Matty, Tasha, Dan And Josh Photograph: Channel 4 / Love Productions
And next week is the FINAL!
After nine weeks (gosh that flew!) next Tuesday at 8pm is the Final.
And it’s between Dan, Josh and Matty.
Matty sums it up his inclusion better than I would ever be able to: “who would have thought it?”
See you then, oh and with Alison. Thank GOD.
And Tasha is leaving the Bake Off tent.
TASHA! One of the viewer favourites this year. It’s been a real ride for her. She won Star Baker two weeks in a row, felt unwell one of the challenges and had to withdraw, drew a caterpillar cake face with Noel Fielding sideburns then got knocked out of the competition on her birthday, no less.
But what has been such a delight to see is Tasha realising how much of a good baker she really is and what she can truly achieve. What she said earlier in the episode really summed it up: “The confidence it has given me to believe in myself in such a short space of time is amazing.”
Star Baker is … Josh
TWO Star Bakers apiece for everyone. Never seen anything like it going into a final.
Tasha. Tasha! Tasha is doomed isn’t she?
Tasha couldn’t cut hers and has ‘incredible lamination’ but a grainy curd.
Alas, I think Tasha’s time in the tent is up.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUUU. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUUUUUUUU!
Matty is looking at a little Tower of Pisa, with rubbery pastry.
The masala pastry has got a better review. I reckon we’re still on for next week.
Tasha's 'Mango Mojito' Millefoglie Showstopper. #GBBO pic.twitter.com/mFCBPQmrNC
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) November 21, 2023
Dan’s guitar is a bit squashed, but so imaginative.
The mirror glaze is a bit rubbery. A fine attempt. A finalist too, I think.
Dan's 'Hypersonic' Millefoglie Showstopper - a tribute to @SamFenderMusic. #GBBO pic.twitter.com/uCfrj5fyCW
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) November 21, 2023
And now the showstopper judging.
Starting with Josh.
“A thing of beauty,” says Prue. It truly is.
Prue disagrees with Paul. She doesn’t even think that it has been overbaked.
Josh's Lemon, Blackberry & Blackcurrant Millefoglie Showstopper. #GBBO pic.twitter.com/E1vCYZd5l5
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) November 21, 2023
same. no problem here.
Dan now helps Tasha with a minute to spare, helping to pop out her moulds.
Josh’s looks neat as a pin.
What a challenge. Dan jokingly does a Joe Sugg and collapses to the floor.
Matty: “I have a plan. Hide with fruit.”
Story of my life, Matty.
TASHA’S LAYERS ARE COMING BACK.
A sentence I did not think I would write in capslock today, I’m not gonna lie.
OK Tasha has said “this might not be the first time I don’t finish the challenge” but it isn’t the end of the challenge yet.
There’s still hope!
Tasha’s puff pastry has no layers at all.
They’ve gone puff into smoke, it seems.
But Dan, he’s just motivating her. He’s become a real hero to the other bakers these past few episodes, and it has been a delight to see.
And Josh forgot to turn his oven on.
WEEK NINE, JOSH. WEEK NINE.
And the framed photo of Josh’s Nan is back on the table.
Matty is making a three tier millefoglie delightfully full of booze.
And Tasha is having the most stressful birthday imaginable. I remember that at the start of this episode she says that she doesn’t reckon she is going to finish this challenge. Does that actually happen? It looks like it might.
Oh god, it is Tasha’s birthday and she might go home.
At least she’s baking mango though, right?
OK. I will try not to Get You Down this challenge.
Please stop, Scott. Stop with the Sam Fender puns! Why are you making me Play God?
Dan is baking his millefoglie shaped like a guitar because he couldn’t make a Sam Fender gig the other week. He is now Getting Started with making it.
He is Playing God with his layers, baking quite a few (Seventeen Going Under.)
“Will We Talk?” about how bad these jokes are – my editor, probably.
Paul every single challenge: “This has to be perfect.”
Easiest job in the world.
It is a millefoglie showstopper, which they have to bake in four hours.
And for Josh it usually takes two days.
