Byeeeeeee.
Next week Heidi returns to host pudding week and I am going to have another crack at Chelsea Buns. Mainly because I want to eat them.
Thanks for your company this evening and don’t forget to come back same time, same place for teetering roulades of doom next Tuesday!
I hope this joyous result doesn’t build Rahul up too much too soon.
Oh, Antony! He’s smiling through the tears but you can tell he is gutted to end his journey here. “Antony had to go,” says Paul like a Bond villain chucking another lacky to the crocodiles.
Poor Sani has to smash someone’s dreams.
And it’s.... ANTONY!
Noel announces star baker!
It’s....... RAHUL!!!
Ruby’s flavours are going to save her, think the judges as they huddle for the final reckoning. Sandi and Noel are chucking in their four penneth which I like. I don’t think Mel and Sue used to do that, did they?
Five hours IS a long time, Paul. But you don’t help with your prowling and your smugging about how you’re Mr Bread. THEY’RE DOING THEIR BEST, OK??!
Manon’s gone heavy on the orange flower water. Is that all she gets?
Briony’s leaning tower holds up but doesn’t have much going on inside. The texture is too tight for Paul. Rapunzel’s tower is a bit of a let down. Get it? Thanks.
Terry’s is under-proved, under-baked, tasty but not complete. He proved for 15 minutes when Paul advises two hours! That’s quite a cock-up. He’ll never forgive himself but has he done enough to save his skin this week?
Antony’s given his extra height by putting it on top of a volcano. He does some business with the doves and they all coo. Under-prroved and over-baked despite the decorative flourish. That’s got to hurt.
Ruby’s almond flavour is applauded and lauded and Paul wants to neck the lot. Very well played, Ruby.
Jon’s hunk of Welsh is considered a bit clumsy and not that tasty. But Karen’s autumnal decoration is a salve for the eyes. So restrained for her. The dougby centre lets her down but it is a stunner.
Dan’s teeny tiny flowers are beautiful. They’re all a bit too good this year.
However pretty, Prue doubts the flavour’s oomph. He sighs.
Rahul’s is spectacular. Like Panetone, says Prue and Paul waves his chunk around and calls Rahul a little genius. Steady on!
Kim-Joy’s is just that - a dough depiction of joy. She’s amazing and I want her to win.
Her daisy-covered bread is likened to hot cross buns and now I want one. With butter dripping off it.
It’s raining in Bake-Off land. Pathetic fallacy? Is the sky crying for this week’s evictee? Probably.
Jon’s looks like a big Welsh burger.
A tiny dove (was it?) just slides off the side of a finished korovai as we cut to the break. Superb editing. Disaster followed immediately by Paloma Faith.
TIME IS UP!
Dan is spinning his layers like Fat Boy Slim in Ibiza.
Karen says her cake is better looking than her husband. Harsh.
Lost for what else to do, Dan makes some more roses. Terry’s have stuck in their pans. No, Terry. Not after the other two triumphs!
Rahul is existentially crashing. He isn’t sure about anything at all in his life.
Someone is under-proved and panicking but I didn’t see who. Noel says Rahul is like a breadstick about to snap. I think he’s right.
I think Jon is the one who is losing the will to carry on. Don’t tip your pavlova in the bin. Don’t do it!
K-J is nestling her edible cats into the base like they are real cats. They are real to her and that’s what matters.
Rahul actually says that his pressure cooker can burst any time. You SEE? He needs a doctor on standby. He cares about this too much.
Time is pressing. When to stop proving?
Briony’s doing Rapunzel’s castle with plaited hair bits and flowers and that. Those illustrations always look so much nicer than the finished things. I wonder who does them?
Terry’s Midlands pragmatism sees him calmly snipping at his base with scissors which is something to do with the “joining” of the wedding ceremony. Someone’s been on Wikipedia.
Manon’s tattoo is the inspiration for some of her decorations. I like her tattoo. I like Manon. I do!
She is going eggy with the theme as a tribute to her parents’ business. Oeuf.
Karen’s continental wedding bread is suitably rainbow and she reveals her practice efforts used mint sauce for the green bits.
Rahul is making 200 pieces of individual decoration. He is going to burst a vessel and fall to the floor clutching a tiny, crusty cherub.
Intricate bread decorations look extremely complicated. Are you allowed to varnish the tiny doves and so on or do they have to be edible? Do Prue and Paul mind a touch of Ronseal?
