Tonight on PBS their Emmy award winning reality show, The Great Baking Show premieres for an all new Sunday December 28, season 1 premiere called “Cake” and we have your weekly recap below. On tonight’s premiere episode the British culinary contest begins with 12 amateur bakers.
For those of you who are not familiar with the show, this Winter on PBS, follow the trials and tribulations of passionate amateur bakers whose goal is to be named the U.K.’s best. Each week, the bakers tackle a different skill, the difficulty of which increases as the competition unfolds. This premiere season has 12 amateurs bakers go head to head baking all sorts of delicious desserts for judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood.
On tonight’s episode as per the PBS synopsis, “The British culinary contest begins with 12 amateur bakers attempting to make Swiss rolls; cherry cakes; and classic British cakes.”
The show airs tonight at 8pm on PBS and we will be live blogging all the details. So don’t forget to come back and refresh your screen often for live updates.
Tonight’s episode begins now – Refresh Page often to get the most current updates!
Tonight’s episode of the Great British Baking Show kicks off with in Welford Park where the baking tents have been pitched for the contestants competing. The judges meet with the bakers and reveal that this week their baking competition will be their signature swiss cake rolls with a feeling of their choice.
Contestant Diane has decided to prepare her mother’s swiss cake roll with a lemon curd filling. Louie is working on a Spanish swiss roll, with an orange filling and a topping whipped out of honey from his own beehives. Chetna has never made a swiss roll before – but she is going for a pistachio and coffee roll. Richard is putting together a pistachio and strawberry swiss roll, he jokes that he has two daughters at home so everything in his house is pink now, so he is putting a pink flower pattern on his swill roll. Kate gets to work on a red velvet swiss roll with chocolate filling.
The bakers get their sponges in to the ovens and watch them closely to make sure that they don’t over cook. Sponge cakes are tricky, they have to be cooked just right or else they will crack while they are rolling them and fall apart. Martha is only 17 years old, and the youngest baker to appear on the series. She decides to roll her sponge while it is still hot because it is less likely to crumble. Meanwhile, Nancy a mother of five, gets to work on her swiss roll’s filling – coffee and hazelnut.
The contestants scramble to roll their sponge cakes and prepare their fillings as their time runs out. After Paul and Mary visit the baker’s stations and critique their rolls, it is time for their technical challenge. Each baker is given a recipe for “Mary’s Cherry Cake” (which is much more complex than you would think) and each contestant is give the same ingredients.
The bakers get to work on their cherry cakes, they realize that the recipes have an oven temperature – but they have no idea how long to bake the cakes for. After their cakes are out of the over, the bakers have roughly half an hour remaining and are impatiently waiting for their cakes to cool so that they can decorate their cherry cakes. If they decorate while the cakes are still warm the icing will just sink down into the cakes.
The baker’s time is up and it is time for them to present their cakes. The judges will be judging these cakes blindly – they have no idea which cake belongs to which baker. The contestants watch as Paul and Mary taste the cherry cakes and critiquing their consistencies and decorating. After they are done they reveal that the winner of cherry cake competition is Nancy’s cake, Mary gushes that it was well done and her nuts were perfect.
There is one more challenge remaining before the judges have to send one of the bakers home, on day #2 they head back to the tent and announce that their third challenge will be to make a British cake of their choice – but there is a catch. They have to complete 36 mini cakes of identical size, taste, and texture with exactly the same decorations on each cake.
The judges travel around as the bakers get to work. Chetna is working on a four tier Victorian cake with lemon filling, and Nancy has opted to make mini Jaffa cakes with orange cake and dark chocolate icing. Louie is putting together a lemon and raspberry genoise cake – and he is going to have to drizzle raspberry sauce on 36 mini cakes and have it drizzle exactly the same on each cake.
Time is winding down and the bakers begin frantically decorating their 36 cakes exactly the same. The judges count down the last ten seconds as the bakers race to put their mini cakes on their three teir display shelves. Now, it’s judgment time.
Chetna’s cakes are judged first – and Paul informs her that four tiers appears to be too tall, but mary thinks they are “gorgeous.” Jordan’s lemon drizzle cake does not impress the judges and they inform him that they look like a mess and “are a shame.” Diane and Richard receive positive reviews, and Paul thinks Enwezor’s cakes are “very cute.” Mary raves that Nancy’s cakes are “sheer perfection” and Paul likes the orange flavor.
The judges gather to discuss the baker’s mini cakes and performances in the challenges. They head back to the baker’s tent and announce that this week’s star baker is Nancy. And, after careful deliberation the judges have decided to officially eliminate Claire. Claire says her goodbyes to the other chefs and judges and prepares to leave the tent and head home.
THE END!