Great British Baking Show season 11, episode 8: Another mediocre week

Dessert week was a bit of a mess on The Great British Baking Show

This week was Dessert Week on The Great British Baking Show which pretty much means the judges can give them just about any recipe they want. And Prue and Paul did not disappoint in giving the bakers unique and interesting challenges to get their creativity going. Unfortunately, the bakers didn’t always succeed.

Let’s start with the Signature Challenge! The bakers had to make a dozen mini cheesecakes. Pretty simple, right? Not for this group. Peter’s cheesecake sunk in the middle, Hermine’s was “stodgy”, Mark’s didn’t taste like it should have, and while Laura’s tasted great, it looked quite messy. Not a great round.

On to the Technical Challenge! This round was worse than the Signature but I don’t think that’s entirely the bakers’ fault.

Prue gave them a recipe that none of the bakers had heard of and something that’s rarely made today: Sussex pond puddings. It involves a suet crust with a whole lemon on the inside and it’s steamed.

Recipes on this week’s Great British Baking Show included Sussex pond pudding and jelly cakes.

Needless to say, none of the bakers ended up serving two complete ones. It was quite a mess (literally). Laura ended up coming in first, but…that wasn’t saying much.

Luckily, the Showstopper Challenge produced some fantastic results. The bakers had to make jelly art design cake and they really pulled out all the stops. I was ready for chaos, but most of the cakes turned out beautifully. Steve had a whole beach scene on top of his cake, Laura did a recreation of a pond in her jelly, and Hermine created a beautiful flower.

Mark’s jelly cake, unfortunately, had a lot of issues. His mousse had split, his dacquoise was hard as a rock, and his jelly was, in Paul’s words, “too rubbery.” As you can probably guess, Mark went home. Hermine, once again, got Star Baker!

Overall, it definitely wasn’t the best episode, but the jelly art cakes saved it with how amazing they were. Next week is the semi-final and it’s Patisserie Week! As Hermine has been known for her French baking skills, she should have this one in the bag, but as we’ve seen this season, anything can happen.

What did you think of this week’s episode of The Great British Baking Show? Let us know in the comments below!