A Total Eclipse of The Tart - The Final Count Down Bake Off 25

[GetSetFake]

Just realised we need a new thread......

The wrong decision. Aaron had a bad technical too and Tom’s showstopper was crap.

Tom should have gone. Pissed off with that.

Yeh, we said ‘so Aaron or Tom, most likely Tom’.

TOBY! 😱

I don't understand how Tom is still in the competition. He should have gone a couple of weeks ago. Having said that, Paul was unnecessarily harsh today.

Feel sorry for Toby but I think it’s a fair bet that Tom won’t win.

I think Paul was harsh because he does like Tom and didn't want to show favouritism and gets frustrated with him when he makes silly decisions.

Ah, poor Toby. I thought his macarons had saved him, but the mousseline soup did him in after all :(

What a waste of chocolate - PP said it would have cost £250 in ingredients and they didn't even taste it.

Jasmine did brilliantly this week, and is massively in pole position for the final, but as we know that mean's almost nothing...

I'm really sad. Toby's showstopper was beautiful and his 'puddle cake' was the funniest thing I've seen all series. Tom wasted all that chocolate and should have been penalised for it.

Funniest bake of the series shouldn't get you through to the final though. I liked him a lot and I'm sad to see him go, but I do think he was the weakest of the four overall, throughout the series and tonight.

Glad I found you guys, thanks for the new thread @BishyBarnyBee 🍪 🥮

I'm sad to see Toby go, he really pulled himself up after that disaster of a technical. I did think it was a little unfair but then I remembered his "soup" frambosier (sp?).

Tom was pulling at my heart strings today, I did feel for him, the stress must be unreal.

I was surprised but I suppose Tom's technical was much better than Toby's. Some weeks there's not much to choose between them so the slightly better ranking counts for little but it was a gulf tonight.

Tom would probably have won the technical if he'd not smashed his dome as that one looked good.

I'd have preferred Toby but on balance it was probably fair. The ridiculous showstopper just clouded my judgement.

And if Toby hadn't short cutted the lemon filling he'd probably be in the final as that was the bit that stopped him coming top in that round.

I wasn't saying he should go through because he had the funniest failure!

Absolutely devastated that Toby has gone.....😵‍💫😵‍💫 I swore at the TV!!! My 17 year old son is still saying how unfair the judge's were tonight 😂

Just got to the end of the judging of the showpieces and Christ, someone has pissed in Paul’s cornflakes!!! He was so, so horrible this time.

Utter waste of chocolate, especially given what's happening in the industry now. I said to my dd if it's chocolate week then fine but it wasn't and Paul must have heard me as he said it just afterwards 😉 I did feel for Tom as Paul was unnecessarily harsh this week.

I was so sad it was Toby who went. I really thought he had done enough.

I feel Aaron just got through this week as he didn't quite get his macarons quite right. Plus his mousse just looked inedible.

Jasmine does seem to make everything look easyish to her, but then she did say she didn't know how to make some of the things, so I think she just takes things in her stride and doesn't flap easily. Must be helped by her job or maybe it's how she is and that helps her in her job. She does look a bit hassled next week though.

Just catching up. Not sure that was the right decision. Argh!

I want Aaron to win, Jasmine is good but she's almost too good and it's so predictable if she wins.

James (runner up season 2) was also a medical student.

I more meant - if it was close between the two of them, someone producing that in the semi final shouldn't go through.

But - I made Creme Mousseline for last year's Pastry Week bake along and it wasn't a million miles away from what Toby produced. I suspect I did a Toby and added it too warm. It felt like a waste of a good creme pat to add so much butter to it and I wouldn't rush to make it again.

I think that was totally the wrong decision and really unfair. In previous weeks there have been people who've done terrible signatures and technicals and then Paul always says 'they've done enough to save themselves.' Toby absolutely did enough to save himself last night- the only criticism was about the taste of the lemon ones, and even then Prue said was partly because they ate the chocolate ones first.

Tom on the other hand wasted all his time melting lumpy chocolate and his macarons were flat and looked like he'd thrown the decoration on them. Aaron's was also way worse than Toby's.

I feel like this week and last they've deliberately based it not on the showstopper so they could send Ian and Toby home. In previous weeks, they've virtually ignored people coming last in the technical in the judging and then suddenly last night it was the most important thing. Poor Toby was robbed.

Too predictable if the person who has consistently been the best baker wins? That's how it should be. Aaron has been all over the place throughout the series. I thought he would go out fairly early on and last night his mousseline was wrong and that sloth was terrible - none of his macarons were right. There's something we're missing in the edit or he's bloody lucky.

That was the only episode I watched this year, so had no idea of past form etc, and I was expecting Toby to scrape through into the final over Giant Choc Beehive Behemoth man or Sieg Heil Sloth Man.

(Surely the tent is now so often red hot during filming that they should be doing their practice bakes in furnace rooms or something? It seems to have become a regular thing. For the first time in my life, I found myself thinking about the function of eyebrows being in part to stop sweat running into your eyes — though the admirably unflappable Jasmine, whom I assume has alopecia that affects all her hair, doesn’t seem to have been negatively affected?)

Checking in! I feel for Toby and actually for Tom. Paul was so harsh this week! It feels as though it's Jasmine's to lose, but you never know. For-sure winners have certainly messed up before!

Very excited as I will actually know the winner ahead of you guys - I have a ticket to the filming of the last Extra Slice on Saturday! Promise to keep schtum though.

It was good to see the contestants still helping each other out even at this late stage of the contest (eg Jasmine letting Aaron know his caramel smelled ready). So many other shows focus on the drama of tearing down opponents and it was good to see a bit of building each other up.
This year’s baking standards have been incredible, comparable to the Bake-off Professionals series and in some cases actually better.

😂😂

I think you have described my feelings better than I did. It just seemed like the rules were being applied differently week to week to favour Tom when he had duff challenges.

I had a horrible thought going to sleep last night (my life is rich and full, you can tell!). I wonder if Tom is the winner and the on screen snark from Paul was to garner public sympathy for Tom? My circles are probably not representative but he seems very unpopular as a potential winner. They have different favourites but “anyone but Tom” has become a bit of a theme in recent weeks.