54 Thoughts I Had Watching GBBO - Series 7 Episode 5

1. It's Week 5 and that means pastry week. In other words, the bakers will have no empathy from me whatsoever (never made pastry, not in a rush to).
2. Challenge 1: 2 different types of Danish pastries, 12 of each. At what point does a pastry become Danish that is my question.
3. Ok so the dough needs to be made quickly, that's what I'm understanding from this. Benjamina seems wise in just using one dough for both types of pastries so she can make it all at once.
4. Everyone's aggressively hitting their doughs with rolling pins. Can someone remix this please.
5. Mmmmm, Andrew is doing pear & chocolate for one of his pastries. De-licious.
6. Selasi, spelled correctly, is making a rhubarb, mango and ginger plait. And something with coconut and pineapple in.
7. Andrew is doing a 'book-turn' (?!) fold on his pastry...
8. Val's secret weapon: dental floss to cut pastry. Reminds me of how my primary school teacher used to cut clay. I think she used a wire or something - OK BACK TO BAKE OFF
9. More maths. So much addition/multiplication going on.
10. Maple syrup granola spirals from Tom. Yes please s'il vous plait. I'd like to make an order for 1 each morning for the rest of eternity.
11. Candice is making 'apple roses'. Whatever that means, I'm all for it.
    
12. Okay Candice is using mushroom and...bacon?! Or ham... Either is fine, it's just bacon is ever so slightly more exciting.
13. Some serious rolling going on now. Making me think I need to do some arm exercises.
14. No cavities in Val's bake. Good to know, and her technique for slicing her jam-roll-type-thing is working well.
15. Jane's having trouble with her bake however - overdone with 5 minutes to go! So there's not much she can do apart from pray and maybe just give in and eat one anyway because they look great to be honest
16. Candice...may have caused a slightly tiny fire.
17. Results time: Val's idea sounds good to me. Underdone, Val says her family likes them a bit underdone...hmm. She did say this before the judging but Paul's eyes are giving away that he thinks this is a cheeky fib.
18. A lot of flavours as usual in Selasi's bake. Have noticed this is a recurring problem across Bake Off in that M & P can criticise when just one of the flavours doesn't "come through".
19. A few more errors - Tom's and Benjamina's bakes were generally raw, Rav only got 11 plaits finished (and Paul called them "bone dry", oo-er), Kate overfilled hers and Candice did some criminal underbaking. Didn't stop Mel taking six of her rose-sweetened pastries for her "family" though.
20. Andrew, on the other hand, wowed Mary Berry the legend herself and Jane aced both of her bakes.
    
    But overall, not great baking to be honest. Some flavour knowledge definitely present though.
21. Challenge 2, the technical: the almighty Bakewell tart. MB is demanding "sheer perfection". Alright, alright. I honestly have never made one of these and it's something I'd definitely be kicking myself about if I was in that tent.
22. "WELL DONE BEZZA". Did that just happen?! Did... yep I need to rewind, praise the tellygods for Sky Plus. Never has Paul been so cool/try-hard...and Mary's not even flinched, this is his peak right it's all downhill from here Paul
23. Val is making it known that she does not have a problem with this challenge: apparently, she makes a Bakewell tart every week and it seems like she's sticking with her own recipe. As in, completely ignoring Mary's. Let's hope this pays off and doesn't piss off the queen of the tent.
24. Selasi doesn't seem to have a clue on the other hand. He's struggling to think about what to fill his tart with...
25. Andrew's jam and frangipan have mixed oh jeez CALL 999 THIS IS AN EMERGENCY
26. Oh no his OVEN IS OFF DOUBLE EMERGENCY PLEASE CALL 999-999 AHHHH
27. The tent is currently not a place of calm. Who would've thought a Bakewell tart would cause such mayhem.
28. The bakers are having to put on their icing while the tart is still warm. Having done this on a cake I recall that the outcome is generally not pretty and quite devastating.
29. Technical results time!
    
