‘Allons, enfants de la pâtisserie, le jour de gloire est arrivé!’ as the French say (sort of). Barely a week has gone by without the judges likening a finely finessed bake to the wares of a Parisian pastry shop, but our crusading quartet now faces the inevitable semi-final challenge of pâtisserie proper.

‘Elegantly decorated’ is the added requirement for the first bake of twelve cream horns in two flavours. Will Tom swap his signature little black gloves for an elbow-length pair or will anyone’s be worthy of the Légion d’Honneur? Sadly, no on both counts. With only two hours and forty-five minutes for the bakers to, as Noel says, ‘give us the horn,’ it seems that a last-minute decorative dip or drizzle will have to suffice.

Pastry perfection is the priority. After his over-ambitious attempt at a full puff in week six, Toby is now committing to a more manageable rough puff. However, having failed to master Paul’s recipe in practice, he’s now settled on Gordon Ramsay’s, which, in the heat of the tent, seems to be displaying a volatile temperament. ‘Never listen to a chef,’ warns Paul belatedly, as the requisite lamination is only ‘there a little bit.’ He loves the filling of lemon curd with thyme mousseline and meringue, and Prue approves of the chocolate, coffee and Irish cream liqueur batch but she concludes, ‘the flavour is lovely, but the texture is too hard.’

It's a similar problem for Tom. Paul asks to see his normally gloved fingernails and pithily says that he’s been hanging on by them for some time. ‘A bit cakey,’ is Prue’s assessment of the pastry, and Paul agrees that a butter exodus has left the horns ‘a bit dry.’ Nevertheless, Paul concedes that he likes the fillings of lemon cream cheese with raspberry gel and salted dark chocolate mousse with clementine curd.

As if baking battle lines were drawn literally down the centre of the tent, across the divide, the other two bakers fare much better. ‘Nice flake!’ exclaims Paul, as he cuts into Jasmine’s well-baked horns of dark chocolate and coffee and white chocolate, raspberry and pistachio. ‘Simply delicious,’ Prue adds, praising the ‘really good balance of flavours.’

She’s slightly less convinced by Aaron’s reimagining of classic pudding flavours. One is purportedly inspired by a treacle tart, but whether it’s the lemon and bay jam with chocolate and caramel ganache, or the nectarine and cherry compote with vanilla Chantilly cream is anyone’s guess. ‘Both of these flavours are absolutely delicious,’ admits Prue, but she goes on to say, 'I don’t think they go very well together.’ However, Paul asserts that Aaron’s achieved a ‘really good rough puff,’ and Prue agrees, ‘it’s baked right through.’

Now, I suspect I’m not alone in experiencing a vicarious feeling of anxiety, watching this week’s technical challenge of a framboisier. Jasmine (and I) can just about manage a genoise sponge. Tom decides he can’t and wings it with something akin to a chiffon cake instead. I feel reasonably confident that, when making a mousseline, your crème pat needs to be cold before adding butter.

Toby opts to work with it warm but remains optimistic. ‘That’s actually a really nice consistency,’ he observes, as the buttery, batter-like custard flows freely into its ring mould. I’m comfortable with fondant roses but it’s the demand for a sugar glass dome that puts me in a panic. I quickly check online for instructional videos and feel no less anxious after watching someone working their magic with molten sugar and a sheet of cling film. Tom impressively masters the illusion, only to shatter it on a freezer shelf.

Back to Toby who removes his ring mould and discovers that the buttery, batter-like custard of his mousseline flows just as freely onto the cake stand and isn’t such a nice consistency after all. His damp little green and raspberry beret of a cake comes bottom, followed by Aaron with curdled mousseline and an opaque dome. Domeless, but otherwise perfectly formed, Tom and Jasmine vie for technical triumph and, though the judges seem perfectly content with Tom’s improvised cake, Jasmine’s genuine genoise puts her framboisier first.

Now, do you remember when Bake Off’s showstoppers were simply about bakers showing off their skills and creativity? When a lion-shaped loaf didn’t need to be justified with personal experience of Sub-Saharan Africa or Whipsnade Zoo. Lamentably, it seems that nowadays, a bake just isn’t a bake unless it has a backstory. So, the semi-finalists must not only create an edible structure at least forty-five centimetres high, displaying a minimum of thirty filled macarons, but said centrepiece must also depict ‘something meaningful’ to them.

Toby says his gingerbread crates of macaron lemons are inspired by his time spent admiring the fruit stalls of Colombia. He studs his biscuit boxes with rectangular dark chocolate and hazelnut macarons, which Prue deems deliciously ‘chocolatey.’ Paul agrees, but finds the lemon, poppyseed and white chocolate ones ‘a bit dry for me.’ However, both judges are full of admiration for his ‘feet’ (the revered, ruffled ring at the macarons’ base) and his masterful addition of a perfectly formed edible sign.

Though Toby may have seen a sloth or two on his South American travels, Aaron’s take on the super cute mammal lies much closer to home. His boyfriend’s love of a onesie and couch inspire an affectionate edible tribute. Two sleepy eyes peer out from a sloth-shaped sugar biscuit, covered with macarons filled with three flavours of ganache – grapefruit and mint, salted popcorn and yuzu and pear. ‘Quite chewy,’ discerns Prue, who is impressed with the flavour of the macarons if not their texture. Paul agrees that ‘the standard… is not as good as I expected.’

And there’s an unexpected spot of criticism directed at Jasmine’s hitherto unblemished record. ‘The raspberry ones are not as delicious as the chocolate ones,’ decides Prue, sampling the macaron baubles from a green gingerbread Christmas tree. Jasmine’s personal motivation for her showstopper is that she likes Christmas. I like the simplicity of her backstory. Paul likes the ‘smooth and extremely neat’ macarons.

‘What are you doing?’ exclaims Paul, as he finds Tom attempting to temper twelve kilograms of chocolate for a huge beehive of macaron bees. ‘It looks absolutely astonishing,’ declares Prue of the finished centrepiece, but a closer inspection from Paul results in a stinging rebuke. ‘I can’t accept it,’ he announces, arguing that, in a quest to impress, the baker has prioritised his chocolate work over the macarons, which he describes as ‘flat’ and with ‘rudimentary’ decoration. Fillings of mango with lemon and dark chocolate with cherry are judged ‘very pleasant,’ but the crucial confections ‘needed longer in the oven.’

Tom says he feels ‘chopped down like a tree’ by the judges’ critique, but it’s Toby whose time in the tent is abruptly guillotined. Star Baker Jasmine says ‘it sucks,’ that she doesn’t get to ‘do the final’ with Toby, but tearful eyes are dried as she, Aaron and Tom declare ‘marchons, marchons’ on their last heroic journey towards the ultimate prize of a glass cake stand.