Batter Week The Great British Bake Off

BOTH: # Nine keen bakers, bushy-tailed and perked

# Nine keen bakers, none of whom have shirked

# But if one keen baker produces something...

IN PAUL HOLLYWOOD'S ACCENT: # ..overworked

# There'll be eight keen bakers baking in the yurt. #

More of a marquee. Is it? Yes.

BOTH: Welcome to The Great British Bake Off.

Last time, Bread Week got emotional.

MARY: It is SO big. To try and get that done in two-and-a-half hours

is quite difficult.

The youngest baker, Michael... It is a mess.

You didn't glaze it,

you didn't get the rise and we haven't got the definition.

..was the third to leave the tent.

And although Andrew tried his best...

I love that.

..Tom's rise continued...

The plaiting is excellent. I think you have done a very good job.

Thank you. ..winning Star Baker for the first time.

APPLAUSE Well done, Tom!

Well done, Tom.

This time, the bakers battle a Bake Off first...

Holy moley.

..batter.

There is an unpredictable Sunday lunch Signature...

How can Yorkshires make you feel so nervous?

They are not going to allow me into Yorkshire, ever again.

..the most artistic Technical Bake yet...

Lace, lace, lace, lace, lace... Not even got any lace pants.

Only going to get one chance at this.

..and a Showstopper where the bakers jump from the frying pan...

into the fryer.

I think this is pretty tricky for them.

It is a bit tense at the moment.

Getting to the rushing stage now. Really behind.

Come on, come on.

Ohhhh!

That...tastes...UNBELIEVABLE.

BIRDSONG

We have had cakes, we've had biscuits, we've had bread.

Now, this week, time for a store cupboard special. It's batter.

She's brought the cricket bat, hasn't she?

Your e-mail was very unclear! Eggs, flour, milk.

I bought little weird shin pads, and that box thing!

Nothing to do with cricket.

It's Batter Week.

It's not really sunk in yet that I was Star Baker last week.

I am feeling a little bit like I have to live up to it.

Whether I will, who knows? But that's the sense.

This week, it's concentrating on the fundamentals.

So, time management, not raw, not burnt.

It is a bit weird, batter, but I have a good feeling about this week.

I've been saying all week, "Let's get battered!"

Bakers, welcome to a first in The Great British Bake Off.

Batter! Ooh! We're doing batter!

Now, Paul and Mary would like you to make Yorkshire puddings. 24 of them.

"Easy", you think. But...hold fire. What?

These Yorkshire puddings have got to be identical.

You will need to focus mind over batter.

The batter can be flavoured any which way you like,

and the Yorkshire puddings need a savoury filling.

OK, you have got two hours to produce your puddings.

On your marks... Get yourself set! BOTH: Bake!

I am a big fan of Yorkshire puddings.

I'm feeling quite happy about this bake.

Batter week, the one that I have been dreading the most.

We are looking for top-grade Yorkshire pudding.

Well risen, they should sort of curl up, turning in a bit at the top,

and then a lovely dip to take a filling.

To get Yorkshire puddings all identical, it is very tricky.

Once it's in the oven, it is in the lap of the gods.

The whole rising of the Yorkshire pudding comes from the egg.

You can add ingredients to it,

but the more things you add to the mixture, the denser it gets,

the harder it is to rise. We want to see uniformity.

We want to see finesse.

And at the end of the day, this is Bake Off,

it's got to taste amazing.

Notoriously fickle to perfect, we have all got a different

family recipe for Yorkshire puddings,

and our bakers are no exception.

I use eight eggs, and however much the eight eggs weigh,

is how much flour and milk I put in.

I put four eggs in for about 250g of flour.

Seems to be a lot of debate in the Yorkshire pudding community

about how much rise that gives you.

The batter will be fairly thin. I want them really light and crispy.

No soggy bottom in these Yorkshires.

Morning, Val. Morning, Paul. Morning, Mary.

You're from Yorkshire, Yorkshire puddings should be a doddle for you.

My husband said, "If you fail on this one,

"we will never live this down."

Val, this is in your blood, isn't it?

It is a Yorkshire pudding batter I have made for years,

my mum taught me.

Her mum's Yorkshire pudding recipe uses five eggs.

But Val is leaving the Dales behind her by filling them

with a spicy, Mexican-inspired chilli.

It is quite a hot chilli.

I need the simpleness of the Yorkshire puddings

to counterbalance the chilli.

Are they going to be the best Yorkshires that you have ever made?

Hopefully. Good luck.

I'm feeling OK about this challenge.

I love Yorkshire puddings and love steaks.

Really, there was only one thing I was going to do.

Deconstructed beef Wellington.

Like the classic, Candice is using best fillet and mushrooms.

She is serving her filled puds with a horseradish cream,

and, for good measure,

adding grated horseradish to her batter.

I just want things to work this week and be spot-on.

Erm...

I didn't want to use that one anyway.

I wanted to take Yorkshire on holiday.

It is quite a traditional actual batter mix,

and then I am putting a Spanish chicken filling on the inside.

So, yeah, Yorkshire goes on tour.

Andrew's tapas puddings will be packed with chunks of spiced chicken

in a tomato and saffron sauce,

then topped with toasted almonds.

The only thing I have added really to the traditional

Yorkshire mix is mustard powder.

Gives it a bit more of a yellow-ey colour, bit more inviting.

I've a friend who is from Yorkshire who tipped me off

that that was how her mum used to make them.

To get 24 identical puds,

the bakers are free to make as much batter as they like,

but they must get the consistency of their mix right.

Too thick and the puddings won't rise.

Too runny and they won't hold their structure.

I think there are all sorts of different recipes.

Believe me, I have tried them all. None of them seem to work for me!

Good morning, Jane. Good morning.

Right, Yorkshire puddings, what are you going to do?

I can't make Yorkshires to save my life. Jane, don't say this.

My mother could never understand why I couldn't make Yorkshire puddings.

What's the problem with the Yorkshires normally?

They are so misshapen,

and I get the hole underneath rather than in the top.

Undeterred, Jane is pairing her Yorkshires

with a Sunday roast and all of the trimmings.

