290 "Chocolate Week" GBBO Collection 11 E4

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome to our bonus podcast segment dedicated to the Great British Baking Show. This week we are covering Collection 11 Episode 4, Chocolate Week! So many people's favorite, Chocolate Week. Not my favorite, but I was very impressed this week.

[00:00:26] Yeah, well there's so many things you can do with chocolate and how they incorporate chocolate so all kinds of goodness that we can talk about. But I know I'll say it's so good to see you guys again. We all just got back from our fun weekend.

[00:00:40] Just left each other. It was such an amazing weekend and great people to hang out with and it was just a blast. Yeah, I need like a week's vacation after my week's vacation. I need to.

[00:00:54] I didn't have a week, but yeah, I definitely need some recovery time for sure. It was a lot packed into a weekend. I'm not sure if everyone follows our social media or not, but I did post a pretty awesome

[00:01:08] picture that was taken of me and Greg and Wendy enjoying or getting ready to enjoy, we hadn't cut into it just yet, a delicious little bake that y'all had found at a lovely bakery there in Boston. That was super fun and super yummy. It was very moussey.

[00:01:27] Geometric apple cheesecake mousse and some filling. Yeah, apple filling and yeah, it was pretty dang good. Yeah, it was tasty. It was very yummy and just beautiful. It was almost just too pretty to cut into. It really was.

[00:01:45] I can't imagine what goes into making that, like the decorations just to have somebody go, argh. I know. I think I'm like as much as what I've talked about when we cover bake off, like I enjoy

[00:01:59] cooking or baking for people and presenting and seeing everyone's reactions, at least when it turns out well anyway. I don't think I've made anything that's been icky or anything, but I always enjoy seeing the reactions of people when they're enjoying something that I've made.

[00:02:14] But I think if I was that talented to make something so beautiful and then to see someone when we watch bake off and you see these amazing showstoppers that just look like these amazing

[00:02:25] works of art and then you see someone cut into it, my heart breaks a little. Oh, it's- And Paul's just like, let's see the inside. Yeah, he's like- That looks fine. Let's see what's on the inside. Yeah, his ginormous knife. That was a little bit dry. Yeah.

[00:02:38] And you're just like, oh, that works. A crestfallen. Yeah. But yep, amazing weekend with y'all and the rest of our Zed friends. As usual with our annual getaway, can't wait for the next one.

[00:02:53] I know we literally just came off of this one and I've seen everyone already throwing out plans for the next. I'm so ready though. Really miss everyone. That just means we did it right. We are left wanting more. Yeah, absolutely. Good way to put it.

[00:03:08] Good way to put it. All right, so on with this week's bake off, which is chocolate week. Chocolate week's always a challenge every year. And I don't know, I'm wanting to go back and look at the other seasons of chocolate

[00:03:24] week because do they literally plan it out for like the hottest day of the year or what? Yeah, I think they do. And I feel like they were just wearing sweaters last week. Like what happened? They were wearing them this week. Yes.

[00:03:38] Noel and Dana were wearing, like, oh, the kid's got jumpers on. I mean, Noel always wears sweaters, but- Yeah. He does. But yeah, no, it was another hot one, which is some of my comments.

[00:03:50] They must save it for like we have to wait and see what the weather's going to be like this weekend. Oh, we have a spike in temperature. Chocolate week. Chocolate week sounds good. That's really going to present a challenge. Yeah.

[00:04:02] It's like, well, darn, we were going to do pastry week, but well, we're going to do chocolate instead. It'd be really interesting to see how well everyone or maybe still not well does if the

[00:04:15] weather were a little bit more cooperative, where they weren't having to worry about everything melting. I think that we could go back to, this is 11? Back to collection eight, because that was the one done in COVID.

[00:04:31] And they held it off because they didn't actually, they either completely skipped a year or they did it in like, they recorded it in like the fall. I feel like they recorded it in the fall where it was not nearly as crazy hot.

[00:04:45] So I think maybe I'll go do that tonight. Just take a look at chocolate week and in collection eight. It's always fun to go back and revisit previous seasons because they're just all so lovely. And the bakers get to see some of our old favorites. All right.

[00:05:02] So for the signature this week, the bakers were challenged with making a chocolate tort. They had two and a half hours to make their chocolate tort and they weren't allowed to use wheat flour, which I thought was an interesting. I have a question. Yes.

[00:05:20] Now as people who bake, as opposed to people who eat baking goods, would a tort normally have wheat flour? No. I don't think so. Well then why would they make that a requirement?

[00:05:39] I think they were just kind of, I mean like there's so many different ways you can do things. So I think they were just kind of laying the rules down. Okay. So that was basically like, Hey, you know, we know that you can make it with wheat flour,

[00:05:54] but we are going to say we want a classically made. You can make it however it is that you want. You just can't use wheat flour because that's like a cheating element. You can't bend your interpretation. Gotcha. Okay. What do you think?

[00:06:07] It felt almost like a, it felt almost like a top chef challenge or hell's kitchen or whatever the hell kind of show that takes away one of the, Oh, you can't use forks. Well what the hell is this?

[00:06:21] So that's how it felt like, but then maybe that was just because that's what is normally made. I'm just looking it up online because I honestly could not tell you for sure.

[00:06:36] I think that you can use flour, but I think traditionally they are used like the nut flours like they use here with either, or you could use little or no flour. I'm reading. I'm definitely not the expert.

[00:06:54] I think we need prue like Rowan said, like, I have no idea. Go ask prue. Like what is a chocolate tort? So they are dense and that's one thing that makes them or it can contribute to how dense they are is the lack of like the flour.

[00:07:10] Anytime you use a, like one of those nut flours, it, I've used it not exactly with chocolate tort, but in other baking things, just experimenting a little and it, it does make a lot more dense.

[00:07:23] So there was definitely a challenge there that they had making this chocolate tort. Yeah, I've cooked with like almond flour and coconut flour and things like that. And it's pretty good. I've never tried to like make something that looks like a flour cake with those things though.

[00:07:42] Those are usually just things I've been adding in. So a tort is two sponges with some sort of cream or between and then covered in the chocolate. Yeah, I mean, it looks in a general way on Wikipedia.

[00:08:01] It says a rich, usually multi-layered cake that is filled with whipped cream, butter creams, mousses, jams or fruit. Okay. Well, yeah, that's, that's pretty much what they did. I mean, that's, but, but also like that's cake, right? A sponge is cake, right? Yeah.

[00:08:21] But then it does later say may instead be made with little to no flour using ingredients such as ground nuts or bread crumbs. I didn't mean to make it sponsored by Wikipedia. I just, I wasn't trying to make a research.

