Baking

It’s been a while – because I went to London, and came back with a cold (I’m still rather beleaguered with it, but I’m powering through before they remove the episode from iPlayer) – but here I am with the recap of the GBBO final!  I’ve had such fun writing these recaps, and I’m delighted with the good response they’ve had here.  I was a bit worried I’d scare you all away with my snark – but hopefully you can tell that, alongside all that, I love this programme and these bakers.

For the first time, I know the result before writing the recap – but I’ll keep it under my hat until we get to the end, just in case you don’t.  Right… on with the show!

Last week we lost… no, sorry… give me a minute… hmm… someone.  Oh, Danny, yes! (ahem) and we’re left with three – Scottish James, Hyperventilating John, and the bridge between the 70s and today, The Brend.  I’m Team James, and most of you seemed to be as well, judging on last week’s comments.

This is the best shot I could get of all three. James, sadly, is still in plain blue. I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.

We kick off with a retrospective of the previous nine weeks, including all manner of people I’d forgotten existed.  It’s also a reminder of how dearly I loved Sarah-Jane and Cathryn.  The brief snippets of the finalists, in this look-back, suggest that someone in production is keen to give them each catchphrases.  A bit late in the day to try that, but ok.  I missed what John’s was, but James gets “I’m just prepping my cloots”, and The Brend says “The male will get a coxcomb.”  Not really the defining moments of the series, but does show that I’m not the only one who hopes for soundbites every episode.  I just wish The Brend had got “I WANT ABSOLUTE UNIFORMITY.”

We amble through the highs and lows of the three remaining bakers, which is rather more interesting than last week’s “The semi-final is quite close to the final” interview montage – and gives The Brend a chance to start on his self-congratulation.  “I think my track record has to make me a very, very strong contender to win,” he asserts.  Has he never seen a reality show?  This is next to “It’s not called America’s Next Top Friend” in the list of what-not-to-say-if-you-want-to-win.  (Some of you will get that.)

Amusingly, Mel’s voiceover is remarking on John’s ‘modern designs’, while the camera lingers on his gingerbread Colosseum.  Hmm.  Not the most modern, is it?  John then babbles his way through a nightmare he had about the bake-off tent, which seems to revolve around faulty lighting.  Since he’s had a bloody altercation with a food processor, the nightmare seems a little tame in comparison.  Still, we get an Anxious Apron Shot, and that’s got to be worth something.

Haunting.

The Brend has to settle for Anxious Glasses Adjustment, which somehow makes him seem more like a cartoon supervillain than ever.

The Signature Challenge is a pithivier.  Which is a great word to say, and Sue doesn’t stint on the comic potential of sounding-like-she’s-lisping.  I love how she is treating the whole series as though performing a sideshow on a pier, which no pun left under-laboured.  I half expected her to turn up with a Punch and Judy stall this week – perhaps with Mary and Paul’s faces painted whimsically on the dolls?  Oh well, better save something for Series 4.

The VTs this week are visits to the bakers’ homes and families – what a shame Cathryn has left, we could finally have solved the problem of whether or not she lived in a tent on the side of a road.  Scottish James is, Hayley tells me, from Shetland.  Or The Shetlands, maybe.  Well, it’s still Scotland (thank goodness, or I’d have to give him a new innovative nickname) and it’s beautiful.

He encourages everyone to apply next year – and I am seriously considering it.  But then I discover that his girlfriend is called Fenella, and I start to doubt his life advice.  She stares at the camera, and says ‘like’ a lot, but seems nice.  He ends the segment saying ‘Knowledge is Power’, which makes me wonder if The Brend has successfully inveigled him into a Fascist cult.

Meanwhile they’re all making rough puff pastry, which isn’t much of a spectator sport, and the programme seems to realise this.  We scoot past a clip of Mary and Paul dithering by John’s workstation, and we’re swiftly back to My Family And Other Animals segments.

Poor John – his parents don’t seem very supportive.  I did really feel for him, since they all seem to wish he’d hurry up and finish the baking so that he could become a lawyer.

“Baking ain’t gonna keep me in pearls, son!”

His Mum does basically say she’d hoped John would leave early, so that he could do more revision.  Perhaps parents nagging sons to work harder at university is just a touchy subject for me… I did suggest that Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s Wife pay careful attention to this bit! (Only kidding!)

I haven’t told you anything about the pithiviers, have I?  James and John are both making something involving meat, and The Brend is making potato, pepper, and spinach pithivier.  I’m in danger of growing to like him, for his thoughtfulness towards vegetarians, if nothing else.  Sue is astonished by the amount of garlic he is using –

– but The Brend is, as usual, unresponsive to humour and informs her that he knows what he’s doing, thankyouverymuch.  Despite previous home VTs suggesting The Brend lives alone, it turns out he has a partner called Jason, who looks about thirty years younger than him.  Jason comments that baking is a way of connecting with one’s childhood. [Insert joke about The Brend’s age here.  Maybe make reference to dinosaur eggs.]

And The Brend suggests that the best baker will be the one who can keep his emotions in check.  As a properly repressed Briton, I feel like this gives me a fighting chance for a future series.

Just so it doesn’t seem like I’m ignoring the baking process altogether, here’s an irrelevant shot of a pithivier being made.

I can’t get too excited about savoury challenges, I’m afraid.  And is it just me, or is this rather an easy challenge for the final?  Notwithstanding Mel’s dire warnings that, if insufficiently sealed, the pithivier will leak.  This sounds, from her usual tone of doom and gloom, like a tragedy second only to the opening of Pandora’s Box.  Oh, Mel, I’ll miss your absurd attempts to inject drama into proceedings.  As Claire amusingly said in the comments from my recap of a previous episode, without GBBO we’d have “no idea of the many perils involved in baking a biscuit or a simple cake”.