Inside each pud, a pea puree will be topped with beef,

crispy potatoes and a horseradish cream.

My husband and my son love roast dinner,

so I'm just trying to capture the essence of that, really.

Good morning, Rav. Hi.

It's smelling a bit spicy here, tell us about your batter.

I have added some smoked paprika,

some cumin and a little bit of red chilli.

Right, it's becoming less Yorkshire by the moment.

MEL: Yorkshire with a twist, though.

Yeah, it's a bit of a fusion Yorkshire pudding. Lovely.

Rav's going all-out with his Asian-style puddings,

accompanying them with an aromatic tofu curry

garnished with Thai basil.

Has this got coconut milk in there? It does, yeah.

Has this got lime in there?

A little bit, yeah. Every single challenge! Paul, it's his signature.

Can I be honest with you? Yeah, go on. I love coconut, I love lime...

Do you like tofu?

RAV LAUGHS

I'm not a massive fan of tofu. OK.

Yorkshire puddings make me think of Sunday lunch.

And Sunday lunch at my house, cos we were all vegetarians,

was going to the local Indian restaurant and eating it there.

So we always used to have aloo gobi. That was what I had.

Inspired by those culinary forays,

Tom is filling his puds with a cauliflower and potato curry.

And, for an additional Indian kick,

he's added nigella seeds

to his batter,

and is using unconventional flour.

My Yorkshire pudding has some chickpea flour, or chana flour.

Obviously it alters the structure of the Yorkshire pudding.

Yeah, I think it makes the Yorkshire a bit lighter, a bit crispier around

the top. You still get the classic Yorkshire texture,

but it is just a bit lighter than it would be.

Very different. Thank you, Tom.

I'm leaving my batter just to rest for a while.

When I've been testing it,

resting it seems to give a slightly better rise.

I need to leave it for about half an hour.

I'm just going to put my batter into the fridge.

Our bakers can now turn their attention to their fillings.

Do I use a half or a whole one?

I don't want to blow Paul and Mary's head off with it!

I'm just dicing my tofu, which is going to go into my Thai curry.

But tofu is very bland, so you do need to add a lot of flavour,

and that curry paste there

has definitely got a lot of flavour. I just tried it.

My curry paste is coriander, chilli, ginger, shallots, garlic and salt.

I'm smelling some wonderful things

from other bakers who are also doing curries.

Maybe there is a little bit of a Great British Curry Off going on.

Hello, Selasi. Tell us all about your Yorkshire puds.

I'm making Yorkshire puddings filled with pork tenderloin

and pork crackling.

Wow. Pork... Pork crackling?

How big are these things going to be?

Just standard size, standard muffin tin size. I love crackling.

I think this is the first time

we've ever had crackling on Bake Off. Awesome.

Selasi's crackling will be the crowning glory

on each of his filled Yorkshires.

He's roasting his pork with cider

and herbs then serving each

pud with apple sauce.

Looks good, looks good.

The filling recipe was passed down from my girlfriend's mum.

It's her very own recipe, so she will be really proud.

I have to nail it, basically.

My batter is in the fridge. I have got my turkey in the oven.

At the moment, I'm just making the stuffing.

My Yorkshire puddings are my

Christmas dinner compromise Yorkshire puddings.

My husband and I both had very similar upbringings, but the

one thing we differ on is that his family always had

Yorkshire puddings on Christmas Day, and our family never, ever did,

so in the interest of marital harmony,

I am making him Christmas dinner Yorkshire puddings.

Kate's festive filling is as Christmassy as it gets.

Her turkey will be wrapped with a sausage meat stuffing served

with a cranberry and bread sauce.

So it is Christmas dinner in a Yorkshire pudding.

Hello, Benjamina. Hello. MEL: Hey, Benjamina.

Tell us all about your Yorkshire puddings.

So my Yorkshires are going to be filled

with a red onion and bacon chutney/jam type thing,

and some brie, and some crispy bacon on top.

Ooh, lovely, nice combination!

Benjamina has kept it relatively simple with her classic trio,

but she's pepped up her

pudding batter with some herbs

and a bit of mustard.

I just like the flavours.

I'd normally have this in a sandwich, really.

Batter the devil you know.

It's Spanish-influenced chicken.

It's actually quite sweet, a mouthful of it is enough.

There we go, nice little spirals of potato.

And then I'm partially frying it and forcing it into these tins.

They just brown really nicely in the oven.

At this rate we're just going to have Christmas dinner

and no Yorkshire puddings, cos I haven't even got them in the oven yet.

We'll get some puddings in,

and then I'll feel better. Just going to get the batter.

There's a pud in the hood and it smells good!

You've got 45 minutes, bakers.

For Yorkshires to rise, you need really hot oil.

Like, smoking hot oil.

I'm using sunflower oil just cos it has a high smoking point.

I've got dripping. It's tradition.

If you're going to have Yorkshire puddings,

you serve it with beef dripping.

My oil has been heating in the oven for just under ten minutes.

The bit that's probably the most key is pouring it into the hot oil.

CANDICE SNIGGERS

Oh, too much.

I'm using a ladle to put my batter into my pudding dishes

because I want them to all be the same size.

I want to make little cups rather than big, puffy

Yorkshire puddings, so I'm trying to be fairly accurate about it.

Oh! It's so hard to get Yorkshire puddings to be uniform in shape.

Never been a concern of mine. Has it not? But you're right.

I've been sweating the small stuff. Yeah? Batter is where it's at.

Now, listen, those aren't smoking, can I just say?

Should they not be smoking?

They haven't necessarily done that at home.

You've got the old chickpea batter going in. It's all over the shop!

(Mate, you were Star Baker last week.)

Come on, you've got to raise your game, my love.

Just going to pop these in the oven.

My oven was heated to 225,

but I'm actually going to reduce the heat now, to 200.

I'm going for 15 minutes on 230.

MEL: A hot oven and hot fat

ensure the batter starts to cook immediately,

creating the steam needed to form air pockets and the perfect rise.

Hopefully.

SHE MIMICS PUDDINGS RISING

This is really hard.

