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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Scott Bryan and Michael Chakraverty

The Great British Bake Off 2020: episode five – as it happened

Paul Hollywood
Paul Hollywood sniffs a pasty, flanked by Prue Leith. Photograph: CHANNEL 4

In conclusion..

Thank you for reading this week’s liveblog. We love being here for the ride with you all. Next week ... the first ever Japanese Week. See you then.

Updated

Also if Harry Hill’s TV Burp was still going, Linda saying “I can make pastry!” followed by her leaving the competition would been a ‘This Week’s British Bake Off In A Nutshell.’

Aaaaand Laura has won her first Star Baker! Shove THAT in your private outdoor pizza oven and SMOKE IT! Thrilled for her, so very well deserved. I feel we’re beginning to get to know her a bit more now and I’m enjoying it very much.

You are right. Each series has always had a dip (and we are certainly in one), but we are hopefully on our way out. Linda has been a delight. Constantly radiant, she’s baked from the heart. The way she has handled the last couple of days, with a commitment to carry on and never take these failures too personally, has been admirable. I’ll miss her.

Linda is leaving the tent.

It was nice to see a slightly more upbeat episode this week. Not sure we’re back at the level of the joyful early weeks, but we’re getting there - and it’s so lovely to start to see personalities shine through. Though talking of personalities, I am so sad to see the endlessly joyful Linda going home. What a delight she has been - and how painful that two other disintegrated pies couldn’t save her.

“Pastry week was supposed to be my week,” says Linda. Oh god, my mind is literally having a flashback to the start of the episode when she literally cheered when she told us it was pastry week. She cheered, Michael.

“I think you’re missing something. At your core level.” Paul, playing the role of my soon-to-be ex-boyfriend.

Lottie’s cage is literally the Louvre. Would happily pose at a distance and do that pointing thing with my finger, like everyone who visits the real thing.

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“The way it flops doesn’t look good”’ Speak for yourself, Prue.

Laura has got Star Baker nailed for this week, I think. Decoration beautiful, the cage a delight, a strong technical and signature.

We know that Hermine’s falls apart, simply because we already saw it disintegrate in the opening titles.

I can relate to shortcrust pastry. I, too, require regular 30-60 minute rests. I’ll crumble if I am spread too thin - and the harder I’m worked, the more resistant and disgusting I can get.

Is anyone else finding it weird that the pastry is not even being eaten after it has been lifted? Or is eating it not a thing?

It's the Showstopper

Dave’s bake looks absolutely stunning. Let’s hope the best *man* doesn’t… *go*...

Poor Linda. It’s just not her week.

Laura’s cage looks ok, so is Hermine’s. Mark’s looks like he’s presenting a cheddar cheese slice fit for a sandwich.

And oh god. Linda’s has completely disintegrated. She’s a goner. Even though Mark’s looks quite bad (did it melt?), Linda is doomed because of what happened in her technical and signature. I also can’t remember a Showstopper in recent years where the bakers have either done amazingly, or terribly, with absolutely no bakers in between.

“I’ve never felt more stressed” says Hermine calmly, without emotion. Meanwhile, has Mark made the inside of the TARDIS?

Hysterically fragile? Can relate.

Mark pronounces “pears” as “purrs” and I’m obsessed. I never want to hear a different pronunciation again. What if he was to come across a pair of pears? Throw a happy cat into that mix and it’d be carnage.

They are now taking their cages out of the oven. All of them look hysterically fragile.

Straight to the point - that’s the insight you get only from The Guardian’s liveblog for The Great British Bake Off series 10!

No.

The bakers are using a lattice cutter! The Bake Off stores seem to have everything. Was there anything the Bake Off cupboard wasn’t able to provide you, equipment wise?

*WHISPERS* Hermine has been getting better and better. She didn’t excel in bread or biscuit week, but so far in pastry week she’s nailed it. I’ll stop typing now because I’ve absolutely jinxed it haven’t I? *STOPS WHISPERING*

MANGO KLAXON! This week, it’s Dave that succumbed to our least favourite fruit’s tropical delights. When will we be free of this curse? Oh look, Scott’s done another bar graph. Or, a tart chart, if you will.

Thoroughly enjoyed the showdown there between Paul’s instinct and Lottie’s preparatory Googling. Pies don’t need walls - a triumph for the millennials!

They’ve claimed that Nicolas Cage is a big fan of this show. In an unrelated note, if you can link to your favourite Nicolas Cage memes BTL, Michael and I would very much appreciate it, thank you.

Personally, I think tarts should be allowed to roam free. But each to their own. Lottie agrees with me, sagely noting that “the biggest issue here is the cage”...

It's the Showstopper.

This week they have to bake a sweet tart, placed within a highly decorative pastry cage. It’s a bit of a relief, after some pretty wild weeks, to only have a Showstopper that is only mildly challenging to find examples of on Google.

My Bake Off WhatsApp group is EXPLODING with fury over the pronounciation of ‘pattisière’ as ‘pattiserie’. Perhaps we should give up and name it after the icon herself:

Here’s the technical standings. Last: Linda. Seventh: Marc. Six: Laura. Fifth: David. Fourth: Lottie. Third: Mark. Second: Hermine. First: Peter (his first win). Linda is in trouble, yet she laughs her way through it. She is, in his spirit, doing a Rowan.

Updated

These éclairs are all apparently either “too fat” or “too skinny”. Remember all shapes and sizes are beautiful, no matter what they say. Words can’t bring you down.

Seriously though, it’s what’s inside that counts. Unless there is nothing inside, as appears to be the case with both Mark and Dave in this particular instance.

