Once again Gourmet Cookware has been following the Great British Bake Off, now in it’s 6th series which has it’s own really useful wikipedia page if you want a reminder of the action so far !
As the competition heats up heading towards the quarter-final we enter Victorian week on the Bake-off, a time of progression in the country as well as baking, where the higher classes would do what they could to make their baking distinguish themselves from those below them in the class system. Thankfully times have changed and all types of baking are far more accessible, but big, audacious bakes like a Charlotte Russe or Game Pie can still be on the menu in the bake-off tent.
In this week’s signature bake the bakers were asked to bake a game pie, with a thin hot water crust pastry and a rich game meat inside with elaborate decorations, whilst early baking high flyer Ian did well with his filling, his thick pie walls and lack of decoration let him down, on the other hand Mat, with dangerous Dave’s Mum’s Victorian pie mould made a pie with an incredible traditional Victorian style but lacked slightly in his flavors. Tamal brought to the tent a pie with some stunning spice and flavour putting a twist on a traditional dish, impressing the judges and even earning a handshake from Hollywood himself!
This weeks technical was essentially a fruit cake with a tennis court diorama on top, simple? Nope, the bake proved tricky combining several fiddly elements and Mat really struggled in this one, his cake was raw, and in a moment of madness he decided to bake his icing and not chill it! Only one baker actually managed to serve an ace for the technical with a standing net and this was Nadiya with a faultless technical for the second week running with Paul only falling short by half a net!
The brief this week for the final bake was a Charlotte Russe, a delicately balanced and layered dessert requiring layers of jelly and bavarois incased in ladies fingers! After such a good technical and fantastic presentation, with Victorian stylised fruit carvings Paul was on course for an amazing Showstopper except there was a drastic jelly mistake which meant that instead of wobbling it splurged out of the cake as soon as it was cut! Rounding off a poor week for Mat, whilst having a good tasting desert, the presentation was poor and his lady fingers split rather unfortunately. Tamal on the other hand pulled off something which seems to break the laws of Physics, managing to support his entire dessert using just jelly which capped off what was a sublime weekend from the young nurse.
Our valiant vol-au-vent hero Mat is most certainly more of a 1970’s man than a 1900’s man succumbing to a style of baking which is probably quite alien to most modern bakers, whilst Tamal flourished, pulling off an extraordinary bake with clinical decision which truly stopped the show!
Once again plenty of our best selling Alan Silverwood Multisize Cake Tin were put to good use, but i’m afraid we can’t offer you dangerous Dave’s Mum’s Victorian pie mould!
We can hardly wait for Episode 8 which Patisserie week.
Bake on!