The Great British Bake Off: Pastry

September 9, 2015 2:05 PM - Season 6, Episode 6

With bread, biscuits and cakes under their belts, the bakers must now prove their skill with pastry.

First, the bakers make frangipane tarts for their signature challenge - shortcrust pastry holding a silky-smooth frangipane cream. Fruit is the obvious addition, but one baker hopes that a pina colada-flavoured tart will win the judges' approval.

Paul sets the technical challenge, a traditional cheese-filled pastry from Cyprus - the flaouna. The bakers are faced with ingredients they've never heard of that make a particularly pungent filling. Once the bakers have overcome the smell, they just need to work out what a flaouna looks like - a mini pizza, a Cornish pasty or none of the above?

The showstopper is the classic 70's canape, vol-au-vents. Bitesize puff pastry that should be delicate, light and stuffed with tasty fillings. The bakers approach this challenge with trepidation; one refers to vol-au-vents as his nemesis. Getting the puff folded and chilled in time causes problems for more than one, but it's no holds barred when it comes to the fillings as the bakers choose an array of flavours and combinations that really impress the judges.

description via bbc iplayer

posted by everybody had matching towels (8 comments total)

I may be a terrible person but I caught myself rooting for Alvin to go. But it was him or Nadiya! And Nadiya and her eyebrows must triumph!
posted by Diablevert at 7:33 PM on September 9, 2015 [7 favorites]

Oy, that flaouna technical was rather unfair! Most of the bakes were declared to be successfully tasty, but there was such emphasis on the bakers having intuited the right shape. Are they expected be familiar with the standard forms of all the world's regional pastry specialties? Because—forgive me, Cypriot Mefites—absent further instruction, a pizza shape seems as valid a choice as a rugby ball to me.

I did like Alvin very much, but one can't fault the judging. He did have the most consistently underwhelming weekend.

Looking forward to weird Victorian aspic molds and such!
posted by mumkin at 12:50 AM on September 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

Oy, that flaouna technical was rather unfair! Most of the bakes were declared to be successfully tasty, but there was such emphasis on the bakers having intuited the right shape. Are they expected be familiar with the standard forms of all the world's regional pastry specialties? Because—forgive me, Cypriot Mefites—absent further instruction, a pizza shape seems as valid a choice as a rugby ball to me.

You're not wrong. To be fair, the technical challenge is often quite unfair (what do you mean you didn't guess you had to do something not mentioned in the recipe?) but this was especially so, because no amount of background technical knowledge would save you if you didn't know what they were meant to look like. In practice, none of them looked much like what Paul wanted, because no-one was psychic.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 6:11 AM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

I do feel like they're hitting up some pretty obscure stuff for the technicals. Of course, they've done 60 of them by now, and what with the bakers themselves getting more technically accomplished over the years, I think it's inevitable that they're going to have to go a little farther afield to find something they can be reasonable sure the majority of them won't have tried before.

In a way Mary's better for this than Paul, because her cooking career stretches back so far, and her books seem to have all these recipes for classic Viennese and French cakes and pastries that have been out of fashion for god knows. I'd bet it's far more likely that some of these bakers have had a crack at doing a lavash or a pappadom or a steamed pork bun than that they've done a Sachertorte.
posted by Diablevert at 11:05 AM on September 10, 2015

I was very worried about Tamal, especially after he told the story about the sandwich he'd had once (television needs more of that, we can't lose him now, etc.), but since Alvin and Nadiya were tripping all over themselves, it didn't much matter. I'll miss you, Alvin!

I like everyone left (except Ian), so it was nice to see Mat win star baker since he's mainly been in the middle of the pack so far.
posted by minsies at 11:26 AM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Are frangipane tarts a standard-ish thing in the UK? I've never heard of them before, but the fact that most of the contestants used similar fruits would seem to indicate that it's a known thing?
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:27 AM on September 10, 2015

Are frangipane tarts a standard-ish thing in the UK?

They're pretty common in mid-to-upper class restaurants/cafes.
posted by brilliantmistake at 1:55 AM on September 11, 2015

I've had frangipane tarts several times in the US -- one of my favorites!
posted by peacheater at 7:16 PM on September 16, 2015