The Great British Bake Off: Italian Week

October 11, 2017 7:10 PM - Season 8, Episode 7

The bakers face a Sicilian signature, a deceptively tricky technical, and a fiddly showstopper in the hottest temperatures ever recorded in the tent (Channel 4 description).
posted by PearlRose (10 comments total)

YAAAAAAAAAAAN. NOOOOOOO.

I haven't been this crushed since Benjamina left.

Otherwise, I didn't love it? I wanted to love it, because I adore Italian food and wanted to see how it would go, but the Sfogliatelle seemed better-suited to a technical? It wasn't as pretty, I guess, even though it was fiendishly difficult. Watching them cook in that heat was painful to watch.

Anyway, the cannolis looked delicious, and I would have eaten nearly all of them.

Also, pizza. Pizza is delicious and I almost felt like I could make that one. I've made all the elements of it, at least! That hasn't happened for a technical for me in a while.
posted by PearlRose at 7:18 PM on October 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

Verrrry tricky bakes this week and it was interesting how by the end the bakers could be clearly grouped into a top three and a bottom three, with a big gap inbetween. I don't think anyone could have felt too hard done by if, at the end, they had just cast off the bottom three and cut straight to the final next week with Sophie, Liam and Steven.
posted by thoughtless at 1:49 AM on October 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

It feels like Kate only barely escaped by the skin of her teeth. And yeah, I'd be happy to just have a 3-week final with Sophie, Liam and Steven. Done on points or something, I dunno.

I was sort of amused at how aghast the judges were at Sophie's use of mascarpone - that actually feels sort of normal over here? But I'm about as far from an Italian chef as you get. I mean, it wasn't like she was making it with Philadelphia cream cheese.
posted by Kyol at 7:02 AM on October 13, 2017

Bet the music people had fun this week with the Italian theme. They almost never get to branch out from the (wonderful) traditional tunes but this week had a ton of new incidental music. I also lol'd at the bassoon of wacky hijinx when the bakers discovered that they didn't have a rolling pin for the pizza challenge.

I would have liked to see everyone splashing around in a child's paddling pool, as suggested by Noel, but the running theme of people sticking their heads in refrigerators this week did give me a fair amount of joy. "If we have to do the naked Bake Off, so be it," says Steven. Bless.

Kyol, I also loved Paul's AGHAST reaction to Sophie's mascarpone for ricotta substitution, but loved even more when he had to admit that it worked. And I would have eaten the hell out of Steven's cannoli.

The Noel/Paul ribbing this week was delightful. Paul's overall lightening up has been one of the pleasures of this season that I never would have predicted. And the Noel/Liam/Sandi smooch sandwich was one of the cutest things that's happened on Bake Off since the glorious "Everyone Loves Selasi," period.

I'm really going to miss Yan enthusiastically explaining the science bits of baking and her lovely quips. What a delightful person she is.
posted by merriment at 9:03 AM on October 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I will miss Yan, too. I see her as being the baker most likely to be a mefite and it feels to me like losing one of our own. At least Liam is hanging in there and doing so well - he seems to improve as the weeks go by. I'm really enjoying this season and love everything about the new line-up including the change in Paul.

I make margarita pizza from scratch quite often and honestly think I could have done that one without being laughed off the show. My trick is to get the pizza stone really hot, then take it out of the oven and put the dough on it directly, then quickly add toppings and back in the oven. No messing about with the peel. If Kate had done this her pizza would have come out fine! The stone doesn't have time to cool down enough to affect anything and the dough cooks through well.
posted by hazyjane at 1:26 AM on October 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

Oh no Yan! Of course she seems like a fantastic human being, but she also provided these hilarious little science tidbits and injections of joy everywhere.

Watching Brits (or maybe just anyone not from southern new england?) trying to make pizza -_- Did they not get semolina for dusting the peel? That's just mean.
posted by batter_my_heart at 5:17 PM on September 2, 2018

I did see some sort of dusting on the peel/stone, so I think they did get semolina. Perhaps some bakers didn’t take (enough) advantage of it.

Yaaaaaaan. D-:
posted by chainsofreedom at 7:05 PM on September 7, 2018

Saturday night I watched this episode. On Sunday, I went to Seattle's small San Gennaro festival where I found a booth that sold two things: canoli and sfogliatelle. They were both delicious.
posted by ShooBoo at 8:32 AM on September 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

I watched this last night. Poor Yan--she had a terrible weekend and I'm really going to miss her. It could have been Kate and probably would have been if Yan's showstopper had been even just okay. I've never seen sfogliatelle (and I live in New Jersey, home of transplanted Italians!) but I certainly want to look for them. They seem amazing. I was determined not to watch this season (at home we refer to Paul as "Traitor Paul Hollywood") but I have to say that I love Noel and Sandi and Paul has really lightened up. I'm still not sure about Prue. I think she's okay, and she wears fabulous necklaces and glasses, but she's no Mary Berry.
posted by ceejaytee at 9:58 AM on September 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

Jebus, England, haven't you heard of box fans? A couple on the edges to provide a slight breeze would have made everyone so much less miserable.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 12:46 PM on October 12, 2018 [1 favorite]