I always kind of hate Bread Week for the same reason I kind of hate the Hollywood Handshake. As a bread baker, this is Paul Hollywood’s de facto week, where all of the bakers are looking for his approval like he’s the head judge when he’s not. I wouldn’t mind it so much if Prue had a week of her own, too, like South African Week, Statement Necklace Week, or Your MP Son Joins the Far Right Anti-Immigration Party Week. You know, something to balance it out.
The first challenge is to create a visually appealing monkey bread, which many in America will recognize as a circular loaf composed of smaller balls that can be easily torn off, much like monkeys plucking nits from one another. Yeah, gross origin, but an absolutely delicious treat. I like this challenge because it’s easy and attainable, something that many of the bakers watching at home can do on their own, but it’s elevated in a way suitable for a baking competition.
The one thing I don’t like about it is that the monkey bread has to be savory. Ugh, no thanks. Who wants their monkey bread tasting like cheese, pears, and walnuts, which is basically what all of the bakers give us? I was a little sad there wasn’t a New Yorker on the show to make a NYC pizzeria garlic knot monkey bread, which I would have demolished. Either that or I would have taken a nod from Clue and made monkey brain monkey bread, which, “though popular in Cantonese cuisine, are not often to be found in Washington D.C.”
No one seems to have a drastically difficult time with the challenge, and by no one, I mean everyone but Aaron and Pui Man. Aaron is attempting to make his version with onion, chili, fennel, and yeast extract, which you can already tell Paul hates. The problem is, even after proving it several times, it doesn’t rise in the oven at all. It comes out of the oven like a bad stand-up comedy set: flat, ugly, and almost totally raw. It does eke one tiny compliment out of Prue, who says the flavor isn’t bad, but “the texture is so awful you can’t eat it.” There is damning with faint praise, and then there is whatever Prue just did.
Pui Man uses traditional Chinese ingredients like red bean curd, ginger pesto, and morning glory (no, not that kind!). However, when everyone else already has their balls (hehe) assembled and in the drawer to prove for a second time, both Pui Man and Nataliia are still assembling their balls (hehe). All this talk of balls and morning glories reminds me of when Alison shows Jasmine her trick where she holds a spoon behind a napkin and then tilts it forward so that it looks like a ghost. Noel comes over and takes the napkin and spoon from her and holds the napkin down to crotch level. The show is so wholesome that it doesn’t even show him doing the trick, though we hear Alison’s infectious cackles.
Anyway, Pui Man’s bread comes out of the oven looking wonderfully multi-colored but falling apart like a girl on the subway who just got dumped. When the judges taste it, they say there is barely any flavor and it needs more salt, a glaze, and probably a whole different recipe if it wants to be successful.
Triumphing on the monkey bread is perfect Tom with his perfect rendition of French cuisine like French onion soup and a croque monsieur, which was coincidentally the name of his French bon ami when he studied at the Sorbonne. Iain’s bread-based approximation of an Irish cheese board also gets high marks and looks as stunning as Tom with his top off. Jasmine’s olive and rosemary bread also receives high marks, though Paul critiques it for not including coriander (American translation: cilantro), which is a traditionally Cypriot flavor combination. Sorry, Paul, it’s already Bread Week. It can’t be Cypriot Pride Week, too.
The technical challenge is for the bakers to make a dozen “ring doughnuts,” which Americans would just call donuts. The reason they specify the “ring” is that, in my experience, most donuts found in the U.K. don’t have a hole in the center because they have a filling of some sort, like the ones Paul had bakers make way back in season three. Even their muffins here have fillings, like a blueberry muffin with blueberry syrup in the middle. Just like Bonnie Blue, they love a good filling. (Kids, do not Google that.) Speaking of which, Nadia has a whole conversation with herself about how everyone loves a neat hole. No one knows how big the hole should be or just how to get into the hole. Holes, balls, morning glory, boner-related magic tricks. This episode really needs to get laid.
None of the doughnuts look especially good, to be honest, but maybe that’s because no one knows how to find the hole. Pui Man comes in last in the technical again, with Lesley and Nataliia also in the bottom, where Aaron comes in third, Nadia comes in second, and Jasmine wins the whole shebang.
The showstopper is another great challenge. It’s a stackable sweet bread. No, not lamb innards, just bread that is sweet. It has to be highly decorated for a celebration, and each baker has to talk about what kind of celebration it’s made for. Again, this is a doable but elevated challenge, and is not treating their bakes like it should be some food-based erector set.
