Another week, another themed challenge for the Great British Bake Off's batch of contestants to get their heads around. This time around, it's Chocolate Week, and they're battling not only each other, but the good old British weather: this of course being the week in which drizzle is swapped out for an inferno (ah summer, we miss you).
This means that stress levels go through the tent roof. On the menu this week is a chocolate torte without any wheat flour (the Signature), six mini white chocolate cheesecakes (the Technical), and an edible box containing both chocolates and chocolate cake. It's all very sweaty: who will triumph, and who will melt down entirely?
Most stressful moment
Doing Chocolate Week during the hottest week of the year (as is Bake Off tradition) is always a recipe for disaster. “I don’t know about chocolate. I will be having a meltdown,” Saku tells the camera at the start.
Straight off, Dan gets the blood pressure shooting skywards: after his abysmal showing last week, his chocolate torte has been baked on a tilt. “You could ski down it, couldn’t you?” Chaos reigns: Noel and Alison then tip Josh’s bowl of melted chocolate upside down and have to scarper.
Rowan then burns his white chocolate in the sweltering Technical. “I feel like I’m going to set up a charity for everybody that’s ever worked with caramelised white chocolate,” he says – that’s before Tasha has to take a full-on break from the tent due to the heat and can’t finish the challenge.
But the most stressful moment has to be watching the bakers removing the delicate chocolate boxes from their plastic moulds for the Showstopper. Nicky’s hands are shaking, Rowan’s paintbox looks like a collapsed sofa (“it looks like my grandad sat on it”, he says) and Josh’s chocolate hasn’t been tempered properly – which means it’s liable to collapse. All in all, a stressful old week in the Bake Off tent.
Soggy bottoms?
Oh dear – not even five minutes and the raunch alarm is sounding. This time it’s for Josh, who is using ground pecans in his flour-less torte. “Grinding your own nuts is always difficult,” Prue says sympathetically (you can see where this is going).
“And painful!” Paul adds, prompting her to slap him on the shoulder with a cry of, “The boys are just disgusting!” Aren’t they just.
Quote of the week
Rowan delivers again whilst making his coffee-flavoured chocolate torte. “I can’t focus as an adult without my four espressos,” he says whilst alternating between drinking coffee and whisking it into his batter. “Honestly my heart’s going to explode from just the coffee alone.” You and me both, Rowan.
Best looking bake
To be honest, Chocolate Week is thin on the ground for show-stopping confections: the supreme heat of the tent and the fact that many of the bakers haven’t managed to temper their chocolate doesn’t really leave much in the way of shop-perfect final products.
That said, Dan does deserve a shout-out for his Treasure Chest Showstopper: a moulded box that opens to reveal a selection of gold-sprayed chocolates and a coconut, passionfruit and white chocolate cake. It prompts coos from the other bakers – whether they're of admiration or envy, who can tell…
Out there flavour combos
Tasha’s dark chocolate, ginger and almond praline cake has to take the prize here: it might sound normal, but she’s adding ginger wine and amaretto to it. “To put ginger with chocolate is clever, a bit risky as well,” Paul says: clearly, he’s a fan, but the final results don’t look good. Tasha has added too much amaretto and drowned out the ginger: there's a warning there for us all.
Most wholesome moment
The main emotion radiating off the screen here is stress, but there’s still room for a wholesome moment: when Dan, who has finished his Showstopper, steps into help a visibly wilting Saku as time ticks down. “You get cracking, I’ll do this,” he tells her, bashing her chocolates out of their moulds; aww.
Best named bakes?
They’re thin on the ground this week, but Saku deserves a weak chuckle for renaming her chocolate Sachertorte a ‘Saku-torte’ and piping her own name onto the cake top. Then revealing she’s been doing her test bakes at “around one, two in the morning”: practice, as they say, makes perfect.
Shots for Prue
Dan starts off Chocolate Week after his abysmal last showing by going straight for Prue’s liver: including a shot of Mexican guanabana liqueur in his torte. He even has the cheek to offer her some while he’s baking, prompting a cry of “It’s too early, even for me.”
Meanwhile, Tasha cracks on with “a ginger torte, with a good amount of booze,” and Cristy adds cherry brandy to her Black Forest Gateau inspired cake (which Prue declares “needs more cherry brandy”). Prue is going to be reeling by the end of this.
Any Hollywood handshakes?
Thin on the ground for the ol’ Hollywood handshake this week: with Tasha bowing out during the Technical, Paul seems unwilling to award any. That’s alright: it’ll make the next one all the more exciting.
Star Baker
With Tasha gone, the Star Baker crown is up for grabs – who is going to snatch it from her grasp? That would be Matty, whose holey chocolate box is described as “beautifully engineered,” but has lost all its shine. Despite that, his raspberry and chocolate Genoese sponge is good, and his lemon mousse chocolates are praised by Prue: “I’d pay a lot of money for a box of those,” she says. So it’s Matty that walks home with the crown, but really, none of the bakers have done stupendously well this week: best of a bad bunch?
Who went home?
Good news for this week’s contestants: nobody! “You’re all staying,” Alison tells the relieved bakers. “However, next week two bakers will leave the tent.” Let’s hope next week’s theme will be a relatively easy one…
