The Great British Baking Show says goodbye to the bubble with a genial, gentle “Final”
TV Reviews Recap
The Great British
Baking Show has a few different modes it likes to choose from for its
finales. Sometimes the show goes all-out for an emotional, triumphant win, ala
series six (collection three on Netflix and season three on PBS). Sometimes
there’s a cat-and-mouse rivalry between two or even three real contenders. And
sometimes, to quote Eddie Izzard, a season-long favorite slowly collapses like
a flan in a cupboard. Thankfully, this season the producers opt for a
comparatively low-pressure final, setting fun, but very doable challenges. Perhaps
the show’s production bubble is wearing on everyone or perhaps the producers
anticipated that by the airdate, 2020 would be wearing on a good chunk of the
audience. Regardless, the producers and judges focus on delivering as feel-good
of a finale as possible, sending this unique season out with a cheery,
supportive wave.
The finale begins with a quick montage, reminding viewers of
some of our gone-too-soon favorites. It doesn’t linger, however—there’s tension
to build. Given Laura’s weak recent showings, it’ll take a lot for her to
contend. She has the chops if her day goes well, but with her weak presentation
skills, she’ll need Dave and Peter to falter in either flavor or execution. Dave
has stepped up his game over the course of the season, but has he done so
enough to take it all? And Peter may have been an early favorite, but he’s had
his off weeks, and overconfidence going into the final can be disastrous.
The bakers head into the tent for their final signature
challenge. They’ll have two and a half hours to make eight custard slices. These
must have flaky pastry on the bottom, nicely set, sliceable custard on top, and
be beautifully decorated. As the bakers get to work, Paul and Prue lay out
their expectations. The pastry must be laminated, the custard must be silky,
and they must use their refrigerators strategically, lest they fall prey to yet
another hot day in the tent. Laura’s going for refinement with her yuzu custard
slice. She’s using rough puff pastry, yuzu custard, lemon and coconut gel, piped
Chantilly cream, and fresh raspberries. Dave is returning to familiar flavors
for his caramel latte custard slice. He’s chosen rough puff pastry, coffee
custard, a caramel glaze, caramelized hazelnut spikes, and a chocolate drizzle.
Peter wants to distinguish himself with his custard slice, so he’s taking on
twice the work and twice the risk. He’s returning to the flavors of cranachan,
which served him well in “Biscuit
Week,” layering raspberry and whisky custards on top of rough puff pastry, with
fresh raspberries in the whisky custard and a caramelized oat topping. All
three sound absolutely delicious, and for the first time in a while, there’s no
overlap.
Because of the production bubble, the bakers won’t be able
to be joined by their families for the final, so they’re sent video messages
instead. Dave gets a video from his wife, encouraging him and reminding the
audience of just how far along the expectant mother is. Peter’s parents and
brother wish him well, and Laura’s husband and her father are as charming as
expected as they cheer her on. Back in the tent, Matt jokingly warns Peter of
the future waiting for him at university after the season airs. Peter doesn’t
seem to have considered that he’ll be
Bake Off famous when he returns to school, quite a change from his experiences
thus far.
Before long, the custards are chilling in the fridges and
the bakers have pulled their pastry back out, preparing it for the oven. When
they finish baking, Peter is happy, Dave is uncertain, and Laura is nervous. They
set to layering their slices and then it’s back to the refrigerators with the
assembled bakes. The custards look good going in to chill, but alas, they don’t
all set. Peter and Dave are rewarded with tall, solid custards, but Laura’s is
runny. As Peter and Dave carefully cut and decorate their slices, Laura
scrambles to present anything, her custard running out the sides of her pastry.
In a season as close as this one has been, this mistake is enough to put her in
a secure third place, and she knows it. After time is called, Dave checks in on
Laura as she hides her face in the freezer, gutted, and Noel comes over and
gives her a shockingly earnest pep talk. Her judging will not be pretty, but
Laura puts on a brave face and the episode moves forward.