    Jane, Selasi and Benjamina did the best overall with great flavours and baking. For others in the tent, there's jam-overloads, underbaking, tarts that are still warm, unfinished icing and the first soggy bottom of the series (credit to Val). Bit awkward.
30. In last place is Rav, despite Val's soggy bottom. 3rd is Selasi, 2nd is Candice and Jane got 1st place! She's rising like a true baking phoenix.
31. According to Mary/Paul/Mel/Sue discussion time, it's Benjamina, Val, Tom and Rav who are in trouble this week. About half the bakers then.
32. Challenge Trois: 48 filo pastry amuse-bouches, within 4 hours. Yeah, good luck everyone.
33. Val's off to a good start. This time I was being sarcastic: she hasn't made filo pastry for 35 years.
34. Meanwhile, Rav is making my dreams come true Chinese prawn tartlets. Y-u-m.
35. Jane is creating ice-cream cone-shaped cherry and chocolate amuse-bouches for half of her batch. Honestly all of these things, probably because they're basically pastry holding delicious fillings, sound perfect to me. Especially those Chinese prawn ones, gimme.
36. History lesson time - Mel's voice is luring us away from the bake. 2 tonnes of sugar are used for 'Baklava' in one bakery that Mel's visited. I spelled 'Baklava' right first time *can I get a woopwoop gif* (also what is Baklava I still don't know)
37. Nigerian Benjamina is making plantain and spinach samosas. Never had plantain (related to the banana says Bing, Google too much effort) but she's making it sound great.
38. Has occurred to me that I could 'Bing' Baklava but I can't be bothered. It's nicer to dream about the possibilities of what a Baklava might be than face the reality.
39. Val with another one of her ideas: rolling pastry with a broom handle. I didn't think this woman could get any more endearingly bonkers but I was wrong.
40. Thin filo achieved, time to make tiny parcels of loveliness. 48 of them, that is, as Mel reminds us. Bit tricky then.
41. 45 minutes left and Tom has pastry envy. That's natural Tom, just know that your pastry is unique to you and beautiful in its own special way.
42. Jane is at the back of the kitchen making weird noises. It's because she's frozen her jam by accident. Oh rats, well that would do it.
43. There are no rats in the tent, just to be clear.
44. Rav is calm and collected, all done with minutes to spare. That's actually quite refreshing.
45. Sue Perkins, just nominated for Bake Off Quote of the Year with "Leave your balls alone".
46. And now...let's judge. Benjamina up first and she may have saved herself from the danger zone; the plantain bake tastes delicious, while her sweet one with chai in is deemed as good. Selasi, although apparently having used lovely parma ham, scored not so well with a dry savoury bake and underbaking for the rest.
47. OUCH, Paul has stolen Bezza's "informal" adjective to describe Tom's amuse-bouches. A dagger straight to the oven.
48. Jane did much better, amazing the judges overall, but her ice cream creations don't count really as they're too big and amuse-bouches are meant to be really small. Hopefully they'll give her the benefit of the doubt.
49. Andrew's smashed it yet again, while Val had 12 of one bake missing! And a number of errors too. Am getting an unwelcome feeling that she might be leaving this week.
50. Both Candice and Rav (the champion of saving himself) achieved great results. As for Candice, her sausage meat, black pudding and apple amuse-bouches were "spot on" and looked fab. Her sweet banoffee bake also went down well. As for Rav, he made spiced white chocolate and hazelnut samosas - I need him in my life.
51. SO the time for the final discussion of Week 5 arrives - Paul reckons Benjamina and Rav have saved themselves, whilst Val and Tom are in danger of going. My predictions for Star Baker? Jane, Andrew or Candice - they all deserve it imo.
52. Time for the announcements. Sue says the Star Baker this week is.........Candice!!!
    
53. Mel's delivering the sad news now of who's leaving: it's Val. Ma woman is gone! Bless her she's so lovely. Had something in my eye after her little au-revoir speech.
54. Next week: meringue pies, herby bread and a floral cake showstopper. Basically we've ran out of themes and from now on it's a mishmash.

    

    Down to the final seven...

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