Pies, guys! We’re getting pies! The competition so far has been more unsavoury than a rootle round the Prime Minister’s deleted folder – so after weeks of cake on custard on custard on cake, pastry feels like a blessed relief.
It’s poignant though, at this quarter final stage, because one can’t help picturing a kind of in memoriam montage of all the bakers we’ve lost along the way and the pies that could have been. Michelle’s lamb and daffodil surprise, with Tom Jones’s face carved into the crust. Jamie’s, a lukewarm Pukka from a service station. Helena’s, in collaboration with her local barber, a human finger poking out of the top.
But though the five we have left are so clean-cut Enid Blyton could have written them herself, pastry is still to be feared. Requiring cool conditions and careful handling, it’s a cruel mistress – or perhaps it’s just exercising boundaries. “I have really warm hands, which is good for healthcare – not so good for pastry,” says David, glossing over the implications for his cold, cold heart.
But in fact everyone has warm hands this week, among other parts, because it was filmed during that mad heatwave we’ve already stopped talking about. This time three months ago, I was sleeping on a frozen tea towel. Never forget.
Laminate flaws
The signature challenge is one of the food world’s most famous accidents: tarte tatin. But savoury. Any viewers still struggling with the concept of salted caramel might find this segment distressing, because we’re talking vegetable caramel. Leeky caramel, carroty caramel, caramel infused with onions. If the government are so keen to get us all eating our five a day, this could be an avenue worth exploring.
Henry is filling his tart with potato (a tattie tarte tatin! Go on, it’s fun to say), tomatoes and a crab salad more snappily dressed than he is. Alice is plaiting leeks like they’re coming out of a Girls’ World styling head, and Rosie is dousing everything in black garlic. Rosie, I love you, but you’re never going to be Queen Goth in this tent. No matter how many rabbits you kill.
Given the choice between making full puff pastry and the easier, cheatier rough puff, all of our bakers have plumped for the latter. Which means – hooray! – we get to watch them grating entire blocks of butter as though it were cheese, one of the more sensual spectacles Bake Off affords us. A moment’s silence, please, while we all imagine the ways we could use grated butter in our everyday lives if society wasn’t so narrow-minded. On top of a chilli. In a seven-layer salad. A cheeky fistful while we wait for the macaroni and butter to cook. Mmm. Mmmm.
Our bakers are aiming for perfect lamination, with crisp pastry layers and a caramelised topping. But with only the upside-down pastry base visible in the oven, turning the tarts out is suspenseful viewing. I haven’t been this gripped since #WagathaChristie.
Henry’s crabby tattie creation looks beautiful, and the judges are knocked sideways by its flavour. “If someone had said to me: ‘this is what Henry’s going to do’, I’d have said ‘tell him not to’,” admits Prue. Somewhere, the GBBO wardrobe mistress is muttering something similar into a privet hedge.
Inspired by the Tatin sisters’ famous culinary cock-up, Rosie has used twice the amount of butter she was supposed to. I applaud her, but sadly the result is less of a sensation, more disintegration – her pastry is sodden.
“It’s like a membrane,” says Sandi. We’re unclear on whether this is a compliment in Denmark.
It’s a difficult week for Paul too. First he has to suffer the humiliation of mistaking David’s posh purple carrots for burnt patches, then he has to face Steph, who has plonked seven huge slabs of goat’s cheese on top of her tart just to mess with him. To be fair, Paul is clearly a Red Leicester man and she should have clocked this sooner.
And Alice’s leek and apple lattice is leaky but still golden delicious, earning her what can only be described as ‘a moment’ with everyone’s favourite young organist. We all saw that, right? I’ll be honest guys, up till now I didn’t think these Alice/Henry rumours deserved our attention. But now we’ve heard them both use “sog” as an adjective, I’m not sure there can be more convincing proof.
Warka this way
Today’s technical challenge is a Moroccan chicken pie, made with super-thin ‘warka’, or ‘brik’, pastry. “If anyone knows what this is, I will get naked,” declares Henry, with the air of one who would try to instigate a game of strip Twister at church camp. David knows what it is. Only the watershed can save us.
