Heat Ten Junior Bake Off

We are two weeks into our baking marathon.

And I'm going to need to run a marathon to work it off.

That's right, 36 young bakers have been through that tent and we've

sampled every single one of their delicious bakes.

Today, we have our final four.

Nadiya and Allegra only have one remaining place to give away

in next week's quarterfinals.

So no pressure then. Welcome...

-BOTH:

-To Junior Bake Off.

Today, the bakers have a hairy time...

-See if it falls.

-..with the stickiest of technicals.

Whoa!

..and get their hands on paints and brushes...

I'm shaking inside.

..for Showstoppers that are a work of art.

My stress level is about 12 out of 10 at the moment.

The last four junior bakers of 2016

are about to enter the tent for the final heat...

..to face two baking challenges.

12-year-old Tom from Surrey kills two birds with one stone

when honing his skills.

Having a hobby of hair dressing really helps when I do really neat

plaits with lots of strands of bread.

Rachel is 11 and has no need for a dishwasher at home in Solihull.

I've got two brothers and they tend to come in and lick the bowl

of something that I've just made.

11-year-old Mimi from London has been baking

since she was four years old.

I used to go to my childminder's house, Jackie,

and we used to do a lot of baking.

Things like pizza and cakes, that's where I sort of got it from.

Nine-year-old Yasmin from Kent wants to combine baking

with her future career.

When I'm older I want to be a vet,

so then maybe I could bake for animals in my spare time.

The first challenge is the technical.

It tests the bakers' ability to follow a recipe

they've not seen before.

Welcome to the Bake Off tent.

Now, Allegra and Nadiya would like you to make

six mini chiffon cakes.

A lot of blank faces!

These feather-light cakes should be glazed with a grapefruit icing.

Judges, what are you looking for?

So when we cut into these sponges they should bounce right back.

And the icing needs to have the right consistency

that it drizzles without running off.

Guys, have you all washed your hands?

-ALL:

-Yes!

All right, fantastic.

Well, for this Technical Challenge you've got one hour and 15 minutes.

-On your marks.

-Get set. BOTH:

-Bake!

Mimi, do you know what it is?

I've never made this before.

These grapefruit chiffon cakes look so luscious, don't they?

The icing is thick, drizzling down.

But really it's all about the bounce, isn't it?

Let's cut into it and see what happens.

Oh, so there it goes. That's the squish.

You look at that -

you've got lovely golden on the inside, flat at the bottom.

The bounce, it should come straight back.

Mm, light as a feather.

If our bakers can give us anything like these ones look,

I will be really dead impressed.

It's not easy this one.

The bakers start by separating the eggs.

It seems like quite an adulty sort of cake.

The chiffon cake was invented in Hollywood in 1927 by Harry Baker,

who was baker to the stars.

I'm beating together the egg yolks and the oil,

so it needs to be smooth and silky.

He kept his recipe under wraps for 20 years before revealing

its secret, that it's made in two parts

and that instead of butter, it's made with oil.

I need to place the flour, baking powder and caster sugar

into the egg yolk and oil next.

Unlike Old Harry's recipe,

the judges have asked the bakers to add grapefruit juice.

I've never used grapefruit juice in anything I've baked,

so I think it will give it sort of, like, zestiness.

With the egg-yolk batter made,

the bakers move on to the second part

which will give the chiffon cake its bounce.

I am whisking the egg whites with the cream of tartar and salt

and with a bit of caster sugar a little at a time.

It's to make a meringue mixture.

I can't really remember how you make a meringue now.

Another trick to test if it's stiff enough

is if you hold it upside down, it shouldn't fall out of the bowl.

Yes!

See if it falls.

Yay!

Well, the meringue mixture's looking OK

because it does come up and then go down.

I'm sure that's what a meringue's meant to do.

"Fold one third of the meringue into the batter mixture."

It's in.

I've got to be really careful when I'm folding it because if I stir it

too much I'll knock out all the air from the meringue and the cakes

won't be light and fluffy.

