I never like it when the main thing you take away from an episode is that the elimination is wrong. Or: How the heck did the judges (and producers and editors) get us here when it seems to make so little sense? That’s how I feel this week after Tasha is sent home, just missing the final and making it an all-male final. While this group of finalists has been named “Finalists We Most Want to Smooch” by the editors of Brian Moylan Magazine, I still would have puckered up for Tasha even if PE teacher dreamboat Matty went home instead.
So, how did we get here? It starts with the dreaded Patisserie Week, where you are going to see more lamination than in every kindergarten classroom in all the land. It’s never my favorite week because not only do the bakes seem overly complicated and time-consuming, but I also don’t love the treats that come out of it. I mean, a financier is one thing, but I’d rather have one standing next to me at the altar than have one in my hand fresh from the oven.
That’s the signature bake, two different types of financiers highly decorated and worth more than Bernie Madoff before the scam was discovered. Just like with all of the challenges this week, there aren’t any major disasters, but it doesn’t mean Matty isn’t plotting one. He asks Noel if his offer to turn up the other contestants’ ovens still stands. While he thinks the trick will work on Dan, he says Josh is way too smart and would notice it. However, Tasha is so good he wants Noel to sabotage her oven and refrigerator.
It turns out he won’t even need the help; the judges will do it themselves. There was also some telegraphing of who would win Star Baker as Prue points out that Josh is the only one left in the tent who hasn’t won two. Not anymore!
Matty’s treats are up first. Despite worrying they weren’t in the oven long enough, Paul says his chocolate-and-coffee-flavored bake is actually overdone. They like his mango, lime, and coconut combination better, but they think there was too much cake in both. Tasha’s look wonderful, especially her hazelnut-and-coffee combination, which both of the judges like. They’re not so keen on her raspberry-and-pistachio combination where she curdled the buttercream, and the judges think they’re too much of a mess.
Josh’s, as always, look gorgeously uniform, like a bunch of financiers streaming into the JPMorgan office, but both of them seem to be strikeouts. There is too much almond extract in his Bakewell-inspired financiers (which is a combo of almond and cherry), and the chocolate, orange, and hazelnut has great flavors, but the cake is drier than Paul Hollywood’s ashy knees.
The only one to really triumph is Daddy Dan, who gets a handshake for two amazing renditions, the first a pistachio, matcha, and pink peppercorn, which seems like Dan is throwing everything and the kitchen sink into the kitchen sink and turning it into a bake. Even after making fun of his hated matcha and the idea of putting so many ingredients into a tiny sponge, Paul loves it. He’s equally gaga over his orange-and-peach cakes with peach and raspberries on top. The best part of his win, though, is finally someone says what I have been thinking for years now: He’d rather have a fist bump from Prue than a handshake from Paul. Can we please make this a thing?
The technical is to make an apple tart in the French style with a pastry case that is blind-baked, a layer of frangipane, and apple purée topped with sliced apples in a rosette pattern. There wasn’t a ton of difficulty from the bakers, but my brain almost bled when Alison was talking to us about cracked pastry cases, even though she wasn’t in the tent this week. I assume she was home with English COVID, a disease where you just say you’re ill and disappear for a few days but never tell anyone about the positive test.
Tasha comes in the bottom since her pastry case fell apart and she and Daddy Dan didn’t quite figure out how to arrange the apples in the appropriate concentric circles. Everyone’s favorite Daddy comes in third with Matty on top of him (get your mind out of the gutter) and Josh on top of him (I really mean it this time).
For the showstopper, they have to make a highly decorated millefoglie, which is the Italian version of a French mille-feuille. In both languages, it means a thousand layers, but what differentiates the Italian version? It seems like absolutely nothing to me. Also, aren’t all pastries, at their core, French in one way or another? Why are we insisting this is Italian rather than French? Did Channel 4/Netflix get some tax breaks from the Vatican? I have no idea.
Everyone has to make real puff pastry, which means lots of rolling out of dough, a lot of hammering of butter, and lots of chilling of fridges. Sorry, that sentence has either too many or not enough layers. I already hate this challenge. It’s Tasha’s birthday, so she decides to make life difficult for herself and do inverted puff pastry where the butter goes on the outside. I don’t know; this sounds like a risk that is not worth the reward. Not only is it a harder technique, I don’t know that the dividends will really pay off. But, then again, at this stage, anything that can make you stand out even the slightest bit could be what tips the scales.
In this case, it clearly wasn’t worth it since she went home, and she was also terrified halfway through preparation that her pastry wasn’t going to have any layers. Matty is also worried about his pastry because it isn’t as dark as Josh and Daddy Dan’s. Paul tells him not to second-guess himself and listen to his instincts. It’s too bad his instincts are the same ones he used on every math exam he’s ever taken: copy the bloke next to him.
When the cakes all come out, Josh’s square slab looks absolutely perfect with some gorgeous rosettes and a pile of fruit in the top in the center. This looks like it could not only be in a shop but at a Jean-Georges in a Vegas hotel. The bake is inspired by his grandmother because the only two things Josh ever bakes for are his grandmother and Christmas. At least he has one more trick than the proverbial pony. Prue is especially impressed with how he got gelatin in his mousses to keep them both firm enough to hold their structure but not too rubbery.
Speaking of rubbery, that’s just what they say about the blue mirror glaze on the top of Daddy Dan’s electric-blue-guitar dessert. I like that he tried something a little bit different with his tiramisu-flavored instrument, but it looked a bit juvenile compared to everyone else’s. Everything else is pretty much good, including the flavors and the bake. It looks like Daddy’s home (to the finals), and we know that Josh wins Star Baker, so it’s between Matty and Tasha.
Neither of them gets very high marks. Matty’s looks like a big, three-layered wedding cake, as intended, but neither judge likes his pastry. He used a cake tin to cut out the shapes so it squashed down all the edges. Then the rest of the pastry rose, keeping the edges down and the layers from fully forming. I don’t care if your flavors are great and Matty’s trio of booze-inspired layers killed, the hero here should be the pastry, and if you screw that up, you should go home.
Tasha, on the other hand, seemed to make the cardinal sin of having a grainy mango curd. Her lamination was good, but Paul didn’t like how messy the final result was and how it wasn’t as flat or square as some of her competitors. Maybe that is what finally sent her home. They described all three of her bakes as a little bit messy, sure, but can’t being untidy but delicious take her to the end? Especially compared to Matty, who fundamentally flubbed the key element of the week? I say give it to Tasha, but again, I don’t get to give handshakes or even fist bumps; I just get to complain about it when it’s all done.
