My review of the third round of the Great British Bake Off begins with a confession; I didn't bake anything for this episode. I know, I know, I apologise profusely! But I do have an excuse.
You see, Desserts Week is sandwiched between two big baking events. This weekend, I was busy baking for a Macmillan Coffee Morning, which I helped to organise with my friend James and his very generous family, and next weekend I've been 'commissioned' (!) to bake for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary.
So unfortunately, I have no trifle-, floating island- or petits fours-based creation to share with you, but I can show you some snaps of the lovely spread that we put together for our coffee morning. The pictures below feature Shirley's giant oat cookies, banana and walnut bread, buttered malt loaf, lemon yoghurt buns and my own coffee sandwich, vanilla fairy cakes, lemon tray-bake and banana bread. We managed to raise well over £100 for Macmillan Cancer Support, a cause which is important to us and our friends. Thank you, James, Shirley and Mark for hosting our little event and a big thank you to everybody who came and ate cake and donated so generously.
Anyway, enough excuses from me about our lack of Bake Off refreshments. I must admit, I was looking forward to this week's show more than I had Bread Week, mainly because I pride myself on being one of the few members of my family who will always go for a pudding at the end of a meal, so I feel somewhat more qualified to critique eleven strangers' trifles than I did loaves of bread. Having said that, I'm more of a Gregg Wallace than a John Torode, because I'm certainly more critic than cook - I can only aspire to making some of the beautiful desserts that graced our screens this Tuesday.
In the midst of this multitasking mayhem, there were some brilliant designs. A few of my favourites included Ali's coconut, raspberry and lemon meringue trifle and two tropical variations from Deborah and last week's Star Baker, Ruby. While most of the bakers opted for a more traditional base of lady fingers (although we'd just call them 'sponge fingers' round these 'ere parts - I don't know whether Glenn would agree with me?), Deborah was making things a little more difficult for herself by using a lemon swiss roll with homemade curd as a base. Perhaps something more like a charlotte, if you will. Ruby baked beautiful genoese palm trees, in typical tropical style, and our Devon lad Glenn piped the lovely, swirled fingers of an apparently 'arthritic' lady, or so said my mother.
In addition to all this, Deborah was about to deploy her secret weapon - and one which entertained Mary, Paul and Mel greatly. Instead of soaking her sponge in a traditional manner, she had devised the ingenious contraption that is the Cointreau sprayer, which both judges naturally delighted in testing. Look at Mary's cheeky little face!
As it was left entirely up to the individual bakers as to which layers went where and what was in them, each trifle was vastly different to the next. Howard declared jelly 'not my cup of tea', but Beca was adamant that 'you can't have a trifle without jelly'. I think I agree with her on that. D'you know, I really like Beca, because even though her bakes don't always go according to plan, everything she makes always sounds delicious and it always sounds like something I would really enjoy eating. (SPOILER: and just wait until the Showstopper! Blimey, does she pull it off then!)
Meanwhile, Kimberley, who I thought was a very strong contender for Star Baker last week, was preparing the topping for her trifle - amaretti biscuits and homemade honeycomb, which my boyfriend is now quite keen for me to try making. Sue certainly appreciated it, as Sue often appreciates the contestants' ingredients midway through the bake.
Oh, and here is Howard, innocently making his lovely custard... *whistles nonchalantly*
But as the bakers begin to fill their trifle bowls, disaster strikes! At the back of the tent, Deborah and Howard shared a fridge. Both had put their custard into said fridge - but Deborah had mistakenly taken Howard's bowl and used his custard in her own trifle! Poor Deborah looked devastated, moreso than Howard, though I think he must have been quietly lamenting the loss of his perfect, cornflourless custard and rather cross that he had to use Deborah's instead.
Taste test time! Ruby's tropical trifle proved a hit with Mary and Paul, especially with its genoese sponge palm trees and coconut custard. Glenn, in true Glenn style, continued what might now be a tradition of creating 'truly massive bakes' with his raspberry and almond trifle, but his layers were superb. Below, you can also see how Kimberley's trifle turned out, with the honeycomb and amaretti topping. I think it looks very pretty and unusual; even Mary Berry admitted that she wouldn't have thought of using a flavour combination such as ginger, peach and almond, but apparently it worked.
Beca's custard took some criticism from the judges, but I've added a picture of her Signature Bake anyway, because, as I said above, I think it looks just lovely and it sounds like one of the trifles I'd most like to eat. And the ginger star biscuits are adorable! Christine's piña colada and Ali's coconut, raspberry and lemon meringue also received good reviews. Although it looked brilliant technically, I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy Malibu and mango jam in a trifle, but Christine certainly worked wonders with her presentation. Ali pushed the boat out, baking tiny macaroons to top his bake - the only criticism Paul could make of his trifle was that there was too much of it. But as Glenn put it, 'more is more when it comes to trifle', surely?
