Rain clouds shatter the illusion of an eternal Bake Off summer. With cleverly inserted sweeping shots of sunny daisy-dotted lawns, clear umbrellas can’t hide the fact that this particularly wet weekend heralds a damp dessert week.
The bakers’ signature challenge is to make twelve crème brûlées. Mary is insistent that she wants no blow-torched toppings. Championing the underprivileged (“Not everyone’s got a blow torch, Nadiya”), she wants things doing the traditional way. Fortunately Mary hasn't been watching BBQ Champ, nor is she sending the bakers out into the Berkshire wilds with a handful of flints – she just means an electric grill.
Everyone is seeking the perfect wobble, but few achieve it. Sandy poetically explains that her combination of lemon and Pontefract cakes will taste ‘sublime’, but Paul thinks she forgot to turn the oven on and she’s met with a dozen little cup-a-soups.
A nervous Alvin is confident that his blackberries won't seep, but yesterday he left his edible pansies on the train. That’s the problem with those announcements about leaving the train – they rarely remind you about your edible pansies.
Flora is pulling out all the stops with her rhubarb and ginger pots, adding rhubarb crisps and delicate biscuit bangles, which Mel models, much to everyone’s horror.