At the moment I'm just filling all of the tins,

and I've just got to try and make them as even as possible

so that they're all the same size when they rise in the oven.

Are you happy with that batter?

-Yes.

-Yeah? How are you going to make sure that each of these are equal?

Well, about one centimetre from the top.

-OK.

-That's pretty...

-That's pretty precise.

That's one centimetre, definitely.

The only problem is I don't have enough mixture to fill in six.

I only have enough mixture to fill in four.

I'm dividing them between each,

but that means it's not going to be one centimetre from the top.

OK, bakers, you've had half an hour.

You've got 45 minutes left.

So I need to make the icing whilst the cakes are baking now.

I've just mixed the icing sugar and the...

grapefruit juice together,

so I think I'm going to add a bit more icing sugar

because it's a bit too runny.

So, Rachel, anything else that you get up in your spare time when

-you're not baking?

-I play the violin and I sing.

Well, we used to be singers, Rachel,

so we could harmonise with you.

You probably had a poster of us in your bedroom.

Of course you did.

-My younger brother's a big fan of you two.

-Is he really?

-Yes.

Of course he is, of course he is. How old's your younger brother?

-He's six.

-He's six.

-He knows, he knows.

-He knows.

-On that note...

-Good luck with your chiffon cake.

-Thank you.

-See you later!

"Remove tins from oven and allow to cool upside down

"on a cooking rack for about five to ten..."

Oh! Wait, what? I read the wrong part.

It said, "Cook for 20 minutes and..."

Oh, cool for five to ten minutes!

Whoops, I have to put them in for longer then.

OK.

Let's get them out.

They look a lot better. Before they looked all raw.

I'm actually rather proud of the colour because they're nice and

-golden brown.

-How are you feeling about this technical, Tom?

-Quite confident.

-We've heard that you like a bit of hairdressing.

-Is that right?

-I do, yes.

-What do you reckon?

How are we doing on the hair front?

Looking nice. Loving the quiff.

-Thanks, mate.

-Yeah.

-And the, sort of, sides.

-The sides.

-Which hairdo you prefer?

-Yours.

-Mine?

-Yeah.

-Cheers, Tom.

-It's all right.

-I'm going to...

-See you later, mate.

-See you later!

-I'll work on it, Tom.

-I'll work on it.

-You should!

THEY LAUGH

They look OK.

I think they've kind of sunk a bit, though,

because when I took them out before.

They're quite uneven.

Bakers, you have 15 minutes left.

So you might want to get a CHIFF-on!

-Liking that, Tom?

-It's a good one.

Good gag.

Oh, I love decorating.

Yeah, I'm quite happy with my icing. It might be a bit too runny, though.

The icing seems to be going really well because it's not going all

the way down, it's stopping halfway and setting.

I think I'm OK.

I just need to get the rind on and then present it.

Little decorations!

Oh, some came off, so...

I'm happy with them apart from...

Because they're, like, leaning.

OK, bakers, that's it.

Step away from your bakes!

Can you bring your lovely mini chiffon cakes to the gingham altar

and place them behind your pictures?

I'm really pleased with myself, because I've never made chiffon

cakes before and I think I did pretty well on them, so I'm happy.

One of them's quite thin, but I'm hoping the judges will say the

thingymajiggy on top tastes nice.

The judges are looking for six uniform chiffon cakes.

Golden on the outside with a bouncy sponge.

Neatly glazed with a balanced flavour of grapefruit.

Let's get started on Tom.

Yes, they are picture-perfect.

The drizzle is drizzling, but it hasn't run off.

We've got a lovely rise to them.

Good golden colour.

I pick it up. When you push it, it should come slowly back.

There we go.

That is perfectly cooked. You've got just enough grapefruit

in there. You can taste the bitterness from the zest on top.

Shall I tell you what's wrong with your cakes, Tom?

-There should be six more?

-Nothing.

-THEY LAUGH

Mimi, well, they're lovely and golden.

What we have to say is they are a little on the low side.

I know there was an issue with getting them out of the oven

and putting them back in the oven.

Unfortunately that has affected the height of your cake.

The icing, it's a little thinner than Tom's, but I'm OK with that.

You can tell just by looking at it, that it's just slightly denser.

It tastes delicious.

But you know what you did.

Next time, you won't do it again.

Yasmin, you can see just by looking at them, they are slightly

topsy-turvy, not as uniform, but I know you had a little bit of trouble

with your batter

because your egg whites didn't get

to the stiff peaks that we'd asked for.

But they're lovely and golden.

It has got the squeeze

and the return.

It's a delicious cake.

Thank you.

-Rachel.

-The cake itself looked golden.

They all look uniform, but it's just the icing is slightly thin.

Just run off the side slightly.

-Yes.

-That is a perfect chiffon cake.

-Thank you very much, Rachel.

-Thank you.

Nadiya and Allegra must now decide which two batches of chiffon cakes

have met their criteria best.

So, in no particular order,

the first of our top two is Tom

for smashing this challenge quite so beautifully.

And the second person is Rachel.

-Thank you.

-You've got a great height and bounce on your cake,

exactly as a chiffon cake should be.

To have my baking judged is actually rather nice, because it's like

constructive criticism

so I can build on it next time I make the chiffons.

My favourite comment was when Allegra said

the only thing I can improve on is absolutely nothing.

I think the comments were fair, because they have to tell the truth.

As long as we all try our hardest then, yeah.

-How you getting on, mate?

-Not finished yet.

-Stay still.

-Is it going to be much longer?

We need to get into the tent for the showstopper.

Just doing some finishing touches.

Just hurry up, will you? Me arm's starting to ache.

-Finished!

-Brilliant.

Does it look just like me?

Spitting image, mate.

Hee-hee-hee!

Right, bakers,

Allegra and Nadiya would like you to get all artistic on us

and produce a painted cake.

It could be the view from your bedroom window

or it could be a family portrait

or if you're feeling really arty,

fancy having a stab at the Mona Lisa?

Granted, you've only got one-and-a-half hours to complete it.

-On your marks.

-Get set.

-Bake.

-Bake.

Today, we have to look at that cake as a blank canvas and then look at

what they're going to paint on top of it.

We want to see them to use colours, paintbrushes.

We want to see detail and art and concept and imagination.

Trying to do this as fast as I can.

This challenge is what I like doing.

I really like art.

It's a mix between art and decorating, which is

right up my street, cos I like both. Today I'm making a paint palette.

Instead of the paint splodges, I'm painting different styles of art.

So I'm doing pointillism, impressionism,

pop art, Aborigine art and also Art Deco.

Rachel will display her five styles of art on a fondant palette,

which will top a white chocolate and cranberry Madeira cake.

So you're using dried cranberries.

Yes. And white chocolate drops.

Are you doing anything to stop the cranberries from dropping?

I specifically put them in with the flour, so they got a bit coated

with the flour in the process, so they won't drop to the bottom.

My mum went to the Caribbean, and I saw some photos, so I thought

I'd do something inspired by that.

For my showstopper, I'm making a coconut cake

and I'm going to cover it in fondant icing

and paint like a beach scene on top.

Tom's Caribbean beach scene will be painted onto fondant icing.

Inside, his three layers coconut cake will be of sandwiched together

with a raspberry butter cream.

You've got coconut in your batter.

How do you think that will affect the texture of your cake?

My mum said it gives it quite a nice texture.

I'm not a fan of coconut, so I don't really know

what a coconut cake is nice.

Hold on. You're not a fan of coconut and you're making a coconut cake?

Lucky for you, I like coconut.

-Oh, that's good.

-Me too.

Mimi is taking similar inspiration as Tom.

My granny is from a place in the Caribbean called Grenada

and when I went to see my granny when I was little,

they had loads of coconut trees on the beach and stuff,

so I wanted to, like, add that to, like, my mix. And it tastes nice.

