Bake Off Breakdown:
There was no repeat of last year’s ‘Binned Alaska’ in dessert week but why is no one practising their bakes?
There was a big emphasis on flavour combinations this week but the contestants were failing to get the fundamental tasks right. Their signature challenge was a crème brûlée. You can do as much fancy stuff as you like but you are only being judged on what you’ve been asked to do. Only three out of the nine contestants managed a set custard. I think they all tried too hard. Flora made ginger tuile curls and rhubarb crisps to accompany hers but really she needed to do a perfect custard. Alvin had a time-management problem. For the signature and the showstopper challenges, you can practise – so if you’re running out of time then you’ve not practised enough.
I’ve never heard of the Spanische Windtorte, which was the technical challenge. It looks like an enormous pavlova with a lid on it! And I don’t think I would have wanted to try a slice myself. It seemed as if Paul’s meringue was going wrong but he got first place, so you never can tell. He will have been given some confidence from doing so well last week.
It starts to feel really weird as people leave the competition because there are fewer and fewer bodies in the tent. They take the benches away so you’ve got more space, but each week you get moved around so you’re not always on the same station. In a technical challenge, if you’re on the back row of benches then you’ve got the benefit of seeing what everyone else is doing.
Nadiya is consistently at the bottom of the pack in the technical challenges – she needs to get out of there – but she put an awful lot of work into her soda pop cheesecake showstopper. With this round you have to wow the judges – and it did.
I’m a fan of fireman Mat and he also did a fantastic showstopper. But there’s something about Tamal’s quiet confidence that I like – he’s maintaining a steady pace, producing amazing creations and certainly this week he deserved star baker. In the technical, he came fifth and was criticised for demonstrating only one piping technique, yet I am sure there was only one piping technique shown on the “perfect” Windtorte produced by the judges.
So Ian got star baker again. He is a cool character and is demonstrating that he knows his stuff. I’m not sure he’s going to romp through to the finish, though. Tamal and the other bakers may feel the star baker award is just a dream (since Ian has won it three weeks on the trot) but my advice is to believe in your own ability.
Unfortunately, it was poor Sandy who left the competition. No surprise really, I feel like she probably wasn’t happy with herself when she went home last week and returned with some self doubt and a negative air. All three challenges had disappointing outcomes. She decided on Pontefract cakes to flavour her crème brûlée. That’s not for me. Eating black things is just wrong. I don’t know what her thought process was with the lid of her Windtorte (she broke it in half ). She obviously didn’t read the instructions.
Bake Off is great for inspiring you to do things out of your repertoire so I can’t wait to see what they’re going to do next week with the alternative ingredients theme.