Peter is up first with the judges. Both Paul and Prue compliment
his neat presentation. Prue loves the textural component of his oat topping and
while Paul says the custard is overly thick, the fresh raspberries in the
custard keeps the slices light enough. Dave is second and his bakes, like Peter’s,
easily pass the slice test. Even the sound as Paul cuts through is tempting, a
crisp top layer, smooth middle, and solid thunk as the knife cuts through the
pastry. The judges love his pastry and flavors, with Prue tempering Paul’s
critique of the custard as stodgy—apparently there’s a good stodgy? Compared to
Laura, though, he’s in great shape. Not only has her custard not set, her
pastry’s lost too much of its butter, making it tough. Paul loves the flavor of
her custard, as ever, but her pastry is not good. As Prue says, she’s had a bad
morning. Hopefully, it won’t become a bad first day.
Prue has selected the final technical challenge, and as with
the signature round, she advises the bakers to make good use of their
refrigerators. The bakers will have two hours to make eight walnut whirls,
small discs of a walnut cookie base with a thick dollop of coffee ganache piped
on top, a swirl of marshmallow wrapped around the ganache, and a tempered chocolate
coating. In a nice finale change, the bakers all seem familiar with the bake
and at least Dave and Peter are excited to dive in. Paul and Prue break down
the challenge, which Prue notes will be tricky because of the whirls’ small size.
The biscuit base needs to be thick enough, the ganache needs to hold its shape,
the marshmallow needs to be beautifully soft, but still hold a distinct swirl,
and the chocolate will need to set, no small task when dealing with
temperatures in the tent around 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit).
The bakers seem on track at first, finishing their walnut
sable biscuit dough and resting it while they infuse their cream with the
coffee beans to make the ganache. Then it’s time for the biscuits. Here the bakers
begin to differentiate themselves. Dave decides to use as much of his dough as
possible for the eight small discs, resulting in thick biscuits. Peter rolls
his thinner, then opts not to reroll the dough when he decides his are likely
too thin. Laura starts second guessing herself and lags behind the others, heading
into a detrimental headspace. She rushes her marshmallow and has to remake it,
while Dave and Peter start assembling their whirls. Peter’s ganache has a flat
rather than triangular tip and his marshmallow is too thin, leading to a rather
lumpy shape, but Dave and Laura’s look good. The bakers put their whirls in the
fridge and start tempering their chocolate. This is a painstaking process even
when the tent isn’t absurdly hot. The bakers eventually manage it, but Laura,
having lost time to remaking her marshmallow, just barely finishes and her
chocolate isn’t able to set.
Fortunately, the judges take into consideration the
temperature while looking over the bakes. Laura is dinged for her freshly
poured chocolate, but Dave, whose chocolate is nearly set, gets a pass. Laura’s
biscuit is crisp, but there isn’t enough textural difference between her soft
ganache, soft marshmallow, and melted chocolate. She winds up in third. Peter
fares better. His shape may be off, but his chocolate is set and his ganache is
perfect. He’s in second. That leaves Dave in first, whose whirls look great.
His ganache could be better, but he has the best biscuit and his chocolate is
just about set.
Going into the showstopper, the judges are clear. Laura is all
but out of contention. Both Dave and Peter would need to make major mistakes on
their showstoppers for her to overcome her weak first day. She knows this, though,
and is focused not on winning, but on pleasing herself and going out with a
great final round. For the last showstopper challenge, the bakers have four and
a half hours to make a massive, four-tier dessert tower based on their
experiences on the show. The bottom layer must be a large cake, but the other
three can be whatever the bakers would like, as long as they demonstrate at
least three different disciplines of baking. The bakers are encouraged to
repeat challenges from earlier in the season, showing off everything they’ve
learned rather than stretching new baking muscles.
Laura plays to her strengths, making a carrot and walnut cake,
chocolate and orange Chelsea buns, lemon macarons, and mini key lime tarts. She’s
going with a rainbow theme, looking for the bright spot on her rainy finale.
Peter takes a risk, throwing caution to the wind with his Bonkers Bake Off Bubble Cake. He’s making a Victoria
sandwich cake, lemon and blackberry crème diplomat-filled choux buns, and a
puffed rice Christmas tree on top, decorated with chocolate and orange biscuit
presents, to resemble his “Cake
Week” Battenberg cake, and spiced friand Christmas puddings. As for Dave,
he’ll be rectifying past mistakes, reworking bakes he struggled with earlier in
the season. He’s making a fraisier cake, mini chocolate babkas, white chocolate
and macadamia nut brownies, and raspberry profiteroles. Once again, everything
sounds delicious, so the question will be execution.
The finale builds two main narratives. Will the winner be
Dave, the expectant father, or Peter, the life-long Bake Off fan who’s living his childhood dream? Overall, the round
goes well. Peter has a couple minor hiccups first with his Battenberg biscuits
and then his puffed rice tree, but both times he gathers his thoughts and
manages to right the ship. To hold up their higher layers, the bakers are
making nougatine, which they’ll shape into dessert trays. Laura eventually runs
out of time for this, but both Dave and Peter manage it and begin their
assembly, pulling their final bakes out of the oven. Everyone’s feeling the
crunch as time ticks down, asking for time checks left and right, but Dave manages
to complete his tower with a few minutes to spare, Peter delicately places his
Christmas tree topper in the final minute, and Laura places her rainbow just as
Noel and Matt call time. These aren’t the most visually stunning final
showstoppers in Bake Off history, but
they’re charming and homey, and that’s the tone the series has gone for all
season.
Laura is first up for judging, and while her presentation is
once again, not great—her bake is very straightforwardly a set of tarts and
macarons stacked on Chelsea buns stacked on a cake, she needed spacing and
height to make a strong visual statement—each of her bakes is delicious. They
judges don’t have a single harsh word for her. Had she done better the previous
day, she could have taken it. Next is Peter, whose showstopper has the best
proportions of the tent. The judges love his cake, though it’s a little dry,
they have nothing but praise for his choux buns, and they like his biscuits,
though his friands are a bit stodgy. The weight of Dave’s upper layers start to
distort his fraisier cake, and he would have benefited from a few well-placed
dowels, but his bakes are lovely nonetheless. Paul and Prue rave over his cake and
finally, someone nails brownies. However, his babkas are slightly over and too
tough, and his choux buns have a few issues. It will be close between Peter and
Dave.
The bakers head out of the tent with their bakes, sharing
them with the assembled production bubble. Since the bakers’ families and the
eliminated bakers can’t return for the finale party, the production has brought
together everyone in their bubble, from the medics to the production team to
the hotel staff and cleaning crew. It’s convenient for the needs of the episode,
but it’s also a lovely way to thank the hardworking team who’ve been stuck
together for the past six weeks. The judges’ deliberations are entertaining, if
a bit simplistic. Suddenly Peter’s slightly dry sponge is perfect and his good
biscuits need work, and there’s no mention of Peter’s slight edge on Dave in
the signature round or Dave’s first place technical finish. This isn’t as close
as the judges are painting it, essentially calling it a draw, but the producers
are going for an everyone wins finale, so Laura’s showstopper is a triumph and
both Dave and Peter deserve to win.
In the end, after much anticipation and build up, Peter is
declared the winner, the youngest ever winner of The Great British Baking Show and the first ever Scottish winner.
His experience growing up with the series gets plenty of play and despite a few
weak showings here and there, he has been a strong contender all season. He’s a
very likable winner, and a deserving one. Laura’s happy with her showstopper
and as for Dave, runner up is nothing to sneeze at. He’s still happy with his
experience on the show. Besides, much more important developments are waiting
just around the corner, as the season-ending montage will show.
Peter’s closing interview is heartwarming, and if the shots
of 12-year-old Peter starting to bake don’t get you, the closing dedication
will: “This Baking Show is dedicated to everyone helping us all get through
2020. Thank you.” The producers knew exactly the tone they wanted to hit with this
season, and they nail it here. The closing montage feels even more emotional
than usual, celebrating the hard work and dedication of the bakers, the
friendships found, and in the final moments, the birth of Dave’s son, Ronnie,
and the life of the recently deceased Luis Troyano. This may not have been the
best season of Bake Off, for reasons
both within and outside the production’s control, but it’s been a reliable, comfortable
watch and in a turbulent and stressful time, sometimes that’s enough.
