The Great British Bake Off/Baking Show – Week 3 – Bread Week

It was the oft-dreaded bread week which is always accompanied by the baker’s fear of the Paul Hollywood’s finger poke. You know how he likes to poke his finger into loaves of under/over proofed bread. Find out who was poked and who wasn’t below.

We learned at the beginning of the episode that Rebs and Abdul were under the weather and sent home. Apparently, there was some twitter bullying saying they were pulling a “sickie” trying to avoid bread week which is typically a more difficult week. Rebs replied:

And on another Tweet stated that she cried all the way home. People need to chill.

Signature bake: 2 sharing size pizzas in two hours.

Syabira wasted twenty minutes with her first dough attempt – using sourdough and beet juice. She started over and ditched the beet juice for the second attempt. Her pizza sounded very interesting a Malaysian Prawn Sambal and Stinky Bean creation.

James admitted to pilfering shower caps from hotels to cover his dough for bakes and sent out a call for everyone to forward their caps to him. He chose a pineapple, ham and mushroom pizza made with bread and spelt flower.

Other pizzas included: Maxy’s sweet rosemary lamb; Kevin’s sweet figgy pizza; Dawn’s Tex-Mex style made with “stewing steak” when minced meat would have been a smarter choice; Sandro made a BBQ sweet and spicy chorizo, camembert heart shaped pie; Carole made a “sea of cheese” – and was wearing her lucky pants which didn’t help her pizza get good remarks; Janusz made a full on English breakfast.

Judging was mixed – great flavours, dry crust and Paul’s favorite new word is “punchy”. He keeps telling bakers that their flavors need to be more punchy.

Darcie’s $0.02: Paul seemed to criticize several bakers for their dough kneading technique, but some did well in the challenge so maybe there is more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to bread.

To Jenny’s point about Paul wanting everyone’s flavors to be more punchy, I have to wonder if he had COVID and has lingering taste problems. I know a couple of people who struggled with that for many months; none of their food had any flavor.

I loved Janusz’s countdown to leave his pizza in until just the last minute after which he was going to blowtorch the egg on his full English breakfast pizza.

Technical: Set by Paul Hollywood – a dozen pain aux raisins in 2 hours and 45 minutes with “no tails”. Paul stated the dough had to be proofed enough so that the end does not pop off and form a tail.

Dawn shared words to live by while making her crème pâtissière “Don’t be afraid, treat that crème pâtissière with contempt.”

Judging: Carole and Kevin were in the bottom with James being 3rd, Maxy coming in 2nd and Janusz taking top honors.

Darcie’s $0.02: I wanted to yell “dental floss” when I saw the bakers smooshing their dough logs while cutting. Floss is the boss. Poor Kevin had a runny creme pat which was a disaster, compounded by all of the butter melting out. This was an excellent technical challenge because it involved several techniques.

Showstopper: A Smörgåstårta: a savoury sandwich cake with sliced bread with delicious fillings in 4 1/2 hours.

Carole created a seafood creation and whispered under her breath that Paul was the “prince of yeast” which is probably the nicest thing anyone has called him. Syabira went with a Nasi Lemak flavored torta. Janusz and Maxy went fishy as well. Janusz’ partner created a special piece for his torta (see below).

Janusz was told that his creation was delicious and genius. Maxy’s was deemed to be well seasoned and balanced. Others were told that their bread was too dry — but overall comments were favorable.

Janusz was star baker and no one went home due to the quality of the work and the two contestants being sick. At some point, two bakers will be sent home.

Darcie’s $0.02: Before this challenge, I wasn’t really aware of Smörgåstårta, but now I want to make one. The time for these challenges is really short, I don’t know how they do it – although at the end some looked a bit sloppy. I chuckled at James singing “pandas in a jacuzzi.” Props to Maxy for making her own mayo the old-fashioned way. I was relieved to discover they weren’t sending anyone home this week because that would have been unfair.

Jane’s translation service: Bunging = throwing. Mushy peas (included in Janusz’s Smörgåstårta) are a British delicacy served with fish and chips. Not universally loved (I’m in the fan camp), they are made with dried marrowfat peas. Nigella does have an “upmarket” version in How to Eat.