[00:08:36] It's used often here on the podcast because you know, I don't, I don't always know, but looking at like what Wendy was just reading that, that makes sense and how the consistency would be a little different between a cake with those ingredients versus the tort using

[00:08:56] either ground nuts or bread crumbs in the place of like flour. Like that, that's just like, right. It's just like one of the ones that kind of stood out to me was I love pecans and Josh

[00:09:08] making it with pecans, which you know, they're, Paul was talking about the oil coming out and can make it, but then he executed it well and it was just like, Ooh, I was like, that sounds real good. I love pecans too. I really do. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:24] That sounds really good. I love pecans. One of my favorite sweets is praline or praline like pecan pralines. Ooh, those are, those are real good. And uh, and they, a couple of them had like a crunchy praline center to it.

[00:09:40] I think Tasha had, yeah, she had the ginger tort with amaretto with a praline white chocolate ganache. I was like all of those words really work well with that. Try that. Yeah. Hers did sound really interesting. I thought it was a bold choice with the ginger. Yeah, definitely.

[00:10:01] Something a little different. And I think the judges, the judges always want something a little bit different. I really liked the use. I think it was smart and of course obviously not having tasted any of them and can't really recall.

[00:10:14] I mean, I may have had a chocolate tort. Honestly, I just honestly don't remember if you just put something chocolate in front of me, I'm probably going to eat it and not ask questions honestly.

[00:10:22] So it's, I've probably had one, but to me it, I think some of the more successful, not everyone, but I think some of the bakers were a little bit more successful. The ones that had the thinner, I know they're not sponges, but the thinner layers of their

[00:10:37] chocolate tort and had some of the, you know, either like the mousse or their fruits and things in between to kind of break down some of that dense texture of the tort since it is so dense.

[00:10:50] You know, when you've got a really thick, you know, slab of chocolate tort, it's a lot. And I think Prue even said one of them, was it Nikki's or someone's that she was like, oh, that's, she's like, it's delicious, but it's really dense.

[00:11:05] You wouldn't be able to eat a lot of it. Yeah. Nikki had that, I think on a couple situations this week where it was, oh, that's super rich. I think it was a showstopper was that it was really, really rich. And this one was super dense.

[00:11:20] Oh, you wouldn't be able to eat a lot of it. You wouldn't be. I remember them saying it a couple times and I was like. Challenge accepted. Is that not, is that good? Is that not bad? Is that bad that you can't eat a lot of it?

[00:11:31] I mean. Yeah, I've had rich, I mean, but I think I like rich desserts. Yeah. Yeah. Did y'all have a favorite signature? Was there any ones that really stood out that, I mean, Greg, you mentioned one, but did you

[00:11:46] have another that you thought either presented really nicely as far as the aesthetics or just the flavors? Well, so Rowan's, that was the one with the flavors that I would really be impressed with, which is like the mocha, espresso and chocolate. And I'm a sucker for contrast.

[00:12:13] You have the chocolate with the white, like the coffee flavor in the cake and then the white chocolate in the cream or in the filling. And I really enjoy that, especially, I really liked the way that that looked.

[00:12:33] He was actually, I was more impressed with him this week, even after he did well last week, after the. The whole controversy. Yeah. The controversy. But yeah, no, I was actually pretty, I was really impressed with his, I thought that

[00:12:49] again, Maddie with the hazelnut, praline, mousse, that's what it is. And but Rowan specifically, that was the one that was only made with egg whites and no flour of any type and oh, it's smushed because you didn't have any. So, so was the egg whites and stuff?

[00:13:09] Was that in the mousse or was that in the cake? I think it was in the cake. I think that was to help. Wasn't he using that instead of like a flour or like the flour?

[00:13:22] I just don't understand how that wouldn't end up like a meringue with like the whipped egg whites and then I guess they were folding it in. But yeah, but then yeah, I was, I was just a little confused. It looked phenomenal when they put it together.

[00:13:39] It was all baked. I just didn't understand what was going and where because as you say that you think it was in the cake, that makes sense because there was a ton of that almost ended up like

[00:13:48] batter and it wouldn't make sense that that would be just the filling but. Having trouble getting past the folding it in. Fold it in. Fold it to cheese. As one does. Just fold it in. Fold it in. Never gets old. Can't help you. I can't, I can't do.

[00:14:07] I can't tell you everything. I also thought Rowan's looked beautiful. I mean he seemed really excited that he had done so well. And to me it looked the most like it came right out of a bakery case. Of all of them. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:32] The, uh, the other one that I wanted to try was Maddie's for the, uh, I get stuck on specific like types of flavors and like, oh yeah, the hazelnut praline was really good.

[00:14:44] The only thing that would put me off with the Amaretto was that Amaretto is one of my like really, really bad first get hammered and be sick, uh, experiences. So I have a really hard time with super sweet Amaretto made with like a hint of it in this.

[00:14:58] I might be okay. Maybe with the offsetting by the ginger or the white chocolate. Yeah, they liked that and it looked good. Like the sides were a little bit messy, but overall that looked really chocolaty and rich and good. I, yeah, that looked good. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:15] Matt Maddie's looked really good. Um, I agree. I'd go for that chocolate and hazelnut for sure. I did think it was funny that Danny was like, oh, I don't like torts. Like it was like, good luck with this. Not even tasting her own.

[00:15:28] She's like, yeah, I just don't, right. I'm for him. Didn't have a clue how hers was. Can I taste the cherry? Uh, maybe. What do you mean? Oh, I don't, I haven't tasted it. I'm assuming it's going to be good. I don't like torts.

[00:15:38] I was like, well, I can, I feel like a girl. I thought Nikki's looked really beautiful. Very striking. Yeah. Very pretty. She was ambitious and she was doing something a little out of the box and they really, they liked the shine on hers.

[00:15:56] They liked the taste and she really skipped off to, um, them calling her cool, classic and elegant. And she was really excited about that. Yeah. High praise. How about you, Rama? Uh, well we talked about Maddie's.

[00:16:11] I, I know that Christie's didn't turn out as far as like, I guess the flavors they said that or at least it was dry, um, and stating it didn't have any flavor, but I liked the

[00:16:23] idea of it because I thought the chocolate and cherry, I love that combination. So it sounded really great, but I guess she didn't execute it very well based on their response. So that was a bit of a bummer.

[00:16:37] Obviously I can't judge the taste or anything, but, but I thought it was really sweet too because after, uh, Paul's like, it just doesn't really hardly have any flavor. And Allison is just a lovely addition. She has, she's just like so nice.

[00:16:51] Like she jumps in and she's like, does that mean it doesn't have any calories? I like her. I think she's really good. She fits in well. She does. She's funny and she's just kind to, you know, um, it just seems natural.

