S10.E07: Festival Week

[Danny Franks]

11 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Once again, Anglophile though I may be, I'm reminded of the gulf between US and UK word usage. A "festival" in GBBO context means not an event (usually arts-related) that you travel to, but just one of the holidays in the year's calendar. I need a babel fish in my ear.

Well if you said "festival" to 95% of British people, they'd think you meant Glastonbury, Leeds or some other music festival. That's why Noel and Henry had that exchange where Henry unsurprisingly admitted he'd never been to a festival.

The show was just using an old fashioned definition of the word, to describe traditional, seasonal celebrations.

[Mabinogia]

Those look AMAZING!!!!!!

[Pepper Mostly]

On 10/10/2019 at 4:29 PM, Lois Sandborne said:

I'm sad to see Michael go, although I have no grounds for the feeling. I don't mind that the show is full of personalities. I really have enjoyed watching everyone this year, even the weaker/less consistent bakers, although I do think the standard has still been pretty high. I do find that I'm not so much watching for the competition anymore. I can't say it's beside the point, because I don't think I'd yet tune in to watch 12 congenial people have fun with recipes for 10 weeks, so we do need some tension, but I'm personally more excited to see who'll help Rosie pick her cake up off the ground than who will be star baker.

I loved Michael and I was sad to see him leave, though I agree it was time. He just seems like such a sweet person. 

I agree that with your assessment about the pleasures of watching. I love to see the relationships develop and I enjoy the interactions of the players. 

Henry is my favorite. I've always liked him but last week when he exclaimed "the cheek!" when Paul asked him if he'd made his own jam, I was on the floor. That kid is funny! I've been enjoying his commentary for the last few weeks. 

I like Sandy a lot and I feel like she's not being given enough of a chance to shine. She's very warm toward the bakers and I like to see her encouraging hugs and quiet "well done"s when someone is looking a little low. 

This season was slow off the mark for me but I am enjoying it now. any British Bake Off is better than none!

Edited October 13, 2019 by Pepper Mostly

[magdalene]

Henry is making me smile.  His choir boy looks when he clearly isn't one are funny to me. I also appreciate his style of dressing.  They are nothing alike but he makes me fondly remember the dishy young doctor with the sweaters who hailed from Shetland or somewhere about.

The comedy bits they have Noel and Sandy do are very silly at best.  But I will forever love Noel's get-up as Marie-Antoinette. And both Noel and Sandy are lovely and good-natured with the bakers, always trying to de-stress them.

I like Prue's jewely but other than that I find her the element of the show I could easily do without.

[stitcher73]

On 10/12/2019 at 10:13 AM, sharifa70 said:

I’m enjoying this season, actually, and this episode was fun. I liked Rosie’s interactions with Noel, Henry’s “shut up” will never be lived down, and David’s “I repel first” made me laugh. We’ve reached the point where I’m rooting for all of them and it really is hard to see any of them get cut (though I do agree it was time for the one who left). 

My one gripe is actually with Steph. Don’t get me wrong: I love her, but for the love of Sweet Baby Jeebus, Steph: stop licking your fingers. Oh my lord I cringe every time they show her shoving her fingers in her mouth.

YES, YES, YES!!!  I am so grossed out by her sticking her fingers in her mouth and then touching the food she's making that other people will eat.  It's actual a healthcode violation here and I wish to heck someone would call her on it.

I would never never eat anything she made.  Ever.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

1 minute ago, stitcher73 said:

YES, YES, YES!!!  I am so grossed out by her sticking her fingers in her mouth and then touching the food she's making that other people will eat.  It's actual a healthcode violation here and I wish to heck someone would call her on it.

I would never never eat anything she made.  Ever.

Don't forget that Paul stuck his finger in someone's batter a few weeks ago!

[Johnny Dollar]

Things that this year’s contestants have actually said:

”I’ve never made choux dough.”

”I don’t really bake bread.”

”I don’t even like desserts.”

Shouldn’t there be a minimum level of skill that is a little higher than Nailed It to get on this show?  Very underwhelming crop this year. 

[dleighg]

10 minutes ago, Johnny Dollar said:

Things that this year’s contestants have actually said:

”I’ve never made choux dough.”

”I don’t really bake bread.”

”I don’t even like desserts.”

and I know it's in another category, but several of them seemed confounded by a pasta machine. I guess some people *really* specialize in just the baking side of cookery. I love making pasta, but it does take a bit of experience to know what the dough should look like.

[Adiba]

15 minutes ago, dleighg said:

and I know it's in another category, but several of them seemed confounded by a pasta machine. I guess some people *really* specialize in just the baking side of cookery. I love making pasta, but it does take a bit of experience to know what the dough should look like.

