Liam is star baker!
Another unexpectedly emotional climax, at least for me. Boy wonder takes the crown, but we lose wonderful, adorable Julia. She was too good. Like a mad pony no one can ride, but can’t bear to get rid of. But get rid they have.
Thanks very much for your vigorous activity below the line, and your tips on the best bakeries in town. (Nandos, apparently.) I’ll be back next week and hope you will too? In the meantime come say hello on twitter, facebook and Instagram. Or release a trio of winged monkeys to hunt me down. It’s just nice to be thought of.
Ciao!
She’s only 21, as well! How are these people so talented? It’s actually making me angry and confused.
Oh Julia, we will miss you. You were superb telly, with every inexplicable, indecipherable utterance.
Noooooo
LIAAAAAAM! The absolute boy.
He’s something of a genius with flavour.”
Prue is not really nice all that...well, ever really.
This is tense. Aren’t you all glad I instructed you to evacuate your bowels before, and not now?
Yan or Liam? I’d love it to be either but the boy wonder would get such a confidence boost from this. And he is a TEENAGER. It’s incredible.
Having said that Yan is mint too. Great value all the time, and a dang good baker.
The Anunciation of Liam! His pie is described as spectacular, AND he adapted to an unfamiliar style to fit the challenge. What a boy wonder. Let’s get #cynthia trending.
“I don’t think the asparagus works. The chicken is dry. On the other hand,” says Prue, surely about to hand a twig of charity to beleagured Julia, “your pastry is undercooked.” She should basically have a wrestling name at this stage. Body Blow Prue.
Steven’s perfect looking pie disappoints, but Yan’s controversial inside pie is perfect inside and out, with contrasting flavours inside. THAT’S SCIENCE. Julia’s “Special Occasion Pie” (I don’t know why I find that name so funny) looks like a nest of dragon’s eggs.
Judging time! Sophie has, with Dunkirk spirit, created a mouthwatering game pie. Kate has also – frabjous day! – pulled off a pie Paul loves. She’s not out of this yet! Stacey though. Her pie looks like a boxed-in top hat, and has paper in it. Not even Tom Petty could pull that off. She looks extremely and non-performatively stressed. Oh, Stacey.
Stacey can’t balance her fruit on her wonky pie, but is still seeing the funny side. Sophie is still bailing out her pie-boat, and Yan steps in to help Steven with his decoration. What a wonderful group of people. Particularly Yan.
Shimmer spray! Steven really is Baking Batman. Where does he get those toys.
STACEY WHAT IS THAT. I think I saw a relative of that on Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.
Steven is securing his pie inflation perimeter with string. I would buy a book of his top tips. The man knows what he’s doing and then some.
Think it’s fair to say Noel’s off the leash now. That was a ludicrously silly voice.
Who do we think is going?
Julia is cracking under the stress, until Yan helps her remove her pie collar easily and safely. Stacey having problems with her own leaky crack, “I’m going for straight on one side, caved in on the other, with a floppy crust.” Stacey is actually being very funny this episode. Meanwhile Sophie is … extracting meat juices with a huge syringe. Note to self, do not get on her bad side.
Was that chicken upset because the family were eating pork medallions and not...chicken? Adverts make no sense at all to me anymore.
Quick Selasi check in:
Well well, mummy and daddy will be proud 🙃🕺🏿🙏🏿. GOOD MORNING 03/10/2017 pic.twitter.com/WvnHgfbgiW
— Selasi Gbormittah (@selasigb) September 29, 2017
No, I don’t think he’s watching.
I would devour Liam’s pie and it wouldn’t touch the sides. His adapting to an unfamiliar technique, live, is dicing with death though, surely?
“There’s a bit of baking paper still in there,” says a horrified Stacey, staring at her pie like a one-glove surgeon over a freshly stitched belly.
Everyone is struggling to remove pastry cases from moulds, like wriggling out of skinny jeans while drunk. Smooth Steven slides his out like a buttered otter. “Air holes,” he explains, which seems a bit harsh on his fellow contestants.
Who was asking for a meat free pie BTL? Saint Stacey has heard your prayers.
Yan is also going internal, hoping to distract judges with an incredible sounding chequerboard interior. I can barely spell chequerboard, let alone make one inside a pie. Respect.
Under advice from Stacey (“Change it.”) Liam is placating Bossman by moulding his pastry on the outside of a bowl. Julia is sticking to her own inside-the-bowl guns. Looks like we got ourselves a ball game.
Steven reining in his design instinct is an interesting move. He could play safe and consistent and definitely make the final, then pull out a wham bam thank you ma’am once expectations are lowered. But it’s not what an artist would do. Everyone is confronting their own natures this week. It’s got quite existential.
“Should I keep bossman happy?” he ponders, of his delicious sounding, unconventional curry goat pie that he’s draped, unconventionally, on the inside of a tin. Once again, love him.
Liam is making a turmeric pastry. “I don’t know if it’ll be that great. Should be alright.” Oh Icarus! You have flown too close to the sun!
