You can tell a lot about a person, I think, by which Bake Off episode is their annual favourite.
Pastry Week is for sadists. Patisserie Week is for nerds. Biscuit Week is for those who crave an element of mild peril, and Cake Week is for the basics who will have defected to Holby City before September is out. But Bread Week? Bread Week is the discerning choice. No hiding behind the icing here; the bakers need to work with the alchemical magic of yeast to achieve a perfect, springy crumb structure, chewy crust and all the other things our nation of Hovis-eaters are suddenly armchair experts on. It’s their hour (and a quarter) of knead.
Nerves are fraught in the tent this week, but then when are they not? 'I’ve got a bit of bread dread,' quips Michael. 'This week I want to show what I can do – PROVE myself,' adds Amelia.
Alright guys, I don’t come to your work and... teach a spin class. Keep the puns under your pinnies, please.
Tear and share alike
This week’s signature challenge is a democratic favourite: tear ‘n’ share bread, which is made up from lots of individual rolls that spread and fuse together in the baking process. Funny how you can’t make ‘tear ‘n’ share’ biscuits to the same acclaim.
The bakers are flavouring their loaves with an array of jazzy additions, from David and Helena’s cinnamon rolls to Michael’s Keralan spice and Priya’s smoky jalapeno. Michelle’s creation is a Noson Caws bread, which translates as ‘Cheese Night’, stuffed with Wye Valley Angiddy and Golden Cenarth. Michelle is from Wales, but she’s hardly mentioned it.
More revelations: Phil, despite pronouncing ‘focaccia’ as though it’s an embarrassing sexual accident, is apparently Italian! He’s honouring his heritage with a pancetta, herb and Grana Padano-stuffed loaf in the shape of a family tree. Meanwhile Steph is the ultimate multi-hyphenate, juggling three different jobs alongside what we can only imagine must be a fairly intensive schedule of fringe upkeep.
She and Henry are both vying for the Norman Calder Memorial Cup by using pesto (exotic), and Henry has taken up the millennial ingredient baton this week by adding charcoal to half of his buns. The effect is coming off a little less hipster, a little more ‘plucky Victorian chimney sweep with a pocketful of soot and a dream’. He’s wearing his tie again too, which might mean it came pre-stitched to his pullover.
Success in this challenge hinges on a good rise, which means the return of a faithful supporting cast member: the proving drawer. We’re still a way off my dream of human-sized proving drawers as a luxury spa treatment, but I’m ready as soon as Gwyneth Paltrow wants to listen.
Everyone’s biggest fear in Bread Week is the Hollywood Prod. “Paul will definitely prod it and say: overproved. Undercooked. Overbaked. Underproved. Over-kneaded. Wet. Bad,” raps Michael. If he doesn’t win the competition, I’m confident this could be reworked into a charity cover of We Didn’t Start The Fire.
Come judging, there’s some tearing ‘n’ sharing, some incision ‘n’ derision. Henry’s bread is too bland, Amelia’s too chunky, and Steph, Alice and Helena have been so keen to avoid underdone dough that they’ve overbaked it instead. If only they could turn back time! But then, that would be tear ‘n’ Cher bread.
Rosie, Priya and Michelle have nailed their cheesy offerings. Phil has done his nonna proud. And while Paul manages to keep his prodding finger mostly to himself, the Hollywood paw is out on parade! Michael receives the first handshake of the season for his spectacular flame-red star loaf.
“I can’t wait to tell my friends,” he beams. Give it a wipe first, lad.
Bappy hour
This week’s fearsome technical sounds deceptively simple: eight burger buns. These are also known as baps in Shropshire, cobs in the Midlands, barmcakes in Lancashire and ‘do you have any gluten-free?’ in Richmond. Unlike the standard-issue demi-brioche of modern times, these buns need to be soft, white and floury – and to make things harder, our bakers have to rustle up four veggie burgers to fill them.
But make no mistake, they’re judging the bread. “This is bread week, not burger week!” says Prue. “And this is the Bake Off, not the Cook Off,” says Paul. Yes yes, we get it.
