Botanical week! A Great British Bake Off first!

With numbers in the tent dwindling, what was once a tent packed full of bakers in now feeling a little bit more…empty. Whilst that does mean a lot of people have left, it also means that only the best bakers should be left in the tent, so surely the remaining bakers should be able to handle a brand new (but slightly weird?) theme!

Botanical week kicks off with citrus meringue pie, a true balancing act with the texture of the meringue and crust as well as the flavours of sweet an sour. Whilst there weren’t any catastrophic failures, Rav’s wet meringue struggled to hold its structure and Tom’s flavour wasn’t quite up to scratch. Andrew and Jane on the other hand both managed to produce some great flavour in their signature bake.

This week’s technical, set by Paul, was the French classic, herb fougasse (which we think may well have been a very cheeky way of having another bread bake!). This technical challenges the bakers to create a delicious herbed bread shaped into a large leaf. An important part of this bake for the remaining bakers is deciding how to prove their bakes. Breaking Rav’s losing streak, Selasi’s underbaked effort was adjudged the worst bake by the judges, Tom on the other hand had a perfect bake and Benjamina’s was almost as good!

 

The weekends showstopper is a floral cake with three tiers! It’s not often we see flowers in our cakes in the tent and these showstoppers require a balanced flavour and a light texture. Andrew’s bake wasn’t up to scratch, with slack mixture and a poor bake. Rav’s bake was too basic and left a lot to be desired. Jane also had an uncharacteristically poor showstopper with poor bake and decoration. Selasi’s bake was nigh on perfect, with all three layers baked well and decorated even better! Similarly, Tom had a well decorated and flavoured bake.

 

Unfortunately, despite no glaring errors during his weekend Rav ended up leaving this week in what was probably the closest week in bake-off, certainly as early as week six! On the other side of the table, Tom managed to pull out all the stops for his showstopper and technical after a poor signature bake to fight his way to the star baker title! The remaining bakers now have dessert week to look forward to!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *