RECAP | THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN BAKE OFF S04E08

Claire: Now that Matt and Maggie have gone to hybridise a pheasant with a lamb…

We’ve made it to week 8 and there are only 5 bakers left! We have truly reached the pointy end of the competition and there’s not much between our bakers at this point in terms of skill and ability. Mel’s eating a hotdog and then Claire’s doing her best Dr Emmett Brown impression. Hybrid week is something we haven’t seen yet on this series, and it’s a good one. Between cronuts and cruffins, hybrid baking is becoming more common, or perhaps Dominique Ansel just wants to turn everything into a croissant.

Signature: Chounuts

I’m on the record as not liking choux pastry, so for me this challenge is an insult to doughnuts. Although I’m sure other people think this is a better way to set a doughnut challenge because you’re baking rather than frying. I’m purely going from a ‘things I want to eat’ perspective though. When it comes to difficulty, choux pastry is a great challenge this week in the competition. What people remember from MasterChef’s multiple croquembouche challenge is people burning their fingers on toffee, but choux pastry is difficult to make. You need to make sure you cook the flour out before you add the eggs, otherwise the mixture goes slack.

David made apple and hazelnut chounuts. His creme patissiere had apple pieces through it, and the doughnuts were topped with cinnamon icing and hazelnut praline. Matt and Maggie were worreid about the flavours and whether the apple would come through, but they loved it. The flavours went well together, and they loved that the apple chunks were through the creme patissiere, which brought the flavour through.

Angela made raspberry and vanilla chounuts. They were filled with vanilla creme patissiere and raspberry curd, and topped with raspberry icing, freeze dried raspberries and some gold leaf. The judges liked the ridging on the pastry, but commented that it was a little soft and the icing on top was uneven. The flavours were good, but the raspberry curd was too thin.

Don can’t get his head around chounuts and starts calling them cronuts, which would be an improvement on choux pastry. He then says “shownuts”, which makes me think of doughnuts as dancing showgirls. Quick, someone come up with a doughnut themed burlesque routine! His blue chounuts are filled with marshmallow creme patissiere and topped with blue icing and blueberries. Matt and Maggie are concerned about the sweetness of the filling and are proven correct. Maggie said it would’ve been better if there had been some acidity in the icing rather than it being blue, as it was too sweet when paired with the marshmallow. However the choux pastry was perfect and the judges said that Dan’s filling inside Don’s pastry would have been perfect.

Sunny made passionfruit and chocolate cronuts. She made a passionfruit creme patissiere for the filling with chocolate and praline on top, as well as passionfruit seeds. Sunny added freeze dried passionfruit powder to her creme patissiere as well as fresh passionfruit. She explained that if she just used fresh passionfruit, it would’ve been too liquid. Matt and Maggie said that the chounuts were unevenly baked, but the flavour was good.

Dan also made passionfruit chounuts, filled with passionfruit curd and vanilla creme patissiere and topped with passionfruit and white chocolate icing. The judges loved the passionfruit filling (their favourite of the challenge), but the choux pastry was too soft. 

There was a nice bit of classic Bake Off spirit at the end, as David, Angela and Don all finished their bakes early, then went to help Sunny and Dan with theirs at the end. What is it about passionfruit that makes people run out of time?

This was an interesting one in terms of how it turned out. Dan, Sunny and Angela all made their fillings first and all had issues with the texture of their pastry, while David and Don started with their choux, which they were able to dry out. I understand the rationale behind making the fillings first as they needed to set, but it’s a big problem if choux doesn’t work properly. Just think of all those flat profiteroles we’ve seen in croquembouches over the years.

Technical: Prosciutto and Gorgonzola Cruffins

Yum. I’m all about this challenge. Savoury bakes are infrequent in the shed, and I love everything about this: pastry, cheese and prosciutto. I’m not a huge fan of blue cheese, but I like it in the right context. Like that upper crust pizza Crust made ages ago with potato, rosemary, prosciutto and gorgonzola. Let’s just say the cruffin is a little more upmarket than the ham and cheese danish I had for lunch.

Matt’s clues for this week’s technical were:

• Spread evenly

• Be scared of tears and wrinkles

• Roll up tightly

My favourie part of this was when Matt paused after “be scared.”

This was a fascinating challenge to watch, as Matt had left a lot out. We’re getting to the pointy end here, and it shows. Like last week’s technical, Matt left out how much of the prosciutto and gorgonzola to add. It’s all about balancing flavours. In this week’s challenge though, the bakers don’t have the luxury of being able to taste before they bake to know if they got the ratio right.

When it came down to it, all five of them did pretty well. Angela’s wasn’t cooked through and they all put in too much prosciutto and gorgonzola, but everyone’s pastry was laminated and no one had any major disasters like tears. Don came fifth because he used all the gorgonzola and prosciutto, followed by Angela, Sunny, Dan and David.

Showstopper: Biscuit Cakes

When we return the following morning for judges’ tea time, Claire is absent because she’s sick (let’s face it, she didn’t sound good) and Mel is willing to put on a blonde wig and be both of them for hybrid week. Matt and Maggie tell Mel that Don and Angela are in trouble, while David’s currently in the lead for Star Baker, as he had the best signature and won the technical. They also note that Dan isn’t far behind him and that Sunny is doing well enough that she could win with a great showstopper.

