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

I meant to post this after the ice cream cake episode but after all this time and investment in keeping the show going, they still can't figure out how to air condition the tent?

it's manufactured drama. they could also get working ovens.

They do have working ovens! Apparently the staff test and calibrate them all before each day of filming

I’m baffled Laura is still here, it feels like she’s constantly scraping by, like she’s perpetually second-worst and is saved by better and more consistent bakers who just happen to bomb that week

yeah Laura is def a disaster artist, i thought she’d go a week or two ago

i get a perverse pleasure out of a technical that fails across the board, because it reflects poorly on the challenge itself not the bakers. it happened to Pru with another challenge too. Like, you obv didnt allow enough time for them to assemble and cook so they all came out underdone.

the jelly cakes were amazing, i found it a really exciting showstopper, esp when they were all turning them out of the molds i was terrified for them! hermine’s was breathtaking! but even dave’s looked incredible.

v sad to see Mark go, he was a good bloke & fun to watch

we really thought Laura was doomed from the opening preview which appeared to show her having serious issues with three visibly different desserts. but then she really rallied for the showstopper.

we're more ready for the young lad (Spencer? Peter? Stewart?) to go. i'm sure he's a lovely person but my partner resents his golden-boy hypercompetence and i've joined in viewing him as a twerp

Peter is v lovely and a good baker but maybe just not ~great~ tv? idk. feels mean to say.

i am fully in Hemine Must Win It All camp now

dave is my least favorite bc he just seems kind of gormless

Definitely Team Hermine over here

yeah Hermine is def #1 at this point. i'm ok with a "was obviously head and shoulders above everybody since episode 1" type of winner

yeah Laura is def a disaster artist, i thought she’d go a week or two ago

She did seem for the chop this week, but the looks on the judges faces when they actually ate her baking showed that she clearly knows flavour, even if everything she does is a visual mess.

Extra Slice had a montage of her dropping stuff this week

They do have working ovens! Apparently the staff test and calibrate them all before each day of filming

i think the expectation is for laura to be off next episode but they may well buck that to keep eyes. Hermine is the frontrunner, Dave is the bad guy and Peter is the ingenue so we'll see what they think presents the most drama.

I just made Mark's brownie recipe and my God what a mess! Way too sweet, though my proportions were definitely off on the cookie base.

The cherry bakewell cold open made me lol last week (or week before)

Raspberries though, gak...

BOO

SRSLY.

NOT COOL

Wow, my hot take on raspberries did not go down well...

yeah, worst result. But the moment they said she should walk this week I knew she was jinxed

(those h tags always make me sweat a bit)

NO.

On overall performance, it seems outrageous to me. Tsk.

Thought they would do what they've done every other year and say "well, this is for a place in the final so we shouldn't just look at this episode, we should look at the performance through the whole series."

Still, called 2 out of 3 finalists way up there ^^^^^^^.

I've seen Twitter refer to Laura as Live Laugh Love Woman which seems harsh but fair.

would the americans ever do this spoiler dance for us englishers if the timings were reversed?

I know it's all a creation of the editing, but Dave sponging down his pristine countertop as Laura wrestles with a lake of spilled glaze was pretty funny.

Also kept thinking "I wonder want Lacan would make of this talk of mirror glaze."

I agree that what happened seems ridiculous, but on the other hand, you can't just decide to bloody wing your showstopper in the semi final and expect to get away with it.

Laura is definitely the baker this year whose cooking I would most like to eat. Given how it looks, it must taste absolutely divine for her to still be there.

I've seen Twitter refer to Laura as Live Laugh Love Woman which seems harsh but fair.

LLLW would surely take pride in prouncing saverin Frenchily?

The first round last night brought back memories of my brother having a rum baba in the Flamingo restaurant in Rhyl (where we went every summer), and hiccupping all the way back to Chester on the train. I think I thought that's what "being drunk" looked like. Ah, the '70s.

(This misconception didn't last long; the day after his A-levels, his pals plied him with Southern Comfort and *then* I got to see what "drunk" was like).