But even without a nudey interlude, our bakers are brikking it. Not least because making perfectly crisp, filo-style pastry sheets in sweltering temperatures is even harder than maintaining a statement fringe. Poor Steph can’t seem to master the art of brushing batter onto her hot plate. But one out of two ain’t bad.
Not content with playing fast and loose with her nut allergy, the producers are now making Rosie cook chicken for the first time ever. They’ve not even let her use a scalpel! And Alice appears to be the only baker who has brought her own fan to the tent, although this could be so she can stage a floury version of Berlin’s Take My Breath Away video in between takes. I’m telling you, if Henry whips out a pair of pilot goggles, then we’ll know.
After a lot of protracted brik-laying and one wholesome family game of toss-the-lime, it’s all eyes on the pies. Henry has delivered on half his promise – his bottom’s out – and Rosie’s pastry has completely split, leaking filling all over the plate. Let’s call it ‘the chicken’s revenge’.
To summarise the judges’ verdict. Fifth, Henry: white warkas. Fourth, Steph: shite warkas. Third, Alice: Warkas Salt ‘n’ Shake. Second, Rosie: warka on, with hope in your heart. And David, in his first ever top spot: a warka to remember.
“Just eight tries!” he beams, lit golden from behind by the sun.
“I was a bit flaky, wasn’t I?” says Steph. You weren’t flaky enough, love. That was the problem.
High-rise pies
Now we’re on to the real heavy lifting. This week’s showstopper is a ‘vertical pie’, ie. tiers of pies on top of each other, an idea the judges seem to think is incredibly zany but nobody with a few millennial weddings under their belt will bat an eyelid at. Bake me a doughnut wall with an edible wall, then we’ll talk.
Because she’s always misheard the adage as ‘quantity, not quality’, Rosie is making nine pies. They’re going to be stacked up like Rapunzel’s tower, because of course nothing makes food more appetising than imagining long hairs in it.
Alice is building the Sylvanian Families nursery treehouse out of shortcrust pastry, Steph is giving a carousel another spin after Amelia’s ill-fated cake in episode one, and David’s flipped his lid – and possibly blown his chances – by choosing to make all his fish pies topless. “What makes a pie a pie?” asks Paul. I don’t know, Paul. Is it you sticking in a thumb and pulling out a plum?
In fact, everyone is suddenly very concerned about Paul’s palate. “Do you like meaty pies?” asks an uncertain Henry, from behind a huge pile of ham chunks. Are you joking, Hen? If you are what you eat, Paul clearly loves gammon.
Structural integrity being key to this – and indeed every – showstopper, most of the bakers are using hot water crust pastry, which when made correctly should be stiffer than Alice and Noel’s on-camera banter. With only four hours to get three (or nine) pies filled and baked, their chances of nailing it look slimmer by the minute, but notwithstanding a toppling tower, they all make it to the gingham altar intact.
Despite being the best advert the Whitby tourist board have had in years, David’s fish pies are deemed too salty and his filling too dry. Rosie, Alice and Henry have all made sky-high pies that look fantastic, but their pastry is too tough or too thick. It’s almost as though you’re better off keeping your dinner horizontal and making towering dioramas out of... I don’t know, wood.
By the time we reach the final quarter-final quarter, nobody seems to have any idea who’s going home. Henry’s star has fallen, Alice’s dreams have been felled, Rosie hasn’t quite redeemed herself and David is sinking. Despite her disappointing technical, Steph is the only person who really qualifies for star baker, so she’s duly crowned for the fourth time this series. One more time Steph, and I’m pretty sure you get a telegram from the queen.
But the question of who’s going home is impossible to predict. Everyone is on tenterhooks, the nation holding its breath. It’s ……….Henry’s account. I mean, Henry.
Yes, despite having done more for the cause of casual tie-wearing than Avril Lavigne and Dilbert combined, it’s time for the boy wonder to rollerskate off into the sunset. Cue the sad organ music.
Next week: it’s the same joke about a stiff semi I’ve made every year since 2013! You can’t beat the classics.