And for the showstopper, we have a biscuit cake, which isn’t actually a cake (please, never make me a biscuit cake. I prefer cake cake). The judges wanted at least three layers of biscuit separated with filling, as well as three different kinds of homemade sweets. The bakers had four and a half hours to complete the challenge.

Angela made a Queen of Hearts cake inspired by Alice in Wonderland. She had a consistent theme and colour scheme, which made it stand out. She started out with a vanilla biscuit and buttercream filling. Maggie asked whether it would be too sweet, so Angela pureed some raspberries and added that to the buttercream. She decorated the biscuit cake with chocolate brownies, meringue kisses and heart-shaped macarons. During assembly (shortly after we see one of Don’s biscuits crack – some clever editing there), we see Angela put some supports in so it doesn’t collapse. Maybe she’s remembering her baklava tower from last week. Maggie loved the fudginess of the brownie. Matt agreed and said that the macarons were a little too chewy. The biscuit was slightly crumbly, but had a great flavour. Matt said he would have preferred more snap in the biscuit. Maggie loved the raspberry buttercream and the judges said she nailde the meringue.

David made his biscuit cake in an H for his daughter Harper. The biscuits were butter with a white chocolate and pistachio buttercream filling. His decorations included: pistachio macarons, coconut and white chocolate macarons, liquorice, meringue kisses, coconut chocolate and coconut jelly. Matt and Maggie ask David if he’s making the liqorice himself, and he talks usthrough it. When it comes to judging, Maggie said that the white chocolate with the liqorice gave the texture needed against the buttercream, and Matt said it was the best biscuit he had tried so far. Maggie then listed off everything about the biscuit cake that was fantastic and I’m pretty sure it was all of them.

Don made a C shaped biscuit cake for “Cars and Cakes” (that’s some clever branding there, Don). His French butter biscuit was layered with champagne buttercream. For his topping, he made almond nougatine which the judges tasted ahead of time (and Maggie could barely conceal her delight), raspberry and vanilla macarons and salted praline chocolates. When Matt and Maggie stopped by, Matt pointed out that Don had some ground to cover if he wanted to stay in the competition. During assembly, there was a crack in one of Don’s biscuits, but it’s one of those challenges where you’re able to cover taht up with buttercream. Matt and Maggie loved the presentation of the cake and said it looked stunning. His homemadde chocolate was amazing on the outside, but the inside was chalky. The macarons were beautifully done and had the perfect texture. At this point my notes say “just got pushed”, which is what Matt said about Maggie. I’m not sure whether it was a reaction to the nougatine, butterceam or the biscuit, but Maggie loved all of them. Matt said it was some of Don’s best work in the shed so far. It’s lovely, but no one has owned a week quite the way Don owned classics week.

Dan made a travel-inspired plane shaped biscuit cake, which made him the only person to not do a letter or number. The biscuit was lemon flavoured and filled with passionfruit buttercream. The decorations were raspberry marshmallows, macadamia blondies and meringue kisses. Maggie’s comment on the presentation was “It looks so colourful and alive, like a flying Mardi Gras,” which is a pretty good description of Dan, if he had wings. Matt commented that the biscuit looked a bit thin. The blondie was really good, and Maggie loved the fresh raspberry inside the marshmallow.

Sunny’s biscuit cake was ‘4 You’. She chose the number 4 for her mum’s birthday and put her family’s names on the cake. She made a coconut sablé biscuit, filled with rosewater cream cheese icing. She decorated it with rosé and lychee jellies, rose meringue, coconut marshmallow and fresh raspberries. Matt and Maggie were concerned about the rosewater in the cream cheese icing, but the balance between the cream cheese and the lychee went well. Maggie loved the lychee jelly and said that she hadn’t had anything like this combination before. Matt said it was the closest to one of the nicest things he’d had in the shed.

It’s time for judging, and this was a close showstopper challenge. As the judges commented, everyone did really well, but they still have to send someone home. Dan and David were in the lead for Star Baker, but the judges were really impressed with Sunny’s showstopper, so she’s in the conversation too. Sunny won in the end (which I have slight issues with, there was literally no problem with any of David’s bakes), so that must have been some showstopper, while Angela went home. Bye Angela, you’ve been great. I loved your flavours in the first two weeks.

Thoughts on Judging:

There’s been a lot of discussion about judging amongst the Bake Off community over the last couple of weeks, particularly when it comes to Star Baker. The technical is weighted lower than the signature or showstopper, but it’s also the only ones the bakers don’t get to practice ahead of time. Sunny’s first two bakes had obvious flaws, but her showstopper won her the challenge while David got almost no negative feedback for any of his bakes (like everyone else, he used slightly too much gorgonzola and prosciutto in the technical, but that’s it). If there had been a little more discussion as to why that decision was made, I’d be more okay with it. But this is the second time that David hasn’t won Star Baker when he arguably could’ve.