One frame to sum up the technical.

If you need me, I’ll be behind the bike shed.

Flapjack of All Trades

The first challenge in what would turn out to be a deeply cursed week’s theme was for the bakers to create a batch of 12 flapjacks. Much like Nataliia making one small step for herself and one giant leap for Ukraine in terms of flapjack discovery

I didn’t really grow up with flapjacks as a thing in Zimbabwe. We called them crunchies on account of flapjacks being small pancakes, we also had Crunchie chocolate bars – the entire Little Treat Taxonomic system is a nightmare and in desperate need of revision and global compatibility. The one time we made Crunchies (Not the chocolate bar)/Flapjacks (not the pancakes) my older brother mixed up a teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of salt – they were monstrously vile and I still remember the shock to the system upon tasting them. It took years to ever trust an Oaten Baked Bar of Any Description™ ever again, I just thought they were all like that.
The twist in this tale is that flapjacks would ultimately become the one thing keeping me alive when I was hospitalised for anorexia but I feel like that’s REALLY bringing down the tone of this recap.

As with any Signature Challenge with a relatively simple brief, 12 flapjacks with 1 extra topping or flavour, it becomes a death race to being the most unique. Oftentimes, to the extent that a baker completely loses sight of the original brief. Tom, for instance. made flapjacks but… how much of his final product is actually a flapjack?

mate, at least 70% of your tray of flapjack is STILL IN THE TRAY

the judges were far more lenient and forgiving of this flagrant missing of the brief – I think he could’ve done the apple crumble theme, using all of these components and presented an actual flapjack, and possibly saved himself near critical levels of stress

you can very much tell how how stressed Tom is based entirely on the state of his hair – it’s like a divining rod of angst – it’ll always point towards the most stressed person in the room

(it’s always him)

On a similar note, Lesley had decided to overcomplicate the whole process by not only making flapjacks but also baking a shortbread base for her Cherry Bakewell Flapjacks. On top of that, she was also the unfortunate fall guy for the Paul Hollywood as Headmaster gimmick on account of her being the closest to Paul’s age and therefore the show thinking it’d be less icky. It was still pretty icky

every time they did this I wanted to bolt from the room like Iain fleeing the tent to have a momentary recess

I did very much enjoy Nataliia seeing this happen and having a sort of realisation that you can actually leave the tent, there is life beyond your NPC activation field!

RUN, GIRL!

Lesley, as everyone could’ve told her, didn’t end up with enough time for her flapjacks to cool and they did look a little bit of a mess but I have to applaud her effort to do feathering on her rapidly melting icing – it did make her decoration look like a bleeding pontiff but I admire the effort in the face of adversity

she wasn’t the only one to have melting issues as Nadia also fell behind and her chocolate just wasn’t setting

that illicit chocolate tempering cheat sheet really payed off

her flapjacks were the classic theme of My Favourite Chocolate Bar That I Cannot Say The Name Of™

if you’re having to decant golden syrup out of a preserve jar because the show can’t show Lyon’s branding, you sure as hell can’t say Bounty

as a result of the fact she was having to cut blindly through the quagmire of unset chocolate

Nadia’s final batch of Two Pack Coconut Chocolate Bar That Start With B and End With -ounty Flapjacks, did look a bit like a Bounty Bar had been abusing The Substance

we’d all get a bit insecure when the hotter, younger Raspberry and Dark Chocolate flapjack played by Margaret Qualley starts replacing us

Jasmine’s weren’t wildly original, but the judges were more complimentary of the bake on her flapjack being spot on than the actual flavour combination – which is a classic that you can’t really go wrong with.

Jessika however was swinging wild with her flapjacks – taking inspiration from the worst dessert, poached pears, and using a red wine reduction in place of golden syrup

I love Jessika, I have to reject these in their entirety. The judges however liked the flavour but weren’t convinced of the texture, because as it turned out Jessika had made a last minute decision to reduce the amount of oats in a flapjack… GIRL, a flapjack is like 90% oat, that’s like casually taking out a couple of ribs for shits and giggles!

but she wasn’t the only one doing a bit of improvisational recipe fudging, as Toby added extra cinnamon to his Carrot Cake Flapjacks because they really loved cinnamon last time (his first mistake was thinking the judging on this show would ever be consistent)

meaning Jessika and Toby now have to be separated and sat next to better influences

Toby was really on the right track to a winner too – his flapjacks looked immaculate

Bake Off really does wonders for the artificial lawn industry.

