Great British Bake Off 2021

[Mi-Amigo]

The popular TV show "Great British Bake Off" returns to Ch 4 next Tuesday - 21 September - with Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith and presented by Matt Lucas and Noel Fielding.

The contestants have been announced 

Left-right:

Crystelle. Lizzie, Freya. George, Chigs, Giuseppe, Amanda, Tom, Jairzeno. Rochica, Jürgen and Maggie

Crystelle, 26, client relationship manager from London inspired by Portugese-Goan-Kenyan heritage.

Lizzie, 28, car production operative from Liverpool, described as "frantic and messy on the outside but is usually calm and collected within" 

Freya, 19, psychology student from North Yorkshire, youngest baker in tent this year, vegan, says she likes to be "unexpected" with her baking.

George, 34, shared lives co-ordinator from London, from Greek-Cypriot family, says his strength is "creative flair"

Chigs, 40, sales manager from Leicestershire, used online tutorials during lockdown to learn complex bakes and chocolate work.

Giuseppe, 45, chief engineer from Bristol, Italian-born inherited baking from his father, a professional chef. 

Amanda, 56, Metropolitan Police detective in London, baking heavily influenced by her Greek-Cypriot heritage.

Tom, 28, developer for family software company in Kent, says baking was "a welcome escape" during lockdown.

Jairzeno, 51, head of finance in London, moved from Trinidad 15 years ago, obsesses over flavour cominations, particularly using Caribbean spices. 

Rochica, 27, junior HR business partner from Birmingham, turned to baking when unable to dance due to injury, says her weakness is "getting flustered and everything going wrong".

Jurgen, German-born, moved to UK 18 years ago, lives in Sussex, IT professional, started baking when couldn`t buy German bread. 

Maggie, 70, retired nurse and midwife from Dorset, oldest contestant - loves canoeing, sailing, going out in her campervan.

A real mix of ages and characters this time.

I love GBBO. 

Anyone else going to be watching?

As with previous series, why not give your feedback on the show, the contestants, and the baking rounds after the show?

Looking forward to GBBO 2021 and your comments from next week. 

[Cleoriff]

BREAD WEEK

I'll start by saying that the first two challenges played to Guiseppe's strengths. Lol

Signature Bake

This was Focaccia Bread.

George had to do his dough again as it wasn't wet enough. His final bake was fine surprisingly good.

Surprised about Jurgen. His was poor by his usual standards.

Guiseppe won this round.

Technical

This was cheese and olive ciabetta breadsticks.

Some pretty poor offerings for this challenge

Rochica came last with Maggie just ahead of her.

Top three were

Amanda 3rd

Lizzie (shock) 2nd

Guiseppe 1st

Showstopper Challenge

Milk Bread 3D display

Some really good efforts. Also some poor ones

Guiseppe and Freya produced the best

Maggie and Rochica were the worst.

STAR Baker and no surprise was Guiseppe.

Eliminated Rochica.

Next show is Dessert Week.

[TallTrees]

Watched GBBO lovely bread, ciabatta bread sticks 😋 looked good.  The focaccia bread delicious...too much messing around with the milk bread 🍞  so didn't get a proper understanding of that @Cleoriff @Mi-Amigo  @lewys-gp 

[TallTrees]

Giuseppe good baker @Cleoriff 

I would like to try focaccia bread I like toppings.

You're up late -- me up early sweeping (trophy for broom) let bird in although she was with me sweeping at 7am here she is this morning, she likes bread too.

Got my coloured leaf geraniums in try to keep them, love the colour. 

[Cleoriff]

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@TallTrees wrote:

Watched GBBO lovely bread, ciabatta bread sticks 😋 looked good.  The focaccia bread delicious...too much messing around with the milk bread 🍞  so didn't get a proper understanding of that @Cleoriff @Mi-Amigo  @lewys-gp 

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I think sometimes @TallTrees , as the challenge is called a Showstopper, the contestants forget the principles ie, they are in  fact making bread which can be eaten. Rochica who was eliminated, made that rather silly birdcage with bits of 'stuff' surrounding it. Nothing in fact which would give you a nice chunk of bread.

[Mi-Amigo]

As everyone knows, Bread Week is my favourite week on GBBO and last night`s didn`t disappoint.