Stray observations
- This concludes The
A.V. Club’s coverage of this season of The
Great British Baking Show, but I’ll be back next week with a truncated double
write-up of the 2019 Christmas and New Years’ specials, which Netflix will be
releasing as The Great British Baking
Show: Holidays season three. - While I miss Sandi—she’ll be back for the 2019 holiday
specials—I’ve enjoyed Matt as a cohost this season. He and Noel have a good
rapport and they play off each other well. - Dave shows very good baking instincts throughout the
technical, from his biscuit height to his marshmallow to his decision to dip
his whirls in the chocolate. It’s a great example of exactly what the technical
is supposed to demonstrate. - The walnut whirls seem delicious, but for a production that
loves its innuendos, how did they manage to go a full round with these and not make
one poop emoji joke? - I have no patience for Paul mess shaming Laura. Some people work
best with a clear bench, or a clear desk, and some work best amidst the
clutter. As long as you clean up when you’re done, it’s no one’s business how you
work. -
Channel 4 will be again airing two
holiday specials this year, with returning favorites Helena, Henry, Jamie,
and Rosie from series 10, Ruby and Rahul from series nine, James from series
eight, and Nancy from series five. Paul, Prue, and Matt are on hand for both
specials, but Noel was on paternity leave when the Christmas special was
filmed, so Tom Allen stood in for him. He’ll be back for the New Years’
special.
59 Comments
I really enjoyed this season of bake off. It felt more like home bakers doing their best, where sometimes previous seasons didn’t. Peter was a favorite all season and I agree the judges over emphasized the “draw” aspect. Also IIRC, in previous seasons each episode was judged on its own merits (a standard which I love, as it allows for lots of shake ups and makes every week matter), but the final they would usually look at the whole season for picking the winner? Maybe not.
I sympathize a lot with Laura as someone who makes bakes that taste a lot better than they look. She did really well to make it to the final and I’m proud of her for pulling it together for the last challenge after her poor day before.
No, the final has always just been judged on that day, not the whole season.
in previous seasons each episode was judged on its own merits (a
standard which I love, as it allows for lots of shake ups and makes
every week matter), but the final they would usually look at the whole
season for picking the winner? Maybe not.
My understanding was that each episode is judged on its own merits unless there’s a draw and then they look at the rest of the season for picking the star baker/winner.
That makes sense. I think it was Rahul’s season in particular when I remember them considering the whole season at the end, perhaps that’s why.
I do think it was as close as the judges claimed. In fact, during the showstopper I was convinced that Peter had blown it. It was only when the judges started critiquing Dave’s that I thought Peter might still edge it.
Same. And Peter had criticisms of his showstopper as well, though Dave’s felt a little harsher. But I also thought Dave had maybe a slight edge going into the final round. It really did feel tight to me.
An enjoyable final, with a satisfying enough outcome, but I can’t help but wish it had been a little closer if we had a more creatively skilled baker in there like Hermine or Marc instead of Laura.Laura is lovely and I’m sure great fun, but she sucks at presentation and the editors just wanted us to see her being stressed out and weepy.
Hermine would’ve won…
I was very annoyed they sent Hermine home, and honestly felt really bad for Laura! It’s like they sent her to the final just to watch her flounder and add some drama while the other two just made normal, presentable bakes.
Pretty much. Like – I get. The show is judged week to week. Laura is the exact reason why that’s a bad judging model. With Hermine or Lottie or either Marc, there would have been tension and a real sense of competition.Instead Laura was kinda of a ratings pawn with no real chance of coming close to either Dave or Peter. Peter was a front runner from jump and Dave, despite this revisionist editing, was always one of the strongest this season.It wasn’t even close. Laura – poor thing got bullied on the internet by idiots and still had no chance.
