Great British Bake Off 2018: Danish Week

This week’s Showstopper is a Danish pastry party piece. Taking the form of a female or male figure, it’s either called kagekone or kagemand… or in Briony’s case ‘Nana Pat’. Briony is dressing her nan in a 1940s outfit and filling Pat with pat of the ginger crème variety… and dried blueberries.

Ruby turns to her sister for inspiration, crafting a kagekone filled with frangipane and apricot and decorated with ginger honeycomb and chocolate truffles. Paul worries her by questioning if you’ll see the pastries under a layer of marzipan, then he moves on to worrying Manon by telling her she should have used French butter, not Danish. Prue chides him, for this is ‘no time to tell her – she’s made her pastry’.

Last man standing Rahul is creating the only kagemand today. His Indian king is flavoured with orange zest and salted caramel, which he plans to cover with buttercream because ‘the Danish shape can be a little bit up and down’. Paul warns him ‘remember to celebrate the Danish’.

Kim-Joy’s friend Charlotte is off to the opera in a beautiful ball gown. (That’s the theme of Kim-Joy’s kagekone, not just an update on Charlotte’s social life.) Worried that the warm tent is set to puff up her pastries, Kim-Joy rashly decides to start baking after just fifteen minutes proving time.

Charlotte makes it to the opera (and the judging table) looking magnificent. Prue says ‘I don’t thing I’ve ever seen more exquisite piping’. Then she tastes the pastry and declares it’s ‘under-baked’… and Paul says it’s ‘under-proved’… and the judges continue to prattle on because they’re consummate professionals and they’ve trained themselves to ignore the fact that Kim-Joy can no longer speak for tears. She sobs and tries to smile at the same time, in that brave heart-breaking way we all sometimes have of saying we’re alright when nothing could be further from the truth.

Briony’s Nana Pat fares better with some ‘lovely flavours’ and Paul says she is the ‘closest one to get the Danish pastries’. Ruby’s impressive pastries are ‘simple and effective’ and though the judges think a little apricot glaze would have helped sweeten the taste, Prue thinks the appearance is ‘absolutely sweet looking’.

Manon and Rahul have both covered their bakes with a tempting array of sweets… but neither has impressed with their pastries. Manon’s are ‘a little overcooked on the outside and undercooked in the middle’. Rahul’s are ‘tough’, ‘very dry’ and ‘burnt’. Rahul admits ‘I don’t deserve to be here any more’.

Ruby is finally made Star Baker and… Rahul manages to hang in there as Manon is sent home. Prue ‘explains’ that Manon is a ‘really good French baker – not a good Danish one’ but it’s one of those episodes where the editing and continuity just seems a bit ‘unreliable’. I mean, it clearly looks like Rahul should have been the one to go… but then again, Briony was seen making a marzipan skirt for Nana Pat with her baked pastries clearly visible… several minutes before she put the raw dough in the oven. And so we must try to believe that ‘the powers that be’ know what they’re doing. Oh, who am I kidding? Bake Off’s secret ingredient is a little controversy!