I have never seen this programme, probably never will, but have been attracted to click on this thread for the first time by the fact that Mike has posted to it. I should have known he'd be talking about trains from Rhyl to Chester.

I've only really started watching it in the last couple of years. If I may borrow the words of Lebanese Druze progressive socialist Walid Jumblatt, when asked by Alexei Sayle what he thought of Rocky II - I think it's "alright".

I am now trying and failing to find some Lacan-related baking puns. I mean, 'I'm adding a blackberry jouissance to my corps morcelé' would probably sneak past Hollywood's beady eye...

Anyway, Hermine was a total travesty.

The leaving contestant has just claimed on Extra Slice that their dad told them all about when they were on the Army in World War II.

I mean I suppose he could conceivably have been 60 when they were born, but it seems fairly unlikely...

Oh my god I’m so gutted, like this has seriously ruined my day!! What the hell???

deeply bummed!! what is this world. CANCEL THE FINALE

but she did deeply fuck up her finale: the gelantine blocks looked 🤮
she seemed a bit more subdued & in her head this week? pressure etc idk.

never heard of cube cakes but i’d eat the hell out of them yum

matt giving laura the good pep talk during the technical was so lovely <3

I feel like that Scottish guy from a few years back who was very god at sourdough and bread did a similar thing - overthought what should have been an easy week and second-guessed himself and then fucked up badly. So sad, ****** was great, with a chill vibe was such an antidote to Laura's butterfingers antics.

Still seething, [redacted] was robbed. As to Laura, the last time I saw a river of chocolate that huge/chaotic, a bunch of oompah loompahs were present.

that was insane, she is perhaps THE captain chaos of the entire series

This season has been brutal with eliminations.

I will say that I was a Yankx don't click on this thread midweek now that I know that's when the show drops for Britishers.

I really like (STILL IN IT) and still thought this was a shock and an error, (EJECTED) just obviously has way more chops and has shown cumulatively more skills and adaptability, seems like someone you'd want in the finals, much more likely to deliver something truly beautiful in the final showstopper, etc. i get that if you really tank it, there's not a lot of wiggle room at this point, but (STILL IN IT) made a spectacular, kind of glorious MESS this week, and has been in trouble many times. are they really more of a contender to win the whole thing than (EJECTED)? i mean, i'd love to see it happen! not super into the other two left tho obv they can bake.

Everyone OTM, really a bummer. And her insistence on consciously mispronouncing the French terms compared to Hermine (obv) just rubs it in.

It's a bitter irony that EJECTED affected an "Oh I'm just making things up as I go along" vibe for a lot of the season despite very clearly being very experienced, refined, and well-prepared, but then the semifinal week happened.

Here’s the amazing Hermine’s heartfelt and hilarious letter to all you Bake Off fans. #GBBO pic.twitter.com/n4jBYrnE60

— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) November 17, 2020

That'll teach me not to mute #GBBOFinal as well as #GBBO on Twitter. Spoilerized.

a fair winner I think

Laura proved throughout the episode that she was not a competent enough baker to be in the final.

Totally - I spent a good deal of the first half shouting 'it should have been Hermine!' Her showstopper looked like the aftermath of a gall stone operation.

hahahahaha

not to be all Jordan Wossisname, but, tidy desk, tidy mind

I felt bad for Laura last week - it wasn't her fault that Hermine got dropped. And the judges have always said Laura's food tastes great (even when it looks like shit) so perhaps she earned her place.

That said, she really wound me up in the final! There was something very triggering about her avoidant personality type - the childish way she divided the world into good and bad things ("I hate coffee"); the way she used false modesty ("I'm terrible at everything") to manipulate people into lowering their expectations of her; and the way she cheerfully dismissed her husband ("he says I'm a nagger, but I wouldn't have to nag if he did things properly"). I found it very exhausting to watch. In the end, I felt like she made Dave's passive-aggression seem like a more understandable, forgivable way of being.

If it wasn't Hermine, I'm glad Peter won though.