The Brend scores his first Oustandingly Obnoxious point of the episode, when he comments that his presentation is better than James’s.  In this particular case, it definitely is, but it’s still rather an unpleasant thing to say.  Although, thinking about it, the cameraman probably asked him a direct question about it.  Oh, you are sly, BBC2. SLY.

Plus, The Brend’s looks rather as though it were inspired by Little Weed from Bill and Ben, no?

Out come the pithiviers – after another one of those “Hurry up bakers!” bits from Sue that are clearly filmed altogether sometime after the rest of the episode – perhaps explaining their growing insanity over the weeks, as they struggle for something to say.  This time Sue claims that Mel is wandering nakedly through the room, with orange segments.  Sure, why not?  And then comes plinky-plonky music and establishing shots of hazy flowers.

I’m going to miss these.  They’re so pointless, but quite pretty, and there’s always the faint hope that they’ll accidentally include a badger sett or a background shot of David Attenborough stumbling through a thicket. (Did I ever tell you about the time that my friend Lorna and I were in the establishing shots of some programme on Gladstone?)

The Brend is congratulated by Mary on his pithivier’s meticulous appearance; Paul loves its base, and the flavour is also complimented.  And he was right about the garlic, blast him.

John does well too – no soggy bottom in sight, and Mary loves the flavour. “It’s got a good flake,” observes Paul.  Now, does that really save time, compared to “It’s flaky” or “Good flakiness”?  No, Paul, no it does not.  But at this stage in the game, I shouldn’t expect any better.  BAD SPEAK, Paul, poor worditude.

Scottish James doesn’t come through quite so well – Mary speaks of the ‘good flake’, which horrifies me – but there is a soggy bottom.  Paul says that it’s seasoned well – stealing the one and only critique ever offered in Masterchef – and Mary refers to the huge temptation to overfry chicken.  As temptations go, it’s one I find fairly easy to overcome.

SOGGY. (Check your bingo sheet accordingly.)

In post-judgement interviews, The Brend awards himself ten out of ten.  Chuh.

The Blind Challenge!  Which, it turns out, is called The Technical Challenge.  Sorry for misinforming you about that for weeks.  It also features possibly the best moment – not only of the series, but of our time/space continuum to date.  (There, Peter, physics!)  Sue tells Mary ‘off you trot – actually trot, please’ and (GIVE THIS WOMAN A DAMEHOOD) she does.  A static image cannot contain how wonderful this is.

Anything that follows this (in the programme or in my life) will come as something of an anticlimax, but I am impressed by what they have to make.  Fondant fancies!  My old housemate Hannah, who is an exceptionally good baker, made these once – simply because they were the most difficult thing she could think to make.  I used to love them, and my grandparents often had them, but now I find them rather too sweet and creamy for my merely moderate sweet tooth.  Also, bakers – they cost like £1.50 for six.  It’s not worth it.

I learnt this week that Paul calls Mary ‘Bezza’.

Nobody seems to have much of a clue what they’re doing, and the recipe is even sparser than usual.  John makes that fatal transition from enthusiastic-reality-show-contestant to thinks-they’re-filming-their-own-show.  Do you know how you can tell this moment?  The third person plural wanders in.  “We need to keep this butter cream nice and smooth,” babbles John.  Oh dear.  (Also, he is using an electric mixer to make butter icing, which is absolutely absurd.  I would never use an electric mixer at any stage in baking a cake, unless it involved whipped cream or meringue somehow.  Man up, bakers.)

The Brend says “Cover me, I’m going in” – presumably thinking that he’s back in ‘nam.  Awkward.

And John is listening to his cake again.  The final seems to be turning everyone’s head.

“The sponge TOLD me to burn down the tent.”

The bakers all seem to struggle with cutting 25 pieces of cake from a square sponge.  25 is a square number, people!  John gets fixed on the idea that the fondant fancies must be cubed – and disposes of a lot of his baked sponge.  Hmm.

And then they start adding the fondant around the outside.  I don’t remember them saying what’s in this – is it just icing sugar and water?  And food colouring and flavouring, of course.  Coating the fondant fancies is apparently the trickiest part of the process.  The Brend initially warns against ‘dipping them bodily‘, which seems unnecessarily somatic, but ultimately all three bakers opt for dipping – although ‘dipping’ is rather too delicate a word for the clumsy, messy way in which they fling their hands into the mixture.  John even mouths ‘help’ to the camerman at one point.

Even The Brend is struggling.  I’d have thought Fondant Fancies – being garish and dated – would have been right up his street.  My words alone cannot express his difficulties.  This sorry image sums them up:

Sue leans over The Brend and teases him… he does his best to ignore her.  Plus ça change.  She (brilliantly) observes that it is more Generation Game than French Patisserie.  Next, Mary and Paul will eat as many as they can, blindfolded with their arms tied behind their back, while tapping out Ode on a Grecian Urn in Morse Code with their feet.  (Er, Spin-off Alert!  Who wouldn’t pay to watch that?)

None of the displays look particularly impressive… John doesn’t disappoint with his supply of half-hearted, scarcely relevant platitudes – “What’s done is done and cannot be undone.”  Thanks, John.  Never change.

Mary and Paul literally snigger over them…

Mary is disappointed with all of them.  “I wouldn’t say that this is a very high standard at all, for all of you.”  It’s a little heartbreaking.  She should do drugs awareness videos – nobody would do anything illegal, lest Mary do that slight frown, and pained voice.  Oh – The Brend and John share last place, and James scrapes into first place.