[00:17:06] So I thought that was really nice as well. But so I liked the idea of Christie's, I guess she just didn't quite pull it off. And then yeah, Nikki's as well. Nikki's and Maddie's I think are probably all the ones that I would probably favor the

[00:17:19] most to try. I thought they were beautiful, but you know, still had some struggles. Uh, it's like there were some good ones, but I didn't really see anyone blowing out the judges like, Whoa, this is great.

[00:17:36] It was, it was either it looks good, but doesn't taste quite right. Or it doesn't look very good, but it tastes really good. I think, I think Rowan's was the closest to that, to getting the best of both worlds.

[00:17:49] But I think that, I mean, I would say Maddie too. And I think that's one of the reasons that he ended up with Starbaker was that, yeah, was that he, he was in like that top quarter of each event. He had a really, really good week.

[00:18:02] Yeah, he did. Yeah, he did. It was nice to see. I had to Google sucker tort that Saku was making. I was like, Oh, it's literally just two pieces of cake with stuff and you know, with the apricot jam in between. All right. I just love her. Fancy.

[00:18:19] I did me too. Like, Oh, new day, new, new week. Still old me. Popping raspberries in her mouth. I love that she just pop it. Saku, did you just put 40 raspberries in your mouth? She's like pop, pop, pop. Yeah. No apologies. No apologies. She's so sweet. So sweet.

[00:18:31] Yeah. And I did think she was having a bad week. Her writing on her cake, it didn't look great. It did kind of childlike. And they said that it was a bad week. And I was like, Oh, I don't know. I mean, I don't know.

[00:18:38] I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I understand what they mean. And it wasn't so much a, like, I'm just going to, I understand this makes it sound like

[00:19:07] we're going to talk about all of them, but I did. I wanted to, uh, I do want to just acknowledge that Dan tried something different. It didn't end up amazing. Uh, but the chili chocolate, uh, with the Mexican fruit, he went overboard with the booze.

[00:19:23] Like I, I respect the fact that he did almost like a savory ish chocolate cake. Um, yeah, I just worry because I think when he goes astray, it doesn't work. It hasn't been working out. Yeah. If, if he, if he, if something doesn't work, it really doesn't.

[00:19:44] And he obviously has a lot of talent and yeah, can do well. He is very talented. I maybe what he needs to do is follow every time he wants to kind of do something a little different and really be bold and challenge himself.

[00:20:01] Maybe he needs to think like, you know what? Maybe I carried a little too far. Maybe I need to reel it in just a little bit when I decided to do that, like don't

[00:20:09] go as far, like maybe what he thinks is just right is too far for everyone else. So maybe take a few little baby steps backwards and maybe he'll really nail it. You know, the saying was figure out what'll kill me and then back it off by a little

[00:20:24] bit. Like, yeah, just like, Hey, Hey, think about what you think it would be really daring. Then back it off. Then like remove two elements, like don't make it as complex. And then you can concentrate on all of those.

[00:20:39] And I just think, I think that if he, I don't think he needs to have all of the daring do I don't get me wrong. Like I can appreciate the panache to try and like the confidence in your abilities to try to blow the judges away.

[00:20:52] But if you just back it off by just a little bit and then do those perfectly, like I just, I feel like that's a recipe for success. Haha. Recipe. Nice. All right. So the technical challenge this week was a white chocolate cheesecake.

[00:21:10] So they had to make six identical cheesecakes with a caramelized white chocolate filling on top of an Oatty biscuit base with blackcurrant jelly and white chocolate decoration. I've never seen anything like that before. And I didn't know that you could caramelize white chocolate.

[00:21:29] I didn't know you could caramelize chocolate. And it seemed like to caramelize white chocolate, if you did it for 107 seconds, it was not caramelized enough. And if you did it for 109 seconds, it was burnt. So you had to get it right in there.

[00:21:48] So the problem is that if you have the feedback of 30 seconds, like if you have that 30 seconds, they'll never forget to do it 30 seconds at a 30 second burst instead of Rowan's minute and a half burst. I was like, what? Yeah. That's a lot of bursts, man.

[00:22:09] That's like an extended. Putting it in for like three seconds at a time. That one piece of information, that one number. Again, it was good for a technical because, hey, do you know? Hell no we don't know.

[00:22:27] And that's why we end up with like a six not great ones. And then one that was a little bit pretty decent and then one that was really good. They really struggled with this. Oh yeah. They did.

[00:22:41] Well, and again, as we talked about at the start, such a hot day. Every one of these, I think they were... Well, and here's another thing. I know this is a challenge and it's a competition, but two hours? You can't set cheesecake in that amount of time.

[00:23:01] And I just feel like I get it. It's supposed to be difficult. It's supposed to be, can you rise to the challenge and rise above that? But it's like, wow. It's almost like, at least in this technical challenge, I won't say all of them, but this

[00:23:16] one for sure. I think I mentioned it in another episode. It's like they're setting them up for failure almost. And plus it was so freaking hot. Yeah. I was going to say that either you or Wendy mentioned it a couple of weeks ago and it

[00:23:30] was basically like, oh yeah, if they'd had two and a half hours, then everybody might have been much easier. How many times did they say during the... Oh, it was bread week. It was because, oh, under-proved, under-proved, under-proved, under-proved.

[00:23:46] So like they even said in the technical, or rather in the judging, oh, if this person had another half hour, they would have been... This would have been a much... Rowan's I think. If he'd had another half hour, he would have done...

[00:24:00] This would have been very, very good. Enough time to let it freaking cool so that you can actually put your shit on. I make a homemade pumpkin cheesecake. It's really good. It's one of my favorite things. But I'm telling you, that's like an all day thing. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:16] It takes a half hour to drain the pumpkin. There's a lot of waiting in between steps, so I just can't imagine. It seems really challenging. Yeah. I just feel like they're having to battle the heat, but also the very...

[00:24:33] And I'm not saying give them all day or anything, but it's like two whole hours just is not... Maybe two and a half, something. I don't know. I think it was Nikki in 215. Yeah. Right. I think it was Nikki, right?

[00:24:47] Who said, that's a lot to do in two hours. Yeah. It seems like a lot. Especially when it's hot and that's when Tasha seemed to have trouble with the heat. Right. Poor Tasha. Yeah. We haven't talked about that yet, but she did participate in the signature.

[00:25:07] And during the technical, it's that darn caramelized chocolate. She went down and- They all looked really hot. Yeah. Yeah. They were all talking about the heat. And I don't know if also that she had mentioned she'd had a migraine the day before, and if

[00:25:26] that had kind of just really put her off to... She might've been dehydrated or something. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of exacerbated it. But I was like feeling really bad for her. And then they get her up and then they go sit her out in the freaking sun.

[00:25:42] I'm hoping they took her away and put her in air conditioning. Although it's England, do they have air conditioning? So that's exactly what I said. I said, one of my notes is no AC in the UK.

