Partial Eclipse of the Tart.

Please be upstanding for the President of the Little Guys Society.

Gluten out of Ten

This week it’s Free-from Week, or to give it its full government name: Free-from Party Week which is a very ungainly mouthful

not that an ungainly mouthful is anything new to the show

they were starting Free-from Week with a Gluten-free Pastry Challenge in which the bakers had to make a batch of filled pastries suitable for a children’s party in what feels like a covert operation to get challenges for Junior Bake Off because Liam Charles is all out of ideas for new and intriguing ways to get pre-teens to do awful things to cookie dough.
I did like the particular focus they were putting on catering to children because as Nigella observed, kids with allergies and intolerances can often feel very left out. For the most part I think all the bakers managed to bring the required whimsy to the table. Some could maybe have pushed it a little further, I think Connie’s butterflies could have perhaps used a little decoration to sell the fantasy

but however much they look like Balsam Carpet Moths, she knocked it out of the park with her Blueberry and Frangipane filling, the only minor critique of it being that she could’ve afforded to go closer to the wing tip

which was a similar critique for Moyin’s Raspberry and Pistachio Monster Eyes

the single dot of raspberry jam in the centre wasn’t quite enough to add the needed sweetness to cut through the pistachio frangipane leaving them just a touch bland. However, he did have some of the most impressive lamination and rise in his pastry.

Monsters proved a popular theme, with Tom going for his own hoard of Pizza Slice beasts with varying amounts of eyes

something about the style and proportions of the faces really reminds me of the cartoon “Mike, Lu and Og” – a piece of media that I don’t think was even standing the test of time when it was first airing back in 1999

they were filled with a strong cheddar and this attempt at Parmigiano Reggiano

don’t worry, he was immediately enrolled into the Nigella Lawson School of Italian Cheeses for Lost Boys

and joining him in a savoury option was Gabe with his Hamburger Ladybirds

as Paul pointed out, they probably needed to have more smaller dots just to ensure they really came across as Ladybirds and not famed child-friendly character, Deadpool

they stilled loved the pastries though – particularly the filling and the base as it soaked up that sweet, sweet burger juice. The only minor criticism was that he had maybe rolled the pastry too thin, making it a bit too crisp and not giving it the melt-in-the-mouth feel that it needed. Which was kind of also Gary’s problem as his pastry ended up being more of a shortcrust than the puff pastry it was meant to be

but of all the designs, I think his would potentially go down the best at a children’s birthday party, even if I do think this would work better with biscuits than it does pastry

it looks like a bootleg Thomas the Tank Engine toy you found at a Japanese flea market. I find it very endearing but the editors were pulling no punches about how Gary had done as we get this RUDE edit of Gabe saying “I certainly wasn’t the worst” before they cut to Gary looking like a child who just lost Musical Statues

and while we’re on the subject of children’s party games, has ANYONE else ever played the “pick up the cereal box without using your hands” game Tom was on about? Because I feel like Clara did in every single Technical Challenge

and while Tom collapses into a forward fold with the ease of a well oiled twink, Alison was more of an incredibly temperamental clothes horse

I like to think they saw her doing this and IMMEDIATELY had them cast her for this year’s Taskmaster New Year’s Treat.

Lastly we have Mo taking us to the exotic climes of one of those American candy stores on a British high street that are definitely part of a money laundering scheme as he took inspiration from Pop Tarts

I’ve had Pop Tarts once in my life, they were the Hot Fudge variety and they were so sickly sweet I think I started seeing sounds. It probably didn’t help that I ate a whole box of 8 in one sitting but it was university essay season and I had a 3000 word essay about “The Depictions of Lesbianism in Hyper-postmodern Television: An Analysis of Glee” to finish and if I remember there’s a whole section in that essay about the piano as a bastion of masculinity and the symbolism of Santana setting one on fire

you can very much tell it was an essay written by a Pop Tart addled mind. Still got 84 for it and THAT is the American dream. Mo’s Pop Tarts also did him proud, earning him a handshake

which is meant to be a particularly big deal this week because it’s *gasps* Gluten-free

ok? I just think it’s weird to have a week that’s meant to be celebrating and showing people they can easily do free-from bakes while CONSTANTLY ragging on vegan, gluten-free or dairy-free bakes as inferior and tasting horrible.

