine were not wrong. He battles it out with Nancy, but he is a gem. We first see him informing us in detail that the Black Forest isn’t in Switzerland, in a thick Scottish accent, and showing us the pottery skateboard he’s made to display his Swiss roll, but things will get even better later.

“A traditional Swiss roll is rarely decorated. Something most of this year’s bakers are planning to ignore.” So declares Mel in the voiceover, while Diana (presumably) air punches in the background.

We swiftly move on to my other favourite baker, Nancy, who looks, sounds, and acts like a stallholder from a 1990s episode of Eastenders. She’s got wry wit down pat. She’s also completely unfazed by anything, to the delight of Mel.

Iain’s Swiss roll is a mess. My housemate was cheering him on, because they’re both Northern Irish, but even she had to concede that he had brought shame on Belfast. And he put basil and apricot together, which doesn’t sound good.

There are some very impressive Swiss rolls, however, with lovely decoration and excellent spirals. And then there is Norman, who stares, bewildered, at his Swiss roll for what feels like half an hour.

Where am I? What IS this?

It’s time for the first judging. Too many bakers to consider, again, but highlights are…
–Chetna’s chocolate sculptures
–Jordan’s strawberry pattern
–Mary and Paul say Claire’s cream is ‘nondescript’, and she replies that it’s a matter of opinion, and she likes it. Oh, Claire. Never disagree with the judges. They don’t like it. They don’t like it at all.
–Norman declares that his Swiss roll ‘is for men’. Which makes it sound like a cologne. “Swiss Roll. For Men.”
–Alex Kingston’s swirl is great, but apparently the sponge is dry.

We can’t go any further without talking about Iain’s beard. Oh, Iain. At least, if – sorry, when – he gets knocked out, he can play Mr. Tumnus in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

“A daughter of EVE?”

It’s time for the technical challenge – a cherry cake. “Good luck, and do your very best,” says Mary as she wanders out of the tent – sounding precisely as though she were a Forces’ Sweetheart sending out a message to our Brave Boys on the eve of Dunkirk. Which, doubtless, she once was.

(The least said about ‘pop Mary’s cherry… cake into the oven’, the better.)

Should we read anything into the St George’s flags, in place of the Union Flags?

“Why have you picked this for the first technical challenge?” says Paul. Mary resists replying “It had nothing to do with me, it was a team of producers in Salford”, and instead waffles on about the suspending of cherries and the distribution of cherries. If you’re given to drinking games, take a sip every time they say ‘distribution of cherries’, and you’ll be horrendously drunk before long. Paul asks her if the cake is better than her mother could make. “Yes!” says Mary, “but don’t tell her!” Can she possibly still be alive??

Tips about washing, chopping, and flouring cherries are vouchsafed to us. But Jordan has forgotten to save his cherries for the top.

Haunting.

At this juncture, let’s mention the absence of the Learn About Baking segments. They’ve finally run out of rudimentary things to say about cakes. Thank Heavens, says I.

In Norman News (I’m thinking about calling the newsletter Norman Is An Island) he used to own platform shoes, and is clearly already lifelong chums with gal pal Mel.

It’s not the most interesting challenge, as everyone seems to be pretty good at it. The main factor separating them is how they put the icing on the top. Some spread it on, some pipe it beautifully, and the builder goes rogue and puts watery icing on, saying ‘you have to go with your instinct’. No, builder man, you don’t.

Mary and Paul say ‘distribution of the cherries’ so often that it no longer means anything. Of course, it didn’t mean anything in the first place. A few ‘good bake’s are thrown in, but it feels a bit half-hearted.

Jordan comes in last, and Nancy comes top, but they all seem to be essentially the same. Iain redeems himself a bit by coming fourth. And the contestants are filmed in the dead of night.

Let me sleep.

We go through an unnecessary recap (DID SOMEBODY SAY UNNECESSARY RECAP OH THE IRONY) of the episode so far, and move onto the Showstopper Challenge – which is 36 miniature British cakes. Mel immediately repeats the challenge in the voiceover, for the hard of thinking.

Norman has a lucky spoon.

Quite a few bakers are making things which are in no way bitesize, such as Chetna’s four-tier sponges:

BBC1 hasn’t changed the cartoon recipe man. Not one bit. Keep doing you, cartoon recipe man.

Nancy has a guillotine to chop her cakes in half – Mel makes an excellent “You can execute cakes well with this!” pun (PUN KLAXON) which entirely goes over the head of our Nance, who just says “Yes” in response. Oh, Mel. Not appreciated in your own time.

Things are going surprisingly smoothly all round, despite Luis’s insistence on providing pipettes with his cakes, and Martha’s starstruck repetition of everything Paul says. Mad Jordan tells the oven to ‘fill your boots’, which means nothing. The soundtrack goes curiously musicbox Disney when they put cakes in the ovens.

Mel and Sue show how delightfully they haven’t changed at all – they steal Diana’s mousse and run around the tent with it. It no doubt reminds her of the vagaries of Marie Antoinette.

Curiously, my favourite moment of the whole episode is Norman saying “I’m just making the jam now.” It’s so wonderfully dour and deadpan. He then claims to have been paid twopence to pick raspberries in his youth “which was good money in those days”. I know that is the expression that people use about any amount of money, any time in the past, but… Norman, no, it never was good money. You were cheated. Call the child labour authorities.

Btw, I’m loving the lamb segues this week. It’s going to be adding insult to injury in pie week, though.

And then – oh noooo! Our first baking proper disaster of the day. Series-Two-Rob, wherever he is, is smiling down on the tent.

Paul and Mary stand awkwardly at the side and talk loudly about how horribly wrong it’s gone, while Claire bravely (and falsely) believes she can remedy it all. Mel and Sue continue to wander around and eat everyone’s off-cuts. There’s an unnecessarily long segment of bakers counting to 36.

Again, it’s nearly all very impressive. Every series the bakers get better and better.
Mary and Paul continue their different approaches to euphemism (Mary: “It doesn’t wow me.”/Paul: “They look a mess.”)
Mary uses the word ‘scrumptious’.
Builder man staunchly keeps a pencil behind his ear.
Mary and Paul claim never to have seen individual battenburgs before. Mr Kipling could tell them a thing or two.
Norman ignores everything they have to say, and is only interested in what they think about his jam. “What did you think of the jam?” he said, with the pride of a man who spent his boyhood making a meagre living picking raspberries.

Here are some of my favourites:

Star baker is:

Nancy. HURRAY!

And going home (following my formula of second-person-they-show-after-the-announcement-pause) is:

Claire. She laughs, but in her website Q&A she says that Paul has the eyes of Satan. So…

Next week – will Norman make more jam? Will Diana refuse to use electricity? Will Sue make an innuendo so inappropriate that the whole series is cancelled?

See you next week! Hope you’ve enjoyed it :)

Well, where were we?  You turn you back for one moment month, and almost all the bakers have exited the tent.  It’s the final – or the finale, if you will.  My favourites – Howard and Beca – have got the chop, and it’s an all-female final three: Kimberley, Frances, and Ruby.  In case you’ve not seen the episode yet, I shan’t reveal the winner until the end of the post.

First, some Bake Off news.  Guess who was reading my recaps?  Only blinkin’ Howard!  He references them in this tweet to me, which was exciting if a little unnerving.  And if you want to read about the language of some of the things they’ve been baking, I wrote a piece for OxfordWords.  Ok?  Ok.  Let’s set this ball rolling, and get our Bake Off on.

Mel and Sue are looking, as ever, gloriously like the Mums contribution to a half-hearted, no-budget school sketch show, and maintain a love for blazers which nowhere states, but everywhere implies, a covert sponsorship deal with Boden. Of all the wonderful things that make GBBO great, they might be the best.  Even above Mary Berry, in terms of if-they-went-the-show-would-be-ruined.  Indeed, this is exemplified by how awful that children’s series was, without them.  I’ll even forgive them the unnecessary flatulence joke.

The preview seems to suggest that Kimberley will be cross, Frances will crack and start naming objects around her (“spoon! spoon! spoon!”), Ruby will keep her rageful-neutral face, and the whole thing will be decided by a variant of the egg and spoon race.

This year’s final is mercifully short of finalists confiding in us that it’s the final, saying how much it means to them to be in the final etc. etc., so it gives me an opportunity to do a bit of it for them.  Or, rather, tell you how I feel about the contestants after a break of a few weeks.  (Incidentally, I’m not screencapping the bakers walking towards the tent, because they have thoughtlessly circumnavigated the bridge this week.  Give us a chance to say goodbye to the bridge, BBC2!  Rude.)

