The Great British Bake Off/Baking Show – Week 8 – Pastry

We are down to five bakers for the quarter finals and this week was all about pastry.

Signature: 12 individual Vol-au-vents made with a rough puff pastry and a sweet filling.

Sandro forgot to turn on his oven – maybe his leather pants were too tight. (Forgetting to turn on the oven happens to contestants on the regular, a few weeks ago someone else did too. You would think they would write this at the top of their instructions!)

Maxy was the only baker who made her rough puff using room temperature butter. The bakers all had a nice array of flavors but the judging was mixed. Abdul’s was very flat and pale and “bone dry” with “too many flavors making it murky” per Paul. Janusz’s were deemed pale, raw and boring. Maxy’s vol-au-vents were irregular in height and color but her jam was delicious – if only her pastry wasn’t raw.

Syabira’s citrus dreams looked authentic and had a nice height with beautiful flavors. Paul stated that she was “2 minutes away from perfect”. Syabira commented after the challenge – yes “if only she had 2 minutes more time.”

It seems that these challenges – the signature and showstopper – were not given adequate time. Especially when you think that the bakers have to tell a camera man every time they are putting something in or taking something out. When we look at technicals, we see the same issue – not enough time and little to no instructions. The show is becoming more and more stressful to watch.

Darcie’s $0.02: Vol-au-vents have a special place in my heart (thanks to Flo Braker’s Miniature caramel cream vol-au-vents from her amazing book Sweet Miniatures). I was gobsmacked when Abdul casually said he didn’t like his vol-au-vents to be too tall. What?! That’s the whole point! With the exception of Syabira’s, most of the vol-au-vents looked dismal. I saw a lot of contestants twisting their cutters and pressing on the edges of their dough, which are both big no-nos if you want tall and straight puff pastries. I agree with Jenny that the times really pinch the contestants. They are all good bakers – why not give them enough time to be more fair in the judging?

Technical: Set by Prue – a 29 ingredient technical – in 1 hour and 20 minutes – 8 spring rolls with a dipping sauce

Recipe: Prue Leith’s spring rolls

This was a stressful challenge for the bakers, none of whom had made their own spring roll pastry before. The comments were mixed on the five baker’s Spring rolls. Last place was Maxy; next Syabira with Abdul in the middle and Janusz taking second and Sandro reaching first.

Darcie’s $0.02: Call me a cynic, but I think that Janusz’s missing spring roll was never made in the first place. I thought he said “we are supposed to make eight” while they were frying, realizing there were only seven in his fryer. Janusz made a hilarious TikTok explaining his theory on the missing spring roll (that Prue ate it before it was fried). He probably would have taken first place if not for the omission.

At first I didn’t think this was a good choice for a technical challenge because who thinks of spring rolls as pastry? I don’t know anyone who makes their own spring roll wrappers, even I don’t and I make almost everything from scratch. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that is exactly what makes it a good challenge – the pastry is critical to the result, and knowing how the hydration will affect the outcome is an indication of the baker’s knowledge. Plus it’s outside of the traditional French pastry box, which is a trap the show falls in a lot of the time. This technical was crunched for time, but I thought less so than for the signature. It would have been better if the bakers hadn’t been required to make a dipping sauce or had more structure about how to make the filling; this challenge was supposed to be about the pastry, right?

Showstopper: a 3D pie scene featuring your favorite childhood story in 4 hours.

Again – these bakers were not given enough time to do their creations justice. Some bakers did not think their bakes through – i.e., Sandro doing 16 pies – with certain aspects of his bake being too large resulting in raw fillings. Either the pies were too dry, too simple, too raw….etc.

Maxy went with a filo dough which wasn’t a smart move. Syabira received the best judging – but still had the “dry” word flung her way.

The judges and hosts talked about how disappointed they were with the baking this week – maybe it is time to re-think the challenges and time restraints.

Darcie’s $0.02: Four hours is a fair amount of time for a couple of pies, but not for 8 pastries that need to tell a story. Perhaps they could let the bakers make the doughs ahead of time and rest overnight in the refrigerator, and go from there. That’s something I think would help expand the types of challenges too. Let them at least get a couple of turns on a full puff pastry at the end of the first day, so they can have a better bake on the second. Plenty of baked items benefit from (or require) an overnight rest, why not choose one of those for a signature or showstopper?

As to this challenge, I think the bakers overreached with their concepts given the time constraints, especially Maxy. It would be hard not to do that, because with each season expectations run higher and higher. Of course, had they made their bakes less complex there is no doubt the judging would have included comments like “too basic” or “not interesting enough”. It was a no-win situation, and the results showed that. Let’s hope the show’s producers and judges learn a lesson from this.

Results: Syabira was deemed star baker again! And Maxy was sadly sent home.