Iain was also taking inspiration from other baked goods with his Banana Bread flapjacks that similarly looked very good

however, the texture was a bit too soft and required a bit of Jedi mind trickery to convince the judges

look Paul if they’re good enough for his Hot Pole Dancing Goth Girlfriend, they’re sure as hell good enough for you

Bake Off’s weirdest trait continues to be treating what have become pretty ordinary hobbies as exotic oddities – see also Pui Man painting rocks and leaving them around for people to find, which is essentially pole dancing for self-described quirky girls.

Nataliia, relatively unfamiliar with a flapjack, decided she was just going to default to the Bake Off safe zone of dumping a whole lot of booze into hers and hoping that would be enough to get at least Prue on her side

it did not work

Lastly we have Aaron’s Earl Grey Mascarpone and Lemon Jam Flapjacks that I also think are more of a good cake idea than flapjacks (I have to say, I am generally against the idea of an iced flapjack)

but the judges really loved the flavour combination of his earl grey and lemon jam bridge to nowhere. Aaron is rapidly rising as one of my favourites this year, I just liked how he talked about adding pumpkin seeds EXACTLY how James McAvoy talks about paprika in the movie Split

line delivery of the decade, honestly.

An Unofficial Flapjack Ranking:
1. Jasmine’s Younger, Fitter, Hotter Flapjacks
2. Aaron’s Lemon Bridge to Nowhere
3. Toby’s Free-range Grazing Carrot Cake Flapjacks
4. These Are The Banana Bread Flapjacks You Were Looking For
5. Tom’s Fractional Flapjack
6. Jessika’s Red Wine and Jumbo Oat Reduction
7. There’s No Such Thing as a Ukrainian Flapjack
8. Nadia’s Flopjacks
9. Lesley Bake-Unwell Tart Flapjacks

Cake Ate My Homework

A stupid theme calls for an even stupider Technical Challenge as the bakers were tasked with creating the enigmatic School Cake. The bigger twist than “What even is that?” being that the bakers would have to make everything, including the sprinkles for some reason, from scratch without modern technology

I don’t quite know why, because “back to school” for most of these contestants means 2010 and even then, sprinkles have existed since the 18th century and sold in shops since before the first world war. I refuse to believe anyone since 1875 has made their own sprinkles and then it didn’t even go hysterically wrong enough to have warranted the entire palaver! I thought we might have a little bit of throwback fun when people started baking their icing

but no, it turns out you did actually have to bake the sprinkles

The hardest part of the challenge was the creaming of the butter and sugar together

says the baker built the most like lunchlady Doris – we all saw you wrestling, sir

Toby’s cake did end up suffering from a Big Sinkage

this did not end up hampering his bake all that much as Toby once again came fourth, mostly on account of that turbo arm whisk installment that came with the TobyBot-3000 upgrade. Lesley had to defer to divine intervention

and I hate to say it, but there might be something in that given she came 5th on an edit that seemed to be propelling her towards a bottom tier ranking like a science project designed to keep an egg safe from a 30 foot drop.

Nadia seemed to struggle the most with the creaming, being in constant pain the moment she picked up that wooden spoon

and sort of just gave up and shrugged her way through the rest of the challenge like my little brother doing his first Sudoku in year 5 when he just put random numbers in each square <3

and it was only downhill from there for her as she forgot to add her vanilla essence so had to go for a late stage illegal baking manoeuvre

and then they had the audacity to ask her to do maths by working out how to cut her cake into sixteenths – don’t tell her, but I think it actually took more effort to work out how to cut it into fifteenths

her cake was also a touch overbaked, by which I mean to was hard enough for Paul to play like a percussion instrument

on completely the other end of the spectrum, Jasmine rose to the top seemingly by treating the entire concept of the challenge with a level sceptical disdain that seems intrinsic to a School Cake

it is by all means a baked good that doesn’t want to exist and yet is forced to and as such must be instilled with contempt.

An Official School Cake Technical Ranking:
1. Jasmine’s Russell Group School Cake
2. Aaron’s B+ School Cake
3. Iain’s Gold Star School Cake
4. The Unsinkable TobyBot-3000
5. Lesley’s Catholic School Cake
6. Tom’s Sixth Education
7. Jessika’s Split Stream School Cake
8. Nataliia’s You Wouldn’t Know Her, She Goes To Another School Cake
9. Nadia’s School Cake Dropout

