Aulty

The bakes and contestants were alright, even though some of the mirror glazes were of less than appetizing colours. They are back to the same cramped work bench layout, which I found really annoying last year. Fortunately they have switched to the 3 challenges format. Lets just hope the hosts have turned it down a bit - I stopped watching halfway through the first series because they were such a nuisance. Speaking of annoyances, whats up with the sound editing? The non stop, and very disjointed, background music? Especially when someone is speaking or during the judging. Its as if they had a mixed tape of 30 second Bake Off signature tracks on random for the whole episode.

I didn't catch it when it first aired during the summer but the episodes are currently on repeat and on the iPlayer: Flour Power Its a very simple, homely show where work collegues compete against each other. They produce one bake at home for a bake sale. The first episode features employees from a vetinary practice, so everyone who wanted a few more "juicy" stories out of Rosie will get them there 😄

Some people are just lazy. I usually just resend the email that I've sent them last time so that it is obvious that they already have the information - and I especially enjoy doing that when they send their request with other people in cc and pretend that it is oh so urgent or make it look as if I forgot to send the info.

I am defenitely not in the target audience for that, but if anyone watches, let me know whether this is just a miniature version of Bake Off or whether there is some educational component. If they want to get Youngsters into baking I would expect a segmet where the contestants and the audience get some tips or a masterclass - like explaining the technical challenge. Liam was a very charismatic contestant and I understand why they picked him as a second judge, but I hope he does better judging than he did as a presenter on Bake Off Professionals, where he looked completely out of place.

Well done David. That was unexpected. I am sure he made a few bookies very unhappy. After the Steph home video I though I knew where this was going. From low self esteem to Bake Off winner - a producer's wet dream. Alas, it all went pear shaped. It was hard to see Steph being so disappointed with herself. (on a more superficial note: she and her mom apparently watched the same eyeliner tutorial on Youtube) Note to all future contestants: Make sure your don't overdo the booze! Everytime a bake holds a half empty bottle of strong liquor into the camera you know how this is gonna end. What a lot of drama for Alice and her parents' cancelled flight. The editing was a bit annoying again, when it looked like they had to decorate everything in the last 5 minutes. I probably won't remember much of this series or the contestants. It just wasn't very memorable, was it?

She does have other shows and making fun of her height seems to be a common denominator for most of them. It's getting old. I think they film most of the time call sequences and comedy bits all in one go, probably before the bakers enter the tent or between the first two challenges. Do we think that Noel and Sandy come up with the stuff or whether they are scripted?

I've said it after the vegan week in last year's GBBO and I will say it again: The fecking attitude of the judges, presenters and some contestants in vegan week is really grinding my gears. The constant moaning about not being able to use butter or eggs or bacon is so annoying. Why can't they treat vegan, gluten free or milk free bakes as techniques worth mastering instead of making thinly veiled jokes about them? Knowing about what flaxseeds, buckwheat or almond flour and aqua faba can do for your bakes is a good skill to have, not just for vegan bakers. I was surprised that Matt and Maggie didn't know about chickpea water cream (which was all over the internet two years ago), and instead of saying 'oh thats new to me' they could have asked Anston to explain (to the audience) how it is made. I will try that terrine, it looked very good. And the cupcakes? Not that hard to make vegan cupcakes, and there was a nice variety. (iirc one of the best contestant, and I think all stars winner, on Cupcake Wars was a vegan Bakery)

Original Air Date: November 7th 2019

Original Air Date: October 31st 2019

Original Air Date: October 24th 2019

Yeah, given how popular they were with the Insta and Pinterest crowd this past year I really expected them as a technical in the current series of GBBO tbh.

