15: S17E7 "Free From Week"

[00:00:00] Hmm? Ah! Hmm. Podcastica! Hey everyone, welcome to Baketastica!, a podcast dedicated to the Great British Baking Show. I'm Jamie. I'm Greg. And I'm Wendy. This episode we are covering the Great British Bake Off Series 17, Episode 7, Free From Party Week. Oh, what a lovely tea party. Yeah. Yeah. It was really cute, but yeah. It was hard.

[00:00:48] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because we've said it before, like anybody who tries to do vegan, gluten-free, whatever, in Bake Off makes everything harder on themselves. Mm-hmm. Definitely.

[00:01:04] Yeah, it was. I mean, I was, I was interested in a number of the, of the things. Um, I, what Nigel said about kids with allergies being excluded because they couldn't have this, that, or the other. Like, I, I mean, I empathize with that because my kids have allergies and like bad ones. So, you know, for a long time, my daughter couldn't have regular cookies or, cause she was allergic to

[00:01:35] non or baked eggs. So, you know, fortunately she grew out of it eventually. But, um, I mean, just like the, the idea that you're going to make something that is like, I had to hunt down places that had vegan cupcakes to take with us to parties. Yeah. And fortunately they are, you know, there are a lot more around now, but nowadays, but, um, like I could appreciate what she was saying.

[00:02:01] Yeah. There, there used to not be a lot of options. I remember when I went to, I was chaperone in, in France of a little girl that had really bad allergies and she like ate bread all week. Like she didn't have a gluten allergy, but was like allergic to everything else. So she's like, I know baguettes are safe. And that's what she ate practically the whole week. She walked around with a baguette all the time. I mean, there's worse places to eat baguettes all the time.

[00:02:30] Yeah. Yeah. She seemed pretty content. Okay. Our signature was gluten-free laminated party pastries. They had two and a half hours to create pastries suitable for a children's party with sweet or savory fillings.

[00:02:49] So I'll say that, uh, kind of like last week, um, I, a little bit, I was a little bit more inclined towards the savory, um, the cheeseburger, Gabe's cheeseburger, uh, little ladybirds. That looks so good.

[00:03:09] And well, and then where we're like, Nigella was talking about where like the, like the, where the filling was with all the meat and vegetables and whatnot would like the, it was more pastry, like on the inside. Um, I was like, Oh, that sounds like dense compacted with like grease and onions and juice. And that sounds delicious.

[00:03:32] In Disney world, they have these little like pockets and like, they taste like a McDonald's cheeseburger inside. It's really good. Oh, wow. And it's not something I would think I would like, but those are really tasty. That like reminds me of the Wonka chewing gum with like full meals. Yeah. It's always the blueberry that gets them.

[00:04:01] I mean, I thought the pizza monster was cute. I wanted to try that one. The fact that he's making it with chorizo. I love chorizo is one of my favorite is one of my favorite, you know, spiced sausages. And, um, yeah, like that looked, that looked really, really good. But also like Mo with his just, eh, sounds like a pop tart. I'm going to make a pop tart. Yeah. I mean, the pop tarts looked phenomenal.

[00:04:30] Like all of, of all of them, like, and the vanilla custard on the inside. Again, I know that maybe I would enjoy it. Maybe I wouldn't, but like it looked really good. It looked like it all stuck together, which like between the compote and the custard. And so I think I'd be all right with that.

[00:04:49] I mean, and I think, was he saying that he couldn't eat them growing up because the box has gelatin and that, and, and I'm guessing that's a, I believe is there are pork parts in it. But yeah. Um, now Connie's I thought were really good. Well, wait, wait, wait, wait. We got to mention one thing with Mo. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. The handshake. He got a handshake. I mean, like the, yeah, he did.

[00:05:19] It was so him, him talking about like, uh, it's a little bit more exciting. I know it seemed like I'm not excited, but I kind of am. But when he got that handshake, his face lit up. He had a big smell. Like we saw the most emotion out of him. We've seen all season. Um, I saw a funny video, not the one with the kittens as a different one. And the comments were just gold. It was all about Mo and how much they love Mo.

[00:05:47] And it, the comments were like, does Mo know he's on bake off? It's the fact that he's never made bread before and he still thought, yeah, I could so win the bake off. I love him so much. My nonchalant King. It was great. Mo love for you. That was good stuff. Yeah. I mean, that did look really, really good. Yeah. I mean, from what they said, like it was phenomenal. And yeah.

[00:06:17] And he nailed the, the pastry, which is really hard. I mean, it's hard without being gluten free. To nail it. I'll tell you, like Paul saying, like, I wouldn't have been able to tell you that was gluten free. Like that's. Yeah. That's not just high praise. That's like damn near impossible. Yeah. He was impressed. You could tell he, he was shocked. He was giving that out on the signature of a gluten free. You know, challenge. Challenge.