And their rankings: 4. Tasha (“big problem with the pastry and the shape wasn’t as good as I was expecting”) 3. Dan (“looked a bit clumsy … but it was delicious”) 2. Matty (“pretty good, but it needed longer in the oven”) 1. Josh (“absolutely lovely.”)
We’re in a really interesting situation. Tasha did incredibly well in the signature, then ended up in last place in the technical. Josh got his first technical win, but others performed better in the signature.
Dan is a clear frontrunner, along with Matty, I would say.
And now the tarte aux pommes technical judging
And Paul and Prue’s reviews: Dan’s pastry has cracked, but tastes OK. Matty’s tart is neat and the apples have been well arranged, but it needed longer in the oven.
Tasha’s is deemed to be a disaster (oh no!) and wasn’t baked blind enough (oh no!) and was raw (nooooooo!) And Josh’s pastry “melts in the mouth.”
It is clear that Tasha’s is falling apart at the seams and only just about makes it in.
Like an Avanti train.
Prue instructions: “Working from the outside edge of the tart, arrange the apples skin side up in concentric overlapping circles.”
Anyone?
Of course Prue is writing these instructions for the bakers as if she is Dickens …
The bakers have to nappage. Any ideas? Anyone?
Noel: “Have you ever won a technical?”
Dan: “I’ve actually won three.”
Sir Professor John Curtice is spinning.
I once baked a pie without realising that you were supposed to put a layer of paper between the baking balls and the pie.
It was only when I was chiselling hot balls out of a pie I realised it was not intended.
Narrator: “The key to a perfect tart is to bake them blind for 25 minutes.”
But enough about me, what about their technicals?
I think Noel Fielding is running out of things to talk about nine weeks into Bake Off.
He just said: “Anyone got a nose as long as mine?”
According to Prue, you can’t mess up the flavour of a tarte aux pommes.
*glasses slip to the edge of my nose*
Let’s see.
The technical challenge is … tarte aux pommes.
Noel should have just let the “get set” be silent without Alison being there.
“Every week I am reminded I know absolutely nothing.”
Matty has never said anything more relatable.
Lovely
And now Dan. His bizarre matcha flavoured financiers are considered to …
A Handshake?!!!!! STOP!
You’re just encouraging him! Dan’s response is peak unadulterated Dan: “There is a lot of talk about a handshake from Paul. I would like a fistbump from Prue, personally.”
Josh next. Naming his financers ‘perfect puddings’ was not a good idea because, while Prue says they taste “delicious”, they are not perfect. They were slightly overwhelmed with the flavour of almonds.
How about ‘Josh’s Perfect Puddings Slightly Overwhelmed With Almond?’
Tasha’s coffee and hazelnut financier is “absolutely delicious” according to Prue, and the flavours are “spot on” says Paul.
Doesn’t get better than that, especially when she says she curdled her buttercream.
We start with Matty. His coffee financier is pretty strong, but deemed to be overbaked (!) and lacks moisture.
The mango, lime and coconut are apparently a lot better.
“You didn’t have to make them so thick,” remarks Prue.
*Harry Hill look to camera*
And it’s the final-cier countdown, as these patisseries are now being reviewed.
Sorry.
Oh god, Matty isn’t convinced that his financiers have been baked properly. And Tasha is having to pipe curdled buttercream because she hasn’t got any time to make a new batch!
Dan is comforting her with “my mousse is lumpy, so don’t worry.” God, he’s one of those people you’d want to come back to comfort you after a long, hard day at work.
Patisserie week is no doubt a challenging week for the bakers, so it requires their full concentration. As a result the tent is much quieter, made even more so by the absence of the tent’s liveliest characters such as Rowan and Saku.
It might result in the best bakes, but I’m not sure it results in the best television.
Tasha is hoping to put the horrors of her attempt to make Viennese whirls behind her. I hope she does, because for the life of me I can’t remember her having a Viennese whirl disaster. It shouldn’t bother her, if it doesn’t bother us.
Paul then says: “I like these moulds. They look like miniature coffins.”
Paul, have you considered becoming a life coach?
