As much as Great British Bake Off viewers love to watch their faves succeed, earning coveted handshakes from Paul Hollywood and polite smatterings of applause from their competitors, you can’t deny how absorbing disaster can be when it strikes the tent.
Let’s be honest – for the past few weeks, the bakers have been coasting along, pretty much without any huge blunders of note as Jurgen and Giuseppe predictably battled it out for the top spot.
As entertaining as it has been to witness the endearing pair charm the nation – which they have done in abundance – tonight, Bake Off delivered what we’ve all been waiting for, packing Pastry Week full of raunchy innuendos and baking debacles that left viewers staggered.
For week six of the competition, the bakers were given three extremely difficult tasks – making two batches of decorated chouxnuts for their signature (which left fans scratching their heads), an ‘impossible’ baklava with homemade filo pastry for the technical and terrine pies for the showstopper, which the judges knew full well would leave to leakages galore.
It’s absolutely lovely to watch Bake Off in a state of calm and peace, feeling soothed as the bakers whip up perfect sponges and delightful biscuits for the judges and presenters Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas to enjoy.
Nonetheless, for some reason, we were living off the drama this week as the competitors faced chouxnuts exploding with cream, the bonkers challenge of making filo pastry from scratch and pies that collapsed before their very eyes.
Some of the most iconic and memorable Bake Off moments ever were when things went completely wrong, perhaps proof that we all love to indulge in schadenfreude every once in a while.
Of course, our hearts went out for Amanda as her pie split in half right at the end of the showstopper challenge, all of her hard work culminating in a pie that led to her being eliminated from the competition.
While Amanda’s pie disaster admittedly resulted in gripping scenes that we just couldn’t tear our eyes away from, it was also heartwarming to see Chigs leap to her aid, risking his poor fingers on the oven-hot tin as he tried with all his might to help her repair her hard work.
This is what Bake Off is all about – positivity in the face of utter mayhem and camaraderie that we just wouldn’t get to witness without things going disastrously wrong.
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Tonight, Prue Leith took it upon herself tonight to make an innuendo almost too off-the-charts saucy for Bake Off, leaving Paul speechless and Matt struggling to stifle his laughter.
Following years of references to soggy bottoms, balls, and nuts, you’d think no innuendo would take us by surprise a decade after the show began.
Cue Prue talking about squirting. Honestly, just writing about it is making us crack up.
We then had Giuseppe describing the ‘hassle’ of making a baklava – which sounded a lot like he was saying ‘ars****e’, followed by Paul saying how much he loved ‘Giuseppe’s meat’… in his pie.
There’s no denying it – this episode had it all.
Next week, the remaining six bakers are going to embark on Caramel Week, which will undoubtedly lead to some very sticky situations.
After Crystelle was named Star Baker for the very first time in the latest episode, it’s beginning to feel as though the other bakers could also be in with a chance of racing to the top after Jurgen and Giuseppe’s success.
The competition’s heating up and we are here for it.
The Great British Bake Off returns next Tuesday at 8pm on Channel 4.
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