We’re getting down to the bitter end of the season, and I finally noticed something. There hasn’t been one of those silly sketches they used to do to open the show since the first week when Paul Hollywood got into a dinosaur costume and regretted every single second of it. The thing that many fans love about the copyright-infringing Baking Show is that it never changes, it’s just the same delightful elements and loving bakers week after week, season after season. I wonder why the change? Were they too expensive to produce? Did Alison Hammond hate doing them? Was it a favorite of Matt Lucas, and now that he’s gone, the producers never want to do them again because he scarred them with horrible puns and bad costumes? Unclear. However, I must say that I don’t miss them at all.
The theme this week isn’t subtraction, but addition: the first-ever Meringue Week. When I lived in the U.S., the closest I ever got to a meringue was on lemon meringue pie. Now that I live in the U.K., it’s everywhere. You can’t walk by an Ottolenghi without seeing a meringue as big as one of the Queen’s corgis in the front window. Eton Mess, a signature English dessert that is on nearly every menu, consists of cream, berries, and meringues (and in the best places, also some ice cream). While there have clearly been meringues in the tent before, it’s a shock that they haven’t devoted a whole hour to it, especially considering they’re so perilous and (to some) so delicious.
At the top of the hour, Paul Hollywood tells us that there are three different kinds of meringues — French, Swiss, and Italian — but he doesn’t explain the differences. Luckily, I have a modern device that I used to figure out what they are. Yes, I looked into my scrying glass, said a string of words in Latin, spun around three times to the left, and spilled the blood of one of my enemies and got the answer. French meringues are made by whipping egg whites, adding sugar, and then whipping again. Swiss meringues are made whipping egg whites and sugar together with the bowl over boiling water until the sugar is dissolved and then whipped again. Italian meringues are made by pouring a warm sugar water mixture into the egg whites while whipping. They are not whipped again, but after all of that research, I sure am beat.
The first challenge is to create any type of meringue the bakers choose, as long as it is placed on top of a mini meringue pie. (For the record, Tom and Jasmine are Swiss misses, and the rest of the bakers are Italian stallions.) They’re all blowtorching their meringues on top of their pies rather than baking them, and almost all the bakers are putting the meringue on top of some tart filling, like a lemon meringue pie. Iain is using rhubarb because he says that in all 15 previous seasons of Baking Show, no one has ever gone home if they used rhubarb. Who knew he was such a historian of the reality television arts and sciences? I should probably independently verify this information, but I have used up my scrying glass quota for the day, so we’re just going to have to take Iain’s word for it.
Tom might not have his perfect work perfectly cut out for him, because when Paul and Prue come to taste his strawberry rhubarb tarts, the meringue isn’t torched enough and sticks to Paul’s knife. That is not perfect, indeed. The judges also struggle with Tom’s textures, which is something he has perfectly never heard in his perfect life. Luckily, unbeknownst to him, he has the magical power of rhubarb immunity to keep him safe. Lesley is the only other baker who struggles, with Prue saying that there is too much lemon curd and Paul saying that her pastry is overworked and too thick, which is something that my husband says about me at least once a week.
Everyone else does very well. Aaron makes boat-shaped tarts inspired by Mont Blancs, but Prue says he doesn’t add enough chestnut filling. They’re gaga over Iain’s frangipane tarts, with Prue even calling them beautiful, which is something I wish my husband would say about me ever.
But it’s two bakers getting two very different handshakes that make this memorable. As the judges learn about Jasmine’s passionfruit and raspberry tarts, Paul jokes that he’s not going to give her another handshake or another Star Baker for the rest of the competition because she’s gotten too many. When he tastes her tarts — which look amazing with perfectly-shaped meringue kisses on top — both judges love them. Paul goes to shake her hand but jerks it back, then gives her a left-handed handshake. I have so many questions. Did he really want to give her a handshake and then rescind it as a joke? Was there something not quite perfect about them, so he was teasing her with a handshake? And what is up with the left-handed shake? Is that sort of like crossing your fingers when you tell a lie so that the Catholic Jesus won’t smite you in the afterlife? Is it the anti-handshake? Is it supposed to say that they are so bad that they receive some kind of negative affirmation? I don’t know, but I hate it as much as Real Housewives hate having their glam budget taken away.
Toby receives a full-on, regular-degular, no-lefties-allowed handshake for his apple meringue tarts, which are made to resemble tiny apple pies. He even pipes the meringue on top to make it look like a lattice. They’re by far the coolest looking ones and totally different. Good for Toby. Our stressed-out king needs a little bit of affirmation to keep that mustache shiny and luxurious.