An Unofficial Gluten-free Pastry Ranking:
1. Mo’s Legally Distinct Breakfast Toaster Tarts
2. Welcome to the stage, Miss Ladybird Hamburger!
3. Tom’s Four Unpronounceable Cheese Pizza
4. Moyin’s Slightly Too Free-from Raspberry Eyes
5. Connie’s Gluten-free Carpet Moths
6. Gary will be hearing from the M&S Lawyers

Just A Little Guy

For the Technical Challenge the bakers were having to go vegan as they each recreated a member of the Advisory Board for the Little Guy Society

with each of the bakers being allocated their Little Guy by picking out a plastic toy from the Gingham Sack raising a question as to what came first: the cake or the Chad Valley plastic toy

my personal favourite is Moyin’s anatomically incorrect whale

it is somehow every large marine animal all at once – a genuinely impressive design that feels like it was made entirely to cause the aquarium-obsessed child within me rise to the surface. I forged a spiritual connection with a Stonefish at the Birmingham Aquarium in 1997 and it was all I would talk about for MONTHS. For those not in the know, amongst all of the beautiful and colour reef fish, a stonefish looks like THIS

somehow I was only diagnosed as autistic this year.

While this entire recap could be about the anatomy of a whale (notes that down as a potential Patreon perk) we HAVE to move on! The vegan chocolate sponge cake was pretty straight forward and for the most part everyone had an easy time of that, save for Connie’s that was crumbling faster than the global bee population

it’s a thematically correct bee disaster!

The real tricky part was the vegan buttercream, or Ermine Icing which I nor any of the bakers had ever heard of. It’s made by making a roux of non-dairy milk and flour before beating in Chekhov’s Vegan Salted Butter

Gary insistantly beating a bowl of plasmatic jelly baby flesh in the hopes it eventually becomes a vegan buttercream out of pure force of will is truly one of the most upsetting visuals ever committed to screen

granted, an axolotl does look a little bit like someone managed to Frankenstein life into a gummy sweet so I can’t entirely blame Gary for thinking this was potentially correct

his solution to the alarming translucence of his buttercream was to just pour in as much white food colouring in both the hopes of changing the colour and making up a cake-coverable quantity

it did *not* work, entirely, it did at least look less upsetting than if he’d plastered it with the gelatinous vegan viscera but the cake did still look like me if I forget to take my citalopram for a couple of days

the saving grace for Gary was that his sponge was actually very good, meaning that his speed running of the axolotl extinction event did not come dead last and he looked suitably shocked to have beaten Connie

the others all did REALLY well and there wasn’t that much difference between any of them – Tom ended up winning with his fox that was VERY good

having just beaten Gabe’s dinosaur, who I believe is the president incumbent of the Little Guy Society

Moyin and Mo both had incredibly minor faults – Mo’s sponge was a touch claggy and Moyin’s ganache was a bit hard. Moyin’s whale did also look a bit like a Henry Hoover who lost his nozzle

and this is somehow not the last time you’ll see a hoover this episode.

An Official Vegan Animal Cake Ranking:
1. The Fox and the Star Baker
2. Gabe’s Great British Bakesaurus Off (that’s an actual dinosaur name)
3. MY AQUARIUM RAGE
4. Bear-ing a Striking Resemblance
5. Gary’s Axolotl Extinction Event
6. Connie’s Thematically Correct Bee Disaster

