We’re down to five in this season’s quarter-finals, and this week, the bakers take on a sticky threat: caramel!
There are fewer things in this world that I love more than caramel. Whether it’s in a chocolate bar, a cake frosting, or a straight-up knock-your-teeth-out square from your nana’s purse, I love it all.
Read on for my take on Episode 8 of “Great British Bake-Off” (AKA “Great British Baking Show” for us American swine) Season 17. SPOILERS AHEAD!
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The Signature: Tart of Gold
The Challenge: A short, buttery pastry filled with treacle from homemade golden syrup: the quintessential British dessert.
The Lineup
Connie: Traditional School Dinner treacle tart. Nothing fancy, with a “lumpy” vanilla custard. It does feel a bit too safe for the quarter-finals.
Mo: Apple Crumble Treacle Tart, with two different apples and a homemade brown butter pecan ice cream. I am getting really tired of hearing Mo call everything old.
Tom: A Peanut Butter and Jam Tart. Sour cherry jam spread over a peanut buttery treacle filling. Paul seems concerned by the usage of peanuts in the tart, and Tom is as unbothered as Gigi Goode was when RuPaul expressed doubt about her choosing Maria the Robot for Snatch Game.
Moyin: Sticky Toffee Treacle Tart - say that five times fast! Using Mary Berry’s recipe seems a bit like cheating, but we’ll see if it’s overwhelmingly sweet or just right.
Gabe: Almond and Orange tart with a ginger ice cream. He’s chosen to add a half teaspoon of almond extract into his tart, which is always concerning when they call it out in this way.
The Chaos
Everyone in the tent is using baking beads to prevent the dreaded soggy bottom. At this point in the competition, I’d be surprised to see one come out.
It is a bit strange to make a dessert by blitzing breadcrumbs. Moyin’s recipe calls for fresh bread, while Gabe is adamant the bread must be stale to soak up the deliciousness of the treacle. I tend to agree with Gabe, but I’ve only made one treacle tart ever.
Mo’s ice cream comes from a visit to a restaurant when he was 13 or 14, so… last year.
Gabe is racing against the clock, putting in his tart that needs 20 minutes to bake with maybe 30 minutes remaining.
This episode is showing so much of the bond that Connie and Moyin have developed, which is simultaneously heartwarming and has me very concerned from a reality television perspective…
And as if on cue, Connie struggles to get the bottom pan off her tart, leading her to believe the bottom will be soggy after all.
The Signature Verdict
Good: Tom? I’m really not sure where to put him. Both judges loved eating his tart, but Nigella said, “If I didn’t know the challenge, I wouldn’t have realized it was a treacle tart.”
Mo is in a similar boat - it had positives (nice look, fatty ice cream) and negatives (pale bottom that needed more time), but was more good than bad.
Moyin pulls out first place with his Hollywood/Berry collab.
Somewhere in Between: A-lot-going-on-with-Gabe (the extract is too much, as expected)
Bad: Connie’s soggy bottom topped with a “knuckle duster” almost won over Nigella.
The Technical: Gladys, We Need More Bars!
The Challenge: A delicious Millionaire’s Shortbread - buttery shortbread topped with salted caramel, finished with marbled chocolate, all in an hour and a half. The twist: no recipe other than a cooking temp.
The Drama
An hour and a half does not seem long enough at all. I suppose that’s part of the challenge, but I also want them to have a realistic amount of time to be successful.
Connie immediately runs into trouble when making her caramel, exacerbated by Alison’s willingness to help as she solidifies the burned sugar to the bottom of the saucepan.
The most challenging part of this bake is bringing the caramel to the right temperature so it sets. Without a recipe to tell them, everyone is taking a wild guess at how long to cook it. I’m guessing this was purposeful, but also likely to result in wildly varying success rates.
So far this entire episode, every time call has immediately featured a shot of Connie looking frazzled and terrified.