The concept is simple. It has to look like it was made in a factory,” reports Bake-a-tron Steven model 0071008. He doesn’t ever stop working while he talks. His hands are modular, self-autonomous cooking aids.
Hand raised family pie makes me think of a Prue wet-nursing a baby individual pie, on some straw bedding. I don’t want to think about that, so the least I can do is make you picture it too.
Showstopper: hand raised pie with hot water crust pastry
It’s a big pie, basically. Family meal deal.
Or it’s when you re-do the bathroom after reading i-D magazine too much
Lola, lamination involves alternately folding and resting butter and pastry in the fridge so that when it cooks you get flaky, croissant like layers. I once made cronuts, which took three days of lamination and rising and was a profound ballache. No sweet treat is worth that.
No reason for this, but who says you need a reason
I like Paul Hollywood, but he really needs to tone down the tan #GBBO2017 #GBBO pic.twitter.com/Ez5b3ddUVy
— Simon Bell (@sb007ck) October 3, 2017
Julia’s ‘plan’ is maybe my favourite piece of television ever.
Nandos do pasteis? That is a game changer. I often walked into my local cafe near me and when they don’t have any, I walk straight out. Try and fob me off with a Danish. There’s no substitute.
Judging time! Liam has no swirl, but he seems to have got away with his scrambled egg in a cup technique. Stacey has “huge amounts of issues” (no comment), and Julia can’t pull off any magic with her rank rough puff, which Paul dismisses in record time. She comes last, followed by Stacey, with Kate a neutral fifth. Sophie is second, and scooter battered Yan takes the top spot! Nice to see her up there.
AAAAH! “I think they have got dark patches on them,” muses Kate, looking down at a full tray of charcoal nuggets.
More of this incisive commentary every Tue, journalism fans.
Can you imagine going on this show and not being dumped out in the first week having got everything wrong?
Baking is hard.
Also, Julia describing anything she makes as “absolutely rank” is a highlight.
Dying at all these serious voices saying ruffpuff over and over again.
Apologies to any Madelines who are reading! You’re not boring, you shall inherit the earth.
(Legal disclaimer: you won’t.)
THERE! That’s the place! The monastery at Belem. I don’t remember any of that stunning Renaissance architecture and history. I remember the softness of the sugar, profound crisp of pastry, and the luxuriance of the custard ocean inside. Oh the memories. These are my Proustian madeleines. Actual madeleines are boring.
Not us of course, we want nothing to do with that.
Noel (flirting?) with Julia, telling her Portugal has the most beautiful people in it. People say that about whichever country in Europe they last visited, though, don’t they? I think it’s just Europe.
Lovely Kate’s forgotten how to fold pastry and has, in her own words, “no idea what I’m doing.” She is possibly not long for the tent. Sandi promises to update her dating profile, in another affectionate pop at her mystifying spinsterhood.
Campaign to get Julia and Kate to say “rough puff” every 2 minutes. Julia in particular sounds like an anxious magician.
Omg omg omg. I have a gooey soft spot for pasteis de nata. I’ve been to that famous Portugese bakery that sells them in cardboard tubes like cannon ammunition, and bought about 50. Heaven.
I felt, if you’ll pardon my Portugese, like a real Lisboner.
Technical challenge: pasteis de nata
Custard tart to you and me
Love it when Liam turns Hackney Philosopher.
Decent....decent.”
Liam smashes it! Go on. Stacey’s pies are incredibly pretty to look at too, and she wins the Academy Award for combating moisture in mince. Her reaction is a model of grace and modesty, which … what are you playing at, producers? I was going to be nice anyway, and now you’ve just confused me.
Once again LOL at Liam’s “Standard FC decorative pies.” Standard. Football. Club. For those moments when a blue shirt becomes self-aware.
Yan’s pastry is buttery and flaky and perfect, but her chicken is dry, and her decoration formless. “… It is pastry week?” she counterargues. What a noble chancer. Love a bit o’ backchat.
Soggy Botoooooom
vegetarian faces sorry
There’s something upsetting about eating pink mash, sniffs Prue, as Paul inverts all Steven’s pies, so the carefully wrought hearts tumble to the floor. “Disappointing” Julia is chastised like a schoolgirl for her paprika-heavy pie, while Kate’s vegetarian faeces are a bit sloppy.
Sophie’s beautiful pies are described as a triumph. Paul dusts off his hand as if readying for a shake, then turns away with a “thank you.” WHAT a cad.
That Oetker cupcake has more identities than James McAvoy in an M Night Shyamalan film.
Ooh, judging time. ‘That’s a milk wash.’ Sophie demonstrates a rare activation of her bullshit mode. Good to see she’s got it in the arsenal.
Get that quiche in, Tinyismynewt! Remember to adjust for fan assist.
That was surprisingly high concept for a Pets At Home advert.
Of course Liam hasn’t bought his own clock. “Can you let me know when there’s 30 seconds left please?” Love him.
