GBBO 2020 thread 3 - No fancy titles - in a rush!

[SchadenfreudePersonified]

Here's a thread if anyone else has made one let me know and I'll get this cancelled!

Well, I think Peter overall was the best baker, just a squeak ahead of Dave.

Then a great yawning chasm back to Laura. As said by PPs, she was promoted beyond her capability or knowledge. Who knows why.

It took her three or four guesses to figure out how to make the coffee ganache in the Walnut whirl round. 🙄

Next year, producers, can we do away with the frankly stupid time constraints on some of the bakes?

It doesn’t make good television, you’re not filming live so it wouldn’t matter if they had four hours or five hours for a Showstopper, and the bakers may be able to let elements cool properly in between stages.

I am also sick of the temperature of the tent ruining so many of the episodes. Get some fucking air conditioning and decent sized freezers!
It is just tedious watching very hot and frazzled people and frankly it is unfair on some of the older bakers.

Noel and Matt hasn’t worked. They seem to have brought out the worst in each other.
I’m not convinced for the need for two of them anyway. For many of the Celeb versions they’ve only had one link person/presenter.

Also, I don’t think Dave would have been ‘allowed’ to help the others. It says pretty clearly at the top of the Technical instructions that you mustn’t converse/ help each other, so that was probably enforced for the Final. Shitty of them to then edit the footage to encourage viewers to draw the ‘unhelpful’ conclusion.

I’ve enjoyed having Bake Off to look forward to this year. I think I will watch them all over from the beginning! 😀
Nice to have this forum as well. 👍🏻

@Nosuchthingastoomuchcheese

I was a bit confused as I thought all the families bubbled with them but they werent there at the end?

Some did but I suppose some were unable due to work, pregnancy (Dave's wife) or not fancying it.

Great final and the right person won. Dave was close but Peter is the slightly better baker (esp for his age).
Laura should never have been anywhere near the final.

I thought Peter was a worthy winner. I feel so sorry for Laura though. I had a real sense of the producers keeping her in the show to keep the narrative of sloppy, messy Laura going a bit longer. She was way out of her depth. It must be so hard for her family watching how she has been edited

Thanks for the new thread Schady It is a mover this one!

The best man one IMO!!!

Dave shot himself in the foot by making what he found difficult!

Hermine should've been in the final instead of Laura (shame the pressure of the patisserie week got to her).

I'm going to miss GBBO .

I liked them all though

I felt sorry for Laura too.

She obviously has a very decent ability to put flavours together and bake (or bake well when she knows about what it is). But she needed to have suffered the consequences of her lack of presentation. It's all part and parcel of Bake Off.

I think she needs to move herself out of being obsessed with not being "posh" or refined.

It's like she thinks she's Clamity Jane embracing the rough and ready. But lives a life style suggesting the opposite (going on the brief glimpses of her home 😃).

Interesting that those whose bubbles couldn't join them were the ones that made it to the end - must be easier to practice and reflect when you don't have your nearest and dearest with you.

When I do a rewatch, it will be interesting to see if there was a clear-cut moment when Laura should have gone.

I was really impressed with Peter's choices throughout for how they dealt with the brief and the conditions. Yes, the tent shouldn't be so hot, but it's no secret that they do this, and it really does sort out the sheep from the lambs. You could produce a presentable ice cream cake. Some of them would have failed whatever the temperature.

His crispy-cone to support his top bakes was very clever because it added height whilst being very easy to make and very light.

I do cake sculptures myself, and it's all about making achievable choices.

Either Dave or Peter could have won and it would have been a good result. They both deserved it.
I disagree that Laura shouldn't have been there and I feel really sorry for her after the nasty online trolling following Hermine's elimination from the competition. People forget that it's about each bakers performance that week and you really only have to not be the worst in order to survive.
If her bakes taste amazing then that's the most important quality in a baker. It doesn't really matter if the kitchen is a mess and she's not always good at making things look very pretty.
I really liked everyone this year. I thought Noel was very kind and said helpful things and I like that Prue always tries to leave each baker with a positive comment.

It was when they freeze framed Peter's face with that beautiful smile. I thought that was real artistry.

What is with Peter and Xmas? I KNOW! Three Xmas bakes. I think he needs to grow up.

I know I've always liked Dave and I'm biased, but I was very disappointed and think the result is a bit of a travesty. If the showstoppers were neck and neck why didn't they look at the previous two rounds? Dave aced the technical and Peter mucked his up.

