Misfortune cookies
Bake Off hopefuls crumble in takeaway snack test
ONCE viewers calmed down last week they seemed to rather enjoy Channel 4’s Great British Bake Off, with many saying the contestants were almost too good.
Well, don’t worry about them peaking too early, because there’s a huge reversal of fortune this week.
And plenty of the bakers end up at the soggy bottom of the rankings when Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith decide who is leaving.
It’s all thanks to Paul really taking the biscuit by setting the fiendishly difficult technical challenge of making 12 fortune cookies.
Host Noel Fielding – wearing a fantastic flowery jumper and thankfully a bit more his usual edgy self in Episode 2 – tells the bakers they must have a fortune inside them.
He adds: “I’ve no idea how that works but I am sure you have got the mad skills.” Well, it’s fair to say none of the bakers has ever dealt with fortune cookies, except to eat them with their takeaways.
One male baker moans: “Give me some bread, give me some pastry, give me something wholesome!”
Another contestant says: “I am having a disaster. I am gonna get annihilated here”. And a third puts his head in his hands and even predicts: “I am going home.”
And while it is Paul’s task that has caused them the headaches, it is Prue Leith who is the one dishing out the insults.
Among the harsh criticism, she says: “You could break your teeth on these.” She tells another contestant: “I don’t think they got to the oven, raw batter is no fun.”
Worse is to come for some on the showstopper, which is like something never seen before on Bake Off.
We won’t ruin the surprise but Noel describes it as “some Willy Wonka stuff right now”.
There are some really great bakes on show – and a couple of them really do put the icing on the cake.
Mary Berry is yet to give her verdict on Channel 4’s Great British Bake Off – because she went out on Tuesday and missed the episode.
The 82-year-old, who quit the show when it left the BBC last year, said: “I was at a big dinner so I haven’t seen it. But I will.”