Episode 4 - Desserts Week

Last week: tarts. James Shetland was Star Tart and, inexplicably, PE teacher Stuart survived Head Girl Victoria.

This week: desserts. The preview promises us “a chocolate breezeblock” and what appears to be a crème brulee soup.  Stuart to go, surely, but Manisha and Ryan in the bake off danger zone.  Onwards to Task 1...

The Signature Bake: The Torte
A dessert cake with layers, filled with whatever they choose. It must be more than 20 cm in diameter.

Sue blows her starter's whistle and gives the countdown of doom, as Mary and Paul start making their rounds of terror.  First up Danny (intensive care specialist) is making her torte out of potatoes (well, potato flour – surely the same thing?).  You can tell she'll nail it.

Brendan (our older friend, who speaks like this: “yesssss”) is using chestnut flour, but that’s fine - unusual flour doesn’t faze Brendan, as he has “MANY friends who can only eat gluten-free”.  To illustrate this (roll VT) we see him offering a cake to his 'neighbour', a woman who seems to have never seen Brendan before and will only open her patio door the smallest gap that politeness and cake diameter allow.  Brendan's Bake Off torte involves clementines and verbena leaves.  Verbena is a common herbal tea in France – affectionately referred to by my cousin as ‘granny’s piss’.  I remain dubious.

Sarah-Jane (adorable rosy-cheeked vicar’s wife) is making a chocolate torte with chocolate filling, some more chocolate filling and a chocolate topping.  She’s also “bravely” adding her and hubby’s fav desert ingredient: amaretto biscuits.  Racey.   Putting biscuits in a chocolate torte may not seem that brave, but she informs us that “until now the bravest thing I’ve done is to get the train alone to Somerset.”  Although I’m able to travel by train alone (to and indeed from Somerset), but would be fairly terrified of baking amaretto biscuits, so I won't judge.

Stuart (PE teacher and controversial baker) is competitively going for seven layers of torte. What could possibly go wrong?  (EVERYTHING.)  He is wearing a purple Hawaiian shirt.  *sigh*

Ryan (our Asian baker) is going fusion - he is making a Green Tea Opera Torte.  (Yes, you read that right.)  It involves buttercream and ganache – I’m thinking to disguise the taste of GREEN TEA.  He’s already having regrets.

Obviously, during all of this Sue is dishing out (SEE, I CAN FOOD-PUN TOO, PERKINS) lots of techy baking detail about avoiding soggy bottoms and dry rot.  You won't be getting that useful insight here though, I'm afraid.  Try Wikipedia.

Back at the ovens, Cathryn (shy mum that gossips with Mel) is wearing this AMAZING red scarf with zebras on it that I completely covet – that’s the kind of detail you want, right?  Kathryn’s children are called Maisie and Ambrose.  Surprisingly, for children, they love cake.  Again, go me, with the sharp and insightful reporting that food lovers expect.

Meanwhile, John (gave up Oxford and law to go to Man-ches-tah) cocks his ear to his cake and listens, drawing on his special power to hear when his cake is done (it squeaks).  Everything he says sounds like innuendo: “I need to get my thing out the oven...” “My cream is too hot...”  And if that weren’t enough, he is wearing a very low cut v-neck, so looks naked (and slightly hairy) under his pinny.  He’s awesome.

Speaking of awesome, James Shetland is a medical student apparently - no wonder he likes potions.  However, he is not, I repeat NOT, wearing the tank top this week.  He is sporting a patterned cardi-come-jumper. Sue pops over to discuss knitwear and they bitch about Stuart’s Hawaiian shirt.

Stuart himself is now creating his bottom layer of seven out of burned sponge scraps, which will probably not please Mary.  Surely he could have just downgraded to a mere six layers?  Ryan, also sensing disaster with his herbal tea torte, is planning on getting Mary drunk first.  Wise.

Manisha is still over-feeding her dad and brothers.  This seems to be her only back story.

Time for judging – who will be Top of the Tortes?  Mary and Paul make their rounds.  Sue follows them, looking delighted and carrying her own spoon.  No Mel, temporarily absent this week – though it’s possible Sue has in fact eaten her.  (FTR, this is not a reflection on Sue's weight or figure, which are excellent, but a comment on her wonderful capacity to eat with joyful gusto.)

So, let’s get our judge on:

Ryan’s Green Tea Opera Torte is criticised for its “bitter chocolate”.  No-one mentions the tea weirdness.

