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Telly addicts

No lack of crimp hre! GBBO 2020 thread 2

997 replies

lettingthedaysgoby · 20/10/2020 20:32

Time for a new thread

OP posts:
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9
EggyPegg · 17/11/2020 22:52

I've found you at long last.
And I'm RAGING. I actually left my chair and shouted 'no'. DH said 'alright, calm down'.
Travesty.

@CassandrasCastle I agree with you completely. Come join me on this hill.

riotlady · 17/11/2020 22:55

I’m fuming! Laura has been one of the weakest bakers for weeks, she’s so slapdash! Constantly slapping stuff around like she’s making a cottage pie not beautiful cakes. Poor Hermine

WotsitWiggle · 17/11/2020 23:01

Wrong decision IMO. I adored Laura, thought she was funny and down to earth, but she needed to nail her bakes today and she didn't. In the past, they've definitely looked at overall series performance for the final.

I think the pressure got to Hermine, she knew this should be "her" week, she's tended to go simple but perfect and I think went big and it backfired. Trying a showstopper that hadn't been practiced was such a risk, suggests they don't get that much time in the practice kitchen.

Egghead68 · 17/11/2020 23:05

So sad about Hermine. She panicked and changed her recipe at the last minute.

Egghead68 · 17/11/2020 23:07

I expect Dave’s going to win cos he’s been on a journey...

ScienceSensibility · 18/11/2020 00:24

Laura must be the weakest baker ever to make a Final.

I think Prue and Paul are appallingly inconsistent and subjective in their judgements.

Laura’s processes are minging, and she is on national TV. Imagine what her own kitchen looks like with no cameras!

I found her crass and vulgar and not at all likeable, being chosen to stay in as superior bakers are let go. It was bad enough when Lottie was sent home, but this decision tonight is a travesty.

Hermine on Instagram is being very discreet but you can tell she was unimpressed at the decision.
I’m certain Mary Berry would not have allowed Laura to be saved week after week. Maybe time for a shake up in the judging team?

Spiderbaby8 · 18/11/2020 01:15

Why are people so surprised at this result (I loved Hermine and wanted her to win) but her first bake was a rush job, under-proved and her show shopper was a mess and didn't taste good. Laura's looked bad but according to judges tasted delicious. It was pretty obvious who was going to go.
Some of the social media response towards Laura is horrible.

Spiderbaby8 · 18/11/2020 01:24

@ScienceSensibility

Laura must be the weakest baker ever to make a Final.

I think Prue and Paul are appallingly inconsistent and subjective in their judgements.

Laura’s processes are minging, and she is on national TV. Imagine what her own kitchen looks like with no cameras!

I found her crass and vulgar and not at all likeable, being chosen to stay in as superior bakers are let go. It was bad enough when Lottie was sent home, but this decision tonight is a travesty.

Hermine on Instagram is being very discreet but you can tell she was unimpressed at the decision.
I’m certain Mary Berry would not have allowed Laura to be saved week after week. Maybe time for a shake up in the judging team?

There's no need to get personal. None of us are there trying the bakes. Taste should be more important than presentation and they constantly say how Lauras bakes taste good.

Past contestants have also said how they sometime edit the show to make it look closer than it was in reality to create more tension.

GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal · 18/11/2020 03:24

@ScienceSensibility

Laura must be the weakest baker ever to make a Final.

I think Prue and Paul are appallingly inconsistent and subjective in their judgements.

Laura’s processes are minging, and she is on national TV. Imagine what her own kitchen looks like with no cameras!

I found her crass and vulgar and not at all likeable, being chosen to stay in as superior bakers are let go. It was bad enough when Lottie was sent home, but this decision tonight is a travesty.

Hermine on Instagram is being very discreet but you can tell she was unimpressed at the decision.
I’m certain Mary Berry would not have allowed Laura to be saved week after week. Maybe time for a shake up in the judging team?

I agree with all of this, I think she's awful. And arrogant - the state she leaves her kitchen in smacks of someone who knows she won't be the one cleaning it up, so what does it matter what state she leaves it in? Angry

LiveintheNow · 18/11/2020 04:51

I like Laura and I like Hermine but on this week Hermine just didn't do well, it is harsh especially to miss out on the final. I agree that we can't tell about the taste and flavours but both of them and Peter get regular praise for that.

RainingBatsAndFrogs · 18/11/2020 06:16

Laura forgot to turn her oven on in the technical, hence it was raw in the middle. The other week she forgot to turn on the freezing switch of the ice cream maker.

BillBaileysPasoFace · 18/11/2020 06:22

The only positive is that I won’t have to keep correcting DH who constantly calls her “Hermione”

IRunLikeJoeBiden · 18/11/2020 06:29

I hadn't watched GBBO for a couple of years before watching this series, and I seem to remember the overall standard of baking as being higher. Am I misremembering?

wowfudge · 18/11/2020 06:43

I'm not sure - I think the difficulty has been ramped up in relation to the time available for the tasks. However they've not had to make their own filo pastry or other such bonkers tasks for a few years.

Al1langdownthecleghole · 18/11/2020 07:39

@IRunLikeJoeBiden

I hadn't watched GBBO for a couple of years before watching this series, and I seem to remember the overall standard of baking as being higher. Am I misremembering?
I think the standard of baking has gone down over the series, especially since moving to channel 4. I also happen to believe it is inversely correlated with the demand for tower block showstoppers and other insane style over substance tasks.

This series has been particularly poor, possibly due to the constraints of filming, which no doubt reduced the pool they could be picked from.

That said, contestants who can’t make brownies, choux pastry or steamed puddings are clearly not “the best amateur bakers in the country”.