The judges and presenters sit around a table and unite in saying that it’s all level pegging at this point.  And it does genuinely seem to be – rather than the usual in reality competitions, when everyone agrees in forced voices that it could go any way, when it’s entirely obvious who has won.  At this point, my money is still on James.  Sue, incidentally, makes a witticism about James being able to prescribe beta blockers.  Mel is confused, and Mary (how I love her) spells it out in tones best suited for a peculiarly unintelligent reception class: “Because he’s a DOCTOR.”

Showstopper Challenge time!  They’re making chiffon cakes, inspired by notable moments in 2012, to be served at a GBBO Village Fete “complete with limp bunting, and torrential rain.”  I’d never heard of chiffon cakes before (their main characteristic is being fatless), but Mel assures me they are ‘notoriously fickle’ and ‘volatile’.  I predicted sentient cakes weeks ago, and now they’re going to happen!

The Brend is making a colossal tiered cake inspired by family reunions – he has been mending rifts in his family.  He’s going to make it difficult for me to dislike him this week, isn’t he?

John is making a ‘Heaven and Hell’ cake, because his year has gone up and down.  Well, that’s vague.  And there go my hopes that everyone will make three-dimensional busts of the Queen in cake.  JUBILEE YEAR, PEOPLE.

Scottish James, bless him, is making FIVE CAKES, one representing each of the four UK nations, and one representing their unity.  Apparently in a year dominated by discussions of Scotland becoming independent, unity is a key feature…  (This, by the by, reminds me of my final project for my Food Technology GCSE, where I decided to make eight vegan sponges.  Goodness knows why.  Sorry, family.)

“Even though they’ve finished their sponge mix,” warns Mel, “every move the bakers now make can still radically alter their chiffon’s texture.”  That sounds like over-statement to me.  John’s frantic wanderings back and forth are especially worrying, if it is true.  As is the unusual baking equipment he requests – cue-tips.

Why were these even in the baking tent?  Surely there is no shop nearby – not if the aerial establishing shots of Nature Red In Tooth And Claw are to be believed.

TRAGEDY!

Here is James’s cake, in mid-fall… I think it’s Northern Ireland.  Make of that what you will.

Curiously, given the presenters’ desire to over-dramatise the most mundane moments of the baking process, Sue refuses to get animated about this genuine mishap.  She comforts him much in the manner of a mother clapping her hands in joy to avert a toddler from the pain of a scraped knee.

The fete is set up, coconut shies and all (I’ve been to dozens of village fetes in my life, and never seen a coconut shy) and our past contestants give us their tips for the winner.  They’re fairly evenly divided between all three bakers, rendering this segment pointless, but it is rather nice to see them all.  Especially, of course, darling Sarah-Jane and Cathryn.  They plump for John and James respectively, by the way.

Gone, but never forgotten.

Cakes begin to emerge from ovens, decorations begin, and James is (predictably) lagging behind everyone else.  John uses unorthodox methods…

and things seem to be going wrong with James’s Turkish Delight St. George’s Cross…

It look quite plasticky, and apparently James has never made it before.  Oh, James, why?  His first mistake, of course, was making anything Turkish Delight flavoured seeing as it is, as we know, the food of the White Witch.  And disgusting.  In the end it is discarded for a raspberry St. George’s Cross.  What a fun sentence to write.

Mel declares the final baking competition OVER.  John does this:

I still don’t know why.  If I’d seen it for the first time in my poorly state, I’d have assumed that Lemsip had taken control of my senses, leaving me with a cold-induced hallucination.  As it is… nope, no idea.  Are rabbits notorious for finishing baking on time?

And then, dear readers, The Brend breaks my heart.  He has an incredibly moving interview, where he is rendered speechless by emotion, about his life over the past decades.  This is just like when Danny went and made me feel guilty about teasing her… oh, you guys.  Love you really.

Luckily James and John are on hand to give The Brend a hug – which mostly serves to demonstrate how tiny Brendan is.  And how co-ordinated they are with their clothes.  And how much chocolate John got over himself whilst making his chiffon cake.

I like to think they’ll all stay penpals after this.  Or follow each other on Twitter, which I suppose is the 21st Century’s equivalent.

The final judging begins…

John’s Heaven and Hell cake (with ‘Tartarus’ etched on top, believe it or not) is declared stunning by Mary, and (after a worrying pause, where Paul starts scraping the cake with a fork, and I worry that he may have lost his marbles) the judges love the texture and flavour.

I think The Brend’s Family Reunion cake looks rather silly and top-heavy, but the judges like its appearance – and the fact that, for once, it is not over-decorated.  Even-layers, nice-bake, etc. And Paul thinks the sponge is like a cloud.  Maybe I spoke too soon on that losing-marbles thing.

I promised you a picture of Mary’s Pirate Side-of-Mouth Eating, and she did not disappoint.  Love you, Mary.

And finally, Scottish James’s dozens of cakes.

They try the middle one.  Oh dear, Paul thinks it’s too dry.  Mary thinks it’s ‘too cakey’ – although how a cake can be that, I don’t know.  Scotland goes down almost as badly.  Mel chirpily suggests, from the sidelines, that they try Northern Ireland next – but before this becomes a baked tour of Europe, the judges draw their critique to a close.  Everyone seems a bit sad that James has fared quite poorly, not least me.  But at least he’s feeding most of the assembled crowd all by himself.

