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

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.

Just an all-round amazing programme. And for god's sake, making almost flawless entremets at that age. Bloody hell.

cultural mix of the final interesting as well, much moreso than the adult version (with it's 4 middle-aged, white presenters). families noticeably dressed up for the garden party apart from robby's dad who had his tracksuit top on. (also, a round of the national anthem with everyone in the tent singing)

well won by the young kid though, showstopper was head and shoulders above the others.

I'm only 3 eps in, CeCe and Reece are great

Fyn is in the Tom W "You are so bad at this how have you not left yet" seat

the Food Network is showing repeats and i thought i'd give it a go seeing as i missed the first n years.

but the series they are showing (7) must be the first one i saw (Candice and Selasie are on it) and they've also taken the original bbc1 show and cut out enough of it that they can have ad breaks and still fit it within an hour. feels panicky almost, not relaxing.

series 6 now. yesterday was bingate.

(oddly wikipedia has this as series 5, but epg says 6)

new series tonight

(and food channel are showing repeats again daily, last week was the Ruby year, this week i don't recognise anybody)

oh hey

New batch seem awesome tbh. Surprised Tom (?) was first to go when that other guy who was rolling up his showstopper just seemed to freeze when it wasn't going right and barely finished his cake. But Tom(?), while seeming sweet, had a very intense energy that was a bit anxiety inducing so maybe I don't mind so much.

I wanted to see his inevitable train cake tho

Yes, liked the crew this year. TBH I can't think of a dud bunch of contestants except for 2019 when they were all twentysomething marketing managers or something.

I like Matt but I wish he'd relax and let go of the shtick a bit more

Aw I like him. Matt’s Flintones theme sung in german was hilar imo

I am in love w this year’s Carmen SanDiego characters ie Jürgen and Guiseppe <3

Tom giving 100% Jordan Captain Chaos energy

Cannot stop staring at Freya’s eyebrows

train dude had cannon fodder written all over his face from the moment he was on camera

i'm on record about this, maybe on this thread, but the inherent ageism of them dropping the older contestants really pisses me off. I'm all in favor of the Pru-alike winning this.

She is mindbendingly posh though!

lol at Noel’s “I’ve never felt more like a chimney sweep” after watching Pru & Maggie’s conversation

i have to say that as an american what you call "mindbendingly posh" i see as "mindbendingly british" so

maggie = posh
lizzie = not posh

that is yr yardstick

Haven't finished the episode yet but the Achy Breaky cold open made me want to crawl into my skull and die.

that i agree with

i quick-skipped it to guard against my skeleton leaving my body

yeah that was not good. my partner was like "i like this show because it's NOT american in any way." thankfully the substantial segment devoted to something called "malt loaf" helped reset the scales.

lol otm

i have only had malt loaf once and did not care for it

I am in love w this year’s Carmen SanDiego characters ie Jürgen and Guiseppe <3

lol same! I love all the sundry accents on this show, Lizzie's included.

Funny that I didn't really peg Tom as a Captain Chaos heir apparent because he got lost in the shuffle with so many other bakers to keep track of.

I'm not sure how I feel about Chigs the quarantine baker -- I'm basically one myself but feel a bit put to shame at how much better he is than me (I may have made a disastrous mango cheesecake last night, so my feelings are a bit acute ATM).

I do like Freya so far -- vegan and with the Viking name that Catface would be envious of.

i feel like moreso than most seasons I have a REALLY clear sense of who's going to go the distance vs get knocked out in the first few weeks. of course a bumbler can always blossom, and a favorite can always fumble in the wrong week....

the chaos agent in me secretly hopes maggie tanks next week which is mean but :D

btw kinda wish i could try jurgen’s black forest roll, it sounded so perfect

I'm all in favor of the Pru-alike winning this.

naw. maggie is like some pru cosplayer and it is clear pru is freaked out by this, and maggie is like "hahahahaha let me never stop talking and being awkward". not that i like pru but maggie's energy is not appreciated.

I realize Prur is rich but for some reason I can’t get over here having so many pairs of glasses. I googled and she says it’s 11, which probably weighs in at about £10k every time she changes her prescription. I didn’t really like the pink ones she had on this time.

One thing we noticed this time around was how much dodgy hair there was. Tom with his premature combover was bad but Giuseppe’s is truly gross, Maggie has a bog brush at the front and Lizzie looks like she has hers done at her dog’s poodle parlour. Jürgen’s I’ll allow.

10K!! I got my readers for a tenner online (and tbh they look like the ones she was wearing last week)

re hair, freya's photo is very nicely brushed etc but she def looked like she'd entered the tent via a hedge, backwards. Yes, you may say "miaow".

I was going by the fact my lenses cost about £400 (I guess I have a pretty complex prescription) and assuming she has expensive taste in frames even if they do look like your tenner jobs.

Should've gone to specsavers...

Oh, I have …

The phone call bit at the end had my wife and I dying laughing.

yeah that was great!

just saw Noel Fielding down the park wearing his pink smiley face jumper, trying to blend in...

jurgen stormed out again, pregnant pause whilst the telephone rang the second time...

posh lady doesn't seem very good

stormed *it*

"winnie the pooh," my partner calls him.

pretty rough time for several people - a high number of outright failures among the showstoppers.

Freya’s pronunciations are v weird! It sounds like her ending o’s are a’s?
Cappuccina
Espressa

god i could murder a brandy snap though

yeah those were very very appealing!

vocal freya is kinda killing me here; she seems like a good enough cook but i can't stand that voice

amanda’s choice of sugar cookie for that rocking horse. like, why give yourself such a handicap? the inevitable collapse was kind of hilarious to watch

i loved george’s plane so much! and giuseppe’s reversi! and jurgen’s windmill! lots of great toys!

the playable snooker table probably deserved a few more seconds' gushing - that was adorable and v impressive. also the vanity with all the little Operation style bits. i guess the things moving around in the air are in some sense more ambitious, tho.

omg yes vanity set was p remarkable- all those little pieces, and the vanity itself, the drawer fully opened! how tf do you do that

I thought the plane was a bit of a cheat, unless my assumption that the motor was not constructed from baked goods was incorrect.