Hiya fellow Great British Bake Off lovers, how was your week? Or the several other intervening weeks between recaps? That’s awesome! Let’s find out what’s shake-baking on GBBO S10:E04 Dairy Week right after the break! Wait: do you think Dairy Week is payback for Vegan Week last season? COULD IT BE??

We open in a field with hosts Noel Fielding showing his list of band name puns for his custom GBBO playlist to host Sandi Toksvig, who was promised no puns! No “Take a Little Pizza My Heart”!! (That was one brill) and then we’re on to what happened last week! Basically, we lost Amelia (booooo) and 12-year-old Michael Chakraverty was crowned Star Baker.

Awwwww lookit what we see first??

Dashing young Henry Bird in a bespoke paisley tie tells us that dairy doesn’t just mean cow: it can be goats or buffalo (BUFFALO?? How does one milk a BUFFALO? Besides carefully)

First up is making a dairy cake for the Signature Challenge, which must include a cultured dairy product. But only 2:15!

Noel gently narrates that cultured dairy products in cake making are huge right now. Judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood warn us of the potential pitfalls ahead for our baketestants. Basically: don’t overbake. Cheers!

Steph Blackwell, whatcha got for us?

I’ll absolutely take the answer to everything, ta! She’s adding buttermilk as her cultured dairy (lactic acid – she didn’t believe her mum!).

Literally nobody knows why cultured dairy products are used in baking. Everyone murmurs “ferment” and avoids eye contact with Paul.

Rosie Brandreth-Poynter is boozing it up for her cakey-whatsit.

With her homemade limoncello. Across the room David Atherton and Sandi literally slurp his limoncello right off a plate. He enjoys a full mouthful, which is not something a lot of boys say to Sandi, apparently. Awww I love his pretty cake!

Phil Thorne is going full fat in his rosewater thingy.

Is literally everyone making the same shape of cake? Not to pick on you, Priya O’Shea, but I believe this is number four in a row of the same.pan. I’ve never seen anyone use a potato ricer on bananas, it’s sort of hypnotising.

Henry uses something he calls Malt Extract and I have to ask the Google what the Sam Hill it is, brb. It’s a sort of sweetener, usually associated with making beer? What the

I don’t understand Michael’s cake.

He made this ten times this week and 9 went into the garbage. Yikes.

Of course Helena Garcia is making a Halloween-themed dessert, this time a cute ghost. I would have made more fun, but she was expertly piping some buttercream roses and I was intimidated.

Alice Fevronia isn’t making the same shape as everyone else either, woooo! I shall almost forgive her for the white chocolate. (IT’S NOT CHOCOLATE)

Michelle Fecci-Evans has four hundred strong flavours in her snackycake, but I love watching her pipe meringues, so I’m letting 399 pass.

I’m not sure I can explain how much I hate apple in baked goods (that are not apple fritters) in a way that you can fully appreciate my loathing.

Honestly, Henry, what did I just say??

Now the unmolding from everyone’s fancy pans! High drama as Michelle unmolds and breaks.the.stand. Sandi scurries off to find a replacement as Michael runs over to save Michelle’s sinking hot cake. See?? I love it when they help each other! Unbidden, even!

Most people have successfully freed their whatsits from the tyranny of their intricately carved and hopefully greased pans, except Michael. It’s not looking good for our wee young lad.

We all gasp in unison. I love that Priya is at Michael’s station helping to drag out chunks of cake for him to spackle with icing.

Time for judging!!

Our Henry is first with apple stuck on top. Honestly. Prue thinks it’s delicious and light, Paul loves the apples and nuts. It’s a “really good cake”!

Now Rosie with her boozy effort; spot on! Prue pockets the extra homemade limoncello because of course she does.

I can’t get a good shot of Helena’s cute ghost cake! Boooo! I am unreasonably creeped out by the fact that she’s left her fingerprints as the ghost’s eyesockets. Not much for feedback.

More limoncello in David’s beautiful cake, he does such tidy work. It’s fantastic! Yeah it is.

Steph’s effort looks so messy, though it’s called rich and light. Not much feedback this episode thus far.

Phil’s rosey thingamabob looks quite extra to me, what say you, judges? Hm. They aren’t impressed by the decoration OR flavour, so there we have it.

Alice fares better with her decoration, but the flavour is bland.

Priya’s cake was tricky to get a full shot of, apparently the cameraman was in love with the bit of gold flake waving about on the edges of the bananas. It’s a great banana bread but has a tough outside, so.

Michelle’s looks fantastic, but it’s tight? And claggy?

Oh Michael. Paul is kind enough to detail every single thing wrong with Michael’s effort, I mean. PAUL. But it’s delicious!! Yay!! He cries all over Sandi, good for you, mate!

The bakers take five minutes to regroup and we’re on to the Technical Challenge! This time it’s Prue’s mystery recipe; she warns them to take each element seriously and not to mess any of them up. Helpful.