[00:06:48] Yeah. There was somebody else that I thought was, I thought I, I think it was Moyen, the pistachio and raspberry monster eyes. Those looked really good too. Yeah. They said it was bland, but I was like, yeah, sounds like something I'd really like. Pistachio and raspberry. That sounds good. Yeah. But I think what they said, I think what they said was that like the, there just wasn't a

[00:07:16] pair of raspberry and added more than like, it would have had that nice tart flavor throughout. But otherwise, I mean, cause pistachio is a pretty mellow flavor. Yeah. Um, and, and I guess you do really kind of need a citrus to, to, or some, whatever raspberries are, uh, to like punch up the flavor. Um, but I imagine that it would create like a pretty good contrast from that mellow with the sharp of the raspberry.

[00:07:47] I agree. Yeah. I'm not sure that I've had pistachio and raspberry together before, but I think it'd be good. I don't, do you guys understand why people were doing monster stuff? Like, like I, some of them I got, but like, like, okay. Like for a kid, cause kids like. For, I don't understand. Like I was like, I don't, was there like part of the challenge that I just missed being like monster themed? I didn't quite understand that.

[00:08:16] I think it's just an easy way to make it for. Yeah. Like you're either going to do cutesy or scary for a kid's party. Yeah. Or like kind of cutesy scary. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like if you're doing something like, you know, like there was the, um, well, they call lady birds, but we call lady bugs. There was, but that feels more girly. Like, I don't know. So, and then the butterfly, which feels girly. So if you're going to do something for a boy, it's going to be monstery.

[00:08:46] Yeah. All right. That was how I took it. I put in my notes that Paul is just befuddled by Moe. He keeps trying to figure him out and he, he remains elusive to Paul. He's elusive to us all. Yeah. I thought I gave Gabe a lot of credit because I think he was the only one who incorporated color into the bake.

[00:09:12] A few other people did it, you know, like decorations or after, but his, the pastry was colored and I gave him credit for that. He did lady bird, lady birds, lady birds. Lady birds. Yeah. They call them lady birds. We call them lady. Yes. So I did not know that that was a lady bug. I mean, I, I was like, Oh, that looks like a lady bug, but I don't know what a lady bird is then.

[00:09:41] And I was like, Oh, it's you guys were telling it. I was like, Oh, that's just what they call it. They're got Britishism. Yeah. Um, so Gary's chocolate orange caterpillar that I could see like for, uh, it looked adorable. Yeah. Visually. And that's, that is a classic British. Like we've seen it other times on the show, the caterpillar. Yeah. The caterpillar cake. And when I was just like the switch Swiss roll almost like, right. Except you slice it and then like put biscuits between.

[00:10:10] But like, I mean, if you're going to go classic kids, British kids party, like that's the image you do. Yeah. I got real excited. I got real excited when I was in England over the summer and saw like a caterpillar cake for something. Oh my God. Yeah. Tony's like, what? I'm like, caterpillar cake for bake off. He's like, Oh, and Gary had practiced it 11 times. Right.

[00:10:34] And he said that it like was like by the end he was like, it was okay. Hopefully I could pull it off this time. The 12th time's a charm. Yeah. That's probably definitely out of his wheelhouse. Yeah. I mean, good for him for expanding his reach though. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Last week was geared towards the older crowd and this week was geared towards the younger crowd for sure.

[00:11:02] And there's only two older crowd left. Yeah. But yeah, Connie's looked good. And what I hear what they were saying with regard to like filling it all the way out with like the, the, the blueberries because you end up with like the drier pastry on the outside, but I mean, it still sounded really good. Yeah. Blueberry and almond. It's like raspberry and pistachio. What can go wrong?

[00:11:32] Yeah. They said that she hadn't spread her filling all the way to the edges. So that left a lot of dry pastry. What did, what did Paul say about Gary's chocolate orange? Like, oh, chocolate orange, where can you go wrong? The pastry is where you went wrong. Yeah. He's like, oh. Yeah. So that was funny, but also I felt bad. Yeah.

[00:11:58] And like, it was hard for me to understand because they were saying like, you want to have a lot of lamination. So you want to fold it a lot. And I was like, well, what would stop them from folding it? But you could see it was like the dough becomes really hard to roll out. And so I saw that. I haven't really done anything that required a lot of lamination. Maybe like a couple, but not a lot.

[00:12:24] Like the only ones that I did were like the ones in that class with their croissants. And I mean, they were real good, but they, but they had like folded them beforehand. Like we got done baking and then we all did all the folds for the next class that was going to come in. So like time wise. So again, two and a half hours, not a ton of time to get all your folds and keep it chilled and all that.

[00:12:54] I do love a croissant though. Did we go over everybody? I think we did. We're getting to the end. These are much shorter. Not as many. All right. Like burning through them. Like, okay, we got to get through all of them. Oh wait, there are only six left. Yeah. All right. Craig, you want to review what you had to do for the technical? All right. So for the technical, Nigella placed the challenge of her vegan animal cakes.