Caelano · 18/11/2020 07:57

@wowfudge agree. When you look back at early series, the tasks are so much simpler. Now it seems to be a case of picking the most obscure ideas possible. The jelly injections last week were art, not baking, and frankly this week’s technical, the horn of plenty, looked like it would be pretty hard and unappealing even if constructed perfectly.

Much as I wanted hermine to stay, there was no way she could get through after producing inedible food. Her rum baba was underproved and her gelatine cubes looked awful. You could see way before the judging took place that she’d just lost the plot on this one. Whatever anyone thinks about Laura, the judges have said every week that her food tastes great. Even when her ice cream cake hadn’t set, you could see the judges found the taste far better than some of the better looking creations. Laura clearly knows her stuff with balance of ingredients and producing really tasty combinations

Ultimately I’d far rather eat a messy looking but delicious bake than something that looks like it’s out of a Parisian patisserie window but doesn’t taste great.

Of course, looking good as well as tasting good is best of all which is why it looks to be Peter for the win. But if it’s a decision between the two, flavour should win over tidiness.

I really wish they’d stop trying to push the boundaries by setting tasks which aren’t focused on actual baking. I’d rather see a superbly baked simpler showstopper than some weird construction. They’ve done things like a picnic basket of items or high tea in the final before. Something like that would be great... test their ability to create multiple items that taste really scrumptious.

RainingBatsAndFrogs · 18/11/2020 08:18

Why do they set it in a tent, in summer? So many things made difficult by the heat. Even this week Paul and Pru excused Laura’s liquid mirror glaze due to the heat. ( But it wasn’t the heat). Abd then give them tiny domestic freezers,

It’s just so... twee cupcake and bunting crap, more style over substance.

And as for those two brainless stooges, I would be screeching at their unfunny interruptions if I was working hard on a task.

CaptainMyCaptain · 18/11/2020 08:23

It’s just so... twee cupcake and bunting crap, more style over substance.
That's always been the aesthetic, though, all the merchandise etc. is based on this. I don't suppose they dared to change that when it moved to Channel 4. It would have been a completely different programme which some people might have preferred but other loyal viewers might have abandoned.

thereplycamefromanchorage · 18/11/2020 08:28

Bit harsh to call Laura arrogant for creating a mess at her work station! I think Hermine is the better baker overall - but Laura had a better day in this episode. Her food tasted good, whereas Hermine's didn't - it was the right decision for her to go based on this week.

Bluntness100 · 18/11/2020 08:30

I think it was a fifty fifty last night between Laura and harmine, but throughout the series, hermine has done better than Laura. Laura just keeps scraping in.

I thought the tech challenge was really bad, that was nothing about baking and everything about being able to work out how to construct it, which is spectacularly missing the point of the show. Sure, give them something difficult to bake, but this wasn’t difficult to bake, it was about how to make the shapes and construct.

When you start giving them templates you know you’ve got it wrong.

Caelano · 18/11/2020 08:44

You also have to factor in the editing though, which highlights particular aspects. Much is made of Laura’s near-disasters, forgetting to switch the oven on etc, and zooming in on her messy work surface. Just as they like to show shots of Peter looking calm and in control while wiping down his pristine worktops. Some of these bakes take 3 or 4 hours... what we see is literally just a few minutes of each contestant. For all we know, Laura is focused and not flapping about nearly so much in the other 3 hours and 55 minutes.

Also however incredible some of the creations look, we don’t get to taste them. The judges have said consistently that Laura’s flavours are excellent. They often describe what she’s made as delicious, despite not always looking great, and ultimately that’s got to count more than whether she’s a tidy baker. Although having said that, she’s clearly capable of doing really neat work (didn’t she do a really lovely cage cake with a garden theme? And that underwater scene with her jelly cake?) If she’d never produced anything decent looking then I’d be less sympathetic but clearly she’s got the skills to produce amazing looking stuff like hermine has done; it’s just not consistently amazing looking - but the taste is constant. In fact I can’t remember anything she’s made that tasted bad whereas I think all the others have at some point.

On a personal level I was rooting for Hermine and would have liked her to go through but after producing 2 really bad items this round it was the right decision

knittingaddict · 18/11/2020 08:45

It's right that Hermine went. I said to a friend before the episode started that I thought she would win it, but she did terribly this week. The rum baba thing had totally the wrong texture and that's the whole point of the challenge. Her show stopper looked inedible. Laura's looked a mess on the outside, but when it was cut into it looked delicious. The judges are supposed to decide on what happens this week and I think only take previous weeks into account if it's very close. I don't know what happened to Hermine, but the right person went.

I'm not sure I can take another week of Laura's mess though. I'm far from perfect, but she made me hyperventilate this week. All that chocolate!

knittingaddict · 18/11/2020 08:46

Oh and I was very pleased for Dave. I honestly think he is a bit of an introvert and probably feels more relaxed with fewer people around. I thought he was lovely this week and wouldn't be surprised if he won.

IntermittentParps · 18/11/2020 08:55

Unfortunately Hermine had to go based on this week's performance, even though she's overall a much more competent baker than Laura. Laura's flavours saved her (along with Hermine's bizarre decision to wing a showstopper recipe).

Peter was an arrogant tit. 'They're not quite perfection, but they're close' about his own cakes.

I like Dave more and more. He's really warmed up. He's sweet, he just doesn't perhaps have the chat and the easy joking nature that some of the others do. Loved the look of his showstopper.

I actually left my chair and shouted 'no'. That is just about the most British thing I've ever read Grin

ppeatfruit · 18/11/2020 09:44

Sorry to sound dense but Louis who has died? What was he in GBBO? Or was he in it?