[00:25:55] And it's not that they have none, but for this thing in particular, if you have a medic tent, one, is the tent closed off? I think I need to get some air. I guess maybe it gets hot out of there with all the ovens and stuff.

[00:26:10] I think they have sides on it. Yeah. I have seen them in different types of weather, if I can remember correctly. But I feel like I've seen before where sometimes they have the sides up sometimes, but most often you'll see them down.

[00:26:27] And they've got ovens going on in there. It's a closed tent. It has to probably get pretty warm in there even when they're in the cooler months and on the rainy days and such.

[00:26:39] I'm just like, you're taking her out of this hot tent and then just plopping her in the middle of... They're carrying out a chair. Let's go sit you out in the sun while we talk to you about how hot you are and how you almost passed out.

[00:26:53] Maybe it's breezy out there. I guess we are making an oven by having a bunch of ovens inside of a tent. So maybe that is the cooler place. And maybe they sat her down somewhere and gave her a cool drink and a fan.

[00:27:07] Well, Allison, again, so sweet and so kind. She came and got her and was like, come on, let's get you inside. But yeah, I do wonder if they have maybe a little medical tent that is maybe air conditioning. And I thought I read...

[00:27:21] I don't know this for sure, so I don't want to state it as fact or anything. But I thought I had read that... Because it's like, well, why can't they have any type of air coolers or some type of air

[00:27:33] conditioning unit or something on those tents when they're that hot like that? And I thought I'd heard that they didn't like doing that because of the noise. You can hear them while they're filming. I don't know if that's true, so I definitely don't want to...

[00:27:48] I also think they have this very simple method. It's been the same pretty much. It hasn't changed in all these years and it's one of the most popular shows in Britain. And so they're sticking with it. Climate change though, man.

[00:28:06] The idea that they all have to deal with the same conditions and, oh, well, hey, maybe if somebody in season four had an air conditioning tent, maybe they wouldn't have been as flustered for whatever reason or whatever. I understand it.

[00:28:21] I understand, hey, this is the integrity of the show, right? The integrity of the rules. We keep the same rules. And it's just what you have to deal with if you become a contestant. I get it. Having said that, it still sucks.

[00:28:35] Yeah, it just seems like a lot. I get it. We've had a lot of other challenges in the extreme heat where they've had to deal with... I think there was one time there was a Baked Alaska challenge and it was hot. Yeah, I remember that.

[00:28:51] And then there's been the really rainy days and I don't know if it was bread or what they were... It might've been a bread week, but they were trying to do something, but the moist air

[00:29:02] from the rain, just the constant dampness and precipitation that they had dealt with really messed with their bakes that day too. They just couldn't get the consistencies right. They couldn't do... It was just goofing with everything. There's always that challenge with the weather.

[00:29:16] It's one of those, but it's always a little worrisome though when it affects someone medically. Of course, of course. It's like, can we get some cooling towels then to help cool people down or something if we can't have air conditioning units or something like that.

[00:29:34] But hopefully Tasha, I think she's supposed to be back for the next week and hopefully she was feeling better after that. So yeah, I've never had one of those little cheesecakes, but I definitely eat one and they all struggled. That is for sure. Dan did really well.

[00:29:51] He did. Really good. Despite those challenges, yeah. He came out on top and Maddie was second. Yep. Yeah. And then Rowan third, all kind of were struggling along the way in the last few episodes.

[00:30:09] The jelly, Rowan was talking about the gelatine and just like the fact that they made it into like a little flap. I was just like, I can't imagine biting into that and being like, yeah, that's good. I just, I don't know. It's just the visual of it.

[00:30:26] The fact that maybe when it's like melted on something, I just like, I like my jelly in semi liquid form. Like out of a jar of peanut butter. Yeah, out of a jar. Yeah, exactly.

[00:30:39] Like that's, I'm not a big, big like, you know, oh, I can wave my jelly. Don't like jello in a- Oh no, then you probably wouldn't like that. Yeah, then you probably wouldn't because that's essentially what it is. Just a very much thinner version of like jello. Yeah.

[00:30:56] So when they said jelly, I was like, oh, jelly. Okay. Like they can smear it on or whatever. No, no, no. It's you have to make this like little flap that you can just like hold up.

[00:31:06] It almost looks like a piece of salami, like super thin piece of salami waving around. I like to make cookies like that, like thumbprint cookies with gelatin in them. And that's really good. I'd have to go try it. I mean, if I'm wrong, I wouldn't have any issues.

[00:31:18] It's like a famous like Christmas cookie. Oh wait, no, I think, see, I always think of those, I don't think of them as like the gelatine style. I always think of them as, oh, somebody put some jelly in here and that's really- Well, I think the- Jammie Dodgers?

[00:31:34] What the UK considers jelly and what we consider jelly. Right. To me, it's like almost like a jello type consistency. I mean, I'm sure much better than what they're making versus what you might make out of the box.

[00:31:50] But I think essentially I'm thinking more of the consistency is more what I was thinking that type of solid-ish, like a jello consistency. That was just my issue with it. I think if it's in like that nice thin little slice that they had, I could do that.

[00:32:11] I do have some consistency issues like with a big bite of like jello or something. It depends on the day. Honestly, some days it's fine. Other days it might be like, no, get that away from me.

[00:32:23] But I think if it's like a nice little thin and the black currant, I mean, that sounded really yummy. Like definitely. Yes. But a struggle because it was hot and that it just it looks kind of icky because then it was like melting all over.

[00:32:37] And that did not look very appetizing, honestly. Yeah, the Chantilly cream and the black currant jelly like melting together like, oh. Yeah. Ew. Not pretty. We had Saku come in last place, Kristy in seventh, Josh in sixth. So I think Kristy and Saku were struggling this week. Yeah.

[00:33:00] I think they really kind of got a reprieve. They got really lucky that Tasha was not there. Yep. Yeah, I'm really worried about next week since they decided, OK, well, we didn't eliminate anyone this week. We're eliminating two bakers next week. I'm really worried.

[00:33:25] And it'll be interesting to see who can rise up. Yeah, two is a lot. Yeah. Anybody can have a bad week. Oh, yes. We've seen it where next week is going to be the fifth episode. And so we're going to be at the halfway point.

[00:33:41] And you know, you've seen how some bakers can be fairly consistent and do really well. But man, they get that one bad week and it just you never know. Because it's interesting because Nikki, who she's struggled off and on since the first

[00:33:58] episode, but I think she did a great job with Chocolate Week. That's her thing. I think she was pretty close to winning Star Baker. I think she would have been second in line for Star Baker. I was excited for her. Yeah.

[00:34:11] So it's interesting to see where some bakers, you know, with different challenges or elements that they're working with really do kind of shine. You know, like, oh, someone's really great with bread. Somebody is really great with cake.

