S01.E08: Fight Until the Batter End

[The Crazed Spruce]

Quote

The bakers head back into the kitchen to take on a new, delicious challenge; the best detectives continue in the competition.

 

[CrazyInAlabama]

Down to five teams.    Ken Jeong is the guest.     Next week is the finale with four teams, with $100,000 on the line for the winners.   

The mother daughter team arguing is awful to see.  The mother smirking about her daughter putting the sugar syrup in too fast, causing the eggs to become lumpy is ridiculous, it might just put them out of the competition.  The two vets did a great cake, in spite of the issues moving it.    Opera cake is everyone's guess.   Joel and Ken are so funny together.     Will it be a full sized cake, or cut into pieces? 

Dessert round answer:  Opera cake, but in one large piece, 9" x 7".   So three teams made full opera cakes, one was 9 x 7, so Natalie and Luis get the extra clue. and they think the Showpiece is a Geode cake, the guy with the beard and wife with blue and pink hair think a fault line cake.    

Fault line cake, Cathy and Thomas.    Luis and Natalie Banana Geode Cake.  Fault line cake Jason and Lorie   Emma and Leslie, Geode Cake (an ugly cake).   Hope and Amanda floral cake spice cake with flowers around between the two layers.    

Showpiece dessert:    Banana Fault line cake with crystals in the middle.   Cathy & Thomas, Jason and Lorie. guessed correctly .  Top detectives are Thomas & Cathy.   

The teams going to the finals:   Thomas & Cathy, Emma & Leslie, Jason & Lorie, and Luis & Natalie. 

Eliminated team: Erin & Amanda 

(I'm not rooting for Cathy & THomas, because of his rotten attitude towards the competition, or Emma & Leslie, the meltdowns, and arguing were awful on tonight's show, and I think they finally showed who they are, and it wasn't the nice people they pretended to be before). 

Edited July 15, 2021 by CrazyInAlabama

[Driad]

How do you cut those tall cakes into slices, especially the geode cake?  If everyone wants crystals, dividing them would be messy.

Several contestants have long hair and don't tie it back, risking a judge finding a hair in the cake.

[mertensia]

I missed it - how did they know it was banana?

I think geode cakes are really pretty. I think eating the rock sugar would be annoying.

I'm going to miss the Army vets. 

[AZChristian]

17 minutes ago, mertensia said:

I missed it - how did they know it was banana?

There were over-ripe bananas on the counter and a potato masher (I think in the dish drainer).  Some folks said they smelled the bananas on the parchment paper.

Go Team Anybody But Thomas and Mom.

[Morgana]

Well, "Go Team Anybody But Thomas and Mom" or Team Mother and Daughter.  They were awful.

[Whimsy]

10 hours ago, Driad said:

How do you cut those tall cakes into slices, especially the geode cake?  If everyone wants crystals, dividing them would be messy.

Several contestants have long hair and don't tie it back, risking a judge finding a hair in the cake.

Nobody really eats the crystals.  They're super hard.  They just look pretty.  I do a lot of fondant decor- sometimes pretty elaborate pieces- and no one eats those either lol.  They're just a food-friendly thing on the cake/cupcake that looks nice. 

I don't judge the mom and daughter too much.  My daughter and I have had melt-downs over cakes, too.  This is why I stopped making cakes.  To me, they are too stressful.  The pressure and stress must really be getting to them. 

I'm on "Any Team but Mom and Thomas winning".  She's ok, but I don't like him.  I think watching things like the Great British Bake-Off and Making It has made me realize I hate the mean-spirited competitions and prefer respect and even friendship amongst contestants.

[blackwing]

Disappointed that Erin and Amanda were eliminated, but I wasn't surprised at all.  They completely missed the banana cake, and didn't even notice the gem chart.  They were the weakest team left and I was pretty sure they were going to go home even before the episode started.  But it was still disappointing.  They were the only team left that I truly liked.  Now we are left with Elf Girl and her mom (who I had liked a lot until the intensity/strangeness of last week and then this week with actual nastiness between the two of them), Unicorn Hair and Beard (we need to win this money so we can buy some land and build our dream house.... um OK), Vegas bakers (they do nice work but I am very indifferent to them), and the odious Thomas.

Thomas continues to get on my nerves, the comments and the glances are insufferable.

I guess I am rooting for Vegas the most by default.  

Ken Jeong actually was not that annoying.  I like the banter between him and Joel.  When Joel asked Kathy what her favourite Ken Jeong hosted show was, I wish she had said "Crime Scene Kitchen".

