Due to the holiday schedule, The Hoot hasn’t published for a couple weeks, and we’ve missed quite a bit. Ron resigning! The Vice Presidential debate! And the first two episodes of this year’s season of “The Great British Bake Off.” Still, scheduling conflicts will not get in the way of my third year of intrepid recapping, so I come to you from France with my review of the episodes. I’m going to be treating them as a double premiere of sorts, since in my mind, the two episodes tell one complete story.
“Bake Off” returned to our screens with a horrifying “Barbie” themed sketch. Now, Bake Off is a full year too late on the Barbie trend, and Paul as Ken is something I never needed to see. Allison looks lovely though. I loved her as the host last season, and I’m thrilled that she’s back again, along with Noel (friendly reminder, Noel is the longest-serving host of Bake Off).
Next, we meet this season’s batch of bakers. With Andy the Cockney, Nelly the Slovakian, and Georgie the Welshwoman, we’ve got a hat trick of accents I sometimes struggle to understand. On the flip side, we have Bake Off’s first ever American—Jeff from the Bronx, who boasts quite a heavy New York accent himself. We’ve also got some standard Bake Off characters—Sumayah the young talent, Hazel the grandma, Christiaan the gay man with out-there flavors, Mike the gay man with a penchant for goofy quips, Gill the down-to-earth English white lady. You know, the usual.
Episode one was, as usual, Cake Week. The signature challenge was a loaf cake, which has cropped up as a first challenge in various forms, notably with Madeira cake in series six, the season one by Bake Off’s Greatest Ever Contestant, Nadiya. It is a much more reasonable challenge than last year’s vertical layer cake, and leaves a lot of room for creativity. Paul hypes up the challenge as “the baking holy trinity,” while Prue is more blunt in her description: “a cake that’s in the shape of a loaf.”
In a Bake Off classic, multiple bakers are overcomplicating matters for themselves. John, a slightly nondescript Englishman with the most unsettling light blue eyes, is making macarons to go with his cherry and chocolate loaf cake. Sumayah is filling her cake with halva, and Christaan is making apple miso fudge. Other bakers are (wisely, in my opinion) keeping things simpler. Relentlessly cheery Illiyin is making a cinnamon roll loaf cake, and Gill is doing chocolate orange. The questionable cake choice of the challenge (say that five times fast) for me came from Dylan, who is making a mango sticky rice cake, inspired by his travels to Thailand. Now, mango and coconut is a classic combination that will certainly work. However, the ideal texture of coconut sticky rice and the ideal texture of a loaf cake are almost complete opposites. The main drama of the signature comes from Georgie, who, after blithely admitting that she’s not measuring anything, leaves the sunflower oil out of her cake batter. But for the most part, everything is fine.
During judging, Jeff and Gill have poor decoration but good flavors, Christiaan has good decoration but bad flavors, and Sumayah and John do well. The judges can’t stop raving about Illiyin’s cake, and my Hollywood Handshake spidey sense starts tingling. But Paul wouldn’t do something so ridiculous as to give a handshake for the very first challenge, right? WRONG. Illiyin gets a handshake, and I curse at the TV. Her reaction is adorable though, which helps.
Then, we get the first twist of many Jeff is feeling ill, and won’t be continuing with Cake Week. He’ll be back for biscuit week. At this point, I write in my notes that this week will be a non elimination episode, just like every other episode where a baker is sick. The technical is mini battenberg cakes (a dense and overly sweet British confection that looks like a marzipan-wrapped checkerboard, that I must confess I rather like). I’m a big fan of this challenge, right up until I learn that the bakers have no recipe. In a Bake Off first, the bakers also get to taste an exemplary version before baking their own. Now, the sponge is the British version of pound cake, meaning equal quantities of eggs, flour, and sugar. However, back in series seven, a no-recipe pound cake was given as the technical for the final, not for the first episode. Sigh.
