RECAP | THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN BAKE OFF S04E05

This week, we open the show with a classic catch, continuing with the sports theme for openings this season. I don’t think there’s a lot of overlap between Bake Off fans and sports fans, but I appreciate Mel and Claire’s continued effort to improve sports with baked goods.

I’d also like to point out that Claire’s skirt this week is amazing. Mel and Claire always have great clothes, but I really love this skirt.

Over in baker land, everyone (except maybe Anston and Angela) is thrilled that vegan week is over and they can use butter again. Don’s excited for classics week and is this close to saying it’s his week. He just manages to hold back.

Signature: Savoury Pasties

Yum. I love a savoury pastry. The sausage roll signature last season was a personal favourite, partly because most of the bakes are sweet, but mainly because I love sausage rolls. Pasties aren’t quite sausage rolls, but they come close. Maybe we need to petition Foxtel for a pies and tarts episode next season.

There need to be 12 savoury pasties, and the pastry, filling and look are up to the bakers. Claire suggests bribery with Bunnings vouchers and scratchies. They must be uniform in size and beautifully decorated. The bakers have two hours. Now that vegan week is over, Matt wants to see some fat in the pastry, either butter or lard. Maggie wants an interesting filling.

Dan made Boscaiola pasties and these are the ones I want to eat the most. Dan says his pasties have an Italian twist and that it’s a sausage party. This could mean so many things: the Seth Rogen animated film, the number of male bakers left in the shed (we’re at 5 men to 2 women now), or some sort of innuendo. We all know it’s the innuendo. Anyway, Dan’s pasties are filled with Italian sausage, porcini mushrooms and smoked scarmorza cheese. Matt was going to ask how Dan was going to keep the filling moist, but then he saw the cheese. Halfway through the challenge, Dan says he’s “sweating like a donkey” and that he wishes he could remove his top. David finds this quite amusing. Meanwhile, my sources tell me that if someone’s after some pictures of shirtless Dan, they don’t have to look very far… Anyway, back to the bake. Matt loves the filling – the spiciness of the sausage goes well with the creaminess of the cheese and Maggie loves the way lard was used in the pastry.

Sunny made vegetarian samosas, filled with potatoes, peas, raisins and cashews and fried, accompanied with a green yoghurt dipping sauce. Evil Maggie is still around and lets Sunny know that she’s never had a good samosa, a phrase that even makes Matt worried. I’m not a huge fan of samosas, but now I’m wondering about the quality of samosas in the Barossa Valley. Is Maggie trying to make them with verjuice? Maggie loves that the samosas are golden, and the bubbles show that the pastry itself is quite fine. Matt likes that they’re served with a dipping sauce and he tries it first because he doesn’t want to make Maggie eat something she won’t like. Matt said that the samosas are really really good, while Maggie said that she’s never had a samosa like this.

David made mint lamb pasties inspired by a Sunday roast with lamb shoulder, mint, peas and potatoes. He’s cooking the mixture inside the pastry, and Matt is concerned that it won’t cook in time. Maggie asks David if he’s confident, he replies that he was until 30 seconds ago. Smart man. Matt and Maggie love the pastry. Matt says David has done everything right, except he should’ve cooked the lamb before putting it in the pastry.

Anston made a shepherd’s pie pastie, which I’d like to taste immediately. As we’re all aware, Anston is vegan, so he won’t be able to taste the filling himself. He admits that he could’ve made something that was vegetarian, but he wants to push himself. He asks Dan to taste the filling, and Dan says it needs a little more pepper, but is otherwise fantastic. Maggie loves that the front pasties are golden. The seasoning of the filling is good, and Matt mentions that Anston has loyal friends who are willing to try his food for him. It’s all in the spirit of Bake Off.

Don made French chestnut pasties with, potato, parsnip and truffle butter and a rough puff pastry. Don’s feeling the pressure because he didn’t do so well last week, then Matt goes ahead and tells Don it’s his week. We need to consider the possibility that the machine has become sentient and Matt is trying to goad the contestants into jinxing themselves. The judges say that they look like real pasties. The pastry is golden brown, has layers and is flaky. Matt mentions that the truffle butter isn’t overpowering and Maggie loved the flavours, so she had some more.

Angela made New Orleans red bean and rice style pasties with liquid smoke added to the filling, and shaped like alligators. When the judges come to Angela’s bench, Maggie says that all of Angela’s bakes need to be great this week so she doesn’t need to rely on the showstopper to pull through to next week. The judges warn Angela that the liquid smoke flavour could be overpowering. Towards the end of the challenge, Anston and David help Angela with her pasties in the true spirit of bake off. While they’re in the oven, Angela watches them and knows that the pastry won’t be fully cooked by the end of the challenge. Maggie likes the alligator shape. When Angela said that she was worried that the pastry was too blond, Matt said he could smell that the pastry was raw. Matt says that the liquid smoke flavour is overpowering. Mel jumps in and says she doesn’t smile at crocodiles. Brb, off to watch Peter Pan (the wikipedia page for the song fails to mention that it’s a Play School staple).

Wynn made beef and mushroom pasties with the raw filling cooked inside his shortcrust pastry. The filling is rump steak, mushrooms, potatoes and red wine. Matt warns Wynn about cooking the meat, but Wynn says he’s confident. Towards the end of the challenge, Wynn is aware that the pasties won’t be as cooked as he’d like. When it comes to judging, Matt asked Wynn how it went, and he admitted that he’s had better basked and that his pasties weren’t cooked enough. Matt agrees as the pastry is blond, and the meat isn’t cooked enough.

Technical: Chocolate, Hazelnut and Orange Flan

Maggie’s hints to the contestants for this technical are as follows: Don’t get scrambled, candied not burnt, what’s bottom will be top.

