Contains Spoilers for this episode, as well as for Series 8 (2017) and series 12 (2021)!

Is it just me, or was this week massively disappointing? So much freaking sausage! I can deal with the occasional savory challenge here and there, but two in a single episode? Gross! I come to this show to ogle sweets, not for lard and pork and hard-boiled eggs. I feel like either the signature or the technical should have been a sweet pastry. I’d never even heard of a Gala Pie, but it did seem like an incredibly dated dish. Noel kept making jokes about how retro these dishes are, referring to little postwar 1950s kids in shorts eating lard sandwiches (“please, guvnor!”). Give a Gala Pie to any Gen Z, he said, and watch them start to weep and wail about “trauma.” Lol. I mean, to be fair, this show is supposed to be about classic British baking, which includes a whole lot of meat pies. It just turned my poor vegetarian stomach, watching all that leaky ground meat.

Which was why I was rooting for dear little Iain in the signature, out there representing for us herbivores! His tofu-broccoli “claddagh ring” pie looked and sounded really good. I just wish Paul had liked it more; apparently it was flavorless. (C’mon, you can’t serve flavorless tofu on TV! Don’t perpetuate the false stereotype!) It would have been nice if Paul’d been proven wrong about tofu twice in a row. Apparently the last time a contestant wowed him with tofu it was some actor from the show “Friends,” who I guess appeared on Celebrity Bake-Off at some point; I didn’t watch that one.

On the bright side, though, Aaron pulled through! (Again with the avant garde flavors, Aaron! Jasmine, ginger, and peach gel?! He’s so imaginative; I love to see it.) I was so sure he would be going home; even though his signature spicy Jamaican beef curry dish got rave reviews, he was last in technical, and made the mistake of using jasmine extract in his showstopper. How do people on these shows keep on making this mistake, lol? 99% of the time, in a baking show, if someone uses any extract other than vanilla, it bites them in the butt. Whenever you see someone using this that or the other extract, just know you’re about to watch them get chewed out about it. I was prepared to lament the loss of yet another favorite.

But it ended up being Nataliia instead. Which is fair, I guess – her chicken kyiv in the signature was too liquidy, she was fifth of seven in technical, and, like Aaron, she was personally victimized by artificial flavorings in the showstopper. I’m bummed! She was such a delight. This season will be a lot less fun without her, going forward. And anyway, I still thought her showstopper looked and sounded amazing, regardless of the raspberry extract. Paired with pistachio praline, chocolate ganache, and crème diplomat: yes, please. Speaking of baking show tropes: what a shame that she went out right after playing the formidable Dead Grandparent Card!

I am curious, though, and maybe someone can enlighten me: what was up with Tom’s rivalry with Toby going into the technical? Why was Tom like “I just want to beat Toby”? Looking back over the previous episodes, Toby won the technical in weeks one and two, whereas Tom was last in the technical in episode one and sixth in two. In episodes three and four, Toby was a few places ahead of Tom. Last week, though, Tom was in spot number four and Toby in number five, so it’s not like Tom’s never beat Toby before. Do they have some sort of frenemy thing going on behind the scenes, lol? In any case, this week Tom was sixth and Toby ahead of him in fourth, so I guess the battle rages on, if there is one.

Tom did do great in the showstopper, though. “Tom’s back in the tent,” Paul proclaimed, upon tasting that beautiful “risalamande”-flavored, Connect Four (ahem, “Four in a Row”) game-shaped tart. That was super impressive, and sounded delicious – you know I love cherry-almond flavors. If only he hadn’t used kirsch, this probably would have been my favorite bake this week.

Other stand-out bakes in the showstopper (because honestly none of the signature bakes nor gala pies stood out to me, blegh): Lesley’s gorgeous honey-glazed pecan pie covered in those precious little painted bumblebees. It’s so good to see her come out of the woodwork lately and start to really shine! And of course, we can’t not mention Iaian’s “Giant’s Causeway” tart. He’s such an artist. I’ve had the privilege of visiting the actual Giant’s Causeway, so this was really fun for me personally. What a bummer that he drenched it in so much whiskey, though. Too much booze even for Prue!

And in other news, guess who won again (yawn). I’m seriously getting bored of seeing Jasmine do everything perfectly every single challenge, lol. Can she just crash and burn once? Just kidding, of course. Huge congratulations to her, she is an absolute force of nature! It’s giving Sophie Faldo. Y’all remember how Sophie also just sailed through every challenge with a poker face, and never seemed even slightly shook? I’d like to see her and Jasmine in a bake-off, honestly.

Other than Tom and Jasmine in the final, I really have no idea what could happen in the coming weeks. I was pretty sure it’d be Toby or Lesley going home today; shows how much I know! It’s nice that this show can still surprise me.

And so far this season, the judging has seemed really fair; not once yet have I exclaimed “what tha hail?!” when the judgment’s been called, like I did when they eliminated Juergen in series 12 for example (seriously, though, I still wonder what the hail that was about). I appreciate that they’re looking at each contestant’s performance in each challenge throughout the show; they’ve been perfectly logical with their decisions, rewarding consistency. I have no complaints yet. What are your thoughts? Leave me a comment!

“Claggy” count: 0 (running total: 5)

“Concertina” count: 0 (running total: 1)

High point: “Oh, wow! Finn MacCool!” – Iain, with elfish delight, setting up his little decorated “giant” pastry figurines on his Giant’s Causeway-themed tart; immediate cut to a rather harried and grumpy Toby, glaring, muttering “no matter how stressful it is, you can always hear Iain having a nice time.”

Low point: Paul’s little temper tantrum at Toby while judging his signature. Not even a single word of congratulations for making the full puff pastry work, after being explicity told “it’s not possible”? Paul even dropped the word “bloody” in there (which, if I understand correctly, is a pretty vicious word to use, over in the UK). Is it just me, or did it seem like Paul was kind of mad that Toby proved him wrong? His thing wasn’t even that bad! To me, this kind of set a sour tone for the whole rest of the episode.

The bake that I would most have liked to eat: Toby’s burnt honey and mascarpone tart with blackberry reduction. Such a bummer that he didn’t have time to finish the little goat decorations (he thought had 4.5 hours but it was actually only four; I felt so bad for him, because that’s the exact same kind of dumb mistake that I make in my own life on the daily), but, the judges still loved the flavors. It sounded awesome! Toby was apparently my hero this week.

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