There’s been a lot of talk in social media about Ruby flirting with Paul, etc., and while I don’t think there is any justification in that allegation, she certainly seems to have been given rather an easier ride by both Paul and Mary than someone like poor Frances.  I think Mary might be under the impression that Ruby is her granddaughter.  Obviously I’ve not tasted Ruby’s food, and perhaps the flavours are as great as the judges say, but her presentation and consistency certainly haven’t seemed good enough to get to this stage.  “I just have to avoid having an episode,” Ruby alerts the viewer.  What sort of episode?!  Does she have anger management issues?  Is she a werewolf?  So many questions, so few answers.

My thoughts about Kimberley haven’t really changed over the series.  She still seems to be an exceptionally good baker, but just too cool and together for me to empathise with her.  If she’d ‘accidentally’ flung a plate of scones on the floor, she might be my favourite.  But that accolade is now reserved for…

Jury (of one person; me) was out on Frances in the first week or two, but I swiftly grew very fond of her boundless creativity and endearing gawkiness.  I can imagine her knitting a beret for a beagle, and that is a compliment.  She was self-aware enough not to be annoying, and presentation-wise she produced wonder after wonder – yet Paul, and even Mary, started getting really mean with her, repeating that mantra ‘style over substance’ every time they spotted her across the baking tent.  Poor Frances seemed quite crushed, and at one point Sue (bless her) even jumped to her defence.  “I need to bake my flipping socks off,” she says – and thus her transformation into an Enid Blyton character is complete.

The signature challenge!  A savoury picnic pie, whatever that means.  Almost everyone pays rapt attention to Mel’s explanation that it must be served out of the tin.

Or is she carrying an invisible tightrope pole?

Ok, reader, here’s my problem with this challenge.  Mary stipulates that the layers inside the pie must be, well, in layers – defined and separate.  As, apparently, indicated by this gesture (which could equally well be the cover of Mary’s inaugural hip-hop album):

But who wants to eat a pie like that?  Surely if the flavours all go well together, then you actually want them to be altogether?

Frances gives us a little primary school lesson on how rainbows appear, with nary a mention of Noah, which acts as a segue into her seven layered pie.  The BBC’s magical colouring book is, as always, in play.  I particularly appreciate how, for a pie which depends upon its layered interior, they’ve decided to make it as difficult as possible to see the inside.  Maybe they didn’t have all the right colouring pencils?

But they consistently get their apostrophes right.  Well done, BBC.

Mary gives a little shudder or two of joy at the description of the pie, which would have been in contention for OFFICIAL ANDREX PUPPY MOST ADORABLE MARY BERRY MOMENT if it weren’t for something rather special that comes up later…

We haven’t headed back to the bakers’ homes for momentary glimpses into their lives for a while, have we?  Well, with only three bakers left the glimpses are rather longer and more purposeful – and include adorable childhood photographs, like this one of Frances:

I assume Frances doesn’t still live with her parents, but nonetheless it is to Momma and Poppa Frances’ house that we’ve gone, and I’m getting definite kitchen envy.  While in this kitchen, Frances’ Mum asserts that she can’t smell because she was kicked in the nose when she was fifteen – a story told sotto voce while Frances talks about something else, so that I didn’t even notice it the first time.  I feel like it deserves a sombre silhouette-talking-in-darkened-room segment at the very least (perhaps an episode of Panorama? Does that still exist?) but instead Frances makes a delightfully catty comment about her lack of substance.

SUCH a nice shade of green. And that cute window! One day I will live in a house which is nothing but kitchens. And bookshelves.

And she talks about having won the hurdles in her youth (trivia #254: my brother has a fear of hurdles, having broken his arm while hurdling once) and, cottoning on to the show’s love of punnery, says “I’ve certainly hit some hurdles throughout this whole process.”  I choose to believe it is simply unfortunate editing that makes this the next shot:

Ruby is having troubles of her own.  Her vegetarian pie (which sounds amazing – halloumi, couscous, sundried tomatoes, mozzarella – sorry, my computer is malfunctioning from my mouth watering) is covered in lattice-pastry, and Design Queen Frances is doing the same.  “It’s a bit like appearing at a do wearing the same dress as someone else,” Ruth says (in my paraphrasing), “but the other person wearing the dress is a 6’3” Brazilian supermodel.”  Which I think is hilarious.  Well done, Ruby.

Were you aware that Ruby was a student?  I think it might have mentioned once or twice during the series.  Every time she is on the screen.  Well, they’re hammering the point home, and Ruby claims that she’s been doing all her baking in her bedroom.  Somebody flick through the tenancy agreement, stat.  Her Mum seems fun, and they obviously enjoy hanging out in the kitchen together – although it couldn’t be clearer that the cameraman has told Ruby’s Mum to stand and watch, and she looms awkwardly in the corner while Ruby slowly chops an aubergine.

Ruby, as always, is self-doubting in the corner – while Sue takes on Mel’s usual role of issuing dire warnings in the voiceover about how horrendously wrong pastry can go.  I am notoriously bad at rolling pastry and, while I’ve found a recipe for sweet pastry which rolls like a dream, I haven’t got one yet for savoury pastry.  Hence this, when my friend and I tried to make a quiche…

Nailed it.

“Kimberley has already made her pastry,” says Sue in a voice that is smug, if it is possible to be smug vicariously.  Not only that, but she’s made pastry in three colours – green, pink, and (er) pastry-coloured.  The pink pastry (coloured thus by beetroot powder) is shaped into little pigs to go on the side.  Because the pie has pork in it.  Is is just me, as a vegetarian, who finds that a little macabre?  Or adding insult to injury?  Cute, though.

And for her home-life VT she is strolling along the Thames (was it the Thames? I think so) with her boyfriend Giuseppe.  Can we talk for a moment about how ridiculously attractive this couple are?

Sickening.  I feel that, being handsome, clever, and rich (maybe), and having lived twenty-something years in the world with very little to vex or distress her, Kimberley doesn’t need to win this.  She’s already basically a Disney princess, but one with a brain.  AND she never dropped scones on the floor.

Because it’s pastry week, there’s plenty of talk of soggy bottoms, but it all feels a bit perfunctory at this stage.  I’m more interested in how delicious Ruby’s halloumi is looking.  I can’t tell you how much I love halloumi.

I want to make a ‘hallo, me’ / ‘halloumi’ joke. Bear with me. HALLO, ME HALLOUMI. Nailed it.

And now – because I know you’ve been waiting for it – is the OFFICIAL ANDREX PUPPY MOST ADORABLE MARY BERRY MOMENT.  When Frances’ back is turned, Mary, Mel, and Sue launch at her leftover asparagus and wolf it down.  And, yes, Mary was pirate-eating.

The pies are all ready to come out of the oven, and Ruby’s efforts to get hers out of the tin resemble the finesse and coordination that I usually show at such times.

But, oh my goodness, it looks wonderful when it’s out.  Whereas Kimberley, who would never make such a teatowelly mess of extracting her pie, has got something rather soggy and unappealing.  Revenge of the pigs?  Who’s to say. (YES.)

Judgement time…. DUH DUH DUUUUH.  For a show which makes so much of people opening oven doors or the length of time to bake a bread roll, there has been surprisingly little of the DUH DUH DUUUH variety when it comes to judging.  Instead, Frances gets the usual ‘good bake’ from Mary and Paul, and adorable gasps of wonderful from everyone’s surrogate mothers, Mel and Sue.  (They also remind me of those affectionate people at sports days who fawn over the children whose parents couldn’t make it.)

To hammer home the rainbow theme, Frances has also baked in an entire dove and olive branch.

Kimberley’s pie has fallen apart altogether, and gets “almost like a glue” from Paul.  Mary leaps in with the old faithful “seasoned very well” (a euphemism for ‘an aesthetic disaster’).  Whereas Ruby’s looks perfect:

As Paul says, “You’ve finally come up with something that looks like Frances made it.”

When Paul asks Ruby what they should be expecting to see inside, she replies “Hopefully some layers” in the most despondent, wry voice ever – for which I love her a little more.  I’m a big British cynic at heart, me.  I’d love to see her on America’s Next Top Model, where all the girls squeal in frenzied glee at meeting the CEO of a plastics recycling company or the assistant paint-mixer for the country’s third biggest supplier of emulsions.  She’d stand at the back, arms folded, inadvertently death-staring everyone.  It would be amazing.