What does one wear to a cat wedding? Collars?
Antony is making his brother a wedding korovai with the bride and groom depicted on the top as doughy doves. Ambitious.
Kim-Joy’s is a cat wedding cake. Repeat: a cat wedding cake. I love her and I want to come to her cat wedding.
They have three tiers, that’s non-negotiable. But just bread won’t cut it here. It needs to be as jazzy as a wedding cake and strewn with the kind of decoration you might find on one of Grayson Perry’s really pucker party frocks. No holding back.
This is like the first time I learned the term Croquembouche. I love a new baking word. Just off to the shops to get the ingredients for my korovai. Oh, don’t you make korovais for YOUR parties?
The show-stopper is a TIERED KOROVAI. It’s an eastern european party thing. Bring on the korovai!
It is a new day but everyone is still wearing the same clothes. I’ve never understood that. I suppose it’s a continuity thing if they want to use reaction shots from different days.
Ah, television.
And I really like her earrings.
I would like to apologise to the French nation for my xenophobic unpleasance towards Manon. I will hereafter refrain from enjoying it every time she boasts about her bread and then makes slightly less good bread. Honest.
The first prize goes to Terry who retains his composure as he goes as pink as his shirt. Briony is just happy to have done eight in the time and Ruby is glad not to be the worst Indian.
In last place is K-J. Undercooked, old thing. She looks sorry. And possibly embarrassed but it’s impossible to tell.
Paul and Pru tear and chew and saucer-eye at the levels of garlic in some offerings.
Terry’s look fantastic and puffy and soft and I want them.
“A bit thick,” is Paul’s repeated criticism of most of the others.
One minute to go and it’s chaos as per usual on the tech challenge. Garlic butter is slapped on half-finished dough splats.
“Please place your nan behind your photograph,” says Sandi, chuckling to herself. And so to the judging.
It’s impossible to tell if K-J is blushing with the pressure or just ducked under the counter to reapply her rouge. Aunty Sally is a vision of subtlety compared to K-J. But I admire her decisiveness.
Manon is banging on about “baking” like she hasn’t even read the recipe. When you put things under the grill do you usually shut the door? I never do. Have I been doing it wrong all this time?
Terry is extremely laid-back as he tosses his dough about. Noel draws a sweary cat on Briony’s recipe sheet, the cheeky imp.
Jon says he’d usually fry naans but will grudgingly use the grill if he must.
The recipe just says, “Make the dough? which seems sarcastic. Follow your instincts, bakers. My instinct is to go to Waitrose and buy some garlic naan bread but is there a nearby branch and enough time?
Suddenly craving curry. And I hope Rahul’s mango chutney filled buns are still nearby as they’d go perfectly.
This is a grill challenge instead of the oven, so a whole different skill. Paul says such a wet dough will be hard to keep uniform. Prepare for potentially soggy bottoms all round.
And now the technical challenge and it’s a short, sharp shock.
It’s a batch of garlic naans. A batch of garlic naans.
The Hollywood handshake - in a show laced with double entendre - does sound like a euphemism for something absolutely APPALLING.
Jon’s are too hard but delicious. Rahul’s already apologising for his fruit before they’ve even sunk their teeth in. Oh, there’s that word again. “Interesting.” Oh, they actually like them!
Karen’s are insanely bright and she is not sorry about that.
Ruby forgot to put sugar in her dough. Prue damns her with “interesting” and Paul is not convinced either.
Terry’s meet with Paul’s approval AND Prue’s.
Briony’s are SO pretty but Paul thinks not. Paul is wrong.
Antony’s are also over-baked and tough and dry and what a pity says Prue. Dry, says Paul. Repeatedly.
Dan’s are “absolutely delicious and he gets a HANDSHAKE!!! Early in the episode for one of those. Blimey! Dan blushes like a giggling maiden.
K-J’s baking is “good” and “delicate”.
Manon’s are “over-baked” (YES) but of course they taste amazing. But not perfect which will drive her insane.
Right! To the buns. Karen’s buns - if Sue Pollard were baked goods.
I’m trying not to be overly gleeful at the excessively tanned quality of Manon’s buns. But failing. I’m sure they’ll taste AMAZING but surely Paul will rub his hands with glee when he cops a load of the colour.
I forgot this version of the show has ad breaks! Glory be. My hands hurt already. So, whose buns do you fancy? To the comments!