Shocking to nobody, Phil is not a tofu aficionado. He’s determined to compensate for lack of bloodied flesh by making ‘man-sized’ burgers, which as we all know require 18.4% more ketchup than lady burgers for doing the same job.
With classically vague instructions from the judges, the bakers are flailing. Priya’s lost her proving bag; Amelia hasn’t used all her dough. “Less than 10%, sod it!” she concludes, and the nation clenches our collective arse cheeks in anticipation. Never sod it on the Bake Off, Amelia! A ‘sod it’ is Paul’s bat signal.
More than a few buns have come out too small or too brown – but the bakers’ minor mishaps are nothing compared to the atrocity that is Paul Hollywood eating a burger sideways, with a fork.
At the top of the table, Henry is the burger king, David’s burgers have Byronic charm and Steph has served up a happy meal despite slightly wimpy buns. Poor Amelia is bottom (sod’s law), and Phil is second to last with uneven, undersized and overbaked baps. Somebody fetch him a man-sized tissue.
First cut is the neatest
As we go into the weekend’s final challenge, poor Amelia is clearly in a shaky position. But confusingly, Paul also claims Rosie and Alice are “in trouble”. Alice the star baker? Rosie whose tear and share bread you called ‘heaven’? That Alice and Rosie? It’s unclear whether this is just bluff to stop it looking like poor Amelia’s a done deal, or if Paul meant ‘in trouble’ because they’re both teetering on the upper edge of his age bracket.
Anyway, this week’s showstopper is all about scoring bread. Not dumpster-diving round the back of Gail’s, but making intricate cuts in the tops of a loaf to create beautiful patterns and pictures when baked.
Scoring to the perfect depth is a skilled art. 'You don’t want the heat to open it up like a great wound,' says Prue, although it’s possible this is Helena’s entire concept.
The judges have asked for two large loaves from each baker, so naturally everyone is making about 12. To inspire their designs, our bakers are drawing on the usual array of travel anecdotes, niche hobbies and forgotten storylines from back episodes of Vets in Practice. Michelle, Rosie and Priya are all crafting animals – again – and Steph is taking a leaf out of David’s book with a classy bouquet of flowers. David himself is attempting an ambitious, multi-layered trio of African tribal masks. And they’ve gone wrong before you can say ‘is this culturally appropriative, or..?’
My beloved Helena has laryngitis _(_sold her voice to a sea witch) but her bake speaks volumes: a cauldron, charcoal black rolls, a pumpkin loaf and sesame breadstick snakes. I hope the producers realise it is imperative to keep Helena in the competition, just to see what she’ll do for actual Halloween. There won’t be a sacrificial bat left in Berkshire.
Soon the razor blades are out and we’re seeing more shaky slashes than a Guns N' Roses fan convention. Lovely Michael – who, in a development I will definitely be complaining to Channel 4 about, we’re now apparently calling ‘Handshake Baker’ – is crafting a bread bonfire with charcoal loaves, and Lovely Henry is making fougasse, a kind of Provencal focaccia. Unfortunately he’s also made a fou-gaffe. He’s got half his baking paper stuck to the bottom.
The final scores
When Prue and Paul return, the tent is decked out like a keto fever dream. Star baker this week is Lovely Michael, whose spicy, smoky offerings have been, as the kids say, fire. Alice and Rosie have redeemed themselves with beautiful bread – particularly Rosie’s grey elephant loaf, which somehow looks both delicious and exactly like an edible breeze block. Priya and Michelle are both near-perfect, Steph’s flowers are stunning, and even Phil’s immense cockiness at baking his own trophy has paid off. 'Delicious,' says Prue, and means it.
Meanwhile, at the rough and bready end of the spectrum, Helena’s failed to go full slasher flick with her scoring, David’s masks are 'style over substance' and Henry’s baked up a fou-gastric nightmare. But in the end, with great design but underbaked, flavourless loaves, it’s poor Amelia who’s toast.
Cheery-bye then, Amelia. I’d offer something more sentimental, but you did say you hated cheese.
Next week: Michelle uses Welsh Rarebit to spell out all three verses of Bread of Heaven. Phil glues his masculinity back together with royal icing. Paul eats a pie from a bowl, using only a spoon.