James Shetland’s Hazelnut, Chocolate and Passionfruit Torte is (of course) delicious and “professional”.

Danny’s Blackberry, White Chocolate, Elderflower And Lemon Torte has amazing layers and is “quite something”.

Brendan’s Clementine and Chestnut Torte is “seventies”, but “it works”.  (Brendan claims to not remember the seventies.  “And ay cain doo modern” he implausibly asserts.)

Manisha’s Almond, Chocolate And Cherry Torte has “a lovely finish”, but it’s too boozey - even for Sue, who snorts audibly as the alcohol hits her nasal passage.

Sarah-Jane’s Chocolate and Almond Truffle Torte is “too dry”.  She successfully holds back the tears.

Cathryn’s White Chocolate, Macadamia and Coffee Torte has “gorgeously subtle flavours” and is “beautifully moist”.  She is still wearing her amazing scarf.

Stuart’s Black Forest Torte tastes ok, but looks “a mess”. (Like layers of cake mash added by trowel.)

John’s Torte Noir with Boozy Cream is the aforementioned “chocolate breezeblock”.  It can’t be “cut into elegant pieces”.  Fortunately, the flavours and bake are good.  PHEW.

Onwards!

*Interlude whilst Sue tells us about the history of sugar*

This involves a piece on the history of my hometime Bristol, which, as usual, throws up its pretty terrible past behaviour - though at least Bristol didn’t poison its inhabitants with lethal fake sugar like wot Bradford did.  To paraphrase the rest: sugar used to be crazy pricey, but thanks to William Gladstone’s famous patisserie reforms everyone can now enjoy it all the way to the diabetes clinic.  Hooray!

The Technical Challenge: Crème caramel
“The key is precision” says Mary.  Well, there’s a surprise – after all precision has never been the key before, oh no.  It seems to me that, in fact, the key is to make your crème caramel wobble like a boobie.

As usual, everyone looks terrified and clueless.  There’s much panic of what to do with their eggs – which must be why Sue diplomatically opts against the obvious “no yolk” pun.  (Also, it transpires that omitting the yolk will totally mess the whole thing up.)  As for making caramel, having heard Sue explain the process and watched the bakers try it, I still have no comprehension of how white grainy stuff turns into brown gloopy liquid.

In the final stages, James worries about whether he has time to pee and Stuart looks sulky and says “plop-a-dops”.  Lovely.

And stooooop baking!

The offering to the judges looks, in part, like an ode to salmonella.  Manisha, who decided to freeze her caramels in a last-ditch attempt to set them, has plop-a-dopped out a runny mess. So, of course, has Stuart, and they come bottom, followed by Ryan, who made “coloured water” meets “scrambled eggs”.  Surprisingly, but delightfully, it’s Brendan who has the bestest crème caramels, with “great wobble”, followed by Danny and Cathryn.

Surely Stuart can’t survive again?  Can he once again pull it back with a show stopping show stopper?

The Show Stopper Challenge: Layered Meringue Dessert
Four layers, dressed as they like.

Danny, who’s having another good week, is making ‘Monte Bianco’ Chestnut, Chocolate and Coffee Dacguoise.  Dacquoise is a meringue with nuts in, we’re told.  Mary rings the bells of doom, warning it has to be eaten within the hour or it will regenerate into a mousse and the world will end.

James Shetland, making Fig, Chestnut, Cherry and Chocolate Layered Meringue, has enough machinery on the go to take over a small nation (say, Orkney) and is fashioning an Italian meringue.  Because it is Italian, it’s seemingly proper sturdy, and Sue is allowed to stick her finger in James' mix.  As you can imagine, she is as overjoyed – it’s like an egg-based bunga bunga party.

Sarah-Jane’s meringue is Swiss (sturdiness unknown, but no sign of Sue sticking her figure in).  She’s going for a Hazelnut Tiramisu Layered Meringue.  It looks a bit wonky and gloopy – not her finest moment.

Stuart’s last hoorah (surely?) is a Choca Blocka Mocha Meringue.  A mere six layers this time and simultaneously crispy, crunchy and chewy.  Riiight...  Paul and Mary are deeply unimpressed.  Mary, sarcasto-meter turned up to 11, says “in the end, I think it will be a huge surprise for you and for us.”  Ouch.  He decides to get a blow torch out – I was worried for a second, but it’s just to decorate his dessert.