The technical is, whatever; it’s a technical. It’s one of the staggered ones, so the judges can eat the raspberry soufflés that the bakers make straight out of the oven. Iain goes first, and then each baker is brought in slightly afterwards so that Alison has to tell them all the assignment six different times, and she doesn’t even get a raise (American to British translation: pay rise) for doing six times the work. Lesley and Tom are once again on the bottom, a position that perfect Tom does not seem used to, which says wonders about our sexual compatibility. Iain is the winner, which is ironic because he thought the recipe specified that he should use the rest of the sugar provided, so he poured in 230 grams more sugar into the soufflé than necessary. Ugh, get another one of my enemies in here to spill some blood so I can look into the scrying glass once more. Thanks for stopping by Claudia Winkleman (she knows what she did). Now I can tell you that it is one and one-eighth cups more sugar than the recipe calls for. How did he mess it up so badly and still win?
For the showstopper, everyone makes a vacherin glacé, which is an ice cream dessert served in a decorative meringue shell. Iain, our Baking Show historian, decides to pay homage to Iain Watters, a similarly named baker (he even spells it correctly!) from Belfast, who was tasked with making a baked Alaska, another meringue and ice cream dessert, back in season five of the show. Iain W’s ice cream melted, so he threw the whole thing in the bin (British to American translation: trash can) and presented the bin to the judges, who kicked him out of the competition. It caused a great deal of controversy at the time and was titled #BinGate.
Our Iain decides he is going to use the same flavor combination — coffee and chocolate — and present it in a bin made out of meringue, which is such a wonderful, whimsical, and unusually meta idea. When Iain presents his finished bin, it looks suitably shabby and totally on point. Iain has this knack for making things where mess or disorder is built into its DNA, so when he turns in something that doesn’t look as refined as something that Tom or Jasmine are pumping out week after week, it still looks like a triumph. Remember his avalanche of chocolate stout cake from week one, which still ended up looking brilliant? Same thing here. However, when Paul tastes it, he says the flavors are all wrong. Iain tries to blame Iain W, but that man has been scarred enough. Let him once again recede into the annals of Baking Show history where the poor creature belongs.
It seems like Iain is destined to go home, just like Iain W, until a magical rhubarb pops out of his pocket and tells Paul and Prue that he has a hidden immunity idol. (Is this Survivor now? Did Jeff Probst hide a Beware Advantage under a bowl in the tent?) Then the magic rhubarb points to Lesley’s vacherin glacé, and the judges have to agree with that talking rhubarb. Lesley, who has been a steady presence throughout the entire season, makes the uncharacteristic mistake of inverting the amounts of sugar and egg whites she needs for her wedding-cake-shaped creation. By the time she figures it out and creates new ones, they aren’t done and are too chewy. P&P Music Factory love her lemon and basil ice cream and her Eton Mess flavors, but her mixed-up meringues send her home. We’ll miss you, Lesley.
Tom also seems in danger going into the final challenge, but then his magical rhubarb comes out of his pocket and gives him the recipe for a mushroom-shaped dessert filled with layers of banana ice cream, banana cake, and a lid of coffee-flavored torched meringue. It is so beautiful and so delicious and so, dare I say, perfect that that magical rhubarb saves him as well. Aaron also has an excellent showing, creating an all-white Japanese fox spirit with nine tails on top of an all-white cake, which is stunning. It looks like Halston’s living room if it had to be an ice-cream-and-meringue-based dessert. The judges, however, don’t like the way lemongrass sorbet and stem ginger ice cream taste together, which, yeah, that seems like putting salsa on your pancakes or something gross like that.
Duking it out for Star Baker are Jasmine and Toby, the cool vet versus the human embodiment of the Bangles’ song “Manic Monday.” Jasmine serves up pistachio, strawberry, and stracciatella (Italian-to-American translation: chocolate chip) ice creams on a seashell. The judges, as always, rave about how good it tastes and how divine it looks, but even they can’t pretend like there isn’t a giant crack along the rim of her shell.
In the end, it is Toby who takes home Star Baker after an excellent week where it seems like his blood pressure stayed steadier than Paul’s hand on a fork, absolutely destroying a delicacy someone spent four hours creating. His vacherin is inspired by a mango tree in a friend’s yard and is filled with mango sorbet and coconut gelato, which he makes without any milk or cream because our sensitive baker has a sensitive tummy and is lactose intolerant. And we keep forcing him to make custards, creams, and fillings? That tent must be stinky. The whole thing looks terrific, with his tree-shaped meringue on the top of the dessert, perhaps the best-looking thing anyone made all week. He naturally gets emotional when calling his girlfriend at home to share the news with her, and we get emotional too. We’ve seen him struggle so many times on so many different weeks that it took a brand new week for Toby to finally get his chance to shine, and he didn’t even need a magical rhubarb to achieve it.