There were three highlights of the technical: 1) Noel acting like he’s never seen jam made before, despite being, again, the longest serving host of Bake Off. 2) Noel being described as a “gothic therapist.” 3) Mike’s reaction at the end of the technical, which was heaving a heavy sigh and deeming the whole thing “horrific.” You and me both, Mike.
And it is Mike who is in last, due to loose marzipan. Hazel is in tenth (clumsy) and Sumayah is in ninth (small). At the top we have John in third, Christiaan in second, and Georgie in first, proving she might not be such a disaster after all.
The showstopper challenge is a hyper realistic illusion cake. It’s a repeat challenge, and first appeared as the Cake Week showstopper in Season eight. I’m not upset, as it’s a good challenge, and who doesn’t love an illusion cake? Prue advises the bakers not to use a chiffon sponge, as it’s not stable enough.
Georgie is making a chicken (named Fanny, after her own chicken). The cake is also being made with the real Fanny’s eggs. I’m not sure what the halakha is for this sort of thing, but it feels distinctly not kosher to me. Sticking with the avian theme, Sumayah is making a pet duck. Dylan is making a canopic jar (the thing Ancient Egyptians used to store organs) because of course he is. He’s also using a chiffon sponge, the exact thing Prue said not to do. John is making a pair of jeans, Mike is making a stack of books, Hazel is making a bag, and Christaan is making a sewing machine.
Georgie is once again the main drama of the challenge, as she has to remake her cakes and falls an hour behind. I predict that Georgie will either be an early out or surprise us all and make it to the final. During judging, most bakers have done well. Some cakes are overbaked here and there, but the edit is very much “no one is going home.” The highlight is Sumayah’s duck cake, which is excellent. Somehow, Georgie managed to create a chicken. During judging, Allison gives us our first innuendo of the season with “how does Fanny taste, guys?”
Star baker for episode one is John, who didn’t come top of any challenge but did the best overall. And no one is going home. What a shocker.
On to episode two! As per usual, episode two is biscuit week. Jeff is back, everyone is thrilled that no one went home week one, and Prue is wearing a particularly awful floral blazer. The signature challenge is Viennese whirls, another recurring challenge on Bake Off (they last appeared as the series seven biscuit week technical). The most popular flavor choice is coffee – John is making Irish coffee whirls, Hazel is doing coffee and hazelnut, and so is Jeff. Jeff’s Bronx accent is particularly pronounced when he says “coffee.” Illiyin is doing orange and pistachio and is very concerned about the pistachio flavor coming through. We have some classic combinations with Georgie’s rhubarb and custard and Mike’s raspberry and cream (plus malt that he grew on his farm). The wildest flavor combinations come from Christaan (tarragon, lavender and blueberry, one of my least favorite combinations) and Sumayah (blackberry, rosemary, lemon, honey and goat cheese). Sumayah hates the flavors of her own biscuit, since she doesn’t like goat cheese. Generally, using flavors you hate on Bake Off never goes well, but it works for her, as her swan shaped Viennese whirls go down a treat with the judges. Last week a duck, this week swans … what avian bake will Sumayah bring us next time?
Nelly also went for animal shaped whirls, as hers look like dogs. She insists they are authentic, as she was recently in Vienna. When Paul asks what shop she went to, Nelly claims he missed the shops she goes to. “You’re going to the posh ones, I’m going to the normal ones,” she says. It’s some serious shade, and I’m obsessed.
Most of the other bakers also do well, but poor Hazel suffers disaster. Her first batch of whirls melted in the oven and lost their definition. She leaves the icing sugar out of her second batch, so they both look and taste horrible. She is clearly at the bottom of the pack going into the technical.
Then, drama! Because Jeff is still feeling sick. He’s lightheaded and dizzy, but determined to carry on. “The diva has arrived,” he says as he walks back into the tent. The technical challenge is a batch of mint cream biscuits—the ugly cousin of the thin mint, consisting of a shortbread base, a mint cream filling and a chocolate coating. Christiaan (of the tarragon, blueberry and lavender biscuits) announces that he hates mint chocolate, and I decide that Christiaan and I simply have opposing palates. The major challenge of the technical is ascertaining how much peppermint extract to use in the cream filling. Peppermint extract is quite strong, and after glugging a solid teaspoon into hers, Nelly deems it disgusting.
