RECAP | THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN BAKE OFF S04E03

I loved this opening bit with Claire. One of the great things about Bake Off is that Mel and Claire each take their turns to be silly, and this week it was Claire’s turn. However, you can tell how much time has passed since production and airing by the way this episode references Game of Thrones. This season was filmed before season 8 went to air, and you can tell because they don’t mention how it ended.

Anyway, it’s biscuit week! I’ve mentioned previously that I find biscuit week a bit boring. Not because I don’t like to eat them (although I’d prefer a cookie), but because they’re not the most visually interesting bakes. I will concede that they make an excellent construction material.

Signature: Chocolate Biscuits

The signature challenge this week is to make 24 identical chocolate biscuits. They can be any kind of biscuit, but chocolate has to be used as the distinguishing ingredient.

Wynn made white chocolate shortbread, filled with cherry jam and topped with a white chocolate drizzle, pistachios and edible rose petals. When Matt and Maggie walk up to Wynn’s bench, they ask how he’s going after last week. Wynn is determined to put bread week behind him, and he starts off well. Matt likes the white chocolate on top because he can tell what it is, and Wynn says that there’s also white chocolate kneaded through the dough. Maggie loved the flavour combination of the jam, pistachios and chocolate and said that the biscuit was short and delicate. Matt said that it’s good to see Wynn come back from bread week.

David made dark chocolate melting moments with a peanut butter and chilli filling. David warns Maggie that she should get just a hint of chilli after she takes her second bite. Maggie thanks him for the warning and says she’ll only take one bite from the biscuit. Matt described the melting moments as “a bloody good biscuit” and said that it melted in the mouth. Maggie is fine with the chilli. She could tell that something was in there, but not necessarily that it’s chilli.

Dan made American choco-smores. The biscuits were dark chocolate with an Italian meringue filling and sprinkled with malt biscuit crumbs. Maggie said that the chocolate flavour was fantastic and Matt said he loved the malt, however the biscuit was too soft in the middle.

Don made dark chocolate sable biscuits – a French round shortbread – filled with chocolate cream. Maggie said that she loved the dark chocolate flavour, while Matt said it shouldn’t have been called a sable. A sable should be crisp and firm, whereas Don’s biscuits had more of a brownie texture. They weren’t cooked long enough

Dennis begins this week with some philosophical musings, wondering whether orange the colour was named after the fruit or vice versa (I think it’s the first one). He made a chocolate orange shortbread that was flavoured with lavender and topped with chocolate. Matt got a big chunk of lavender in his bite, which he said was overpowering. Meanwhile, Maggie says that Dennis should only have used chocolate on top of or in the biscuit, not both, so the lavender and orange flavours could come through more.

Sunny made miso chocolate chunk cookies with sea salt on top. Matt and Maggie are surprised at the addition of miso, but Sunny says it brings a nutty flavour to the biscuit. Maggie loved the miso and the salt and said they weren’t overpowering. Matt said he loved the flavour but they were a little cakey in the middle. If they had been cooked longer, they would’ve been “superb”. Whatever, Matt. That’s how I like my biscuits.

Angela made choc chunk cookies with dark and milk chocolate, iced with an orange and white chocolate ganache. She baked her biscuits too close together and they merged in the oven. Furthermore, the ganache didn’t set and they became very messy. Matt said that the icing was the issue, as he couldn’t pick up the biscuit. Maggie said that the orange flavour wasn’t as sharp as it needed to be against the chocolate.

Laura made dark chocolate melting moments, filled with raspberry buttercream and topped with white chocolate and pistachio. Maggie commented that they were very pretty, melted beautifully, and the flavour of raspberry came through. Matt praised the texture of the biscuits.

Sue made white chocolate graybeh, which is a traditional Lebanese shortbread. They were filled with a pistachio and rosewater mixture. Matt said he could taste the pistachio and white chocolate and that it was really nice. Maggie commented on the crispness of the chocolate within the pistachio and said that the balance was just right.

Anston made choc chip peanut cookies, flavoured with dark chocolate and cocoa powder. They were filled with Matt’s raspberry jelly from the first technical challenge, and peanut butter. Anston forgot to drizzle his chocolate on one biscuit, so of course Matt noticed it immediately. However, Matt said he loved it with the hit of raspberry, creaminess of the peanut butter and the chocolate to finish it off. Maggie said that there were layers of biscuit and great flavour. Mel comments that Matt Moran likes his own jelly recipe.

Technical: Chocolate and Ginger Arlettes

When I first saw the preview for this episode, I thought maybe the technical would be palmiers, and arlettes are pretty close. The arlettes are Maggie’s recipe, and her hints to the bakers are: think thin, make it snappy, oval not round and she likes to find swirls.

Mel tells the bakers that they’re making arlettes, a thin puff pastry based biscuit.

Dennis muses on the origins of arlettes. They originated in Arlette, were invented by Mr. Arlette in downtown Arlette. Mel asks Dennis if he’s making this up, immediately after helping him come up with his story. Dennis says yes.

Is that what it’s supposed to look like? Shrug

People are running low on arlettes.

From last to first, we have Dennis, Sue, Angela, David, Sunny, Laura, Don, Dan, Wynn and Anston. Matt tells Wynn that his arlettes were the best, but a couple of them weren’t caramelised properly, so they gave first place to Anston.

Showstopper: Biscuit Boxes

In the segment I’m now calling Judges’ tea time, Maggie and Matt both admit that they took some biscuits home with them the previous night. Maggie said she’d never taken anything home before. Anston and Wynn were at the top, while Angela and Dennis were both looking at elimination. Maggie mentions that Dennis has saved himself with the showstopper.