With just minutes remaining, all bakers begin cutting their bars. Mo’s chocolate hasn’t set at all, leading to a flood over the edges as he pulls it out of the pan. Connie and Gabe are in a similar boat.
The Technical Rankings
5th Place: Mo - Disaster
4th Place: Connie - Disaster
3rd Place: Gabe - Sandy
2nd Place: Moyin - Ok, but not baked long enough
1st Place: Tom - Passable (but hey, you still got first place!)
“It’s not quite as bad as bread week.” - Nigella Lawson
The Showstopper: Grill Ass Tortas, or Something
The Challenge: Inspired by some Hungarian nonsense (sorry to that man), the bakers must build a nougatine structure, paired with a praline dessert.
The Highlights & Disasters
Tom: Inspired by a pub crawl, Tom is building his neighborhood pub out of almond and hazelnut nougatine, as well as a hazelnut-centric dessert.
Moyin: An opera cake that apparently took SIX HOURS in practice, covered in a nougatine sculpture shaped like a crown, all inspired by a song his grandmother made up for him.
Connie: Myke’s favorite cake sitting inside a nougatine box. I love you, Connie, but this is really lacking any level of creativity. It’s a box. That’s it.
Mo: Another box of nougatine - groundbreaking - but at least it’s more impressive-looking. Inside, the cake is made of coffee sponge and dark chocolate ganache.
Gabe: Honoring his grandparents who were fishermen, Gabe is making a beautiful black sesame seed nougatine boat with a mirror-glazed white chocolate genoise sponge inside.
Probably unsurprisingly at this point, Connie continues to struggle with timing. While everyone else has progressed on to decorating, she’s still working with her nougatine and hasn’t even started on her cake. It gets so bad that Paul actually sends Connie out of the tent on a 5-minute breather - she must have been on the edge of no return, and they realized it.
Even through it all, Connie never broke. She never turned pessimistic or complained. Never even cried. I really appreciate that about her.
As the time winds down, and people begin assembling their pieces, seeming tragedy strikes as one of Tom’s pub walls crumbles. After a schoolgirl titter, he says he has a spare (clever girl), and Alison immediately asks if she can eat the broken one (cleverer girl).
And while it may lack embellishments, Connie has somehow managed to produce a box!
Judging:
Mo: The nougatine is truly impressive; the cake is delicious, though it could use a bit more praline, and Nigella can’t keep her hands off it.
Gabe: “Well, it’s a boat.” The nougatine actually looks lacquered, but the mirror glaze didn’t come out as impressive-looking. Unfortunately, the flavor is lacking… or, according to Paul, completely missing.
Moyin: The nougatine crown turned out wonderfully. The cake itself finally showcases the praline, but ended up being a bit too sweet-on-sweet.
Connie: The box is there… mostly. She tried to tell a story about giving a sneak peek, but nobody’s buying it. The cake itself is probably the most impressive-looking one of the day. Which apparently tastes delicious.
Tom: He ran out of time and got chastised for it. Far too ambitious this week. Under the pub: a turd. An extremely disappointing-looking cake, and the flavors were also not there. A rare miss from Tom opens the door for a new Star Baker for the week.
Will Gabe’s tasteless cake be enough to send him home?
Has Connie managed to save herself with a cake during the nougatine challenge?
The Final Verdict
Star Baker: Grabbing his first Star Baker of the season, Moyin!
Eliminated: And sadly, with the semifinals in sight, Connie falls short.
This one hurts. I really grew to love Connie this season. I love how much she and Moyin care about each other and lift each other up. How horrible for her to go home when he’s finally reached the top. Even in her goodbye, she spent her time lifting his spirits. The tent will truly be dimmer without her light.
Questions for Next Week
We’re down to four, with every remaining baker having at least one Star on their sash. Who will make it to the final episode? Join us next week to find out!
What do YOU think of “GBBO” Season 17? Drop your comments below!