[00:34:21] Somebody is really great with chocolate or pastry or what have you. So it was interesting because, yeah, that's just how it goes. You know, she's kind of been either in the middle or kind of at the lower end for most weeks.

[00:34:34] But she really, really came out with her flavors with Chocolate Week. And then like with Maddie on the other end there, who's kind of been mostly middle of the road-ish most weeks.

[00:34:43] I mean, he's had some good, some bad in between, but mostly kind of middle of the road. And you know, you don't really look too much at what he's doing. But then all of a sudden this week, you know, he ends up with Star Baker.

[00:34:54] So you never know. It's going to be scary for next week. And I think sometimes you get the baker who just keeps getting better each week and keeps learning from the experience. I think Maddie is.

[00:35:09] A lot of times I find it's the younger ones that have that happen to them, you know? It's the darn youngins, man. I know, right? Their brains are like sponges. They're not stuck in their ways. Yeah. Their pride is not...

[00:35:22] They haven't been baking for 30 years, you know, in general. Right. That's funny. I really think Josh is, even though he didn't do great this time, I still think Josh is one of the people to beat. For sure. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. I agree with that.

[00:35:40] He's definitely has really good ideas. I think he executes most times very well and is very precise. I think with maybe either more time or maybe if it wasn't as hot, his chocolate box probably would have turned out maybe a little bit better.

[00:35:59] I mean, one way or another, he's got a lot of nuts. That was great. Sorry. Paul said, I would complain but I've got too many nuts in my mouth. Can't stop himself. It was like the...

[00:36:15] I thought a couple of the grinding your own nuts, I thought it was a bit of a stretch. I thought that all of the stuff with regard to nuts in your mouth, because I'm eternally 13, I will always find that funny. It's never not funny.

[00:36:32] Well, for the showstopper, their challenge was to make a chocolate box and they were asked to make this edible chocolate box with molded chocolate and chocolate cake. They got four hours to do it. I loved watching them make those chocolates.

[00:36:49] I guess I've never put any thought into like, oh, you can just make like your own chocolates. I'm like now I kind of want to do that but I don't want to... I really dislike having to go purchase a lot of things.

[00:37:06] I don't have a ton of like bakeware and all the fun, you know, molds. Right. You would have to get the molds and the spatulas and the oils and yeah. Yeah. It's a whole thing and I really wish I could just, you know, borrow these things because

[00:37:23] I know I'm not going to bake or do these things like often enough to justify because man, things are expensive, especially like these, you know, types of baking tools and things that you need to be able to do that.

[00:37:36] So I'm like, I really don't want to invest in stuff like that when I know I'm not going to be doing it often but I really would just love to do it. If anybody has any like chocolate molds they want to let me borrow, send them my way.

[00:37:47] But I was like, it didn't even occur to me that you could do that. So I was totally fascinated watching everyone make their yummy chocolates and I thought that this was a pretty cool idea.

[00:37:56] But again, some underwhelming bakes, you know, I think there were some that could have turned out really well but the bakers really were challenged and didn't do as well as maybe what they could have. What did you guys think about the Showstoppers?

[00:38:12] The chocolate candies actually seemed to be the thing that most of them did pretty well. It would seem to be like the cakes that they had the most problem with. So I will just flat out say tempered chocolate, I heard them explain it.

[00:38:32] I still don't understand necessarily and I see they lay it out flat and they heat it up quick and then you cool it fast enough or I don't know, something. That sounds like a lot of work.

[00:38:43] I remember seeing, I was like, I'm going to do that and then looked at a YouTube video and I was like, yeah, I'm not doing that. Yeah, it seems like a lot of work and I wonder like, is it to get that chocolate bar crisp

[00:38:59] crunch, you know, that snap? Is that the point of it? I think it's the shine and the snap. But does it impact the taste? I don't know. Seems like a lot of effort just for some shine. It's so pretty.

[00:39:16] But Nikki's shine on her box, you literally see the blue in from the tile. I was like, what is that? Like, what is that blue on her? Oh shit, it's the fucking reflection of the table. I was just so impressed.

[00:39:34] She probably had the best of everybody and they loved her flavors. But butter, of course, her cake was too rich. No, no, they're wrong. Drew loved the richness and flavors. So I will say, Christy's box, I thought looked phenomenal. Oh, I thought it was beautiful.

[00:39:57] The heart-shaped box, I was just like, wow, wow. It was one of the few that didn't use traditional chocolate. She used a colored chocolate. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, she had to use the white chocolate in order to get it. To get the coloring. Yeah. I love it.

[00:40:13] She's been really, really good with molds. In week one, she did the domed, she had little stars and the hearts on the dome and it turned out really, really well. She seems like she's really, really good with molds except for those leaf ones that didn't

[00:40:30] turn out very well. Well, and she said they hadn't turned out at home and she still brought them and tried to use them. I think she needs to, sometimes you need to play it safe rather than do something you know you haven't had work out before.

[00:40:50] I loved it. I thought hers was, I know that they said that the texture was too dry. I thought it was beautiful and I loved her use of colors. It was so creative and imaginative.

[00:41:03] It reminded me of Taylor Swift's Lover album cover and so I love the colors. Well, now I have to look that up. Yeah, look it up. I would say that the ones that I was most impressed with were Nikki's and Christie's

[00:41:22] box and then Dan's treasure chest was amazing. Absolutely amazing. Oh, I thought Dan's just looked perfect. Very professional. It was something you would see out of a professional bakery case. But his, the mark against him was they felt there wasn't a lot of cake in there.

[00:41:46] They were calling it more like a dessert, mousse-y, a dessert. Wasn't a lot of baked goods in there. That was one of the things that I wondered. It was more of a pudding. I know that Yorkshire pudding isn't pudding pudding, or sorry, it is an American pudding

[00:42:05] and it's more like a spongy cake that's more moist and all that. But you hear pudding and I just, or I hear pudding and I just like, well, but yeah. It's more like what I think of like a chocolate mousse, like a mousse-y. Gotcha.

[00:42:25] Yeah, no, I mean like I thought that was a fair hit on him given that they did talk about it being a cake as opposed to, I mean, because for him it wasn't even like he underbaked it and it was more like a pudding.

[00:42:37] He designed it that way. Yeah. Right. It was the passion fruit? Yeah, passion fruit on the top. And I just felt like he didn't, kind of like we were saying earlier, like he didn't give them what they asked for.

[00:42:52] He gave them a version that he hoped he could slide by and do well. Yeah. And it apparently was delicious. He gets something in his mind and he just keeps going forward. I thought Dana was like firmly in the middle for almost the entire episode.

