GBBO 4th thread - Will it be Ruby Tuesday in Final Week?..

[Myimaginarycathasfleas]

...or will Kim Joy claim the title? Will Rahul nail it with a bake they DO have in India?

It’s anyone’s to lose.

Rahul overused buttercream imo which is sickly.

I think KJ was more skilled and it was a fix

They should scrap the signature and the technical in the final. These two stages do not add anything to it if everything can change in the showstopper. They should give them the whole two days for the showstopper. Maybe even not give them a brief, and see what these fabulously skilled people come up with all by themselves... I think that would be amazing. Potentially trickier to judge but it would give the finalists a real chance to shine and for us to see some stunning bakes.

After the first day, the finalists would have to present an element of their bake, and they can then use that feedback (or not) on the second day.

And it would give them chance to have regular breaks etc - I worry they are not eating etc during these marathon bakes. I would not be able to last that long or do that much running around without food.

Poor Terry

I do get why they gave Rahul the extra time. But I'm not sure why they have decided to do this now when in the past there have been oven doors breaking, ovens not working and bakes being removed from the freezer by other contestants and no extra time or leeway has been given out then.

I also agree that they were particularly critical of Kim Joy in the final which gives rise to the argument of ulterior motives for doing this. All the "bakes" were dreadful so all 3 were deserving of the same level of criticism.

did they say exactly what made it French though?!

Yup

“Do you know what bread this is? Pain de campagne. You’ve made a French loaf”

When the brief was Danish rye bread

they were particularly critical of Kim Joy in the final which gives rise to the argument of ulterior motives for doing this
I also agree with this. It was when they ripped into KJ's showstopper that we both yelled 'oh, here we bloody go!'

Am I the only one who was underwhelmed by Kim Joys showstopper. I was expecting to much fun and detail.

If KJ's showstopper had been good then she would have won. I think they deliberately slagged it off to pave the way for their ready baked decision. Even KJ looked surprised as she seem quite happy with it. If you looked closely she made a lot of effort with her sugar work and why would the floor of a sea bed be higher? PH has really annoyed me now. As a scouser, I am very disappointed in him.

“Do you know what bread this is? Pain de campagne. You’ve made a French loaf”

but I mean technically whats the difference, different flour?

or is it just paul declaring he knows best?

But the voiceover did say that Kim-Joy was using the same recipes as for the cake and biscuits as she had used in Spice week, so maybe the judges thought she was taking the actual baking a bit easy, and relying on her decorating skills.

Having said that they'd all made cake biscuits and choux buns before.

I don't understand how you are expected to eat those arty "showstoppers". It was supposed to be a dessert, are you supposed to go up with a bowl and spoon and do a kind of buffet pile up on your plate?

Rahul's rye bread was a brick, and it was not edible.

At least Manon's bread was edible.

or is it just paul declaring he knows best?

I think sadly he probably does here

He is an utter twat but he does know about bread

The BBC states that Terry’s wife passed away last year from cancer, aged 52. So I don’t think it happened during/after filming. However, it probably does explain why he might not have been up to looking chirpy on the tv for the final day.

BBC article

I guess they have their own guidelines for deciding which of

• bad baking but stuck to brief
• good baking but not what asked for

wins

And I guess combined with her unfortunate leaky pastry in the showstopper meant the chop

Choux pastry is mixed in a saucepan, but it's then baked in an oven.
Yes, but to the other part of my point: they had to make the dough.

But the voiceover did say that Kim-Joy was using the same recipes as for the cake and biscuits as she had used in Spice week, so maybe the judges thought she was taking the actual baking a bit easy, and relying on her decorating skills. I agree with this. Prue said all the ginger was a bit blah (in not so many words; but she DID say the ginger biscuit was an anticlimax after the ginger cake).

I thought Rahul's showstopper was actually landscaped, like you'd landscape a garden, and was visually varied and creative, and I would have given him extra kudos for that. K-J's (and Ruby's, I think, although I'm already forgetting Ruby's...) were just things laid or propped up on a flat surface.

I’ve just watched the end of Danish week again.

Paul says “it’s ironic it was because of your pain au chocolat”

And Prue says “she’s a really good French baker, just not a very good Danish one”.

I think if she’d just made the pain au choc slip in the showstopper she’d have got away with it, but as she made a French loaf in the signature instead of rye bread I think they couldn’t let it go.

...aaaand (and I need to step back from this as am clearly way overinvested)

Both challenges she did French stuff in were planned ahead so it’s not like she only had limited time to come up with something she already knew

The more I think about it I think Rahul won as he constantly pushed himself - sometimes it didn’t work but he never rested on his laurels or played things safe

The more I think about it I think Rahul won as he constantly pushed himself - sometimes it didn’t work but he never rested on his laurels or played things safe

That's basically what Prue said, isn't it? I think it's true. I am still a bit annoyed by the 'never had a doughnut' thing though; as others have said, the concept of deep-fried sweet dough is hardly unknown in India Not to mention he's been here what, 8 years? Has he really never been to Greggs, or Krispy Kreme, or even a supermarket bakery section?

DarlingNikita Terry was shown in the round up bit with Briony ("meeting up in the West Country" or something like that).

Not impressed with a Rahul win, although the writing was on the wall when Paul and Prue started orgasming over his showstopper biscuit. I'm actually starting to loathe Hollywood in an alarmingly visceral way.

Was Dan at the finale?

Sean(n) Walsh - just to outrage people

Indeed! Let him try shagging Sandi . . .

taffeta no that's fair enough I genuinely wanted to know what the actual difference was!

MargotLovedTom1 ah, thanks, I missed that. That's so sweet that so many of them keep in touch.

Taffeta, yes, we saw Dan briefly. I think he gave his opinion on who would/should win but I can't remember what he said.

Danish pastry is what the French call Viennoiserie, the German have is as Plunder Kuchen or Franzbrötchen and so on. It's all the same thing, it's not like it's "Danish" in a special way.

Thank you Chardonnay's - I knew I'd read this somewhere, but couldn't remember the details. Manon was robbed!

My theory is that the increasingly-ginger bread man that is PH tried it on with all of these ladies, and was kicked into touch by every single one of them*, and he wreaked his revenge in the only way he could - Abuse of Power!

*Showing the had good taste in more than food

I do think the whole doing French bakes on Danish week is a bit clutching at straws as a reason to give Manon the boot. Ruby and Rahul used a lot of Indian flavours throughout the series and were told they were putting an Indian twist on the bake. John did the same with his Welsh flavours/influences.

They should have just said the bakes were not up to scratch, not blame Manon for being a French baker putting a French twist on things.

Agree that Rahul was always pushing himself but you can't be winner for pushing yourself and getting it completely wrong, you need to push yourself and be truly spectacular. I think if the showstopper had been a wedding/celebration cake we would have seen something spectacular from all 3.

Very, very disappointed with the final.....

Awful challenges for a final.
Rahul, I’m sad to say, didn’t deserve to win, he was second imo.
Kim Joy was clearly the winner, first in 2 challenges then all 3 were equally bad in the showstopper. She was definitely cheated by Paul and Prue.

As others have said, I also think Rahul has autism ... thought that from week 1. Paul and Prue also talked to him differently than the others every week. Good on him for being able to cope with Bake Off. But he shouldn’t have won based on the final show.