Week 8 – Forgotten Bakes.
It was a big week in the GBBO tent, with the bakers being tasked with baking a variety of baked goods in a bid to get Star Baker which confirms their superiority as a baker. Baker.
As always, it’s very likely that you’ve missed out on some vital GBBO content whilst furiously refreshing your Twitter feed in a bid to find some inspiration for a viral tweet.
Well set your mind at ease because due to no request whatsoever, I’ve detailed these important GBBO moments below.
1. PRUE AND PAUL WERE UNAWARE THAT PEOPLE LIKE TO HAVE DIP WITH THEIR PIZZA
Sorry for shouting but this has upset me. When Liam informed the judges that he would be making a dipping sauce for his pizza-inspired bake, Paul and Prue scrunched up their faces as if he’d just announced that he would be binding his pastry with armpit sweat. They immediately commenced a witch hunt, determined to get to the bottom of what kind of person would dare eat their pizza with an accompanying dip. Luckily, Noel Fielding, the unexpected goth voice of reason in this year’s GBBO, informed them that it was a perfectly normal thing to do.
There’s been a lot of changes in the show this year, and this latest spectacle merits us all taking a step back to look at what GBBO has become. We’re in a position where the judges of a nationwide baking competition are unaware that pizza requires dipping sauce to truly complete the experience. It’s not the kind of person I want on my television screen, to be perfectly honest. I want good, wholesome and worldly people. Namely, those that dip their pizza in an absurd amount of garlic and herb dip. Respectfully, what the fuck?
2. There’s a trap door under Kate’s workstation and nobody is doing anything about it
Cast your eyes to the bottom of the image below, you’ll notice that beside Kate’s left leg lies a trap door in the carpet. Kate has been using this trap door to cheat on GBBO and I can prove it. Each time she puts a bake in the oven, it always looks like it’s uncooked. But when it comes out of the oven, the stuff is miraculously baked? Literally how can that even happen? Oh. Wait. Let’s use logic here. Kate is obviously opening the trap door at the same time as she opens the oven door and taking out the pre-baked goods that are being provided to her by an accomplice.
It’s gone undetected so far in this series, but I don’t expect it to continue any longer. Kate has been exposed. Please join me in contributing to #KateFromGBBOIsOverParty on Twitter, whereby we shall blow this whole case wide open. For too long we have been deceived by these bakers and their cheating ways. Last week Stacey put something in the freezer and when she took it out, the food had cooled down? This isn’t witchcraft, it’s blatant cheating. GBBO is a farce.
3. Sandi delivered the pun of the series and it was exceptional
Sandi was informing the bakers that they had 45 minutes to finish off their Rum Nicky, then added “or if you want to be a bit more formal, Rum Nicholas”. In itself, that was enough of a pun to keep the average GBBO audience ticking over as they updated their Facebook status with ‘lol watchin bake off always makes me so hungry lol’. But Sandi pushed it one step further. Sandi told us that “If you have enough rum, you probably do end up Nicholas”. AS IN KNICKER-LESS. Nicholas = Knickerless.
My bastardised Irish accent doesn’t work with that joke so I have to employ an accent similar to hers when retelling it, but Sandi absolutely nailed it with more precision than we’ve ever seen on GBBO before, baking or otherwise. I’m not saying that I don’t miss Mel and Sue, I’m just saying that we’re getting on alright without them. We’re only eight weeks in and The Pun Of The Series has already been awarded. Sandi and Noel are sufficiently adorable and I’m probably not alone in saying that I like them. Sandi, congratulations on this prestigious award.
4. We all learned a valuable lesson about beauty
As you can see from the above image, tarts come in all shapes and sizes. The world would be a very boring place if every tart you encountered looked the exact same. As they say, variety is the spice of life. With that in mind, Prue and Paul began their dissection of the above bakes that were presented to them last night. They started with a pale and mostly raw tart, shuddering with disgust at the sight of an uncooked bottom, then they moved onto a slightly neater tart but with not enough holes in it and so on and so forth.
What transpired was a pretty repulsive ranking of each tart based on both appearance and taste. Like many others, I assumed that we had gone beyond placing beauty above all else. Those tarts have families and friends who see and love their inner beauty. Sure, a couple of them had wonky lattices and an uneven spreading of filling, but that’s not to say that they don’t have important qualities like being good listeners or very funny at inappropriate times to help ease tension. Prue and Paul are kickstarting a very ugly culture and I don’t care to see it continue, frankly.
5. A fame hungry hen tried to sabotage the entire showÂ
Kate’s showstopper required sixty eggs, which is a demand that no hen on earth could possibly keep up with. Such an outrageous requirement clearly caused some tension within the hen community, as one of the egg providers decided to attach one of his/her feathers to the produce in protest. It was a simple yet effective means of letting us know that GBBO is putting a huge demand on eggs in the year of our Lord 2017. One baker alone required sixty eggs. Sixty. SIXTY EGGS.
I applaud this brave hen’s behaviour. Although it was a little fame hungry and could’ve put the entire show in jeopardy by forcing them to introduce this new character thereby destroying the sanctity of GBBO, it’s good to know that I’m not the only one concerned with where they’re getting all this produce from. Hens surrounding that tent are being worked to the bone so that they can plop out enough eggs for the bakers. Whatever animals lay flour, sugar and butter are similarly exhausted. It’s time to launch a vegan GBBO. Who’s with me? *vegan tumbleweed*
6. Stacey’s oven, unlike her Mom, has not got it going on
A standout moment of last night’s GBBO was when Stacey absolutely hoofed the door off her oven. Every mother in the country has at some point remarked that she wants an oven like the ones on GBBO, but was then swiftly informed by her husband that they’d break easily with that kind of design. Well today we’ve got some very smug Dads roaming around as they bask in the glory of being right all along. Last night, Stacey’s oven door gave way and came off clean in her hands. It was hysterical.
Rather than immediately panic, Stacey simply held the oven door in place until her cake was sufficiently baked. In a way, Stacey’s oven door falling off serves as a metaphor for this series of GBBO. Although we still dearly miss our fallen Mary, Mel and Sue, we’re soldiering on and just about getting by. Even though Prue and Paul have made terrible decision after terrible decision and admitted that they’ve never dipped their pizza in sauce, things are still moving, no one has died (yet). Either that or the oven door simply fell off of its own accord and it was merely a spot of bad luck. I don’t know. I’ve run out of stupidity.
Images via Channel 4
