Here ends an incredibly stressful week. Or in the case of Sura’s Showstopper, an inedibly stressful week. I need a lie down in a dark room after that one.
Thanks for joining us! We’ll add white chocolate to the ‘in the bin’ pile along with those pesky mangos - soon to be joined by whatever monstrosities are paired with pastry next week. Look after yourselves x
Updated
Mark seems invincible at the moment. So is Marc. At this rate we’re going to have a markedly confusing final.
Up at the top of the tent, lovely Irish Mark has won Star Baker, and he is tickled pink. Literally - did you see his cheeks? He lit up with joy, bless him.
Also, someone on Twitter has pointed out that he looks like Nick Offerman and I can’t unsee it.
SURA! One of the true characters of this year has gone too soon. The way she handled the gripping HBO drama that was flygate was so memorable, and I will never forget her iconic Attenborough cake that tipped backwards and smiled at the ceiling. So utterly relatable at a time like this.
The results are in...
13 October 2020 will hereby be marked as a day of national mourning. Queen Sura, of flygate, wide eyes and cat-walking, has left the tent - taking my heart with her. *sobs into a pillow*
Oh gulp.
At the start of the episode Rowan said he was “quite glad [to be leaving]. I didn’t want to do chocolate week.” After seeing this episode, I don’t blame him.
Also *checks the clock* are we finishing at 9:15pm?! A RELIEF. Even though I love Bake Off, it shouldn’t be film length. Also, is Channel 4 showing Taskmaster? Wish they would tell us.
I agree – it’s Sura or Lottie at the bottom. With Rowan having left last week, it’s quietly devastating seeing some of the most popular contestants booted off so quickly. Every year Bake Off has to strike the balance between having good bakers and having bakers that make good television – will they get it right this year?
A mixed bag of Showstoppers … Surely Peter and Mark are vying for Star Baker? A sad and defeated Sura joins Lottie at the bottom. What do we think?
SWIFTLY moving on please!
“A little bit messy down at the bottom. But the top bit is quite cute”. Me to myself in the mirror most mornings.
Prue has just had what has been referred to as a “Prue-gasm.” This is a new Bake Off catchphrase I pray never catches on.
Not sure why but Peter’s Showstopper reminds me of this scene from The Simpsons
NO TV AND NO BEER MAKE HOMER GO CRAZY NO TV AND NO BEER MAKE HOMER GO CRAZY pic.twitter.com/fh555VZ381
— PLANET HORROR (@PLANETHORRORHSE) August 24, 2015
The three words you don’t want to hear from Prue. “It’s. Not. Edible.” Noooooo Sura!
Lottie’s is overbaked, but at least it’s better than the horror of her Signature and the Technical that made her last. She could actually get through this week (just) intact.
Up next, Showstopper judging!
So, credit where credit’s due. Mark has made a genoise sponge, meaning he has no raising agent in it which makes it really tricky. Major props to him. I made a tiered genoise in week five of my year and frankly I wasn’t praised enough for it. So well done Mark (and also me).
Not really. Bake Off always has flatter weeks, and this is definitely one of them. At least their Showstopper bakes look better than I thought they would.
Marc helping and comforting Sura is making my heart go warm and fuzzy. Other than that, it’s been a tense week. Not much joy, is there?
This cake can get in the bin immediately.
Dave prediction: “I hope the temperature doesn’t go above 25 degrees.”
Narrator: “It did.”
Laura is having a nightmare and wants to start everything again. Elsewhere, Linda is copying Peter’s cake whispering. Apparently you want them to sound the right level of ‘bubbly’. No, I don’t know what he’s talking about either.
Is white chocolate actually chocolate? The comments haven’t popped off this much since mango-gate.
Here’s a question: which would you rather see in a bake - white chocolate or mango?
Still thinking about Prue’s immortal words: “Don’t forget, you only have to be *not the worst*”. Also the current mantra of 90% of world leaders.
Vindication.