You want to keep it all as hot as possible,

I've got to try and get as close to the oven as...

SHE SIGHS

Do you know, I actually like to watch them.

I will stand there watching them rise, so I'm going to

chill out for a minute and sit down and watch me Yorkshires rise.

She says hopefully!

It's in the lap of the gods now.

Not going to open it until the time's up

because I don't want them to deflate.

They don't look as though they're rising properly.

Oh, I feel really nervous now!

They're humongous!

Definitely not 24 even Yorkshires, but the smaller ones are

for the kids, and then the bigger ones are for the adults.

I'm sticking to it, that's my story.

They look OK, they look OK.

Good God!

SUE GASPS

Yeah, I am down with that. Look at the puff on that.

These are rubbish. The oven wasn't hot enough. They've gone flat.

And the bottom ones have hardly risen at all.

They're not going to allow me into Yorkshire, ever again.

I've got Yorkshire biscuits!

Bit flat. First ones never come out right anyway.

So they're my practice ones to get my tin warmed up.

They're not bad, but they're not perfect.

They've all got the same amount of batter,

but some of them have risen slightly differently to others.

Don't look at these. These are not the Yorkshires you are looking for.

They are an absolute disaster. Maybe they weren't hot enough.

I have no idea.

OK. They have closed up a bit in the middle.

They are crispy on the bottom, which is good.

Oh, they look beautiful! Would you like to compare them to mine?

Which would you rather eat? Oh, dear.

I had it at 220, which is what I've had it at home.

No problem, puffed up. But it just hasn't worked here.

They're going in the bin.

Tom, all the colour and life has drained from you.

Tom, don't be down.

HE MAKES CRACKING NOISE

It's all right, we'll get there.

OK, I'm going to turn the oven up a bit

and do another couple of batches.

I'm going to start again.

I'm wondering if it's about how hot the oven is.

Start again. But with a hotter oven.

I've really got to get this in now.

Bakers, you've got half an hour left on your Yorkshire challenge,

half an hour.

SHE WHIMPERS

How can Yorkshires make you feel so nervous?

This is the second batch of batter, and doing exactly the same thing.

They have not risen at all. They are just pancakes.

What could it be? What have I done wrong?

Is it different flour? Rubbish.

I've never had a flat Yorkshire before.

Some of them are OK, some of them are a little bit stupid.

These ones are quite nice.

Well, they're better, they're better. Oh, well.

They're not as good as I want them to be, but I'll fill these ones.

OK, bakers, if you could finish in ten minutes,

it would be BATTER for all of us.

Ten minutes, bakers.

Just need to get plated up, really.

Oh, dear. Right, OK.

This is a mad moment now.

I'm not going to not serve something,

so I will start filling them. Not that this will work,

because there is nothing to hold the stuff in!

This one is my favourite. It has a nice hole in the middle.

Plenty of space for the filling.

Hot, hot, hot, hot.

This is my pea puree.

I'm hoping if I put enough in, they will not notice.

How much longer have we got left?

OK, bakers, five minutes left, and don't throw them -

that's battery.

My hands are shaking, I can hardly get the little leaf on.

How many minutes? How many minutes? How many minutes?

We've got three minutes, Candice.

YORKSHIRE ACCENT: Right, you lot,

time's up, time's up on your Yorkshires.

Bakes at the end of the benches, gang, please.

They look fairly uniform.

They are well risen, they've got

the same amount of filling in each one.

Good colour, I like the way you've toasted your nuts.

So, great consistency inside that as well.

I like to see some irregular air pockets in there,

and you have got that.

Well baked. The flavours you got in the chicken are coming through.

I love the sultanas in there, I like the fruitiness of it.

Yeah, I like that, I like that a lot.

I think you've done very well, Andrew.

They're a bit irregular, and they look quite small.

We're not getting enough rise in that Yorkshire pudding, are we?

Right, let's go with this fella here.

Tastes just like Christmas dinner to me.

The flavours are lovely,

but I don't think you put enough batter in there

to give us the size that we wanted.

The Yorkshires are just too small.

They look most exciting. Thank you!

I love the idea of your spiralised roastie.

But to go to the Yorkshire pudding, we have got them different sizes.

And we haven't got a great rise.

It's a little bit dense in there,

they needed a little bit longer in the oven unfortunately.

That...tastes...UNBELIEVABLE.

Yum! That is delicious. Thank you.

But it was a Yorkshire pudding challenge,

and that's what's let you down.

They're too flat. Yeah.

There's not much life in there, very thin.

You could do with a little bit more seasoning in there, for me. OK.

I think, overall, your Yorkshire puddings were all right.

I do think they could be a bit wetter,

which would allow them to grow a little bit more.

The flavour is unbelievably beautiful.

It is, the beef together with the flavours you've got

in there as well, it is beautiful.

It is good. Thank you very much.

Nice colour. I mean, they could go a little bit browner.

They're quite cute, they're dainty,

but you have differences in size there.

The flavour is very good. It's a little soft.

Great texture inside that. Quite big air pockets in there.

I think it needed just a couple more minutes in the oven,

but your flavours are excellent. Thank you.

Straight away, as soon as the knife goes in,

you know it's going to be a good Yorkshire.

The bake is beautiful, it's fluffy, it's light...

And there's masses of room to put all that pork filling in.

Just got the sound of his jaws.

The tectonic plates of the earth in my ear.

The crackling is beautiful.

The only problem we've got is we've got a little chap here,

and we've got a whopping one here.

Want some more crackling? I've got more here.

Whatever Mary says, fantastic!

MOUTH FULL: Those taste amazing. Thank you.

That crackling is spot-on. Thank you. Thanks, Solasi, that's lovely.

MUNCHING CONTINUES

You've got tofu in this, haven't you?

Come on, Paul, you can do it, come on.

You've got it well filled here.

Great texture of the Yorkshire pudding. Beautiful.

Mm. It is quite different, and it is spicy, and it's good.

I would have another one of them. Oh, my God.

If you hadn't told me it was tofu...

Paul in tofu shocker.

The flavours again, the spice combinations are fantastic.