[00:43:07] Like she's doing good work, she's not on top, but she's not on the bottom. And that's pretty much the way she's been for most of the show. I think the Pop Rocks was so dumb. Just like you- To give Pop Rocks to Paul Hollywood and Pearl. Yeah.

[00:43:26] Like, oh, is that the popping candy? The what? Like I just, you got, like I understand that you're being playful, you're being like, but you're, it could offset- They did not seem amused at all. Yeah, it could offset your flavors horribly.

[00:43:42] And it just seemed like a really, really- Yeah. Really dumb thing to risk. I agree. I mean, yeah. And she's going to have to step it up. Like you said, Wendy, she's been, I think, mostly middle of the road for most of the episodes so far.

[00:44:04] So she's carried through, she's had enough creativity and enough to be like, well, you know, you're doing okay. As more and more bakers start to leave and it's really narrowing it down, the challenges get harder.

[00:44:18] They, I mean, if they think it's tough now to impress them, I find that Paul and Pru get even tougher and tougher the last handful of episodes. And once you only have, and you're down to five bakers, then four bakers before you get down to the final.

[00:44:37] I mean, there's only the best of the best. If you can't stay middle of the road because it's not good enough anymore. When you've got a tent full of bakers, you can kind of ride along for a little bit. I've seen it so many times in other seasons.

[00:44:50] So I like Dana. I think she's funny and sweet. And I like what she tries to do. I think there are some good things that she's done. Some impressive bakes certainly better than anything I could put together for sure.

[00:45:04] But she's definitely going to have to step it up. Middle of the road isn't going to cut it after the second half. The fact that she kept going with the horses when she hadn't been able to get the legs out at all.

[00:45:19] And I was just, again, kind of like to go back to what you guys were saying earlier. If you get to something that doesn't work, don't do it. Same thing with Rowan. Like, oh, I haven't really practiced this. Then what the hell are you doing, man? Right.

[00:45:39] Oh gosh, Rowan's box. I loved the inspiration, but oh, that just did not come together very well. It looked like my four-year-old put it together. But they really liked the flavors. Yes. Yes. Which is common.

[00:45:59] That was the one where Prue said, if we came to your house and had a slice of that, we would think it was perfect. And Paul immediately goes, uh, I'd kick off. Well, but who was it? Somebody. It was the molded chocolates. The molded chocolates.

[00:46:19] Somebody said, I think it might have been Dan's, but I think Prue said, I would pay a lot of money for a box or a canister of these. Yeah. She really liked those. I mean, that's high praise. That's right. It sure is.

[00:46:34] As opposed to giving her a Pop Rocks. Yeah. I mean, she's like, yeah, so, but I mean, like I, again, Dana's flavors, peanut butter and cream cheese. Fuck yes. Thank you very much. Um, Christie's chocolate hazelnut. Yes, absolutely. Um, I can't remember what type of-

[00:46:54] You like all those winter flavors. Yes. I am definitely not, I am not a summer. I'm a summer child when it comes to my taste palette. Um, uh, yeah, like, like I did think that the, the, the chai and, uh, orange cake that Nikki had sounded good.

[00:47:14] Um, especially in, in comparison to the, the, the chocolate, um, the, the chocolate box. Um, but yeah, so I, I felt so I like it was the second time I watched it. I thought, I had thought that both Christie and Saku had had literally the exact same

[00:47:33] comments, which was good taste, but dry. Yeah. And then, you know, looks good, but dry. I'm just like, I don't know that you could differentiate them. And I was just like, oh, they are, they're two lucky women.

[00:47:45] The only thing for me is I did, I did think Saku's showstopper looked really beautiful. I loved her flowers. I do think generally she's very artistic. She definitely had a miss in the signature, but I did, I really liked her showstopper.

[00:48:03] The, you know, the, um, contrast between her beautiful pink flowers and the dark chocolate. So I thought that looked better than Christie's, but that's probably just my opinion because I know you both liked it, but I, I really liked Saku's, um, the look of her.

[00:48:19] So I, I really liked, I really liked Christie's box. It was like the cake. I honestly don't even, I remember it being, you know, them saying it was dry, but the, the box is what I was referring to with regard to Christie's, um, Saku's, I mean the, the

[00:48:36] pistachio and cream cheese icing, like, oh yeah, I can deal with that. Yes, please. Um, the, the, I think the only one we haven't mentioned yet, well, at least outside of a off color joke, uh, was Josh's chemistry box. He started going off on all that.

[00:48:51] And I was like, no, like it proves like, nope, you lost me at the last roundabout. I was like, no, please tell me more because I find that stuff super cool. And like, uh, chemistry is not my background, but engineering is.

[00:49:02] And so all of, all of that, I was just like, yes, I love it. Love it. I think he was rushing at the end and so his writing wasn't good. His piping wasn't good.

[00:49:14] And I know like they were saying that it wasn't good, but I do think given more time, he probably could have done a better job. I mean, at least in the editing, it seemed like he was just trying to finish it up. He also fucked his box.

[00:49:29] And I do think that the mole or whatever, maybe not mold is not the right word, but, um, like, cause he had the beakers cutouts in the box and I was just like, oh, that's really cool.

[00:49:40] Again, again, I didn't set to catch that to my, to my second watch, but when he was just like getting chocolate that was tempered and then putting it together, uh, he, you know, the, the shine again, failed him, failed Maddie.

[00:49:55] Uh, I feel like the, the only one who got a really, really good shine was Nikki. Yeah. The, the tempering of the chocolate definitely proved to be a challenge for like almost all the bakers.

[00:50:09] You could tell how difficult it was to get it perfectly tempered and get it at the right temperature, um, and, and not do too much, not do it, you know, just enough. Um, and it was just, no one had the whole package.

[00:50:26] It was like you were saying, Greg, it's either, it tasted great, but didn't look very good or it looked amazing and it either didn't taste as good or it was dry or something. It was like none of the bakers had both.

[00:50:40] Um, and some of them were only saved by their truffles, you know, that they, that they made. Uh, so it's challenging, challenging for everyone. I did think it was very, very ballsy of Rowan to tell Paul that he was going to, you know,

[00:50:58] cover up the cracks after he was done. I was like, yeah, Paul's just looking at him like, why are you telling me that? I don't think you're supposed to one, do that or at least say that you're going to do that. Yeah, don't admit it.

[00:51:16] That's what he did. I mean, not... Maybe it was too late and he already saw it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, they probably... Because I know they walk around and stare at you.

[00:51:27] Well, and they'd probably, he'd probably notice anyway because you, you sometimes see like, oh no, I need to fix this and just hope they don't notice. And at least to what we can see, it looks like, oh, they did a pretty good job covering

[00:51:39] that up or hiding it. But man, you get it in front of Paul and Prue and they cut into it or they do this and oh, look what happened there. And you're just like, oh, they can't get by with anything.

