This blog contains spoilers of who has left, who won star baker, who received a Hollywood Handshake and what necklace Prue was wearing….

Another week, another new idea – Roaring Twenties, no, I don’t know where that came from either – I just hope they don’t get in a flap about it!

I hope that the technical this week isn’t the train wreck that last week’s was, with Noel describing it as, “One of the most disastrous technicals in Bake Off history.”

The Signature Bake

The signature bake was four individual highly decorated open topped custard pies.  I’m guessing custard pies as they were used as great slapstick humour in the 20s? Would anyone be brave enough to pick one up and plant it in Paul Hollywood’s face? No, probably not….

Rosie has a disaster when she moves one of her custard pies, it falls onto the floor, she has a little wobble of the bottom lip, says “Well I can’t really salvage that,” and sighs, “I’m going home.”

David has a very good signature dish as he receives the coveted Paul Hollywood handshake. Priya ran out of time, again, Alice overwhelms her pie with too much orange zest and extract and Helena’s Lemon and Lavander pies are criticised for having too much lavender in them. Rosie’s didn’t set completely and also she only had three.

The Technical Challenge

The technical challenge by Prue is 18 Beignets Souffles, (I think that’s how you spell it) which is met by blank faces and Prue chose this apparently because they were popular in the 20s.  I managed to get a screen shot of the instructions which were:

Method

Deep Fat fryer – 190c

1. For the beignet batter, make pate a choux.
2. Make the raspberry jam.
3. Working in batches and piping directly onto an oiled dessert spoon, pipe 18 balls of choux and carefully drop into the oil and fry.
4. Pipe a small amount of jam into the beignet souffles.
5. Make the sabayon.
6. Dust the beignet souffles with icing sugar and serve alongside the sabayon.

Well, that sounds easy, doesn’t it? From choux pastry being runny, to it being stodgy, the bakers are struggling. Michael has a tough time with this technical, he tries to make the batter a couple of times, but it doesn’t work, he’s nearly in tears when Noel comes over and suggests he has a little quick walk for five minutes and then come back, to which Michael replies that if he did, he might not come back. Who hasn’t felt like that during a tough day at the office?

Technical Challenge positions:

9th – David; 8th – Michael; 7th – Michelle, 6th – Alice, 5th – Rosie, 4th – Steph, 3rd – Henry, 2nd – Priya and 1st is Helena.

The award for best Tweet goes to Scott Bryan:

The Showstopper

Noel informs the bakers that it’s a two tier prohibition era cake they will be baking and they should use their favourite cocktail to flavour it. Of course, Helena’s favourite cocktail is called Vampire Kiss cocktail which is cherry vodka, Grand Marnier cherry liquor and cherry juice.

We found out that Henry shops at Waitrose and Priya talks in the third person…

Helena’s cake is described as sinister and pretty at the same time, Henry’s cake is a bit dry, Rosie’s cake is described as interesting with beautiful flavours, but the ganache was too thick. Alice’s decorations could have been better, Priya’s cake is ‘nice’. Steph’s pina colada cake is given the thumbs up. Prue says that Michelle’s cake has too many concepts and it is slightly dry.

Star Baker is Steph, for the second week running and we had to say goodbye to a double elimination, yes, this was the double elimination week, so we wave Michelle off into the sunset to travel back to Wales and Helena, on her broomstick into the night time sky, silhouetted by the moon.

So I have lost one of my bakers, Michelle, but I still have David and Henry! Priya lives to fight another week…

Next week is Dessert Week, who will not be trifled with and who hopes their luck doesn’t dessert them!