It’s a Strawberry, Rose and Pistachio Meringue from Ryan – he’s basically attempting a meringue tower, with a mousse roof.  Trouble is, one of his meringue layers collapses and his replacement top floor ends up being bigger than the bottom floors, which, architecturally speaking, is probably not in line with the relevant health and safety regulations.  Nor it seems is the state of his kitchen – every inch of surface and floor space is covered with a sticky bowl.  “It’s a mess in here!” says Paul.  That may well be the case, but it’s fair to say that Ryan is too busy being massively stressed to start cleaning.

Brendan, in line for a turn on the Dessert Throne this week, is making a rectangular Pear, Chocolate and Hazelnut Daquoise.  In one of my favourite exchanges of the evening, Sue asks Brendan if he’s going for “disco or glam rock”?  He curtly replies that “I’m going for classical elegance, actually.”  Natch.  Although apparently, in Brendan’s mind, ‘classical elegance’ is best embodied by making what looks like a chocolate Viennetta.

Meringue takes at least an hour to bake, but Cathryn seems to have spent much of her time chopping gooseberries.  However, she’s not fazed by that at all, even under interrogation from Paul - and given her confidence issues, that has got to be a good sign, although she does suggest that sometimes her Gooseberry, Almond and Honey Meringue often ends up “slightly monstrous” – way to lower those expectations.  Scarf is still excellent.

Manisha has basically squeezed out a load of shaving foam to create her top layer (this is not a criticism) and is using “Tia Maria cream, Kahlua cream, chocolate cream and Chantilly cream” between the layers.  She calls it Tiramisu Layered Meringue Booze Heart Attack. Sorry, Tiramisu Layered Meringue Dessert.  It looks, as us evil Bristolians say, gert lush.

John is still having a mare and has to suddenly interrupt his own Blue Peter-style explanation about what he’s doing to actually, you know, do it.  He’s making an Elderflower and Bramble Berry Pavlova, which looks like a big pile of macaroons.  It ends up leaning, Tower of Pisa stylee.  I’m worried gravity will intervene before judging.

And so, to judging itself!  Mary and Paul arm up and get slicing.

Ryan’s has “too much going on”.  Flavour is ok, but “the textures don’t work”.  It’s “off-kilter”.  Uh-oh.

James Shetland’s is “awkward” to cut.  Paul doesn’t like it”, on account the multiple flavours, but Mary doesn’t dislike it” and compares it to a giant fruit salad.

Danny’s “looks fun when you cut through”, but “feels stodgy” and lacks crispness.

After a tense cutting process, Brendan’s is judged “lovely and really nice”.  High praise.

John (looking like he’s about to cry) also has a tense wait.  But joy, as Paul says “ooh, I like it actually” and Mary thinks it “well done”.

Cathryn has offered up “a nice gooseberry sponge”, but Paul is “struggling to find the meringue”.

Sarah-Jane has over-chocolated, but at least it reminds Mary of Tiramisu.

Manisha has made “a crowning glory” with “good piping work”. Mary drums the top with her spoon, delighted by the crispness. And then they eat and... Paul doesn’t like it. The “meringue texture is excellent”, but it’s “too bitter”. Mary disagrees – “it’s plenty sweet enough for me”.

As we turn to Stuart’s dessert, Mary’s face is bitter-lemon-tastic.  She summons up her best headmistress: “Stuart, you imagined this as your show stopper?” (It looks like a blow-torched wedding cake base.)  He’s admonished for lack of decoration by them both.  Paul says “you could wedge a door open with that” and Mary follows it up with “I wouldn’t know there was any meringue in there” – by Bake Off standards, this is a total mauling.

It’s fairly obvious what will follow, right?  We don’t need to see their discussions and go straight to the results...

Star baker:
“He showed an awful lot of flair, and of course flares were popular in the 1970s,  the decade from which the great man Brendan takes his inspiration.”  Classic Perkins.  Well done Brendan!

Leaving this week:
No drum roll needed, eh?  It’s Stuart.  He says it was “his time” (though I would argue his time was actually a few weeks back) and then worries about being bullied by his pupils.  Still, we shouldn’t forget that he did bake magnificently – just intermittently.

Next time:
PIES!  And the return of Mel.  How will our bakers fare with reconstituted meat products amongst their usual sweet stuff?  Well, some-one has “ABSOLUTELY NAILED THAT” and has baked “sheer perfection.”  Wowsers.

Sue’s puns-watch
“You know how we roll.”
“Half an hour to go, you’d better scramble.”
“James, stop polishing your figs.” (Less pun, more innuendo, but bloody hilarious.)

Missed pun-portunity:
“Meringue ma lord.”