TobyBot-3000 learns emotions can be… bad?

Down with Handshake Capitalism!

Who Mousse?

For their Chocolate Week Signature Challenge, the bakers had to make a batch of 6 Chocolate Mousse Cups which had to feature at least one baked element

I do feel like having to mandate a baked good on a show literally called The Great British Bake Off means that perhaps the challenge isn’t made for this show. It also, rather expectedly resulted in a three tiramisu pile-up between Aaron, Tom and Lesley. The latter at least differentiating herself from the other two by being bad

aside from the fact her ganache had split, the bigger problem was that Lesley had just kind of crapped up her tiramisu beyond recognition as a tiramisu. At some point you’ve just got to accept that you’re making a trifle – all she’s missing is a fistful of jelly

Aaron and Tom had both gone for a more gimmicky approach of making their Tiramisu Mousse Cups look like a double espresso to go. Prue however only does a venti mocha

and by “venti mocha” I do mean, a bucket of cointreau

the only real difference between Aaron and Tom’s was that Aaron had adorable little mini-croissants

while Tom made biscotti

but Aaron got to say “Golden Chocolate”. However Aaron’s mousse was just a little bit soft and underset – some of us would just call that “authentically drinkable”

whereas Tom’s were annoyingly perfect in a slightly boring way and thus got a handshake

don’t worry, nothing proves the absolute worthlessness of the Hollywood Handshake more than this episode as Aaron started plotting to take down the Handshake Economy down from the inside

Godspeed comrade.

There were a lot of pretty expected flavour combinations, Jasmine continues to embrace the mundane with some extremely well executed Hazelnut and Dark Chocolate Cups

and thus, the Leaf-shaped Tuile contagion has reached Bake Off. Jasmine’s flavours never excite me but she does always at least have some sort of interesting technique – her Hazelnut Butter Core worked beautifully and did sound very tasty.
The only baker that felt like they were bringing something a bit different was Iain, and even then his was largely just a handwrought Black Forest Gateau

but he at least had an imported Belgian beer for Prue to neck

and I really liked that it all came served in a goblet that looks like it could be an alternative murder weapon in a game of Cluedo

he had sadly run out of time to get the Chantilly cream on as it hadn’t reached a fistable consistency despite his illegal creaming manoeuvre once time was called

and the Pyrex measuring jug does kind of ruin the medieval aesthetic like that Starbucks coffee cup that got a starring role in Game of Thrones

I did also really like Nataliia’s take on the My Mousse Cup is Just A Cup because I really love how ugly the cups are

they look like the interior of one of those 1970s shag vans

and I would take that over a million of Tom and Aaron’s non-descript independent cafe takeaway cups. I want weird and baffling! Which is why I was gutted that Nadiya gave up decorating her cups like a Jupiterian Quinceanera

I think it would’ve made the final result look a lot more fun

even if I’m not taken by the design of them, pistachio and white chocolate, while definitely as expected and classic as Jasmine’s Hazelnut and Dark Chocolate, is always a winner in my book.

And lastly we have Toby with his Orange-shaped Chocolate Orange Mousse Cups

gee whiz, Paul. I wonder where the inspiration for the orange-shaped chocolate orange dessert came from.
While I wasn’t overly enamoured with this challenge, I do think it was at least well planned on behalf of production given that Toby had to redo his chocolate moulds because his shells were the thickness of a particularly disappointing orange

and he still had time for everything to set correctly. Granted it at least helps that they’ve also moved the filming dates out of peak heatwave season. However, it’s hubris season all year round

An Unofficial Chocolate Mousse Cup Ranking:
1. Iain’s Fistfuls of Gateau
2. Tom’s £7.60 Cup of Coffee
3. Aaron’s Drinkable Mousse
4. Jasmine’s Ferrero Rocher By Any Other Name
5. Nataliia’s Sippable Shag Van
6. Toby’s Mysterious Orange-shaped Chocolate Orange
7. Nadia’s Plain Sailing
8. Lelsey’s Tiramis-oops

Tart Attack

This week’s Technical Challenge was a bit of a novelty, being more of a test of restraint than technical prowess. The bakers were tasked with creating a White Chocolate Ganache Tart. However, the twist was they had to create additional fillings and toppings using anything from the provided spread

so yes, this was absolutely just a MasterChef Invention Test wearing a fake moustache and doing a west country accent. The bakers had 5 minutes to select additional ingredients and like any good D&D ultimatum – anything they took from the table, had to be used in their tarts. Even Iain’s single leaf of basil

personally I think they should’ve drawn straws and had to go one by one with an ever diminishing amount of ingredients, inevitably leaving someone to be screwed over with a handful of mint and the dregs of the Rosewater Essence that Pui Man hadn’t laced her Fondant Nightmares with. Godspeed to whoever would’ve had to follow Nataliia and her sticky fingers that gripped to anything they touched

there were a few issues with her tart – the flavours not being one of them because in an Everything Tart there’s at least 1 combination of things you might like together, but her ganache was too loose and the pastry a dental risk

