Great British Bake Off – Recap – Week 2 – Biscuits

Week 1 saw Loriea sent packing during cake week leaving eleven bakers to tackle biscuits.

Here are our bakers:

• Dave, 30, Armoured Guard
• Hermine, 39, Accountant
• Laura, 31, Digital Manager
• Linda, 61, Retirement Living Team Manager
• Loriea, 27, Diagnostic Radiographer (eliminated Week 1)
• Lottie, 31, Pantomime Producer
• Makbul, 51, Accountant
• Marc (a.k.a. Hammish, his dog’s name), 51, Bronze Resin Sculptor
• Mark, 32, Project Manager
• Peter, 20, Accounting and Finance Student
• Rowan, 55, Music Teacher
• Sura, 31, Pharmacy Dispenser

Signature Bake: Two hours to create 36 Florentines with fruit, chocolate, and a perfect snap.

Prue lamented about the preciseness of the bake: a half-minute too short and the Florentine won’t be crisp and have that crack, a half-minute too long and they will be burnt. I’ve never had anything destroyed by a difference of thirty seconds. I know I promised no snarkiness but come on. Thirty seconds may matter in bull riding but not in the ruination of a biscuit. Maybe they won’t snap as sharply as Prue would like – but those biscuits would still be enjoyed by my family. We don’t have standards of great magnitude.

The bakers began their signature Florentines with some using rings or molds, some using a cookie cutter to make them uniform after the bake, and one baker using a square cutter (Marc). Rowan made waistcoat shaped florentines and once again over-promised and under-delivered. Prue stated she was worried about Mark’s big nuts and they were deemed too lumpy and were short on fruit.

Lottie went all Jackson Pollock on her drizzling and was judged a bit messy but her biscuits were delicious and had a perfect snap. Paul stated he could find no fault in Lottie’s quarantine Florentines and he extended his hand for the Hollywood handshake. Wait! I thought there was to be no handshaking this season? Does anyone follow the rules? Ironic that the quarantine biscuits resulted in physical contact and Lottie said she was not going to wash her hand. Girl, get thee to the hand sanitizer.

Recipes:

• Laura’s milk chocolate, salted caramel and pecan Florentines
• Lottie’s quarantine Florentines Photo above – credit: GBBO
• Marc’s ginger, cherry and pistachio Florentines

Technical challenge: Prue asked for 12 hand-shaped macaroons – 6 chocolate drizzled and filled and 6 with mango curd in 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Noel teased Sura a time or two about her accident of last week where she swatted Dave’s pineapple cakes to the ground. Thankfully, this week no baked goods met an untimely demise.

The judging: The worst – Rowan; The best – Dave (good karma from last week’s accident).

Jenny’s judging: The worst: Matt’s macaron macaroon macarooon joke that no one saw coming and that Matt wished he didn’t execute.

Showstopper: 4 hours to make a 3D biscuit table setting of a memorable meal.

Rowan promised a flashing lighthouse and it was flashing but the cookies – a lemon biscuit had a texture of rubber. Rubber floats right? The judging for the remaining bakers was filled with words like “flat, not molded”, “clumsy”, “squishy” and “rushed”. Come on Paul and Prue they made Viking ships out of cookies, throw them a bone.

Recipes:

• Dave’s waiting on taco cookies.
• Linda’s high tea in Amsterdam cookies.

The end results: Star baker – Dave. I had written down in my notes – Rowan as going home because they really raked him over badly like a boat hitting the jagged shoreline of a lighthouse, but lo and behold Mak went home and Rowan apologized to Mak for that.