Also amazing is her pie.  I want it right now.  As Mary says, “I think this is an excellent example of a vegetarian pie – what a difficult thing to get right.”  If only more places would realise that vegetarians don’t only want ‘cheese and onion’ in their pies.  (Revenge of the pigs is complete!)  (I realise that in this scenario I have somehow become the pig, but… er, it’s a metaphor.)  (Oh, I don’t know, leave me alone.)

Paul and Mary are sent to ‘frolic in the buttercups’ (the very thought… eugh) and the bakers are given the technical challenge of making sweet and savoury pretzels.  I didn’t even know you could get sweet pretzels, and I can’t really imagine they’d be especially nice.

“Who makes a pretzel?” says Ruby wonderfully, and perhaps it’s not too late for me to love her – and the editor, who segues immediately into Kimberley saying “I’ve made bread like a pretzel.”  What, pray (as my friend pointed out) is like a pretzel?

Tell me… what is baking?

Paul explains how to make a pretzel to Mary, who must know already, and wanders madly through the first, second, and third person so that his explanation sounds oddly like a recipe translated into and back out of Russian.

Frances explains that she’s good at kneading dough because she often gives her friends massages – as she says this she is flinging her dough violently onto the table, and it conjures up lines of Frances’ friends with broken and disfigured necks, wincing when they see her enter a room.

Everything is going well with making the dough, but nobody seems able to make the pretzel shape. Paul’s instructions have had the old Russian treatment again, and sound (as Sue observes) like the rudiments of a gymnastics routine.

But it doesn’t much matter what shapes they’ve concocted, as the next step is dropping them in boiling water and bicarbonate of soda – and that’s where things go awry.  Sue warns, over the voiceover, that the pretzel dough ‘only needs to be in for seconds’ (which could thus be anything up to and including eternity) and we pan to Ruby leaving hers for a nice long soak.  Sue wanders over and comments cheerily “They’ve been in a while” in a manner which is neither subtle nor, at this point, particularly helpful – but bless her for trying.

Paul and Mary re-enter the tent to judge the baskets of pretzels, and they all look pretty impressive to my undiscerning eye.  “There’s a sort of pretzel-look about that one” seems pretty damning with faint praise, but Mary’s “That’s a lovely orange flavour” is similarly damning.  I could make something a lovely orange flavour.  Just add orange zest.  But we all know Mary’s love of strong fruit flavouring.

Kimberley’s are leagues ahead of the other two, and although Ruby comes second and Frances comes third, it’s much of a muchness down the bottom end of the table.  Even Kimberley gets the comment from Paul “It’s the closest thing to a pretzel, but don’t clap.”  Ouch.

I included this picture just because I think Mary looks adorbs, but I hadn’t spotted before those framed pictures of pies and cakes in the background.  They seem to be by the same ‘artiste’ who is forever launched on the magical colouring books.  Also: how many series in do you think we’ll get before (a) Paul learns how to be natural with his arms, and (b) starts wearing blazers?  Do Boden have a men’s range?  Get on it, Bake Off stylists.

It’s time for the very last challenge of series four – and, hurray!, the bridge!

Bye, bridge. Take care.

Thankfully there was no Welcome To Cake History section this week (although some have been unusually interesting of late) so instead Paul and Mary recap the entire first half of the show, for anybody who’s flicked channels after Holby City, or whatever else was on.

And the showstopper challenge is… three-tier wedding cake!  In earlier series they’ve made entire tea parties in the final challenge, so this one doesn’t sound all that tricky to me.  Essentially they’re making lots and lots of sponge cake.  To divert attention from this, Paul follows Mary’s lead and attempts to flog his hip-hop album.

Frances is making a ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ wedding cake – although what it has to do with the play I can’t think, unless a donkey is shoved in the middle of it – and decorating it with dried beetroot, sweet potato, pineapple, and mango.  That sounds horrifying to me.  Dried fruit I can understand – but in what world is sweet potato a fruit?

We haven’t had a Mary Berry Reaction Face for a while, so perhaps it’s time to see what she thinks of dried sweet potato?

sweet mother of what now?

Kimberley is making a wedding cake covered in the word ‘love’ in many languages, and Mel pruriently asks whether she has anybody in mind.  Kimberley coyly confesses that the bottom layer of the cake is her boyfriend’s favourite flavour – which leads to an altogether more adorable Mary Berry Reaction Face:

Cleverly, Kimberley has made ‘cake pops’ and pours her chocolate fudge cake mixture over it.  She’s also making poppy seed butter cream, which sounds absolutely heavenly, and something I’ll be trying soon – but I’ve noticed that they tend to make butter cream which is much gloopier than the variety I make and, dear reader, it troubles me.

Ruby is making a cake which sounds equally delish, particularly the passionfruit/raspberry section.  And it strikes me for the first time that these Magical Colouring Book pictures are made after the fact, hence why this one so accurately resembles the end result.

But Ruby is no fan of weddings.  She considers them an ‘exercise in narcissism’.  Lovely – there goes her chances of snaring a baking column in Your Wedding.  Kimberley, meanwhile, is doing clever things with circles.

I wonder what it would be like if I tried to make it… A quick reminder, everyone:

Excuse me, I’m writing my acceptance speech for Baker of the Year.

And look who’s back!

Well, and several other GBBO bakers too, but it’s Howard we’re all here to see.  He’s cheering on Frances, Beca is championing Kimberley, and interestingly Glenn just says ‘I think Ruby will win’.  Not especially effusive, but then there are incidental shots of trombones and small girls in polka dot dresses to montage.

Back in the tent, Mary Berry is reiterating that Ruby is 21 – “very young!” – adding that she has “always winged it a bit”.  I’m pretty certain Mezza Bezza has never used that expression before or since.  We’ve whipped through the baking process pretty quickly, and somehow everybody iced their cakes without me noticing.  Indeed, we’ve come down to the final bits of decoration, and Frances has somehow sourced a great big tree trunk.  Ruby is struggling, and her decoration does look a bit ham-fisted… (revenge of the pigs!  No, wait, wrong baker.)

Aaand…. they’re done!  Cue rather sweet group hug.

The joke with caramelised sugar went too far when they all had to be taken to A&E.

Judging time!  But not before we’ve had three rather curious shots of the bakers staring poignantly at their creations.

I’ve got to say, for the showstopper challenge in the final of the fourth series, I’m not particularly impressed by the way any of them look.  Ruby’s is especially amateur, without the icing even being even, while Frances’ is fine but rather unambitious.  Perhaps she was terrified of providing style over substance?  Kimberley’s is my favourite – I love the quilting detail – but even her cake isn’t anything to write home about.  Which I have been doing on occasion, actually, but generally by email.  Hi Mum!

Ruby’s critique doesn’t go very well, and she does have a bit of a cry, the poor thing.  Paul has to lug Frances’ cake (and tree trunk) across the room, and – perhaps dizzied by this display of masculinity – the judges are very complimentary.  “I think the bride would be surprised” is one of the odder things Mary says.  It’s apparently a compliment, but since every bride who doesn’t appear on Don’t Tell The Bride would choose the flavours herself, then surprise can only be a terrible thing, leading to a ruined honeymoon and a protracted journey through the courts to get a full refund.

Of course, most cakes look like this after an ant infestation.

“If you know what you want and you set out to get it, there’s always a good chance you can achieve that – otherwise, what’s the point?” Kimberley, just before her judging, sweeps away decades of children’s television telling us it’s the taking part that counts, and it’s not her finest hour.  Mary isn’t impressed by her finish, which I thought was nice, but they love the poppyseed filling (drool) and give the flavours a general thumbs up – but find the chocolate cake dry.

And now it’s time for that egg and spoon race.

Yes, I’m reusing screencaps. What of it?

Paul and Mary repeat everything they’ve already said.  “We’ll always remember Ruby’s picnic pie,” says Mary – which, since it was a matter of hours ago, is no great testimony to her baking legacy.  They’re proud of Frances for learning, and – yes – say everything about Kimberley that they said earlier in the episode.  And honourable mention for OFFICIAL ANDREX PUPPY MOST ADORABLE MARY BERRY MOMENT comes when she suggests that Mel, rather than Sue, might win the trophy.  And by trophy I, of course, mean cake stand.

And the winner is…
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FRANCES!