[00:51:48] So he probably wouldn't even had to have told them, but it's like, why would you admit that? He just, he spills his guts. Hey, I'm in the middle of a competition, but I'll just tell you what I did wrong. What? All right. All right. Well, you can...

[00:52:06] I'm just going to wing it. All right. So as we mentioned, Matty came out on top with Star Baker. He did rise above, you know, he had some challenges like everyone else, but he did turn out to be the better of all the bakers.

[00:52:22] And he, like you mentioned, Wendy, he's one of the young ones. He seems to like he is starting to pick up and kind of learn and get a little better. And we'll see if he continues to, you know, to go down that path and keep improving.

[00:52:38] It was adorable, like, because it's so fun when people call their families at the end, Mom, I got Star Baker. And really? We thought you were going to really... That's terrible. He's like, what do you mean, we? His reaction was so genuine. Really funny.

[00:52:55] That it was really sweet. I'm really happy for him. Yeah, it was super, super cute. So, and yeah, we're going to lose two bakers next week, which I'm kind of freaking out about.

[00:53:09] Next week is pastry week, which can sometimes do well and then other times be a disaster because pastry can be so fickle, especially depending on what kind of pastry they... There's so many types of pastry that some you're familiar with and some you're not as

[00:53:26] familiar with working with. So it'll be interesting to see what they do with that. Any other thoughts on this week's episode? Anyone have any fun standout moments that they want to call out that we haven't talked about yet? Funny moments, funny lines.

[00:53:46] I have a number of what I think are Britishisms that I hadn't heard before. Go for it. I think this one, Maddie said, have a nosy and he was... Maybe that just means like peeking in on it.

[00:54:02] But he was like opening the oven to look at, to stick something into his cheesecakes. The okay, claggy we've talked about is kind of like, I would say stodgy, but like clumpy is another thing you don't necessarily know what. Noel did not say off you pop.

[00:54:22] I kept waiting for it. I love it. I love even just like I'd kick off like that's just not something we say, you know, much of a muchness. I was like, so basically he was at the end Paul was talking about Christie and Saku and

[00:54:39] and they were much of a muchness. And I was like, I have zero concept of what that means. But I Googled it and it's there in similar situations like, oh, deep impact in Armageddon. Oh, they were much of a muchness. They're very similar. Interesting. Slightly different, but similar.

[00:54:58] Have you heard this saying? Oh, have a day off. I've heard that before. That's a British thing. I just think that's hilarious. Like, just like it's just like, just get the fuck out. Like, have a day off. Nikki said, help me, Boab. And I had to Google that.

[00:55:17] And it's basically a it is a Scottish saying for someone saying something similar, something similar to goodness gracious me. I was like, OK, I wondered about that one. We've heard this phrase or this word a number of times throughout the weeks. Is punchy good or bad?

[00:55:38] I don't understand. Paul talks about it being punchy, and I couldn't tell if he was being positive or he was being negative. I think it's like you want something to be punchy, but not too punchy. But like, but like. And that's probably fairly subjective.

[00:55:59] Prue said she was talking about somebody who was it was like the last little roundtable that they were having that they aired. And Prue said that I think she was talking about Nikki's and like, oh, yeah, if it was this was was really whatever.

[00:56:17] And Paul goes, yeah, but the flavors were like this is the raspberry and this was super punchy. And I'm like, it sounds like he's defending her, but he also wants to be punched in the face by flavor. But then it's too punchy. And just like, I don't know.

[00:56:34] Don't understand. Yeah. I think it's very subjective. I think I think it could something could be too punchy. Gelatine is a pig's trotter and had to go look over that was so is the feet of a pig from the ankles down that they make in the gelatine.

[00:56:55] I just don't need to know that. I didn't need that comparison. I did think it was funny. Let me eat my gelatin. They had to use the rubbing in method. And I was shocked there wasn't a rubbing out joke.

[00:57:10] Yeah. Oh, and then or maybe no old holding Josh and then Allison holding Noel while he's trying to pipe to keep him steady. I thought that was funny. I was just like. This may be a little bit more distracting that you really he's like

[00:57:24] trying to carefully pipe things and they're like leaning on him like, oh, don't don't don't budge him. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. I think I just stole literally all of my notes and I didn't let you guys talk. So I apologize. No, not at all.

[00:57:41] I liked Allison's line and I want all your chocolate. The look, he just laughed and I love it. I didn't understand what he meant by I'm going to let it melt or I'm going to wait for it to melt. I was like.

[00:57:58] Is that I think it means to lose your erection, but I wasn't 100 percent sure. But I was like, OK, all right. I wasn't I don't know what he meant by that. But sure, that that might be it.

[00:58:17] But I thought it was just quite funny because I do love Allison. I think she's funny and without trying too hard. And I love that she can just make Noel laugh. It seems like they have a really great chemistry with each other and he seems a little bit

[00:58:30] more relaxed than before. So I know I completely agree, though, that that set up was like, yeah, I've had some advanced chocolate. I've had some Nikki's chocolate. I've had some all of my efforts. Your chocolate. Yeah. I was like, oh, that's really good. And then that's really funny.

[00:58:45] And they both laugh. Yeah. Yeah. They were sweet. Yeah, it was good. What about predictions? Predictions. Any thoughts as to who we might lose? Not going to go for it. I'm done. I keep I keep shooting the people that I like in the face because that's just

[00:59:06] what I mean. Yeah, it's so hard. I mean, I think Christie's been at the. Bottom, a lot of the hard part is that is that Saku like I want I don't want to talk good about Saku because she had a shit week. You're going to jinx someone.

[00:59:24] I am. I think I think Saku and Nikki, they've had some bad weeks, but they're very capable of great stuff as well. So I think they're kind of in that camp. Whereas Christie, I'm not sure we've seen anything incredible from her.

[00:59:41] I mean, they're all amazing and could bake me under the table. I think Rowan had a great week this week, but he's had some mixed weeks. Yeah. It really is anybody's game at this point. I I'm interested to see who who pulls it out.

[00:59:59] I feel like this season and I don't mean this like in a negative way, I feel like in other seasons you would often see some of the bakers consistently either always on top, just almost winning or always winning. Yeah. Baker along with a couple of others.

[01:00:19] You'd have like two or three. Always. And now we really kind of only have Tasha and Tasha had a bad week as well. During the signature. So, yeah. So I think anything's possible. Yeah, I think there's no obvious like that one's going to the end.

[01:00:38] Yeah. There's no obvious answers. I agree this this for me this season it's been tough because it's you know, you almost always have a couple that like are always like, oh, this one's Starbaker this week and oh now this one Starbaker.

