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

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

Nellie should wear a beret every week imo

i found the showstopper a bit stressful mainly because most of those stands looked so rickety & impractical i was certain they’d all end up on the floor

also can we just not put black sesame in things, personally it seems like needless showoffery (cue everyone itt telling me how great it is as a flavor lol)

i found the showstopper a bit stressful mainly because most of those stands looked so rickety & impractical i was certain they’d all end up on the floor

yeah, felt like a hurdle they were meant to fall at, which hasn't really been a thing this series

i mean almost everyone seemed to struggle well enough with the choux - fuck building an edible stand

Andy though. GUV. My guy. That stand was doomed in the SKETCHING PHASE. Why do that. Like oh i’ll make it out of the most precariously brittle inflexible material

Yeah. Really sad he's gone, he'd become my favourite.

Lowkey in love with Sumayah which is a bit awkward

Social media is full of people complaining about her vocal fry, and/or her telling Noel to FRO when she was in the middle of something.

Her vocal fry is AMAZING though. She is absolutely cursed with a permanently sarcastic tone of voice, and perhaps the most Millenial baker the tent has ever seen. She's fantastic, though.

Broken hearted for the second week in a row over the exiteer. Found Nelly's exit speech genuinely moving, though I will admit I am very, very tired at the moment.

I love Sumayah too, because she has no trouble batting away men and/or the annoying things they say. She also seems well prepared.

Curses on the judges for sending the wrong contestant home (a tough choice because both are good on telly).

I mean Sumayah’s “sarcasm” is just a Lancastrian accent and manner

I think Dylan was the lesser baker yesterday but Paul is all in on him, he's the golden child, so unless he poisons everyone he'll be in the final. And he's usually v v v good, but he wasn't yesterday.

Although Nelly did also make a spinach cake even she thought wasn't her best work.

WTF I hid that second sentence.

Do you have to put fresh H tags in for each new line?

tbh I never check this thread unless I've finished the current ep, hope everyone else is the same

Yeah, likewise, and for other episode-based threads as well. (I was super-disciplined on the Succession thread in particular.)

Love Nellie and her exit speech but think she was the right choice. Either way - think this has been the best series since Mel and Sue? Not sure why. Some combination of the contestants and Alison and Matt Lucas not being there to suck the contestants into his narcissistic comedy bits. Sumayah is a good check on Noel too.

i now know more about Parkin than i ever did before (which was zero)

deeply sad about this week’s exit
(sigh… continued sighing)

Sumaya’s pretty fun, such a talented baker - that parsnip beetroot cake sounded so disgusting when they described it but it looked SO good i would prob eat it

Chistian’s unpredictable accent is v amusing to me

Either way - think this has been the best series since Mel and Sue? Not sure why.

Absolutely. I think it's partly that the standard of baker this year has been so high, and also that Noel and Alison have such great chemistry, and work so well with the bakers. Even Paul seems to have lightened up and to not be such a swaggering grump anymore.

i’m a few episodes behind but we were watching the caramel week episode last night & was just really cracking up a lot. nelly in particular is one of my favorite ever contestants. i do think alison is just great at the job tho, really inspired choice. it almost felt too obvious at the time but she is just one of the most naturally lovable TV personalities i can remember. putting her in the tent feels like it was meant to be

yeah she’s really won me over with her interactions w the bakers, very kind & joyful

and her laugh is fantastic

btw do we think that the bakers are not going home every week in between episodes anymore? there was a comment from one someone earlier in the season asking dylan if he had brought 10 different hats with him that made me think they’ve switched things up behind the scenes. also, am i crazy or have they cut the parts where they show each baker’s home life, those canned clips of them carrying out their hobbies and stuff? i only watch this show stoned so disregard me if my memory is off

they’ve also been experimenting w/ the technical challenge this season … correct me if i’m wrong but some of that (i.e. showing the bakers what the finished product should look like) was the first time they’ve really ever deviated from the format of the show in any of the rounds? bake off has traditionally been such a contrast to american style competition shows like top chef or drag race where they constantly add new elements to the basic structure to make each season feel new/different

i haven’t been bothered by any of this but it feels like they’re tweaking some things as they go now

do we think that the bakers are not going home every week in between episodes anymore?

that was definitely the case during covid, not sure if it is now. find it hard to believe the parents among the bakers would abandon their kids for however long it takes to make the series - but they're often moved when they phone home to say they're star baker

yeah less homelife interstials, i think just one at the begining - and yes they changed up that technical but it doesnt seem to be a permanent change - i liked it tho

i assume they still go home in between eps but i dont really know for certain

it wouldn’t surprise me if post covid they’ve moved to the american competition show style of just housing everyone for like 3 weeks and condensing the shooting overall. i’ve been rewatching the rahul season on the side and there’s frequent mentions of home life, the practicing they did at home during the previous week etc that once was standard but that i feel like you don’t hear in this season

Another improvement this year is that I think that they've maybe increased the time allotted for some of the tasks? Bread week didn't seem to be the usual repetitive "this is underproved" or "this is underbaked" from Paul. Or maybe they've just improved the instructions they give them when the bakers are devising their recipes?

yeah i noticed that too

Good - love baking bread and always felt frustrated that the show seemed to make it impossible to make a good loaf!

nooooooooooo!

v sad to seek this week’s baker go

and i need to confess that Paul Hollywood’s bromance w Dylan has kind of turned me off him a bit even though its not Dylan’s fault.

But that showstopper box was on some Patrick Bateman shit

I was yelling at the tv for Alison to fucking lamp him, saying her & Noel are old
Little twerp

seek? SEE

Dylan has a Gaza earring :)

well that’s something at least <3

Odd how little sentiment or affection this week’s departure seemed to evoke. Maybe there was a background vibe hidden by the editing etc. It surprised me, anyway.

i thought it was funny how i think her signature Paul was like “ugh too many flavors nope” and Pru was like “oh this is lovely” … sometimes its like he has the palate of a 4 year old

Yeah I noticed that weird silence, I assumed it was shock, but maybe it was "phew".

I like both Paul and Dylan! Paul has his faves but seems quite unpeturbed by binning them when it's time.

idk Paul’s been grating on me more since the handshake fakeout etc

Sumayah was great on Extra Slice though.

I am not fussed about any of the regional wine mums still in.

Jhill is my fave i think but idk how much further she’ll go

Sumayah also said that she'd been to Taylor Swift that week and the day before had been her birthday.

watching it again, her showstopper was the only one with any negative comments. I'd eat any of them tbh.

sort of feel sumayah was the one threat to dylan's dominance, i think it's his now. she was very entertaining and a GREAT baker.

Yeah, we’ve been Team Dylan for a while now, but who’s not to like this year…