I think that there are flaws with the week-by-week model, but there are also flaws with judging overall instead. It loses a lot of the tension when someone messes up; Peter was clearly one of the best bakers the entire season, so it would feel pretty insurmountable for bakers who improved or started weakly if he had that cushion of being the best in the past if he ever screwed up. I agree that they should maybe not be *totally* agnostic of past weeks. Given that Laura and Hermine were pretty close on the week Hermine was eliminated, that might’ve been a situation to look to past weeks, but I think overall judging week by week is a better system (which is why it’s used by most TV competition shows).
I was too, the way people treated Laura was completely uncalled for, but I’ve never seen a contestant who basically accidentally made their way to the final. I guess if we ever go on Bake Off we now know that your bake can look like garbage but it doesn’t matter much if it tastes great.
The image of Dave grinning and eating his choux buns while Peter panickily tries to put his showstopper together had such extreme villain energy.
Even his offer to help Peter assemble his cakes seemed slightly devilish.
“Engage smug mode”.
I actually shouted at my husband, “how can you passive-aggressively offer to someone help on this show!?”
Dude… I was texting with my bestie during the episode and when Peter got one small critique in his showstopper, Dave let out this exhalation of smugness that prompted me to text SHUT UP, DAVE! in all caps to her, which made her laugh really hard.Deserved or not, Dave is now my unofficial mental image of the saying “god grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man”.
Excited to hear Tom Allen will be in the tent. If anyone here isn’t already watching Extra Slice, do.Also, the ending of the Netflix version was nice, but the ending of the Channel 4 version with that song from Fun playing through the epilogue had my in tears.Also also, the reviewer seems to not be familiar with Walnut Whips. They’re a fairly popular candy treat. It’s basically the UK equivalent of Paul and Prue telling the bakers they’re going to be making snickers candy bars for the technical. Another stupid technical.
I don’t really understand why that’s a stupid technical. It required multiple skills (making a sable biscuit, making marshmallow to the correct thickness, making a ganache, piping, chocolate-coating, and working with a fiddly, patisserie-sized dessert). Just because they’re basing it on a mass-market candy doesn’t mean it’s not a suitable demonstration of a wide assortment of skills.
I don’t know, making a homemade Snickers sounds like a pretty fun and interesting challenge. 🙂
I kind of felt bad for Laura. She seemed really stressed and plagued by self-doubt. It seems like she was getting through based on her flavors because the judges assumed Hermine would keep knocking it out of the park and end up in the final. I’m sure she makes absolutely beautiful things with a little more time.
Not a fan of Noel or Matt, at least on this show. They seem to think it’s a comedy special. I was watching one of the earlier seasons recently with Mel and Sue and the show was never this silly. The spoon? Ugh.
Eh, you get slapstick childishness with Noel, but you got increasingly unsuble and groanworthy puns and innuendo with Mel and Sue. I think the low point for them was something like “you should be popping Mary’s cherry…tartlet into the oven around now.”
Agreed. And I’ve grown to really like Noel (and now Matt’s) daffy humor. It’s very gentle and silly, and makes me grin enough to cut some of the tension of competition. I hope Noel in particular stays for a while.
Really? I think Noel talking about exposing his “horn of plenty” and all Matt’s innuendo are far less palatable.
It’s certainly a very British style of presenting, like a live action Carry On film.
I think they’re both pretty funny, but I agree that the spoon thing was groanworthy. In general, I think the goofiness is usually welcome in keeping a light atmosphere in the tent, and I thought both Matt and Noel showed that they’re capable of being comforting and reassuring when they need to be, which is one of the more important parts of their role.
I thought Noel was good with Sandi, but I didn’t like him as much with Matt. I did like Matt though, I just think that Noel went a bit off the rails.