All round, they're good Yorkshire puddings. Thanks, Rav. Thanks.

OK, what you've actually got here are 24 blinis

with some rice on the top.

The topping is a good flavour.

The actual Yorkshire pudding is dry, it's solid, it's well-baked.

It's like a biscuit. Mmm.

I'm not surprised that it didn't rise using chickpeas

and nigella seeds, because it's a very heavy flour to get going.

However many eggs you put in it.

They do vary in size. Some of them are thick, some are thin.

Good colour. It's light, it has got a good colour.

It's a proper Yorkshire pudding. Mmm.

The actual Yorkshire pudding itself is a beautiful texture. Thank you.

The filling, as well, I like, it's got a nice bit of kick to it,

nice bit of heat, and the two together, it does work. Thank you!

Made Yorkshire proud. Thank you.

I can now go back into Yorkshire.

I don't think it could have gone much better, to be fair.

That was bang-on what I was hoping it would be.

I knew they weren't as perfect as they could be.

In hindsight, wish I'd put a bit more batter in and gone a bit bigger.

I'd love to be able to say I'm going to put this one out of

my mind and just get on with it, but that'd be a total lie.

I'm definitely going to fixate on this for at least a few hours!

The Batter Technical is another Bake Off first, and, as ever,

it's a total mystery.

OK, bakers, welcome to your Technical Challenge, which,

this week, Paul has set for you.

It's going to be judged blind,

but we would like a word of advice before you depart.

Practise your pattern before you use the mixture.

Ohh... Cryptic. Enigmatic Hollywood.

Mm. Tatty byes.

Farewell to Hollywood.

Now, for your Technical Challenge, Paul's brief is lacy pancakes.

He'd like you to make 12 heart-shaped lace pancakes.

They should be intricate and beautiful,

like a doily you might find in Carole Middleton's guest bedroom.

Mmm. You are allowed to make one test pancake.

The other 12 that come after it must be presented. You've got one hour.

On your marks... ..get set... BOTH: ..bake.

What is a lace pancake? I have not got the foggiest.

Lace pancakes were traditionally eaten by the rich

at their show-off dinners.

They first appeared in one of the earliest cookbooks

ever printed - 1615's The English Huswife.

I am slightly flummoxed by the whole thing.

The instructions are very, very minimal.

Are you ready for this complex recipe?

"Make a pancake batter." That's it.

Work it out, go. This could be a heartbreaking challenge.

Kind of wish I'd made pancakes more recently.

Paul, why did you choose lacy pancakes?

I like the idea of pancakes. I think a good pancake is a thing of beauty.

We've taken it to the next level, really.

Making it into a lace design is all about intricacy,

it's about delicacy and it's about skill.

You serve that with ice cream, I'd have that any day.

It melts in the mouth, you've got a beautiful pancake flavour.

They've got to get the consistency of the batter absolutely perfect.

You can't have the batter too thick,

the whole thing will become quite stringy rather than pancake-like.

If it's too thin, then it will just all mould together.

Now, the mystery ingredient, to them, I'm sure will be the sugar.

You're suggesting they put a little sugar in to help with the colouring.

Yeah, I put sugar in deliberately.

Because it's a lace design, you want it to colour quite quickly.

The longer it sits there, the more it dries it out,

because it hasn't got the full surface area of

a conventional pancake, which is why you have to be really quick,

and intricate, and delicate,

and make it look good, AND do it 12 times.

Very difficult indeed. I think it's a great challenge.

I make pancakes a lot at home and I should be able to do them in

my sleep, but you're going, "How much milk? Is it half a pint?"

It's amazing how your mind goes completely blank.

It just gives us the basic ingredients,

no measurements or amounts.

My brain's gone a bit to mush as to what the ratio is,

so I'm just going to have to go for gut feel.

I've put 10oz of flour in, six eggs and a couple of ounces of sugar.

Sugar, sugar. A couple of tablespoons of sugar.

I'm actually worried about the sugar but when I'm making pancakes

I very rarely put sugar in them. I've done three tablespoons so far.

When it hits the pan the sugar's going to caramelise,

so it makes it cook slightly differently.

I have used all of the sugar. I don't know if that's right.

I honestly have no idea!

My batter is normally like single cream, that kind of thickness,

so that's what I'm going for.

If you're doing a heart it's got to stand up in the pan

rather than spread too much, so I'm going for slightly thicker.

You've got to have that baker's intuition.

Sometimes you just have to look at it and say, "It looks about right."

It looks OK to me.

I don't know, maybe it should have been a bit thicker,

cos it needs to hold its shape.

I'm going to try and draw meself a template for a heart.

Might draw it out first on a piece of paper.

Lace, lace, lace, lace, lace.

I've no idea what the lace scene is meant to look like.

This is my plan for my heart shape. Very detailed, as you can see.

What's going on here, Selasi? I don't know what I was think...

I'm not good at drawing, I'm terrible!

This is excellent, that's just a pair of buttocks, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's very, very good, with no lace at all. Yeah!

What does lace look like?

Do they want lovely lace or do they want squiggly lace?

I've not even got any lace pants.

It just says, "Pipe 12 heart-shaped lace pancakes.

"Serve 12 apart from your one tester."

Do you know what I haven't done?

Paul said practise the piping before you did it, so I'm going to do that.

This is my way of practising without it officially being a test.

Other people are doing it onto baking sheets and I'm thinking,

no, I'm going to free-form it.

I'm just going to try and practise one, see how it cooks.

Only going to get one chance at this. OK...

Paul's recipe doesn't state what temperature the batter should be cooked at.

I've gone for a medium heat.

I'm going for a reasonably high heat.

I've got this on a very hot heat and I'm now thinking that was

a bad idea. Cos I think that has burned. Yes, it has.

That was me tester. Now we know, a little bit cooler.

The trouble is, the middle's going to be cooked when the outside's still cooking,

so I think we're just going to keep it as simple as we can.

That's definitely not a heart.

It's slightly the same as what I practised on paper.

The fact that this is my only test is a bit scary,

because this looks awful!

I think this might be the worst thing I've ever made.

It needs more definition.