Mary, Paul, Mel, and Sue assemble to chat about the bakers.  Mary proudly attests that “they are all home bakers – they don’t make scenes, they cope.”  What a wonderfully British compliment!  It makes me, as a home baker myself, feel like I’m part of the D-Day landings, or at least Dad’s Army.

So, who has won?

At this point, my money was on The Brend.  But, although I’ve grown rather to respect him, I still really wanted James or John to win…

Drum roll, please.  Just tap your hands on the desk, for me.  Humour me, please.

And the winner is…

It’s only flippin’ John!

Hurrah!  My friend Ellie and I cheered and clapped when this was announced, somewhat to the bafflement of our friend Grace (who had joined us, but not watched all the previous episodes, or developed our distaste for The Brend.)

Did he deserve to win?  Well, possibly not.  He scraped his way through nearly every episode – The Brend was more consistent, and James was more innovative, but nobody tried harder than John, or wanted to win more.  Bless his wee face!

I shan’t bore you with the ‘Since the Bake Off’ slideshow, which shows that most of the contestants are doing whatever they were doing before it all started, but I will leave you with this fantastic piece of news…

Thanks to everyone who has read my recap posts, and encouraging me to write more – they’ve been great fun, albeit surprisingly time-consuming to put together.  Back to books from now on, but I daresay I’ll be recapping Series Four next year – and, who knows, might even apply to be on it!

Drum-roll please, ladies and gents – it’s the semi-finals!

This may seem to have come around rather quickly, since I only started recapping two episodes ago, but hopefully that just means that we’re all still super-excited, and my jokes have yet to wear thin.  I’m definitely in the right mood for a GBBO recap, since on Monday I made gingerbread cake from Mary Berry’s Bakes and Cakes.  I didn’t have the right fat, flour, sugar, or treacle/syrup ratio, and my hopeless oven took 1hr 40 to bake it instead of 50 minutes, but… they are delish!

Last week they made crackers (yawn), chocolate teacakes (why?) and gingerbread structures (astonishing) and my favourite baker, Cathryn, went home.  It was past her bedtime, and the producers were worrying that she’d get sulky.  So we’re left with just four bakers battling it out for the final…

Brendan, a.k.a. The Brend, who is using GBBO to audition as the voice of the Speaking Clock:

At the third stroke, the time… sorry, I mean, “I’m nervous.”

Danny, who is lovely and proficient but, in that mysterious way of some reality contestants, entirely unmemorable.

“Danny who?  Oh, ME!”

John, whose distinguishing characteristic is bleeding a lot, and having wildly different hair in his VTs than he is sporting in the tent.

It was all swoopy before.

Scottish James, who had better be wearing jazzy knitwear this week, no matter what temperature it is, or Edinburgh Woolen Mill will be filing for bankruptcy.

It’s no use looking over there, James, I can see UNPATTERNED BLUE.

I’m totally Team James now (which, following recent episodes, almost guarantees his exit) so, with that in mind… on with the semi-finals!

It’s French Week, which is appropriate given the news that France will be showing their own Great British Bake Off (presumably with some sort of change of name, non?) and inspires this attractive shot of presenters Sue and Mel.  (It feels wrong not to call them ‘Mel and Sue’ – maybe they, like Ant and Dec, should always stand in alphabetical order?)

Uncanny.

The bakers are definitely feeling the pressure, as they tell us in those vague sort of interviews which don’t really achieve anything other than reminding the viewer that it’s the semi-final.  “The stepping stone towards the final,” The Brend confides.  “The final is just one step away” adds John, helpfully.  Scottish James (who is wearing a PLAIN BLUE T-SHIRT, the horrors) says that people seem more ‘withdrawn’.  Lots of people have been withdrawn, James.  That’s how the show works, m’dear.

For the Signature Challenge, they’re making three types of petit-fours (oh, the irony, &c.) – meringue, choux pastry, and so forth – and twelve of each.  Since we’ve not seen lovely Mary Berry and fierce sweetheart Paul Hollywood yet, here they are.  Paul, it seems, is mid-linedance, but we shan’t hold that against him.  For all I know, Mary’s about to launch into a do-si-do.

Petit-fours were originally served as an after-dinner course, Paul tells us, and while Mary simply requires them to be small (I reckon I could do that), Paul stipulates that they be small, exquisite, and perfect.

The Brend is making these delights:

He tells the camera that he is a perfectionist, and impossible to live with.  Yes, I imagine it would be a nightmare to have those clipped tones tell me the time, sponsored by Accurist, every three seconds.  But I’m always impressed when people make pastry swans on this show, and presumably pastry cygnets are the same, writ small.  Yet again, the BBC Colouring-in department has only the least appetizing shade of yellow available – those friands look like Victorian baths filled with melted traffic cones.  (Incidentally, Heston Blumenthal is considering that very recipe for his new show.)

Paul goes up some points in my estimation by asking Brendan whether or not his cygnets will be sat on a blue  buttercream sea, fish and all.  Maybe he’ll go minimalist this week?  The Brend disregards the question altogether, and ploughs on with his description of lime-filled friands.  I love me some limes, so I’m not going to argue with him, although nobody has explained what a friand is.

The other three bakers are making macaroons.  Mel warns, on the voiceover, that one baker is being a bit risky with the traditional recipe.  Without being told, I knew this would be Scottish James.  He has become the tent’s version of James Dean – unpredictable! rebellious! called James! – and, adorably, he smirks guiltily when admitting that he’s making chilli sugar…

He laughs at Paul for not having had chilli, raspberry, and lime together before.  Oh, Scottish James, please win.  Although answering Paul back might not be a longterm strategy… look what happened to Cathryn “Oh, that’s a bit harsh” er, Baker.  I don’t know her surname.

