Noel: Welcome to the bake off tent, for the semi-final. How tense is that?
Sandi: No, no tension at all.
OH COME ON. PLEASE just do the in-tents joke.
It was a high-pressured week.
Prue forgot how to eat.
And the colour completely flushed from Paul’s face.
It’s patisserie week!
And this one brought out some right sweary sailors.
Signature – 24 dipped madeleines (cue every millennial to quote the Ross scene from Friends ‘lighter than air, but that’s not the point’)
If rounds had soundtracks: click here
Finally the heat wave of ’18 has hit the tent, with chocolate chips literally melting in their little jars.
These needed to be whisked for five mins! I want to see a Bake Off series without KitchenAids. Now THAT’d be interesting.
Technical – torta setteveli aka seven veils cake
‘The longest ever technical seen in the tent.’
Are they only counting Channel 4 days? Like BBBC and ABBC? Cos if so, that ain’t anything special. I seem to recall a BBBC technical needing overnight…
Showstopper – a Parisian window with patisserie with three pastries
Briony
Has a serious kinship with Sandi. They had the randomest comments to say about Bri’s ingredients and
Bri: a bit of lime for the mojito
Sandi: ahh craziness
Bri: craziness
Sandi: now surely there’s alcohol in here, I know you well
Bri: in it goes
Sandi: ok what is it?
Bri: spiced rum
Sandi: arrrr a bit of pirate?
Bri: a bit of pirate rum
I’M SORRY, WHAT? Are they high? Is there a prequel to this year’s Bake Off where Bri and Sandi have gone on a road trip through Mexico drinking mojitos and calling homeless people who drink rum pirates?
Big fan of the idea of an espresso martini madeleine. Yes please.
Paul compared her mirrored chocolate glaze to a pair of incontinent pants.
To which I say to you, sir, how do you know what they’re like?
Boom.
She chose the semi-final showstopper to have her meltdown – potentially mixing up her salt and sugar on showstopper day.
‘Briony it’s not us who you should be apologising to, it’s you. Because you can do much better than this, and this is not the time to get it wrong.’
PRUE THE WOMAN IS ALREADY CRYING.
STFU.
Rahul
Has actually reached the point of not being enjoyable to watch. I don’t want to see him panic about baking. It’s baking. Put some oven mitts on and buck up bro.
I think Noel’s losing his patience a lil bit. Like when a colleague won’t shuddup about tech issues you’re all going through.
He was backchatting the size of his madeleines.
And close to tears on behalf of his technical.
What a host.
But his madeleines were ‘absolutely delicious’ in the end. And this reaction?
I can’t even.
Little timid Rahul showed us a bit of edge when he suddenly got a bit impassioned (as impassioned as Rahul can be) about sticking it to the patisserie man and never wanting to charge £10 for a piece of mille-feuille.
What did Pret do to you?
Ruby
Unfortunate for her to pick the exact same madeleine flavours as perfect Rahul – and go straight after him in the judging. They did just look like sherbert-dipped 99p cones.
She does have her moments of impressive baking knowledge, casually dropping that tempered choc should be ‘about’ 32 degrees… ‘I think’. Then nailed all of the layers she’d actually never heard of before… fair.
And then she hits us with ‘it’s all about who’s got the stamina. I ran a marathon, so of course I’ve got the stamina.’
WOAH there you go. Here’s the real Rubster. She’s arrogant runner girl! Knew there’d be one somewhere. Next she’ll be telling us about her latest Strava time and want us to sponsor her. Stamina didn’t serve her too well though.
Kim-Joy
She likes to decorate cute things that kids would like, because it makes her happy.
STOP I LOVE IT. CAN’T COPE.
I mean couldn’t have read your audience more wrong, but still too cute.
She’s never made a thick chocolate mousse before, bless.
I think we made mousse in year 7 HE.
She had a made a mirror glaze before though… different syllabus.
Ruby is star baker!
Briony is out!
Classic Bake Off editing
Briony: you just have to very carefully fold
Cut to Kim-Joy beating the crap out of it with a wooden spoon
Moment more appropriate for a Scorsese film
‘You must produce clean, sharp lines’
Noel: how are you?
Rahul: alive
MATE YOU’RE IN BAKING COMPETITION. P E R S P E C T I V E. God forbid if anything actually hard happens to this guy.
Innuendos of the week
‘Not a great camel’s jump, just a gentle rise’
‘Hump’ (and Rahul knows exactly why it’s funny)
Until next time…