Which name do you think of first when someone says bread?

It may well be Paul Hollywood. This week’s signature bake is chocolate bread and the combination of chocolate and bread is often enough to scare a skilled baker, but doing it under the watchful gaze of Mr Hollywood adds an extra level of pressure to this week.

As the breads emerged from the oven there were mixed emotions, amongst the relief and joy etched on some faces, there was some despair, especially for Candice whose hopes fell apart along with her bread as she got it out of the mould, her ambitious bake was too big and ended up under baked. Val followed suit and also left her bread slightly under baked as Andrew’s flavours wowed the judges. Rav, much like Andrew managed to impress the judges with his flavours and with an interesting bake!

A bake-off first in the tent, dampfnudel is a sweet German roll which are steamed and not cooked in the way most bread is. This is a particularly nasty technical challenge as the process would have been completely different to what the bakers have done before and the challenge to cook the dough, give it the right texture and also give the rolls a nice brown bottom proved far too much for the majority of the bakers!

Last this challenge was Rav after his good bake in the signature bake he will be disappointed but with everyone struggling as much as they did it may not be as big a problem as most technicals. At the top end, Andrew produced another good bake to scrape a second but Val, who has been at risk of leaving the tent these first two weeks, managed to clinch first! Paul did say they were still a million miles away from his dampfnudel, but a first is still a first!

This weeks showstopper was to make bread plaits with three different types of bread, the difficulty being that doughs using different flours will rise at different rates. After a great technical challenge, Val went a bit overboard with her bake for the showstopper and ended up with partially raw dough with such a large bake. Tom’s experimental Thor themed bake had great flavour according to the judges who loved his seaweed and lava flavoured plaits.Michael’s plait wasn’t up to the standards of Tom’s however with his accompanying alcohol also failing to impress the judges, he was left at risk of not making it into the next week. Kate, after having a couple of mediocre bakes in the first two rounds absolutely nailed her showstopper and the bread king himself called the bake gorgeous. Last week’s star baker has had a shaky week and this continued in the showstopper round.

This was a tough week for all the bakers and very few ended up safe from leaving the tent, one of those however were Tom who managed to clinch star baker after shocking the judges with Thor’s hammer at the end of his best week yet! Unfortunately Michael had a week that was particularly poor when his Cypriot plait fell flat.

Has this weeks Great British Bake Off  inspired you to bake bread? Then take a look at our Alan Silverwood Hard Anodised Loaf Tin designed to last you a life time!

Up next is batter week and we sure cant wait to see some of the Yorkshire puds that the bakers manage to whip up !