Precision is the order of the day; to make sure each is the same size, the macaroons are being piped out into circles by Danny, John, and Scottish James.  Although there doesn’t seem to be a huge similarity between the drawn circles and the piping in this particular shot:

Danny is making, amongst other things, Orange and White Chocolate Langues de Chat. Literally translating as ‘cats’ tongues’.  In case that wasn’t clear (and an electric whisk is being used throughout Danny’s interview with the judges, so it’s entirely possible that the typical BBC2 audience member can’t hear a word that’s being said) Mary, amazingly, does this:

I love her more each minute!

Danny, perhaps bravely trying reverse psychology, suggests that they are usually ‘hard and disappointing’, and resists all attempts on Mel’s part to get her to adopt a French accent.

We’ve not visited John yet – he’s usually the sage of the group, dispensing wisdom in the form of irrelevant platitudes, but today he settles for promising ‘bejewelled’ madeleines (which gets an ‘ooo’ from Mel and Mary, and stony silence from Paul).  I was hoping for something along the lines of ‘The madeleine makes me contemplate mortality’, but I can wait.  I can wait all day, John.

Brendan’s choux pastry cygnets, if prophetic, don’t bode well for his eventual placing in the Great British Bake Off…

Sue then sidles up, and he offers to let her put one of the cygnet necks into a bun – before immediately transforming into everyone’s strictest teacher, and telling her to watch him do it properly, and that if she acts like a child she’ll be treated like a child.  (Well, maybe he didn’t say that bit.  But the point stands.)

To do him justice, he does declare it perfect afterwards.  Good old The Brend.

While Sue is enjoying herself, it’s up to Voiceover Mel to put on her usual tone of danger and doom, warning that one baker is about to commit a ‘potentially disastrous patisserie faux-pas.’  (I’d eat a patisserie faux-pas right now; sounds delicious.)  Is it Danny, under the watchful eyes of Hollywood and Berry?

At least we now know what Mary would look like with a big blue beard.

No, nothing so interesting.  It is – but of course – Scottish James, doing something even I know you shouldn’t  do – adding water to his melting chocolate.  But apparently he does know what he’s doing – melting them together, then whisking them together over ice to make a mousse.  Impressive, Scottish James, you renegade, you!

This obviously isn’t a chocolate mousse, but it encouraged me.

There are so many different types of cake to get through here, so I’m just going to give you the vaguest of impressions of the judges’ comments.  And, after three recaps, I still haven’t screencapped Mary Berry eating like a pirate.  I’ll save something for the finale.

James gets commended for his flavours and originality, but Paul considers his tarts too big – ‘afternoon tea’ rather than petit-fours.  I reckon I could manage.

Danny’s cats need to see a vet asap, if their tongues look like this, but she gets a mostly positive assessment.  Mary comments on the ‘good bake’, while Paul’s grammar is either improving, or I’m ceasing to notice it.

John’s don’t fare quite so well.  Mary says that his madeleines ‘somehow or other, should have a better appearance’.  In Paul’s less delicate parlance, ‘the look is terrible’.  John begins to look rather folorn.

The Brend has somehow managed to restrict his colour palate to beiges and browns, and gets excellent critiques for all his petit-fours.  Mary thinks she’s in Paris – perhaps angling for a job on the new French series, or perhaps the amount of sugar she’s eaten in the past few weeks has addled her brain?

Paul seems obsessed mostly with the size of everyone’s petit-fours, and I get the feeling that he’d have greeted little cardboard cut-outs with joy, so long as they were the right size and shape.

For the Blind Challenge they all have to make a Fraisiere – which I have never heard of, but which makes Brendan raise his eyebrows in consternation, and thus MUST be difficult.  Or pose no opportunity for bright orange fondant flowers.  I imagine either would chill The Brend to the bone.

The recipe they must all follow is very sparse – the first step is ‘make a genoise sponge’, for instance.  Here is the one which Mary Berry made earlier – I hope she made it herself, anyway, although she calls it ‘scrummy’, which isn’t very modest.  But she’s right, it does look scrummy.

Mel says it’s the ‘little black dress’ of the patisserie world.  It’s that sort of inexplicable nonsense which reminds me that we haven’t had the Here’s Some Facts About Regional Cakes segment, where poor hapless Mel is dragged up to Lancashire to witness the genesis of an Eccles cake, or Sue is forced to sit through an out-of-work actress pretending to be a boisterous 18th century cook.

Oh.  I spoke too soon.

I’m going boldly to ignore the history of someone who made ovens, or something.  Mel and Sue have obviously revolted, as neither of them are present in this segment – various biographers and ‘experts’ are forced to babble, instead, at anonymous cameramen.

I don’t know what they were talking about, but there were nice pictures.

Back in the tent, everything’s a little tense.  They all comment that they’ve never made a ‘creme pat’ quite like this.  Well, folks, I’ve never made a creme pat at all.  Adorably, Mel and Sue gossip at the side (“How’s Danny doing?”  “Danny’s doing well.”  “Oh, good!”) like anxious parents on the side of a school football field.

“Was that offside, do you think?” “I have no idea what that means.”

John especially is struggling, and the way the editing is going, I’d be very surprised if he weren’t on the first train back to whereverhe’sfrom.  Over on the prehistoric table, The Brend is getting along pretty well.  Mel pops over to offer some encouraging words (among which, no joke, is included “Amazeballs”) and he not only completely ignores her, he basically shoves her out the way:

That’s not gonna win you any friends, Brend.