Speaking of pasta machines, why was Sandi allowed to assist Henry in the technical? I know they help each other in other challenges, but I thought the technical had to be on your own? On the top of the recipes for the technical it says in red ink not to confer with other bakers--does that include the hosts?

I guess if the other bakers didn't mind, it doesn't really matter-- but I can't help the feeling that Henry is getting a bit of "favored nation" treatment. He seems a nice enough young man and a decent, if inexperienced, baker but I'm just not on the Henry bandwagon yet. I do like David's bakes and Steph's.

[Lunula]

On 10/11/2019 at 10:58 PM, MisterGlass said:

This.  It seems the only jokes they can think of for Sandy are about being short and/or being stuffed in something.  I like Sandy in her spontaneous moments, like when she assured an over-explaining Henry that she knew what clockwise meant.  The scripted bits are just not that good at the moment.

Couldn't agree more! When a show has two talented comedians, it feels a shame to force dialogue and interactions. Are there writers for the show or is it Noel & Sandi? I just checked IMDB and it doesn't list writers, though they could be listed as something else and I'm not in-the-know about that type of thing. 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Lunula
Left out a word

[janie jones]

On 10/12/2019 at 7:13 AM, sharifa70 said:

My one gripe is actually with Steph. Don’t get me wrong: I love her, but for the love of Sweet Baby Jeebus, Steph: stop licking your fingers. Oh my lord I cringe every time they show her shoving her fingers in her mouth.

I commented in an earlier episode thread that the way she licks her fingers reminds me of a man I saw eating a booger once.  I want to puke whenever I see her doing it.  Also, I guess I'm someone's grandma or something because I really wish she'd ease up on the eyeliner and trim her bangs so that we can actually see her face.

5 hours ago, dleighg said:

and I know it's in another category, but several of them seemed confounded by a pasta machine. I guess some people *really* specialize in just the baking side of cookery. I love making pasta, but it does take a bit of experience to know what the dough should look like.

I don't really think you need to specialize in baking not to have made your own pasta.  I know some people who make zucchini noodles, but I don't think I know anyone who makes their own pasta.

[Rinaldo]

12 minutes ago, janie jones said:

I don't really think you need to specialize in baking not to have made your own pasta.  I know some people who make zucchini noodles, but I don't think I know anyone who makes their own pasta.

Plus, even those who make their own pasta don't necessarily use a machine for it. (Pasta existed for centuries before the machine came along.) It's a substantial monetary investment that not everyone will want to make, if it's an activity they don't do all that often. (On one of the old Masterclasses, Mary Berry remarked, "We all bought one, and it sits in the back of the cupboard.")

Edited October 14, 2019 by Rinaldo

[bybrandy]

10 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

(On one of the old Masterclasses, Mary Berry remarked, "We all bought one, and it sits in the back of the cupboard.")

Me, I cook a lot.  I have one.  I've used it once or twice.  Both times I thought, "If i get better at this it will be amazing" and neither time did I bother with the work to get better at it.   I just don't eat that much pasta and when I do it is because i need something easy and quick and mess free.

[Rickster]

On 10/14/2019 at 8:35 AM, dleighg said:

and I know it's in another category, but several of them seemed confounded by a pasta machine. I guess some people *really* specialize in just the baking side of cookery. I love making pasta, but it does take a bit of experience to know what the dough should look like.

I think it’s also true that a lot of people bake without ever attempting bread, which is really a whole different type of baking. On the other hand, you’d think they’d pick contestants with a broad knowledge base for the show.

[Kroliosis]

On 10/11/2019 at 11:43 PM, Nidratime said:

The festival buns challenge was strange. Do we have a festival bun in the U.S.? I know we have hamburger and hot dog buns and we have sticky buns but none of them suggest a particular holiday or occasion.

Here are a few festival/holiday type bakes that I could think of:  King Cake (Lent/Mardi Gras/festival of the Ephiphany), Paczki (Polish donuts before Lent), Fruit Cake (which they did), Pumpkin Pie, Apple Pie, Moon Pies.   I am clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel for these ideas 😂

As to the Sandy in the bag jokes, doesn't "in the bag" also mean drunk?

[theatremouse]

On 10/14/2019 at 5:57 AM, Adiba said:

Speaking of pasta machines, why was Sandi allowed to assist Henry in the technical? I know they help each other in other challenges, but I thought the technical had to be on your own? On the top of the recipes for the technical it says in red ink not to confer with other bakers--does that include the hosts?

I think the "don't confer" is really about not helping each other in interpreting the instructions since they're intentionally brief.

