Let the batter battle commence! It’s week 4 on The Great British Bake Off Series 7.
This week’s theme centers around cooking using batter, often a delicate and difficult to mixture to use for baking and today’s technical signature challenge is exactly that. Trying to produce 24 identical Yorkie’s is nigh-on impossible, how will the remaining bakers cope?
For Tom and Jane, both star previous star bakers the answer is not well unfortunately as both of their Yorkshires came out looking more like biscuits (probably because they both filled their tins with the oven door left open letting out all the heat).
Thankfully Jane’s bake tasted amazing which meant it wasn’t all bad news for her. At the other end of the spectrum Selasi had an great bake which Paul couldn’t stop eating although he did have a few irregularities, but with an almost flawless bake Andrew is definitely in the hunt for the star baker prize even at this early stage of the batter week!
The technical challenge this week is a toughie, pancakes are simple right? Well not these ones, lace pancakes are delicate, fiddly and a little bit special. To get 12 pancakes all looking the same with only one practice really lives up to the name of technical challenge.
Unfortunately Rav struggled with his pancakes, with major inconsistencies and over baking but Benjamina absolutely knocked this challenge out of the park with an incredibly elaborate design which was recreated almost perfectly across all twelve of the pancakes.
The showstopper for batter week is a Spanish street food delicacy and a delicious doughnutty one too! Churros are made using a batter choux style batter causing it to have a crispy outside but soft and fluffy centre.
Tom’s poor week has continued, an overbaked dry set of churros leaves him at risk of not being in the tent again next week and Selasi is also at risk after his churros were raw in the middle and burnt on the outside. Kate, another previous star baker who has had a difficult week and hasn’t improved with her showstopper, producing what were probably the worst bake of the entire weekend as her churros ended up taking in all of the oil and being all crispy with no doughy inside. Benjamina had another great bake, nailing her tropically flavoured churros!
This weeks star baker was a certain almost at the end of the technical challenge and her incredible showstopper only helped her cause as this week’s runaway star baker is Benjamina!
The bake off is definitely cruel to some of its bakers, and Kate is no exception; after looking so strong for the competition so far her churros and Yorkshire puds let her down and unfortunately she won’t be returning to the bake-off for next week.
If you have been inspired by this weeks bake off take a look at Gourmet Cookwares range of Yorkshire Pudding Tins & Bun Tins from Alan Silverwood & Judge Bakeware