Great British Bake Off 2018 [** Spoilers **]

RhubarbCrumble

I usually stay away from ANYTHING online until I've watched that night's episode, but when I post here about star baker and who was sent home, I don't name names.

zenbuffy

cruizer101 wrote: »

miamee wrote: »

I usually stay away from the thread until I have seen the episode, I assume most do the same?

Yeah I would think day after is ok to discuss, maybe thread title should be updated to make it clear so people don't complain.
I assume the cheating is referring to

The acetate being left on Manon's cake which meant the chocolate had more time to set, Paul did comment on it alright but yeah thought was bit cheeky

Yes, I thought that this was very cheeky indeed. 

I understand that the temperatures in the tent were very unfavourable for tempering chocolate, but leaving the acetate on gave her what I felt amounted to extra baking/decorating time, since her chocolate had longer than the other collars to set. 
I suppose the reason I think it's extra-cheeky is that I'm pretty sure the key reason that Luke left, as opposed to some of the other bakers who also had a rotten time, like Terry, is that he didn't fulfil the minimum brief of having two chocolate collar wrapped layers. Other bakers had disaster too, but they got two layers wrapped. If Manon had pulled off the acetate at the end, would she have had two wrapped layers? Maybe not.

alchemist33

alchemist33 wrote: »

Agree on this. I thought it was effectively cheating by her.

Not at all. And as the judge commented on it you may be certain it was taken into account when assessing.

zenbuffy

Ok, so I've got my bake off the memory card and into a format that'll work for here. I made a "signature traybake" this week, because I saw them faffing around with chocolate collars in last week's preview and I noped out of that pretty damn hard!
I love lemon drizzle cake. I know it's simple, but I think it's easy to get wrong. It can be dry and bland, and I hate nothing more than biting into a lemon drizzle cake only to find that it barely tastes of lemon at all. Accordingly, I sacrifice practically millions of lemons into my cake in order to make sure that it punches you directly in the face screaming LEMOOOOON when you eat it.

I put a meringue on it, because I was feeling fancy. I was trying something out. It didn't work all that well, imo, but we ate them anyway.

miamee

They look delicious zenbuffy, nice and moist I've heard lemon drizzle cake is relatively easy to make, I should give it a try. I'm not much of a baker usually.

Meauldsegosha

People often comment on the thread as the show is on. If people have to put everything in spoiler tags it would be very annoying.

Mr E

"Spoilers" added to thread title. If it has aired, it's fair game for free discussion without spoiler tags.

Any future stuff (previews, leaks in the news etc.) still require spoiler tags. Prue - that one's for you.

If you wander in here before watching the latest episode, then it's your own fault!

miamee

I think my favourite moment from last night was Rahul's reaction to the handshake. He looked like he was going to get sick when Paul told him to come forward :pac: and then afterwards he said he thought Paul was going to tell him he'd left something inside the cake! lol.

wyrn

It's probably just me but I thought Ruby's handshake took away from Ruhuls. I had a feeling from the first episode she'd be the one that Paul would latch on to this year.

miamee

Yeah I was disappointed that Paul gave that away right after Rahul, it kind of diluted his one. He always latches on to the same type of girl, doesn't he?

Sunny Dayz

wyrn wrote: »

It's probably just me but I thought Ruby's handshake took away from Ruhuls. I had a feeling from the first episode she'd be the one that Paul would latch on to this year.

I probably sound mean but I just didn't feel like she deserved a handshake for her show stopper.

LirW

I am not a big fan of Ruby and I found her showstopper idea really uninspired and simply not arsed to come up with something, I mean it's literally splashing a big of chocolate on the acetate, done.

But jesus, how did Manon get away with that yesterday? I mean that's really not nothing. I find her very smug and arrogant somehow, kinda like that girl everyone had in class that cries when she doesn't get the top grade.

cruizer101

Yeah I didn't think much of Ruby's, obviously we can't taste it but still it didn't look great to me, far less effort to do some random swishes that the detailed piping Rahul did.

It also really annoys me that they don't air condition the tent, every year it happens that it gets too hot which makes it harder. I nearly think they don't use ac on purpose so it will be hot to make it more of "challenge" Bo**icks to that, that's not a proper challenge of baking skills it ends up leaving more to luck, its not hard to ac a tent, do that and make it fair for everyone, but no, then we wouldn't have the same drama of cake disasters, whats next blindfold week, one handed week, just so we can see disaster cakes, sorry rant over.

wyrn

Sunny Dayz wrote: »

I probably sound mean but I just didn't feel like she deserved a handshake for her show stopper.

