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

it does seem to upset you a bit more lately <3

I have just turned into a grumpy old man.

Josh seemed like a sweet but slightly fragile guy. I found the way final was edited ("Josh is gonna win! Ooops - no he's not") pretty gross. It seems to indicate a lack of aftercare for the contestants.

"turned into" ;-D

Here's an article entirely agreeing with you

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/03/great-british-bake-off-triumphs-contestant-michael-chakraverty

If I ever said that I don't care about the personalities just give me the bakes, the previous season and this season proved me wrong. I was so bored last year that I didn't get around to this season until a few weeks ago and that was just because I got Netflix for another show; but this season had so many lovely contestants. Tasha was my favorite (her comment early on about how she shouldn't sell herself short hit me hard) and the final missed her, but I also adored Nicky and Saku (I melted a little when we saw their road trip). I kept waiting to be disappointed by Matty but his cheer never wavered and won me over, and I actually thought Josh was great, he strikes me as an introvert but over the course of the season you can see him warm up a little.

Also agreed with everyone that I found Dan annoying, and that the deliberate time shenanigans are cheap and artifical sensationalism.

Also also clearly the Captain Chaos of this season is Rowan.

And what's this Danny blog?

https://bakingastherapy.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/bake-off-confidential-bittersweet-adventures-in-a-tv-show/

Lays out just how much they have to do during applications.

The quote about them reducing time isn't in that so must be in another of the gbbo tagged posts.

New year's Day special tomorrow and then the kid's series starts at 5 on Tuesday, daily for 3 weeks.

Oh, hooray, Junior BakeOff is the best.

Watched it today, we are all fans of Esme's glasses.

Man, that invisible tart technical was a disaster. Such a classy bunch of kids to not lose the rag over it.

yesterday's spoilers, and in fact the opening of today's show, showed one tilly dropping her final showstopper on the floor from a great height. why?

Not spoiling the final, but it gets directly addressed.

Liam used the word 'flawless' in his wrap up

i didn't think it was great, too frou-frou, like an old lady cake

Any talk of actual baking is overshadowed for me by Ilham's excellent attitude to royalty. Now that is a well brought-up young person.

bowls aren't meant to be spherical

I like all these new bakers (not sure about Essax guy but his bag cake was hells of impressive) and the standard already seems higher than last year. Alison and Noel both on top hilarious form throughout, 10/10, no notes.

No Guardian live blog this year…

They have my address!

enjoying the new bakers - loved the bag illusion cake, the book cakes, and the duck cake - wow!

also big fan of Nelli’s vibe

oh and that change to the technical was interesting: a lot harder i would think!

Yeah, people were annoyed about something so tricksy in week one, but they all seemed to manage it fine. I still feel like I'd rather watch them excel within a more comfortable time limit than end up with disasters. I particularly enjoyed the loaf cake challenge at the start because most people seemed to have enough time, and also because I am a committed loaf cake baker myself, and it was fun to get ideas for ways to elevate those bakes.

I miss the days when there was time for people to clean down their benches and have a cup of tea and a chat, and to maybe help each other out. I don't like everything being a mad dash and then being a disaster. That's no fun to watch.

no eviction in week one is another thing they should keep

Only happened because the American guy had a sickie.

“biscuit puppet theatre” = we have truly strayed from god’s light

but damn the highs are crazzzzy high and the lows are v low

and the death ray trained on the tent seems to be fully working now

the biscuit theatre he was lauding at the end seemed like a poor relation to the earlier one that the woman made, the one with the nicely iced puppets. i am bad at names.

Deeply jealous of the Raincoats sweater

There’s an IG account tracking where Noel gets his clothes (especially the jumpers). He wears a lot of Bella Freud.

Nelli’s puppet show was amazing I thought too, and the story! oh it made me so teary, so sad but also beautiful

So, is Dylan a wizard or has Paul just never had gochujang before? Or both?

Yeah, I genuinely was astonished at quite how much Paul was impressed by Dylan just using a tasty ingredient he wasn't aware of. Has he never been to a Korean restaurant or shopped in Tesco? It's not exactly unusual and it's not like Dylan reinvented the wheel with it.

Nellie was robbed.

Nellie is INCREDIBLY good value. Almost fel off the sofa when she said Paul was shiny. I love ALL of these bakers and am already at the point where I don't want to lose any of them. They are all v WARM and v FUNNY but also, on the whole, VERY VERY GOOD AT BAKING and I feel that hadn't been the case across the board the last couple of years.

Also Noel and Allison are god-tier presenters, now my favourite Bake-Off team (save for Harry Hill, who is the toppermost).

Paul's wonder over the gochujang seemed v genuine, I wonder if it was that he's never tasted it in a baking context?

To be charitable to him, it could have been the combination of the gochujang and the roasted garlic together.

Anyway, Alison's advice to John was absolutely great and the kind of excellent pep talk we haven't seen since the heady days of Mel and Sue.

John was Joe Lycett’s stunt double in every way.

I am really missing Guardian live blog - I guess this year they haven’t been furnishing advance tapes to help bloggers as they did in the past?

I had John as a cross between Joe Lycett and former Strictly professional Ian Waite. And yeah, Alison is just lovely and kind and I am so glad she's there, because when anyone is stressed she's just a big warm hug in human form.

The bit where she took John aside was proper "I am not a celeb I am a human being in front of you offering you empathy and support" in a way I think we rarely see on TV.

Have never watched Strictly or similar because I despise light entertainment

man i wanted to eat so many of thd bakes this week!

Nellie was robbed but am happy for Dylan

agree it was kinda funny how bowled over Paul was by the gojuchang

I liked that they got a demonstration for the technical, was a nice touch

and yeah Alison’s support for John was v touching

really wanted to braid the weekly loaves I made today, but chickened out. next week! maybe!

yeah honestly watching paul do it was the first time a braid has made sense to me (granted i havent tried one since i was a teenager & cocked it up royally lol)

i get the feeling there's a pirate ship somewhere missing its cook

would eat all those caramel biscuits (the show-stoppers, not so much)

having watching it slightly out of order, i did laugh at noel at the beginning talking about alison breaking things...

Andy’s showstopper looked completely bizarre

since it’s Caramel week i expected their decorations to go more along the lines of Jhill i guess, but all these huge isomalt constructions like Andy’s tree & Whatsisname’s blue wave was a bit bizarre

Yeah, I didn't really understand what they were looking for in the showstoppers, and they don't seem to have been very successful.

Poor Iliya seems to swing wildly from nailing it to falling apart, i really like her

Andy’s line to Noel about Willy Wonka made me lol v hard bc i am 5 yrs old