- Review: Positive, Waterloo East Theatre - 25 May, 2014
- West End Switched Off - 2 May, 2014
- Great British Bake Off – Episode 10 – THE FINAL - 23 October, 2013
Previous episode recap
Thirteen people made some cake, some were really really awful at it and by some we mean Toby who was quickly kicked out (all evidence of his existence has been wiped off the BBC website, anyone else find this slightly ominous?) Others were pretty awesome at mixing nature together and Rob was heralded as the STAR BAKER which only really means that he got to leave the tent slightly more smug and middle class than when he entered it. But then that’s the point of this competition. Wonderful.
(Or click these words here for a longer version of events)
Episode 2 – Bread
Bakes this week – bread sticks, muffins, decorative loaf
Experience we have baking these – slightly more than last week, we occasionally get those loaves of ciabatta that you warm up in the oven
Moist count – there was one! One bloody use of the word moist, plenty of ‘that’s good and hard’ and ‘I really love your breasts Mary’ but only one use of the word moist, starting to wonder what the point of watching this is
Cakes bought for watching – Well we bought Gail’s Poppyseed bloomer and Gail’s mixed olive sour dough stick buuuuut we didn’t eat them because we had pizza instead which is pretty much bread based
On your marks, get set, BAKE!
From the off we have to say how disappointed we are in the Bake Off. After the disgusting and we mean absolutely revolting closing shot of Mark calling his family to tell them he had got through the first round we hoped that producers, directors and anyone else with eyes or hearing would have realised that this was terrible. This did not happen. Poor one C Beca is subjectected to the gross attempt at building an emotional connection to the bakers, but Auntie Beeb we don’t care, if it doesn’t happen in the tent then it simply isn’t relevant. At the very least if you insist on forcing this on your viewers can you make it the level of middle class it deserves to be by having Jim Carter somewhere, anywhere in shot. Sort it out BBC, sort it out.
The opening swooping shot and following monologue from the MelSue holds a number horrifying messages. In a scene which we can only assume is being shot by Mary Berry sailing past on her flock of crows and souls of the dead tells a tale of warning. The word ‘survive’ is used twice in less than fifteen seconds and we’re struggling to find a sentence where that would just be considered a friendly warning.
‘How will we survive another nine weeks?’
‘More importantly how are the bakers going to survive.’
Oh MelSue, selfless to the very end, this is why we love you and your blazers. This week the mel half gets the pale blazer whilst Sue half gets the darker one. Who will get the pale one next week? What are they trying to tell us? Who gets to decide? There really needs to be a whole channel dedicated to Bake Off for these and many other questions we have. If it turns out there aren’t that many questions to answer the channel could be 20 hours of Paul Hollywood looking straight at camera and occasionally whispering ‘I love you.’
And then we’re into the opening credits. Has anyone else noticed the occasional flashes of screaming skulls and scorpions crawling out the mouths of snakes whilst a man weeps in the corner. Rumour has it that Ryan Murphy is using this as a soft launch for the next series of American Horror Story.
‘Welcome to yeast …. I’ll be on them like a rash’ Paul offers as the lamest battle cry heard on TV since…some other lame battle cry, it was probably about ten minutes before hand on ITV4. Please feel free to use the comment section below to tell us of ones we might have missed/do our research for us.
The Breadstick Challenge – 36 10inch breadsticks made with yeast but any flavour of the bakers choosing
As this weeks episode rapidly becomes the highest rated programme on British TV due to Mr. Jamie Oliver running up and down the country switching the 100 foot TVs that now reside in all poor people’s homes whilst yelling ‘just make your own fucking food.’ The bakers start faffing about with proofing drawers, twisting dough and getting in a general first challenge fluster. Oh of course we jest about Jamie, Jamie is now too fat to run or do exercise of any kind. For those keeping a record we find it really difficult to listen to such an overweight, rich, privileged beast making sweeping statements about others cooking habits when maybe, just maybe he should take a long hard look at himself and not in one of those circus mirrors that make you look tall and thin.
Paul is on the hunt for a good bend but no snap, someone clearly hasn’t been paying close enough to wise words of Elle Wood.
So what we learn about our bakers and more importantly what do we learn about ourselves?
Dull Howard has been asked by the BBC to make his baking a bit more interesting as the world around him is slowly being drained of all colour and joy. He has stepped up to the breadstick challenge by creating a saucy little Moroccan number.
Glen, leader of hormonal sixth formers, is on a mission to get all his students baking. He should take a few pointer out of ol’ Rubes book and just get them really stoned and when those munchies that ‘a friend’ keeps telling us about kick in they will be desperate for baked goods. Just another bit of friendly advice from the folks at Vada. No need to thank us. He bakes some rosemary and parmesan thing which is more than a little dull, but not as dull as …
Lucy, my god, a salted stick! what on Earth are you thinking? You’re on the Great British Bake Off, not hosting a light evening of bread and dips for your humous loving, Boden wearing knitting circle.
Mark shows off a unique method of kneading his dough by slapping it around. This is full of all kinds of innuendo until he says ‘I’ve hit people in the face with dough, I’m not sure if it’s an acceptable way of doing it but it’s very satisfying.’ Then it all went a little bit Chris Brown.