I prefer Noel and Matt to any of the past presenters
Sweet, low-key capper to the series. It was tough to see Laura fuck up so spectacularly right on the first challenge, but I was impressed with ability to keep her head up and finish strong. Dave I honestly thought had it in the bag right up until they started criticizing his too-flat choux buns, and then the balance shifted dramatically toward Peter. Even then I didn’t think it was obviously going to be Peter, given what we’d been shown—it’s really hard to gauge the size of of Peter’s edge over Dave in the signature, and Dave’s over Peter in the technical. Anyway, congratulations to Peter. I thought he’d follow the arc of the other young phenoms—Martha, Nora, Liam, Ruby Tandoh—and shine brightly for a few episodes before fizzling out dramatically, but he was pretty consistently in the top three-or-so throughout. I wonder if youthful stamina wasn’t more an advantage this series, with the shorter production period and the quicker turnaround between episodes.
I was really glad Peter won, he was definitely the best baker of the remaining three and the most consistent across the whole show. I did feel like it was a bit pointless having Laura in the final over Hermine and it was frustrating that she never managed to nail the presentation and taste on a bake for the last several weeks of the show.Also curses upon the final episode for once again making me cry.I’m looking forward to the Christmas/New Year episodes. They’ve got a good line up for them.
It seemed appropriate to have some more manageable challenges in the final this year (i.e. no one squatting over a fire pit to cook anything). I was torn between disliking the passive-aggressive comments about Laura’s messiness and not being in the same league as the boys (there were a couple such comments made) and feeling that she… well… really was out of her league. But it was Paul and Prue who kept squeaking her through week after week despite evidence that she was never really getting over her issues with not having things set, not decorating well, etc. So, to see them snarking about it seemed a bit unfair. At any rate, a win for Peter works for me.
Well, the simple fact is that each episode is judged independently. Laura was by no means one of the best three bakers, but in each individual episode she was never quite the worst (of that week). Hermine cratering when she did was a particularly lucky stroke for Laura, and even though Hermine was clearly better (maybe one of the best two of the season, along with Peter), she seemed to be sent home deservedly for her one truly bad performance. I see a lot of people talking about this as if she didn’t belong in the finale, but this works (and has always worked) like any single-elimination tournament format; luck can carry a weaker contender pretty far, and that’s part of the excitement.
I’m aware of all that. My point was only that it seemed not entirely fair for the judges to keep her around and then repeatedly make backhanded comments about her being messy/slow/out of her depth. Either they believe she was worthy of the final or they don’t. Some of the commentary was a bit out of character for GBBO.
Eh, maybe. I’d have to watch again to see how I feel. A lot of the time those comments are meant to be constructive, e.g. “This is holding you back, please try to improve on it.” I distinctly remember an earlier season with a young pretty boy baker who Paul was always chastising for running out of time; the tone was very Disappointed Schoolteacher.
I knew Dave was done as soon as Paul cut open his creampuff. That looked really bad, and he didn’t seem to realize it or has a great poker face.
Peter won with a cake that was like 1/3 rice krispy treat! And those dough ball things on top looked completely raw when he pulled them out of the molds. That is the least impressive final showstopper I can remember off the top of my head.When you think about it over the whole episode, Laura made one bad mistake, had one so-so thing, and the rest was terrific. Overall she did nearly as well as any of them. Her presentation on the showstopper did lack, but it’s not like the other two looked that great. She just made a really bad first impression, and her one big mistake looked a lot worse than the others. I don’t think it’s really fair to say she was completely out of contention going into the final day.I liked Laura from the start. Never say die. I though Dave was kind of a standoffish jerk in the first few episodes, but over the course of the show I think I realized he is just a perfectionist and his prickliness was really all directed at himself. Seemed like a genuinely decent guy at several little points throughout. I never really warmed up to Peter, but he certainly deserved the win.This was kind of a weird season. No clear-cut favorites ever emerged and several contestants (I think Hermine Marc or Lottie in particular) could have easily taken the place of any of the finalists. Even Linda and Sura looked really impressive at times. So many terrific bakers fell victim to one bad day.Glad you mention Paul’s mess-shaming. That was really uncalled for and reminded me of him totally psyching-out Hermine last week. That’s schlocky food network b-list stuff, and they’d better realize that’s not what the appeal of this show is.
