2014 Episode 2 - Biscuit week

Last week: Cake, rattle and roll. Claire was mildly annoying and was unceremoniously booted out – she promptly redeemed herself by defending herself quite marvellously on Twitter and describing a cake as an ‘old man’s flipflop’ on An Extra Slice. We also fell in love with Norman.

Blazer watch: Mary’s opted for a biker jacket in Essex stiletto white, whilst Mel and Sue are colour-clashing with pride. It’s not a jacket, but special mention to Luis’ T-shirt; a particularly fetching shade of tealy-turquoise.  If it were a paint it would probably be called 'Classy Prom Dress' or 'Instagram Filter Algae'. 

The Signature Bake: Thirty-six savoury biscuits, which will go with cheese.

Mel goes ‘free jazz’ (a term I stole from my director at work, jokily describing how he wanted our team discussion to go) and sings the intro. It goes “savoury biscuits, savoury biscuits”. It’s up there with Jordan’s “only a cake” song.

Paul announces that “It’s one thing making three, four biscuits for a dinner party, but when you’ve been asked to make thirty-six, that is very tricky.”  Hang on... THREE OR FOUR BISCUITS AT A DINNER PARTY? It’s a fiesta of mean, chez Paul, clearly.

Norman’s pleased to find himself at the back of tent this week, as that gives him a “commanding view”. Survey and conquer, Norman. God speed.

“Yorick is my sourdough yeast” says - well, who else - Jordan, referring to a home-brought jar of porridgey-esque liquid. “He’s a friend who provides me with pretty much more than anyone else” continues Jordan, to Mary’s utter bewilderment (and his girlfriend’s probable annoyance?). Yorick will be bubbling into Sourdough, Parmesan and Chilli Biscuits.  Jordan then tells us he gets obsessive about chillies (that, from a man with his own named sourdough? I’m amazed), but is using this to his advantage, attempting to tailor his chilli-selection to Mary’s palette.  So that’s a chilli liqueur then, Jordan. 

Nancy has been exclusively feeding her husband Fennel and Rye Thins for dinner, though he obviously hasn’t been too upset with a biscuit-only diet, as he’s fashioned her another bake tool - a round piece of metal with pointed, stabby bits sticking out, to “make the biscuits look professional”. (So basically, homemade tool #2 is as sharp and kinky as homemade tool #1.) Nancy reckons she used out of date fennel in her practice attempt – the clue was that it was grey.  How delicious.

Guess which hipster’s making Za’atar and Fig Biscuits? Yes, of course it’s Iain.  (Za’atar, as I’m sure you knew, is a Middle Eastern blend of spices and herbs, and is so exotic it starts with a z and has its own punctuation in the middle.)  Iain might have hoped for a deep and meaningful discussion of Arabian Spice blends, but Mel takes things in a rather different direction, by tapping into her accent obsession and getting the Northern Irish building surveyor to say “it’s a cracker”.  She is delighted.

We learn that Enwezor’s home baking life involves practicing Pumpkin and Sunflower Savoury Biscuits with several small children strapped to his legs.  Kate also bakes with a child, but has managed to train hers to stand on a stool and do the heavy lifting/mixing. Wise.  Not that she has her adorable daughter on hand to help with her Parmesan and Apple Biscuits which have an attractive looking apple slice on top - of this I approve.  It's always best to get your five-a-day hidden in a biscuit.  

Luis (seriously I love the colour of his T-shirt) is using a crumbly dough for his Black Olive and Rosemary Biscuits with Caramelised Onion Glaze. Like a baking attack dog, Mary fiercely interrogates him about his olives.   Luis stammers that they were in brine, not oil and stresses that he dried them off too, honest guv, and made them really, really dry.  This seems to be the right answer, as Mary backs off - though she probably did the two fingers to the eyes "I'm watching you" sign when the cameraman's back was turned.

Chetna’s Fenugreek and Carom Crackers are her mum’s recipe. We see a sneaky pic of Chetna during her younger days in India; she has not changed AT ALL, bar her pepperpot hair, and if pepperpot locks are good enough for Clooney, they’re good enough for an attractive woman like her.

Lovely Richard (so lovely) is making Rosemary Seeded Crackers. He still has his blue pencil tucked behind his ear.  I like to think he's a list man and it's used to satisfyingly cross off his ingredients as he adds them to the bowl.

Diana is going for pastry rather than a technically biscuity base (all the terms, me), which seems a bold move, but must be allowed. The pastry will form Parmesan Triangles. Aha!  Could we see our first soggy bottom so soon?  Diana’s worried about the clock and Paul makes a time/thyme pun, which even Mel can't approve of.  Remember Paul, not only are puns Mel and Sue’s domain, but time/thyme's not nearly filthy enough.