Maggie has set her chocolate, hazelnut and orange flan with a custard top, cake base and orange caramel sauce. The bakers have two and a half hours to make it. Don says he’s made a flan before, but not a Maggie flan, which is a flan on steroids. When Angela looks at the recipe, she said that it seemed straightforward and one of the easier – but she stopped herself and said “seems like it’s one of the easier technicals.” Ange knows about famous last words.

Over in the potting shed, Maggie tells Matt that the flan is a heavy custard with a light chocolate cake. The cake batter is piped into pan before the custard, then floats to the top in the oven. So basically a really fancy self-saucing pudding. Maggie also says that in order to get the cake batter to float to the top, the contestants shouldn’t press the cake batter into the grooves of the bundt tin.

The bake itself is fairly uneventful, but when it’s time to turn the flans out of the tins, there were brown spots at the top of everyone’s flan except Anston’s. I was confused for a second and wondered if they were burnt before someone mentioned that it was the cake batter sticking to the pan. Everyone’s nervous about turning out their flans, so they agree to do it together, which is lovely.

While the flans are in the oven, the bakers make their candied oranges and caramel sauce. As Anston explains that they need to keep their eyes on the caramel sauce, his starts to burn. It’s the equivalent of “I look away for one second” on MasterChef.

When Don turns out his flan, he says “Look out, Star Baker.” He’s really tempting fate here, I don’t want to have an Anston situation from last week.

When it comes to judging, from last to first we have Angela, Wynn, Sunny, Anston, Dan, David, and Don. Don’t jinx yourself, Don!

Showstopper: Botanical Chiffon Cake

At the judges’ tea time – we even see them pour the tea – Mel and Claire ask how the bakers are going. Matt and Maggie tell them that Don, Sunny, Dan, David and Anston are doing well (roughly in that order), while Wynn and Angela are both in trouble.

The showstopper this week is a botanical chiffon cake. The bakers can use flowers, fruits and spices for flavouring. There need to be at least two cakes, and botanical in flavour and design.

Dan made a lemon, earl grey, lavender, orange and rosewater chiffon cake, which he called “Nature in the city.” When the judges see the presentation, they say it’s full on, and Dan replies that he loves everything over the top. Matt loved the sharpness of the lemon flavour, and Maggie mentioned that it would’ve been better to include the earl grey as a powder so that the flavour came through.

Sunny made a bay leaf, kumquat, fennel and lemon chiffon cake, which she decorated with buttercream flowers and leaves. Matt loves that Sunny’s done something “completely different” with the bay leaves, and this would’ve been a great opportunity to insert a Monty Python sketch into the episode. Matt and Maggie are interested in the flavour and want to see how it turns out. The judges loved the decoration and said it was pretty. Maggie mentions that she would’ve liked it if the bay flavour had been stronger.

David made a juniper berry, vanilla, orange blossom and cardamom chiffon cake, which he decorated with buttercream and chocolate green leaves. When the judges walked up to David, Maggie asked how he was using the juniper berries. She then passes them to Mel and asks her if she likes gin and Mel says “that’s what that smells like!” Matt tells David to get his cakes in the oven quickly and spend time on presentation because everyone else will. A couple of minutes later, David mentions that presentation will be his downfall. When it came to tasting, the judges said that the presentation was lacking. Maggie said that the juniper berry cake was like having a gin, but she likes it, and she loves that he did something she’s never seen before.

Anston made a lavender, mandarin, rosewater and fresh strawberry chiffon cake. It was decorated with swiss meringue buttercream, edible wafer orchids and strawberries. There was a gap in his cakes, which Anston attempted to fill with buttercream. This week in “this season was filmed 18 months ago,” Maggie comments that she could’ve worn the cake as a hat to the royal wedding. The cake was light, but there was too much buttercream. The judges suggested that more strawberry would have lifted the flavour.

Don departed from his favourite French flavours to make a Japanese chiffon cake. It was sakura cherry blossom cake filled with matcha mousseline. It was decorated with buttercream, fondant branches and gum paste flowers to replicate the cherry blossom tree. Don did a great job and I’m happy for him, but he mentioned the possibility of getting Star Baker so many times that I started to roll my eyes. Maggie said she could see the work in the presentation and that it was beautiful. Matt loved the white buttercream set against the sugar work he used for the flowers. When the judges slice the cake, Maggie said it was like a powderpuff. They said it was a beautiful cake and the cherry syrup was good. Maggie’s minor complaint is that maybe some lemon zest would have been nice with the matcha to take the edge off.

Angela made a three-tiered English garden chiffon cake: rose, orange blossom and lavender. It was decorated with corresponding colours of buttercream and gum paste flowers. She made natural food colourings to flavour the buttercream. Matt suggests to Angela that she puts zest in the orange blossom filling, which she does. Maggie loves that Angela used all natural flavours, which shine through, and both Matt and Maggie mention that the orange blossom is well balanced and they can taste the zest.

Wynn made a lemon chiffon cake with a blackberry curd filling. He decorated it with an ombre elderflower buttercream icing and a handmade wafer paper flower. Wynn says he wants the flower to be completely over the top and oversized. It could be worn on a hat to the races. Maggie remarked that it’s a very elegant cake for a very tall man. Matt and Maggie love the flavours. Maggie says the lemon is refreshing and goes back for more while Matt ate all the blackberry curd.

Don wins Star Baker this week (apparently he wasn’t tempting fate too much) and the judges decide not to send anyone home, as Angela and Wynn have both done enough to save themselves. Since Laura left the competition, there was going to be a week where no one went home, and this seems like a good point to do it, before the competition heats up too much. We’ll be back next week for patisserie!