The “landscapes” from a few series back were pretty awful for a Final: You have Rahul, Kim-Joy and Ruby- three of the most gifted contestants ever in regards to presentation- and THAT’S the final? Those three would have destroyed this showstopper.This series just seemed “meh” all around- and it didn’t help that they kept getting record hot days once they hit the challenges that were REALLY dependent on a temperature controlled environment.I like Laura and feel awful for her but at the same time, Hermine or even Lottie or Marc would have done much better here. I didn’t really mind Paul’s quip- if you’re going to trash your station, at least make something presentable, or else it looks like you’ve flailed about dramatically just for the privilege of serving something mediocre. “Clean as you go” isn’t just about reducing cleanup- it’s about learning how to master your time, which it seems Laura never did.
I’ve hated this season through and through to the point where I considered skipping the finale, but I’m glad I didn’t. However awful it was leading up to this, I appreciated that they chose actually appropriate challenges for the situation (largely – it’s frustrating because tempering chocolate well seems like a suitable thing for contestants to learn, but this is just NOT the setting) and in doing so really – maybe for the first time yet – truly showed what these bakers had going on. I shocked myself midway through by realizing not only is Dave much better than I’ve given him credit for, but I’d actually like seeing him win.
I also think this episode solidified something I’d figured was true about Laura: she really does just make good-tasting stuff underneath appearances (and, as someone who bakes well but can’t pipe a rosette to save their life AND makes hideous messes: I sympathize!). That moment when Noel came over and just said ‘you’ve come back from worse than this’ made me tear up a little. What an awful, stressful time this must have been for everyone.
Peter earned the win, and it was nice to see the recap. I cried a little about Luis, too. I hope next season doesn’t have to be like this one.
I hope that whoever writes these reviews next season realizes that we don’t need a play by play of ever detail if every second of the episode, and that a general description with more analysis and color is far, far better. Most people come here after watching the show…that’s the main thing whoever writes these needs to keep in mind.
As I was reading, I kept alternating back and forth between Noel and Matt’s voices.
Exactly. This reads like a transcript.
If Kate and Allison (over at the Takeout) could meet halfway on their reviewing styles it would be perfect. Kate’s is all substance and probably too much detail, Allison’s is like 95% snark, often skipping over the Technical completely.
Totally disagree, I like the reviews. And I do watch the show. We all come here for the comments anyway, right?
“As long as you clean up when you’re done, it’s no one’s business how you work.”
Do you honestly think the contestants clean up after the show? Are you fucking stupid?
Aside from the fact that Laura should’ve been gone weeks ago and that Paul “every week is its own thing” crowned Peter the champion despite Dave clearly having the better week, it was a pretty bland finale otherwise.
Am I crazy, or did some of the contestants have their children in their to camera interviews on some shows??
The contestants had the option of having their kids in the Bake-Off bubble with them, and I think Marc and Hermine were the only ones who did so.
As always, everyone is a winner – but especially us, the viewers. If you can find the link for the Extra Slice wrap up of the finale – do it. More happy tears. SPOILER ALERT: Dave proposes. It’s so very wonderful.
I would be thrilled if we could say goodbye to Prue. Once she decides she doesn’t like a particular baker, nothing they make will be up to her standards. For all of Mary Berry’s old world sensitivities and tastes, at least she seemed to actually enjoy being on the show, Prue seems to actively despise most of the experience and the food that she eats.
The walnut whirls were familiar territory at least appearance wise as they’re basically a fancied-up Walnut Whip, a Cadbury’s sweet that’s been around since about the 70s and most Brits would know. But I think the Cadbury’s ones don’t have a biscuit base or ganache, it’s just marshmallow fondant inside the cone. Like the season where they had to make Jaffa Cakes?
The finale was why I continue to watch this show. Despite the competition, the bakers still were very kind to one another and supportive. It was a gentle reminder of why everyone fell in love with the show. It’s not the judges so much as the contestant’s positivity and quaintness of their interaction.