But when they’re all unveiled, it’s actually Danny’s which is looking rather the worse for wear…

…and a few minutes later…

Could John be safe after all?

Overall, I’m pretty impressed – but Paul just says “One or two of them look pretty good.”

The placings, you ask?  In last place, of course, is poor Danny.  Believe it or not, The Brend is third.  It’s very close for first place, but James just pips John to the post.  John, brilliantly, calls James a ‘wily minx’.

This establishing shot is so gratuitous, but… awwww.

And onto the Showstopper Challenge – a choux pastry gateaux!

As usual, I’m flagging in my recap by now (always by the most exciting challenge!) so here are some quotations, before we see the finished results…

“I’m interested in your passionfruit curd.”

“Less is more is my new motto.” (The Brend, no less!)

“Although the gateaux is usually in the shape of a bike-wheel, James is planning to go further.”  (Oh, James.  Never change.)

[Mary] “How are you going to construct it?”  [James] “I… don’t know.”  (Attaboy.)


“What the hell is that?” (Sue’s encouraging words.)

[Insert Yet Another Historical Segment Here.]  But Sue gets a trip to Paris out of it, and a man in green trousers gesticulates at her.

AND she’s not wearing a blazer!

Before this programme started, I was trying to remember John’s distinctive characteristic – and now I’ve remembered; he has mini-breakdowns every episode.  His choux pastry doesn’t rise very well, and he starts madly wandering back and forth, gibbering, while Mel becomes ever increasingly like a tired single mum with a stroppy teenager, and beseeches him to calm down.  Bless them both, it works.  If Cathryn’s spin-off sitcom never happens (and it still should), then I want Mel and John to have their own guidance counselling segment on morning television – are you listening, TV producers?

Time for the final judging of the episode – once we’ve seen three more rabbits in establishing shots.  It’s like a casting call for Watership Down, here.

The Brend’s actually does look understated, somehow!  ‘Exceptional job on the display’, says Paul, shocked into proper grammar.  No ‘displayingly good!’ or ‘it’s the exceptional’ in sight.  They love the flavour, crust, colour, and everything.  I worry a little for Mary’s teeth when she comments on the ‘crunch’, as they sound like they’re disintegrating.

Danny’s also gets complimented on appearance, but they think it’s gone a bit over the top on the amount of rosewater.  “You were brave to pick rose,” says Paul.  That’s what they said to Jack in Titanic.  Badoomtish.

James’ bike amuses everyone, and declared absolutely lovely by Mary, but Paul had hoped for more volume.

Finally, John‘s is another one which is complimented on its appearance – they have all got that in the bag this week – and they love the passionfruit flavour too…

So, who will go home??  My money right now (some hours after it finished being broadcast, and thus null and void at any bookmakers) is… Danny.

Am I right?

Er, yes.  Star Baker is James, again, and leaving is, indeed, Danny.  A lucky save for John.

“Er, let go now, Danny…”

She gives the sweetest exit interview ever – about how the people in her life have been excited about her success, and that she feels valued.  Now I feel a bit bad for being mean to her… but I love them all, really, even The Brend.  Honest.

Next Tuesday – the final!  And an all-male final, at that.  I am man, hear me whisk!

My predictions are Third: John, Second: The Brend, First: Scottish James.  What do you reckon?

See you then!

Last week I decided to recap Episode 7 of The Great British Bake Off, and it proved quite popular – so, a day late, I’ve decided to do the same for Episode 8.  And again, it took forever… but it was fun!  If you need an overview of how the programme works, or want to catch up on last week’s episode, click here.  In brief, my favourite contestant (Sarah-Jane) went home, and so did someone who reminded me too much of a colleague (Ryan), Paul Hollywood mangled the English language to hitherto unsuspected contortions, Mary Berry borrowed a coat from Joseph (which apparently was a huge hit), and Scottish James wore a disappointingly low-key jumper.  This week – biscuits!  Given how GBBO has shown me that I had mis-defined puddings, desserts, and tortes, I’m fully expecting the first biscuit challenge to involve ostrich eggs and jelly.  We’ll see.

Now that Sarah-Jane has gone, I’m completely Team Cathryn.  And I’m sorry for calling you Kathryn last week, my dear, I’m on the right page now.  In the here’s-what-will-happen-this-week clips, she’s making this face:

A big part of me hopes that this is never explained, so that I can continue to believe that she has an invisible exploding camera.

The remaining bakers (shall we settle on that, rather than ‘contestants’?  It’s much friendlier) process into the tent.  Scottish James is wearing shorts, which helps explain (if not atone for) the second week in a row where he has no natty knitwear.

Let’s get straight on with the show!  The ‘Signature Challenge’ is to make 48 crackers or crispbreads (crisp which now?) – ‘They should be thin, and crack when snapped in two – a little bit like Nicole Kidman’, as presenter Mel helpfully adds.  Paul threatens to ‘test for the snap on every single one of them’, which isn’t so much playing with words as talking complete nonsense.  Unless he intends to use the crackers to play cards?

Bless Brendan – or The Brend, as I now know him.  He’s probably the best baker left, but oh he does irritate me – yet I find it endearing that he continually tries to play down the fact that he’s four hundred years old.  In an early episode he claimed not to remember the ’70s.  Even if he meant 1870s, I’m certain he’s lying.  In spot-The-Brend’s-age-giveaways no.1, he’s interviewing about usually only making crackers to serve at buffets.  Presumably to go with little olives, for Beverley et al from Abigail’s Party.

