Selasi noooooooo!
As I write this in 24 hours we will know who the winner of GBBO 2016 is! How time has flown!
But literally this is the cutest thing I have ever seen… Selasi went on a roadtrip this week to go and see Val. This makes everything seems right with the world!
I must say Mel & Sue were on hilarious form this week. Their humorous exchange with Selasi seemed to show a twisted view of the future! Maybe Selasi is the next presenter to be announced. I actually don’t think that would be the worst thing to happen in the world!
The Episode
With only 4 bakers left in the tent, Patisserie week felt like a very quiet affair. For the signature bake, the bakers were required to make 24 savory paimeiers, which are a puff pastry leaf shaped bite. Candice’s flavours stood out, with her Red Onion, Cambozola and Walnut Palmiers & Walnut, Streaky Bacon and Mushroom Palmiers, but unfortunately Paul just didn’t recognise them as pastry!
For the technical challenge it was a Savarin. If I had had a tin, this would have been my choice of bake with syrup soaked sponge, Chantilly cream and caramel shards, what is not to like! Unfortunately Selasi really signed his own death warrant at this point – coming last, and Jane shone coming first.
Following this was the showstopper – 36 (36!) fondant fancies. The bakers came up with a number of different flavours: from Candices Bakewell fancies to Janes Pistacio and Raspberry ones. On paper, Selasi’s Raspberry Prosecco fancies could not have appealed to me more – but unfortunately the delivery just didn’t live up to the promise and it signaled Selasis departure. He will be missed!
My Bake
I decided to make Lemon French Fancies this week. And yet again I came to a startling realization. If there is one thing I have learned by writing this blog – it is that I need to buy an electric whisk.
Firstly I made the Genoise sponge. But it turned out a rather flat affair. I knew this was
going to happen as I put it into the oven. I knew the mixture didn’t have enough volume, but I honest to god had just had enough of whisking!
However the sponge tasted alright, so I decided to plough ahead and make an original 2 layered fancy.
Following making cubes of sponge, I made a lemon butter icing and made a crumb coat. I made 7 french fancies and I got bored of icing at this point. I don’t know if I could have coped with 36!
After the crumb coat, I used the unique method of perching the cake on a glass. This was one of my flatmates glasses and I honestly don’t know what it is used for. It must be some kind of whisky glass. However, it was slightly smaller than my cake cubes and made the perfect shape for the icing to run off.
Once covered in a yellow lemon icing, I followed by piping a nice white zig zag. I could have done with waiting for the icing to set a little to ensure the white icing laid on top, but instead it merged with the yellow – making a merged effect.
My Final Predictions
I don’t want to predict the final! I don’t want this series to end!
My most important prediction of all:
The Winner: Candice.
(Even though I secretly really want it to be Andrew)
See you next week for the Final!!!!
Vicki's Great British Bake Along 