The baketestants will be making 10 Maids of Honour which the Google tells me are tarts. Bit harsh, what? Noel struggles through the description of the 100 elements, Sandi thinks his giving birth would have been easier!

Henry has never made rough-puff pastry or lemon curd before…”help.”

Michael is hanging on by his nails.

The pastry is everyone’s first problem, I’m watching carefully for anyone who doesn’t bake theirs blind as per Prue’s warning. Some can’t even make it come together as one, Helena is in trouble right out of the gate.

Now the curd, Priya tries to catch up after forgetting but Helena’s still working on her pastry, which looks…like mine. Super flaky. Michael’s pastry is gorgeous but he inexplicably cut his crusts too small, leaving a lot of excess to throw away. Amelia thought it didn’t matter either! Ask her how that worked out!! OH WAIT, YOU CAN’T.

Ah. Helena forgot to add cold water to her pastry and it all makes sense.

Everyone blind bakes, yay! Priya lags behind. Catchup, lady! She only has half an hour left and she hasn’t baked her pastry? Oh Priya. I barely knew ye.

Michael’s feeling better. I’m a little sad he didn’t help Priya back.

Everyone runs to complete their stencils whist poor Priya scrambles even faster to accomplish nada. When it’s time to place them on the front table, she asks if there’s “REALLY any point?”

Here we go! Paul and Prue hate everyone’s work, Paul even turning around to leave as soon as he looks at them. They’re all too shallow, for one. They work down the row, only Henry is pleasantly surprised at his blind feedback.

Judging ranks our bakers from last to best:

• 10th – Priya, course
• 9th – Helena
• 8th – Alice
• 7th – Michael
• 6th – Phil
• 5th – Michelle
• 4th – Rosie
• 3rd – Henry
• 2nd – David – he’s always a bridesmaid, never a maid of honour, isn’t he?
• 1st!! – Steph!

On we go to the Showstopper Challenge while Michael tries to stop crying. You know what, young fella? You’re top ten regardless! You’re amazing!!

Just a quick reminder that we could lose two bakers at any time. TWO.

Woooooo and the Showstopper is right up Michael’s alley! Stunning Indian milk treats! He’s half Indian and likes to incorporate flavours and elements, see? You got this! 12 portions of three types of mishti! Sure! Turns out he doesn’t even like milk sweets, so.

And we’re off; Paul tells us that these Indian sweets are all about bright colours and flavours, these are used at celebrations of all kinds.

We kick off with everyone reducing their large batches of milk to solids, it’s hard work!

As usual, I will be presenting the sketches without comment for the most part:

Reducing the koya (ancient condensed milk something) takes a metric tonne of time, so the judges have relented and allowed one of the mishtis to be made by modern means. Henry’s doing something with a red silicone bar tray that fills me with dread; I recognise that tray from its disastrous outcome in the promo.

Henry keeps checking his freezer. He knows that slows down the cooling, right?

Henry’s in the freezer again!

And AGAIN! I’m worried for our wee fella. As was foretold in the previews, his ice cream fails spectacularly as everyone rushes to complete their balls.

Judging!

Steph rolls up with her slate tray of goodies first, let’s see if they taste as good as they look! Lovely flavour combination, great blends and clever food abounds!

Now Always A Bridesmaid David and his purty num nums, he knocks it out of the park with his tidy melty treats while Steph watches with a beady eye.

Awww, I just love Alice’s tasties! Good taste, etc etc.

Sigh. Hi Helena.

Oh wait, it’s much prettier close up! The judges love it!

I couldn’t wait to see Rosie’s wee cocktails, so pretty! Clever and pride-worthy.

On to Michelle’s Indian mishtis by way of Wales; unfortunately Paul hates the wee rice pudding ones.

Sorry, I couldn’t get a better picture of Henry’s whatsits that didn’t just focus on his poor sad melted ones, so this is what we’re using. Good flavour but…

Michael does such stylish work, he’s no slouch on decoration OR flavour.

I thought Priya’s display was lovely and colourful but Prue calls her out for having decorative tableware, not mishti. Oh thank goodness, she did a great job!

And finally Phil and Norm the Gnome are on the hotseat. Prue shrugs when she tries a bright blue pebble and we all shrink a bit with Phil. THEN she says his flavours are fake and Paul says he went overboard and I’m putting on the kettle for Phil and I. I’m glad he doesn’t hear Prue call his work “Kindergarten playdough” later.

So where are we? I’m glad Priya will be leaving on an up note; she had great feedback on her last bake. Star Baker is between Steph and David, I hope for David but I assume it’s going to be Steph.

Star Baker is: Steph! I knew it!!

And leaving us is: Priya. I’m sorry, you’re still awesome and you left with some excellent memories of

WHAT

PHIL! Phil is leaving!??! What the hell? We’re all shocked! I’m so sad for our trucker, he did a great job for the most part. Damn.

I can’t apologize enough, Priya! You got this!

Steph calls her mum, who’s parking and lets out a “bloody hell, Steph” hahahaha

Until next time, you lot, I love yous all! Cheers