So I'm doing like a beach scene on it as well,

and also her garden is full of mango trees.

So that is why I'm doing mango in the middle.

Mimi is painting a rainbow of colours

on to her tropical beach cake.

As well as fresh mangoes,

she's sandwiching her coconut cake

together with a cream cheese frosting

and she's decorating with some very special fondant figures.

I've made little models of my family.

They've kind of fallen apart.

-Who's that?

-That's my dad.

He's meant to be in half.

-You burying him in the sand?

-Yes.

And his little feet are going to be sticking up.

-How long did all this take you?

-Ages.

I was in the kitchen for, like, days.

It will be worth it.

I am putting the mixture into the cake tins.

Well, I'm trying to make sure it doesn't go on the sides

and I'm also trying to make them even.

Stick it in there.

With their bakes in the oven,

the bakers can now focus on the fillings.

This is my raspberry butter cream.

I'm using some mashed raspberries to get the texture

and then the raspberry extract to get the flavour.

I'm making lemon cream cheese frosting for the middle.

It's got lemon and lemon zest in it.

And cream cheese, butter and icing sugar.

Yeah, it's nice.

Well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to draw a ladybird on it,

because I like ladybird hunting.

Because when we take my dog to the orchard

he always sees ladybirds there.

Yasmin's ladybird will be painted onto a fondant layer, which tops a

chocolate cake, sandwiched with a layer of raspberry butter cream.

What have you made and where is it?

Well, the cakes are in the oven.

-What kind of cake is it?

-It's a chocolate cake and there's a secret

-ingredient.

-What's the secret ingredient?

Are we allowed to know?

Well, it doesn't really matter.

It's just an ingredient.

It's espresso powder.

Shall I tell you a secret, too?

-Yeah.

-If you add coffee or espresso to chocolate it makes the chocolate

taste even better.

So hopefully, we're going to get a great chocolaty flavour.

Take it out. It's not that bad, actually.

Usually it comes out quite burnt.

No. It isn't cooked. It needs two more minutes.

Need to get them out and in the freezer as soon as possible, really.

While the cakes are cooling,

the bakers move on to the decoration.

-Tom.

-Hi.

-How you doing, mate?

-Really good, actually.

I've got my cakes in the fridge.

They're cooling at the moment. Butter cream sorted.

You're going to have time to sit down and have cup of tea, mate.

Is his hair looking any better than it did this morning?

-A little bit.

-A little bit.

-I'll take that.

-Is mine still winning the race?

-Yours is the best.

-I need to work on this.

-Work on your hair, mate.

And how are you feeling after this morning?

I mean, who do you think is your biggest competition in the tent?

(Rachel maybe. Rachel seems really good.)

We had a little talk about what each other's doing

and it seems pretty good.

Really? OK. OK. Good.

-Oh, wow!

-You want hair.

I've got hair.

So, how's my do looking now, Tom?

Oh, God! I don't even know!

A lot worse than it did before, actually.

Whoa!

It's actually quite a good look.

(What's he done to his head?)

Bakers, you have half an hour left.

I think I'm doing quite well for time, because I just need

to cover it in fondant and paint my design on top.

All the bakers are using fondant as their canvas,

so it's crucial that it's smooth and flat.

So, I have just carved my cake into the paint palette shape,

so I'm going to add a layer of fondant to make the wood.

(Oh, no!

(Stuck to the paper.)

Yay!

Everyone else seems like they've got theirs.

I don't really know.

Bit nervous now.

Guys, you've only got 15 minutes left.

Come on.

I am just painting my art designs onto circles.

Edible paints come in every colour of the rainbow

and they're applied just like any paint, with a brush.

I'm trying to keep it quite calm, so it doesn't go bad.

But I am shaking inside.

I'm putting the green around the ladybird, as if it's grass.

Whoops!

HE EXHALES

I do like a sunset look on it.

But I'm really, like, messing it.

I've done this quite a lot in preparation,

but obviously, today, it's not really going my way.

