CheshireCat

Yes.

Is he all that different though? I think they're just making him out to be different. Or, at least, what he's doing is not original. (Eg, jello cakes and cupcakes in ice cream cones have been around for quite a while). And he often goes off-theme with his different: the pool cake was not a true shag-cake, the arch last week was not really spring because there's no spring under water. The judges also only seem to tolerate different when it comes to decorations, not when it comes to taste (see Jessica and Manya).

I loved the cupcake idea but I hate when the bakers lie to the judges and try to sell something that went wrong as such an Oh-So-Clever idea and are serious about it. I think it's okay to try to hide a mistake, every baker does that. I just don't like the manner in which they often try to do it. The cars were a bit hard to recognize. I wondered why there was an eye on Molly's cupcakes. Why was the tire white and black in the middle and not the other way around? Shouldn't a professional baker know that soda serves as a leavening agent and that the flavors aren't strong enough to come through in the finished product if you don't add anything else? I'm not sure which cupcake captured the theme the best. I guess, Clement's did look best. It was cleanly done, just not necessarily 50s. Something else that I absolutely dislike is the judges' randomness when it comes to judging the theme of a bake; they criticize it when they need to and they ignore it when they want a baker to win or do well. Christian did not meet the challenge, in my opinion. Piping the shag takes a lot of time and by cutting away half of the cake, I'd say he cheated. Additionally, he piped leaves, the buttercream looked a little too soft, too and where was that 60s? Not even the colors were 60s. The best shags from a piping point of view were Luke's, Molly's and April's. The buttercream had a great consistency and the piping was clean. I think Clement's was well done, too. I don't know if it was Molly or Luke where Kardea said she wants to make carpet angels but that baker should have won, in my opinion. They did a fantastic job with the shag and the cake tasted good, too. I agree that Molly was the only one with a true ombré effect. Why were they all struggling with it? I didn't really get 60s from the orange cake. It reminded me of orange, mandarin and lemon. But the chocolate decorations did look amazing. I, too, am okay with sending Jai home. As good as she can be, she had a really bad bake. It was unfortunate but justified.

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Just because you know about cooking, doesn't mean you know about baking. I doubt you will ever find a cook judging any of the official (for the lack of a better term) baking competitions. . As for the last episode, I missed the first 20 minutes, so I only saw Christian's when they summarized but based on that, his win came as a complete surprise to me. I'm glad that they had a plastic structure to attach the pastry to (not going to attempt to spell the word they use 😉). I wonder if they did that because so often, the structure is what makes these challenges a fail for so many of them. That way, the bakers didn't need to stress about that and could concentrate on their bakes and the decorations. After all, no sane baker would construct an arch or any other figure out of that pastry in 3 hours. I agree with the poster who said that underwater world kind of misses the spring theme. I also can't say that I saw a lot of spring in the colors or even underwater world. I did like the idea, though.

Usually only for Christmas when I add gingerbread spice. Did I make Spekulatius Spice once? I don't recall. I may have. 😂

There's a similar thing in Germany; gelatin is Gelatine in German and there are several people, even professional bakers, who say GelaNtine. 🤷‍♀️

As far as I know, convection ovens reduce the baking time.

I think the 4-5 hours that they give them for cakes on the Great such-and-such Baking Show are much more realistic. On average, the German version gives between 2:30 and 3 hours for the first challenge and 4-5 hours for the second. (They also have a professional version where they have to make pastries for their first challenge for which they have 5 hours and a display piece for their second challenge for which they have 9 hours). Also, having your ingredients and oven at your work space helps with time management. I'm not sure if it was on the Spring Baking Championship or the Easter version, but just yesterday, someone was running around looking for an ingredient that another baker had. That's another minute or two unnecessarily wasted.

I don't think it's a matter of practicing skills. The time frame they're given is very, very tight to the point of being unrealistic. If one goes with the 10 minutes that it took Clement to mix the batter (which I think was very fast) and adds 20 minutes for baking and 30 minutes chill time (because even if you chill it in the blast chiller, the cake cools from the outside in and it's hot in the center) then that's already an hour gone before you can start to fill the cake. I'd say 30 minutes to fill and crumb coat/ice the cake but that's without chilling time. I would imagine that the bakers put the cakes in the blast chiller for around 10 minutes if they want to firm up icing but that only firms it up on the outside. So, the cakes remain soft(er) in the center and it makes them less stable (and therefore, more prone to tilt). They would also warm much quicker than if they were chilled through and the warmth from the spotlights in the studio would contribute that, too. If the center was still warm it would be even worse because the slightest bit of warmth is enough to slightly melt the filling. Cooling cakes in the blast chiller or any kind of refrigerator may also not be ideal for the baked good itself. It may lead to unwanted moisture or a center that appears not to be cooked all the way through or any kind of thing. Ideally, cakes should cool at room temperatures and should not be cut until they're cooled all the way through. I came across this (and this). She estimated that a simple cake takes 8 hours to make. I can believe that. One thing I realized is that even if something looks simple, it can still eat up a lot of time. It's what tripped me up most often when I started baking. Even now that I give it one day more than I think I need, I still end up pressed for time on occasion and when I get pressed for time it's because of the details. The lack of neatness bothers me as well but I don't think it's the baker's fault. I don't think they can do better with the time they're given. It's one of the reasons I'd never go on that or any other baking show. Not being able to make the cake look as good as I'd want it to look would frustrate me to no end. Pans and pots could be flying ;-) I believe Nancy said something tasted bitter and Duff then mentioned something about burnt pastry cream but it was a "blink and you miss it" comment.