It's a heart-shaped pancake.

I'm not sure who would wear it. I mean, that's lace, right?

Oh, dear, my practice has not come out looking very delicate.

I just think I'm going for totally the wrong thing, it feels wrong.

I'm not going to do this pattern.

My test pancake, the batter's really thin, so it's spreading more than I'd like.

I've just put a drop more flour in, so, tested, re-evaluated,

going again.

That doesn't look too bad.

I've just got to remember the design and do it again.

The bakers' next 12 pancakes must all be presented to Paul and Mary.

I just want to get 12 out looking OK, looking roughly the same.

It's quite hard piping freehand into a frying pan.

This is my first actual one,

so whatever this one comes out like we're going to copy this.

I don't know how to get them all the same shape! This is number two.

It's a little browner than I would have liked but it's OK

and it's heart-shaped and it's pretty lacy.

I'm quite happy with how they look. They're all fairly similar-looking.

It's on a medium heat. I don't want it to burn,

but then I think this is taking me way too long just to do one.

Bakers, you've got half an hour left.

Going to have to really up my pace. Whoops.

Oh, this is chaotic.

Really, this is one of the most difficult things yet, I think.

Ahh! Blast!

Nice shape, nice pattern, nice colour. Broken.

I'm going for shabby-chic pancakes rather than delicacies.

Oh, my life.

Come on, come on, bit faster, cook a bit faster.

There's time, there's time. Ooh!

That was my tester, so not to panic, not to panic!

Do you know what? I love pancakes. Are you a tosser or a flipper?

Ah, a tosser all the way, Mel. Tosser? Good, just checking. Thank you.

I'm not flipping this for anybody. I'm not going to risk it.

Yeah! Hey, hey, hey!

This one smells burnt.

Slightly overdone. The tester was much better than this one.

I wish that didn't fall on the floor now.

So, I'm very behind. You've got 13 minutes.

I have 13 minutes left and I've done five now.

OK!

Ooh, that one's going at the bottom!

One lovely flick of the wrist, over it comes.

(Colour's good, though. Colour's good, isn't it? I don't know.)

Well, no-one knows. No-one knows what goes through Paul's mind. No-one's seen these.

I think I'm quite happy with them. Golden brown.

You've got 11 minutes left. 11. All right.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Nine, ten. Two more after this one.

The design's kind of evolving with time,

like any good artist's style does. There's three more to do.

This is the last one. But they're very Jackson Pollock!

SHE LAUGHS

They're not all uniform in shape. They are what they are.

Bakers, you've got five minutes. Five minutes!

Nine, ten, 11.

Gosh. They're terrible.

For better or for worse, they're done.

Ooh, sugar.

I see other people putting sugar on it. But I'm not going to.

I'm going to give them a bit of a dusting, bit of a last-minute flavour injection.

I think that's 12.

Congratulations, guys. Time is up.

You all did brilliantly, not a heart failure in sight.

If you'd like to bring your beautiful lacy batters

and pop them behind the photo of yourself on the gingham altar.

Well done, gang.

Mary and Paul have no idea

which plate of pancakes belongs to which baker.

Right, what we're looking for is 12 delicately laced pancakes.

So, we'll start over here.

Now, these look very good indeed. Nice colour.

They're holding together well, they're following the same pattern.

They taste sweet to me. Yep, pretty good.

Right, moving on to these little fellas.

There's a little bit of lace in there.

Looks like an alien's face in the middle.

There's some pale and some quite dark, aren't there?

Not as sweet as the first one. Right, moving on.

Here we have similar patterns...

It's a little on the clumsy side.

I'd prefer it a little bit finer.

That one's quite dark, that one's quite light.

Some of them are overcooked, some of them aren't.

There's no sweetness there. Not much sweetness, no.

Now, these are a whole plethora of colours,

and they're bone dry, too, overdone.

There's too much sugar and they overcooked it.

Biscuits.

So we move on, then. These are quite delicately coloured.

All of them are the same. Interesting pattern.

It's not bad, the pattern.

That's fine, it's moist.

Now, these look highly elaborate. They're very nice, aren't they?

Yeah. They look like table mats.

That must be quite a difficult design to do.

They're very attractive.

To cook them on the frying pan would have been quite tricky. Very nice.

Very good. Right, these are quite an equal colour.

They are very delicate, though. Nice decoration, which is nice.

They're beautifully moist, they're not dry in any way.

Yeah, taste is good. Moving on.

Now, this one looks quite fat.

There's a bit of a difference in colour.

That's really pale, that one's really dark.

They're not so delicate, are they?

Again, it's lucky it's got the sugar on the outside to carry

that little bit of sweetness through to the pancake. Last one.

Delicate. It's a very nice design. One a little bit too baked here.

Yeah, down the bottom they are.

Bit crispy, that one. That was a bit dry.

It's a nice design, that one, but a bit inconsistent with the colour.

But which plate will be judged pancake perfection?

In ninth place is this one. That's mine!

They're a little bit small and more like waffles.

In eighth place, here.

These were a little bit simplistic and a little on the thick side.

In seventh is this one.

Quite dark, a lot of these are inconsistent in colour.

Very simple, more like webbing than it is lace.

Val is sixth, Tom fifth and Andrew is fourth.

In third place is this one here. Pretty good, actually.

Quite a nice design, little bit simplistic in the middle

but the addition on the outside made all the difference. Well done.

And in second place...

A very pretty, light design.

And in first place is this one.

Well done, Benjamina. Well done.

I did like the design on it. It was very tight between these two.

I just found the design and the flavour of this one just

pipped it, so well done.

Oh, I'm so happy. Finally I've gone up there.

I think I've gone up and down in Technicals, but it's good to get the number-one spot.

Really pleased with second, wasn't expecting that at all. Well done.

I think fifth was fair enough. Yeah, it was OK.

If it goes badly tomorrow I think I'll be at risk of going home.

I'm a bit worried that I'm at the bottom of the heap at the moment.

I think I've been consistently inconsistent,

so we need to work on the consistency.

Paul, Mary, time for proper batter chatter. Who did well so far?