Next week is the finale?  Looks like it's only a one-hour episode, I wonder if there is going to be a cut after the first round or if all four teams will be baking to the end.

 

[DanaK]

I'm such an average cook and was never particularly interested in cooking competition shows until the pandemic got me to work on my cooking and baking skills, so this show mesmerizes me. I would never get any of these desserts even with a ton of clues; I just don't have that much experience in baking. This week's episode seemed particularly hard

Edited July 15, 2021 by DanaK

[Maya]

I think the Vegas team does consistent, amazing work and I hope they win. Plus it will be fun to watch the high strung daughter and Thomas implode when they lose. 

[proserpina65]

1 hour ago, Maya said:

I think the Vegas team does consistent, amazing work and I hope they win. Plus it will be fun to watch the high strung daughter and Thomas implode when they lose. 

They are definitely the best team left.

[AZChristian]

When the first larger Opera cake was brought forward, Thomas' mother said, "Why is it one big cake?"  Thomas smugly said, "SOME people might make it that way," inferring that it was wrong, but their's was obviously correct.  Not.

[vibeology]

1 hour ago, Maya said:

I think the Vegas team does consistent, amazing work and I hope they win. Plus it will be fun to watch the high strung daughter and Thomas implode when they lose. 

Emma is high strung but Thomas is mean. It's just a different level of awful. I do not like him. I guess I'm cheering for Vegas too. Their work always looks great and they don't make many mistakes but they're not very memorable.

[tennisgurl]

I am sad to see Erin and Amanda leaving, I really like them, but I get why they were sent home. They really did miss that one by a mile, and its not the first time they have been really off. I am mostly rooting for Team Vegas, they are very consistent and seem pretty cool, but mostly I don't want Thomas and his mom or the mother/daughter team to win. The mother and daughter are just exhausting to watch, they bicker so much and the daughter is so intense, and while I like Thomas's mom alright, he's so smug I don't want to see him win. I guess the real lesson this season is that baking with a parent or child is really stressful. 

The jokes about how Ken is on every single Fox reality show were funny, Ken and Joel work really well together. "You have five minutes before Ken leaves to host his eighth Fox show." 

[Driad]

I appreciate the comments and information on this forum. Many of the desserts on the show are unfamiliar to me.  I want a dessert that tastes good.  If it also looks nice or interesting, that's a small plus.

A geode (geologically) usually looks like an ordinary rock on the outside, but has crystals inside.  If you asked me to make a geode cake (before this episode), it would be a regular-looking cake with something fancy inside, that you wouldn't see until you cut it.

[seacliffsal]

I prefer Thomas and his mom to the daughter and mother team.  The daughter lets the drama get in the way of completing the task.  And, she showed a nasty mean spirit IMO.  In spite of Thomas' snarkiness (which I enjoy) he doesn't seem as outright angry as the daughter seems to be.  Also, I like it when he snarks on something and then realizes he is wrong.

I didn't watch the first several episodes as I wasn't interested in the description of the show.  However, I saw a commercial that seemed interesting so I watched.  This is the third episode I've watched and I find that I am enjoying the show.

[blackwing]

7 minutes ago, seacliffsal said:

I prefer Thomas and his mom to the daughter and mother team.  The daughter lets the drama get in the way of completing the task.  And, she showed a nasty mean spirit IMO.  In spite of Thomas' snarkiness (which I enjoy) he doesn't seem as outright angry as the daughter seems to be.  Also, I like it when he snarks on something and then realizes he is wrong.

I didn't watch the first several episodes as I wasn't interested in the description of the show.  However, I saw a commercial that seemed interesting so I watched.  This is the third episode I've watched and I find that I am enjoying the show.

I think the daughter is high strung, but it's motivated by a desire for perfection, and she takes that stress out on her mom.  When the mom said something about how she poured the simple syrup in too fast, and the daughter retorted angrily, at one point, the mom gave a little smile.  So they are used to each other.  They also work together in their business, not just on this show.  So if the mom is willing to put up with it, I supposed I will give her a pass.  What I like about this team is that they are both equally skilled and knowledgeable.

As opposed to Thomas and his mom... clearly Thomas is driving the team, the mom is just the sous chef.  The other difference between Elf Girl and Thomas is that Elf Girl is just high strung, whereas Thomas is smug and arrogant and dismissive of everyone else.  In Thomas' mind, he is by far the best and he clearly deserves to win because no one is as great as he is.  I really despise that kind of arrogance on a show like this.  Especially when the Vegas team is just as good (and perhaps better) than he is.