I've never had a proper walnut whirl and didn't know they were meant to have coffee or biscuit. Can you actually buy them at bakeries? Dave's custard slice looked amazing, I thought. Peter's cranachan ones would be nice without the whisky (even the smell of whisky makes me feel ill).

Oh well, Dave has baby Ronnie now.

PS Mr fucking Spoon needs to go. Noel slightly redeemed himself with the lovely Bjorn Borg pep talk though.

I know I'm very late to the party (my stupid phone kept coming up with error 404 every time last night) but agree it was mean to keep Laura in, as the final was always between Peter and Dave. I felt so bad for her even as if she'd been set up to fail.
Peter showed the first signs of nerves and getting stressed though as well.
She was nowhere near the same level of finish and presentation, even though obviously her flavours and ideas are really good. I think, although she had a shocker last week Hermine would have been able to produce the same level of precision and accuracy to be on a par with Peter and Dave.
we were sure it was Dave for the win, but not too disappointed it was Peter.

Peters bakes were stunning this week, but Dave was a strong contender having grown a lot in the last few weeks. I wasn’t a fan of Laura’s journey, taste is the one thing the viewer can’t judge, but presentation is everything and she just seemed to squeak in the last few weeks and so you don’t get the vibe she deserved it, even if the flavours were spot on.

I feel like the producers know who they want to win in advance and the “youngest ever baker” to win is a nice hopeful message in 2020. So hermine had to go out in the semi (I wonder what prompted her to change her recipe last minute and psyched her out?) to keep in low-threat-Laura and make a tight race between the improver and the youngest baker. Lucky for the producers Peters bakes looked great and he showed a lot of skill too.

@ScienceSensibility

Well, I think Peter overall was the best baker, just a squeak ahead of Dave.

Then a great yawning chasm back to Laura. As said by PPs, she was promoted beyond her capability or knowledge. Who knows why.

It took her three or four guesses to figure out how to make the coffee ganache in the Walnut whirl round. 🙄

Next year, producers, can we do away with the frankly stupid time constraints on some of the bakes?

It doesn’t make good television, you’re not filming live so it wouldn’t matter if they had four hours or five hours for a Showstopper, and the bakers may be able to let elements cool properly in between stages.

I am also sick of the temperature of the tent ruining so many of the episodes. Get some fucking air conditioning and decent sized freezers!
It is just tedious watching very hot and frazzled people and frankly it is unfair on some of the older bakers.

Noel and Matt hasn’t worked. They seem to have brought out the worst in each other.
I’m not convinced for the need for two of them anyway. For many of the Celeb versions they’ve only had one link person/presenter.

Also, I don’t think Dave would have been ‘allowed’ to help the others. It says pretty clearly at the top of the Technical instructions that you mustn’t converse/ help each other, so that was probably enforced for the Final. Shitty of them to then edit the footage to encourage viewers to draw the ‘unhelpful’ conclusion.

I’ve enjoyed having Bake Off to look forward to this year. I think I will watch them all over from the beginning! 😀
Nice to have this forum as well. 👍🏻

I agree about the deliberately too short time scales (creating drama because people are rushing) and making icecream and anything cool in a tent in the middle of August. Pru said she didn't know the weather would be like that, and since we're in the uk, it could just as easily be 15 degrees in August, but its not inconceivable it would be an unsuitable temperature for chocolate to set quickly if the tent is not adequately cool. My other bugbear which I said on a previous thread is the way they have to carry the show stopper to the front, when the signature bakes which are usually infinitely more transportable are judged from their bench. I had a 3 tier cake at a party. The cake maker bought it to the venue as 3 separate cakes and assembled it and decorated there. I think in a professional situation a lot of the details would be added when the cake was in its final display place.

I agree that Laura was out of her depth in the final. However, I do think it was right that she was there. Overall she wasn’t as good as some of the others who got eliminated, but she was pretty consistent and that’s what saved her. All the others were good but then had one really bad week which saw them eliminated, whereas Laura was almost always towards the bottom of the pack but was never the worst. As the judging is done on that week’s performance, that’s what got her through against others. As Prue said, you just have to be not the worst, and Laura wasn’t (until the final).

I think it was only Hermine and Cornish Mark who had any family members with them in the bubble - I don’t remember seeing anyone else’s family in any of the clips. Can anyone else remember? I expect in most cases partners would have had to work or had other commitments so wouldn’t have been able to join the bubble.

Dave aced the technical and Peter mucked his up.

I'm not sure there was that much to separate them in the technical, Peter's didn't hold their whirl but they said the flavour was good and his chocolate had set. Dave's didn't have set chocolate which they commented on, so not perfect either.