(In real life, he’s no doubt awful. TV lies, remember!)
(They are both exceptional comic performers elsewhere!)
GOOD GOD the return of the Noel and Sandi comedy skit. This time, an acceptable joke about Noel “glazing over” is explained into the ground.
Julia offers Noel some raw meat, which he declines on the grounds of not being a wolf. I bet dinner at hers is a high stakes tombola.
Steven looks like he’s extruding pink McNugget meat into his pie. Presumably it’s going to end up the greatest dish ever created, but … how?
Liam in comic dudgeon sounds EXACTLY like a chicken. Paul threatens to kick him out for supporting Manchester United, and a flabbergasted Liam addresses – who? The camera operator? It’s an eye-line I can’t remember seeing before.
Sophie has “been fighting moisture problems the whole time,” which I am leaving well alone. But what the hell is that cat o’ nine tails looking device she’s scoring her shortcrust with?
Noel is more perturbed she’s not baking a monkey or a sloth, or himself, as they are all arboreal denizens. Paul finds the bants too weird and checks out. Love it when three oddballs don’t quite click.
She may have said vacuum sealer.
Yan is using a vacuum cleaner to make her meat suck up spices? Will they be able to broadcast that?
Updated
Ian from the year before that vociferously agreed.
Agreed! If you wanted oven to go above 200 you had to find bread mode. (Better known as panic mode - bake you bastard, got 5 mins left!)
— Ian Cumming (@iancpix) September 27, 2017
The coveted Hide and Slide ovens are in fact the bakers’ bane. I bet Paul fiddles with the settings, too.
Updated
Speaking of which, fabulous Baker Boy Andrew from last year got in touch to explain how Sophie’s oven incident can easily occur:
There are at least 10 different modes and the silly play/pause button which is the cause of all that oven drama. WHO NEEDS TO PAUSE AN OVEN
— Andrew Smyth (@cakesmyth) September 26, 2017
That pile of gibberish/esoteric information on Yan’s pad is apparently “the equation for the perfect pie.” She is amazing. Although, she is setting the bar quite high for herself.
Most other bakers would have bullet points on their hands reminding them to turn the oven on.
(See Sophie, last week.)
Fleetwood Mac! Finally the man is talking sense. Adore them. There better be Fleetwood Mac n’ Cheese in one of those daddies, though, or he’s missed a trick.
Steven looks unimpressed with everything, even when merely explaining the three ingredients in shortcrust pastry. (That’s just his face though; he’s clearly a passionate and focused baker.)
Some things I love about Enfield Scientist Yan is that she is making a Science Pie (not a thing) and referring to it as Geek Pie, a Nathan Barley reference. Utterly on-message.
Signature challenge: savoury pies
“Four pies” is very much the blue shirt of the signature challenge world.
Noel’s top this week has a sort of ladybird Ziggy Stardust appeal, while Sandi is wearing 101 dalmation coloured cats. Prue looks like Timmy Mallett has been invited on to the Captain’s table and panicked, while Paul is wearing a blue shirt. He don’t play those games.
Updated
That was an admirably weird opening sequence, with a late-forming Life of Pi payoff. And Prue standing alone on a bridge, like Hasselhoff on the Berlin wall.
In fairness, it’s true that TV producers quickly establish a narrative for these “characters”, editing footage to further that. But anyway, I’m WAY ruder about Prue, and I think she’s great.
Ooh, here we go! That cupcake gets more disturbing each week.
Here is your UNSEASONED, BLAND meal, sir.
Last week a few people thought I was being too mean to Stacey, so this week I am going to be overly nice to everyone, in a sort of passive aggressive way. I’m a delight, yes?
Tom Petty really could wear a top hat, couldn’t he? It’s very hard to wear a top hat. Hero.
Did anyone just see a weather report with no weather forecaster? Just a disembodied voice. Very er, chilling.
Hubert you are a man(?) with a checklist and a good attitude.
Are you all in your pyjamas? Do you have snackables to hand? Better to go to the toilet now than later.
Let us bingo, brothers and sisters.
- Liam doing a bogle after pulling off a bakewell. (Again.)
- Sophie mouth-smiling at Steven, eyes telling a different story.
- Yan further inhabiting a mad cockney scientist persona.
- Noel quizzing a contestant on whether the material world exists.
- Julia making noises that resemble the mating cry of a partridge, and there being consequences.
It’s pastry week, and thank god. After “caramel 24 ways Tuesday” my arteries need some choux and short crust to cut through all the sugar. (You’re welcome, body.)
Several fan favourites have been in jeopardy recently, and we’ll lose another baker tonight. That’s not a surprise, you know how the show works. But that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt. If their puff is deflated, or the suet doesn’t do it, they’ll be shown the door. Or whatever a tent has for a door. Usually just a flap, right? Paul Hollywood will show them his flap.
I’ll be here at 8pm to chart the highs and lows as they unfold, and I’d love for you to join me!