[Quilt Fairy]

I have never heard of either a geode cake or a fault line cake - is baking a minor you can take when you major in geology?  I have, however, at least seen an opera cake on GBBO, and they don't cut theirs, so end of discussion. 

I'm sad to see that next week is the finale, I've grown quite fond of this show.  I hope it comes back for a 2nd season. 

[CrazyInAlabama]

I've seen Opera cakes before on one of the holiday baking contests, or Best Baker on Food Network.    They had Geode cakes on there also.    

I was disgusted at the bickering by Emma and her mother this week.    They seemed so nice at the beginning of the episodes, but certainly showed their true character this week.    And it wasn't just Emma's meltdown, and being nasty to her mother, but the mother was doing it too.   The mother doing an "I told you so" about the egg in the icing was too much for me. 

Edited July 17, 2021 by CrazyInAlabama

[tinkerbell]

My unpopular opinion - I like Thomas and his mom.   His comments are made, as an aside, to his mom, and are EXACTLY the kind of comments I would make if I were competing - especially if I thought the tv cameras and mic were not going to pick up everything I say.   

He does seem pretty intense and competitive, but he IS on a competitive baking show.  He hasn't been mean to other teams.  I guess I identify with him, I would be muttering to my teammate in the same nervous way.  

[eyesopen]

8 hours ago, blackwing said:

I think the daughter is high strung, but it's motivated by a desire for perfection, and she takes that stress out on her mom.  When the mom said something about how she poured the simple syrup in too fast, and the daughter retorted angrily, at one point, the mom gave a little smile.  So they are used to each other.  They also work together in their business, not just on this show.  So if the mom is willing to put up with it, I supposed I will give her a pass.  What I like about this team is that they are both equally skilled and knowledgeable.

As opposed to Thomas and his mom... clearly Thomas is driving the team, the mom is just the sous chef.  The other difference between Elf Girl and Thomas is that Elf Girl is just high strung, whereas Thomas is smug and arrogant and dismissive of everyone else.  In Thomas' mind, he is by far the best and he clearly deserves to win because no one is as great as he is.  I really despise that kind of arrogance on a show like this.  Especially when the Vegas team is just as good (and perhaps better) than he is.

I've watched this show from the start and I never felt bothered by the mom and daughter until this episode.  Very meltdown.  I've never seen the daughter that way before.  But I don't watch too closely everything generally. 

I feel it's not really not true as they keep saying that these bakers are the best in the country.  They don't seem to be at all.  Sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not.  If they're professional bakers they should be good 90% of the time.  I don't see why some of their bakes are bad.  They're ordinary people, so maybe consistently they're not going to be good detectives, but there's no excuses for having bad bakes.  They have hours, hours, at least 3 hours on average.  How can you still botch up baking multi layer cakes with or without filling with so much time?  I think they should spend less time on decorating, some time so it's not plain but not too much time.

Also, I want to say some of the wardrobe choices were atrocious.  Emma? looked like she was wearing a colorful haircutter's hair cutting apron all that time.  It was very distracting to me.

Edited July 16, 2021 by eyesopen
fixed spelling

[Ms Lark]

I think Emma will need to go away for "a little rest" after the show is over. Actually, probably already there. When was this taped?

Thomas is just mean. I like his mom, but she raised him, so...

Homesteaders can go jump. Are they living in their car or what? 

Looks like I'm rooting for Vegas, too, since they're pretty consistent.

[LitllBear]

1 hour ago, Ms Lark said:

Homesteaders can go jump. Are they living in their car or what? 

I believe in a previous episode they said their house burned down and they have been living in an RV.

I'm not rooting for Thomas & his mom to win. I like Cathy but I don't like his smugness. I dunno about the mom & daughter, something has been off about the daughter. So I guess either of the 2 remaining teams are ok. They have both been pretty consistently good.

[Ms Lark]

37 minutes ago, LitllBear said:

I believe in a previous episode they said their house burned down and they have been living in an RV.

Sorry to hear that. Still, playing the victim card is never a good look.

[cardigirl]

12 hours ago, tinkerbell said:

My unpopular opinion - I like Thomas and his mom.   His comments are made, as an aside, to his mom, and are EXACTLY the kind of comments I would make if I were competing - especially if I thought the tv cameras and mic were not going to pick up everything I say.   

He does seem pretty intense and competitive, but he IS on a competitive baking show.  He hasn't been mean to other teams.  I guess I identify with him, I would be muttering to my teammate in the same nervous way.  

I'm right there with you. And he was pretty subdued this episode, and they made the winning showstopper or whatever it is called. Plus his mother with Ken was adorable.  