Andrew, really, I would think, did the best.

He had a lovely flavour on top of his Yorkshire pudding, and in

the Technical he was fourth.

Benjamina, who won the Technical, she's up there with Andrew.

I think you have to put Candice in there as well.

She came second in the technical.

Showstopper this week is going to be a potential banana skin for

a few people, including Kate and Tom.

His signature was not good.

We didn't get Yorkshire pudding, we got blini.

And Kate didn't do particularly well in the Yorkshire puddings, too.

What about Rav? He's really got to step up into the Showstopper.

But if he has a bad day he could be in trouble.

I can't bear the tension. It's always like this at the beginning of Showstopper day, mate.

Am I going to have to get the lawyer out again?

Oh, sorry, I'm not allowed to touch you. I've said, never touch. Sorry.

Welcome back, bakers, to Showstopper day,

or as they call it in Spain, la dia de la fiesta panaderia sensacional,

or something like that.

Paul and Mary today would like you to make

a beautiful Spanish delicacy,

churros. Ohh!

36 of them, please.

Now, your churros should be sweet, not savoury.

They can be filled, you can use a dipping sauce,

you can make churros that are light and fragrant or churros that

are hardy and suitable for battle environments, like Chur-ross Kemp.

But the whole point is they need to be identical.

You've got three hours, or tres horas. Si.

On your marks... Venga...

Baaaaaake.

Batter, hot oil...

SHE SIGHS

The popular Spanish street food churros

are fried doughnut-like snacks,

traditionally served with a thick chocolate dipping sauce.

I've never eaten one.

Really, really wish I had.

I love churros.

What we're looking for is a beautiful, brown, crispy exterior

with a lovely, soft interior.

But if they put too many in the fryer at the same time

it drops the temperature of the oil and they stay in there for too long

and it becomes quite an oily churros.

This is very tricky.

A simple street food has got to be made into

a magnificent Showstopper.

I want them to think out of the box and do something quite different.

Before this I'd never actually made churros.

I'd eaten them, so I kind of knew what they should taste and look like.

Yeah, feeling OK.

The bakers' first job is to make the batter,

which is essentially a type of choux pastry.

So I'm just melting down my butter with water,

sugar and a little bit of salt.

When that's just bubbling you tip all the flour in one go

and beat it up, a bit like you do a choux paste.

The flour cooks and it gets a nice, stiff dough.

I'm just making my first set of churros batter.

I've gone for simple, crunchy Spanish churros, so there's no eggs,

no butter.

It's flour, salt, sugar, water and oil.

But Andrew's final look is far from simple.

He's piping each churro into a flower shape

and serving them with an almond liqueur ganache and a fruit puree.

It's going to have a cinnamon-sugar stem and then a pistachio-dust

flower head, and I'm going to serve it in a window box.

Unlike Andrew, most of the other bakers are jazzing up their dough.

This is orange extract, just to add a really nice hit of orange.

That is coconut extract. Really bumping up the coconut here!

Every type of coconut is in this churro. SHE GIGGLES

And, true to form,

Tom's taking the experimental approach with his churros.

My bake is called Tom's Fennel Churros Snake in the Grass.

A snake in the grass is always a surprise,

churros were a bit of a surprise, batter week was a bit of a surprise.

Tom's fennel-seed churros snake will be ssssserved with

a spiced saffron custard and dusted with fragrant rosewater sugar.

Although this is meant to be a sweet churros,

you're daring to take us to the edge, aren't you? I love fennel.

Because it does kind of walk that line between the sweet and savoury.

I've gone for Japanese flavours.

I mean, I travelled extensively around Japan and I love the flavour of matcha.

So I wanted to make churros with matcha in them.

Matcha is a green-tea powder.

It's got kind of like an earthy taste to it.

The flavour's quite subtle, depending on how much you use.

To accompany his matcha-tea churros, Rav's making a trio of dips,

a fruity one, a creamy pistachio one and a chocolate one that

has the potential to fire up the judges' taste buds.

A white chocolate and wasabi sauce.

Ooh, hello! Interesting. White chocolate and wasabi.

Wasabi and white... Yeah. That's a first.

It's daring, it's out there, flavour combinations are fascinating,

and there's no lime or coconut, which is good. There's no lime or coconut, no!

620g of beer is going into my batter.

Beer adds quite a nice flavour.

Candice will also add a bit of coconut flour to her batter.

She'll pipe each churro into a figure of eight, dipping one end

in a sticky peanut-butter mousse and a crunchy peanut topping.

Love peanut butter.

Like, eat-it-off-the-spoon love peanut butter.

Yeah, it's one of my favourite things.

Not as strong as I used to be!

Anyone want to take over for a minute?

It is a bit of hard work, but it's fun, actually. It's getting there.

I don't want any lumps of flour hiding.

Getting a thick batter is crucial for the churros to cook and

properly hold their shape.

It's not quite as stiff as I would like, so it's going back on the hob.

I want it to hold its shape. If it's too squidgy,

pipe it out in the star nozzle and then all your star-ness goes

and it sits on the baking tray and goes very flat on the bottom.

After combating consistency, the next task is uniformity.

The job is getting them all the same.

I've got just the right consistency, it's holding the lines.

Standing up like caterpillar legs, if you know what I mean.

But the weight of the churros might flatten it,

so you've got to be really careful.

I think I was a bit quick taking my batter off the hob,

it's a bit thinner than I would like.

These are supposed to look like rabbits.

Wasn't quite up to a whole rabbit, just going for little rabbity heads.

In a minute I'll put the sultanas in for their eyes.

Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail... Benjamin...they're all here.

And they're all getting fried.

Kate's making hot-cross-bunny churros.

Her bunny batter is spiced with cardamom, cinnamon,

ginger and a hint of nutmeg.

She'll dust them with a spiced sugar

and serve them with chocolate custard.

Not Christmas, we're moving on to Easter. We've done Christmas!

I'm going to make more than 36 and just choose the best ones.

I'll just keep going. I need to make sure I don't forget to make my custard, though.

Consistency is good, I'm happy with that, so I'm just going to

pipe as many as I can and then just use the best ones.