I’m not ashamed to say that I clapped my hands with glee and shouted “yes!” – I was so certain that it would be Ruby or Kimberley that it came as a wonderful surprise.  She was definitely my favourite of the final three, totally deserved it, and was touchingly shocked at her win.

And the final moment of my recap must go to old Howard, who takes the opportunity to have a sly dig at Deborah and, in his accompanying clip, reminds me why I love him so.  I like to think that he, Mel, and Sue will all go on activities holidays together.

Thanks all for your kind words and enthusiasm this series!  I know I only recapped five episodes, but it somehow felt like I’d done the whole series – I definitely wouldn’t have put in the hours if it weren’t for your encouragement and good humour.

And thank you, GBBO, for being such a delight!  The final episode got the most views of any programme on BBC2 since records began, and they’ll all be back next year… hopefully, so will I.

This week in Bake Off news: I unfollowed Paul Hollywood on Twitter.  He used the wrong ‘your’, and then he missed out an apostrophe by writing ‘Bake Offs on’, and I couldn’t bear it anymore.  He’s taking it pretty hard.

Last week: The Great Custard Robbery 2013! Trifle! Frances created a life-size model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa from flaked almonds, and it’s now the country’s most lucrative tourist attraction!

And now…. pie week!  Or Soggy Bottom Week, as it’s come to be known across the nation.  I’ve been following the Bake Off on Facebook (no grammar misuse yet, so they’re not persona non grata yet) and they’ve got into puns in a big way.  PIEtanic was a personal favourite this week – excellent work, social media minion, you’ll earn yourself a Golden Pun Klaxon before long.

Mel and Sue open proceedings with some fake food bumps, because of course they do.  I love that one of the most watched programmes in Britain has all the finesse and production standards of an enthusiastic village pantomime – those ‘costumes’ must have taken all of five minutes to craft.

Can we talk about Ali’s hat for a moment?

I have no words.

He’s apparently come as a pixie this week.  A pixie who matches his hats exactly to his T-shirts – and note that subtly rolled up sleeve!  He’s heard that Mary is using GBBO to launch a fashion line (N.B. this may not be a true) and he wants a slice of that pie (PIE JOKE).  Well, he would, but I can only assume the pie is added to the pantheon of everyday food items of which he’s never heard.

Ooo, listen up, I have a (tenuous) excuse for putting Bake Off recaps on a book blog – Mel references the Life of Pi(e)!  And after we had a quotation from Jane Eyre last week (which I forgot to mention in last week’s recap, but which Thomas mentioned in the comments – it was a ‘Reader, I married him’ moment, which is always nicer to say on television than, say, “I meant to be a bigamist; but fate has out-manoeuvred me.”) it’s become a regular little book group.  (Ali has never heard of books.)

Exhib. 1: pastry

The signature challenge is ‘double crusted fruit pie’, which is apparently the correct way to describe a pie which has pastry on the top and the bottom.  Well, to me that’s just the description of a pie.  Pastry is my favourite part, and if it’s only on top I would feel CHEATED and ANGRY and probably pull a RUBYFACE.  I’ve been asked by Keen Reader Becci (er, my friend Becci) to include a catalogue of her faces this week – but they’re essentially all variations on ‘Angrily Considering Whether Stabbing Is An Overreaction And Deciding In Favour’, with the odd beatific smile thrown in.  She has no spectrum of faces.

Ali, of course, has never made a pie.  But even he should probably be aware that clingfilm isn’t the best ingredient to include…

“I love to use ingredients from around the world,” he says.  This invariably means using ingredients that nobody, anywhere in the world, would even briefly consider using.  It’s a euphemism for ‘fondness for the inedible’, isn’t it?  He admits that he doesn’t like – nay, loathes – fruit pies, and I think it’s time for our first Mary Berry Reaction Face, don’t you?

The Great British Bake Off so gradually became a sequel to The Exorcist, that I barely noticed the change.

It’s no secret that I now adore Howard and could listen to his voice all day long.  My new favourite Howard Word (Howord?) is ‘polenta’.  I can’t express how wonderfully he says it.  It’s a mini-play all by itself.

Apparently it gives the pastry a ‘more biscuity’ flavour.  Since he’s previously used the adjective ‘cakey’ of his cake, I can only assume that he just sticks ‘y’ on the end of everyday baked goods when describing things.  Get ready for his bready meringues, desserty cottage loaves, and pastryey crème brûlée.

His VT can’t possibly compare to Joggingate – I’ve come to terms with the knowledge that the rest of my life will be an anticlimax now – so instead we see him hand out cakes in an office.  I’m absolutely certain that he has never been in this office before.  Those women clearly have no idea who he is.

Is that even a real office? It looks suspiciously like it’s been crafted at the back of the tent. By Frances, from isinglass.

Taking up the jogging mantle is lovely Beca – appropriately enough, since she is rivalling Howard for the place of my favourite – and she looks more competent, but rather angrier.  Compare and contrast, you ask?  Why, yes, of course.

Note the scandalous words on Beca’s T-shirt.  I’m wearing a shirt which says ‘Bad grammar makes me [sic]’, which just goes to show the difference between us.  Let’s look at some food, shall we?  I must remember to do more of that in these recaps… and here is what Beca is planning for her ‘cherry-apple’ cake.  Apparently a cherry-apple is what her grandmother used to call rhubarb to get them to eat it.  Beca, the minx, is just perpetuating a vicious lie.  Won’t SOMEBODY think about the children?

Apparently her grandmother’s pies did have soggy bottoms, but “it didn’t never bother us.”  God bless Wales.

Frances is playing fast and loose with my affections.  She is treading such a tightrope.  I love the inventiveness, I love the mad creativity… but it has to come with a dollop of self-consciousness.  I was at a wedding last weekend, and discussing GBBO (obvs) – my friend Rachel loathes Frances.  I still like her, but… just don’t become Holly, Frances.  This week she is making a James and the Giant Peach pie, which is yet another link between books and pie.  It’s almost as though this review had some sort of place on this blog.  As Sue says, “It sounds like it needs planning permission.”

Glenn solemnly intones “Moisture is the enemy of everything today.”  I just don’t know what to do with that sentence.  But – he’s in a Scrabble club!

There are some pretty colours going on in Glenn’s bake – I missed what he used to get this colour, but it doesn’t look super-appetising.  Is now a good time to admit that I don’t get very excited about fruit pies?  I think it’s because I don’t much like cooked apple unless there is a very high ratio of blackberries or something else.  So I wasn’t particularly tempted by the bakes for this challenge.  Sorry, folks. (But my housemate Ellie did make an AMAZING apple and blackberry crumble this week, so sometimes it works brilliantly.)

But it’s not as strange as Christine, who starts rhyming… “I’m bending down to have a look / Because I’m waiting for my pie to cook.”  Well, it’s better than anything Andrew Motion achieved in ten years as Poet Laureate, I’ll give her that.  And Kimberley seems amused.

Is now a good time to tell you about the time I went to buy a pastie, and somehow put ‘pastry’ and ‘pastie’ together and asked for a ‘paystie’.  As in ‘pasty’, as in a pale and unhealthy appearance.  Good times.

Sue is her usual helpful self, with pro-tips for baking excellence: “I think that brown stuff is burn.”

She’s not wrong.

“It is what it is,” says Glenn, and my soul shrivels up a bit.  As mentioned before (I admit this far too readily) I watch a lot of bad American reality shows, generally with people aiming to be models or fashion designers or join the cast of Glee, and “It is what it is” is their go-to expression.  It’s unutterably fatuous.  Of course it blinkin’ is what it is.  It’s hardly investigative journalism, is it?

On the topic of investigative journalism, I have one question for you.  Is Glenn Paul’s illegitimate son?

Inconclusive.  (Can we talk for a moment about Beca’s EXCELLENT photobombing here?  But, also…. is it me, or has ‘horror movie’ become the inadvertent theme of this recap?)

Let’s whip through the judging.  My favourite moment during the critique is when Paul tells Kimberley that her pie is the best one he’s eaten in a long time, and Mary just tells her what it is: “It’s a toffee apple pie!”  Other than that, biggest shock is when Frances is given a ‘style over substance’ talk.  “You’re miles away from the flavour point,” says Paul, incomprehensibly.  But… look how pretty!

My favourite post-critique moment is this, frankly terrifying, staring-down that Christine is giving Ali.