You might have noticed that in my previous review/opinion blog posts, I've glossed over the historical section, but that's not to say that I don't enjoy it - who wouldn't love to watch calves' hooves being boiled and strained? It's just that I've rather got my work cut out trying to fit in the main three challenges while there are still so many bakers. Perhaps once we get a few more out of the way, I might include a little bit of Mel and Sue's historical baking adventures. In the meantime, here is a screenshot of our favourite part of this week's escapade:
Anyway, I digress. Technical challenge time! As always, Paul and Mary like to show us what the bakers ought to be aiming for, so here are Mary's îles flottantes or floating islands. Now, I've seen these before in a recipe book, but I've never attempted anything like it - not only do you need to poach perfectly shaped meringue quenelles, but you must float them on top of your handmade creme anglaise AND top each meringue with golden spun sugar. They don't ask much, these judges, do they?
Instead of baking the meringue in the oven, the bakers must poach their moulded quenelles in milk and cream - but, as this is the Technical Challenge and so relies upon the contestants' knowledge and skills, Mary neglected to specify the pan size, heat and cooking time to be used.
Ali sneakily waited until some of the other bakers began to make their quenelles and poach them before he began his, to pick up some tips from the competition. 'I'm seeing Beca do it,' he observed, 'She has quite big ones. Big quenelles.'
While the poached meringues cool, the bakers make their creme anglaise (that's custard to the rest of is) from the poaching milk and leftover egg yolks and the spun sugar to top their îles.
As is often the case in the Technical, some custards and sugar toppings go better than others. 'It looks a bit... knitty,' Mel says of Mark's spun sugar, which is supposed to be shaped into a little ball atop each meringue. Glenn, however, is a 'clever sausage' and makes some very nice sugar balls indeed.
After just an hour and a half of baking, time is up and the bakers must line up their floating islands on the judging altar.
'They all look very different,' Mary concedes, as she and Paul re-enter the tent. Glenn, Christine and Rob all succeeded in making three very good sets of îles flottantes, but many of the bakers struggled with at least one of the elements of the dish. Frances' spun sugar sadly didn't materialise, Ali's was burnt and, while testing Mark's dish, Mary was actually heard to declare, 'the meringues are weeping.'
Bottom of the pile were Mark, Beca and Deborah, followed by Frances, Howard, Kimberley and Ali. Christine is fourth and Ruby, Rob and Glenn take third, second and first places respectively. Yay for Devon-Glenn!
Last but not least comes, as we all know by now, the Showstopper. This week, Paul and Mary are looking for twenty-four petits fours, twelve biscuit-based and twelve sponge-based. Paul advises the bakers to keep the basic bake - i/e the biscuit or sponge base - as simple as possible and 'go to town' on decoration and spangly bits.
Two of the ideas that caught my eye initially were Frances' 'Nutcracker'-themed petits fours and Beca's contrasting blueberry and limoncello bursts and millionaire shortbread. I've loved some of Frances' design ideas, but, like the judges, I've also worried that she might turn out to be a bit 'style over substance'. This time, however, I thought that her petits fours design looked beautiful in terms of the bake itself, not just the arty finish. Beca, as I've said before in this post, really pulled it out of the bag in the Showstopper - which is probably a good job as she's been languishing around midtable for the past couple of weeks, so I was really pleased for her.
Mary and Paul loved Christine's ingenious moulding tool, made by her husband, which enabled her to shape her brandy snaps into dear little 99 cones. I have to say that I'm quite a fan of those ice cream cone fairycakes, but these looked so much more effective and dainty. The judges praised the texture of the snaps, as well as her rich, perfectly piped Sachertorte parcels.
Unfortunately for Mark, his petits fours were deemed 'just not polished enough', in spite of the fact that both the judges enjoyed his flavours. As Paul had noted already, his macaroons hadn't been rested for long enough before baking and his chocolate and raspberry cake, although it tasted good, looked rather too clumsy to be a delicate little petit four.
Kimberley and Rob also did sufficiently well, although Kimberley's chocolate cake was 'not improved by the topping', but Rob's bakes were praised for their professional finish.
Earlier in the Showstopper Challenge, Ruby had been exposed as 'winging it' - she couldn't tell the judges exactly how her blackberry and chocolate cake would look, because she didn't yet know herself! Luckily for her, both the cakes and her lemon shortbreads turned out very well and the judges had barely a bad word to say about either of them.
Poor Deborah, on the other hand, had struggled with her Showstopper, due to a misbehaving fluted mould and some dry macaroons. It was really disappointing to see, because she has achieved some lovely bakes before and I did feel sorry for her.
Now, as there was a baker's dozen in this year's competition, that meant that really there has been a surplus contestant. It has also meant that, at any point in the competition, Mary and Paul could choose to send home two bakers. And unfortunately for our remaining eleven, it was this week that they chose to do just that.
But before we break the bad news, let's have three cheers for this week's Star Baker. Even the judges admitted that it had been a tricky task to choose the best in this week's show, because nobody had been faultless and there had been some very difficult challenges. Ultimately, though, Christine was crowned Star Baker of the desserts week and a very deserving winner she was too, even for her petits fours alone.
I think it must have been much easier to choose who to send home, especially given that Mary and Paul could choose two bakers. This week, it had to be Mark and Deborah. It's a great shame, because both showed such potential, but neither of them quite managed to succeed in showcasing their talents to the best of their abilities.
Join us next week for pie-and-tart-week! Featuring Signature Bake double-crusted fruit pies, Technical Challenge egg custard tarts and Showstopper filo pastry pies.
The Great British Bake Off continues next Tuesday on BBC2 at 8pm. Don't miss it! #GBBO
(: xx