[00:13:23] Each one had a surprise decoration that they needed to pull out of the gingham bag. They had, and I'm just going to say by who had what. Connie had the bee. Gary had the oxalotl. Mo had the bear. Mo had the whale. Gabe had the dinosaur. And Tom had the foxy fox. So they asked the bakers to make an adorable animal shaped cake using a completely vegan chocolate sponge.

[00:13:53] All of them were like the same very spare cylinder shape. But then they were only able to look at the decorations for five minutes and then had to remember what it looked like when they were doing their decoration. They had the feature of chocolate sponge, chocolate ganache, and a silky vegan ermine buttercream. It's made by cooking flour and milk into a thick paste before whipping it with butter.

[00:14:21] And for this challenge, they used almond milk and a plant-based butter. That was the big question that I had when we were talking about like free from. I was like, butter, like how are you going to do anything without dairy with butter? I didn't think about plant-based butter. There are so many possibilities nowadays that have like quality, high quality substitutes for cow's milk or milk in general.

[00:14:44] Yeah, Wakeman's has like four aisles of like gluten-free, non-dairy, you know, they have so many options. Yeah. And they'll even sprinkle it in the regular aisle because like I was in the baking aisle the other day and I went to grab whatever it went to grab. I'm like, oh wait, that's gluten-free. I don't need that one. Right. It's so mixed in with the regular stuff that I was. I have gluten-free puff pastry that I bought by accident. And I went back and got the regular, but I need to use it up.

[00:15:14] On the cruise, there was literally of like the little restaurant that you could go to at any given time. They literally had it called gluten-free corner and it was gluten-free, basically pastries and cookies and all sorts of stuff. I did not try any of them because I wanted all of the glutens, but they looked really good.

[00:15:44] Yeah. I thought the cakes were adorable. They were so cute. I liked that they were all different. I was kind of, I liked their- They were the same but different. Like I don't think any of them were necessarily harder than the others. Yeah. I mean, the axolotl had more stuff sticking out the sides, but everybody had something sticking out the sides. If you can make it stick out the side, you can make it stick out the side. Yeah.

[00:16:08] Well, I thought that the like mode had the bear and he had to like curl the little paper to make the ears. And I thought that was like, oh, I would not necessarily have thought like they showed him doing that. And I was like, oh, I wouldn't have realized that that was like how you would put that together. I'm also not a baker, so like, or creative necessarily. They had the cakes there, right? Mm-mm. That they could see.

[00:16:35] No, they only got to look at it for five minutes and they had to like draw out the stuff. Okay. Like that's what I was thinking initially. I was like, I thought they were going to be able to look at it the whole time. Yeah. But they had to like draw and figure out how they were going to decorate it. But I think that's the only technical where they've seen like the finished product that I can remember. The only one other one was that they only could look at what the product was without any recipe or anything like that.

[00:17:05] Yeah. It also was like a different like the ermine icing or anything like that. I do like that they've made them more interesting. It's probably more traumatizing for them. But yeah, they've definitely been more interesting. Mm-hmm. Instead of, because we've only had like what one or two where it was the exact same product across. Yeah. The table. It's been more. But I like this one because it was the same but different. Yeah.

[00:17:33] It was, I mean, because it was basically the same thing and you just needed to get like the right color of icing. Like the right amount of coloring for your icing. And I'll tell you what, Gary's like, so Gary forgot to use half his butter, right? Oh my God. I was screaming at my TV. I know. Well, the fact that he never, it didn't seem like he ever realized it. Like the. Watched it when it aired. Well, okay, sure. When it aired.

[00:17:59] Probably, I mean, during the process, he was never like, oh, I just like, I can add this in or anything like that. He was like, everybody else got loads and I don't mind some watery. That's weird. Um, that was just, it was, you're just like, oh, buddy. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it was like, I thought that everybody did a pretty good job in recreating with the exception of Gary.

[00:18:26] Um, now Connie had the issue of like the getting the rise. And so she, like her different layers weren't quite thick enough. Her cakes did not look good at all. Yeah. I was actually shocked at the finished product that she pulled it out so well. The fact that it's so well below Gary. Yeah. Oh. Yeah.

[00:18:53] Her cakes were like sunken in the middle and just looked under baked or. Yeah. It was. I felt so bad. Yeah. She had a really rough signature and technical. She's. Yeah. I mean, the signature wasn't that bad. Like it was, it looked good, but they, you know, they kind of pointed out some issues with it, but she had a really rough technical. Yeah. And yeah. Yeah. The signature just.

[00:19:22] Everybody else did better. Yeah. That's the thing. It wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. We're at the point now where. Little things are gonna get. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like once you get to the quarterfinal, it's basically like no one's messing up. It's just who made it better or who. Went that extra mile and succeeded and did it well. Jamie, you want to give us our ranking for the technical? So we're going to go last to first like they do.

[00:19:52] In sixth place was Connie. In fifth place was Gary. Fourth was Mo. Third was Moyen. Second was Gabe. And first was Tom. But only by a hair. Only by a hair. Yeah. Only by a hair. Yeah. Like when they got to. All right. Second place. I'm like, ooh, who's it going to be? Who's it going to be? Like, I thought. I thought Gabe might have had it. Yeah. I was. I thought. I thought he was. After they tasted his first. And they were like, that's a. That's a good cake.

