The Great British Bake Off / Baking Show Recap Episode 7 – Caramel Week

Jane, Darcie, and I are back for another recap of what happened under the tent during sticky week, otherwise known as caramel week. Is it me or do the GBBO weeks fly by?

Lizzie is the absolute best. “I can’t be trusted with molten sugar. It’s a terrifying week.” First fryers now molten sugar. Her list of terrors has no end but then again everyone had a case of the dreads except for George who stated he felt confident. Caramel doesn’t scare me but I’m not being filmed in a hot tent while the timer is ticking down and Noel and Matt flitting about. Add the threat of Paul’s eyes sneaking up on you at any moment and I too would be terrified.

Signature challenge: A highly decorative sharing size caramel tart in 2 1/2 hours.

I adore that every time Crystelle puts a bake in the oven that she whispers “Be good to me.”

There was discussion over the differences between the wet and dry method of caramel. David Lebovitz can explain those differences better than I: “A wet caramel is where the sugar is melted with water then cooked until it caramelizes. And a dry caramel, where the sugar is cooked by itself until it liquefies, then caramelizes.” For more on caramel, see David’s How to make the perfect caramel.

Lizzie stated her creation entitled “My tart will go on” was much like the movie Titanic – a disaster. The judges thought there was no finesse (read about Lizzie’s new tattoo here) but the flavours were delicious to which Lizzie quipped “Thanks for throwing me that life boat”. Paul said, “I’ll do better and send you a life vest as it was absolutely delicious.” The judges were brutal about most of the tarts especially Jürgen’s which Paul stated was going to rip all of the teeth from his head. George’s custard curdled; Giusseppe’s was too sweet; Chigs was deemed “too much” chocolate and caramel; and Crystelle’s was treacle like.

Darcie: After my fair share of caramel disasters, I am firmly Team Wet Caramel. As the bakers discovered, caramel is a fickle mistress, with mere seconds standing between terrific and terrible outcomes. Of course it is difficult to judge flavor over the internet, but I thought Chigs’ caramel looked great. I like assertive caramel that straddles the fine line between done and burnt. Some of the others’ caramel looked a bit pale to me, but obviously Paul and Prue disagreed. George made the cardinal error of saying he felt confident and angered the caramel gods with his hubris.

Jane: Crystelle said “And Bob’s your uncle” when talking about all the steps she had to do for her caramel tart. This is an expression meaning “You are all set” and is said to originate from the end of the 19th century (though this is disputed). The British Prime Minister Robert Cecil appointed his nephew Arthur Balfour as Chief Secretary of Ireland, which was seen as nepotism. So when you have an Uncle Bob you have it made.

Recipes: Lizzie’s caramelised pineapple tart

Technical: Ten identical caramel biscuit bars (a.k.a. Twix) in 1 1/2 hours set by Paul.

During the technical baking, Noel popped about and gave several of the baker’s “concise descriptions”. Giuseppe was “Al Pacino if he was on the Guess Who board”, Chigs was “lumberjack Robert De Niro serial killer”; Jürgen was the “main puppet in Labyrinth with a mix of League of Gentlemen” and Lizzie was deemed “Princess Leia dressed as a children’s bull fighter.” Why Crystelle and George were spared these “descriptors”, I don’t know and I am confused if I would be insulted or pleased at them. I’m leaning toward the former.

Darcie: These bars sound simple but there are so many ways things could go wrong, and the bakers discovered almost all of them. Time constraints piled on the pressure to an already tricky technical. All of the bars looked pretty bad except for Giuseppe’s, which at least were even and somewhat decorated. Many of the contestants had runny caramel and overworked shortbread, and the chocolate coatings were a mess. After watching this technical I dug through the leftover Halloween candy to find a Twix bar and marveled at how perfect it looked.

Ranking from worst to first: George, Lizzie, Crystelle, Chigs, Jürgen and Giuseppe taking first place (even though Paul told them not to clap which was a dig about the poor overall showing).

Recipes:

• Paul’s caramel biscuit bars
• Online homemade Twix bar recipes

Showstopper: 4 1/2 hours to do a caramel flavored dessert with sugar work – either a dome or sphere with one baked element and two caramel elements

George had mentioned that he had packed his clothes seeing how he performed on the first day of baking. Noel came in with George’s clothes mid-bake and stated he unpacked for him as he wasn’t going anywhere and gave him a hug. That warmed the cold dead cockles of my heart.

Jürgen went to list off his 107 steps creation and just like Lizzie’s tart – the list went “on”. The making of the spheres and domes was nerve wracking. Crystelle had everyone on edge with her numerous attempts until Lizzie helped her with the balloon method.

Judging went well for most. Jürgen was highly critiqued in the signature challenge but received high praise in the showstopper. Paul said, “It’s nice to have Jürgen back in the tent”. Crystelle’s tribute to her grandfather was very touching but her mousse was too dry. Many of the bakers had issues because of using gelatin. Lizzie’s was deemed lovely to look at but a bit of a mess on the inside.

Darcie: Giuseppe was uncharacteristically sloppy in his execution – it appears as though gelatin might be his Achilles’ heel. I loved the look on Lizzie’s face when Crystelle hugged her – she was staring at the dome in horror and said “you need to put it on the cake!” It looked like all of the contestants were holding their breath as Crystelle struggled to get the dome off the silicone mold. Luckily she was able to put it on her cake with seconds to spare and everyone exhaled a sigh of relief.

I felt bad for George who nearly redeemed himself and made a sugar dome instead of using isomalt – a difficult task that he pulled off well. Alas it wasn’t enough to keep him in the tent another week. Since I am partial to Lizzie and her quips I am pleased she is remaining. I thought that it was obvious that Jürgen deserved star baker, but I suppose the hosts wanted to keep an element of drama by putting the names of three other bakers into the hat.

Recipes:

• Jürgen caramel and passionfruit gâteaux
• George’s salted caramel, hazelnut and almond dacquoise

Star baker: Jürgen
Sent home: George had to repack his clothes and leave