Peter notes that he likes to bite into chocolate hunks. Same, though I’m not that fussy. I’ll take any hunk I can get at this point. His bake DOES contain mango, though. The commenters BTL must be so pleased.
Peter’s bake is in celebration of his brother Andrew’s recent university graduation. They are all baking cakes for people who can’t be there and can’t eat them. How very 2020 … but at least this Showstopper makes sense.
Lottie has practiced her Showstopper between 15 and 18 times. 16.5 times then, to be precise. I did the same in my year with a cake that kept tearing in half – but I persevered regardless. I should have realised that if a bake doesn’t work 16 times it’s unlikely to work on the 17th.
Just jumping in quickly to say that usually a tiered cake takes a couple of days at least and that four hours is nowhere near enough time okay thanks bye.
Dave: “Hopefully the ambient temperature doesn’t go above twenty.”
Bake Off inevitability: It absolutely will.
Much like the country, it’s all going to end in tiers. Possibly higher than Merseyside.
Next up, the Showstopper!
The bakers have four hours to bake a White Chocolate Tiered Celebration Cake. So basically a vanilla cake. White chocolate tastes of nothing. Tell me I’m wrong.
Can someone please remind Paul and Prue that this is meant to be a positive distraction from all of The News?
*Actual footage of me during the Brownie marking from Paul and Prue* #GBBO pic.twitter.com/H94hRnbLDl
— Helen Fulton (@HelenFulton) October 13, 2020
Sura looks so deflated, but we can be *officially* worried for Lottie now.
Oof what a judging. Last place is Lottie (!), Dave is 8th, Sura is 7th, Marc is 6th, Dave 5th, Peter 4th, Mark 3rd, Laura is 2nd. First place goes to Linda (who had never baked one before). I’m worried for Lottie.
Looks like we’re all feeling the James Acaster vibes this week...
Literally us all. #BakeOff pic.twitter.com/q7Zl4KQ6oK
— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) March 12, 2019
Straight into the Technical judging.
Paul says babka, Prue says bobka. Let’s call the whole thing off.
Can someone please hug Lottie? Can it be me? From an appropriate social distance, obviously.
Lottie seems properly nervous this week. It feels as if the pressure, nerves (or tiredness) have gotten to her in the last week or so.
Marc, sitting on the floor staring into the distance waiting for his bake to be ready, has extreme “your bus is delayed” Victoria Coach Station vibes.
I don’t know what you mean. Elsewhere, Lottie’s won’t fit in the tin as she descends into delirium, both scowling and giggling at her proving drawer. I’m getting flashbacks to James Acaster’s brief sojourn beneath canvas:
James Acaster was such a mood in the tent 😂 #GBBO #CelebrityBakeOff pic.twitter.com/Osno5TpzJo
— тαѕнα (@eds_shirtsleeve) April 21, 2020
Michael, with innuendo like this I now know why you were chosen for last year’s show.
Apparently Hermine’s is too long. So is Sura’s. Not a problem I’ve had before.
Whilst the bakers try to make sense of the vague instructions Paul has given them (leading some to plait in the wrong way), Noel is asking Mark: “have you ever got naked in a public space?”
Never related to a tweet more.
Me waiting for 2020 to end #gbbo pic.twitter.com/mEyr714EOY
— Jono (@jonoread) October 13, 2020
“The Brownie challenge was easy,” says Paul. May God have mercy on us all.
Technical: Alright, bab...ka?
Two and a half hours to make a chocolate babka bread. Yikes.
Quick recap of that challenge: everyone is leaving the tent this week.
No change to the Hollywood Handshake tally. The total is still at two: Hermine (bread week) and Lottie (biscuit week).
“Brownies are the most basic thing to bake. And if you can’t get that right…*winces*”.
Paul is being a bit harsh. I’ll hold my hands up and say that I only made my first actually decent batch of brownies in February of this year.
This week has been #veryveryharsh pic.twitter.com/aIgvJAYEjP
— Neil Wilkinson (@NeillWilkinson) November 24, 2019
The cameras keep cutting to Lottie’s face, knowing her bake, yet to be reviewed, will get the worst critique. Flashbacks to that day in school when you find out your presentation, written on the bus on the way in, is about to be presented. Just imagine them naked, Lottie!
