The Great British Bake Off Week Two – It takes the biscuit and dunks it!

So here we are in week two which is biscuit week. The signature bake was for 24 uniform biscuits, the technical bake was Viennese Whirls and for the showstopper, what else but Ginger Bread models.

This week we saw biscuits on the floor, the collapse of the gingerbread, Candice change her lipstick for something much pinker (she’s promised red for bread week) and Salasi not lose his cool but maybe lose his magic touch a little.

The first round went quite well for most, but for Val who didn’t manage to finish her biscuits, and Louise making her bara brith lamb scones rather than biscuits. I think this round is really easy, just pick a nice crunchy biscuit that snaps when you break it and decorate them all the same very neatly.

The technical challenge is where the contestants are given the bare minimum of instructions to make the recipe. Most of the them did really well, but it was those that chilled their whirls before baking that had the most success. The moral is, if it has a fancy design and it’s a very soft biscuit dough, it needs chilling before baking. The whirls didn’t melt during cooking and you could still see the pattern. Having most success with her whirls was Candice, it must be her lucky lipstick this week.

Finally we have the technical challenge where the bakers had to recreate a scene that had meaning for them with gingerbread. Val’s collapsed and was unfinished. Louise tried really hard to keep her church and marriage intact without success. Mike presented a wonderful scene of Oxford student days and Tom was stuck up a mountain with his friend Pod. Selasi managed to keep his church standing but the flavour was lacking. Jane’s Brownie presentation looked fantastic but also lacked flavour. It was Candice that stood out from the crowd though with her pub, complete with a ginger cake pub carpet, a pool table with a jelly top and her mum and dad behind the bar. It was really clever and according to Mary and Paul, it had the taste too.

No surprise then when Star Baker with the bright pink lipstick was Candice, and she deserved it.
The person going home was Louise, who had a pretty disastrous week all round.
I was hoping to have a go at baking along this week but I’ve not had the chance so I’ll share some I made earlier.

Here are the Kids in the Kitchen’s take on Mary Berry’s Chocolate and Vanilla Pinwheel Biscuits.

I hope you are enjoying The Great British Bake Off as much as me, I’d love to know what you think of it and whether it’s inspired you to do some great bakes.