Right, it’s the Technical Challenge, and this week (despite Sue’s suggestion that they just have a rave) it’s sponsored by Lionel from As Times Goes By – that’s right, custard pies!  Paul goes into eulogies about the pies put in front of him, and shows off a fine specimen.  He talks about how they must have ‘a slight wobble’, and shakes a tart which does not, for the merest moment, show the slightest sign of a wobble.  But it certainly holds shape when it is cut in half, and already I have images (some of which, admittedly, come from the what’s-coming-up bit at the beginning of the episode) of pies self-destructing all over the place.

As per usual, the instructions for the technical bake are ludicrously brief.  As Beca notes: “Make the custard. Helpful.”  There are distinct schools of thought over whether it should be heated or not, and there’s quite a bit of staring and self-doubt

In the midst of a baking frenzy, we have an oo-er-missus speculation on Howard’s sexuality: “that would be telling!”  The Bake Off becomes ever more like a village panto.  And, in this case, “she’s behind you!” would be apt.

Beca is such an excellent photobomber, yet again.

“Already time is against us,” laments Glenn.  He is taking on the role of John from last series, who just said melodramatic and vague warnings, like a pessimistic sooth-sayer of the middle ages.  Shortly afterwards he says he is “pouring like a buffoon”, so maybe he’s more like a Jennings character.  Can’t decide.

“We’re all going to die one day anyway.  Fossilized fishhooks!”

Ruby has a very clever technique for making her sure her pies come out easily – which I think others might soon wish they’d thought of – and I’ll certainly be copying it in the future.

BAKING HISTORY is actually quite interesting this week.  But I’m still going to gloss over it.

BYE BAKING HISTORY THXBYE.

Mel’s fatuous voiceover advice this week?  My favourites are “The pastry must reach the top of the mould.” and “The oven must be hot enough to cook the pastry.”   But what role does gravity play in this, Mel?  And should – or should not – the bakers close the oven doors?  Enquiring minds want to know.

Everything’s going wrong in the tent.  Ali sticks his tarts in the freezer, Frances is genuflecting, and Glenn has started hitting himself in the face with a baking tray.

Horror film. Again.

Ruby’s tabs have worked a treat, but her pastry isn’t cooked… and this is happening over at Glenn’s station.

…and Howard’s.

It’s all a bit of a mess, with only a couple people coping.  We haven’t such despair and haplessness since the Fondant Fancy challenge of 2012.  Paul is positively gleeful at the idea of all these disasters.

My friend Meg pointed something out to me on Facebook during the week, and I made sure I checked it out this week… Rob’s face on the placard identifying him in the Technical Challenge.

Good lord!  What a beaming smile, and what a discrepancy between that, and this usual ‘delighted’ face.  Let’s remind ourselves…

Glenn is last in the Technical Challenge.  Top three are Rob, Beca, and Frances…

Another day, some incidental pictures of sheep, and we’re back in the tent for the Showstopper Challenge – which is a filo pastry pie.  I am intrigued as to how they can make filo pies look ‘showstoppery’ (officially a w word – I used to work for Oxford Dictionaries, m’kay?) but I am ready to be impressed.  I also know that there isn’t the smallest chance I’d ever try making filo pastry, because it looks incredibly difficult… Paul says “It’s like a membrane – you have to open it up and throw it over a newspaper.”  One can only be grateful that his career as a surgeon never came to much.

Christine is making a Roasted Vegetable Filo Pie with Feta Cheese – which sounds delicious – but is it just me, or does that BBC-colouring-pencils sketch look far more like an octopus than the depiction of Rob’s octopus ever did?  Compare and contrast time again…

Bakers are slapping their filo pastry over the desks with gay abandon, and then suddenly the show decides to become everything I ever hoped or dreamed for.  In quick succession, there are several moments which, individually, would each have been Highlight of the Week.  It’s like they read my blog, and decided to give me a helping hand.  First up, OFFICIAL ANDREX PUPPY MOST ADORABLE MARY BERRY MOMENT:

I’m not one to question the decision-making of our great monarch, but I’ve got one burning question – why the heckitty d. peckitty is Mary Berry not a Dame yet?

Frances is using a shower cap on her pie, which is pretty impressive, but before I can pay close attention, Rob says this: “I have joined a local mushroom club.  I do like to forage.  It is a very unforgiving pastime.”

Is this foraging?  It looks a lot like getting stuff out the fridge.

He adds that he’s making ‘piethagoras’.  Can we declare the Great Age of Television over?  It’s all downhill from here.

Frances is making a baklava cherry tree…

As I say, to Ellie watching it with me, “Of course she is.”  And then Mel says the same thing on the voiceover.  I adore baklava, but her description of combining the pistachio of baklava with cream cheese (was it?) and orange sounds rather disgusting.

This post has been going on far too long, as usual, so I’m afraid we’re going to fast-forward through to the results.  Which is a shame, because the manipulation of filo pastry is pretty amazing.  We see pastry covering two-metre expanses of table, and quite extraordinary preparations.

Check out Rob’s craftily made ruler thing.  I have no idea what function it’s supposed to perform, or whether it was successful.

He’s long behind, because the mushrooms took half an hour longer to clean than he expected.  Couldn’t they just have provided clean mushrooms?  He does have a lovely moment with Sue, when he tells her to get lost but “I’ll call” – to which she replies “They all say that!”

Favourite pun moment?  Mel saying that she might be “throwing a spanikopita in the works”.  Golden Klaxon to you, m’lady.

The angst highlight is the three-person job of getting Howard’s pie out of the dish – Glenn gurns in the background, saying he can’t look while obviously looking, the liar, and it’s treated a bit like the big scene in The Great Escape or The Dam Busters.  I have never seen either of those films, but I’m guessing they have big scenes, no?

Here are my favourites, appearance-wise:

Bonus points to Ruby for saying “It’s a lot better than what I normally knock up.”

And time for the results!
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Star baker is…

BE LESS PERFECT KIMBERLEY

But going home – and thus removing the promised meltdown for which I’d been waiting, is:

Ruby’s eye here provides the last terrifying moment of the episode.

He claims not to recognise Mary Berry, or to know his own name, or to understand the word ‘out’, but sadly these technicalities do not keep him in.  Bye, Ali!  It’s been emotional.  Bless poor Howard, he has a little weep, and I love him x 100.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s recap, and if you have a sad moment this week (Howard) just think about Mary Bezza threatening Paul H with a lump of raw filo dough.

Apologies for the delay in posting this recap, folks!  I was halfway through it last night when iPlayer stopped working, and then my internet stopped working altogether.  But at least it sets a precedent for me being a bit tardy with these… think of it as delayed gratification, k?

Last week: the bakers baked bread, Paul was in his element, and a lady whose name I have already forgotten seemed to believe that an ordinary loaf qualified as a showstopper, and thought that putting tomatoes on top qualified as ‘a twist’.  Mary did her I’m-not-angry-I’m-just-disappointed face, and Paul did his I’m-not-disappointed-I’m-just-angry face.  Meanwhile, I got the wrong James Bond, apparently – it’s Roger Moore who was fond of the raised eyebrow and the I’m-glad-you-dropped-in punnery, not Sean Connery, so here is Mary again with the right Bond comparison.

That’s Moore like it.  Ahahahaha.  Sorry.

This week: desserts!  Much more exciting than bread.  If I know anything about the Great British Bake Off – and I’ve spent more time watching it than I have in all the world’s art galleries combined – then I’m expecting a number of references to ‘just desserts’.  But I have to say that Mel and Sue start the show off in fine fettle, with mention of ‘stressed’ being the word ‘desserts’ backwards.  That’s cleverer wordplay than “It’s a trifle difficult” or “Creme patisserNO, morelike”.  And Mel looks rightfully pleased with herself.

Sue’s Eric Morecambe tribute act continues apace.

The bakers file in across The Bridge, which is fast becoming my favourite bridge in all of fact and fiction (take THAT bridges of Madison County, battle of Stanford Bridge, Bridge[t] Jones) and share their thoughts about dessert week.  Christine is pretty excited about it all, while Ruby Tearday cheerfully says that, having been Star Baker last week, “it’s only going to go downhill.”  Ali looks ready for a baking breakdown and, in the nicest possible way, I can’t WAIT.

And it would be remiss of me to go any further without mentioning Mary’s luminous yellow jacket.  Is she at the forefront of Fashion for the Older Woman, or has she recently been shimmying up a telegraph pole to have a quick look at the telephone wires?  You decide.