Nobody is getting nice comments, are they? The atmosphere here is brutal despite the jovial background music. Perhaps Praul and Poo (sorry) were tired of being locked in a hotel with the entire Bake Off production team by this point.
Time for the Signature judging.
Sura’s lost half her bake as it capsized inside the oven. If I were her, instead of providing half a bake, I would just open the oven door, give Paul and Prue a fork and tell them to tuck in.
Looks like everyone, with the exception of Linda, has had a terrible time. “It looks like an actual car crash,” says Lottie, commenting on her own brownies. I’m looking forward to this quote being picked up and being used a reaction meme on Twitter, like this from last week:
— no context bake off (@nocontextgbbo) October 2, 2020
Freezer condensation has dripped onto Lottie’s bake resulting in a gross surprise third topping. She should style it out and pretend it’s meant to be there. She has a lovely jumpsuit on, though. Always nice to focus on the positives.
Now there’s a dilemma. Would you rather figs or mangos in your brownies? Our very own Sophie’s Choice.
Laura’s got a nice crack. Linda’s getting hers out. Careful, boys.
Please, sir, I want s’more (brownies).
Many bakers are currently whipping up meringues, with Mark commenting that his whip looks like Trump’s hair. Please, especially after the last couple of weeks, can we make Bake Off a politics-free zone? Thank you.
Good idea. Better than stocking up on loo roll...
“Everyone has baked brownies,” says Peter. Noel has now quietly admitted that not only has he never baked brownies, he has never baked. Noel is the host of The Great British Bake Off.
I hate figs. Is it true that they absorb dead wasps into their gross fleshy centres? I read that on Twitter once so it must be true.
Paul (as predicted): I want basic brownies.
Peter: I am making fig and pistachio upside-down brownies packed with cinnamon.
Marc just said that he’s tired. I don’t blame him. They’re squeezing filming into fewer weeks this year: a month less than usual. Will a squeezed series make everyone tired and, as a result, compromise the baking?
Prediction: Paul will want them to make a basic brownie.
Prediction: The Bakers will not make a basic brownie.
Incidentally, I am sometimes referred to as a basic brownie.
I shouldn’t have laughed at that “Praul and Poo” joke, but I did. I CACKLED. Still chuckling now.
90 minutes to make brownies feels too short. Yet Bake Off is 90 minutes an episode now and that feels too long?!
The signature this week is Brownies!
Seems apt, considering last week’s technical was Rainbows. (That one’s a thinker, let it sit with you for a minute). They’re asking for 18 brownies in 90 minutes. That’s 5 minutes per brownie by my maths.
As there’s going to be a Rowan shaped hole in the tent this week, here is a special video I’ve made with all of the highlights of his brief (but wonderful) time in the tent.
Here is a two minute video of Rowan being VERY ROWAN to cheer us all up from the week we've all had #GBBO pic.twitter.com/0Kk8gU5jTz
— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) October 13, 2020
There goes Rowan, in a recap of last week’s episode. “It’s just a bit of a shambles,” he says Rowan, reflecting on the UK’s new three-tier system … I mean his Showstopper.
Happy Tuesday, everyone! It’s Chocolate Week in the tent, meaning they’ll no doubt have filmed this episode on one of the hottest weeks of the summer. Classic.
It’s been quite the week, really. We all had a little cry over the surprisingly emotional end to last week’s episode, while the fly that led to Dave’s cake week disaster made a surprise appearance on Mike Pence’s head during the vice-Presidential debate. Twitter has continued to question Paul’s claim that the rainbow “signifies the NHS”. Oh, and we got locked down again. Sort of. In some places. Sometimes.
"Mum... Dad... There's something I need to tell you... I'm... A hospital." #gbbo pic.twitter.com/ytzwcMZ3G2
— shane reaction ☘️ (@shane_reaction_) October 6, 2020
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