The Great British Bake Off: Dessert Week

November 6, 2024 6:16 AM - Season 16, Episode 7

It's Dessert Week in the tent. Meringue nests, spotted dick and tiramisù await.
posted by Pallas Athena (14 comments total)

(hi everyone, today is terrible for the US and the world. For many people, Bake Off is a consolation, so here's a post about it.)

I'm sorry, the season should be 16. I thought I'd set it. If a mod has time/energy to fix that, it would be great.
posted by Pallas Athena at 6:18 AM on November 6

While the world may be stodgy bottoms, the tent abides.
posted by chainlinkspiral at 9:29 AM on November 6 [2 favorites]

As Paul said, the stage of the competition where good bakers are going home! Sumayah’s flavours were just too interesting for Bake Off!
posted by ellieBOA at 9:11 AM on November 7 [4 favorites]

This was such a shock, I was convinced Sumayah would be this year's winner. Sometimes their reasoning seems so arbitrary (well, much of the time) for who they send home, but this time I could definitely see the reasoning; her signature flavors seemed a bit too much and while I don't like coffee at all so I'm a bit prejudiced, a coffee lemon curd made me squint a little, like Paul. (Solidarity with Gill!) Then she had that technical disaster. Poor kid. Dylan managed to squeak by with his disastrous week and it turned up roses for him, but I guess there's not a lot of play in there anymore.

I'm really interested in trying those salted cured egg yolks now! I have to find some place that carries them.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 6:02 PM on November 8 [3 favorites]

Linked in this week’s Vulture review [archive] is the GBBO Data Instagram account!
posted by ellieBOA at 8:10 AM on November 9

Aww, I love Sumayah, but she was clearly the choice to go home this week. Her signature was beautiful though! Tiramisu and lemon curd are pretty much my two favorite desserts, but when I heard coffee lemon curd, I blanched a little. And then cringed when they cut into her pretty sponge and I realized how thick the layers were.

I do love how this season's group will not be dissuaded from their flavors by the judges' conservatism though. I hate rose as a flavor, but I still want to high five Christiaan for adding a lil rosewater to his strawberries in the showstopper after his signature kind of flopped. Just keep workshopping your ideas kids.

Dylan had a splendid week, both as a baker and in razzing the hosts. Allison's face when he explained that he'd told his parents they were 50, because on average they are. Bwahahaha
posted by the primroses were over at 9:29 AM on November 9 [1 favorite]

Can someone please explain what made these bakes "dessert" vs. all the other stuff they make? Clearly it's some Britishism I don't understand.
posted by BlahLaLa at 10:30 AM on November 9

I guess because it isn't specifically about baked goods like bread, cake, cookies, pastries. For example, baked ladyfingers are part of a tiramisù, but what makes it a tiramisù is the coffee, zabaglione and chocolate. The meringue nests are baked, but what makes them a dessert is the assembly of other things with them. Trifle is another example.

I don't know if I'd put Spotted Dick in the dessert category or the bake category; I think steamed pudding is sort of its own weird genre. Maybe the technical should have been a soufflé or something.

I too had thought of Sumayah as a potential winner! I wonder if her meringue nests might have been saved by using a unifying flavour to tie everything together, like mint-infused cream or some such thing.

But she's so young, I'm certain we'll be seeing more of her. That is, I hope we will.
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:25 PM on November 9

I love coffee and lemon curd, but the idea of them together was not appealing. And there was no way that Gill would go home when she might not have had a great week, but it wasn't nearly as bad as Sumayah's.

Allison's face when he explained that he'd told his parents they were 50, because on average they are. Bwahahaha

Ouch, I'm the same age as Allison and felt her outrage. Dylan, how dare you! Please let Christiaan have a great week soon.

For the first time, I noticed that the Netflix rating this week was TV14 for the Spotted Dick conversations. I love it.
posted by gladly at 6:44 PM on November 9 [2 favorites]

Yeah, the idea of coffee and lemon curd together sounded terrible to me.
posted by maryellenreads at 10:09 AM on November 10

I love steamed pudding so I imagine I'd love spotted dick, but haven't ever had it..is it good?
posted by Carillon at 8:04 PM on November 10

I thought maybe Sumayah was riffing on espresso being served with lemon peel like you get in Italy. But I guess probably not, or surely she would have explicitly said so.
posted by CheeseLouise at 7:57 AM on November 11

This question on what makes "desert" made me go down a whole logical tree of when something is desert or whether you would eat certain cakes only before, or also after dinner.

My conclusion is that the GBBO's definition mostly seems to match my own, so I guess it's vaguely cultural (as far as NL and UK culture overlap at least?). I mean, you wouldn't have a tiramisu in the morning or afternoon, it's strictly an after dinner thing, right?

Then again, I was baffled the first time I found out that for Italians, you can only have a cappucino in the morning. Other stuff I found out in uni, like that other people will eat rice in the morning. There's absolutely no reason why they wouldn't, but it's just a super ingrained assumption that I'd never even noticed or questioned before. Since then, I've occasionally been amused to see expats be horrified to discover we don't eat warm food at lunch here (sorry!).

So - would anyone here eat a tiramisu before dinner? Wouldn't the heavy cream and chocolate make you too sleepy if you ate it during the day?
posted by kwartel at 11:07 AM on November 11

Coming in late to say I would 100% eat a tiramisu before dinner!
posted by chocotaco at 5:54 PM on November 15