however she was still spared from last place on the grounds of Nadia being surprised that pummelling pastry into its pastry case might result in a Not Great™ pastry shell

she did attempt to remake it, but with only like 10 minutes to bake the pastry, it was no surprised that it caved in from the lightest of taps

even the lesser two of the Three Little Pigs were better structural engineers than that! And she was not exactly winning any points back with a tart that had the same aesthetic as Chaos Stefan’s Purple Potato Doggy Chew Toy from MasterChef

however, at least despite the fact it looks like the Teletubbies embraced brutalist architecture, the combination of Blackberry, Raspberry and White Chocolate will always work. Not many of the bakers went wrong with flavours – Nataliia had obviously created the War and Peace of flavour profiles but the only baker who got a “That’s a bit weird” was Tom for his Blackberry and Basil Cream

but they still gave him fourth place because Tom has no pokerface and the second he gets any negative feedback he pulls a face that has you wondering if you need to call the interventive crisis team

and thus allowed to beat Toby and his flaccid chocolate shards

It’s ok, Tom! Just lie back and think about Iain flopping his Raspberry and Single Basil Leaf Tart all over the place

I think it’s quite impressive that he ended up with a tart that was leaking more than Nadia’s that came with a great big hole in the side of it without dropping it.

The judging in general was a little all over the place and hard to actually pinpoint what the grading criteria was because the top three were Aaron in third despite an ungenerous filling

Jasmine in second for not really making a White Chocolate Tart at all

and Lesley in first place because, generously, if she’d had a little bit longer her ganache would’ve set after all

yeah and if Iain had had 5 minutes more he might not have tried flinging his tart onto the display stand like he was trying to score a last minute goal in Ultimate Frisbee.

An Official White Chocolate Tart Ranking:
1. Lesley’s Fictional Extra 20 Minutes
2. Jasmine’s Milk Chocolate Outlier
3. Aaron’s 2/3s of a Tart
4. Tom’s Pity Placement
5. Toby’s Chocolate’s Got A Headache Tonight
6. Nataliia’s Everything and a Jawbreaker Tart
7. Iain’s Battered Tart
8. Tubby Brutalism by Moshe Saf-Dipsy

How You Fonduing?

In new parodic heights of Not A Thing™ that this show all too regularly leans into, this year’s Chocolate Week Showstopper was to create an entirely edible Chocolate Fondue Display with yet another mandate of one Significant Baked Element and two dippable components, which they didn’t mandate had to be baked goods so Iain got away with just covering honeycomb in chocolate

sure.

The trickiest part of this whole thing was naturally figuring out how to contain the dipping sauce. Which honestly, I think everyone was really successful at – we didn’t end up with half as many chocolatey ruptures as I’d anticipated. Doubly surprising considering Toby was just body slamming his pistachio genoise around like he was in a WWE cage match

Toby had originally wanted to serve his little copper cauldron on a butcher’s block because he loves to cook

but that would’ve been too short and he didn’t know that Aaron’s piano would have a set of stilts to loan out

so he pivoted to a camping stove which…

sure, I guess. I love that you can still see the bones of the original ideas there and then the yellow block just slammed in there to meet the height requirement <3 And the insole of a cake very much tasted like it was only there begrudgingly

and unfortunately both his Churros and Graham Crackers were similarly dry and too hard – you have never heard a churro crunch as loudly as Toby’s did

leaving Toby to go sit at the back of the tent nibbling on his horrible canine dental treats and think about what he’d done

AND YET, Toby’s Quest to Become a Real Boy would somehow continue into next week on account of Nadia’s Ladies’ Day Display looking like Aintree had experienced a landslide and no horses were spared

I do love how unhinged it is to have the shoe being the the dipping pot – it just makes me think about Hugh Bonneville, Bill Murray, Paloma Faith and Matt Damon all drinking and generally assaulting Paloma’s shoe on the Graham Norton Show

but the whole thing was really lacking any finesse as the box barely contained the tiramisu

her tempering of the chocolate though was beautiful – just about mirror finished, it is just a shame it’s covered in incredibly incriminating fingerprints

but on top that, they were also very positive about her flavours – the only real technical critique was that her savoiardi biscuits were underbaked. But also, they’d already had three tiramisus this week, so I can see why it might be underwhelming.