[00:20:21] I was like, okay. Like, that's all right. And then. But then once they. Like, I. I was. I did not know who was going to get it. But it did not surprise me that. That Tom got it. How much they were fawning over his. His fox. I mean, and the fox was super cute. He did an awesome job decorating it. Yeah. Yeah. His look pretty much identical to the. Example. I think it's fabulous foxy fox. Like it might have looked more. Like.

[00:20:51] Just a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Just a little bit fancier. Tom. Tom is so good. He really is. And so fun. Yeah. But Gabe was right on his heels. Yeah. This week. Gabe wanted it bad. I would have said. Like, if you made me guess. After last week. I would have said Gabe went home this week. Like, if I had to pick anybody out of the group. I probably would have picked Gabe. And then he's like the shining star of the week. Yeah. Yep.

[00:21:22] Awesome. All right. For the showstopper. They had to make interactive free from birthday cakes. They had four hours to create a children's birthday cake. Featuring an interactive element or moving part. Which is just unthinkable. Each baker could choose whether to make their cake gluten free, dairy free or vegan. So that was good.

[00:21:50] Like, I'm sure they all have different comfort levels with things. So. Yeah. Especially if you're doing something like this. Like. Instead of just saying, okay, you all have to make vegan. Like. Let them figure out. Something. Yep. Was anybody else. Thoroughly. Well, not. I'm trying to think of the right word, but. I. I. I chuckled pretty hard at. Mo's.

[00:22:20] Vacuum. Yeah. The vacuum. Face. Oh, my God. No one other than Mo. Yeah. Would have done this. What's in that brain? Like. Well, when I was a kid, I was obsessed with the vacuum. I would have loved a vacuum cake. Yeah. This is what I always wanted. It was a vacuum cake. All kids must like this. So I'm going to make a vacuum cake. And you know what? My kids would absolutely love vacuuming up sprinkles. Yeah. Oh. A hundred percent. Like. Oh. Hey, you spilled something. Oh, I'm going to use the vacuum.

[00:22:49] I'm going to spill something on purpose so I can use the vacuum from my cake. We have a Lego vacuum. Nice. And we have a, like a little dust buster. And both of those are my sons. Like. They're. Like the dust busters referred to as the Malcolm vacuum in the house. And anytime anybody grabs, he's like, no, that's mine. I have to use it. Yeah. The. I mean. And his. With the cream. Sound.

[00:23:19] Like the hazelnut cream. You're not a huge hazelnut fan, Jamie. But. Yeah. I know the rest of the world loves it. But. He was like, he was talking about like, uh, like whipping it for an extra, like however long. Cause he wanted it like, like silky. Something like that sounds. That's like Nutella, but like mousse. And that sounds delicious. I mean. Yeah. It looked good. And when they cut into that cake. I mean. It. Like the layers that you saw. Oh. It just looks so good. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep.

[00:23:54] Um. I wanted Moyen's cake. So. Peanut butter and jelly cake. Oh, yes. Yeah. Like. I liked the egg. I didn't care for the fact that only one kid could play with it. But. I mean. That's just. Birthday kid. Yeah. Yeah. I mean. Like. Yeah. That's obviously who would. Who would get to smash it. Yeah. It was kind of hard. It was funny that he kept trying to smack it. Yeah. It took a few.

[00:24:22] So I almost like smacked it off of the. Off of the cake itself. Well. And he called it beforehand. Like. He's like. Oh. Paul can totally do it. Unless he's a wimp. Like. He knew it was going to give him a little bit of trouble. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That meringue butter. That like a Thai meringue buttercream. And the. With the. Like. I. Again. I'm just thinking about like. The. The. The contrast of texture. From each layer. And each portion. And then like.

[00:24:52] The. I would. I'm a big peanut butter person. I love peanut butter flavoring. And. Like. I. I would need for the peanut butter sponge to be. Pretty peanut buttery. Yeah. I've had some stuff that is not. Really. Like. You don't really get the. It's just. It's just like. It's the LaCroix of peanut butter. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And. I mean. And I mean. Hopefully it was. It was that good. But. The.

[00:25:22] I mean. But the. The combination of all of them together. Sounded delicious. Agreed. Yeah. That was the. Like. If I could pick anyone to try. That was the one I wanted to try. Yeah. I mean. I love a PB&J. Right. So. Tom did the. Bubbling. Swamp bath. Of the Shrek. And if you. Yeah. That this was. Phenomenal. Yes.

[00:25:51] Absolutely. And we found out that Paul thinks fart jokes are funny. He's not too cool or fancy for fart jokes. I mean. The. The fact that he had it bubbling in there. And. They had. He had it designed well enough to be able to do that. Like. Like that was. Like. It was. It was. Like one of those. Is it cake type things. It was. Yeah. Really good. It was gluten free. Chocolate. And pistachio sponge.

