Great British Bake Off, who will win??!

[honeybeeridiculous]

Are we still loving GBBO?? Who is your favourite to win? I change my mind every week, love Mel and Sue tho!!

It is amazing how they manage to keep it so quiet isn't it? I mean family must talk and what pressure the contestants must be under. To not give even an inadvertent hint?

At the beginning of the series I was rooting for Kimberley but v soon was put off by her seeming to be smug and as if she's already practicing having her own series. I'm hoping too that these are editing things.

Ruby does seem naturally very talented considering she's so young. To have so many different techniques under your belt at 20 is pretty impressive. Her cake this week did look v amateurish imo. I'm sure it must have tasted great but appearance was an important part of this weeks challenge in particular.

I'd like either Frances or Kimberley to win (don't mind which)
Then Ruby and then Becca.

Still my favourite thing on tv at the moment.

I agree that we shouldn't judge the contestants on their looks (though tbh in my case it's more that looks play a part in all my judgements, including men - there was much mention of Howard's natty shirts and Glen's facial hair in casa rooty). Anyway in my case it might be the opposite, maybe I like Ruby because she's pretty and seems sweet.

Anyway, looks debate aside, I'm torn. I like Ruby and I think from the reactions, her cakes taste lovely. For all the cake lovers here, you must have had an experience of really looking forward to a spectacular looking cake, and it be dry and tasteless or weirdly fatty. That is so disappointing and then the marvellous appearance of the cake can make you even more disappointed! (I am looking at you Starbucks and chain coffee shops everywhere ). So I think that is part of what is going on with Kimberly and Frances's judging.

All that said, I do think part of the showstopper criteria is the design and way it looks is important - and I can't square the reaction to Ruby's amateurish cake with Frances's quite frankly jaw dropping attempt. Mary's snide comment about her not making the little plant pots was OUTRAGEOUS.

I'm not judging Ruby on her looks but on her sheer annoying ness at pretending to think she's rubbish. She must have learnt it's a good way together lots of "oh no of course you are amazing" type responses and it's just so fake.

Ruby
Marketer's dream
I actually really like her!

Raising I think if any of the better looking cakes had tasted like anything, they'd have been more highly praised than Ruby. But they all tasted shit! Everyone seemed to focus on the look nd didn't grasp that baking with vegetables is a completely different skill, and that vegetable cakes are supposed to taste nice.

It's not an art competition. People seem to forget that.

Ooh. Harsh. Was 'bland' not the word they used?

Ruby wins

Russians that's a good point. Wonder if they shouldn't have made it a novelty vegetable cake just a vegetable cake? Or was the whole point to see if they concentrated on the taste bearing in mind the trickiness of using veggies, rather than focusing on the novelty aspect?

Has anyone watched the ozzie bake off ? It's on youtube, i prefer it to the british version

One thing i will say is that i am apparentlyno judge of female attractiveness ! I couldnt say that i think she is anything to look at out of the ordinary. She's young and that's about all you can say imo

Fairyloo if you know that, why would you say it? And if you don't, again, why would you say it?

Stainless - no you are wrong. Baking with vegetables is tricky because of the oiliness and other things to do with.....chemistry. They explained this right at the beginning. It is no problem at all to make a visually stunning cake without using dairy. You can make a non dairy cake that has never seen a vegetable (apart from soya). The challenge was to get the vegetable thing right and get a cake that tasted like a cake.

It's not an art competition.

Did anyone else notice Paul saying that they couldn't use dairy so no butter, milk, eggs etc? Eggs aren't bloody dairy!

Eggs bloody well are dairy. That's the heading they come under in food terms.

Emm - dairy refers to products made from lactating mammals' milk. Animals either lay eggs or feed their offspring their milk - from their mammary glands, hence the word mammal.

Except for platypus.

How bizarre.

I'm not saying it's technically right. But that's what we say in cooking terms. Vegetarians no meat no fish (actually, it used to be no flesh no fish) Vegans no meat no fish no dairy. I do often stress that that means no eggs but dairy was always used to include eggs back in the day. Possibly when people who wrote cook books didn't know much science. Since both PH and MB are older than me that's probably how they think too.

HOWEVER.

Since you don't have to have a vegetable cake for it to be non dairy (and in fact most dairy allergic or vegan people don't like being treated as though they knit their own hemp sandals and eat only parsnip trifle or whatever) it was a bit of an insulting task, I felt. They should have told them to make mainstream looking non dairy cakes. Not shoved those of us who can't/won't eat dairy further in the woo ghetto.

I would rather die than try a parsnip cake.

I like the fact that Kimberly is confident. I much prefer that to the "silly little me" malarkey.

I can't judge the taste of the cakes from the comfort of my own sofa so have to go on judges comments. They will pick Ruby on what has gone on so far.

I think they are all fabulous cooks. I couldn't do it. Although my floating islands are the stuff of legend and I have no idea why they all made such a mess of theirs.

Im a pastry chef by trade and i would translate a special dietary requirement "no dairy" to be no products involving milk. Eggs are not dairy products. I would expect no eggs and no dairy to be described as vegan. Dairy products refer to products containing lactose.
I went to school with girl that is allergic to dairy. She could eat eggs.

Lots os specialist chefs give vegans food with cheese in and then say 'oh but it's vegetarian cheese'. I don't think being a chef is any golden ticket to knowing what vegan food is, actually. However they never said the cakes were supposed to be vegan, they said dairy free and back in the day (and I stress, PH and MB are rather older than me) dairy free DID mean egg free too. When I first became a vegan (I've been one for 30 years) dairy free definitely meant egg free too.

You don't need to tell me about the difference between being allergic to milk (the sort of allergic that can be life threatening) and being a vegan. I am both. But I used to love eggs. :(

Dairy doesn't refer to lactose since plenty of dairy products can be lactose free yet they are still dairy. And lactose and milk allergies are two different things (although some people suffer from both).

Those floating islands didn't appeal to me at all, they looked like poached eggs. Not what I want from a pudding!

One thing's for sure, Kimberly should never play poker! Her facial changes are hilarious!

You can have no eggs, no meat, no dairy yet if it contains honey it is not Vegan.

Go to Paris and Iles Flottante are on every Bistro menu!

mignonette Yep. And I'm far from convinced that some of those cake decorations that were being used were vegan too. But I guess the brief wasn't vegan. In fact, it didn't seem clear to me that the brief was even non dairy until they made the comment about Frances's sauce (my doubts about that have already been expressed upthread). I thought I heard the burble going on about using oil because that;s what you do with vegetable cakes, not because they had been told not to use butter (for the person who mentioned marge upthread - most marge is not non dairy. Although some marge is). But I probably wasn't paying enough attention.

I still feel that that whole segment was a missed opportunity and a bit...if not insulting, certainly playing to a stereotype. We have had all sorts of interesting pieces on different things (eg the Tottenham buns) this series - they easily could have done one on vegan baking. But they obviously preferred to put us in the beetroot cake ghetto. :(