[01:00:52] And then that one. No, he's back to Starbaker. She's back to Starbaker. And it kind of goes back and forth. And you've always got folks kind of in they might have a bad week here and there.

[01:01:00] But you always kind of see the consistently really good ones week by week by week. They're either at the top or just just, you know, in the top. You know, five or something. And we just haven't seen that everyone's kind of been all over the place.

[01:01:16] And I couldn't even fathom a guess as to who's going to end up in the finals or who can even come out on top. And at this point, who's even going to possibly leave even next week, much less not be there for the finals?

[01:01:29] It's too tough to call. I'm certainly not going to I stink at predictions in the best of times. Certainly not going to try now. All right. Any other notes or comments about this week's. Bake off. That's it for me.

[01:01:48] All right. Well, we did get some feedback from our lovely friend Karen Shee. I'll go ahead and read that since it's the only one that we have this week. Y'all feel free to keep, you know, right in. Let us know what you're thinking.

[01:02:02] I if I fail to post a feedback episode, just message me. That's what Karen did. So Karen says, Hey, gang, looks like you had a great time in Boston. Wish I was there to hug you all.

[01:02:15] I wanted to leave feedback for GBBO for bread week and chocolate week. She starts off. I totally agree with Greg that based on the bakes alone, Abby should have stayed over Rowan. I was right there with Greg as he ranted his disappointment.

[01:02:29] I'm glad I was not alone in that. As for chocolate week, it seemed like a number of them struggled. It's never a good thing to have people around. It's never a good thing to have Paul say that he's underwhelmed by all the bakes.

[01:02:43] I'm glad that Maddie proved me wrong about his skills and was pleasantly surprised to see him excel. I was so happy that nobody left this week, though. That comes at the expense of two dismissals next week.

[01:02:55] Plus, I hated seeing Tasha bow out for the week due to heat exhaustion. Just goes to show that competitors not only need talent and creativity, but stamina and good health. Still pulling for Tasha to make it to finals week.

[01:03:06] Last thing, our good friend Penny says that she doesn't watch cooking shows because she can't taste the food. That's totally understandable. But I've come across the term competency porn, which means any scenario set around an individual or individuals who are shown being extremely good at their craft.

[01:03:24] I think that's why I eat up all kinds of cooking competitions. GVVO is especially fun to watch because there's no trashy drama between the bakers. They're all so delightful and interesting. Give me a much needed serotonin burst to start my weekend. I agree. I agree.

[01:03:43] It's that feel good show that I can't wait to put on. Absolutely. 100% agree. We I mean, it's it's always a feel good. And I think we can always every week use that boost.

[01:03:56] Right. But I'll tell you and we talked about it when we covered the COVID seasons because everything just felt so just dark and awful and depressing. And we were all just like starved for like something good. Wow. Bake Off during that time was a huge relief.

[01:04:15] I know personally for myself and I think a lot of other folks felt the same. So be at the end of the week, it's much, much needed to have Bake Off on a Friday when you've had long week of whatever you've had going on in your life.

[01:04:28] Yeah. Yeah. So with that being said, next week we are going to be covering episode five from Collection 11, which as we mentioned earlier, is pastry week, which can be anything. It could be sweet pastries. They might have savory pastries. You never know what we're gonna get.

[01:04:47] I know I love a good pastry. I feel like we haven't had as much savory this season. Yeah. A lot of sweets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not complaining. Not at all. I mean, I like savory too, but I'm not complaining. I have a terrible, terrible sweet tooth.

[01:05:04] So I will take all the sweets. I was actually before we recorded definitely just prowling my house looking for something to something sweet and I don't keep sweets in my house. So it's drove me crazy. Very unsatisfied. Right. Right. I don't either. So you know what's there.

[01:05:20] It's not there. You could get some flour out. That's why I have to keep replacing the west gelato. Like, yeah. Well, I almost have like just this little bit of ice cream left about one of these small. I don't know what are they, pint size of ice cream.

[01:05:35] And it was a Stranger Things ice cream. Don't know if anyone's seen that in the stores. I haven't. But it's the flavor or the kind called the Void. And it's black ice cream. And it turns my lips and teeth black.

[01:05:47] And I thought, you know, I'm not going to do that before I can record on here with y'all on video. And y'all are like, why do you have black teeth? Remember, brush your teeth. You know what's going on.

[01:05:58] So I was like, you know what? I'll just not do that this week. So anyway, no, I don't mind the sweets at all. But I'm looking forward to seeing some savory things as well. What they do. As far as what we have other other projects

[01:06:13] and things that we have going on. If you haven't been catching us, Peck and I have jumped into episode two of the fall of House of Usher. We're currently covering that here on Strange Indeed as well. We're just loving the shit out of that show.

[01:06:26] So I hope everyone, you know, watches that. And then after watching that, you should definitely watch Bake Off and listen to us on this podcast. If you need to come out of the darkness a little bit, come over here to the light.

[01:06:39] But hope you join us all for that because we're really digging Mike Flanagan's latest. Wendy, Greg, anything that y'all want to promote or have going on? Jason and Lucy are starting the rewatch. Yeah. Which I didn't realize was going to happen so quickly.

[01:06:53] So they're starting Walking Dead from the very beginning. Yeah. So I'm going to try to keep up with that. It'd be fun to do that rewatch. I feel like we're all going to be taking turns probably on that from time to time

[01:07:05] because we're all old veterans of The Walking Dead. And yeah. So yeah, that'll be great. I didn't know they were starting already either. Yeah. I'm watching Days Gone By right after this. Classic. It's been a long time since I've seen it. That pilot is the best.

[01:07:20] It is. It is a phenomenal. I mean, it's it's kind of crazy how few people are actually in it. But outside of zombies like actual like speaking lines. So I don't have anything going on right now. And I have every intention of of getting into

[01:07:41] House of the Fall of the House of Usher. But I've been re-binging Loki of season one. I finally finished season one and I'm listening to Sydney and Alex and Kirk do the Lokiverse podcast. Yeah. And I would like to do that as well.

[01:07:59] I I am not quite done with season one podcast, but I finished the season. I was like, OK, well, I'm going to watch the first episode. Well, now I want to watch the second episode. So I'm like halfway through episode two. I think episode four drops tonight.

[01:08:13] That's awesome. We're going to catch up. It's a lot of work. There's so much to consume and listen to. You can catch all of those amazing podcasts at podcastica.com. You can find all of our contact information if you go to podcastica.com for us and

[01:08:30] leave us some feedback or for any of the shows that are currently being covered. I know everyone would love to hear thoughts on the shows that they're covering. Yep. All right. Thank you guys again for joining me this week.

[01:08:44] It was great to talk and break down some chocolate. Chocolate week with you guys. Thank you. Chocolate and pastries. All about it. On your marks. Get set.