Oh my god Linda couldn’t decorate her éclairs in time, so instead of putting on a topping she just dumped it in three bowls and made it A DIP. Iconic.

Can we talk about how Linda is having a horror of a week. She didn’t follow her Signature brief properly and ended up making a samosa. Now she is having to restart her whole technical halfway through. Yet, she’s buzzing as usual. It’s basically this.

I want to run my hands through Mark’s hair. Anybody else? No?

Linda appears to have made a bundle of twigs. Perhaps the instructions weren’t (é)clair. Sorry.

Laura is continuing to undergo an internal class war before our very eyes. The other week she pointed out that hobnobs were posh while baking in her outdoor pizza oven, and now she’s denouncing the famously delicious crème patissière as “fancy custard”.

BAKE OFF FACT (if you are making a pub quiz for your friends on Zoom): there has never been a left-handed winner of Bake Off, according to Noel. On an unrelated note, please do not make a pub quiz for your friends for Zoom.

I would agree but in all honesty a chocolate éclair wouldn’t survive in the shopping bag on the way home under my care.

All I have to say here is this:

It's the technical challenge

The bakers have to make six éclairs - three flavoured with raspberry and three with salted caramel. And yes, they have made something similar to this before, back in the celebrity series. I remember a celebrity trying to squeeze in a filling into an éclair so flat it exploded.

Oh and nobody got a Hollywood Handshake *puts my graphs back in briefcase*

Someone’s got to be the bottom, Lottie. I’d go as far as saying they’re crucial, actually. Can’t have a top without one.

For The International Criminal Court at the Hague, here are the Cornish Pasty war crimes:

Acceptable Cornish Pasty: David, Mark, Hermine.

Questionable Cornish Pasty: Marc (“too few pleats”), Laura, Lottie

Mother of God: Peter (you baked a fish), Linda (Linda, you baked a samosa)

Paul is complimenting Laura’s nice golden brown colour. Either that or he’s reading from his favourite bottle of “moisturiser”.

Did anyone else catch Prue casually mentioning that she likes hurling cornish pasties over hedges? Whose hedges? Whose pasties? Why has nobody noticed?

Breaking: footage of Prue from the bottom of my garden.

Updated

Matt Lucas just did his “I want that one” catchphrase, his first from Little Britain. Ugh fine I suppose, but a missed opportunity in using Majorie during Cake Week.

It's the Signature judging.

Marc has been criticised by Paul for the amount of missing pleats on his Cornish pasty. Even the Cornish Pasty is like “nobody cares.”

I have been biting my tongue on the RIPE innuendo, ... BUT - which bit is the toad and which bit is the hole?

Also... is anyone else seeing faces in Lottie’s pasties?

That had to be the most dramatic music Bake Off has ever had in all of its series, whilst all we are seeing on screen are people taking cornish pasties out of an oven.

Ooh, Marc is coming out. Welcome, Marc! The more the merrier.

Okay team, settle a long-standing niggle for me. TUR-meric, TOO-meric, or CHOO-meric?

How many of these will actually look like a Cornish pasty when presented to Paul and Prue? At this rate out of all of them ... three.

Peter’s haddock pasty reminds me of the time in lockdown I accidentally lost a plate of fish in the house for nine hours (it ended up being in the plate cupboard).

I’d like to see a burlesque pasty pasty. Everyone is saying pasty too much. It’s losing meaning. Pasty. Pasty. Pasty.

Peter is essentially making kedgeree in a pasty whilst Linda is making a pasty in the shape of a samosa. I think… *checks the Guardian homepage* ... has Cornwall declared war on us?

I’m loving Lottie’s baking style. Usually between 40-80% sure of what she’s doing, she soldiers on despite the conspicuous lack of Google in the tent and produces something delicious every time. Chaos, maybe … but relatable? Definitely.

Lottie opening a bottle of wine at 10 in the morning to be included in her bake is very Lottie.

“We want crimping” - 2007 me, straightening my hair. Don’t ask, it was a phase.

Laura is making a traditional cheese and onion one, but Lottie is making a ‘Toad in the Hole’ pastry filled with sausage and mash potato. Pray for Cornwall at this difficult time.

I think this is going to upset Cornwall. Cornish Pasties have to be made in Cornwall as they have protected status. According to the Cornish Pasty Association, a pasty must be “chunky, made up of uncooked mince or chunks of beef with swede, potato and onion, with a bit of light seasoning.”

The signature this week is Cornish Pasties.

I want to see a white chocolate and mango pasty. Anyone else?

Hermine is excitedly announcing “it’s my week!!”. By the laws of the Bake Off Gods, she will now do either brilliantly or will crash and burn. Nothing in between.

Not sure I’d call it a wonder, Scott. I spent half of Biscuit Week sobbing into caramel.

Admire how the opener of the episode is like: “well, quite a few people did terribly this week but WHO?” You did a 3D architectural wonder didn’t you Michael?

Fielding and Lucas opened Bake Off with the weirdest opening yet. It’s like they are having a bet on how far they can go.

Bet Prue did not, in fact, make those pastries. They probably just popped to Waitrose.

This evening’s bingo: white chocolate, mangoes and Mark saying “behhk” in the most CHARMINGLY IRISH way possible.

Hello and welcome to Pastry Week … which from my understanding can include all of the other bakes from the other weeks so long as you can shoehorn a pastry in.

In case you missed Chocolate Week (the Showstopper involved white chocolate and we shall never speak of the Showstopper again), Mark – that’s the Irish one not the Marc whose buttermilk exploded in his face, or Mac who was booted out the week before – came through triumphant and got Star Baker, but we said goodbye to Sura, the baker behind all those memes that make you go “same.”

Updated

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