Nope, wasn't just you. I think the brown stems and the fact that they were thicker at the bottom contributed to that look. I don't know why he didn't use green for the stems.

I wondered about that, too. From what I've been seeing, every baker has an oven at their station but since they shared ovens, I wonder if the ovens that they have are regular ovens and the other ones are convection ovens and they have to share those? During either Holiday or Halloween Baking Championship they had the issue that someone had opened an oven that shouldn't have been opened, so I would assume that they don't have one oven for everyone of those ovens. It's a bit hard to tell though.

I liked the two challenges except for the twist. But overall, the two bakes seemed a bit different than what they usually do. Jessica's and Clement's did look best, however, from a visual point of view, I preferred Jessica's. They had a bit more variation which I liked better. There are fruits that don't mix well with milk products. My mom once made a Pineapple Quark and the quark turned sour because of the acid in the pineapple. It's entirely possible that that's why some of the tart fillings didn't work or split and I don't blame the bakers for that. The show needs to make sure that every ingredient is compatible with ingredients that may be used for the bake because they can't expect the bakers to pay attention to that as well with the little time they have. With that said, why would they not taste whatever it is they're making? I'm not sure why Christian's tart with all the beige and brown looked spring-y while the pineapple looked like fall. I also thought that Christian's looked a little messy but it may have looked different in person. Jai's didn't look spring-y on TV either but her pie/cake looked a-mazing! I love how Duff got up to check that the pie lattice was really made out of whipped cream. Again, I wasn't sure what the judges were seeing in Christian's pie and why it was the epitome of pie illusion or however they put it. I thought it was the worst imitation up until then. The color was not right at all and it didn't look much better than Michelle's pie and her lattice broke. Also, why would a mouse eating the pie be spring-y? Was it Michelle who also had the plain mascarpone ice cream? Whoever it was, why did they think that was enough and they didn't need to add some kind of flavor? I was pleasantly surprised at how positive the comments for the ice cream were. When Jesse said that the bakers had to make cheese ice creams Nancy's look seemed to say "did they have to?", so I expected a lot more negativity. Glad there wasn't. Jessica's pie lattice looked incredible. Too bad the rest wasn't quite as good. I'm okay with Michelle going home. She really didn't have a good day. I don't think that's for him to decide though. I don't know who put in their crusts first but there are pastries that need lower temperatures because they take longer until they're done and the lower temperature prevents them from browning too quickly and Jessica might have made that kind of tart shell. It's possible that what he said didn't register with her. Just a couple of days ago I had put cookies into the oven, set the timer and worked on the second batch and when the timer went off, it didn't register with me. He shouldn't have turned up the oven without consulting her to begin with but since he did, he should have gone to her and told her directly. I agree that I didn't think he was trying to sabotage her and I rolled my eyes at Jesse because that was clearly not Josh's intent, still, it was not okay what Josh did or how he handled it and that's entirely on him.

I caught the promo for it and it was so much of a carbon-copy that it made me not want to watch. I think it's because it felt wrong to have Longoria's voice-over when everything else looked and even sounded like Searching for Italy. There was a disconnect for me.

The set looks beautiful and the rose with the two buds is SO pretty. (And your color schemes and use of sprinkles/glitter are so right up my alley. I have yet to see a cupcake of yours that wouldn't be like I'd order them if I'd order them for an occasion).

Agreed. They should just have told her that either she's doing what they want now or they're going to leave her alone. Yes, they wanted the flash drive but she wanted protection. I don't buy that the CIs are the ones calling the shots, not just on this show but on others as well. Why was everyone blaming Joe and why was he the only one who apologized? It was Alex who approached him and I don't think Joe was wrong to assume that the parents knew. After all, the way Alex was raised, he didn't have any reason to assume otherwise. The parents should also have asked themselves why their son kept it from them; some reflection instead of passing around blame would have been in order.