Benjamina's opted for coconut-flavoured churros,

and to emphasise her tropical twist she's serving them with

a passion fruit and mango dipping sauce.

It's kind of like a teardrop shape.

They're just a bit different, I didn't want to do straight lines.

And these are quite easy to pick up, so I thought these will be cute.

Piping it is...a doddle.

I can't do 36 like that. It's too stiff to pipe. Looks good.

No, it... Well...

While some struggle with piping,

one baker's risking an extra stage before frying.

Good morning, Selasi. Good morning. Tell us all about your churros.

Erm, I'm making lemon and anise churros.

I'm going to make them into some just small bowls,

so I'm using that to pipe around it, freeze it for about half an hour

before frying, just so it's easier to come off.

So you don't thaw them before you fry them? No, fry them from frozen.

Selasi's also adding cinnamon to his churros.

He'll then fill each one with a raspberry cream before

topping them all off with a white and plain chocolate circle.

I don't know, it feels thinner, this consistency.

Thinner than I've tried at home. That's not good.

I put them to chill so that they hold their shape,

particularly cos I seem to have made softer batter than I was making at home.

If they're still warm,

I'm not going to get a nice, rigid line in my churros.

I want them to be as cold as I can get them but without being frozen.

I'm not chilling,

but I am going to leave them to stand and just firm up a fraction.

Jane's filling her churros with flavours inspired by

her daughter's love of pistachios.

Each one will have a nutty white-chocolate custard running

down its centre and all 36 will be served with a boozy chocolate sauce.

So you're using a pistachio and cream filling for that? Yes, I am.

How is that going to be put inside that churros?

Erm, when they're cooked I'm going to poke

a hole through it and then pipe it in. OK.

Looking forward to this flavour and the filling, actually,

to see if it complements the actual texture of the churros.

Like Jane, Val has also decided to fill her churros.

I'm making churros which is flavoured with orange

and they're going to be filled with the chocolate sauce.

To achieve this classic flavour combination,

Val's added orange zest to her churros batter and will do

the same to her chocolate ganache filling.

Once the churros are cooked and filled

she'll roll them in zesty spiced sugar.

Chocolate orange! My children's favourite.

Bakers, you've got one hour left on your churrrros. One hour left.

I'm going to go in with the first couple.

I might be able to drop them in, cos they're stiff enough.

Yeah. First ones in, 34 to go.

It's only now the bakers will know

if their churros batter is the right consistency.

Too wet and they'll absorb too much oil.

Too dense and they'll need longer frying

to ensure the middle is cooked through.

I'm cooking them for six minutes.

I'm making sure I turn them over so they don't get overly browned.

I'm doing them two minutes each side.

They're going to be very crispy, but I want them to be crispy.

I'm frying at 170.

I'm leaving them on the baking parchment so they keep their shape

as I put them in the oil, and they naturally lift off.

I'm frying my churros at 190 for two minutes on each side.

If it's frozen, there is a danger that the inside will not cook

but you just have to cook it from frozen but for a longer period.

I'm going to have a go at putting six in,

which is a big risk if it drops the temperature too much.

Just started to fry now.

Think I can get away with doing three or four at a time.

Oh, I'm doing as many as I can get in at a time.

Churros in Spain are always piped straight into the boiling fat.

But is it the right way to go for a Showstopper Challenge?

If you do pipe it straight in,

to get 36 of the same size is very difficult.

They're not coming out uniform at all.

They're going to taste good, they'll look ugly as sin.

I'm just going for it now. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to get them exactly straight.

That's the risk of piping directly into the oil.

Are you boiling bunnies again, Kate? In hot oil, yes.

Oh, what was the film where she cooked the rabbit? Fatal Attraction.

I'm a bunny boiler!

This is Kate-al Attraction.

I don't think I'm happy with the batter. It feels oily.

Just need to make sure it's not raw in the middle,

cos mine is slightly thicker than a normal churros.

I might have mucked them up.

There was one or two of them split, because the batter was far too wet.

Pleased with the texture of those.

They all look roughly the same, don't they? They look all right.

They are figure-of-eight shapes, so...

I mean, they're straight enough. Straight as I could get them. Yeah.

Bakers, there's half an hour to go

before you're out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I'm over halfway frying them.

I should have enough time, but we'll see.

Churros seems to be all about multitasking.

I've got to fry the churros,

make a chocolate soil and make two dipping sauces.

Come back in three hours, I'll still be peeling my pistachios.

Cos I grind it right down,

so I use it like a flour to thicken my custard.

This is my wasabi powder.

You can smell how strong it is.

This is a little bit of a risk, but I've tried it and it works

and I hope that they'll be able to enjoy it.

This is the custard, it's the base for my chocolate sauce.

It's not thick enough.

I'm really conscious that I'm running out of time.

You've done most of your churros, haven't you?

Yeah, I've got most of my churros, got about another seven to do.

OK, good luck, my love.

Have you melted your chocolate yet?

I'm really behind.

Nearly finished frying, thankfully,

because I'm just going to pipe my custard cream in there.

And filling these.

They're a bit doughy in the middle, and I actually like them that way.

I should have time to do all my extra bits.

One more for luck and then I am done.

I only need one more but I'm going to do quite a few spares,

just to try and pick the straightest.

Super tight for time but these could be the last ones.

I'm going to run out of time.

Churrrrrrrrrros!

That's the churros alarm clock. 15 minutes, bakers. 15 minutes to go.

Getting to the rushing stage now. Yeah.

I've got enough time to kind of play around with the way it looks.

I'm not sure if I'm happy with them.

It looks burnt, but I'm not sure.

They're looking OK, I've just got to get a lot of them done.

Oh, my gosh. One, two, three, four...

Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12...

17, 18...

There was a couple I wasn't entirely happy with but they'll do.

Oh-ho-ho!

OK, bakers, just five minutes until we say "churrio" to this challenge.

Five minutes! Five minutes.

Oh, I'm not getting there.

Keep going, keep going, we can do it, we can do it. We know we can.

Holy moley.

Come on, come on, come on.

Perilously short on time.