I'm a little torn on the Sandi helping there because I do think there have been plenty of times on the show when a contestant will have one of the comedians hold something (not just objects but like hold this end of my dough while I do whatever to it kind of thing) or help them maneuver something into position or whatnot. And that's well established as OK. So that fits very much in the "needing a third hand" vein? Which is what went down with Sandi. And yet I find myself feeling like it'd have been less questionable if she were holding the dough while he cranked the machine, rather than the other way round as it was. It's something about her being the one to run the device that makes it feel like she did the "doing" part, not just the "hold this for me" type part. And yet when I think about the specific difficulty he was having, I wonder if having her crank meant she was doing the part that didn't require or reflect skill. If he was guiding it, then he was maybe doing the active part that was causing it to go wrong earlier. So maybe in this case he was doing the "doing". I'm just not sure.

[snarktini]

2 hours ago, theatremouse said:

And yet when I think about the specific difficulty he was having, I wonder if having her crank meant she was doing the part that didn't require or reflect skill. If he was guiding it, then he was maybe doing the active part that was causing it to go wrong earlier. So maybe in this case he was doing the "doing". I'm just not sure.

My family makes pasta. When we roll, the person cranking is actually doing the least skilled bit. That's my job lol. 

It takes a lot of skill to use the machines well. The dough has to be hydrated JUST SO. You have to know when it can go thinner and when it will tear if you try. When it has to be rested. When it's getting too long or too inelastic to handle. When it needs a couple of drops of water and a rewrap. I've been helping my parents for decades and still, I crank. 🙂

Edited October 15, 2019 by snarktini

[irisheyes]

5 hours ago, Kroliosis said:

Paczki (Polish donuts before Lent)

Side note, but I used to teach at a Catholic school in a Polish neighborhood, and our priest would always bring Paczki around on Fat Tuesday. I miss those bites of heaven. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Recipes

Signature challenge
Steph's zest and spice hot cross buns
Henry's chocolate kardemummabullar

Technical challenge
Chocolate & ricotta cassatelle

Showstopper challenge
Alice’s chocolate, almond, orange & salted caramel kaleidoscope kek lapis sarawak

[joanne3482]

On ‎10‎/‎13‎/‎2019 at 3:56 AM, Danny Franks said:

Well if you said "festival" to 95% of British people, they'd think you meant Glastonbury, Leeds or some other music festival. That's why Noel and Henry had that exchange where Henry unsurprisingly admitted he'd never been to a festival.

And the whole set up to it was Noel going to a festival, not celebrating Christmas. It was confusing to me too.

This was a confusing episode on the whole for me.  I didn't understand how the showstopper cake was made.  Grilling in the US means some sort of grill pan on the stove, not something that would be baked so that was my first confusing thing.  Then for the little layer cakes, doesn't the process make the bottom cakes incredibly overcooked? The effect was stunning, but I almost thought they would be made like those crepe cakes they've made once before (and which Halloween Baking Show on Foodnetwork just did).

[dleighg]

1 hour ago, joanne3482 said:

Grilling in the US means some sort of grill pan on the stove, not something that would be baked so that was my first confusing thing.

I believe "grilling" is what we in the US would call "broiling." And while the crepe cake on the Food Network thing was stacked individual crepes, the technical they did on GBBO a while back was layer upon layer, each "grilled" with the earlier ones beneath, just like this. So I guess since the heat is coming radiantly from the top, it doesn't necessarily overcook the earlier layers. At least in theory. 

[Margo Leadbetter]

On 10/14/2019 at 2:12 PM, janie jones said:

I don't really think you need to specialize in baking not to have made your own pasta.  I know some people who make zucchini noodles, but I don't think I know anyone who makes their own pasta.

I was actually surprised (or maybe I shouldn’t be, giving how “mean” they say they like to be) that they didn’t give the bakers the pasta attachment for the Kitchenaid, since they already use them. It would have made things a lot easier than trying to wrangle long sheets of dough while cranking at the same time. I make pasta all the time and that’s what I use, not only for pasta but for things like crackers, breadsticks—the fettuccine cutter works brilliantly—and such (the pix are from my now defunct blog). I have a lot of pain in my wrists sometimes, which make rolling dough out to a uniform thin/thickness difficult, so the pasta attachment is my friend. 

Bread and pasta are my favorite things to make. Pastry, fussy desserts and cakes, not so much.

[Dobian]

On 10/8/2019 at 9:21 PM, zibnchy said:

I've been trying to figure out what's off about this season and here's my 2 cents. In no particular order.

1) Prue - she's bitchy and mean and generally unhelpful unless the baker happens to be one of her pets. She's been a poor replacement for Mary Berry all along but this season she seems tired of it all.

2) Noel - I LOVE Noel but something is off in his interactions with the bakers. His remarks seem forced and the bakers seem annoyed with him. For this I blame the producers. I feel like the producers are trying to force the interactions to be risque (many mentions of buns). The past two years Noel has been great with the bakers but maybe the producers left him alone more. Now I imagine them telling him to "Make more buns and balls jokes even if you have to force them." and "Annoy the bakers when they're at the most critical phase of the bake. That's fun."