[00:26:20] With chocolate ganache. That's. When they cut into it. It looked really good. With whipped. Pistachio cream. And fresh strawberries. The bath contained. Chocolate milk. And. I think everything was good. I think. The pistachio sponge. Was dry. And that gave. Gabe. The edge. He needed to. Outpace. Tom. This week. Yeah. That was Tom leaving the door open. Yeah.

[00:26:51] Yeah. I mean. That was the only thing. That was negative. About. Yeah. Tom's going to be hard to beat. In this. Yeah. Yeah. But Gabe's going for it. Yeah. So. I mean. Let's talk about Gabe's. And his like. His adorable bug hunt. Which. I would like to dig through a cake. And find bugs. That worm. Like when they dug out. That worm. That looked like a real worm. Like that was. Kids would love that. Oh my God. That was so gross. I loved it. Yeah. I regret.

[00:27:20] So that's the. That's like the mud cake. Where you take like a sponge. And you basically just crush it up. And turn it into dirt. Yeah. That's what it was. Yeah. Well he made like. Edible soil. Yeah. Fresh cookies and stuff. In like a container. That he. That he piped. Outside with like the. The bright green. I thought his colors. Were amazing. Like they were phenomenal. I agree. Yeah. Oh white chocolate buttercream. Oh so good.

[00:27:50] I love white chocolate. Yeah. But his was so cool. Like. Oh yeah. He. He earned it. And like. You know. Both Paul and Nigella. They didn't have anything bad to say about it. No. I think Nigella said it was perfect. And Paul said it was spot on. Like. Shy of a handshake. You don't get better than that. Yeah. I. I thought Paul might. Do a handshake for a minute. I thought. Yeah. There was a little. Yeah. There's a little arm twitch there. I think he's worried. He's handing it out a lot. But.

[00:28:22] He told Gabe that he could. Make a lot of money selling cake like that. Yeah. Yeah. That worm though. I'm never going to get past that worm. Mm hmm. That was so cool. Like. He's making them. And then I was like. All right. They look cute. But then when it came out. Covered in the dirt and stuff. I was like. Oh man. So moving on to the. The two that. Were less good. I feel like Connie's. Design. Was really.

[00:28:52] Really. Ingenuitive. And if she'd been able to pull it off. And make the Rubik's Cube. Like be able to. To spin the different layers. Um. But she ran into like. The time issues. She ran into the cooling issues. Um. Was this the one where she like. When she went to pull it out. And. Or was that the signature? She had to go pull it out. And like. Almost flipped out of the freezer. That was the signature. The signature? Okay. I think. I mean. But she was hurting on time. This entire episode. Yep. Mm-hmm. The whole.

[00:29:21] The whole thing. Yeah. She was just. At every turn. It was not her day. Or weekend. It was funny. She was like. Oh. This is my chocolate orange cake. And Paul's like. Oh. There's a carrot right there. He's like. Nothing gets past him. Let's. Oh. I forgot to tell you. It was a carrot cake. It's a carrot cake with chocolate orange. She's like. Oh. Oh. Okay. Hence the carrot. Got it. It was just pretty. Very funny. Yeah. And then. While I think. It.

[00:29:51] Was. Well. Put together. together. Um. I see what they mean. With regard to. Gary's. Cauldron. So. There is. An expectation. That if you are looking. Or anticipating something. That. You. And you're going to eat it. You're going to know. What you're looking for. Inside. Inside. And if it. Is part of the design. Whereas like.

[00:30:21] If it was like a challenge. Where it's like. Hey. Make a cake. That looks. Basically. Changes in tone. From decoration. To. Um. To like sponge. He would have won that challenge. Because. The. Dark cake. And. Or rather. Very. Halloweeny. Decoration. Was extremely. Dark. And brooding. But like the inside. When they open it up. Or they cut into it. It was like. Orange.

[00:30:51] And yellow. And like festive. It looked like. Willy Wonka's. Chocolate factory. Like the. The river. And. I was just like. That. Just does feel. Jarring. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't think of a strawberry cake. When you look at. A. Witch's Cauldron. Right. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. Chocolate cake. Maybe. Like the lightest cake. I would think. Would be a carrot cake. They said the strawberry was good. But that his. Icing was gritty. Which also was a big detractor. Yeah. Like you can't get the icing.

[00:31:22] Yeah. Like he. Unfortunately. Saved Connie. Well. I'll say fortunately. Or fortunately. Yeah. I agree. I mean. Because I really. I think. I think Connie just had a rough week. Yeah. I've been calling her my. I've been. Since. Yeah. Episode one. I've been saying she's going to the finals. Yeah. I hope she's able to pull it out. Yeah. Yeah. I think Gary was. She's got a bad week out of her.