@thecatsthecats

That’s the thing, there were moments she should have gone but there was always that person just that smidgen worse, as Laura always managed to pip it to the post on taste. I feel like they picked the best of the worst with her rather than all of them being the best top 3.

Peter was consistently good, Dave steadily improved but Laura was exactly the same throughout, no matter how many times P & P told her about her presentation issues, she never improved, even Noel last week was trying to drive home that Hermine is usually a good baker. I do fully appreciate it’s how it is on the day, but in this rare circumstance ( as i don’t recall any other top 3 finalists being bad at presentation) I still think when faced with someone that has rarely presented anything visually to standard and someone who for the most part has made their bakes both presentable and tasty then you pick the person who is usually good all round, as we have a decent race, because there was no way Laura was going to match the presentation skills the men had and we all
Knew that. She literally presented a plonked pile of cakes for her showstopper, the men had some level of refinery and finesse to theirs.

I totally agree with you on the cone and i would have done the same, can you imagine making that out of cake, then covering in fondant!! The weight of it alone would have been an issue

[quote hoxtonbabe]@thecatsthecats

That’s the thing, there were moments she should have gone but there was always that person just that smidgen worse, as Laura always managed to pip it to the post on taste. I feel like they picked the best of the worst with her rather than all of them being the best top 3.

Peter was consistently good, Dave steadily improved but Laura was exactly the same throughout, no matter how many times P & P told her about her presentation issues, she never improved, even Noel last week was trying to drive home that Hermine is usually a good baker. I do fully appreciate it’s how it is on the day, but in this rare circumstance ( as i don’t recall any other top 3 finalists being bad at presentation) I still think when faced with someone that has rarely presented anything visually to standard and someone who for the most part has made their bakes both presentable and tasty then you pick the person who is usually good all round, as we have a decent race, because there was no way Laura was going to match the presentation skills the men had and we all
Knew that. She literally presented a plonked pile of cakes for her showstopper, the men had some level of refinery and finesse to theirs.

I totally agree with you on the cone and i would have done the same, can you imagine making that out of cake, then covering in fondant!! The weight of it alone would have been an issue[/quote]
I feel like no one would have judged or known if the judges had gone 'yup, I've had enough of cakes that look like piles of goo' and booted her earlier.

I'm the final round interviewer at my company, and I get really frustrated at receiving candidates for second interview who were never going to meet the standard of the others. Not that they had something different to offer - people who were fundamentally not going to be able to achieve a key criteria.

(I've learned from my mistakes - I'll be forcing them to narrow down candidates next time!)

You eat with your eyes first, and nobody would pick Laura's bakes to eat.

I like the Robot Wars scoring personally - Style (presentation), Control (execution of skill), Damage (taste), Aggression (have they played it safe).

But then I tend to rank everything in life on that scale! I'd say Laura rated high on Damage, but Style was abysmal, Control variable, and Aggression actually minimal - she didn't do new or experimental flavours. As someone said upthread, it's hard to get cheese and onion wrong.

I think sometimes people have done well in earlier rounds, if theyve done something simple, but executed really well.(as opposed to really ambitious things that have more potential to go wrong) I think Linda chose quite a basic recipe one week but she baked and presented it well and was commended for it.

Is it possible to watch old episodes of GBBO? I only came late to the party. Is season one available?

The way I see it with Laura is that she did deserve to be in the final based on this year's series and how things panned out e.g. Hermine having a shocker. But I do struggle with what her bakes looked like. You just can't say they were finalist worthy compared with previous years. But they were what there was this year, and well done to her for getting that far.

I think there have been a couple of weeks when Laura COULD have gone, but no weeks where I felt that the wrong decision was made around her - just always two or three obviously at the bottom and any of them could have gone.

It's just unfortunate sometimes that occasionally a good baker has a stinking week and there is no way the judges could feasibly leave them in, am sure they hate it too.

The only one that I think genuinely stayed in longer than they should have this series was Rowan.

@StarJumpAlertTakeCover

The most recent 4 series broadcast by Channel 4 are all available on the All4 app. (The previous ones on the BBC are not on iplayer sadly).

Peter's whirls looked awful, not like they're supposed to with the spiral pattern at all. And you couldn't see the clear distinctions in
the colours of the interior. Imperfectly set chocolate was Dave's only issue.

I thought the wrong decision was made when they sent Lottie home and kept Laura. Lottie made one bad decision (an uncovered ice cream cake) whereas Laura as far as I remember messed up all her challenges to some degree.

Series 1 to 5 on Prime.