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

I knew Peter would walk it if he didn’t fuck up because he did quite intuitive things in the kitchen such as listening for a particular sound made by ‘done’ cakes, but it would have been a much more exciting final with Hermine amongst the three.

the finale was missing a "serious long-term baker with all the rules of thumb and types of dough deeply internalized" type - Hermine certainly, or even Marc E might have made a more interesting mix. Dave is on his way to that territory and i feel like his time on the show advanced him a long way towards that actually.

just glad that the guy who abandoned his pregnant wife for six weeks in favour of being on the telly didn’t win tbh

yeah, struggling to understand how he justified that tbh

I left a haircut halfway thru because my partner thought she was in labour, what would Dave have done in that situation?

yeah i always squint at stuff like that. i guess you never know what the dynamics actually are. every so often on Survivor (no spoilers for season 40 please!) you get someone whose deal is like "my spouse/parent/kids told me that i always sacrifice myself for everyone else, and now they're letting me live out my dream and i'll never be able to thank them enough" etc ---- usually said through heaving sobs during the episode when a family member comes to the island for a visit. dave needed at least a little bit of this for me to even potentially be rooting for him imho.

I imagine you apply for these things not really expecting to get onto them and when it comes, you have a difficult conversation - something along the lines of 'it's a chance of a lifetime, you have to do it'.

And talking of babies, Peter looks like he is perpetually teething.

Anyway we can confirm for sure that the judges really do go based on the merits of the bakes and there’s no fiddling with the elimination process based on what would make good tv.

I'm glad that people are pushing back against Laura's naysayers, for whatever reason her nominally failed baked never stood out in my mind. As for finalists who lacked presentation skills, Ruby v1 comes immediately to mind.

Of course Hermine would've definitely made the final more interesting.

Ruby’s stuff was a lot more ambitious than most anyone on this series.

can we all agree that the show lost its soul when they stopped using the squirrel balls insert shot?

BAAAAAAAA

needs more ducklings imo

https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/great-british-baking-show-1234842469/

https://www.vulture.com/article/interview-great-british-bake-off-laura-adlington-bubble-filming.html

I’m always perplexed why ice cream and chocolate challenges continue to be chosen during the summer. Paul tries to play dumb about it! “Uh, I didn’t know it would be so hot.” Buddy, it’s July.
Trust me, we were all thinking the same thing. Really?! You just have to look back and laugh. It was uncomfortably hot, but we all got through it. Even though it was absolute carnage for me and Lottie, you can’t do anything but laugh. It was 98 and 99 degrees at times, but it feels hotter with no fresh air. Some days they would have to put the sides of the tent down to accommodate the cameras. Just imagine being in this hot tent with no windows open and hot television lights everywhere. You have your dress on, camera pack, and a pinny. You feel like you’re melting.

to be fair, it's rare that it gets that hot in the UK, I think they were filming over the two heatwaves of the summer, which each lasted a week or so. Normally doesn't get that much over 80, and frequently much lower than that.

They also mention the lights, which wouldn't help.

the thing that's annoying is that they can TOTALLY address this if they need to with a walk-in cooler that's so that chefs can quickly chill their stuff and cool down. it happens every season! every restaurant has a walk-in! Quit fucking around!

The reason I've read is that AC units are had for sound, though I live in SF so have no first-hand experience with them.

junior bake off is effin hilarious fyi.

What is that streaming on?

Never mind, channel 4

the kids are actually pretty good but when they fuck up they're like "oh well!"

I can imagine kids are really good at time management.

We're slowly getting trhough the 2019 series with my 6yo. Harry is hilarious, Liam is funny and great with the kids, Prue should never work with children ever again.

Also I kind of think they shouldn't send kids home every week - have it be a competition, yeah, but ending each episode with a talented young kid in tears is actually a bit of a downer.

Loving it, the kids are great. My friend’s daughter is trying for it next year - she is Georgian, really into baking, and massively into GBBO.

never has so much caramel been crystallised.

i do enjoy it when harry's jokes completely fail to land with the kids. and the general non-critical stance of it all.

(prue's been replaced for series 2)

my daughter turned down a piece of candy saying that white chocolate is "a bit too sweet" and it's 100% great british baking show haha

not worth the calories

would like to go on record as saying that is a hall of fame bad catchphrase

but ending each episode with a talented young kid in tears is actually a bit of a downer.

I think that too, but then I think about how much fun they're going to have watching themselves on telly, and it doesn't seem so bad. Although yesterday's was a tough one. "At least I got to hug Harry Hill." BLESS.

xpost hard agree

They did skip evictions the first week, which is something they should consider for the adult show, I think.

with kids, they should likely make the people voted off into judges

That’s a good idea

That's a great idea!

Slightly off topic: any of y'all seen The Great Pottery Throw-Down? It's Bake Off, but for pottery... my boo has been getting into throwing over the last year and a half, and her good pal gave us access to her HBO Max specifically so she could watch this show. It's fantastic so far! Obviously a bit more niche than baking, but OTOH more of it translates visually without smell and taste being as critical. And the stocky male judge's thing is occasionally he just gets so moved by what someone's accomplished that he starts weeping, which is a nice change from Hollywood's steez. Very very soothing and also educational to watch!

Oh yes, the Pottery Throw Down is the absolute business.

some discussion on the forks throws pottery thread: forks throws pottery (and maybe you do too?) - An ILX Ceramics Thread

oo, thanks!

Yeah, have your wife join me in that thread please Doc! It's lonely being the only chatty potter.
Where's her studio?

not my wife! but can pass it on. she's kinda not a messageboard "type," i fear....

her studio is in park slope, brooklyn. it has some pros, some cons (mostly the commute from bushwick) but it's where she started taking classes. they closed down in march of course but set up some protocols and limits for reopening in the fall - no classes, just bookable blocks of wheel and glazing time. enough to restore that creative/meditative "not looking at a screen" outlet...

sorry. "boo" not "wife"
i gather she's at BK Clay then. I've heard good things!

my partner is a big fan of the Great British Portrait Artist or whatever it is called

yah Clayhouse BK! she also took a look at Choplet in W'burg, which had this more old-fashioned, cozy, cluttery kind of vibe, which i loved but which she found distracting or like, not suited to her pottery zen vibe. could also be that quarantine procedures had jumbled up the space a bit and put people in odd places, dunno.

yeah, my studio is all distanced but folks are having a hard time figuring how to be community minded but still stay apart. We've had several positive tests and one student death. I've been mostly avoiding which makes me very sad.

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2020 season is nominated in the 2020 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2020 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends After January 29, 2021

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (3 minimum, 25 maximum, ranked by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

almost complete fail in yesterday's semi final.

just about to start watching the final but i think all my favourites are out.

My favourite made it to the final. Bottom in every technical challenge in final week but the only one who could make choux.