‘Great British Baking Show’ Recap, Episode 5: Pastry Week

There will never be anything better than our girl Nelly in a pair of sunglasses and a beret (it is pastry week, after all, and she is also, we learned this episode, a spy undercover) finishing a minute early, plopping herself down on a stool, and saying, “Finishing in style.” There will also be nothing better than Sumayah telling Allison she likes her more than she likes Noel, and then Noel going to investigate. She admits who her favorite is, and Noel says that he likes Dylan better than her anyway. He adds that he and Sumayah will have to learn to get along, and she says, “If you want” with the scathing disregard and monotonous vocal fry that only a teenager can muster. There will also be nothing better than when Sumayah is almost done with her showstopper and Noel — whom we have now established she hates — comes to talk to her and she says, “This is not a good time to be speaking. Please move.” Yowch! Noel will never recover. Maybe the UFO on his sweater will suck him up in a tractor beam and take him off to Centuri XI where he may finally recover.

This episode was a delight, as always, for all of the above reasons. (Not listed: Dylan’s face that launched a thousand ships, and all of those ships are me shipping myself with him so hard.) The challenges? Meh. The baking? Fine. I wasn’t as involved in the technicality this week as I have been in the past, but spending time with all of these lovely souls is worth it. It’s like whenever wholesome mom Georgie rolls up her sleeves and you get a peek at her scads of tattoos. It’s fun, unexpected, human. That’s what we love. Choux pastry? Eh, not my thing, but at least we have our peeps.

This week was all about pastry, and the bakers who we almost uniformly love have to make frangipane tarts. I once went to a drag show hosted by Frangipane Tarte. She lacked bite, was a little too sweet, and I didn’t finish the whole thing. Sounds just like the bakers’ tarts, which almost down to a person are a bit disappointing. Dylan and Illiyin have the hardest time. Her tart casings fell off the wall of the mold and she had to restart them. Dylan had the opposite problem, and his puffed up like so many mosquito bites. He also had to restart them. Andy managed to burn his because he didn’t hear his timer go off again. He says, “Again,” and I thought, Dude, keep that in your pocket. Attach it to your ear. Whatever you have to do!

It’s no surprise that all of their offerings aren’t great. After Illiyin rushes a second batch of pastry, Paul says it’s underbaked. They don’t mention Dylan’s tarts, but they can’t taste the almond of the frangipane. They don’t like Andy’s messy piping or that the tarts are burned. It looks like these are the three at the bottom. Then, Prue thinks that Christiaan’s savory tarts look like mushrooms; Paul says Sumayah’s are overcooked; and Paul says Nelly’s meringue on top of her tarts is all over the place. Georgie escapes unscathed, but it’s Gill — sweet, unassuming, blend-into-the-background Gill — who gets the best critique. She put blueberries on top of her tarts with some little crème diplomat dots and they look like something at a Michelin-star restaurant. They both love them and say they can taste the fruit (especially hard for the mild blueberry) and the frangipane.

As the bakers are talking about what to expect from the technical, Andy says, “I hope it’s not phyllo dough. I’ve never made it before.” In reality-television editing, this means that the technical will for sure be phyllo. Paul wants them to make spanakopita, which Angie Katsanevas, the only Greek Real Housewife, will tell you is a pie with spinach and feta cheese in a pastry casing. It is not my favorite, because of the three ingredients, I only like one. Gill and Andy struggle the most here because they can’t seem to get their dough thin or wide enough to wrap it around all the greens and cheese. Paul tells viewers they’ll need to bake this for at least 45 minutes, and these two are shoving it in the oven with only 30 minutes left. Their spinach pies are going to be paler than the skin under Noel’s watch. They both end up in the very bottom, with Dylan, a liger in human form, turning it out to take the top spot.

The showstopper is to make a Paris-Brest, which I thought was a train line that runs directly west from the French capital, but apparently it’s a choux ring with all sorts of filling in it. That doesn’t sound too difficult, so Paul and Prue are also looking for an edible stand. Why do these stands always have to be edible? If this is a construction challenge, why don’t they get the judges from Great British Woodworking Show over here and let them all use dowels and plaster? If we’re doing stands, let’s do some M-er F-er stands. Am I right? Cue R.E.M.’s “Stand”!

We can tell this bake is not going well for plenty of the bakers. Christiaan’s choux is so bad that he has to throw it in the bin. I once bought a pair of choux from DSW that were so bad I threw them in the bin after wearing them once, too. Nothing worse than a bad pair of chouxs. Sumayah and Georgie are also taking their chouxs back and making them again. These cobblers have no chouxs.

It’s Andy who is really struggling, though. He decided to make his base out of toffee, and it’s so brittle it keeps chipping. When he goes to put the platform to hold his Paris-Brest on top of the base, it shatters like a stunt bottle of beer on Wolverine’s head when he gets in a bar fight. Poor Andy. Illiyin’s is also not all about her base, which means she must be in treble. When she’s asked to bring it up, she’s literally holding hers together as if the judges aren’t going to notice. Luckily for her, they absolutely love her praline-and-hazelnut filling and think that her stand, though falling apart, is quite sophisticated.

The ace of bases, though, is Dylan, who made three dark swirls that support his matcha pastry. Even Paul, who hates green tea, loves the cake, but they both think that his choux needed to rise a bit more. Christiaan also has an amazing stand that is swirly and whirly and looks like it could be featured in a cruise-ship buffet. However, they say that the orange-and-pecan cream inside of his gâteau is too thick and they don’t like it. It’s funny that Christiaan is always making things that look gorgeous but taste disgusting.

The judges love Sumayah’s stand, which is inspired by the tree of life and features a pedestal with some see-through sugarwork on it, but the whole thing looks burned. It looks like the tree of life just survived one of those Los Angeles forest fires that shut down the 405. However, the judges love the filling, and she’s now in the lead for star baker.

That is until Gill comes up for her judging. Her stand is simple, orange-flavored biscuits with a little bit of royal icing on them, but when it’s done to perfection, all you need is simple. Her cake is inspired by her father’s lemon meringue pie, with the tart lemon-curd filling and beautiful meringues on the top of her chouxs. When Paul takes a bite, he actually claps. Paul’s hands are all over the place this season. He gave Christiaan a handshake during a showstopper, he gave Georgie a pat instead of a handshake, and now he’s starting a clap. Is there any hand signal (minus the bird) that this man won’t deploy? Given all of their performances, Gill gets the top prize and Andy is shown the door. While what he had to make this episode was disappointing — as were many of the contestants’ bakes — it’s his personality, just like any of the others’, that we’re really going to miss in the weeks to come. At least we have Nelly … for now.

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