So, the signature bake is trifle – and it turns out that my pun klaxon has taken on prophetic ability, as we instantly get a ‘trifle’ pun.  I’m already a bit nonplussed by this choice of challenge, to be honest, because I wouldn’t have thought you could go far wrong with a trifle (and hadn’t thought they involved all that much baking) but I’m ready and willing to be proved wrong.  Mel solemnly intones that this is the first time the baker have been asked to multi-task, which can’t possibly be true, and Beca already seems to be losing it.

Sue talks about ‘a base of lady fingers’, and I can hear her physically restraining herself from making a pun, possibly because it would wander into the lewd.  Ali claims never to have heard the word ‘trifle’ before, or to recognise any one of the ingredients or utensils in front of him, or to know where he is or how he got there.  However he’s making a raspberry and coconut trifle, which is always a wonderful flavour combination, so good luck to him.

I’m intensely relieved to discover that Glen does have a home to go to after all (although it looks suspiciously like a show home on a housing estate, and he’ll probably be asked to leave in the next ten minutes.)  Here he is, having whipped up a croquembouche…

“You’ll note that this room is dual aspect… sir, SIR, I MUST ask you to leave the kitchen alone.”

…but more importantly, here is his adorable dog.

But there is strong competition for most adorable thing – OFFICIAL ANDREX PUPPY MOST ADORABLE MARY BERRY MOMENT – in Mary’s face when Glen tells her he’s using her ‘flavour combination but not her recipe’.

Incidentally, this face is every argument you’d ever need against Botox.

Since that flavour combination is ‘raspberry and almond’, I remain unconvinced that anybody is pushing the boat out.  Where is whatshername from two years ago, who insisted on adding hyacinth branches or diced yak to the most innocuous of dishes?  The nearest we get is Una Stubbs, who is apparently disregarding the challenge altogether and making a lemon Swiss roll.

And giving me kitchen envy.

She is also seemingly a closet alcoholic, and has hidden cointreau in a spray bottle.  She swiftly pretends that it is connected to her baking (hiding her bottle of vodka in the oven) and Paul, Mel, and Mary all spray it into their mouths – giving us an honourable mention for OFFICIAL ANDREX PUPPY MOST ADORABLE MARY BERRY MOMENT, when Mary gives a little jump of surprise at the aftertaste.

We leave Una Stubbs to her inevitable intervention (wouldn’t Inevitable Intervention be a great name for a band?  Noting it down…) and head over to a battle of titanic proportions.  Here’s an antagonism waiting to brew.

“I’m not a big fan of jelly. It’s just not my cup of tea.”

“I’m sorry, you can’t have a trifle without jelly.”

It’s about to get REAL in here, folks.

Oh, and I love Beca for saying that, in West Wales, they have Sunday roast “pretty much every day of the week”.

There still isn’t really very much to say about making trifle, since it seems to consist almost entirely of bits they would normally make at the last minute to shove on top of their more ambitious creations (I’m always impressed by how these bakers make jam at the drop of a hat, while it would take me most of a week) so let’s leave them to it.  It gives me a moment to say that, far from being Brend 2, Howard is a complete sweetie and I love him.  He may be from the combined creative vision of Alan Bennett and Woody Allen, but neither of them could have dreamt up the wonderful vision of him jogging.

If I knew how to make a GIF, I would.  I don’t.

Kimberley update: her hobby is salsa dancing.  NO, Kimberley, NO.  You need a hobby which makes you look less cool.  Take a leaf out of my book – my hobby is watching reality television and writing about it on the internet.

It’s like salsa dancing, only you sit alone in your room and don’t move.

Words of wisdom from Ali: “Nobody likes a soggy macaroon.”  Comment in the comment section if you do!

The intro promised us ‘the first ever baking burglary” – I’d assumed that Christine would swipe Mary’s jacket – but in fact it is Una Stubbs stealing from Howard!  She accidentally takes his custard – and he is FILLED WITH RAGE.

Haunting.

The trifles are judged, and they all look… like trifles.  Although I have to put in a good word for Ruby Tearday’s impressive tropical-themed trifle, complete with palm tree.

Mary and Paul struggle to say very much to everyone – Mary does say to someone “It’s a bit like a cake with cream and fruit on top of it”, which is precisely the definition they’ve given us of trifle – so we get half-hearted comments about bowls being too full, or flavours being overpowering.  And it turns out that Howard’s custard was better than Una Stubbs’s, so her Grand Larceny was either very canny, or… not.

More importantly… is that a rival bridge I spy?  Don’t even think about it, bridge!

I have no idea what he was saying. I was too distracted by the bridge.

TRIFLE HISTORY!

THANKS TRIFLE HISTORY!

The second challenge is… floating islands, or, umm, whatever that was in French.  Here is the one Mary (probably didn’t) make earlier, and it looks delicious:

I’m also pretty sure Tina Turner had the hairstyle in the ’80s.

I haven’t quite grasped what floating islands are, but it seems to involve poaching meringue in milk.  I’ve made plenty of meringues in my time, but I’ve never done this…  Frances claims that she’s in ‘meringue no-man’s-land’, which is presumably the latest spin-off of Foyle’s War. It has to be conceded that they don’t look very attractive at the moment.  Sue holds up Howard’s custard (see fig.1) and says that it looks like a metaphor for climate change.

Er, fig.1.  Why not?

To me it looks more like a metaphor for cauliflower cheese, but sure.

Then they start making spun sugar…

I’m always relieved when they turn to something that I have done before, because then I can assess how over the top the programme is being about difficulty levels.  Spun sugar is pretty easy, but you wouldn’t guess that from the interviews we have as the cameraman dashes from panicked baker to panicked baker.  “I don’t what temperature it should be!” cries one; “I don’t know how to get the shape!” cries another.  Ali, of course, claims never to have heard of sugar before.

Mary and Paul step up to the table of floating islands, and they certainly differ quite a lot in appearance.

This is rather how I envisage a Waitrose-sponsored zombie drama.

In last place, for this challenge, is a man whose name I still don’t know.  I’d forgotten he was there.  The top three are Ruby Tearday, Rob (who has been rather quiet this week), and in first place is Glen.  Now that he’s been let out of the school store cupboard, he’s going places.

In the who-might-be-going-home bit, we get the inevitable custardy/custody joke – but apparently Mary hasn’t heard it before, as she dissolves into hysterics.  Was I premature in awarding the OFFICIAL ANDREX PUPPY MOST ADORABLE MARY BERRY MOMENT?  We’ll never know.

Finally, we have the showstopper challenge!   I miss what it is they’re making at first, and discover quite how vague everything they say actually is.  Lots of bakers saying how tricky it will be, and Paul mentioning that he requires perfection, while Mary makes sympathetic noises without (so far as I can tell) forming complete sentences at all.  Maybe they film a series’ worth of these segments at the beginning of August, and just intersperse them later?

It turns out that they’re making petits-four.  And it’s at this point that iPlayer starts playing up.  So I’m off to bed, and will come back to this recap tomorrow, if iPlayer is behaving…

Seamless, no?

Well, petits-fours are certainly rather trickier than trifle, and I am completely lost with almost everything they say – mostly because everything is in French.

Christine is thrilled that her petits-fours are going to be ‘sickly’ (hmm) but I am impressed with her husband, who has made her a little wooden implement especially for shaping them.

Una Stubbs, however, is heading for disaster – because she’s using edible flowers and rose.  Has anybody ever used flowers or rose without the judges saying that the end result tastes too much of flowers or rose?  Well, perhaps she’ll prove us all wrong.

But at least almost all those words are in English.

Ruby Tearday confesses that she’ll be winging it, and Paul (much like Shania Twain before him) implies that That Don’t Impress Me Much.  As ever, when at a loss, Mel talks in a voiceover about the perils of getting an even bake.  It’s like an ‘umm’ to her; I’m not even sure she knows she’s doing it.

Frances.  Ah, Frances.  You’ve been oddly quiet this week, and I assumed you might be saving yourself for the Showstopper Challenge – and you’ve not let us down.  “I’m doing my petits-fours inspired by Tchaikovsky’s The Nut Cracker ballet.”  Oh, of course you are, Frances.  I assume each petits-fours will function as a working violin.

Er, spoilers. Here’s what they’ll look like.

And Howard is making savoury petits-fours, based on things you might have at the end of a meal.  One inspired by coffee, and the other “based on cheesy biscuits.  It’s essentially like a cheesy biscuit.”  You know how sometimes the artist’s inspiration is hidden deep within their creation, unknowable to the casual observer?  This isn’t one of those times.  Mary Berry Reaction Shot Time, I do believe.