[00:31:50] I think Gary was pretty stoked to make it this far. Proud of himself. Yeah. No. I didn't. Didn't he say week three was his goal? Yeah. Yeah. Week three. I mean. Which is. I mean. Hey. Like I think that we made it to week three without anybody being eliminated. Right. Because like. Somebody had to go home. And they didn't eliminate anybody week one. And then. Oh wait. We had one person. Yeah. We had too many people. Week three. Yeah. But. Yeah. I mean.

[00:32:21] Gary was. Like he. He made the effort. And he had his. Real good week. Last week with the. The old. Old bakes. Not old bakes. But like. You know what I mean. Old fashioned bakes. Yeah. And just couldn't. Couldn't quite. Pull it out. Mm hmm. Yeah. This is the part where it gets real. Real. Like. I liked everybody from the beginning. It's been sad to see everybody go. But it gets. The longer this goes on. The harder it is. To see somebody go. For sure.

[00:32:55] I also think that. Paul was right. In that. Like. It's not really. Interactive. Like. There was nothing. Yeah. Just spun. In the thing. And while I thought that was. Cool. Like a cool effect. It. It doesn't really. Like stand up to. Interacting with a kid. Yeah. It's a little underwhelming. I mean. It was probably his most creative. Cake.

[00:33:24] And the most outside of his wheelhouse. That he's done. But it didn't quite. Match the challenge. It just missed the mark. Like he definitely went out of his comfort zone to do it. I thought it was cute that he was thinking of his brother. Yeah. Absolutely. Well. One thing that I think they said. They were like. You know. You. You. You spent too much time making it look good. And not enough time making sure that it. Tasted right. And. You know. The.

[00:33:54] The cream was good. Or the icing was good. And. But. But. I will say. That I thought it looked really really good. Yeah. It did. It looked really cool. Like. Halloween party. That cake's there. Yeah. No one's complaining about that. Yeah. Even if it's strawberry. Like strawberry. Yeah. Just give him a heads up. Freighted kid likes strawberry. Leave it be. Yep.

[00:34:19] All right. So. We've alluded to it. We haven't officially said it. But. Gary left the tent this week. Gary. I mean. Like we said. He's. He had a. He had a good run. Yeah. He had a couple of really good weeks. And. You know. As. As you guys said. Like. We're getting tight. Yeah. It is.

[00:34:49] It is small mistakes. Or just small differences. You can't afford. To. Not have a good week. Yeah. And. And you're. You're. Going to go home. If. If you. Even if everything you did was great. But just not as great. As your. Your competitors. Yeah. Yeah. But. On the happier note. Gabe beat up Tom for Starbaker. Woo.

[00:35:19] And he was so excited. Watching his enthusiasm. Was so much fun. He was. Yeah. But. They definitely have like. A little bit of friendly. Competitor. Vibes. Going on. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I like that. I'm glad Gabe got his shot. I'm trying to think. Has Mo ever. Had Starbaker? Uh. Week one. I think. Okay. I feel like he.

[00:35:48] Won week one or two. Okay. Because Tom had three of them. This is week seven. One. Connie's had one. So I don't think. Moyen has had one. Right? No. I don't think so. So maybe next week. Will be Moyen's week. Yeah. I don't think he has. And we're down to. Yeah. We're down to five. Right? Yeah. So Gabe. Moyen. Tom. Yeah. And Connie. Going into the quarterfinals next week. Yeah. I mean. I'm glad that.

[00:36:16] A woman made it into the quarterfinals. Yeah. Me too. So. But. I feel like. I feel like the way that they are going. Gabe. Mo. And Tom. Are you like. Moyen and Connie need to. Yeah. Pull some stuff together. I agree. Last week. I thought Mo was a little bit on the downside. Yeah. Like I thought. You know. His lackadaisicalness was going to catch up with him. Yeah. But apparently not. He. Yeah. He's pulling it out.

[00:36:47] Yeah. Yeah. He. I mean. I think that he had a really good week. Yeah. Yeah. All of the things that he made. Looked. Really. Really good. Mm-hmm. I don't know. Where did he fin up on. Okay. He did the bear. Mm-hmm. On the technical. But. Yeah. It looked good. Yeah. I like. I've just never seen him look stressed. He doesn't even look upset when they give him bad feedback. Yeah. Like.

[00:37:17] Yeah. Like. Okay. Like I said. The only time I've seen like a legit smile on his face. Is when he got the handshake. Yeah. But even then. When they interviewed him about him later. He's like. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't. Eh. In the moment. It was not. Eh. In the moment. Sir. Yeah. I agree. I saw your face. The one thing I have a note on. Tom was playing that like. Serial box in the mouth game. Has anybody seen that before? Or is that something his family. He made a cereal box in the mouth.

[00:37:47] So they were using. He was. Yeah. Basically bending over. And put getting. Using his teeth to pick up the cereal box off the floor. But it wasn't a cereal box. They were. The splits. Yeah. They were using. Oh. They were using a grater. Because they didn't have a cereal box. But he's like. Oh. The cereal box game. And like. I've never. What is he talking about? Allison's like. What? That's what they're doing in England. Oh no. Or his family made it. Sometimes families make up weird stuff. Yeah. Like we gotta keep the kids busy. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

[00:38:15] I love that Allison is willing to do these things. That she. It's like. I don't. I'm stuck. I can't. I'm not. I cannot get up. Yeah. When she went flying over the bench last year. Yeah. That was so funny. Yeah. I love her. I can't imagine it without her anymore. Yeah. Yeah. She just brings some brightness. Yeah. And I. I like Nigella too. I think she's great.