Bakers, you have got five minutes left.

Everything's falling apart.

Done. Hopefully.

My stress level is about 12 out of 10 at the moment.

Not as good as I expected them to go,

but I'm happy with it.

Yes! Hopefully, I should be done.

I think I've actually... No, one thing.

Well, that's it, bakers.

Finish it.

And breathe!

I hope that the judges pick up on the individual pieces of artwork,

and also that they actually taste good as well.

Rachel, I love your cake.

You have totally nailed the brief.

I love the shape of the artist palette.

And you've got a lovely smooth finish.

But look at the cut on that.

Nice and crumbly. Really beautiful.

Your cranberries are suspended all across.

So your little trick of making sure they are coated

in a little bit of flour really worked.

You've given us just enough white chocolate in there without it being

too sweet, but it balances with the cranberry so well,

and the cake is baked to perfection.

Thank you.

It's a real act of love for your family, isn't it?

It is like a sort of love letter, from the heart,

to the way all your family are represented.

I love the fact your dad's been buried in sand. It's great.

When you baked the cake, I was slightly afraid

that the coconut would dry out the bake.

It hasn't dried the bake out at all.

But what adds a little extra moisture is that fresh mango.

It's a really delicious coconut cake.

Thank you.

I hope the judges like the taste and texture of my cake.

I hope they don't pick up on the fact that it cracked a little bit.

Tom, I love what you've done with the painting.

I love that you've got that coconut tree popping out

and you've got birds,

and I think it's a great effort looking at it.

It's a three-layered cake.

Just some slight snags on the side.

It's very, very nearly there.

The cake is just verging on the edge of slightly dry.

Slightly crumbly, but when you eat it with the butter cream,

it tastes really good.

Well, ladybird hunter,

you have really hunted down the biggest ladybird of all time.

It's a very good painted ladybird,

but this detail around the side here... It's a great bit of art.

It's very yummy. The chocolate cake just slightly underbaked at the top.

It could have done with a couple of minutes extra.

But it's a very great cake, and it's an absolutely brilliant ladybird.

Thank you so much.

In the end, I was in such a rush to do it.

Those last five minutes literally, like, saved my life.

Well, judges, another strong day in the tent.

This morning, the Technical Challenge.

Tom and Rachel were in your top two.

Is it the same going into the afternoon with the showstopper?

I think we have some really strong candidates on the table.

I love Mimi's.

Really nicely delivered and actually, it was a very interesting

cake as well, with the fresh mango in the middle.

Then you've got Yasmin's cake.

She painted a beautiful ladybird.

But another coconut cake on the table is Tom's.

It's impressive. It's three layers.

It's fondant icing all the way around,

but actually, it's not the best coconut cake on the table.

But to counterbalance that,

in your own words this morning, you said that Tom smashed it.

He absolutely nailed that technical, but so did Rachel.

Not only that, you know, she's not only done paintings,

she's done paintings from particular periods of art.

-I mean, there's a lot of thought went into that.

-You see our dilemma?

Yeah. It's a tough one.

Yeah.

Well done, bakers.

You should be incredibly proud of yourselves.

But as you know,

our judges, Allegra and Nadiya, can only take one of you

through to the quarterfinals.

And this baker impressed our judges

with their concept and flavour combinations.

The baker going through is...

-..Rachel.

-Yay!

Well done, Rachel.

When I heard my name, like, I couldn't quite believe it at first.

But then when everybody was clapping me, I was, like,

"Oh, it is actually me."

So good!

Today, we had four absolutely amazing bakers.

You know, they shone in the technical.

But when it came to the showstopper, Rachel stopped the show.

She had the best concept.

And she had the best cake.

Hats off to her.

She gave us everything in that cake and she had to go through today.

Next time, it's the first quarterfinal.

Really exciting.

The first batch of heat winners take on a cracking technical.

Why is this going all wrong?!

But who will prove they are worthy for a place in the semifinal?

My magical touch.