Una Stubbs has swerved past Ali on the inside track as the one most likely to have a meltdown – she clearly hasn’t recovered from the theft incident, and is getting pretty distraught about her fluting.

“I’ve lost my fluting,” she says.

I’ve never seen Cathy Come Home, but I can’t imagine it matches this for anguish.  Elsewhere in the tent, impressive things are happening with petits-fours – just look at these!

Kimberley’s, btw.

It’s a mistake, I’ve realised, to recap before dinner rather than after it.  As someone who makes nice cakes writ large but is useless with fiddly bits, I am filled with envy of all these bakers.  So, that’s coveting, envy, and (as with every moment of my life) sloth, so 3/7 Deadly Sins.  We’d best fast forward to my favourites…

Christine gets an “Mmm, that’s scrummy” from Mary, while Ruby gets “THAT’S a bit of alright”.  Mary.  Beca – who might be my favourite baker now – does fantastically well in this challenge, and certainly doesn’t hold back from arm-waving, fringe-blowing, and exclamations of joy – while Una Stubbs gurns in misery in the background.

There is a moment in the deliberation section where Sue and Mel riff on the idea of Paul and Mary marrying.  It’s every bit as wonderful as you’d imagine.  You wouldn’t get that on the French version, stuffy pompous lady who wrote this article.

Anyway, winners and losers below the jump…
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Star Baker is…

Christine! Hurray!

but going home is…

Two people!  That was rather a surprise, but if it had to be two, those are – sadly – the two.  Mark interviews that, if he hadn’t been told he was going home, he’d have questioned the decision, while Una Stubbs – no, for this last time, Deborah – laughs about her ‘cascade of misery’.  Well, if you don’t laugh, you respond in an appropriate manner.

Next week – pies and tarts!  Hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s recap, and I’ll see y’all then.

Last week: hundreds of bakers swarmed around the tent, and kept appearing until the last minute of the show.  They claim there were 13 (yes, ‘baker’s dozen’ makes an appearance in the episode 2 what-happened-last-week) but I stopped counting at forty.  And you were all very welcoming of my recap and said lovely things, which was very encouraging!  Thank you so much.

This week it’s Bread Week, which of course means that the intro is filled with various people telling us that it’s Paul Hollywood’s speciality, and nary a Mary in sight.  Maybe she doesn’t care about bread.  Maybe she’s busy shrieking at someone in make-up for having the wrong eyelash curler.  It is not for us to know.

As for the bakers in the intro – my eye is on Teary Ruby (note to self: make this a better pun on Ruby Tuesday… Ruby Tearday?) Ruby Tearday seems to be just as angry and sullen as last week, if the ‘coming up next’ clips are to be trusted.

If this were America’s Next Top Model (note to self: try not to alienate 90% of the audience immediately) she’d be the one who’d snap at week eight and have a showdown with Tyra, who would pretend to be motherly and tell her to “own her best self” or something.  Since this is the bake off, I presume she’ll just quietly leave in week three, and maybe write a passive aggressive column for Marks & Spencer’s Your Home magazine.

PUN KLAXON.  Remember how the Bake Off got all self-aware about puns last week?  Well, this week they don’t even introduce the topic, they just start riffing on ‘Bohemiam Bapsody’ and the like.  I’m a bit worried that my klaxon will self-combust in a fit of ironic self-contradiction.  But I also enjoy that blazers appear to be contagious.  And that Mel seems to be coming up with a ploy to strangle a short person.

“If I close my eyes, I’m not an accessory to the crime.” “AccessoRYE to the THYME, more like.”

Our first challenge is signature bake breadsticks.  Mel solemnly entones “Breadsticks are made all over the world” – which smacks of a BBC researcher hoping to find an interesting fact about breadsticks on Wikipedia, and giving up almost immediately.  Which is quite apt, because it’s a monumentally uninteresting topic.  Bread week always is.  I love bread as much as the next man – indeed, unless the next man is Paul Hollywood, I love it rather more.  Man cannot live by bread alone, Scripture tells us, but let’s not forget that the next words are ‘but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’  Amen to that, say I, but we don’t need to diversify the food bit much.  I’d happily eat nothing but bread and cheese all day, everyday.  But… that doesn’t make it aesthetically interesting in the way that cakes are.  So, instead, let’s turn to the judges…

Is it a coincidence that Paul and Sue both have their hands in their pockets (although only Paul looks like he’s in the middle of a line dance) while Mary and Mel have their hands folded in front of them?

Yes.

Mary has wrapped up warm for the day, which suggests that it’s not quite as balmy as the incidental shots of lambs intend us to believe.  I tried to get a shot of Mary looking smiley and cheerful, but instead she’s come out looking a little like Sean Connery…

We wander through all the recipes and suchlike, but you don’t come here for those sorts of summaries, do you?  Breadsticks, I repeat, are not scintillating things (though very pleasant to eat) so it’s difficult to get animated over the fact that some people are putting in cardamom and some people orange etc.  (Those are made up, by the way.  I don’t remember what they put in.  Well, except for Frances.  Just wait for her…)

So, instead, let’s look at the VTs this week.  Second week is, apparently, Hobbies Week, where the bakers scrabble around to find anything, anything at all, to offer.  A question once only required for dating videos and French GCSE coursework, listing your hobbies is apparently a reality show must nowadays.  Poor Glenn apparently has no home life, as we see him yet again in his school.  Awkward.

“I sleep in the store cupboard.”

Stranger still is Rob, who claims to be a scientist, but apparently just looms over scientists all day.  If staring through a window counts as employment nowadays, then the people at Boswell’s owe me rather a lot of money.

And then he claims to be a ‘mushroom forager’.  This is so clearly not a thing that I can only presume he works for MI5.

My favourite, though, is Ali.  I forget what he does (besides panic, of course) but this is apparently a mock-up of something he’s creating at work:

Can you imagine Alan Sugar doing this?

And I promised you an update on Frances’s breadsticks – which are ginger and chocolate, but more than that, they are in the shape of matches.  And she’s made a novelty-sized matchbox.  Of course she has.

Sadly this is the best angle we see it at, so I can’t read the text on top, but I think (and hope and pray) that it says Berry’s Matches on top.  Frances reminds me a bit of Our Vicar’s Wife… in terms of being a bundle of creativity that tips that merry balance into delightfully bonkers (did I ever tell you that Mum built a gypsy caravan out of wood in our back garden?  Twice?)  (Love you Mum!)   Frances is tightrope walking along that line between sweetly ambitious and Holly-obnoxious.  (Remember Holly?  She was the one who hid a miniature gingerbread house under her croquembouche.)  At the moment she is just the right side of awful, because she is so endearingly like a Sunday School teacher gone mad, and just self-aware enough to keep the audience on side.

Sadly, it turns out to be Baker’s Matches. Apt, but not Mary enough.

And I’m inaugurating the Official Mary Barry Adorable Moment of the Week Award.  Sponsorship deal yet to be confirmed, but I’ve got high hopes that the Andrex puppy will get on board.  Well, this week it’s Mary playing spillikins with Rob’s breadsticks.

If you print those out, they’ll make the world’s shortest flipbook.

One and a half episodes is a bit early to say how I feel about the bakers, but now that I’ve started to at least recognise each of them, I’m going to go ahead and judge them as people and moral individuals, the way that reality television wants me to.  Ahem.  You know that I love Beca, Christine, and Una Stubbs, but let’s talk about a couple of others.

Well, Rob may not be a euphoric individual, but I feel a great deal of empathy with him – as will many of you – when I saw this moment:

And what about Kimberley?  I have a feeling that she might be a bit too cool for this show.  She’s very beautiful, calm, collected, and – yes – cool.  If she gets flour smeared across her face, or trips over an open oven door and flings a tray of buns on the floor, then I think I’ll find her easier to like.  Not that she’s dislikeable, it’s just that every moment she is on the screen, I realise how inept and hopeless my life is.  That’s all.

Judging.  Nothing of interest to report – how could there be? – except that apparently I no longer notice when parts of speech are misused.  ‘Good bake’ sounds like perfect English to me now.  But there is some hope for me passing my English DPhil, since I’m still not quite on board with “Welcome to yeast!” and “I think the raisin does bring something to the party.”

Ruby Tearday does very well and SMILES!