Matty is making financiers that contain tiramisu, coconut, mango and lime.
Ah, the return of the mango! Long-term readers of this liveblog will know this crisis well, but several years ago all the bakers were obsessed with using mango in their bakes, so much so that I made a video highlighting how many times it had been used.
we need to talk about how many mangoes there are on bake off this year #gbbo pic.twitter.com/xSCl1sCCxB
— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) November 3, 2020
That video took me four hours and got six retweets. No wonder I was single then.
Josh is making raspberry and almond, and chocolate, orange and hazelnut financiers.
Prue to Josh: “How many Star Bakers have you won Josh.”
Josh: “One.”
Prue: “Today is your day to catch up to the others!”
Dan is now stirring what looks like green gloop from a horror film.
Dan is like: “I just don’t know what they have got against my ideas.”
Dan is making a Matcha infus-– OF COURSE HE IS.
Honest to God. This is what happens when we complement his surreal concoctions.
Financiers seem hard to crack, because they have to be light and moist at the same time (like me).
And, because it is Bake Off in 2023 and we’re not allowed nice things, they also have to highly decorate them to ‘take them to another level’ (like me).
Josh: “It’s very quiet in the tent.”
I think Josh is referring to the lack of other contestants there, rather than Alison.
The signature challenge is two batches of financier patisserie
Ah, the patisserie challenge tradition of googling what they’re making to ensure that I have got the spelling right. It’s financier with a French accent. Good to know.
Oh and Alison Hammond is poorly, so she won’t be here this episode.
Someone has got to say babes in her place, and I fear it’ll be me.
Tasha reflects on one of the good things about Bake Off: “I’m so proud at how far I’ve come. The confidence it has given me to believe in myself in such a short space of time is amazing.”
And Dan just said: “I want to go to the pub.”
DING DING DING DING DING! That didn’t last long!
Matty: “That looks like it comes from a prison shop.”
Do prisons have shops?
Narrator: “On last week’s Bake Off.”
Everyone looks stressed and completely miserable.
Alison in the tent: “This is the party that I want to be at.”
No unfunny skit this week! Now that deserves a party.
Updated
As always, here’s a recap of last week’s episode. Pass the (party) poppers.
Dan: Inevitably, he will say this episode that he wants to go to the pub. Don’t blame him.
Josh: His Christmas party week showstopper was so good it was ‘French bakery window display’ good. How on Earth did he manage to bake choux buns, macarons and Christmas puddings all at the same time?!
Matty: We all thought Matty was not going to get that far, considering that in cake week he curdled his buttercream three times. But he has been a knock-out these past few weeks, last week receiving the coveted Star Baker. Gosh, what a run.
Tasha: Made a chocolate caterpillar cake with the face of Noel Fielding. I’ve written stranger sentences in my professional writing career, but not many.
And we said goodbye to Cristy … she was a truly impressive baker, but it felt like the right time, simply because the standards of the final four are hard to beat. No doubt we’ll see her in the montage of other bakers at the final.
⭐STAR BAKER WATCH⭐ I cannot remember the last time we had such a level playing field heading into the semi-finals. Matty, Dan and Tasha all have won Star Baker twice, while Josh has won Star Baker once. Rather staggering Josh didn’t get Star Baker last week, to be honest.
Hello babes and welcome to the Great British Bake Off. And … it’s patisserie week!
Last week was party week (AKA British tapas week). Mostly this consisted of Prue recoiling at anything beige and Alison yelling “IT’S PARTY WEEK” while the bakers were flushed with stress hovering over multiple pans.
The winner of last week was not just Matty (who got Star Baker), but also the M&S legal department after the technical challenge consisted of a ‘chocolate caterpillar cake.’
This came after they all had to make sausage rolls, and Paul Hollywood moaned about all of the sausage rolls being dry. Paul, have you ever eaten one? The inability to breathe because your mouth is so dry is very much the point of a sausage roll.
And, because it wouldn’t be a week without Dan adding in some batshit ingredients into his bake for no reason, he put prawns into his sausage rolls. Thanks Dan. I’d rather die!
