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

best episode yet — stunning exit

Chigs was the obvious one to go, imo, as the only one who actually fucked up a round. But they do always give the showstopper a ridiculously high weighting

Like Jordan, I don’t know what the hell they were doing when out of the blue they said they were judging Lizzie on the whole season. The whole criteria for their decision is less than transparent at this point.

They only judge based on the whole season when they absolutely, definitely can't decide between people based on the current week, is the impression I get. It would all be a lot clearer if they assigned points, I suppose.

It feels like, if you do really well every round, you still score lower than a contestant who has one disaster + one showstopper

Chigs showstopper didn't even look that good, in comparison. If Jurgen had just upped the green colouring maybe he'd have scraped through.

The construction of Chigs' showstopper wasn't that amazing, but I thought the apples did look really impressive, especially once they were cut.

Anyway, it's Giuseppe all the way for me, now. I love him – and feel bad for criticising his hair back at the start of the series.

what an amazing semi final

i am so sad over the elimination but it was such a tight decision i’m not like, outraged…honestly very much in love w all the finalists — this is like the King Louis season where everyone is just so great & talented

i thought chigs’ purple apples looked kinda gross? but i guess they tasted amazing so

if this show has taught me anything it’s that i will never, ever, be faffed enough to make entremet…so stressful!

I'm sort of disgusted with myself for finding Chrystelle disingenuous but the feeling persists. I think Noel, not exactly the model of perspicacity, was otm when he teased her about wanting it so bad it hurts.
Can someone release me from feeling guilty about this?
Anyway, I'm team Giuseppe, all the way.

i just how she always seems to incorporate a family element into one of her bakes - i think something about that def won me over this season. her interactions w noel are great. and seeing her still-stunned face after getting star baker: everyone is hugging & saying goodbyes and congrats and she is just stock-still almost the whole time like O_O

shes not my fave but she has for sure grown on me. i am fond!

Chrystelle, one of Jurgen and Giuseppe (there's almost certain to be a SHOCKING EPISODE where one of these guys face plants and is bumped), and then a wildcard
― When Young Sheldon began to rap (forksclovetofu), Monday, October 18, 2021

chrystelle seems like a decent enough person for a goldman sachs vampire

She seems like someone who is good at everything.

One of life’s winners!

I think Noel, not exactly the model of perspicacity, was otm when he teased her about wanting it so bad it hurts.

I thought it was very revealing that when she fucked up the first round a couple of eps ago, her reaction was to absolutely knuckle the fuck down and slay the next two rounds so she could stay in, which she did, and she did. I have a lot of admiration for that.

she is tenacious!

She is, no doubts about that! And an awesome baker. It's going to be a cracking final - genuinely think anyone could win from here.

the standard of baker this year has been wicked high

She's arguably the best finisher this season and probably one of the best in the show's history.

I thought that G was going because of how Prue kept carping about not getting the pine nuts, and Chigs' finishing looked like a step behind what the others managed. One of biggest disagreements with the judges is how they thought J's showstopper was under-decorated, I loved the minimalism and thought it fit aesthetics perfectly, and his was the one I most wanted to taste!

I think the show has gone through all of its funny bits and Matt and Noel only have the bad ones left. It's especially bad when they rope Paul into it.

the bits at the beginning are lame but I like their general banter, it’s an extremely earnest and wholesome show, I’m not looking for something too subversive

yeah same

so between these two episodes, the technical challenge is utterly meaningless and has no bearing on the final result, cool

Oh, that's not fair. When you present uncooked bread as the centrepiece of your showstoppe, that's got to negate the good round you had before.

no arguments with the winner here

and of course it's easier to win the technical when they are only two other people

Tense final – almost too tense. Very happy with the winner. I think it would’ve been borderline sadistic if he hadn’t won – the editing basically turned the last round into The Passion of the Giuseppe. Although I had a feeling, after they had him getting verklempt about his family, that he was going to win later on.

