The Great British Bake Off: Caramel Week

November 3, 2021 8:25 AM - Season 12, Episode 7

The bakers put their twist on a classic caramel tart and produce a family favourite biscuit bar in the technical, before creating a showstopping dessert encased in a sugar dome.
posted by ellieBOA (13 comments total)

Caramel work seems incredibly difficult. Oh, make a caramel tart that's mostly caramel and make sure it isn't too sweet at the same time. And sure, make a sugar dome for the showstopper because, why not? I watch Bake Off: The Professionals and they all have terrible difficulties with sugar work but GBBO makes these home bakers wrestle with something that is difficult for pros to do under pressure. I really wish they would stop asking the bakers to do these things. Each season they could just do old challenges and it would be interesting to watch because they're new people. It isn't necessary to up the drama each series. I watched the Canadian bakers yesterday and it was a relief and much more fun.

Rant aside, the Jurgenator is back, Giuseppe had a rough week, and I love Chigs, Crystelle, and Lizzie. Another great final five.
posted by ceejaytee at 8:37 AM on November 3, 2021 [8 favorites]

And as a dairy and gluten free person I am thrilled for next week! Sad to see George go from a personal level but he had the worst week. Will check out the professional version!
posted by ellieBOA at 8:47 AM on November 3, 2021

We did love the way that the bakers were told to make a Twix bar without calling it that (something out-and-out lampshaded by Matt at one point). When the show was on the BBC, that would have been because they Don't Do Advertising; now it's presumably because they're not going to mention a brand without getting a hefty endorsement fee.

That said, I'm not very fond of the sort of technical challenge that is "recreate a well-known baked product, except in under two hours, with limited instructions, and without the years of experience and food science the makers of the real thing have". You won't get a Twix bar, you'll get a sort of Twixoid thing which, depending on how badly you mess up, may or may not look like an entry from the chocolate version of the Bristol Stool Scale.
posted by Major Clanger at 12:28 PM on November 3, 2021 [5 favorites]

I haven't seen this yet but as someone who has made both brittle and caramel, it is definitely not easy and I have had many fails resulting in caramel everywhere in my kitchen. You really have to watch it very closely and that's a challenge when you have bakers paying attention to multiple things in order to finish in time.

This brings me to a question-I feel like the timing on the challenges has gotten much smaller. It's always a rush, but it feels like they are intentionally shortening the time to make it even more difficult. Is it me or are the challenge times shorter?
posted by miss-lapin at 1:45 PM on November 3, 2021

Lizzie my favourite (doomed) contestant, never so relatable as her horrified face when Crystelle hugged her.

Make something where the main flavour is caramel, but not too sweet, is insane. I don't really mind the twix, mostly because it's a very comprehensible option, even if they all looked terrible.
posted by jeather at 3:25 PM on November 3, 2021 [5 favorites]

Oh they absolutely make the times too short. You can see when theyve overdone it when, as happened on both first two tasks, basically everyone messes up.

One does wonder exactly how well Paul and Prue would perform under the conditions they subject the bakers to
posted by Cannon Fodder at 1:30 AM on November 4, 2021 [5 favorites]

I suspect that this has always been between Giuseppe and Jurgen, but I love Crystelle's family stories and Lizzie's grandma-toddler style and I'm so glad they're through to the quarter-final.
posted by Jeanne at 4:09 AM on November 5, 2021 [7 favorites]

I was glad George did pretty well in his last showstopper. He had some really good bakes over the course of the competition, but has been on the lower end of things the last couple of weeks. I'm glad he didn't go out on a complete disaster.

The sugar domes were asinine. It just wasted people's time, so their bakes were worse than they otherwise would have been. Lizzie's was the only one that added a level of visual interest to her cake, but then hers was apparently inedible. Great job, producers.

As I typically complain about the comedy bits, I feel honor bound to report that I sort of enjoyed Noel's descriptions of the bakers and was sad not to hear whatever roast he came up with for George and Crystelle. Although I realize that if those didn't make the broadcast, they probably weren't entertaining.

Surprised it took so many episodes to get to the Chignature challenge joke.
posted by the primroses were over at 7:57 AM on November 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

1. Chigs in glasses is adorable.
2. Farewell George, baker bear of my dreams.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 7:11 PM on November 5, 2021 [10 favorites]

OK I need Noel's sweater. I need it.
posted by miss-lapin at 9:02 AM on November 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is where I start getting super anxious because I really like them all, and I don't want to see anybody go home. (I liked George too, but I never felt that he'd be in there for even this long so I didn't get too attached to him.)
posted by BlahLaLa at 10:12 AM on November 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

Also this tweet made me laugh.
posted by BlahLaLa at 6:37 PM on November 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

I thought the twix challenge was pretty cool, it certainly did not make me want to make a twix though. Caramel looks like way too much of a pain in the ass to be worth making, honeycomb as well. But I would definitely like for someone to make me something with honeycomb, I'm not sure I've ever had it.
posted by skewed at 11:55 AM on November 9, 2021