Norman has embarked on a highly, risky strategy: plain Farthing Biscuits. (I’m VERY worried, even if it is substance over style.)  Sue comes over for her weekly flirt/tease and coquettishly gets him to show her some semaphore, before accusing him of making up where E is.  Norman, once again, expertly diffuses the situation by seamlessly changing the subject and showing Sue his crooked arm, from when he broke it.  It’s quite wonky, it’s true, and Sue is again stunned into gobsmacked silence. Norman: 2. Perks: 0.  Love match: one million.

Martha’s dog stole a full tray of her Carmelised Onion and Goat’s Cheese Sandwich Biscuits which suggests they have at least one fan.  Having said that, I’m not sure dogs have such great taste – I walked my friend’s Westie, Nina, the other night and she was particularly into bins and twigs next to bins.  Because Martha’s biccies are sandwiched, she has to make 72 of them – she handles that pressure with the fearlessness of a 17 year old.  Martha also tells Berrywood that she works on a cheese counter “so I have to spend my Saturdays staring at cheese”. That would be mouth-watering torture – all the stink and none of the divinely divine taste.

Update on Diana's soggy bottom: she's avoided it.  Yay!  By overcooking significantly.  Boo!

Dramatic montage #1: biscuits going repeatedly into and out of ovens and panicked counting, as we approach the end of the challenge.

It's time, to quote Paddy McGuiness, to let the biscuit see the, erm, biscuit judges.

Good: Richard - “flavoursome”; Chetna - "gorgeous"; Luis - "three minutes away from perfection"; Martha - "very original and great fun"; Nancy - "you've got that exactly right for me".  And Norman gets a Hollywood handshake!!!

(Slightly) Bad: Jordan - "you got the balance of your chilli right" but "it tastes burnt"; Kate - "I'm debating whether I like them or not"; and Enwezor - "could have done with more of a kick".

Ugly: Diana - "not executed well"; and Iain - “I'm questioning the za'atar blend. It's very very pungent". (Translation: your pretentious spice choice is uneatable, Iain.)

The bakers reflect on Challenge #1. Mrs Norman - a wise woman if you ask me - had heeded against the plain biscuit, so Norman is looking forward to telling her she has to eat her words "and the biscuits". Diana, like only an indomitable British WI stalwart can, refuses to be ruffled by her false step: "onwards and upwards".

Foodistory: Tea break time!  I mean, interesting package about the history of a foodstuff time! We learn that, disgustingly, ice-cream used to be sold in communal shot glasses which would be licked clean and reused until everyone got diseased and the whole enterprise had to be formally banned.  Grrr-oss.  Fortunately, someone invented cones and we can now eat ice-cream without the same fear of mouth lurgy.

The Technical Challenge: 18 Florentines. An hour and a quarter.  Go!

Iain is confused because Mary hasn't detailed how he should chop his nuts. I wonder if he's actually seen the show before? Then again, I think Iain might just suffer from confused resting face (bitchy resting face's less aggressive cousin).

Dramatic montage #2: A gallery of perplexed faces, as the bakers aren't sure how to get the zigzags in their chocolate. 

The secret is to use a fork, it turns out. Whilst everyone's confused about their forking zigzags, Mel siddles up to Martha and whispers that she's the only one to have done it right. Mel clearly knows a well-constructed Florentine.

Tecchie Rankings: From bottom to top: Iain, Norman, Enwezor; Chetna, Diana, Jordan, Martha and Kate, with Luis third, Nancy second and Richard in victorious first. He is as surprised as he is pleased, and not in a fake, false-modesty way, which we would be totes judging.

Iain must be in the dangerzone again, surely?

The Showstopper: A 3-D Biscuit Scene. The key requirement it that it has to stand up.  (Though I'd imagine it probably has to taste good too.)

Mary stresses that it must ALL be homemade. Hmmmm – do we think this means that someone's probably gone for shop-bought icing? BINGO.  As Enwezor confesses he's not making his own fondant, Mary gives him a look so furiously icy, I'm surprised he (and indeed all the bakers) didn't immediately run from the tent hysterically sobbing. But no, he's obliviously cracking on with his Space Adventure Moon Scene; a gingerbread rocket (formed by a pile of biscuits and clearly disgusting shop-bought fondant) surrounded by biscuity planets and stars.

Martha is creating a Ski Village Scene and has cunningly chosen the biccie flavours of coffee, chocolate and mulled wine, because they're all beverages commonly drunk on a skiing holiday. (But where's the Jägerbomb biscuit?)  She's planning a mountain, chalet and chair lift on marshmallow snow. THIS IS WEEK 2 PEOPLE!!! What the heck will they have left for the final? The whole of Ben Hur in stop motion, out of homemade organic marzipan and a series of za'atar macaroons?!