I feel like Matt has grown on me over the season - when he’s content to remain low-key, he’s very gentle and sweet. Meanwhile Noel seems like he’s actively trying to upset the contestants, and I don’t enjoy watching it. Otherwise seemed like the nicest bunch of contestants in awhile.

noel in those first couple of challenges was every gurning man in the club who won't stop touching you and talking at you. i'd definitely like matt a lot more with probably anyone else as a partner, the shared weirdly unwholesome whimsy doesn't work for me at all.

Australian Bake Off starts in a couple of weeks.

but freya mentioned during her exit interview that they'd been watching Kenyan Bake Off and that i'd like to see.

(also, their road trip looked like fun, but i didn't see a lot of social distancing)

I actually do have a very small problem with the winner, but it might just be because I wasn't paying attention in the early rounds when they (presumably) first mentioned that their father was a professional chef and baker. I think I might have rooted a little harder for someone else, had I fully taken that on board.

They should change it so that the person who wins star baker gets the prep room of the person kicked out, so you can end up as a 7-ovened baker-god.

Just watching the final Extra Slice and Chrystelle totally comes off as someone who is in it for a media career.

Whereas Guiseppe comes across as an absolutely top bloke. "I sound like one of the Dolmio men" about finished me.

(also, their road trip looked like fun, but i didn't see a lot of social distancing)

― koogs, Wednesday, November 24, 2021 6:50 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

most of the photos were outdoors iirc?

good final, loved this group of contestants. really wish they’d let jurgen crash the final in retrospect. chrystelle really might have taken it if the focaccia hadn’t been a disaster

chigs having just started baking 18 months ago is pretty crazy, his instincts are great. gives me hope, might be my bee hobby once I’m done with my residency

That was a great final and a worthy winner. Chigs gets the people's vote for being such a gentleman.

As she brought the showstopper up, I figured Chrystelle had won but the focaccia, the focaccia... I still beat myself up for open goals I missed in five-a-side matches from 25 years ago, I wonder how you process something like that?

I still don't know what happened to it. Did she just put too much oil in and it didn't bake?

That was certainly the way they presented it. Lots of focusing on her pouring copious amounts of oil in while claiming this was something she learned in bread week.

In retrospect, the whole episode was presented as Giuseppe's via dolorosa to make his victory seem more earned and dramatic; equally, the moment where Chrystelle was poking at the oily dish in the oven was the signal for the focaccia calamity.

i feel like chrystelle was absolutely bound to win this if she didn't shit the bed, but she did. i would love an explanation about what happened with the raw focaccia and am not seeing anything online yet?

true crime podcast about what tf happened to crystelle's foccacia

— thiziri (taylor’s version) (@thizbous) November 23, 2021

chrystelle’s foccaccia i felt like it should not have been cooked in that deep ceramic dish, at a guess maybe oven too low & took on the oil as it was baking, also it didnt seem that it had risen much during prooving

Didn't she say she was only baking it for 15 min? Wtf, it's truly mind-bending.

Anyway I'm happy that justice prevailed in the end.

xpost lol i missed that, that’d do it O_o

Yeah but she’ll have practised it many times. In fact she says as much on her IG post. I can believe her that it’s a mystery why it failed on the day, but what I can’t get my head around is how she seemed to have no inkling it had happened until the judges cut the bread. I’m not a baker, but wouldn’t you be at least concerned about whether it has been in long enough or not? Stick a toothpick in or something? Maybe I missed that, or maybe it was left out in editing.

Mind you, I also couldn’t believe Giuseppe was leaving his Belgian buns in longer when even my view of them through the oven door was enough to make me remark “err, they look too brown already”.

She stuck a thermometer in and said it was hot enough, but maybe that was just the boiling oil?

Yeah the burnt buns thing was weird too, nerves I guess.

Also she appears to have responded to every single comment on that IG post (!).

that's apparently her thing, which makes sense given the brand she's building.

Chrystelle, seems nice, was a good contestant, happy for her to do whatever

I'm usually fine with whoever wins in the finale but G is probably the first baker whom I was actively rooting for.

Also, while I think I'm more fond of Noel than some people here, I think the fact that Giuseppe was the only one who kissed the spatula is only going to encourage him.