The mother daughter team bug me and always have, but they got so much play this episode, I'm wondering if that is setting them up for the finale to be the winners. I'm certain this is all cut together after everything is filmed so no reason to give so much play to her meltdown if they're not going to make a triumphant return next week. 

The other two couples are fine and do nice work, but don't entertain me as much.  

I was sad to lose the two veterans but they have been very inconsistent with figuring out the clues. 

I'll miss this show too.  It's kind of a cute show. But I don't know if it's sustainable for another season.

[eel21788]

On 7/14/2021 at 7:59 PM, CrazyInAlabama said:

 Natalie and Luis get the extra clue. and they think the Showpiece is a Geode cake.

The extra clue always seems to do more harm than good. At this point, I don't think they should be working very hard to try to win it, so they don't accidently sabotage themselves.

[proserpina65]

19 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

The jokes about how Ken is on every single Fox reality show were funny, Ken and Joel work really well together. "You have five minutes before Ken leaves to host his eighth Fox show." 

I usually have a low Ken Jeong tolerance level, but he was great here.  I guess maybe he's just best in small doses, because his bits with Joel were really funny.

10 hours ago, eyesopen said:

I feel it's not really not true as they keep saying that these bakers are the best in the country.  They don't seem to be at all.  Sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not.  If they're professional bakers they should be good 90% of the time.  I don't see why some of their bakes are bad.  They're ordinary people, so maybe consistently they're not going to be good detectives, but there's no excuses for having bad bakes.  They have hours, hours, at least 3 hours on average.  How can you still botch up baking multi layer cakes with or without filling with so much time?  I think they should spend less time on decorating, some time so it's not plain but not too much time.

The amount of time given is generally not adequate to produce the kind of bakes they're expected to produce.  3 hours for something like a geode cake or a fault line cake is very tight.  Compare that to the amount of time bakers on The Great British Baking Show get - and even the contestants on that show sometimes run out of time.

Where I think the bakers from Vegas do excel is how they manage their time.  They don't always choose the right thing, but they choose quickly and spend little time on interpersonal conflict.  But their ability to do exceedingly fancy things in a very short time is rather unusual.

6 hours ago, Ms Lark said:

Homesteaders can go jump. Are they living in their car or what? 

Sort of.  They're living in an rv due to some setbacks they'd experienced.  I know the clips talk about how much they want to win so they can get back into a real house, but I think that's a matter of the producers including the same clips multiple times rather than the contestants saying it a lot.

2 hours ago, cardigirl said:

I'll miss this show too.  It's kind of a cute show. But I don't know if it's sustainable for another season.

I think it would probably work as a nice fluffy summer thing if they chose to do it that way.

[chitowngirl]

32 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

I think it would probably work as a nice fluffy summer thing if they chose to do it that way.

That’s pretty much all I’m looking for!

[Nancybeth]

I liked Emma and her mom up until this week -- I found her intensity and their banter kind of entertaining. But her meltdown this week turned me off. I'm a competitive person too but I had to agree when mom said, "It's just cake!"

I also don't mind Thomas and his mom. I think the teams are encouraged to be a little snarky and there are some people that are just better at it than others. He's catty but I don't read it as truly mean.

Lorie and Jason seem SO FAMILIAR to me -- does anyone know if they've been featured on another show? 

[AZChristian]

23 minutes ago, Nancybeth said:

Lorie and Jason seem SO FAMILIAR to me -- does anyone know if they've been featured on another show? 

I was curious so I googled them. Lorie was on two episodes of Food Network Challenge in 2011, and Jason is listed as her assistant.

The fire that destroyed their home was in 2013, and they didn't own the home - they were renters without renters' insurance.  They started a gofundme shortly after the fire, and raised less than $2,000 of a $10,000 goal.  They posted this update in July of 2013 (not too long after the fire):

"We are so excited!! We get to move into our new place on Monday. Finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. In a couple of weeks we should be completely settled in and life back to normal again. Thank you all again. Continue to keep us in your prayers!"

They opened a bakery and a coffee shop after that, and they both seem to have closed permanently in 2019 (not Covid related).

Sounds like the producers told them to make a big deal out of an occurrence from 8 years ago, and its probable that they're not living in a van down by the river with two kids.

[Quilt Fairy]

13 hours ago, eyesopen said:

I feel it's not really not true as they keep saying that these bakers are the best in the country.  They don't seem to be at all.  Sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not.  If they're professional bakers they should be good 90% of the time. 

Agree.  They're "professional" in the sense that they make their living from baking.  But many of the teams own small, limited item bakeries.  Even the amateur bakers on GBBO seem to have larger repertoires, or are at least prepared for a larger variety of tests.  