In terms of really embracing a theme, I think Nataliia wins hands down with her interactive edible diorama of the last days of Pompeii

it’s the perfect balance of genuinely well executed and slightly deranged – if only we could go back in time and tell someone who was about to die in the fires of Pompeii to not worry, in 1,947 years time someone descended from the Bosporan Kingdom will whimsically recreate this moment of tragedy in dippable chocolate in the lands of Roman Britain. I think we sometimes forget like 3000 people died that day… but at least we know that in the year 3948 someone can finally render 9/11 in gingerbread to be judged by Paul Hollywood’s eyes and right hand wired up to the shell of a Cyberman.
But Nataliia’s success went far beyond the aesthetic, with her choux buns and chocolate cake also being incredibly well baked and received by the judges. I’m really rooting for Nataliia, she seems delightfully unaffected, which is refreshing amongst the forced storytelling of Aaron vs Tom

I could not care less about who wants and gets handshakes – it is the worst part of this show. Especially when they’re just being thrown at the two safest options

I really like Jasmine, I think she’s ace and a really fun personality in the tent. However, her baking leaves me cold. Nothing about it ever feels risky or ingenuitive. Her Fondue Sculpture is great and could well win the annual water feature challenge on Pottery Throwdown

but the dippable pear financier cakes are giving me Seth from Top Chef: Just Desserts trying to serve an orange and dark chocolate financier cake to school children in a high school gymnasium bake sale. There’s just nothing personal about it, or most of her baking – at least Seth brokedown screaming about the red hots being for his mommy

I need Jasmine to have a red hots moment. Just to prove she’s more than 3 Easy-Bake Ovens in a trench coat. Tom at least periodically fucks up and has the constantly on edge hunger in his eyes only present in starving tundra wolves and ex-twinks with daddy issues

and sure, the show can try forcing The Handshaking Cuckold storyline by cutting to Aaron every time Paul’s hand so much as twitches

but the real plotline of the week was Iain and his proposal to Dervla which might be the cutest long play I’ve ever seen as he recreated their favourite spot for this challenge and then proposed to her there on their 9th visit the weekend before this episode

I’m going to assume she knew it was happening when Iain left the house in his smart jacket and turtleneck and asked her to dress up nice too

still the cutest thing and his recreation of Glenariff Forest Park looked really good

and at least his waterfall worked, Lesley had just looked at the concept of physics, shrugged and told her chocolate fountain to work it out for itself

I have grown to love Lesley and the seeming lack of shits she is want to give – she’s got grandmotherly plot armour, why should she reach for the highest shelf of concepts? She’ll make you a nice cake and you’ll like it. And most of the time you don’t even get that

I’m all in on her and Iain flopping their ways to the top at this point while the others all lose sight on the competition by focusing on the jingling set of keys we call the Hollywood Handshake.

Speaking of which, in that particular tussel, Aaron was gaining ground for his genuinely extremely well made chocolate piano

considering Toby’s and Nadia’s were just boxes barely managing to hold themselves together, and the last piano we had on the show…

I was floored by how good this was. I’m glad that Aaron seems to have found his footing in the competition. I get the feeling they’re trying to paint him as the underdog winner but in my eyes he curbstomped everyone in this particular challenge. He always has an interesting twist – in this case his Chinese Five Spice Florentines were really risky but a roaring success

He, Nataliia and Iain are my ideal finalists. It’s a snowball’s chance in hell of happening so long as Jasmine finds new and intriguing ways to combine chocolate and raspberries or chocolate and hazelnut

(I do really like Jasmine, I promise!)

Lastly we have Tom and the 50 direct-to-camera jokes about his lighthouse left on the cutting room floor

unfortunately Alison Hammond’s ability to sniff out a phallic lump of chocolate like a truffle pig had instead lead her straight to Iain’s semi-tree

and Tom’s baking was just as unsuccessful as his madeleines hadn’t developed the signature hump and his Raspberry and Hazelnut Creme Pat in his profiteroles was overpowering, with a hastily added “not unpleasant, still delicious!” because Tom looked like he was about to go make himself the 3001st death of Pompeii by drowning himself in Nataliia’s lava fondue

granted, he was the second one to be judged so he hadn’t seen Toby’s suplexed cake being torn to shreds. But his little octopus was cute

I’ll always appreciate a Little Guy.

An Unofficial Fondue Display Ranking:
1. Aaron’s Piano Forté
2. Nataliia’s Pompeii and Ceremony
3. Iain’s Prelude to a Proposal
4. Jasmine is Potter of the Week
5. Tom’s Polishing The Lighthouse
6. Lesley’s Simple and Ineffective Cascade
7. Nadia Can Do It Better In Broken Heels
8. Toby’s Battered and Bruised Fondue

Despite two contestants getting handshakes and one of them even beating Aaron in the Technical Challenge, Aaron still went on to become Star Baker

I’m thrilled or him, the math is most certainly not mathing, and they almost certainly did it just to stop Jasmine getting the hat-trick (good) but it does feel like a panicked production decision over being toos cared of signposting the winner too early and were fine with undermining the supposed sancricity of the Hollywood Handshake.

The elimination was also a little bit contentious, Toby’s showstopper was diabolical – NOTHING tasted good, NOTHING was baked well and yet, his 5th place in the Technical and perfectly fine and ordinary Signature Legally Distinct Chocolate Oranges were enough to save him

I just think that Toby is on like his third flop week and really probably should’ve been put out of his misery as opposed to Nadia who seemed to still be having fun and not locked in a Homeric quest to find her own humanity.

And so, we venture onto Pastry Week