During the challenge, we get both some answers and some more mysteries. Jasmine tells us that the reason she has no hair is because she has alopecia and it was only a few years ago that she was brave enough to start leaving her house without wearing wigs and to start standing out as someone with no hair on her head. Now is probably a great time to tell her that I always think she looks just like the Marvel superhero Moondragon, and I can’t possibly think of a better compliment. Jasmine is making a Swedish-inspired cinnamon and cardamom for a midsummer party because she is apparently a huge Ari Aster and human sacrifice fan.
The mystery comes from Aaron’s celebration of life loaf, which commemorates the recent deaths of his friends Alicia and Fidel. Obviously, that is a terrible thing, but it sparked my morbid curiosity. Did they die together? Was the timing just a coincidence? Do they know each other? Was it a terrible accident? He’s festooning his sweet bread with sunflowers and roses. Do those flowers mean anything to them? It’s such a sweet gesture (puns always intended), I just want to know a bit more about these friends.
As the challenge unfurls, three people are really struggling. Iain is making a creation inspired by the Irish precursor to Halloween called Samhain, which is pronounced like “sown” because that is just how Irish rolls. He’s struggling with his apple and cinnamon bread baking all of the way through and has to take it out of the oven to decorate it in the sort of ghoulish colors that only Noel, Tim Burton, and Elvira could love. Toby is making a Stollen, which is a fruited bread with marzipan in the middle that is a Christmas delicacy, which is Toby’s favorite holiday, except for all of Movember. Again, his proving and baking times are off, and he’s struggling with having enough time for his loaves in the oven.
Speaking of loaves, the other person struggling is perfect Tom, who is trying to make a perfect chocolate tree to put on top of his perfect cinnamon bun tower, which is to celebrate a perfect autumn with his perfect boyfriend, who, you will be shocked to learn, is named Perfect. The problem is the tree doesn’t look like a tree at all, and more like something someone’s dog would drop at the bottom of a tree while out on a walk. Or, as Alison says, “It doesn’t look like a tree, it looks like a big log.” Honestly, it is the turdiest thing we have ever seen on GBBO since Hassan’s Swiss roll during Cake Week.
Of course, when Tom is finished, it ends up looking perfect. It is neat and looks like it would play a song from Taylor Swift’s folklore. Paul says that the fillings pack a punch, and it is, once again, perfect. There was great praise all around for many of the bakes, including Lesley’s daisy chain around a Korovai, a Ukrainian loaf; Nadia’s gorgeously shaped brioche wedding cake whose red roses leave Paul with the most kissable lips you’ve ever seen; Aaron’s aforementioned bread with gorgeous flowers falling down one side which Paul says looks fabulous and Prue describes as “faultless;” and even Pui Man’s plaited milk bread also with roses and filled with cherries that Paul says he wouldn’t have used but are a nice surprise.
However, it’s Jasmine’s turn for star baker with her cannibalistic human sacrifice loaf. JK. It’s not. Though it does have gorgeously delicate icing all over it and some icing daisies that look good enough to eat, and you could if you are Paul Hollywood, Prue Leith, or at least one of the camera people on the show.
This week is another story of redemption, and Aaron saved himself with his knockout loaf. Pui Man, in the bottom of the first two stages of this episode, looked like she could be the comeback kid once again. That’s especially true because Nataliia, who similarly struggled in the first two challenges, delivered her own take on the Korovia that looked like it fell into the notions section of a Jo Ann Fabric and then rolled down a hill. The judges say the bread was claggy, underproofed, and lacked finesse. As expected, Iain’s apple loaf was a disaster, with Paul telling him, way too late, to never put apples in bread because they’re too wet and it will never work. Toby’s is also predictably wonky, like a Santa after too many shots of whiskey, and Paul says that it’s barely cooked and far too doughy.
Maybe one of them will go home instead? But no, you can almost hear the gasp in the tent when Alison announces that it’s Pui Man’s turn to go. Unlike last week, her improvement in the showstopper wasn’t enough to save her. It’s sad that she had to go out on a triumph, but at some point they have to put her out of her misery. Of the nine bakes they’ve done so far, only two of hers were successful. Sure, they were major triumphs, but it doesn’t seem like a high enough hit rate for her to continue over someone like Nataliia, who won Star Baker, or Iain, who has shown considerable chops so far. I feel like, as consolation, Paul Hollywood should have given her a handshake on the way out. After all, it is his week.