Clear winner Frances makes her breadsticks into matchsticks WITH A BLOODY MATCHSTICK BOX (we assume this is edible.) She even brought an Ellen Ripley style flamethrower to char the ends of a couple to make it look as though they had been used by some sort of match loving giant. In the end Paul and Merry aren’t impressed with her chilli-ginger chocolate concoction with Paul commenting that maybe ginger isn’t right for bread. Has he not heard of gingerbread? Fool! Even if Frances doesn’t win I hope someone helps her open a Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes style shop.
The rest make breadsticks with varying levels of success, we would have eaten them all. We learned that we like the look of breadsticks.
Our favourite – Frances and her matchstick breadstick.
We couldn’t help but notice that Mary’s voice seems to be going this week. After a lengthy conversation with the BBC and a local coven we learn that to keep an appearance of being human when filming, Mary was forced to look as though she was sleeping. Whenever Mary closes her eyes she sees all the human flesh she has devoured and the torment she has caused which causes one small part of her to scream into the dead of the night.
English muffins – 8 identical muffins, chewy and full of air holes
Muffins are to be made next but not the tasty ones covered in sugar and chocolate but the crappy English ones that are just gloriffied crumpets. This challenge did nothing but remind us that a.) we don’t like muffins and b.) we really miss the time when pop songs were about baked goods and card games.
In the most shocking twist of the series, the technical bake will be a Paul Hollywood recipe, a cow in the field opposite died of heart failure, he simply couldn’t believe it. Paul and Mary sit out in their wall less green room and Paul starts describing the perfect English muffin, Mary clearly stops listening, turns to camera and whispers ‘I am’ with a wink.
As the bakers are simply told the recipe they seem to be confused by everything else in front of them ‘what is this table?’ ‘what do these bowls do’ ‘why is Mel trying to prove she’s smart by doing a L’Oreal style science part?’ Clearly when humans are confused their first instinct is to then talk about sex and spend a large quantity of time holding up cutting rings saying how appealing they find various sizes and Mel comes out with this gem:
‘I wonder if Paul Hollywood would like it raw?’ Well he better not, STIs are on the rise in the UK.
The history bit
Today we learn about the muffin man. The muffin was originally made by creatures living under the stairs that would scrounge together bits of what they had cooked for their masters until the day those in control learned of the delight found in muffins and took those away from the stair creatures, leaving them with nothing to eat but their own shoes. As council tax increased or something like that, people moved into the cities and the muffin man sold muffins on the street to remind people of the big houses they used to live in and the fresh air they used to breath until the police stopped that fun. This made us think of chuggers and what their legacy will be. In five years will we all put our hair into dread locks, wear bright blue oversized jackets whilst holding clipboards with a sense of fun nostalgia?
Back to the muffins and as the bakers are testing the heat of their hot plates by placing their heads near it, Mary goes round slamming their faces into the hot steal (or whatever it’s made out of.) But more shocking than this, in the most hostile act of aggression ever seen in four series of Bake Off, Sue looks Dull Howard straight in the eye whilst she slowly lowers her elbow into the soft dough of one of his muffins. She walk off without a hint of apology and Kimberley slyly puts a crisp £5 note into Sue’s hand.
This is why Kimberley is the winner! And not at all because she made the best muffins (she did make the best muffins.)
Decorative loaf
The showstopper challenge! They’re given free reign to create something wonderful, something truly beautiful, a bread beyond belief. It’s all a little too much for Rob who has a breakdown and creates a lump of bread which is meant to be in honour of the psychic octopus which predicted football results and wasn’t at all a very good publicity stunt by the Sea Life Centre. Mary warns him ‘the size of your bread is limited by the size of the oven, you know, you can only fit two cats in there.’ The end result is an abomination.
Ali clearly had his breakdown before todays episode. He admits that his Ying-Yang bread idea came to him in a dream, it’s a brilliant concept having one half sweet and the other side filled with chicken tikka. We’re just worried that even a short time near Toby has left a strong impression on innocent Ali.
After the mess that was the breadstick challenge, you would think Lucy would want to pull something out of her hat, but no, she makes a tomatoes and garlic bread. She bakes the bread in a roundish shape and claims that it’s a tomato whilst slamming more tomatoes on top of it. For the love of Jesus, you were given the Leatherhead Leisure Centre as inspiration and then this is what you come up with!
Rubes, who has been going strong all episode although we have only mentioned her once and implied that she looks like a drugged out hippie that only bakes to feed her post binge appetite, makes a peacock. The peacock is white chocolate and orange making it the only sweet bread of the competition. It looks pretty good.
Our in depth analysis of the showstopper:
Kimberley – amazing
Beca – gooey and not amazing
Howard – good bake, a bland amazing
Ali – super amazing
Deborah – in no way amazing by about ten minutes of oven time
Glen – Amazing
Christine – amazing
France’s – always amazing
Rob – not amazing
Mark – amazing things are on the horizon but not today
Lucy – what the fuck?
Ruby – awesome amazing
And the winner is……
Rubes
Lucy looked like she was going to kill but before she could the MelSue kicks her out. Hooray!
Next weeks
Trifles, floating islands and petit fours
Star tweet – @jennismith129
Think I might apply for #gbbo next year. What do you think?
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