Speaking of Virginia Beach, I always find it interesting that they just zip back and forth between Norfolk/VA Beach and DC in a day and still get a ton of investigating done. I'd like to know which roads they use 'cause next time I go south, I want to use them, too. 😉 To be fair, being a daughter is an entirely different perspective. That said, why does every single show have to use the cliché of the overprotecting father? There are other fathers out there, too. My father wasn't like this and the fathers of friends weren't like this either. I think Jimmy played it well and I liked the talk between him and Vance at the end (I also liked that Knight was the one who set it up), still, it's so overused and tiresome.

I googled her and this and this is what I found. She probably doesn't do many of the cakes they ask for on the show but it sounds like she does do pastries. Given that she operated a café, has been to culinary school and does desserts, I would assume that she also does pies, all things "Torte", cheese cakes and all things "streusel cakes". (This is a good list to get an impression of what German cafés serve). ETA: I found where Manja went to school under a different link. It doesn't specify what she went to school for but baker (focuses on bread, rolls and simply things like "Streusel cake"), cake baker (focuses on cakes, "Torten", pastries) and cook are each 3-year-educations. From what I read on the internet, it sounds like Kardea would be the amateur in that case.

Manja's cake was supposedly dry. She said it looked dry but tasted and said it tasted good. The judges said it was dry. Since I don't always trust that what the judges say is based on what they taste, who knows. (The cake looked crumbly but that doesn't have to be a sign of dryness. If you have a light dough and/or use a lot of baking powder/soda is can be crumbly, too. I didn't catch what kind of cake she was baking but it looked like there was something in there (coconut flakes?) and that can contribute to a crumbly look as well. If the cake really was dry, she could have just brushed some juice over it or something to solve the problem).

Yes, Jessica. It takes a long time for the granola to brown/get crunchy even though you pour melted butter and sweetener (honey, brown sugar or maple syrup) over it. Granted, the oven temperature is (only) 325°F but that's not that low. Maybe there's a lot of moisture in the oats? I'm always surprised when bakers redo an entire cake. That would likely take around the same time, too. But maybe it's easier to do when they do it because you can do other stuff that Jessica had done at that point?

You would need a very refined palate for that and the way the judges are critiquing, I can't really believe that they have that refined of a palate. In the first or second episode, they lamented the absence of salt in a baked good that used lemon. Lemon, due to its sour taste, is a balance to all things sweet already. And in this episode, the hazelnut filling was too salty. Given how they are commenting, I suspect they have some sort of knowledge of what is going on and comments are (also) based on that and not just on what they taste. The judges' comments are too often exactly what happened to a baker, it just doesn't seem authentic. For example, at the German Baking Show, when something goes wrong for a baker during the technical challenge, the judges may taste that something went wrong but they will often say that they don't know what the mistake was because they weren't there and didn't see the process. Or they will ask if this or that is what happened. Or they will say that it doesn't taste like it was supposed to but they don't quite know why. The judges from the Baking Championship are too specific in their knowledge for me to believe that they don't know what's going on.

Low effort, yes, but the granola recipe that I have calls for 40 minutes in the oven. Of course, that's a conventional oven and I believe they have convection ovens, still, she would have to delay filling the cake by around 20 minutes plus cooling time.

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This time around, I find it really obvious that if the cake isn't what you typically get then the judges have an issue with it. I have no idea if Manja's cake really was dry or how badly burned the granola really was (it looked a but burned at the edges of the baking sheet but fine otherwise) but April's cake was obviously not stable, too, but they didn't find fault with her cake and that was a pretty traditional/common flavor combination. Likewise, Molly's cake. They also looked boring on the inside but they got "one of the best things I've ever tasted". The judges seem to have a really limited flavor profile. (And what is the obsession with salt? Salt is not supposed to be tasted, you're supposed to add a pinch to balance things out, not taste it (unless, of course, it's a cake with salted caramel or something like that)). Weren't the final cakes supposed to match on the outside? Michelle's sunset looked pretty but her cake didn't exactly match her partner's but it was even more obvious with the healthy/unhealthy ones. They were opposite inside and outside and that wasn't what they were supposed to do. Most of the Napoleons looked good. I'm not quite sure I saw the "it looks very spring-y" in the one that had a single white blossom and a white dot of cream on top, though. But they looked so good that there were several that I would have liked to taste which doesn't happen too often. I think Manja wanted too much/wanted too much for too little time. I had hoped she'd stay because she colored outside the lines a lot but she was unable to deliver. Agreed. Why did they think it would look pretty?

I think we eat whipped cream with pretty much everything in Germany. It's fairly popular. We have entire cakes that are "Sahnetorte" which translates to heavy cream/whipped cream cake. I completely missed that post... There are recipes that call for melted butter, so if they're cookies that don't have to be rolled out, I'd definitely try using the half-melted butter. I'd also try it if the cookies were just for the family. What I would do is whip the butter for a minute or so before adding anything else since what happened in the microwave is just that the fats separated and water evaporated. Less water is actually not a bad thing for cookies.