GBBO season 5 - thread #2

[Dolly80]

Thought I better start another one (in case I lose you all next week!)

All rumpled and haphazardly sexy

Can someone please agree with me that Martha bears a striking resemblance to Hayley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense.

No one else in my house can see it (or the dead people)

Can I also add another pet hate of mine?

It's Creme Patissiere, not Creme Patisserie. Drives me bonkers.

I'd add the accents but that will send me straight into the Pedant's Corner.

I agree, coffeeinbed.

Pedants' Corner, coffee. S apostrophe, it's plural, innit.

Sorry, couldn't resist it.

Unless there's finally only one poster left over there.

It's the law innit.
Always happens when you mention the bloody place.

I like the breton thingy. this is just the kind of cake/pastry for me. very similar to things they do in northern germany where cake=yeast-butter-sugar.

Kate has lovely hair. And I liked that she didn't do the usual 'oh, every second of the Bake Off was a miracle!' She clearly enjoyed it, but also made plain it was frightening and stressful, and that being named being star baker when a contestant you're very fond of gets thrown off ten seconds later doesn't mean you skip around shouting 'YES!!!' and pumping the air.

(Also, I usually want to smack hobbitman Josh Widdecombe, but he's right, Chetna is lovely. My OH was having a Twitter conversation with her about ingredients.)

Why hasn't An Extra Slice actually really worked? I think the equivalent on The Apprentice with Dara O'Briain works well, and was trying to figure out what the difference is. Is it just that The Apprentice pushes a lot of often rather dopey youngsters to behave badly and pushily, and the boardroom/judging is frequently brutal, so the 'You're Fired!' programme can be bitchy and funny, and openly mock people, whereas GBBO projects an image of benignity and bunting, generally (with the possible exception of BinGate) depicts nice people making cakes and being nice to one another and being kindly judged, so there's no scope on An Extra Slice for panellists or JB cracking 'You're Fired' kind of jokes, or saying how much they hate Richard's pencil, Luis' surf turd eclairs or think Diana is a smug madam?

E.S. is on late so it's as if they expect some bad language or willyshaped cakes which isn't what GBBO is about Rusticated.

Perhaps the producers needed to have a meeting with Mary B to get the right tone IFYSWIM.!

I tried watching Extra Slice but Jo Brand makes me cringe & it was boring & I didn't see the point of the 3 guests & I don't give a fuck what the audience have made & the previous contestants aren't at all interesting, even Iain. So I gave up after 2 tries.

I'm inclined to agree about Jo Magrats but my hint of criticism was not welcomed by many on here .

There's something very sarky about her IMHO.

THANK YOU coffeeinbed Every time someone says creme patisserie it makes me want to throw things at the telly!

I think this week's Extra Slice was better than last week's - mostly because Howard is just a great guest. Good mix of humour (though he needs a bit more practice at making the jokes NOT sound pre-rehearsed, which they obviously are but still) and actual expertise. And just comes across as a lovely man.

Agree that the Jo Brand 'I eat fuckloads of cake' jokes are getting old. I don't mind Jo Brand overall, but wonder if the show would be better with a different host - who though?

I love Jo (side - eyes ppeat and Magrats ) but think that extra slice is a little bit crap. I agree with whoever said that GBBO is perhaps a bit too nice for the acerbic look-back à la Dara Show.

I think it was better last night because of Howard, and Kate - both very very charming, and none of the awkwardness of diana last week. Plus there was less crammed in so each segment could breathe a bit more.

Paul is becoming more of a TWAT isn't he? I like that none of them are simpering over his every word, apart from mary this year. In fact some even go so far as to openly disagree with him.

Riverboat, it was definitely better than last week's, I agree - a combination of Kate, Howard and Josh Widdecombe being funny about his Chetna crush, I thought - which I think made me think about why I don't think it has really worked until now. I want to like it! and I usually really like Jo Brand, I just think it all feels a bit rushed and uneasy.

Maybe you're right, IScream, and it's partly just too rushed, with crammed-in bits of panel (and having three people say about twenty words each seems a bit mad?), audience bakes, unseen footage, the thrown-off contestant, photos of bad cakes...?

I like the cake-wreckesque photos in the extra slice.

Yes me too mausmaus and the 'face cakes' are hilarious sometimes!

Bit tired of the ooo-err jokes on bake off and my theory is that Paul has no sense of humour and this is the only way they can lighten the tone with him. He takes himself v seriously as a baker and as a sex symbol

I think Jo Brand gives Extra Slice the smidgen of acerbity that it needs. But I agree that they try to pin too much in - they should have the thrown out contestant on for longer.

I made the Kouign-Aman yesterday, following the recipe from bonappetit posted earlier and I like it, so does dd, dp and ds are not too keen on it but ds only likes chocolate cake anyway.
For research purposes I made most of it as one big flat round cake but also made 4 muffins and I prefer the cake version. There is so much butter in it that in the muffin tin the outside gets fried more than baked and I don't like fried dough much (I don't like doughnuts because of this either). In the cake tin the cake doesn't sit in the butter that much. I shouldn't have used a loose-bottomed tin, I had to put a baking tray underneath to catch butter dripping.
Overall, I think I prefer the Butterkuchen someone else mentions earlier in the thread but it was definitely worth the effort.

butterkuchen is devine
(if you like I can post a recipe here)

butterkuchen recipe please

here the 'technical challenge' version:
make a sweet yeast dough
roll out and place on a baking tray
put butter on too and sprinkle with flaked almonds and sugar
bake

:o

Then eat