Likewise. I can't even remember it now. It certainly didn't stand out

dee_mc

I think they've said previously that they don't use air conditioning as it interferes so much with sound. They don't even use dishwashers in the off-screen wash-up area - just a team of silent washer-uppers!

LirW

If you have cookers and ovens running, just a few of them at the same time, that in itself creates an insane amount of heat. Just thinking of chirstmas cooking, kitchen turns into a sauna.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Re: Manon and the acetate. Maybe she didn’t time things right and had to step away when time was up? You’re not allowed to touch your creation once the time has elapsed. I’d give her the benefit of the doubt that it wasn’t a calculated move, that she just ran out of time and I’m sure it was taken into account by the judges as a bit of an unfair advantage.

confusticated

I don't think so with Manon - she made a bit of a song and dance about being too afraid to take it off. Poor Luke ripped his off like a plaster and it took half the cake with it.

Nice that different people shone this week though - a lot of stuff online was saying how front runners had already appeared last week, but that's one bake! (Well, three, but y'know)

And I agree that Ruby's handshake took from Rahul's - I think Paul regretted it though from when he said he was disappointed in himself.

PandaPoo

There's something about Rahul that I don't like. I think he knew he was getting a handshake and was being really childish.
I think he's playing up the nervous chatty personality.

I love Briony and Jon.

alchemist33

I keep getting distracted by Rahul when he's clean shaven, wondering how he's getting his homework done while practicing baking.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Hubs and I only noticed that Briony has a hand deformity the other night. THAT is why I love Bake Off. No sob stories, just getting on with it.

PandaPoo

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

Hubs and I only noticed that Briony has a hand deformity the other night. THAT is why I love Bake Off. No sob stories, just getting on with it.

I didn't even notice! She's my fav

skearnsot

Love Briony & CANT STAND Ruby!! Her attitude blows from the get go! Kim Joy is so quirky

allylands

Luke comes across as such a nice guy on the extra slice, I'm sorry he's gone

Posy

I have the Extra Slice recorded for tomorrow afternoon to watch with a bun and a cuppa.

LirW

I love how Anthony does pretty well in everything but technical. He placed in the back in both but he seems like a chill guy. He has perfect teeth!

On another note, I'm just watching the finale of a previous season where they have Sacher Torte as technical challenge. Absolutely flipped it, because I grew up with the original and my mom is an avid baker and what they did was NOTHING like a Sacher, it was a brownie with jam and ganache on it. I'm usually not petty but if they do historically significant bakes or signature bakes of countries be a lot more accurate with it?
Makes me wonder if they're also cutting corners with other nationality bakes.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Posy wrote: »

I have the Extra Slice recorded for tomorrow afternoon to watch with a bun and a cuppa.

Did they do the Tom Allen bit again?

fishy_fishy

Does anyone know if they're restricted in how they can construct their cakes?

Seems like they're happy to just plonk one tier of cake on top of the other, without a thought towards support. Normally I'd have a card under each tier and dowels in supporting tier(s) so the bottom tier can be lovely and light and fluffy. Considering they're all very accomplished bakers, it just seems strange to watch cakes collapsing for want of a card and couple of dowels..?

As for the heat in the tent... I wish they'd just scrap chocolate tempering challenges if they can't control the temperature. Every year we watch lovely work go to ruin and it's just not enjoyable to watch that happen (IMHO). I really don't think it's a proper test of skill, it's kinda down to a bit of luck that you'll be able to get it to set in time and not re-melt. The Eiffel tower looked incredible and, if not for a crazy hot tent, would have worked. I dunno, I just don't think it adds anything to have a challenge that's completely unrealistic.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Agreed. Terry’s eiffel tower chocolate work looked fantastic before it broke. They really are up against it and it’s not that interesting to watch.

HeidiHeidi

Just back from me holliers and catching up on last week's episode.


I'm calling shenanigans (or clever editing). If Prue was so adamant that time was of the essence in the technical and WORK QUICKLY!!! - how come half of them have time to start their disastrous cakes all over again? :rolleyes:


(haven't got to the end of the segment yet, mind you - so maybe they didn't )