[00:38:44] I think they're good together. I. I. I love that she's not like. She just goes for it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I hope we get several more seasons of this crew. Yeah. Yeah. This crew is fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean. Noel and Allison. Like. I was. I think I sent you guys the. The. The Noel. Video of Noel saying. Oh we just finished Bikoff. And. Allison's my favorite person in the world. And. Aw. I was like. Aw.

[00:39:13] It's so awesome. But Bikoff put up this week. Noel and Allison racing sticks under a bridge. I didn't see that. I haven't seen that yet. Yeah. The winner got to go kiss Paul. Oh my god. And like Allison won. And she's like. I'm going to go kiss Paul. Nice. Noel's like. I've already done that today anyway. There was. I saw. It was like Allison.

[00:39:43] And I don't know when this was. I don't know if it was recently or not. But it was. She was on like a BBC talk show. And. It was. Her audition for. Being host of Bikoff. And. Wow. And it was. It was like. Her and Noel. Like Noel standing next to her. And. They're like. Oh. Do you watch Bikoff? Uh. No. Not really. I've heard about it. Oh. You could be a host of a show that you. Don't actually watch. Yeah. Know about. And. I mean.

[00:40:12] But it looked even then. Like. And she was like. Oh. That's the first time I met Noel. And. Like. We've been basically best friends. Ever since. I was like. Aw. Aw. That's awesome. That's the best part of the show. Is the genuine friendships that are made. Like. I still follow. Bakers of past. And you see them getting together. Hanging out. Like. It's awesome. Yeah. And then. The other thing. Bake Off posted on their socials today. And it was like. Just before we got. Not that long ago today. Baby pictures of all the contestants. Oh my.

[00:40:43] Or like. Like little kid. Not baby baby. But like little kid. Like. They were so cute. Oh my gosh. I want to go see baby Moe. Baby Gary was pretty darn cute. Aw. Yeah. Next week. We will cover episode eight.

[00:41:12] From series 17. The quarterfinals. Caramel week. I love caramel. Oh yeah. What do they say? They say. They say caramel. Right. And like. Some people say caramel. I think I say caramel. I feel like they say it. I honestly use it interchangeably. It depends on. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it depends on what I'm saying. Like if. Yeah. If something just sounds better with a care in front of it. Then. Yeah. Like. It's just. It's just weird. Caramel. Caramel. But if it's fancy. Caramel. If it's fancy. I'll be like.

[00:41:42] Oh well this is a caramel cake. Yesterday I was podcasting on Yellow Jackets. And I couldn't say subsequently. To save my life. Subsequently. So that's funny. Because. Because I say subsequently. I do believe that is how you're supposed to say it. Which is what was confusing me. And so. I kept trying. And the more I would think about it. The more. It's like. It's. I don't know if Jason's gonna edit that out or not. But.

[00:42:13] Subsequently. Yeah. That's hard to say. Yes. Subsequently. English is so hard. I have to like slow down. English is so hard. Yeah. I think if I was. If I was trying to put the emphasis on. Subsequently. Like. I would. I would struggle. Because I'd just be like. No. The flow is off. Like. I just. Like. I have to put. It might be opposite. When I'm trying to say it right. It. It. Screws me up. So. Yeah.

[00:42:43] I'm now gonna think of you every time I see subsequently. Subsequently. There you go. You got it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well. So if you want to write in. Or leave us a message. Or say subsequently. You can find all of our contact information. At podcastica.com While you're there. Be sure to check out our other shows. Yellow Jackets is coming back November 20th. I am so excited.

[00:43:13] And boy. I watched the trailer for the first time. And it looks so good. I haven't watched it. I'm trying not to watch it. I just did it just for the podcast. This week. Yep. Um. And I am looking forward to. But there. It's bloody Amazon. Again. I know. Dropping for. The first. That's what Penny was saying. Yeah. And then like three the second week. Yeah. That's crazy. It's like the entire season is gonna be done. And. But it's gonna be like nine hours. Yeah. Because each episode is like an hour and five to ten minutes.

[00:43:44] Yeah. And it's so much. Like those. Those shows. Like. Because they get so deep into like the. Silmarillion. I think. Yeah. All the appendices and all that. Like it is crazy. Yeah. I guess maybe they can't do the Silmarillion. But only the appendices. I don't know. Whatever it is. Mm-hmm. Um. But yeah. That's. I'm looking forward to that. I need to go back and watch the first two seasons. It's two seasons. Right? Yeah. Two. The first two seasons of Rings of Power. Mm-hmm.

