It was Halloween Week on The Great British Bake Off this week, with the remaining contestants returning to the kitchen for some more baking challenges.
But while it was a piece of cake for some of the bakers in the Great British Bake Off 2022 line-up – especially Syabira, who was crowned Star Baker after impressing judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood in the Signature, Technical and final Showstopper – unfortunately, Dawn became the latest contestant to leave the tent.
Here, reigning Bake Off champ and RadioTimes.com columnist Giuseppe Dell’Anno shares his thoughts on Halloween Week and offers advice to the contestants as they get closer to the final.
You can watch Giuseppe share his verdict on Bake Off’s latest episode below – keep watching at the end of each video for more from Giuseppe!
Giuseppe on Halloween Week
I think it’s fair to say that this has been my favourite week so far. The challenges were all great. They were very well designed. Also, the show ended with the judges smashing piñatas with rolling pins, so I think it was the perfect balance of wacky and entertaining. I really, really loved it.
I like it in general when the targets in the challenges sound relatively simple, like s’mores or an apple cake, but then they turn out deceptively difficult. You may think of course, “Who hasn’t done an apple cake?” but then getting the balance of the complementary flavours right is actually surprisingly difficult, especially if the brief states that the apple flavour should be the main one and if you use too strong spices, you will kill the apple taste. In fact, many bakers made that very mistake.
However, I was particularly proud of my girl Syabira for using chilli. That is certainly something that I would have never attempted. It was very, very risky, but it paid off, so I’m glad that she took the risk. In all, Halloween Week was a resounding success in my books at least, and I think that all of the bakers did surprisingly well considering the difficulties.
Favourite bake
My favourite bake was perhaps a slightly less-celebrated one. I was particularly keen on Abdul‘s flavour combination for his bonfire cake. He married the apple with almonds and honey, and those sounded to me like the perfect companions for an apple flavour. Almonds are very delicate and they provide a very subtle nuttiness to the cake, which with the added sweetness of the honey must have worked really, really well.
The judges liked it and the whole thing came together quite beautifully. The cake had a classic layered structure, but it was very well conceived. Despite being relatively simple, it looked impressive. What I like about Abdul’s proposal for the Signature bake was the fact that the cake looked like something that any keen baker could replicate at home, and that’s what the Bake Off is about essentially.
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Tip of the week
I remember from my time in the tent that at this moment in the competition, this is when the judges all of a sudden become extremely more demanding. I remember me and my fellow bakers feeling a step change in the harshness of the judges’ comments, because the quality of the bakers now has become quite consistent and they’re all quite good.
The judges have to start to split hairs, so they will be clinging on to very, very tiny details or things that didn’t quite work as predicted or as expected in the bake. And as contestants, the bakers will feel the added pressure of the judges, with them becoming all of a sudden much less lenient and complacent.
Least favourite bake
This is going to sound quite weird because I’ve been celebrating Syabira all the way through this series and deservingly, but really, the idea of putting white truffle in an orange cream cheese filling is just beyond wacky. That is almost as bad as putting pineapple on pizza. I don’t know where she got it from. That to me was just a step too far. I don’t like truffle on savoury foods let alone sweet, so that one is a no, no for me.
Giuseppe answers…
What did you think of this week’s Star Baker, Syabira?
Finally Syabira made it! My girl won Star Baker. I was very proud of her. It was long overdue, I have to admit, but finally her courageous flavour combinations paid off. She did take a bit of a gamble by putting chilli into an apple cake, but that paid off and the judges were blown away by her Showstopper at the end, which looked impressive. I still don’t know how she managed to defy gravity that well. It was extremely well-balanced because it did manage to stay perfectly straight considering it was literally hanging by a thread.
She was first in the Technical challenge. She got the so called Holy Trinity – handshake, first in the Technical and Star Baker, which only Maxy got earlier in the season. So, absolutely well-deserved.
I’ve got to say that in almost 13 full seasons of Bake Off, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the judges ever saying they’ve got no doubts whatsoever and this is going to be the winner. That is very, very rare and I don’t think it’s happened before, so if anything, Syabira deserves nothing less than a round of applause for what she achieved this week. Very proud of her!
Syabira’s ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ Lantern Showstopper for Halloween Week. ???????????? #GBBO pic.twitter.com/nYlXlH18WI
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) October 18, 2022
Who can you see in the final and who is at risk?
I am still clinging to my predictions. I’m still convinced that Syabira and Janusz will be for sure in the final, and I would be very surprised if they weren’t. The third spot could be for Maxy or Sandro because they’re both performing exceptionally well.
Maxy has got such an attention to detail, and her bakes are always so well-constructed. So neat. Sandro’s bakes are professional looking all the time. They’re clearly final material.
At the other end of the spectrum, Kevin must be feeling at risk because he has been at risk a few times throughout the show and let’s be honest, he’s going to be facing only tougher competition in the next few weeks. So, he might be one of the weakest links in the remaining group, but as he said, he made it to the top half, so he must be feeling very chuffed.
A week in the life of Giuseppe
@OfficialNTAs here we come! pic.twitter.com/b0Daka3RTl
— Giuseppe Dell’Anno (@giuseppecooks) October 13, 2022
This week has been the National Television Awards (NTAs) week for me, and I think it’s fair to say that attending the NTAs as a nominee has been and will be one of the most exciting experiences of my life. There is no other way to frame it, really.
I was in a room in a VIP seat, surrounded by very familiar faces, people that peek into my house through the telly almost daily, and it felt very surreal. All the people that I got to meet, they were all very generous with me, they all played along, I got so many selfies, so many handshakes on the night. It was really something.
I don’t know when anything on that scale is going to be happening again, so I tried to take in every single second. However, the bit that I enjoyed the most was the fact that I got to share such an exciting time with my fellow bakers. Crystelle [Pereira] and Chigs [Parmar] were there with me. We were all dolled up, looking beautiful as much as we possibly could and I love that.
And crucially, I also had the opportunity to meet up again with a good chunk of the Bake Off production team that I hadn’t seen in almost a year and that was, in itself, a fantastic joy. Bake Off didn’t win, but I’ve never been happier to be a loser for the night!
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To make your own show-stopping bakes at home, Giuseppe’s debut cookbook, Giuseppe’s Italian Bakes (Quadrille, £20) is available to order, out 13th October.
The Great British Bake Off airs on Channel 4 on Tuesdays at 8pm. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our TV Guide or visit our dedicated Entertainment hub for the latest news.
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