[The Crazed Spruce]

Please refrain from posting contestants' personal information in the forums.

[AZChristian]

Sorry.  

[Lisapooh]

This is the first week that I felt like I would have been in way over my head if I was a contestant. I guess that's good since it's the semi finals. 

I'd like to think I would have gone with opera cake. I know what it is and the teams were right...it was the obvious choice. I've just never made it before although it's been on every baking competition show ever created. I know how to make tiramisu so I would have been tempted to do that. I'm sure I would have talked myself into it, lol. I have looked up several opera cake recipes after watching this. I'll be trying it before long.

The banana cake itself seemed pretty obvious. I've seen geode and fault line cakes on lots of shows, but I've never made them either. And my decorating skills are pretty limited. Let's just call me a minimalist because I have a minimal list of decor I can do successfully. Whichever one I would have tried it would have ended up looking pretty crazy pants—of that I am certain. 

Very sorry to see the veterans go, but they were the right team to be eliminated. Especially missing the bananas completely and just going all in on flowers because it was Mother's Day. The daughter in the mother/daughter team did her best Thomas impersonation this episode. She was super snippy and way too intense. I mean, her mom is right—it's just cake. 

[Quilt Fairy]

46 minutes ago, Lisapooh said:

Especially missing the bananas completely

I thought the bananas were a red herring, since there was no strong evidence that they had been used.  There were no peels.  They had to deduce from a potato masher and the scent of bananas on the wax paper in the garbage.  I mean, it's not enough that they have to look through the garbage, now they have to smell it?  I know they overlooked some obvious things (once again, a written clue is always important), but I won't fault them for passing over the bananas. 

Edited July 19, 2021 by Quilt Fairy

[Chyromaniac]

On 7/16/2021 at 9:53 AM, eel21788 said:

The extra clue always seems to do more harm than good. At this point, I don't think they should be working very hard to try to win it, so they don't accidently sabotage themselves.

Yeah - that seems to be one element of the show that isn’t working.  Either the clue has been misinterpreted, or the information hasn’t been particularly relevant in solving the primary objective.  Like this week they got clues about the crystal colors- but whiffed on the cake type.  If it’s a fault line cake, why not give them a map with a highlight on the San Andreas?  Otherwise, I speculated after last week that the clue winners were perhaps getting overconfident due to the promise of extra info, and were missing stuff in the kitchen as a result.  If there is a season 2 (and honestly, it has to be pretty cheap to make, so why not?), they really need to make sure that the advantage is worth getting.  Maybe instead of/in addition to the mystery clue, the dessert round winners could get additional investigation time, or a verbal hint from the judges.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Chyromaniac

[Lisapooh]

7 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

I thought the bananas were a red herring, since there was no strong evidence that they had been used.  There were no peels.  They had to deduce from a potato masher and the scent of bananas on the wax paper in the garbage.  I mean, it's not enough that they have to look through the garbage, now they have to smell it?  I know they overlooked some obvious things (once again, a written clue is always important), but I won't fault them for passing over the bananas. 

I can see that, but what else would the masher in the drain board be for? Plus the correct showstopper in a previous episode was a ginger spice cake, so I’d hesitate to do it again. 
 

it’s super easy to be an armchair baker like I’m doing here. And honestly I think getting the decor right was probably weighted heavier on this task since they didn’t dwell on the cake flavor that much. Something definitive led the rest of the teams to guess banana correctly. 
 

I’m sorry to see them go. 

[eyesopen]

On 7/18/2021 at 9:55 PM, Quilt Fairy said:

I thought the bananas were a red herring, since there was no strong evidence that they had been used.  There were no peels.  They had to deduce from a potato masher and the scent of bananas on the wax paper in the garbage.  I mean, it's not enough that they have to look through the garbage, now they have to smell it?  I know they overlooked some obvious things (once again, a written clue is always important), but I won't fault them for passing over the bananas. 

It's fun for me to an armchair detective, but I think some clues and red herrings weren't well executed, which would have made me misinterpret things easily.  But that's the lousy cards a tv show will deal you, and that's why I think competition shows like this, 40% is random luck, and hopefully the luck is on your side.  Knowing me, luck won't happen to me, it'll run off to the next person, sad lol.

[SherriAnt]

I think the reason shows like this are so different in the U.K and U.S. is because on GBBO there's no money, just a trophy, so it seems friendlier. Also, I hate the sob stories, I don't care why you're on the show, I just want to watch you bake. 

And just being snitty, but I spent the show thinking Emma had her blouse on backwards!