Karen’s buns are every colour of the rainbow and would send any hyperactive child of the cliff-edge of Tigger-ishness.
Time’s up. Buns to bench-ends, people. Buns to bench-ends.
FIVE MINUTES LEFT and some bakers resort to prayer while others grimace at the overly brown colour of their finished bun cluster. Eh, Manon?!
The buns are assembled in tins and going into the oven. Some look promising and others... (Rahul) look a bit enormous.
Ruby notices that Paul is prowling around like a “a....bear” says Ruby. I think that’s investing him with a gruff authority he doesn’t naturally possess. He’s more of an ape.
You can hear Noel grinning in the voice over booth as he talks about their buns being too tight. He’s having the time of his life on this show, isn’t he? The big, stripy fool.
Now for the slicing. This is always the bit I hate. That perfect roll of potential suddenly becomes a dozen shapeless, juice-oozing disasters. It’s all in the baking whether they attain some kind of shape again.
ONE HOUR LEFT.
Rahul is ordered to hold his hand out by a sadistic Paul who pretends to be encouraging but actually just wants to pile on the pressure. Yes, the hand is definitely shaking. Paul is a bastard.
Dan is feigning confidence and kneading like billio. Jon’s buns are going to be covered in marshmallow. And Pru hates the idea. We know this because she subtly indicates that she finds even the concept of Jon’s buns “disgusting”.
Karen is also adding some much needed colour to bread week with a load of food dye and a jaunty beret. She’s game isn’t she? “Best dressed” declares Sandi. Quite right too.
It’s proving time. The scariest bit of bread baking. If those proving drawers aren’t at exactly the right temp, the buns/bread are doomed. The proof of the bun is in the er proving.
Ruby (fitness fanatic) is looking confident while Briony is trying not to cry. Not really, she’s pretty together so far and is doing stuff with pistachios and boasting about the age of her balsamic collection.
Antony is laughing while Sani makes jibes about the banking crisis. Meanwhile, Terry girds his loins for a zesty bun cluster and his moustache looks particularly optimistic in the way it’s turning up at the ends this week.
Or as Fanny Craddock once suggested, imagine the dough is the face of a neighbour you can’t stand and really give it HELL.
Kneading is essential this week and all contestants must have robust core strength to nudge and oppress their dough to the correct submissive consistency. Work it, bakers.
Seriously, if Manon’s bread doesn’t contain scented diamond broth at its centre she can button it, gobby French boaster biscuit.
Manon’s buns are heart-shaped and fruity. She claims it’s really hard to find nice bread in London. Bloody cheek.
Kim-Joy has another unique method for producing her offering. And she likes to surprise her boyfriend at his comic shop. K-J’s boyfriend works at a comic shop! They are perfect cartoon characters. I expect they solve mysteries on the weekends! I want to see THAT TV show.
Paul says the dough must be perfect for this “classic tear and share”.
I can see antennae on Noel’s head, even though they’re not there.
The first challenge is set. The signature bake is Chelsea Buns! Last time I live-blogged this show I actually baked Chelsea Buns WHILE I was blogging. I don’t have that kind of stamina anymore. Hands up if you make a great set of Chelsea Buns. (Me, I do.)
Thankfully, Kim-Joy is still bringing the lurid colours and we love her for it. I think her outfits get more excellent every week.
And smug Manon had better win star baker after that Gallic boasting about French bread.
The lurid colours of macaron and candied icing give way this week to the beiges and golds of bread. Bring on the pain. Or pain, as they say in France. Nice gag, Noel or giant bumble bee or whoever you are.
Look away now if you’d rather not re-live Luek’s cake horror.
Just in the nick of time, I have remembered how to live-blog. Thank GOODNESS. What will Noel dress as this week? A giant plaited spelt loaf?
Shall we try that again?
For some reason my amazing copy didn’t publish. So here it is again. HELLO.
Hello, is this thing on?
Evening all, and welcome to Bake-Off LIVE: Revenge of the Yeast. Not a medical condition, but an overly-dramatic way of telling you it’s bread week. And only the spongiest, lightest, gold-bottomed ingot of loafy goodness will do.
Or Pru will resort to the devastating face of “oh dear” and Paul’s sparkly blues will narrow to angry sapphire lasers and slice the display table in twain. And nobody wants that.
Join me here from 8pm for every floury, tense, kneady second. (Proving time not included.)
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