In other news, a pig has started manning flights to a blue moon.

And we’re onto the technical challenge, which is English muffins. Yummmm.  I love them, but I would question whether or not they’re worth going to all that effort for… but they’re not as absurd as when they made those chocolate marshmallow cake things that cost £1.50 for eight.

And Brend 2.0, whose name I have sadly forgotten – last week I suggested he could be The Brend reimagined by Woody Allen; this week I think he might be The Brend as reimagined by Alan Bennett.  It’s not just the Northern accent, it’s that everything he says sounds like a half-comic, half-mournful segment from Talking Heads.  (Ten points, by the way, if you are the only other person in the world who likes both America’s Next Top Model and Talking Heads.  Never let it be said that my cultural references are limited, or coherent.)  Witness, for instance, his way of testing the temperature of his griddle : “I’ve been putting my face over it, to test the heat coming up.”  Alan wishes he’d written that line.

Incidentally, while I’m making spurious televisual references, Sue’s ‘BAKE!’ is getting steadily more like Stephen Fry playing General Melchett in Blackadder Goes Forth.

Uncanny, no?

Muffins give Sue and Mel a chance to reel off the ‘Do you know the muffin man?’ rhyme, and this out-of-work actor to get his Equity card.

Available for panto.

Back to muffins.  Alan Bennett’s Brend (I really ought to research their actual names – like, y’know, reading my own recap from last week) suffers from Sue’s carelessness, and she leaves an elbow imprint in one of his muffins… Since everyone seems to have stopped hacking at themselves with knives, this is given a fair bit of fanfare.  (Could this outbreak of self-stabbing last week have been canny contestants trying to make sure they got some notice from the camera, among the dozens of competitors?)

Bezza and Paul step forward to do the judging, and I’m impressed by pretty much all of the muffins, which do look pretty uniform across the board.  Oddly Mary doesn’t seem to eat any of them – at least we don’t see her doing so on screen; I know, I was waiting for a Pirate Shot – and a woman I only vaguely recognise comes last.  Frances is second, and Kimberley comes top.  No tripping over in sight.  Hmm.

I’ve not addressed the difference between English muffins and American muffins, have I?  Well, always leave the audience wanting more.

Showstopper challenge!  In the lead-up chat-around-the-tea-table, Mel says “Every baker goes into the final needing to do well” – Paul looks suspicious, and my pun klaxon is being judiciously oiled, but… turns out the needing/kneading pun was inadvertent.  Klaxon back away.  FOR NOW.

There isn’t really anything very ‘showstopper’ about bread, is there?  Some bakers are bravely going to decorate their loaves, which I can’t imagine working, but while it exists only in the form of the garish faux-notebook of the BBC graphics department, Ruby Tearday’s peacock bread is looking quite fancy.  “We’ve never had a peacock!” notes Mary, adroitly.

Even better, though, is Rob’s creation.  He’s going to be making a loaf honouring (for honouring is the word) Paul the Psychic Octopus.  Remember him?  He may be eternally dour during the judging, but he’s clearly got an adorable, geeky side.  (By ‘he’ I mean Rob, by the way, not Paul the Psychic Octopus.  He, sadly, is dead.  I bet he didn’t see that coming.  Ba-doom-tish.  Sorry.)  The graphics department lose their head completely, and draw a nauseous hippo at a street carnival:

To do Mary justice, she is entirely unflappable, and simply enquires whether the tentacles will be attached before or after baking.  She’s not quite so sanguine in the next chat.  The inspiration for Ali’s yin/yang bread came to him in a dream, apparently.  Let’s pause a moment to enjoy the face Mary makes in response to this information:

As far as “I have a dream” speeches go, I can’t imagine it’ll have quite the same legacy as some.

Let’s fast forward to a few of the most memorable results – which aren’t quite in the same league as the cakes, when it comes to appearance.  You can almost feel the cameraman’s anxiety at finding an angle which makes them look like something other than bread rolls after a particularly glittery afternoon at a children’s nursery.

If you see any peacocks that in any way resemble this, contact the RSPB.  Do not approach.

Paul H comes over all Simon Cowell, telling Alan Bennett’s Brend, about his orange/oregano bread, that “You’re great with your flavours normally… and you’ve done it again!”  Next week he’ll start saying “You’re not not not… not not not in. Not.”

And the octopus looks awful.  Coloured decorations on bread = unpleasant.  A nice idea, but children with colouring pencils couldn’t have made this look less edible.

The edit has already prepared us for Lucy’s loaf being heavily criticised for being uncreative, but I should mention that darling Christine (who pops into the programme for about five seconds this week, perhaps on the way to the post office) seemed to provide an equally non-showstopper sort of bread.  That’s not to say that Lucy shouldn’t be penalised for essentially sticking a bog-standard loaf on the table, but she’s not alone.

Incidentally, it is only during this critique that I learn Lucy’s name.  And I have a feeling that I won’t need to know it in a few minutes’ time…

So, let’s see who came top and bottom of bread week, shall we?  Results after the jump….
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Star Baker is… the delightfully shocked Ruby Tearday, who’ll need a name change:

And going home, as every moment of the programme augured, is Lucy:

To add insult to injury, she didn’t even get a hair ruffle from Mary.

Next week: dessert!  Back to baking that actually looks attractive as well as tasting great, and lots of potential for things to fall over.  Hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s recap – see you next week!

It’s baaaaaaack!  And I’m back recapping – this time from the beginning of the series, which is rather daunting.  I can’t promise it’ll be every week, but we’ll see how it goes.

Gosh, it doesn’t feel a year since we last saw Mary eating like a pirate and Paul glowering at everyone, does it?  Have Mel and Sue been stuck in a room thinking up new anatomical euphemisms for a year?  (Judging on the wordplay this week… no.)  And why have no former Bake Off contestants yet appeared on Strictly Come Dancing?  I’d watch if Scottish James, Cathryn, and Sarah-Jane were there.  I can imagine Cathryn does a mean rumba.  And surely The Brend, a.k.a. The Bridge Between the 70s And Today, loves a sequin or two?

Alternatively, I suggest a show where he teaches underprivileged boys to play football.  It’ll be called Brend It Like Beckham.  Thankyouverymuchgoodnight.

In preparation for the show tonight, Twitter had a hashtag #BakeOffSongs going around.  I contributed I Just Don’t Know What To Do With My Self-Raising Flour – let me know if you think of anything.

It’s going to be tricky, recapping the first episode before we know who everybody is, and while there are so many of them about – so I’m going to be selective rather than thorough, and try to keep an eye out for those who might become the much-loved heroes and villains of Series 4.  And this year there are a mammoth 13 bakers in the tent (which, incidentally, looks like a pretty good diagram of when you know that egg whites are stiff enough for meringue.)

They fail to mention that thirteen is a baker’s dozen, which would have been rather apt.  I am, of course, lying.  They mention it so often that I’m starting think the numbers run 11, 12, baker’s dozen, 14…  Indeed, this is the punniest episode I’ve ever seen – it even starts with a wait/weight gag, and I’ll fill you in when we get to more.  Maybe even a pun klaxon.

We see a quick overview of tears, joy, cakes, and timers – and the judges get an ‘aren’t they scary?’ edit, with people saying how frightened they are of Paul and Mary in turn.  I’m thinking the war on terror needs to turn its attention to these two, since apparently they’re terrorising this baker’s dozen of bakers.  (Geddit? Oh, sorry, we did that one.)

Are you ready for the laughter, the agony, and the ever-revolving cakes?  (Seriously, why do they revolve so much in these preview clips?  We never see them revolve again.)  Well, sorry – first we have to indulge Mel and Sue in a bit of light banter about surgical hoists and lacing.  They’ve strayed so far beyond the line of ‘taking things seriously’ that it now feels as though the Bake Off is a wonderful, state-sponsored crèche for them.

I’ve really grown to love that bridge.

Ok, it’s not Una Stubbs. But I don’t know her real name.

Maybe a pacifist protest?

The Brend as reimagined by Woody Allen?

“I’ve got a CBE. Have you?”

“I’m not being insensitive, but I’ve lost a contact lens.”

Excellent anxious face.

He seems oddly delighted by this. Spoilers: he comes last in the technical challenge.

Sue genuinely references “Salt rum baba, John, 2012”

DUH-DUH-DUUUUH

In which I learn that Brend 2.0 is called Howard! Will this be Howard’s End? Ahahahaha… no.

He nods a bit. Calm DOWN, Rob.