[00:44:13] Um. I'm not caught up. All right. I started it. I went. This makes me think too much. And I stopped. It does make you think a lot. Who is what? What? It's like. What is going on? There's rebellion. And wait. I've heard that name before. Was that a good guy or a bad guy? Or. Yeah. I just. It's certainly beautiful. I'll be dead honest. It's so beautifully filmed. Yeah. Oh, it's gorgeous. If you have the bandwidth to do it. I highly recommend it. Yellow Jackets, on the other hand. That I'm down for. Oh, yeah.

[00:44:42] And also now I've got to listen to the podcast and see if you. If you're subsequently makes it or not. Greg, have you watched Yellow Jackets? I've watched the first two seasons or maybe three seasons. I feel like I didn't watch the last season. And I only got halfway through the season before that. And maybe not even halfway. Well, this is season four. And this is the last season. Okay. They're ending it. So I've watched all of season two. And then like an episode or two of season three. Yeah.

[00:45:11] It's good. I mean, I. It's so good. Three goes off the rails in the best way. Like. Well, I feel like I kept hearing about it. Yeah. If I hadn't like listened to people talking about it, I might have been more. Kind of like the boys. Like the boys. Like season three or whatever was supposed to get absolutely crazy, gory. And like, I just kept hearing. It kept hyping it up. Or at least like expanding on how rough it was going to be.

[00:45:38] And I was just like, I don't know that I want to build that. All of the things. I mean, it's definitely a dark show. Yeah. But that's why I haven't done Handmaidens too. Because I don't want. Now I'm feeling slightly better about our future. So maybe I'll watch it. But for a very long time, I was like, you know what? I don't want that in my fiction life right now. I will say that, I mean, is it five seasons? Yeah.

[00:46:08] It's five seasons. So it's a lot. And they're dense episodes. But it does get you to a good place. But you gotta suffer a lot. I was not in a place where that was going to work for me. So I have not watched Handmaidens Tale. I know everybody else has. And everybody loves it. I just. Yeah. I feel like. Well, it's something I don't rewatch. Yeah. I really don't rewatch it. Yeah. I feel like I'm getting to a better place. And maybe.

[00:46:37] Maybe I can watch it. Yeah. Again. Not there yet. I've only watched like through season two. But Yellow Jackets. Yellow Jackets. I can watch Yellow Jackets. I enjoy. Even though it's heavy and dark. It's also. Interesting and fun. And. Yeah. Are you going to use the word fun? But it's really fictional. You know, it's like Friday the 13th. It's dark material, but it's very fictional. Not like Handmaid's Tale, which is really not fictional. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:47:06] Yellow Jackets feels. Yeah. That's it. It's fictional. Yeah. It doesn't feel real at all. Like that's what makes it. Easy. More palatable. Yeah. Let's go with. I agree. So just as far as like that uncomfortability, like. Mm-hmm. I started watching Wonder Man. I made it five minutes in. And. I don't know if you guys have watched it yet, but. Mm-mm. Like. So basically. Wonder Man. It's one of the Marvel shows. Oh, okay. And Gingsley and.

[00:47:37] Mahershala Ali. I think. Um. And. He. They are. Like he's an actor. He's like a day player. He's like giving the director notes for his. 40 seconds on scene. And I'm just like. Oh, this is so. Like. I don't want to watch this anymore. Because it's just so uncomfortable. Like that's the level of uncomfortable that I am having a hard time with right now. Like. Yeah. I just don't know that I could do.

[00:48:07] Eating other people. Or the rest of the horrible things. That happen to them in the wilderness. Or whatever. That's fair. That's completely fair. Like. I was shocked. I watched one episode of Welcome to Derry. And that was it. I was like. The first episode's rough. Like. The first. The first cold open is rough. I want to see. I do want to watch that. That Halloween episode that came out. Yeah. I've got to watch that. I need. I need to watch it. But I just need. I need to. Maybe this weekend. I can force the time.

[00:48:37] Or maybe once school's over. In December. I'll have time to. Do more stuff. And Dexter's back. School for me. That's right. You say Dexter's. That's on my list. Dexter's back. Now too. I watched the first episode. Wait. This is like. Final. Final blood. Or is this resurrection now? I don't know what. Like Dexter's got more lines of Jason now. Resurrection. Yeah. Resurrection. Yeah. But they didn't. They never killed him. Killed him. Yeah. It was like. Final blood. Or final something. Right?

[00:49:10] So yeah. Dexter. What was it called? It was New Blood? New Blood. Yeah. Okay. That's. I was. It was. I was like. Because I watched. I think. So yeah. So like. I watched into the Trinity Killer season. So I. I never. I never finished it. Because Jake was like. Eight. And.

[00:49:40] I just. Yeah. I couldn't go sit in my room for hours on end. Watching it. And I'd already done that with the first two seasons. So. Okay. It ended. Terribly. Tony will defend it. He is the only person I have met that will defend the ending. Go subscribe and leave a review for Bakedastica on Apple Podcast. On your marks. Get set.