I can second that, they are 'too much'. When my mother makes a cheesecake it is one without a base much like the ones Jasmine made (sans figs) and I have always wondered what kind of comments a cheesecake like that would get on the Bake Off. Good to know that this is close to the original Greek recipe. Nataliia's looked so good, especially the top layer. I have had russian cheesecake a few times, and they are great. The different milk products produced in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe are the base for some quite interesting bakes and I hope they explore that further in the upcoming series (along with techniques from Asia and other parts of the world). Skipped the technical because we've already seen that on the British Bake Off. I just can't with the new presenters. The intro this week was good, but overall the atmosphere is too much forced puns and not empathic and warm enough. I'm sure they are nice and talented people, but they aren't the right fit for this show.

What a roller coaster for poor Rosie but to be honest I don't really care about the finale or who wins it. Some of the charm of this show has definitely gone missing. That's not something I want discussed during a baking show tbh. I am a patisserie grinch. Its all too fiddly, I don't like mousses or puff pastry. They already did a Gateau St. Honoré as a show stopper in the semi final of series 3 (sweater model James did a bicycle shaped one, remeber?). Was Steph's cake really an opera cake?

Baking with chocolate, yes but the only franchise that really does candies and pralines is Bake Off: The Professionals

To borrow from Cheyenne: That was painful to watch. Main plot, sub plots, everything. But I can't wait for Carol to snap.

They are not brewing, distilling or fermenting anything or worship in front of a Lena Dunham shrine? I am shocked.

Slightly disappointed. I thought this was going to be about colourful, whacky (music) festival food like bubble waffles and deep fried sparkly rainbow unicorn horns, not Christmas and Easter.

Original air date: October 10, 2019

Original air date: October 3, 2019

That wasn't a particularly strong start to the season, was it? An OK episode with a few good scenes - Cheyenne and Mateo, the robot surviving the fall, what looked like a slow reconcilliation between Dinah and Garrett before she blamed him for everything - but the lead up to those was luke warm at best. Wonder what Carol's (?) strategy is re Sandra and Jerry.

Who is editing these episodes? I was sure that Pryia was the one to leave and never would have thought Helena and Michelle were in serious trouble. Helena was ahead of Pryia in the technical and surely boiling your custard in a custard tart challenge is a bigger mistake then misjudging the amount of lavender? I finally came round on Elena and her goofy Halloween themed backes - the Kraken tarts were fun! The other contestants are starting to grow on me too. There was a story in the papers this week that two contestants started dating and I was looking for clues of romance in this episode 🙂 The challenges were ok. The flapper girl tarts that earned the baker a handshake were the best thing this week, but none of the cocktails cakes looked very appetizing - they all looked dry.

I was wondering whether they deliberately cast contestants that were less experienced and more relatable, especially with their back to basic challenges. I'm sure Henry is a Hufflepuff has experience with full puff pastry though.

I didn't get their use of fancy complicated tins either. Especially Michael after he had problems with the cake sticking to the tin in practice. Most of the cakes had so much fancy decoration (its fascinating how much more elaborate the decorations have become in the signature challenge compared to the early series), that they could have gotten away with a simpler shape. Although I am not keen on dairy I do bake cakes and (soda) breads with buttermilk and joghurt, so I might check out some recipes from the Signature challenge. While the Mishtis don't tempt me at all, it was nice to see them tasked with something comletely different (like the mochis on Canadian Bake Off) for a change. The maids of honor reminded me of the portguese custard tarts the did a few series ago.

I am Team 'get Jeffrey Dean Morgan on the show for the final season and have Liza ride off into the sunset with him' like TGW almost did. This is the first show that made me abandon ship, but tbh I was only on Team Charles because I never liked Josh.

I make mango chutney quite often and all my recipes* explicitly ask for mangoes that are not ripe yet, one recipe even sais that the ones you usually get in a supermarket are perfect for chutneys. I think frozen are fine too. Whenever I manage to get hold of a good ripe mango, I'll eat it right away 😉 * Edit: thats for cooked chutneys, if its a chutney where you just blend a mango with some spices than you probably have to use a ripe one (or a very powerful blender 🙂 )