The showstopper challenge is to make a biscuit box, complete with lid, that contains at least 12 biscuits. It doesn’t need to be a traditional box shape. Dennis asks what a box is.

Laura mentioned at the start of the challenge that she wasn’t feeling well when she woke up, and she was feeling worse once she got to the shed. At first I thought she was talking about nerves, but as the bake progressed, Laura mentioned feeling dizzy. The paramedics came to check on her, then Matt and Maggie spoke to her and told her to get some rest. She planned on making a gingerbread biscuit tower, filled with dairy-free lemon butter cookies.

Anston made Christmas cookie house, complete with Santa going down the chimney. The house was made from gingerbread and decorated with royal icing, gold leaf and sugar sand. The presents inside were peanut butter cookies. When Maggie sees the showstopper, she asks Matt how he’s going to cut it, and Matt responds with right between the legs. We need to keep track of things that the judges are willing to maim: villages destroyed by volcanoes, Dolly Varden, Boris the mouse and Santa Claus. Safe: Wynn’s pteradactyl. Matt expected the peanut butter cookies to be sweeter, and Anston says that he didn’t add much sugar. Maggie liked them like that, but Matt said they were softer than expected. The gingerbread had great flavour.

Wynn talked about growing up in the country and playing with matches, so he made a matchbox that could slide open, complete with matches inside. The box was a vanilla sugar biscuit, and the matchsticks were rooibos tea flavoured. Wynn decorated the box with frosting and modelling chocolate. Matt said that it was remarkable, and Maggie commented on the level of detail, as the box slid both ways and there were spent matches on top as well as unlit matches inside. The biscuit was good, and Maggie loved the intensity of the vanilla in the box.

Angela made a taco truck like the ones in California. Both the truck and the tacos inside were chocolate flavoured biscuits with cayenne pepper, decorated with vanilla royal icing. Angela was marking pieces of the truck and mentioned that her husband used to be a cabinet maker. Maggie loved the fun and colour of the design and said it looked fantastic. Matt questioned how the truck could make a profit by only selling tacos for a dollar. Matt says that there’s a bit of bite in the biscuit, and Maggie commented on its piquancy. Matt said that the only negative is that the biscuit was a bit tough.

Sunny made crocodile skin suitcase, using a special rolling pin to give the biscuit texture. The suitcase was made from spiced biscuit and decorated with royal icing flags, and filled with lemon myrtle and macadamia biscuits. Maggie warns that the lemon myrtle could be overpowering, but Sunny says that it’s why she paired it with macadamia. Maggie loved the flag decorations and said the macadamia and lemon myrtle go well together. Matt liked the spiced biscuit suitcase.

Dan made a pirate treasure chest from gingerbread, decorated with a rum flavoured paint as well as starfish complete with facial expressions. The treasure inside was canastrelli biscuits – traditional Italian shortbread that uses cooked egg yolks in the dough. Maggie and Matt love the decoration and say that the chest looks real. Maggie loved the orange butteriness of the treasure biscuits. Matt said that the gingerbread was great, and that this has been Dan’s best bake so far.

David made checkerboard from gingerbread with chocolate and vanilla macarons as the pieces. The board was decorated with royal icing. When the judges went to taste, Maggie said she was going to be chocolate because that side was winning. Matt said that everything was unbelievably neat and that the texture of the macarons was spot on. Maggie loves that David added raspberry and said that the gingerbread was really good.

Dennis made a draughts set. Today I learned that draughts is another word for checkers. He made a gingerbread box filled with two kinds of biscuit: almond and lemon and cranberry and vanilla. When he went up to judging, Matt mentioned that it was a little plain and said he would’ve liked a little more decoration. Maggie loved the crunch and flavour of the cranberry biscuits, but Matt said they could have been cooked longer.

Then again, it really doesn’t matter what Dennis baked, because he nearly broke Maggie Beer when he said that he needed his showstopper to stay up because his “last two erections were a big disappointment.” You can’t make this stuff up. And as always, the best innuendo on Bake Off is always unintentional.

Sue made an Arabic biscuit basket with cinammon, aniseed and orange juice. She had four kinds of biscuits inside: ma’amoul, orange biscotti and two types of kaak. The box is so stable that the judges ask if there’s a history of building in Sue’s family (she used caramelised icing sugar for her glue, while others used royal icing or chocolate). The judges commented that all the biscuits were good, but the biscotti was their favourite.

Don had issues with his antique jewellery box early on, as the lid collapsed beneath the weight of the fondant. The box was made from gingerbread and decorated with fondant leaves. The jewels inside were butter biscuits with a boiled lolly centre. Matt and Maggie said that the box was great, but incomplete as there was no lid. The gingerbread was good and had the right texture and the butter biscuits were short and crunchy, but the boiled lollies were too hard.

After the showstopper, Matt, Maggie, Mel and Claire went back to the potting shed to discuss the results. When Claire mentioned Laura, Matt said that she had done enough for the week to avoid elimination and that it was more important that she was healthy. It’s nice to see that the show is dedicated to looking after its contestants. Maggie and Matt advise that Wynn and Anston are still the top two of the week. Dennis and Angela were in trouble before the showstopper, but Don has also put himself down there.

Wynn is awarded Star Baker in a triumphant comeback from last week, and it’s well deserved. Anston has come close to being Star Baker two weeks in a row, so he’s one to watch. Unfortunately, audience favourite Dennis, the subject of most of my GIFs this season, has gone home. As Matt told Dennis when he left, he said one of the funniest things on television.