The Great British Bake Off/Baking Show – Week 5 – Desserts Week

It’s dessert week – or pud week – in the tent.

Signature: 8 individual steamed puddings in 2 hours served with an accompaniment of their choice.

Carole spent a great deal of time saying “flipping hell” before burning her plums, after burning her plums, after adding lukewarm water and not hot enough water….it was just a flipping hell. This error resulted in her puddings not being fully steamed and they collapsed.

Kevin went his own way and made a traditional Scottish Clottie dumpling – making his pudding have a dense fruitcake texture. His dumplings were judged to be too dense and misshaped – but had good flavor.

Syabira’s watermelon puddings looked lovely but the watermelon essence she used was too “fake” tasting. Other bakers received good to mixed comments on their puddings with Sandro’s deemed “perfect”.

Darcie’s $0.02: Confession – of the myriad things I have baked from cultures all over the world, I have never made or eaten a steamed pudding, so I am in no position to judge this challenge. That said, other than Carole’s and Kevin’s, I thought the puds all looked lovely, especially Sandro’s and Syabira’s. It was a shame that Syabira used too much watermelon extract – that is a really tough flavor to put in any baked good. I wonder if Carole’s hot water tap malfunctioned because it looked like the water was steaming from the other taps. After watching this signature, I am inspired to try a steamed pudding.

Technical: Set by Prue – a lemon meringue pie in two hours with NO INSTRUCTIONS.

Prue reasoned that the bakers should know how to make a crust, a curd and a meringue. I think that is wholly unreasonable. There should be some basic instructions especially for those who have never made a lemon meringue pie.

Dawn said repeatedly that she has made at least 500 lemon meringue pies – and apparently forgot everything while attempting to make a pie in the technical. The curse of the tent.

Judging was harsh throughout. Syabira was in 8th place, Dawn in 7th; Carole in 6th…..Maxy was in 3rd place, Abdul in 2nd and Janusz came in 1st.

Darcie’s $0.02: I guess this might be a US thing or maybe it’s just a me thing, but I would call what they made a lemon meringue tart, not a pie. A pie means a flaky crust that remains in the pie plate, not a shortcrust pastry in a pan with a removable base. I agree with Jenny that rudimentary instructions were warranted, especially considering that not all contestants were raised in the UK and might not have experience with this bake. At a minimum, they should have told them to blind bake the crust and what kind of meringue to make. I’m a bit surprised that everyone chose a French meringue; I expected at least one contestant would opt for an Italian or Swiss meringue.

Recipe: Lemon meringue pie

Showstopper challenge: a spectacular mousse based dessert with a surprise inside with at least 3 techniques with one of those being a baked component in 4 1/2 hours.

There were warnings throughout about too much gelatin ruining the desserts – and, of course, many of the bakers were criticized for just that.

Syabira made an adorable Bee positive cake with a sign that read something like “what blood type do bees have?” – B positive. Paul judged her bake very sweet and that the textures were perfect but flavors needed to be stronger.

Dawn’s cake was “wayward” looking but the textures were good and her mousse perfect – the only problem was that her “surprise inside” morphed into something unrecognizable.

Abdul’s galaxy cake had the “best mirror glaze” that they had ever seen. Paul stated that Abdul’s blackberry mousse was lovely but the curd had too much gelatin. Maxy’s sunset bake was gorgeous – but again too much gelatin in her curd.

Kevin created a bone buried in the back yard for his cake and started at home he only had a gingerbread cookie cutter which made the “surprise inside” look like a dead body – that and him poking the fondant dog’s eyes in place were all perfect for Halloween (which apparently is next week’s theme).

Carole’s was a bit of a mess – and they made a joke about looking a little like Fanny Cradock (read about her career decline). Carole’s mousse was fantastic but her cake was judged to be tough and she, of course, had too much gelatin in her chocolate mousse.

Darcie’s $0.02: Mousse can be difficult to master on its own, much less with a “surprise” inside. This is actually something I have done, but never in four hours and never anything that elaborate. The results the GBBO bakers achieve in the limited amount of time they receive never cease to amaze me. My heart sank when Dawn sliced into her sunken toadstool because she took such a risk by making a mousse surprise instead of a sponge one the other bakers. This challenge reinforced the notion that excellent flavor and texture will always trump good looks (which is why I could never get into shows like Cake Boss that focused so much more on form rather than taste).

Janusz created a gorgeous colorful cake and received great comments and Sandro’s globe shaped earth was impressive and had great texture and flavors.

Sandro was deemed star baker and Carole was sent back to her garden to weed.

Jane’s translation service: Since Jane is away this weekend, she can’t provide translation service, but we believe that ‘chuffed’ means very pleased and she may have more to add about the Fanny remark.