On Your Marks, Get Set, Baaaaake! A Thread for Great British Baking Show / Bake Off & all of its sundry delights

my wife says they actually showed a clip of one of them collapsing ahead of time

was this hermine's - a box shape - which collapsed when mr. hollywood grasped at it? the moment was shown out of context in the next-week preview montage at the end of the previous week's ep giving the impression that it might have been one of those exciting baking mishaps.

linda making choux THREE times in the technical — they should have just escorted her out of the tent there

i mean, her making literal samosas instead of pasties had me yelling at the tv so i am not sad she left

she was like a nostalgia vampire, just like an endless stream of Milly Molly Mandy stories, riding to school on horseback, fetching milk from the cow, churning yer own butteh BE GONE

(i used to love Milly Molly Mandy though)

her eclairs looked like churros

lol they totally did!

She must have been encouraged to be that much of a caricature surely? It did become a bit bizarre. (The story about her daughter did break me, mind.)

we found her really sweet and charming, nice smile....but i always root for the seasoned older lady bakers who give a sense of having literally decades of experience building up rules of thumb. iirc she scored big in an early technical on a dish she'd never made, just from working out "hmm, it sounds like it's probably basically like this type of dough...." which i always enjoy seeing.

not that that's ever enough to win the season in itself but i'd rather see those types make it to the mid-game at least, it's a show about amateur bakers after all.

true

i just was turned off by her dottiness this time. though i loved Val & Flo & the other old dears so i think just something about Linda annoyed me this time around

I don't think Linda made literal samosas. She made samosa-type filling, but the exterior wasn't samosa-type pastry. They looked delicious IMO.

ok fine: they were the closest thing to a samosa you could get without making an actual samosa

i woulda noshed so many of the savory things that round. not the fish ones maybe.

those cheese & onions looked like the goods, also Irish mark’s spicy indian ones

even lottie's which we were a little skeptical of at the beginning turned out as sth we'd devour

loved seeing laura's tart get the love it deserved! several of the "cages" were really impressive

yeah the all-in ones like Laura’s and Peters were incredible, just for the fact that they came off the form in one piece- but all of them were p amazing, really

also god i’m dying for an eclair after that technical lol

otmmmmmm

Peter has such fine features, he looks like a Victorian-era doll somehow
quite the baker too!

i forget who got star baker this week - was it him or hermine?

it wasn't Laura? lol i watched this this morning and can't remember

it was laura

oh yay Laura! i totally forgot lol

I recently found out that my local supermarket sells paneer, which I've been obsessing over, and seeing Mark's made me instantly want to make my own, it away least a dish with the same ingredients.

Lottie is my fave but it feels like she's due to go home soon.

Somewhere upthread after just one episode I said I thought Matt seemed like a dud ... halfway through, I think it's worse than that. I think he detracts from the show. I don't think I've cracked a smile at one of his bits yet.

Still enjoying the show, mind you. Just doing so despite Matt. I don't know what they were thinking with him ...

Prue's left the Tory party because of the food standards thing related to the Brexit she voted for, which she already knew about because everyone fucking told her about but she didn't believe because these fucking thick choads are in permanent denial of the inevitable results of every shitty fucking decision they ever make

Her son Danny Krueger is still a SPAD at Number 10.

goddammit

We are deeply saddened to hear that Luis Troyano has passed away. It was a huge honour and pleasure to have him in the Bake Off Tent for Series Five. Our condolences and thoughts go out to his friends and family. pic.twitter.com/4gLiNBGaUL

— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) November 3, 2020

oh shit King Louis :( loved watching him bake

rip. seemed like such a lovely guy

His season was the first I watched, he was such a force in the tent, and that two-fisted gif of him is all-time. :(

I wanted to mention that although I really enjoyed Japanese week, I thought it a tremendous missed opportunity that it happened so long after Kim-Joy was a contestant.

agreed

lol every single thing she made on her season was kawaii

lol exactly

Everything EXCEPT her finale bake!

we dont talk about that

Laughed out loud at Matt's "Paul is so strong"

gawd icecream is stressful

Sad to see Lottie go, I had a bit of a crush on her.

showstopper for this was painful. i feel like if a frozen component is required, the challenge should be broken up into blocks, like they've done sometimes when something has to prove a long time or w/e --- "gotta be in the freezer by x time, then we reconvene tomorrow." because when would britain's best amateur baker EVER try to make the whole ice cream shebang in one sprint like that, with or without hot weather? i mean obviously some people managed it just fine, but it just seems kinda cheap. let the focus be on outright bad decisions, like including things that will be tooth-breakingly hard when frozen.

Yeah, they could lean into this next year, if they have to go into complete seclusion again. No point in cramming everything into one day's shooting if you are all there for the whole week anyway. Make it more like the pros.

or have "wolverine week" where one angry wolverine is roaming the kitchen... how will they cope?

I am so so so sad Lottie's gone :(

i loved that Noel called her “catface” <3

she was rad & had THE best sense of humor. loved her

my boyfriend kept calling her "Shirley Manson" lol

haha

loved lottie's wit/energy, sad to see her gone too

otoh *thrilled* for hermine! she is my fave

also loved marc's shirt this week

hermine is such a treasure

yeah she's probably our #1

Hermine finally getting a win softens the blow a lot, that showstopper was super neat, love her steady yet delicate hand.

Echoing all the sentiments for Cat Face, really going to miss her dry humor.

and her eyeliner!

Yes! Dry eyeliner, until the very end.

i'm pretty done with Dave tho

i was hoping he’d go this week tbh

his overcooked donuts looked like baked potatoes, i loled so hard