Bake Off - an extra slice of the final

[NigelHarmansNewWife]

Well Josh was robbed I thought

I do love Mattie, but Josh was robbed.

I'm pleased for Matty, and thought it could have gone either way.

The judges said Josh's show stopper was dry iirc whereas Matty's was light and delicious. I thought Matty's looked nicer too.

None of us tasted the cakes, and taste is pretty important.

Yes, in fairness, they said Matty's tasted good, the only error was it being lopsided.

That was the most underwhelming final showstopper I can remember. A shame to end on such an anticlimax, as I enjoyed this series overall.

Matty didn't deserve to win. The raw lardy cake was inexcusable.

I wish there was more explanation of how everything is judged. Sounds like the technical challenge doesn't really count for much, maybe it's all judged on the showstopper, with the technical only coming into play as a decider if there are two equally ranked showstoppers?

Paul made some comment about Matty's "journey" and how much he'd listened to the feedback and improved. So is the winner the one who's shown the most improvement, rather than the one who's actually the best?

I suppose they can only go on who applies, and it's bound to vary year to year. I think they've had some good bakers this year, just nobody really outstanding or particularly creative. In some years you have people who are consistently really good.

I wish they would actually give them enough time to produce something properly beautiful. I would rather watch a true artisan produce a true showstopper in 6 hours, than that person struggle to produce something a bit meh in four hours.
Let’s see what these people are truly capable of..

I thought Josh would win but once his showstopper was slagged off I wasn’t sure. He was def the best baker overall thpugh. Matty seemed lovely but he was lucky that his cake tasted so good!
Dan deservedly didn’t win. He was def he weakest of the 3.

But we saw Matt realise his cake was undercooked and he had to shove it back in the oven. No way does that produce a perfect cake. I liked Matty, but he wasn't just being modest, he was pretty clueless. I think they were deliberately really harsh in their comments to Josh, so they could justify picking Matty. I liked his cake, maybe it was overbaked, but I thought it fulfilled the brief perfectly. Robbed , definitely robbed. I don5 think I’ll watch again.

I’m glad I found this thread. Agree that the final was a bit blah but I’ve been waiting for the amazing week. This year I felt they were all asked to make something that would easily translate into the accompanying cookbook.
i was fine accepting it was a popularity contest until Marty said that when he took brownies into school he told everyone his girlfriend made them, and they had so obviously edited out “cause it’s embarrassing to be a man that bakes”. Kinda made me feel the whole thing was a persona. Maybe I’m just too cynical.

Hang on though. Josh may have been better overall. But his showstopper was not amazing. It was dry and a bit tasteless as the flavour of apple didn't come through..
Mattys showstopper was perfect bar the dowling. They said the chocolate cake was perfect.
They both did good éclairs but yes Josh did win the technical but that's never been the reasoning behind a win.
It's not judged on previous weeks either.
I also really liked the contestants this year and I liked that they were more "home baking style".
I also liked that the final wasn't something ridiculous that they would never be able to do all the elements well.
It is after all an amateur baking show.
I really enjoyed the whole series.

Has there been some editing- cakes looks pretty straight here…..

nothing against matty, he was a great, if surprising winner, but josh was robbed, he was better ALL the way through.
seems very unfair.
i hope josh goes on to achieve great things despite bake off!

I wish there was more explanation of how everything is judged.

1. Looks
2. Charisma
3. Ability to bake

I still love the show though.

Spot on. The final showstopper seemed much less complex than some of the ridiculous ones they’ve set them up to fail with in previous years and this made for more wholesome viewing.

What a lovely set of finalists - all seemed like good eggs! And as pp says it’s kind of irrelevant who wins, as with all these things.

I am much preferring Noel without Matt Lucas, he’s improved a lot.

I found Noel’s input cringeworthy - lewd jokes that just weren’t funny. I thought some of the bakers looked uncomfortable with him too. Alison was excellent and seems perfect for it. She could have done that show alone.

I think you could see Prue and Paul were very disappointed in Josh's showstopper. He just had to not mess up the final bake and it would have been his. Victoria sponge is a plain cake so it needed something to make it sing. A perfect bake and decoration . One of the early years the same thing happened in the final. They always say it is about that week

I kind of see it as showstopper 45-50% of the grade, signature 30% and technical 20-25% it’s always been that way.

its why you can be terrible in the first two and still stay with a great showstopper

i don’t like a final cake challenge though reminds me of when they did the wedding cakes and same kind of underwhelming showstopper

Matty and Dan were my favourite personalities, and I'm pleased for Matty that he won but.. it was very noticeable every week that Matty was constantly looking over his shoulder to see how the other contestants (particularly Josh) were doing things when he didn't have a clue. Essentially copying them.

Josh always knew what he was doing and had much more of a grip on techniques and presentation throughout. I was really surprised when his name wasn't called out as the winner.

Matty may have the charisma/ story/ personality to be more marketable than Josh but in his own words, he's rubbish at the presentation part - he's either going to need to go on some courses or really improve his presentation and techniques to reach the level that Josh is already at imo.

But good for Matty. He seems like a really lovely bloke.

Showstoppers this year had to be the least showstopping cakes I've ever seen on Bake off.

If I'd paid good money for Matty's I'd have sent it back for looking amateur and messy.

I get that it's home baking but still, we expect to go Wow I couldn't do that.

The showstopper this year was based on icing and unfortunately none of them had icing skills.

I wouldn't buy a cookbook by any of them.
Still a great show though.

Yeah I don't get Noel and his constant stream of ooh er that's a big one you've got there, Paul's sausage, fanarr fanarr, aren't I hilarious.

You have to wonder what on earth is the point of the preliminary rounds if coming a bad last just gets ignored.

Having to base the showstopper on the first cake they ever made was always going to be limiting. How much can you tart up a Victoria sponge, after all? Though I suppose Josh could have lied and said his first bake was something quite whizzy.

I think the technicals are more or less a tiebreak rather than contributing greatly to a decision. If you have never made or maybe even eaten/seen a lardy cake (or whatever) you are bound to be clueless and thus take longer to make choices and thus run out of time. I'm happy with that.

I think it came down to the more marketable "face" of Bake Off going forward sadly, not the baking prowess of the final contestants.
Producers may call the shots.

I really liked Matty but Josh was the better baker.
Josh's family and friends must be gutted for him as it was so obviously not fair.