Nancy is almost going there, actually – she’s making a Hansel and Gretel Scene, complete with multiple main characters, mini-wood, wood path, log store and logs.  Whilst that’s impressive, I am yet to be convinced about the merits of her chosen biscuit flavour: green-tea and orange gingerbread. Tea goes WITH biscuits, not in.

Iain is making wholemeal, oatmeal biscuit (can you even have two '-meals' in the same dough?!) to give added structural capacity to his Wild West Scene. He’s a building surveyor, so surely coming at it from professional experience. Certainly the dough looks like it could keep a real life actual cowboy saloon upright and melded together; whether it’s delicious is another matter.  He’s using chocolate and chilli and pistachio and rose biscuits.  No bourbon?! You’re missing a conceptual trick, Iain!

In fact it's Jordan who is using bourbon biscuits (with custard) to make a Monster Attack!  It's actually quite clever, as monsters can be any old shape, so it doesn’t matter if you mess up your cutting; Jordan instantly demonstrates this by doing exactly that and amputating the bottom half of his creature.

Norman has fashioned himself a special cutter to make his Zulu Boats at Dawn – he and Mr Nancy should go into 'specialist bakeware' business.  Norman’s making another plain biscuit out of butter and flour, though this second one has the utter out-there rock and roll element of adding “a tiny drop of vanilla essence”. He proudly declares to Mary and Paul that it’s all about the display and “they won’t be the finest biscuits you’ve ever eaten”. “They’d better be!” replies Paul, with Mary backing him up.  You should listen to Mrs Norman! I bet she would be counselling variety.

Chetna’s Day On The Beach will include a carousel with giant vanilla biscuity roof, precariously balanced on one biscuit pillar. She assures Berrywood it will hold, though it won’t turn, in spite of her five year old's attempt to spin the practice version.

Choo choo! Diana is making a train and calling her scene ‘Express, First Class’, which will be made of gingerbread, tuile, shortbread and pinwheels. I’m guessing the pinwheels will form the wheels - oh yes, all the baking smarts, me.  Mary stands over Diana and forces her to roll the pinwheel in front of her.  To be fair, Mary cheerleads Diana through it and is highly complimentary at the end.  Like a WI veteran can't roll a pinwheel under pressure! 

Finally, Kate’s making a Tea Time scene from lemon and lime biscuits which comprises a family around a table.  She's making an army of boys, lest one of them loses a leg in the oven.

Dramatic montage #3: More biscuits coming into and out of ovens - turns out there's only limited kitchen-worthy action in biscuit week, really.  

I'm sure what the producers are really hoping for is a biscuit tower to floor crash they can theatrically slo-mo film it.  And right on cue, Jordan kindly offers the producers a disaster plot-point – no major crash action, but his skyscraper biscuits are firmly welded to his tray and have to be crumbled off and redone.

  

Mel tries to help by asking Jordan if he has "any good techniques to de-stress?"  Err Mel, is this *really* a question to ask a young man?  I mean, what if he answers truthfully?  Diana would probably faint!  Jordan, diplomatically, responds that “baking properly” is probably the best technique for a stress-free life.  He has a point.

Luis is having a better time of it baking George Versus The Dragon. Cleverly, the dragon bits are “smokey” sweet paprika chilli and chocolate, whilst the rest is an orange and cardamom dough. I’ve got Luis in the sweepstake and – famous last words – I’m not un-hopeful. Paul is also well impressed by a simple interlocking structural system, which won’t involve that most disgusting of baking products ‘edible glue’.  Urgh.  Just typing it makes me grimace.

Richard’s interlocking too – to make a peanut butter island and gingerbread boat scene he’s simple calling Pirates!  Well, that does the job.  Sue points out that one pirate template “looks like Long John Silver has mated with Shrek”. “He’s the fat pirate” says Richard, who clearly knows his pirate stereotypes.  Sue then points out that the fat pirate has two legs “which is frankly one more than the piratical standard.” HahaHA!  ‘Piratical standard’ has got to be one of my new favourite terms.  Fortunately Richard’s got a one-legged pirate already cut.

Dramatic montage #4: disaster-free biscuit assembling. Chetna successfully gets her giant carousel disk on her pole without noticing that Paul is looming. She jumps out of her skin when she realises he’s there – fortunately/sadly (depending on your perspective) this doesn’t start a chain of events culminating in the total destruction of her scene.

Enwezor tells us he is so bad at decorating, it made his daughter cry.  That bodes well.

Mel is giving permission to use Richard’s neon piping bags as glow sticks. Richard effectively declines to join her in a post-bake rave date though. She then calls Iain a Van Gogh lookalike.  I CALLED THAT LAST WEEK!  High fives all round!

Dramatic montage #5: nervous piping. Norman demands a Blue Peter badge.

To judging!

