With the Bake Off furor showing no signs of abating, it’s pertinent to remember that we are now on our SIXTH-TO-LAST episode ever of the show with Mel and Sue doing their thing. A moment of quiet reflection please.
As with last week, there’s still no word on Paul and Mary’s reaction to the Great Channel 4 Migration but if the news that Paul’s registered the name Paul Hollywood so it can be used on everything from Craft Beers to hotel supplies (Paul Hollywood loo roll coming soon to a Travelodge near you?) is anything to go by, could he too be looking for an alternate future?
This week back at the tent that is as-of-yet blissfully unaware of the drama to come, it’s pastry week. First up, the bakers are instructed to make 24 breakfast pastries - aka those floppy looking things your company serves up in morning meetings in a bid to make outsiders look like you’ve got a bit a of class about you. No-one’s falling for your pain-au-chocolat sensibilities Kevin-from-accounts, not one person.
Luckily these bakers have got a bit more to them than Kevin-from-accounts and there’s not a pain-au-chocolat in sight. Instead it’s all ‘pecan swirl with maple syrup and candied bacon’ and ‘croque monsieur pastry with mushrooms and pancetta.’ Very fancy indeed.
Candice is dealing with a sore back. Andrew’s regaling us with (thrilling) stories of snacking on his Dad’s secret date stash he kept in his glove compartment. Val meanwhile is battling with some soggy pastry, something she caveats by tellings the cameras ‘It’s better to be wetter than it is to be dry’ which is literally true in just one case other than baking. And we all know that that is Val, you sly fox.
Not going to lie guys but making pastry looks like a right bore. It's just folding. Over and over again. And then folding some more. If folding was fun, shops like Gap would be overrun with applications from eager folders, keen to their their mitts on their cashmere sweater piles but really, folding's far too much like hard work. I’ll stick to buying my pastry ready made, ta.
The first challenge ends on high tensions as everyone rushes round trying to fit their final touches to their Danish pastries. Candice is really behind and, according to her, is about to 'poo herself’, ditto for Benjamina. Val is sat in front of her oven rocking backwards and forwards in a way that we haven’t done since coming back from the Student Union on a Wednesday night and drunkenly waiting for our Iceland’s mini chicken kievs and Windy City pepperoni pizza to cook. Sadly, all the rushing about doesn't produce great results and judging is a sugary bloodbath for all the bakers, save for Candice who somehow does so well that Mel steals her remaining pastries to have for herself later.
For the technical round, the bakers are instructed to make a Bakewell Tart, a traditional British food that no-one under the age of 40 has willingingly bought and/or ever consumed. Literally the only reason they're still around is because it’s the law that grannies buy them for guests to eat with their tea.
Mary Berry though, is a nan, and therefore loves a Bakewell Tart. ‘They really should know what they look like’ she says of the bakers, unaware that, amongst the young, the preferred tea-accompaniment these days is the much hipper and trendier biscuit. And indeed, the Bakewell Tart challenge is firmily pitting the young bakers against the old. ‘I bet Val knows what she’s doing’ Rav says cattily. Selasi reckons the winner of the challenge will be ‘aged’, a word he whispers with all the disgust of a teenager being asked to explain Snapchat to anyone over the age of 25. Bejamina and Jane are hotly debating whether Bakewells are ‘classic and classy’ (Jane) or ‘old’ and ‘erm like, retro?' (Bejamina). Both baffled at the other’s opinion.
Sadly for Val, who seemed very confident with her Bakewell baking, she’s done exactly what I did in my exam for Post-Victorian Literature and forgot to check if there was another page of instructions. She’s missed off steps six through 11 and made the whole thing up. Luckily though, she’s made a Bakewell Tart every week for as long as she can remember so fingers crossed hers will still turn out fine. Andrew has forgotten to turn his oven on completely and, as a result, presents a half-iced franken-tart which is only outdone by Rav’s which has lost an entire side to gravity and, sadly, Val’s. Who in the end scores the only soggy bottom of the whole round.
For the showstopper round, the gang are to make two sets of 'filo pastry amuse bouches', which are the things Mark Owen ran around offering Twiggy in that weird M&S Christmas advert where she inexplicably spent Yuletide with Take That and Lily Cole.
The bakers have got four hours, which quite frankly, seems like a long old time to spend on making something you can eat in literally less than a second.
Getting the pastry thin enough for filo proves to be the main point of struggle for the bakers. Everyone's got their own technique for dealing with this. Benjamina’s whipping her pastry round pizza style, Val’s using an old broom handle for rolling, Candice is using a pasta maker and Tom’s stretching it over his knuckles. Tom is also combining chocolate and steak for his so there's a very real chance he might actually be losing his mind.
As the bakers struggle to put their fillings into their super duper thing pastry creations, it's Val that’s having the real shocker. She looks like she's not even going to finish baking her offerings whilst Rav, the cheeky chappie who was struggling so much earlier, looks like he might have pulled off the ultimate underdog comeback story and finished EARLY. He’s the Mighty Ducks! He’s Rocky! He’s er, Seabiscuit!
Benjamina nails it, as do Andrew and Jane and Candice, Tom’s steak and chocolate backfires (shocker) and Val gets a right dressing down; hers amuse bouches are underdone, too big and well, the judges faces, which look as horrified as if Val turned in a signed CD of Val's favourite singer Ed Sheeran, says it all.
So, in the end, it’s Val that’s sent packing. Another one of Britain’s great characters lost from British telly. When will this cull end? Maybe, just maybe, there's a big telly show in the sky that all great heroes of TV from days gone by gather. There's Jedward, Simon Amstell from Nevermind the Buzzcocks, Keith Floyd and soon, Mel and Sue and, if we're really lucky, Val.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.