However, throughout all this, poor Jeff has been unable to bake anything. He’s attempting to cure himself by drinking tea (clearly, he’s gone native) but it’s not working. Jeff leaves the tent midway through the challenge, and heads home. It’s the first time a baker has left the series for health reasons since Diana in Series Five, and it takes away the threat of a double elimination. It’s sad, but it’s good to see that Jeff is putting his health first.
Back to the technical, the finished products all look a bit like cow patties. And yet, Paul says “they all look good.” Really, Paul? Are you sure? Dylan is in eleventh (looks a mess), Andy is in tenth (stuck to the tray) and Georgie is in ninth. Sumayah is in third, John is in second and Mike is in first, more than redeeming his last place during Cake Week. Meanwhile, I’m craving thin mints. If someone wants to ship a box to me in Paris, that would be great.
The showstopper of Biscuit Week is always some ungodly biscuit construction, and this year, it’s a biscuit puppet theater. Why? Because Bake Off. Don’t try this at home. The best thing this challenge gives us is some new Paul lore, which is that he used to paint theater set backdrops at art college. Can you imagine Paul as a theater techie? Because I can’t.
The biscuit puppet theaters do turn out to be a great way of getting to know the bakers’ personalities. For example, Andy is depicting a scene in which a pig escapes from a truck on the highway and then is promptly shot. Meanwhile, Christiaan is making a biscuit wonderland based on his life. Georgie is doing a Welsh theater as a tribute to her home country. And then we immediately cut to Josh (a white Englishman) who is inspired by his holiday home in Wales. The air is thick with irony.
Illiyin’s showstopper is based on a date with her husband. She casually adds that she and her husband don’t go on dates anymore, because they have children. Fun times! Sumayah is making an enchanted garden and Hazel is making a scene from Punch and Judy (an old and rather dated British show).
The most emotional showstopper is coming from Nelly, who is making a tribute to her family, her immigrant story, the five babies that she lost and how there is always light in the darkness, via an elaborate forest scene. It nearly brings her (and me) to tears. PROTECT NELLY AT ALL COSTS.
Then, at the very end of the challenge, Illiyin faints. Like, actually passes out. Between this and Jeff’s lightheadedness, is there something in the air this episode? Are the bakers not hydrating enough? Are they being poisoned by production to create more drama? More likely, the pressure of the tent, combined with the increasingly restrictive time limits, has finally reached breaking point. Illiyin goes to the medical team for treatment, and it is Noel who brings up her showstopper for judging.
During judging, Mike, John and Sumayah all do well. John and Sumayah are quickly emerging as the front runners due to their consistency. Illiyin has struggled a bit, and Hazel’s is a bit of a disaster. She is clearly not long for the tent. Nelly’s emotional story comes through with her bake, and Christaan’s showstopper is an absolute triumph. The rotating biscuit scenes (it sounds weird when I type it out, but trust me, it was fantastic) are amazing. It’s so amazing that Paul gives Christiaan a handshake for his showstopper. I disapprove of showstopper handshakes on principle, but I can’t deny it was a good bake.
And then, at the end of judging, Dylan reaches down to get his water bottle and falls over. Everyone panics. The bakers really are dropping like flies. Dylan is, mercifully, completely fine.
At this point, it’s clear that Hazel is going home. Star baker is a toss-up between Christiaan and Sumayah in my eyes, but Sumayah takes it. And Hazel is indeed eliminated. We have lost the grandma of the season, which is heartbreaking.
Next time: Bread! Including savory buns and a plaited loaf. Will Illiyin be back to full health? Who will overwork their dough? And will the existence of challah be acknowledged? Keep reading to find out.