Tonight on PBS their Emmy award winning reality show, The Great Baking Show premieres for an all new Sunday January 4, season 1 episode 2 called “Biscuits” and we have your weekly recap below. On tonight’s episode, in week two, the judges test the bakers on biscuits – savory, sweet and three-dimensional scenes.
On the last episode the British culinary contest began with 12 amateur bakers attempting to make Swiss rolls; cherry cakes; and classic British cakes. Did you watch the last episode? ? If you missed it, we have a full and detailed recap, right here for you.
On tonight’s episode as per the PBS synopsis, “The 11 remaining bakers make biscuits that go well with cheese; follow judge Mary Berry’s Florentine recipe; and create three-dimensional scenes with biscuits.”
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 the judges revealing that this week is “Biscuit Week” of the cooking competition. First the bakers will have to make 36 biscuits of their choice, and they have two hours to complete the task. It won’t be as easy as it sounds though, because each biscuit has to be uniform, the same size and consistency.
The judges begin making their rounds to check in on the bakers. Jordan announces that he is making chilli biscuits – because he loves Mexican food. Nancy has decided to make a crumbly rye and fennel biscuit, she confesses to the judges that she is a little nervous because she is not sure how much fennel to add to the recipe. Ian enjoys exotic bakes, so tonight he is making Za’Akar and fig biscuits. Kate is throwing together some parmesan and apple shortbread biscuits for the first competition.
The bakers get to work rolling their dough to an even consistency to ensure that they turn out the same uniform size. Chetna is using an old recipe of her mother’s and unlike the other bakers she has to roll out each biscuit individually. Diane is running out of time and is concerned she may be in over her head with the parmesan and thyme biscuits she has decided to prepare. Norman has decided to make simple biscuits with no flavor – they require only three ingredients, flour, butter, and lard. 17 year old Martha is making an ambitious sandwich biscuit – which means she has to actually make 72 biscuits instead of 36. After the first round of biscuits are done – the judges make their rounds and carefully taste and critique bakers’ biscuits.
Now, it is time for round two of the biscuit challenge – the bakers will have 1 hour and 15 minutes to make 18 Florentines with the recipes and ingredients provided. The majority of the bakers have never even made Florentines – so they get to work reading up on the recipes. Mary reveals that Florentines are “extremely tricky” to make and the bakers will have to get the chocolate at the perfect temperature or it won’t turn out correctly.
The bakers frantically rush through their Florentines and then the judges arrive to inspect their finished products. This competition is a “blind judging” which means that the judges have no idea which Florentine was made by which judge. After sampling the chocolate biscuits – the judges announce that Ian’s was the worst Florentine of all, and Richard’s Florentine was the best of all.
For the final competition of “Biscuit Week,” the judges reveal that the bakers will have to make a 3D scene out of biscuits in four hours. Martha gets to work on a snow scene of a ski lodge out of chocolate and coffee flavored biscuits with marshmallow slow.
Nancy is making a scene of Hansel and Gretel out of gingerbread biscuits. Ian is making three different biscuits – oatmeal, chocolate and pistachio, and using them to make a western outlaw scene. Jordan is turning custard and bourbon biscuits in to a monster attack scene inspired by Godzilla. Chetna is using vanilla biscuits to create a seaside scene with a carousel, but the judges are concerned that it won’t be able to stand on its own. Diana’s ambitious 3D scene of a train includes four different kinds of biscuits. Kate is creating a tea time scene out of lemon and lime biscuit.
The bakers get to work and begin baking their first rounds of biscuits for their 3D scenes, since their biscuits are all different sizes and shapes they have to watch their ovens constantly to ensure that they don’t burn. Jordan is in trouble though, he uses baking paper for the first time and doesn’t realize that his biscuits will stick to the baking paper and he can’t get the pieces of his skyscraper off without breaking them. He has to whip up another batch of biscuits and bake them again.
With less than two hours remaining, the bakers begin assembling their 3D scenes out of biscuits. Chetna seems to have successfully resurrected the carousel – despite the judges’ doubts about its stability. The rest of the bakers begin racing around and putting the piping and finishing touches on their biscuit scenes. At the ten minute marker the bakers begin frantically trying to finish, and Martha is having a tough time because her hands are shaking and she is so nervous.
Time is up, and the bakers have to step away from their biscuit scenes. Mary and Paul arrive to judge the 3D scenes. Ian’s western scene is a hit with the judges and he seemed to have redeemed himself after the first competition. The judges rave over Nancy’s pinwheel biscuit on her train. They dub Richard’s pirate scene as “absolutely genius.” Martha’s snow scene is also a hit among the judge scenes. Ironically, Jordan also seems to redeem himself with his monster attack scene as well.
After careful deliberation, the judges have to decide which baker they will be sending home after careful consideration they head back to the baking tent. Paul and Mary announce that this week’s star baker is Richard. And, the baker that they have decided to eliminate and send home is Enwezor.
THE END!