I can’t get very excited about crackers, I’m afraid.  John is very anxious about whether or not he should use yeast, and Scottish James joins the nation’s housewives in flirting a bit with Paul.  Cathryn promises that hers will be crackers rather than cookies (a shame, I think a cookie would be much nicer) and the cameramen join the rest of the world in forgetting that Danny exists.

That shot is just to show you how they introduce everyone’s recipes, which I missed out last time.  It’s obviously supposed to be a cookbook, with the recipe title on one side and an illustration on the other, but sometimes it’s rather a thankless effort on the part of some work experience kid in post-production.  Usually the illustration resembles the finished product only in the vaguest imaginable way, not least because BBC seem only to have access to MS Paint when it comes to colour choices.  Would you put anything that looked like those ‘Asian Spice Crackers’ anywhere near your mouth?

“These are the sort of crackers you’d have with your mates around,” John explains, “a really good nibbly cracker.”  Uh-oh.  Paul’s nonsense-speak is catching…  His definitions haven’t really elucidated the matter, have they?  Unless there are some crackers that you can only have when all your mates have abandoned you, and you’re lying in bed, crying into a glass of red.

Oh, Danny is still here!  Bless her heart, she’s trying to act all dangerous and maverick.  She has a ‘controversial’ ingredient – what is it?  Hash?  Arsenic?  A potent aphrodisiac?  Er… no.  It’s desiccated cheese.  But she gets a bonus point for describing picking a 1970s ingredient as, essentially, ‘doing a Brend’. Not her exact words, but the gist.

John has a mini breakdown over a fork and a Woody Woodpecker impersonation.

The Brend confides in us about his love of precision – ‘If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well’ – and he’s got out a ruler, tape measure, and cutter.

I worry a little for The Brend.

Lots of shots, now, of them trying again to make the whole process sound like Mission Impossible – Mel throws around words like ‘crucial’, and puts on the sort of voiceover tone usually reserved for newsreaders detailing the deaths of innocents.  Cathryn says something about the importance of not burning crackers, but it’s hard to make out over the sound of a production guy bellowing in the background – which, I suppose, adds something to the heightened tension, even if it briefly demolishes the fourth wall.

John taps his cracker, possibly to see how well it is baked, possibly to start his own miniature baked good orchestra.  Who can say?  Everyone is baking in stages, so that they can use the same shelf for each tray of crackers and thus prevent varying levels of bakedness (Paul’s influence, sorry.)   Everyone except Scottish James, that is, who shoved them all in at once – which is treated, once again by Mel’s voiceover (where has Sue gone?) as the activities of a half-crazed fifth-columnist.  He may be whole-crazed, as he declares that his cracker looks like a little mouse.

As you see, it doesn’t.

I love Cathryn all the more for saying ‘Heavens-to-Betsy’, which is something I often say myself.  It started ironically, but now I just say it.  John, meanwhile, is singing a song about crackers, and Danny is reciting numbers to herself like a madwoman.  The obvious crackers/crackers pun has, bizarrely, yet to be made by Sue.  And if Sue ain’t going there, neither am I.

Paul and Mary are wheeled on for judging…

Brendan’s are “really scrummy” (darling Mary, talking with her mouth full) and “have a good bake on it” (Paul “gibberish” Hollywood)
Danny’s have a good crack, good consistency, and a lovely colour.  Snore.
James’ (and that is how BBC2 do their apostrophe – God bless BBC2!  You wouldn’t get that on BBC1) are beautifully crisp, and Mary seems to be wolfing them down, one in each hand.

Cathryn apologises for hers before they’re even handed over, because they’re varying shades and thicknesses.  I forgive her everything when she says “Oh lor'” – the sooner she stars in her own sitcom as a put-upon Yorkshire landlady, the better.
John’s ‘break well’, and have a ‘hint of curry’.  Which sounds horrifying, to be honest.  Paul wanted them to be bigger – to which Mary rightly points out that he could just eat twice as many.

Oh dear, we’re going to Learn Something About Biscuits.  Mel takes the opportunity to audition for Countryfile.

We’re off to Anglesey – which Mel falsely claims is ‘the mother of Wales’, whatever that means – to learn about the ‘James cake’, otherwise known as… something I couldn’t quite catch.  It sounded like Abattoir Biscuit, but I suspect it isn’t.  Yet again a mix of Food Historians and Local Bakers awkwardly tell us anecdotes to the backdrop of bizarre montages… let’s get back to the tent, shall we?

“The quarter-finalists have no idea what sort of biscuit they’ll be asked to bake next.”  Ah, you’re back, Sue. And say what you like about these contestants, compared to other reality shows – the ones on GBBO certainly know how to wield a good facial expression.

I think we have a winner.

And the Blind Challenge is… chocolate teacakes!  Biscuit, topped with marshmallow, covered in chocolate. Apparently it was 30 degrees heat (which seems a far-off dream, watching it in this miserable weather) so doing things with chocolate will be tricky.  Mary Berry warns that Paul Hollywood will have to be kind.  He makes the sort of face Jeremy Paxman might make if he were asked to be polite, or Piers Morgan if he were asked to be non-repellent.  (I.e. Paul won’t be kind.  That’s what I was going for there.  I just thought I’d phrase it to include two of the more obnoxious people on television because, let’s face it, Paul Hollywood is a sweetie really.)

None of the bakers really seem to know what they’re doing.  First things first are the digestive biscuits which will form the base – nothing that they’ve produced looks much like a biscuit to me, but who am I to judge?  The extreme heat is ruining their attempts at chocolate, and seeing John’s sweaty brow, I’m suddenly grateful for the clouds and rain we’ve had in Oxford today.