A Fete Worse Than Death

Their Showstopper was a monster of a challenge and came with the unfortunate disadvantage of not being able to have your mum do it all the night before. I had expected something like a cake themed around your favourite subject at school or what you wanted to be when you grew up. However, the theme was instead a School Fete Display consisting of 1 large bake and 2 accompanying smaller bakes.
Filming did also have to imaginably be delayed for a day when Nataliia pitched up with a knuckleduster cake, bloody hoop earring doughnuts and biscuits with “SLAAAAAG!” delicately piped around the edges

hers did ultimately devolve the most into just being a School Themed Tableau with her illusory school bag, pencil-shaped biscuits and mousse-filled apples

it’s all really cute and well executed though, so they couldn’t really critique her on it and it was just nice to see Nataliia hoiking herself out of the danger-zone like one of Toby’s ducks amidst an existential crisis

and thus begins our 3 paddling pool and an inflatable jelly bowl pile-up. Ultimately Toby’s smaller bakes were stronger than his structurally precarious pool

but it was all praised thorough and it was just nice to hear them praising his flavours and not calling him dull for once

You are a real boy, Toby!

It was Tom and Jasmine in contention for best duck pond, on account of Iain refusing to do any of the heavy lifting when it came to the illusory side of his fete display – which honestly, deserves a A+ for his dedicated method acting of disinterested school child who resents being signed up for manning the coconut shy for half an hour

I want to know how much fear he began feeling as he started blowing up his inflatable jelly bowl-to-be while Tom and Jasmine (sorry Toby) began sculpting absolutely perfect paddling pools – Tom’s is particularly clever with the use of the scalloped scraper to give it that bubbled effect

it’s just a shame he then dowsed this duck pool party in dry ice like that Jagermeister event that nearly killed 9 people

and yet still not as big a PR disaster as Iain’s… “They’re just… blocks”

he is so bloody lucky that Jessika’s intention of reviving the majesty of the dinosaurs from ages gone by

instead turned out to be a depiction of their painful demise as her Triceratops, Derek, sank slowly back into the tar pit of her uncooked Chocolate Stout Cake

HE’S DYING, PAUL! DEREK’S DYING AND YOU’RE LAUGHING!?

Meanwhile, Tom’s science experiment of mouldy creme brulee petri dishes went by completely uncommented upon

I hate these with such an almighty passion but perhaps have to concede they were a little bit clever, even if I do think they’re a bit incongruous with the rest of his theme being Hook-a-Duck and the coconut shy that Iain was neglecting to run

whereas Jasmine’s trio of fete games was extremely well composed and probably the most cohesive (complimentary) behind Iain’s tableau of struggling dial-up modem noises (disparaging) and Jessika’s diorama of dinosaur death (upsettin’)

Having come into the Showstopper in an incredibly precarious position, Nadia was going for extra credit with the addition of a fourth bake

I’m not sure it entirely sure counts given 2 of her bakes were doughnuts but I also don’t want to kick a woman whose taken out a second mortgage to try and win the bottle of shiraz from the Tombola while she down

however, the illusory doughnut brownie burgers were alarmingly convincing and well done

even if I do think a brownie sandwiched between two slices of doughnut is perhaps Extremely Grim™. And if I had a nickel for every time someone used a brownie as illusory beef this episode, I’d have two nickels. It’s not a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice

it is a genuinely impressive illusion cake and I can see why Lesley whipped it out of her back pocket even though I highly doubt Big Pie™ was ever a keystone of any primary school fete, bake sale or otherwise. But you can just whack “1970s” on anything and nobody will ever really fact check you. Kids in the 1970s couldn’t get enough of Big Pie™. Big Pie™ was my favourite Bagpuss character.

Lastly we have Aaron, who was the only one not opting for a cake of some sort as his Big Bake. Instead choosing to make a great big macaron stopwatch

he’d gone for more of a sports day theme, which I could personally relate to a lot more. In so much as I wore a coloured bib and just hoped to God nobody told me it was my turn to partake in an event. I was the Iain’s Keyboard From Home of my school’s sports day. I just sat there offering nothing but vibes and the occasional clicking noise.

A School Fete Cake Display???? Ranking:
1. Jasmine’s Quoits Amazing Fete
2. Mad Scientist Tom
3. Toby, The Real Boy!
4. Nataliia’s Schoolyard Brawl
5. Lesley’s Baked Bake Sale
6. Nadia Doughnuts²
7. On Your Macaron, Get Set, Go!
8. Iain’s Extremely Weird Cake to Plastic Ratio
9. Jessika’s Ill-Feted Dinosaur

Having decisively aced all three challenges, it was a pretty undeniable second Star Baker for Jasmine

and while Jasmine works on a cure for whatever weapon of chemical warfare Tom is growing in a petri dish, another baker must fall. While it seemed geared up for Lesley or Nadia to be sent packing, it is rather undeniable that Jessika’s Dino Death Knell was quite a dud

eventually the Bi Panic must become the Bye, Panic.

And so, Iain onto a hopefully more normal Chocolate Week!