Well, actually, before we get to judging, I’d like to throw in a disclaimer of sorts: I'm probably going to sound mean about their showstoppers, and I want that to be taken in the spirit in which it is intended, namely that I'm still mighty, mighty impressed by every last pipped gingerbread man, even if his face does look like a child enjoying his first felt tip.  I fully appreciate how difficult these scenes are to make and decorate and, ye gads, I couldn’t do it.  It's just that I can’t always help but feel a teeny bit disappointed by what sometimes seems (to me) to be ever so slightly shoddy pipping and wonky biscuit assembling.  

I think it's the rushing - they should give them a few more hours to perfect the décor.  Or let the TV audience somehow be able to judge the taste too. Tasteovision!  Come on!  Surely we can organise that? I mean we can print 3D guns these days! Surely anything is possible?

Iain is the first to make the white-knuckle ride that is carrying a tray of biscuity structures to the judging. His gingerbread cowboys seem to have giant flared chaps and buttoned leotards on – a look that would go down a storm at G.A.Y, but how will Berrywood react? Well, they like the taste and snap; “you've done well”.  Iain's pulled it back, I reckon...

Whilst we're on the subject of pipping décor reminiscent of Soho's most flamboyant trousers, well, special mention to Richard's 'sexy' mermaid, with her orange hair, scarlet trout pout, purple shell bikini top (daringly unfastened!) and neon green crocheted fishtail.  I'm not sure words are enough, frankly. 

That's a pirate ship behind the mermaid. I think. Probably.

Bake-wise, the judges are well impressed with the whole of Richard's lot: “melts in the mouth”.

There's sadly no camp outfit action from Diana's train, which is “a bit lopsided”,  though the engine is “beautifully round”.  Mary says her tuiles are “just perfect”.

I love the look of Jordan's monster attack – the shoddiness works, as it reinforces a funky cartoon effect. Paul thinks it looks “a bit of a mess” (yes, Paul, but in a GOOD WAY). However the flavours are “delicate” and “delicious”.

Chetna's beach gets a “what fun” from Mary, but Paul thinks it's a bit burnt. Politely, neither of them mention how the beach huts look like someone's been at them with a florescent highlighter and the gingerbread people are sitting in the sand with no pants on.

Hansel and Gretel and the woodshed earn Nancy a “well-baked and well thought out”. I crave the gingersnap roof – that looks YUM.

Kate's Tea Time looks slightly more Post Hugely Boozey Dinner Let's Get The Port Out Time, as her characters are all sitting at slightly different angles. There's also a giant cat under the table, unless she intended to make a pet lynx. Mary thinks it's “a good lime biscuit”. Kate breathes an audible sigh of relief.

As for poor Enwezor, there's not much chance for relief. First Paul slates the lack of structure, pointing out it's just a pile of biscuits, then he gets another cat's bum death glare from Mary, as he is forced to once again admit that he didn't make the fondant.  And Enwezor's daughter was right – his biscuit people are shodddddd-deeeeee. *waaaah*

Luis' scene looks solid – this is a good thing. Paul loves the level of chilli flavour in the dragon and finds the whole thing “unbelievable... I'm running out of superlatives.”  Good job Luis!  I've got a £24 jackpot in my sights, remember!

Norman's scene might well be a bit “simplistic”, but I think it works – I've no idea if the hot pink and black surfboard décor on the Zulu ships is historically accurate, but it looks cool, as does his blue icing seascape. However, Mary tells Norman he should have shown them another skill - adding food colouring and vanilla essence to the biscuit he made in the Technical Challenge was never going to go down that well.

Finally, Martha's ski village is AMAZING – she's actually suspending a chair lift on wire from a biscuit mountain! Paul then out-pretentiouses even Iain's Za'atar by trying to act cool and shrugging “it looks like Verbier, I'll give you that”, as if he's a blue-blooded ski posho.  Well Paul, if you watched Made in Chelsea, you'd know that the kids actually call it “Verb-yah”. As in “whad up, Verb-yah, rrrrahhhh, yeah boi, rrrraahhh, pardy, I'm a massive toss-ah, rrrrahhhh etc etc etcaaaahh”.  Anyway, Mel and Sue immediately mock Paul about Verb-yah, then turn to mock Mary, who has that glint in her eye as she reaches for the mulled wine-flavoured biscuit.  In spite of the teasing, they still compliment Martha's scene - and rightly so.

As usual, the Showstopper has mixed things up. It's a tough call as to who is going.  Well it would have been, if I hadn't already accidentally and irritatingly seen a spoiler on Instagram. (I know – talk about #firstworldproblems.)

So.....?

Ma Baker: Richard gets the top slot this week – and he looks delightedly surprised again.  He still has his ear-pencil in place.  He predicts his wife will go “ultrasonic” on the phone. 

Mel and Sue sandwich: Sorry Enwezor.  But was it ever going to be anything else after shop-bought-fondant-gate?  No, course not.  You live and learn.

Next time: It's Bread Week!  Paul finally gets to be smug and condescending about proving.