The Brend (described by John as ‘a machine’ – well, he has developed a semi-robotic monotone, with hints of Maggie Smith) seems to be having the most success, whereas lovely Cathryn is running into trouble… This week she has mostly been looking grumpy, but in an adorable way, like an overtired toddler.

Perhaps she misses lovely Sarah-Jane?  The happiest moment of my past week (which has been a steady run of headaches, so it’s not saying much) was discovering that Cathryn and Sarah-Jane co-author a blog, which you can read here.  What do you think the chances are that they’ll become my best friends?

I’ve realised I haven’t included any pictures of actual baked goods yet, so here’s a rather artsy (if not entirely appetising) picture of Scottish James’ teacakes in action:

Oh dear.  John’s come out rather well, but Cathryn starts shrieking “Oh my giddy AUNT” at hers – with a grin plastered over her face – and Sue doubles up her role of Presenter with that of Redoubtable Head Girl, and gets her to calm down and turn out her teacakes.  For once, Cathryn hasn’t overstated her disaster… after some poor crackers, I’m rather terrified that my favourite will be going home…

Just call them ‘deconstructed’, and you’ll be fine, love.

Aww, Scottish James gives her a hug.

Berry and Hollywood come on to do their blind judging.  Cathryn gets good comments for her biscuit and marshmallow, so maybe there’s hope for her yet.  Everyone else gets mixed comments, even The Brend (who, again, looks incredulous) but Paul gives everyone a ‘pretty good’ overall – high praise, indeed.

Oh dear, Cathryn is in fifth place.  Then last week’s star baker Danny, then John, then The Brend, and first prize is taken by Scottish James.

Onto the final challenge! First Mary and Paul give their thoughts on who is doing well, and who is in danger.  While they are praising Brendan and Scottish James, an editor cruelly puts up a protracted shot of James trying, and failing, to put on an apron.

Even crueller, since it turns out it’s his 21st birthday!  As Sue says, he can become an M.P. or… go to adult prison.

The showstopper challenge is – gingerbread houses!  What fun!

Oh, wait, Paul says he’s after ‘gingerbread structures’, not houses – those he will ‘smash’, only to be satisfied with ‘architectural genius’.  Gosh!  I’m even more excited… or is this some sort of budget cut, where Kevin McCloud will come on and present Grand Designs at the same time?  Will they quietly run the National Lottery in the background next week?

Cathryn wins even more I-Love-Her Points from me by making a Buckingham Palace gingerbread house, while Danny is making a two-feet tall Big Ben (or, in fact, Elizabeth Tower.  Big Ben is just the bell, fact fans.  I thought the tower was called St. Stephen’s Tower, but Wikipedia proves me wrong.)  John is going for a Coliseum [spelling courtesy of BBC; not how I’d have spelt it] with over a hundred pieces (designed by his graphic designer boyfriend), and James is going to make… a barn.  Hmm.  Not really quite as glamorous, is it?  But possibly easier to pass off as successful.  Everyone knows what Buck Pal looks like, whereas barns come in all shapes and sizes, don’t they?

I love that his baking comes with architectural plans.

I don’t think we talked to The Brend at all.  Presumably he’s building a Gingerbread Retirement Home?  Oh, my mistake, he turns up on the other side of some Gingerbread Of Times Past segment which I entirely ignored – he’s making a birdhouse, fondant bluebirds and all.

I’ve got to say, the final results are rather breathtaking.  They’ve had more interesting visual challenges in Series 3 than in previous years, and this one was a stroke of brilliance by some ideas-person backstage.

Here, for contrast, is a gingerbread house that my dear friend Lorna and I once made.  From a kit.

John’s is spectacular, evenly baked (I’m editing ‘an even bake’ here, folks, and into fewer words), although not quite gingery enough for Mary.  They only seem to eat a tiny fragment of it, though.

Brendan’s is described by Paul as ‘a bit much’.  The man has made grass, and decorated his Shredded Wheat roof with climbing roses.  The phrase ‘less is more’ probably makes The Brend retch.  And it’s too spicy for our Mary… oh dear!  I tease The Brend, but I was confidently expecting him to walk this (with a zimmer, obvs.)

Danny’s ‘could have been taller’ (!) and is quite cookie-gingerbread, which sounds lovely to me, but may or may not have been a compliment.

Cathryn claims that the Queen might be ‘naffed off’ with her design – and it does like a bit like Buckingham Palace post-earthquake – but Mary reassures her that you can tell what it was supposed to be.  Paul thinks the fact that it’s ginger, chocolate, and orange offers too many flavours, but Mary wants to eat all of it, to the last crumb.

James’ structure is appreciated, but the judges don’t seem actually to eat any of it.

So, who’s going home?  I worry that it’s still going to be Cathryn… she says it’s been a ‘crumby week’, and I don’t think she’s even making a pun.  Sue will be annoyed that she missed that one.

The star baker is…

Birthday Boy James!

And, going home, is…

Oh no!  It is Lovely Cathryn.  Everyone – the other bakers, Mel & Sue, Paul & Mary – seem equally distraught.  She probably was the worst this week, but it won’t be the same programme without her.  Still, that sitcom (working title: “Fine Words Don’t Butter No Parsnips”) can go into production asap.

Becoming my favourite seems a surefire way to get booted out…  I’ve had to transfer my affections to James, so… will he be on his way back to sunny Scotland next week?  Join me (probably) for the semi-finals!  They seem to be making dozens of complicated things.  It should be fun…