God, look at that. Looks just like a snake, doesn't it?

Are you done? Yeah, I'm done. Do you need a hand with anything?

You can help me put them on the plate. You're a star.

Bakers, one minute to go. One minute left on this challenge.

I need to get some chocolate sauce in this pan.

Thank you. OK, bakers, that's time up. Time is up.

It's judgment time.

Val, would you like to bring your churros up, my darling?

They are all the same length.

You've been able to keep the ridges, which you expect for a churros.

It's beautifully crisp. The definition is good.

But the sauce is too runny.

Inside, the chocolate that you put in there is delicious.

But, unfortunately, it's taken away all the interior of the churros,

and what's left is just a bit doughy.

Little bit disappointing.

Sorry.

That's a great imagination with the snake.

What's this here at the top?

It was supposed to be a head, but... They're a good colour.

There's quite a lot of sugar on it.

Wow.

It's overdone.

It's been cooked for too long, so it's just dried it out.

I do like the flavour. I question, is it sweet, though?

It's a fennel doughnut.

Shall we say if you're fond of fennel, it's fine?

But it's difficult to eat and a bit tough.

They are a pretty dark colour.

I would expect them to be a little bit more delicate than that.

They're a little bit clumsy. They're burnt, Selasi.

Are they?

PAUL CHUCKLES

Right.

And raw dough.

That's a shame.

Such a good idea to do it on top of those bun tins.

It's come from the freezer,

so the dough down at the bottom is actually raw dough.

So, overall, not a good day.

There's real flavour there.

Beautiful pistachio, and you've kept the colour.

You took the skin off the pistachios. I did. Um...

I really love them, actually. Oh, do you?! I like... Thank you!

I've been so worried about them!

I really like the flavour.

Your dip is beautiful. It's lovely. It holds.

That's a good dipping sauce.

Thank you. I've never had a churro.

You've got 35 now. I...

It's difficult to judge the colour on these,

cos they were so green,

and that will obviously affect the way it'll fry, as well.

The problem is, some of the shapes are a bit strange. Yes.

We're looking for consistency in this challenge.

They're a bit fatty. Yeah.

The flavour is not good. OK.

It does taste quite savoury. Which dip would you recommend?

Try the wasabi, come on.

The passion fruit is good. Mm. It's excellent.

Overall, I don't think they look particularly nice.

I don't like the flavour.

You're normally very good on your flavours.

I like the look of it. It's pretty uniform.

I like the idea of the two flavours.

You've got the bottom and then the top.

You've got definition in there as well. And a good thickness.

The overall appearance is quite clever.

I can't actually get into the texture,

cos it's been overcooked, basically.

So inside, it's only a very thin line of texture

within the churros itself.

The fat has impregnated it a little too much.

They look a bit sad, don't they? I know.

I can sort of see a rough bunny rabbit,

but it's very flat, it's been run over.

It's roadkill! OK.

I know the oil's got through more than I would have liked it to.

It's beautifully crisp.

But it's totally impregnated with the oil. Yeah.

And we're getting no centrepiece of the nice churros. Yeah.

I can't eat that. No, it's too oily, I know it's too oily. It is.

Too slack. It's solid crisp. There's no filling to it at all.

I've had a bad bake.

All of them are a beautiful shape.

I think that your mixture

was a little bit on the slack... on the runny side.

It looks as though it hasn't held the ridges that we expect.

Because they're so small,

when you get into them, they are a little bit fatty.

I think your mixture needed to be a bit stiffer. OK. And a bit bigger.

What a pleasant colour they are.

They're quite thin,

but you've been able to keep the definition of the piping.

Great display. Lovely colour.

The actual shape of them I love.

That is the right thickness for a churros.

That's the colour it should be inside.

They are beautiful. Oh, thank you. Absolutely beautiful.

Crispy, they look good, great frying.

Well done. You've cracked it. Oh, thank you!

Who's in contention for Star Baker this week?

I think Benjamina has done well. Andrew, as well.

Came fourth in Technical, did really well on the Signature.

How did we feel about Kate's performance?

It was so disappointing.

They were fatty all the way through.

I was upset about Selasi, as well, actually.

Tom's had a bit of a nightmare, as well, hasn't he?

He has had a nightmare.

Before this challenge, we knew that Kate, Tom and Rav were in trouble.

Has anything changed, Mary?

There are two that will be possibly leaving.

Tom and Kate.

I have to say Rav, as well. Good luck, Paul and Mary.

The decision lies in your hands.

OK, bakers, well done, all of you. You've worked extremely hard.

And I have the nice job.

I get to award Star Baker,

and Paul and Mary have decided overwhelmingly in favour...

of Benjamina.

Well done, Benjamina! You are Star Baker.

So surprised!

Well done.

I have the harder, sadder task this week, unfortunately,

but you know the score.

Somebody has to leave the tent.

With great sadness, the person leaving us this week is...

..Kate.

I knew it was me. Kate, come on.

I don't think I've completely humiliated myself.

There's been some fantastic bakes in amongst some of the shocking ones!

I feel really guilty. No, it's fine. I had a shocking week.

I'm not going to cry because it's over,

because I'm going to get to watch now

and see who finishes this journey.

Is Kate the weakest baker out of the group? No, she isn't.

But this weekend, she was. That's how Bake Off works.

HE PUFFS OUT

That was by the skin of my teeth. I was so convinced I was going.

I'm surprised I'm still here.

I'm like a cat with nine lives, it seems.

Oh, was I thrilled to see Benjamina's churros!

Sheer joy. She did brilliantly.

Thank you.

I conquered the batter!

Star Baker! Whoo-whoo!

Really, really, really happy.

Next time...

I was so calm earlier.

..the bakers perfect their pastry skills...

That's a very intense measurement.

..in a multilayered Signature...

There should be 27 layers, but I get confused.

..a well-baked Technical...

Oh, my word! The oven wasn't on.

..and a bite-sized Showstopper...

Oh, we're going to be tight on this.

..that will stretch the bakers further than ever before.

This is why life is too short to make filo pastry.

That's what you call a proper disaster.

THEME PLAYS: The Apprentice