The Great British Baking Show Recap: Pie in the Sky

I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a tenser three minutes except for that one time in college when I had sex with a girl who was late and we had to wait for the pregnancy test. (And when I say “that one time in college I had sex with a girl,” I mean that I had sex with exactly one (1) woman.) I’m talking about the end of the episode when we were waiting to find out which of the bakers was going home. It was either going to be Dylan — my ideal man, an anime cat that has taken human form, a gorgeous little lump of goatee and biceps — or Nelly — the comic relief, the fan favorite, the one who makes the tent fun no matter what else is happening. How can we choose between Dylan and the rapper behind “Hot in Herre”?

This is a weird week because not only did we have to wait to find out the results of the ultimate Baking Show Sophie’s choice, but we also had to deal with Autumn Week, whatever that is. It’s like the producers are just hunting for themes and they chose Mexican Week and it ended horribly because of the citizens of Mexico. They put on their thinking caps and baking aprons and thought, “What doesn’t have any citizens? I know! Seasons!” They didn’t ask much of the bakers; it was basically make a pie, make a vegan version of a regional treat, and make a cake. I mean, if you’re a baker and you can’t make a pie and a cake, what are you even doing on this here reality-television program?

I think that accounts for a staggering level of proficiency in this episode. The bakers have been great all season, no doubt, and have turned out some wonderful bakes, but I think it’s because the show is giving them enough time and not asking them to do ridiculous things, like make a mobile out of biscuits. Going into Autumn Week and finding out they just have to make a pie and a cake is like walking into your SATs and finding out that it’s just a BuzzFeed quiz of “Which Friends Character Are You?”

Most people did very well with the pie, especially Gill and Christiaan. Gill made an apple and blackberry pie that she says she makes all the time for her family, and her calmness definitely indicated her familiarity with the recipe. She finished off the decoration with a really cool looking antler made out of pastry on the top of the pie crust. Christiaan used speculaas, a spice blend that flavors lots of Dutch holiday cookies. He also used marzipan and pumpkin inside. Ugh, I’m sorry, but I hate pumpkin pie. There’s only two kinds of pie I hate and will never eat: pumpkin and hair. (Well, the second kind I tried once in college.)

Dylan’s pie looked absolutely amazing because he arranged all the apples so that it would look like a giant flower. However, Paul says it was burned, and the pastry was a little tough. Nelly had the opposite problem, and Paul said her apple and poppyseed pie needed to be in the oven a little bit longer. But they loved her spin on a traditional Slovakian autumn dessert. I would love a slice of that pie.

While Dylan and Nelly had problems with timing, some of the other bakers had problems with spice level. Sumayah’s butternut squash pie had far too many spices in it, which I guess is why we don’t have a Squash Spice Latte at Starbucks right now. But we all knew Georgie was going to be in trouble. She was listing off all the spices she wanted in her pie: cloves, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, mixed spice, Baby, Scary, and even a dash of Sporty. But it was way too much for both of the judges. You know they both prefer Posh, particularly Prue.

The technical was to make a vegan version of parkin, a northern dessert that is traditionally served for Bonfire Night. (I asked two northern friends about it, and neither of them had heard of it, so … yeah.) Bonfire Night, or Guy Fawkes Night, is November 5 every year and celebrates a failed 17th-century Catholic plot to blow up the House of Lords. I choose to believe it is in celebration of the protesters because if they had succeeded, I don’t know, maybe we never would have gotten colonialism? This Guy Fawkes character seems ahead of his time.

Anyway, the big thing in this vegan recipe seems to be the amount of baking soda (or bicarbonate of soda, or “bicarb,” as they call it in the U.K.), and a few of the bakers mess it up, notably Gill who potentially didn’t put any of it in her parkin even though, as the only Northerner, is the only person in the tent who knows what this is. She ends up at the very bottom, and Illiyin, who was terrible in the signature, ends up at the top. How things have changed.

It seems like it’s all going to come down to the showstopper, where everyone has to bake a cake inspired by an Autumnal Festival. The only catch is that it has to have vegetables in it because Paul’s doctor recently told him that he needs a more well-rounded diet, so he decided to see if he could get it at work. The only cake design I really don’t get is Nelly’s. She made her cake about a young woman turning into an older woman, which I could see as a metaphor for autumn, but is it a celebration? Is ladies getting older a holiday? I don’t think so.

Georgie is having a bit of the same problem. Her cake is just a stump. Um, doesn’t she know that trees are felled all year round? Once it is felled and there is a stump, it can be a stump in any season. There is nothing about a stump that says fall unless it is a stump speech and there is an election coming up, which, at least in America, usually happens in the fall. The most recent U.K. election was in the summer because if we’re going to have to wait up until 10 p.m. for the results, it might as well still be light out.

Things start to go badly for Dylan when he drops the cake that is supposed to be his top tier. Luckily, he has more batter in the fridge to make a second one, but that is going to leave him no time to decorate. When he finally brings his all-white, Diwali-inspired to the judges they say that it looks unfinished. But Paul loves the beetroot sponge and especially the cardamon and cream cheese frosting.

Nelly’s cake looks kind of cute but lopsided. Was it meant to be tilted to actually look like a woman’s head, or was that a happy accident? When Paul cuts it, there are green layers of spinach sponge inside with avocado and chocolate icing in between the layers. It looks like Elphaba if she forgot to take a shower. Nelly’s is the opposite of Dylan’s, her cake looks great on the outside but tastes terrible inside.

One of the craziest things about this season is how Gill has crept up from behind and taken center stage without any of us noticing her. She gets revenge for her terrible parkin by making a carrot cake and parkin concoction that celebrate bonfire night. It’s a stunning cake with fire licking its edges and rockets coming out of the top.

Other than Nelly and Dylan, everyone seems to do well. Christiaan, who should study to become an architect, made Halloween “stained glass windows” out of sugar and then cut alcoves in his cake so there were lights behind the windows. This guy is a genius. Illiyin’s cake, which I thought was a bit garish, is a tribute to Dia de los Muertos and is a carrot and zucchini sponge. Prue says it has just the right level of spice.

But it’s Sumayah who is clearly star baker. When the judges were making their rounds, it seemed like she was making the classic Baking Show mistake of doing too much. She was doing two cakes instead of one, she was making a chocolate collar, she was making vegetables into little leaf looking things as decorations. Well, she managed to finish it all in time and astonished the judges with both her parsnip, fennel, and cumin cake and her beet, ginger, and walnut cake. Paul even gives her a Showstopper handshake, which I think is only the third one ever and the second one this season. She definitely deserved this win.

The real kicker, though, is that it was going to be Dylan or Nelly. Nelly or Dylan. I was saying prayers. I was bargaining with my higher power. I was trying to find their Instagrams so I could follow them both regardless of the outcome. As I thought they would, the judges rewarded Dylan’s better-tasting cake and sent Nelly packing. It’s going to be a bit sad — especially for Noel now that he’s stuck with his ultimate hater, Sumayah, without Nelly to offset her — but I think next week we’re going to rally. After all, we need to get our Dylan through to the end.