3) the bakers- I just don't think this group is very good at baking, with the obvious exception of Steph. (David's bakes look good but I never want to eat them.) There was no baker this year that won my heart (like a Kim-Joy or a Chetna) and I realized today that I don't care who wins (as long as it isn't prissy Alice.) Have to root for Steph at this point. (I feel like I would love Rosie more if I could play her at .75x speed.)

Bottom line I blame the producers and the casting department mostly but I blame Prue for her own shitty attitude.

I agree with all of this, though Prue doesn't bother me quite as much.  Noel seems like a genuinely nice guy, but he really can be irritating.  A great example was when Henry was trying to walk his fragile showstopper to the front and Noel started joking about his tie.  Both Henry and Sandi told him to shut it.  Sandi, on the other hand, is very supportive of the bakers.  The overall quality of the bakers is definitely beneath some of the previous seasons.  There have been seasons where you had three or four bakers at Steph's level.

Edited November 24, 2019 by Dobian

[romantic idiot]

On 10/9/2019 at 8:21 AM, zibnchy said:

2) Noel - I LOVE Noel but something is off in his interactions with the bakers. His remarks seem forced and the bakers seem annoyed with him. For this I blame the producers.

I blame the participants. Maybe it's the timing, but if feels like for some of them the hosts are like a chore they have to do, a necessary part of GBBO rather than people they enjoy. 

On 10/11/2019 at 12:29 AM, Lois Sandborne said:

I'm sad to see Michael go, although I have no grounds for the feeling. 

He was the last piece of diversity left.

On 10/12/2019 at 6:13 PM, sharifa70 said:

My one gripe is actually with Steph. Don’t get me wrong: I love her, but for the love of Sweet Baby Jeebus, Steph: stop licking your fingers. Oh my lord I cringe every time they show her shoving her fingers in her mouth.

What's the problem?

On 10/12/2019 at 6:14 PM, Mabinogia said:

Neither of them, Noel and Sandy, are good enough actors to look like they are enjoying those bits. loo.

I think Sandy is deliberately, not even trying. 

[sharifa70]

2 hours ago, romantic idiot said:

What's the problem?

 

Aside from just the general ickiness of licking your fingers while you’re cooking, she’s cooking for other people. Cooking for yourself? Lick away! Cooking for me? Keep those hands away from hair, face, mouth, anything that’s not the food. And wash them. Often.

[blueray]

On 10/12/2019 at 10:13 AM, sharifa70 said:

My one gripe is actually with Steph. Don’t get me wrong: I love her, but for the love of Sweet Baby Jeebus, Steph: stop licking your fingers. Oh my lord I cringe every time they show her shoving her fingers in her mouth.

Commenting from the future but watching this now during Covid-19 this bothers me so much. She kept doing that sticking her finger in her mouth then going back to baking, people are going to eat that. I'm watching this after I just finished scrubbing down my hands and counter because I made a sandwich with bread that was only bought two days ago. I'm sure if this was filmed say this coming summer this would have changed obviously.  It does however make me wonder if the UK prior to this had different standards then here, as chef's/bakers always wear gloves and hats on US cooking shows.

Anyhow, I'm enjoying watching this season as I haven't seen it. I like these bakers, maybe because they are armatures which makes it more relatable to me. When they name a dessert that I never heard of and they haven't either it makes it more interesting.

Edited April 29, 2020 by blueray

[dgpolo]

10 minutes ago, blueray said:

It does make me wonder if the UK has different standards than here, as chef's/bakers always wear gloves and hats on US cooking shows.

I watch, GGG, Chopped, Top Chef, the ___ Baking Show (spring/holiday/etc) and I have yet to see any hats or gloves. Unless someone cuts their finger and then wears a glove over the bandage.

[blueray]

10 minutes ago, dgpolo said:

I watch, GGG, Chopped, Top Chef, the ___ Baking Show (spring/holiday/etc) and I have yet to see any hats or gloves. Unless someone cuts their finger and then wears a glove over the bandage.

Actually now that you mentioned it, nvm they don't always but maybe they should. I worked before at a nursing home as a food server and we were required to wear hairnets (the whole time) and gloves if we were directly handling food. I do wonder, though as someone said earlier in the thread, Paul did stick his hand in someone's batter and nobody even questioned it.

Edited April 29, 2020 by blueray

[Mittengirl]

I have been binge watching, so I have no idea what season(s) I was watching, but both Paul and Noel took a swig out of a bottle of liqueur that a baker was going to be using to flavor their bake.  My impression was that they had not yet added the liqueur to the bake, so were going to pour from the bottle that had been drunk (drank?) from.  No one seemed at all fazed.  Maybe they are less germphobic that Americans.