Super Massive Interactive Cake

For their Showstopper the bakers were once again making cakes except this time they could be catering for any intolerance or allergy they wanted, but their cake did have to feature some sort of an interactive or moving element. The cake’s did have to specifically be for a children’s birthday so sadly there were no strippers popping out. Although I don’t know the occupation of this worm

as an homage to his favourite birthday party, Gabe was creating a Bug Hunt Cake

and for some reason Paul could not comprehend the inherent joy that bugs bring to children

I won a box of silkworm caterpillars in a tombola once and I think it was the happiest I ever was a child? My mother was not quite so thrilled. So *I* get it Gabe, and he kind of knocked this one out of the park

what I liked about Gabe’s was that it had a purpose and a pay-off – you dig for the bugs, you make a mess and you get a worm, who may or may not be a sex worker AND WE SUPPORT THEM

some of the other cakes just felt a bit surface level. Moyin’s was so nearly there, he just needed something inside the egg so that when the oviraptor we call Paul Hollywood EVENTUALLY got into it, there was a reveal instead of your birthday just being Easter 2: The Lost World

I know there was a tiny dinosaur kicking about that tent somewhere

even if it had just been sweets, or better yet: some sort of horrible frothing liquid

now farts, Paul Hollywood understands farts!

Tom is just an incredible visualiser when it comes to baking, his ability to make a concept come to life is second to none in that tent. His only problem this time was that his pistachio sponge was a touch overbaked.
The Shrek and Fiona Fartcuzzi wasn’t the only swamp he had made though, as he accidentally melted all of the butter he’d put in the proving drawer and insisted on cleaning it up without bending his knees

Tom is in a constant state of doing an intermediate yoga class.

As ever the rules and regulations of naming brands and characters continues to fascinate me because while Tom could drop Shrek and Fiona’s names after a week of explicitly not mentioning Chicken Run

Mo had to really skirt around the Anthropomorphised Hoover Empire

he was doing his fully functional hoover cake because as a child he had a more than slight fascination with the hoover

Mo. Honey. I’m going to take your hand ever so gently and explain to you what happened to everyone else that was obsessed with the hoover as children. And sometimes that hoover is a stonefish.

The resulting Hoover was very cute and the fact it could actually suck up the sprinkles is a very fun novelty

he did have some problems with applying the fondant and how to get all of the icing sugar off

and I did half expect him in that moment to realise he had just built a fully functional cake hoover that could maybe clean itself.

Connie and Gary were both coming into this Showstopper in the greatest peril of being eliminated and I was VERY worried for Connie when she gradually started to lag behind with getting things cool. However, with a cheering squad like Moyin, you’re never going to be far from help

truly the goodest egg in the tent.
Connie’s idea was to make a Rubik’s Cube which as a cake does have the limitation of not being fully functional, which she realised having named it “The Problem That Can’t Be Solved” which is also my favourite legally distinct song by The Script

it also seemed to really struggle to rotate, Paul was straining harder against those mechanisms than he was again Moyin’s dinosaur egg

but if there’s anything worse than something that doesn’t move, it’s something that moves incredibly slowly

the visual impact of Gary’s Halloween cake is GREAT – it has so much character and fun little details but it lacked that tactile element that a child would love. It also didn’t help that Tom had made his swamp cake actually bubble which would’ve been perfect for a witch’s cauldron.

An Unofficial Interactive Free-from Cake Ranking:
1. Would You Still Love Me If I Was A Worm?
2. Writing “Cake Farts” To Get That Sweet, Sweet SEO Engagement
3. Man vs Dinosaurs Egg
4. To All The Hoover Obsessed Kids That Came Before,
5. Connie’s UnRubik’s Cube
6. Gary Circles A Little Too Close To The Drain

Coming into the Showstopper I really did think that Tom was about to Jasmine this whole thing and get a fourth Star Baker but with Gabe’s Bug Hunt Cake being such a runaway success, he thoroughly deserved it

and then in trouble were obviously Connie and Gary. I did really think Connie was going to be a goner but ultimately they decided that Gary’s Slowly Rotating Cauldron had tipped him over the edge

You’ll always be my favourite Male Baker of a Certain Age, Gary.