SIGNATURE - Guiseppe nailed it and got the first Paul handshake [sign of a perfect bake]. Well deserved in my opinion.

TECHNICAL - I thought this must have been difficult for Freya to produce vegan cheese and olive ciabette breadsticks. In my opinion, Guiesppe deserved to win this but Lizzie 2nd and Amanda 3rd ?? What ?? Surely Freya and Chrystelle were better than them. Although I did agree with Rochica and Maggie as the bottom two.

SHOWSTOPPER - Some very creative designs again. To me, it seems Jurgen sees Guiseppe as his main rival and Jurgen stepped up to the challenge. Freya did brilliantly and I thought was only just beaten to Star Baker by Guiseppe and agree with the judges he deserved to be Star Baker this week and Rochita was the one to go home. 

Thoroughly loved this GBBO.

Think it looks like the gloves are off now and there is going to be some competition over the coming weeks.

@Cleoriff  @TallTrees  @lewys-gp 

Got a favourite yet who you`d like to see go far or perhaps one you want to see kicked off ?

My favourites so far are Guiseppe and Freya and the ones I want kicked off are George and Amanda.

[Cleoriff]

My three favourites are Guiseppe, Jurgen and Freya

My least favourite? George and Maggie. ( I have taken a dislike to Maggie. She has a very supercilious attitude I think!)

[lewys-gp]

I think I have to agree with you, @Mi-Amigo, that my favourites are Guiseppe and Freya. The former is so good and then the latter is just so impressive with the vegan bakes.

Amanda’s ‘I Just FISH We Had More Time’ Milk Bread Showstopper was probably my favourite. The creativity on that task was crazy - Jürgen’s baby and George's koala too!

[Cleoriff]

@lewys-gp 

George's koala was good. I doubt it would have stayed on that tree long though, it was far too heavy.

He is actually one of my least favourite bakers. I wouldn't shed a tear if he left. Bread week was better for him, but he's been pretty poor up till then.

[lewys-gp]

Oh yeah, totally agree but still loved the whole design of it. It was definitely a better week for him. 

After the second task, I thought Jürgen was at risk of going home because I believe they only judge on a per week basis? But glad he pulled it back, as he's obviously so good.

[Pete_C]

As an irregular TV watcher I would tend to agree with the earlier sentiment that the Bread is the best bit.  However, I think that is because I can actually imagine being able to make some of the breads.  I have made bread for years, but these days I use a bread maker.  That became a bit of a nightmare during the first lockdown as the Wannabes hoovered up all the yeast and flour.  However, we won through despite a few disasters.

Thinking disasters, not to mention GBBO disasters, and since I suspect that many of you who post here do cook and bake, perhaps it would be amusing to 'confess' to some of our most extravagant failures.  I will happily start the idea rolling.

The context is that my wife has been poorly of late and following various medical engagements has come to the conclusion that she is Gluten Intolerant.  Since this is a pretty common complaint I got on the Internet and piled up a load of recipes for cake, bread and so on.  Our local stores also could provide the huge range of ingredients these recipes seemed to need including pysllium husk, xantham gum and flour milled from everything under the sun.  The 'bought' bread mix was edible but not much more, so I tried the complex Internet recipe.  That was much better and my later date and walnut cake was first class.  Clearly, this Gluten Free thing was not going to be that much of a problem.

Then came the day when our menu said Lancashire Cheese Pie.  Now we all know that pastry is just flour, water and fat in various combinations rolled into sheets.  So, I simply swapped in buckwheat flour and carried on as usual.  The resulting pastry was a terrible colour and not too strong but it was forced into place and the dish got into the oven.

Once time was up it was taken out and looked transformed.  The pastry was a nice brown colour and it smelled pretty good too.  So onto the table and start to serve.  Oh dear!  The pastry was hard in the same sort of manner that concrete roof tiles are hard.  Indeed there was a strong similarity.  We were able to break into it with violence, but cutting was not an option.  It seemed very dangerous too to try eating it as it was so hard and did not dissolve in one's mouth.  Fortunately, the filling was scooped out so folk did not go hungry but the pastry was rubbish.

I later found out that the GF pastry recipe is quite different to the conventional flour based pastry but I have yet to try it out.  I suppose the moral is to always read the instructions/recipe.