Great British Baking Show’s Bread Week fail was also Paul Hollywood’s

The Great British Baking Show season 17’s Bread Week was a massive fail. Barely anyone baked bread well. Bread is Paul Hollywood’s thing, and what he and Nigella were served was so far from handshake-worthy that he cut off his hand and flung it into the thunderstorm.

Actually, he shat upon the contestants. “The problem was,” he said, “the bakers here, they have knowledge but they haven’t got the skill to take it that next step and make great bread.”

And you know who hasn’t got the skill to make a good technical challenge but blamed the bakers instead? Paul Hollywood!

The technical during Audience Week wasn’t even a technical challenge; Bread Week’s had an actual technical, but one that led every single baker to produce raw dough and nothing at all resembling the model.

Condolences ► Nikki’s mom Joyce died, and she left not just the episode, but this season as a result.

During the episode, Nikki completed the signature bake—but left before it was judged. Alison presented her bake, and said, “Nikki had to go home due to family reasons.” After the credits, the show made it clear what those were, with a photo of Nikki and her mum, who died.

Channel 4 published an interview with Nikki, in which she said:

I wasn’t able to complete two out of the three challenges, but at that moment, there was absolutely nowhere else I wanted or needed to be. Being with my mum during her final days was the most important thing in the world to me, and I wouldn’t have changed that decision for anything.

Although it was a difficult time, I’m incredibly grateful for the memories I made in the tent and for the opportunity to have been part of such a special experience. My mum was my biggest baking inspiration, so having her love and support with me throughout my journey meant everything.

Signature challenge ► Garlic bread. This was about bread, of course, but also about making it garlicky enough.

For the challenges, the bakers had proving boxes on their stations in addition to the proving drawer. A cursory search didn’t answer my question about what makes those different, especially since they looked more like boxes than, say, these bread proving boxes.

The results were pretty underwhelming, though some of the bakes looked great. Yannis made his garlic bread look like a big garlic bulb, using ropes (!) to shape it. Alas, “that’s not bread,” Paul said, while Nigella scolded him, “you’ve got to find a way of delivering that will work.”

This season’s young, hot baker is Mo, and he isn’t quite delivering as a baker or as TV, other than looking hot. (No offense to Moyin, who’s 22, or Paul, who’s 25, and maybe this says more about me than them.)

But Mo did have my favorite line of the episode.

Mo told Paul “My Personality is Bread” Hollywood that “bread is super-boring.” To win Paul back, Mo crafted his boring garlic bread into a cute bear—and added nipples. And that’s how you make bread fun!

Technical challenge ► Paul Hollywood’s advice: “this is about consistency in size, color, and more importantly, flavor.” But size was an issue.

When Paul and Nigella returned to survey a table full of Taco Bell Crunchwraps and one set of mini-pizzas, Paul said they should have been 10 inches—and everyone was shocked.

Worse, none of them were baked. They’d had just one hour. Nigella asked him about that earlier, and Paul said “it’s easy enough” and “I could do it much quicker.”

But would he given the same recipe? “Paul’s Blue Cheese & Grape Flatbreads” gave the contestants two sets of ingredients labeled “for the filling” and “for the dough.”

And the instructions said, “Shape the flatbreads into rounds, filling with blue cheese and roasted grapes. Fry.”

While flatbread does imply, you know, flat, the idea of “filling” is different. We don’t call pizza ingredients “fillings,” but “toppings.”

Midway down the table, Nigella said, “I don’t know what to do. I’m panicking.” They tasted two of them, barely, and still managed to rank them somehow. Gabe won because, as Paul said, “it’s terrible but it’s better than the others.” And still raw.

“Probably the worst technical I’ve seen in 17 years,” Paul said. adding “I would call it an embarrassment of a technical challenge.” On that, I agree with Paul—but apparently not on whose fault it was.

Showstopper ► The bakers had to create bread for a celebration, and Nigella listed some options.”You could do Easter, you could do Christmas—you could really do any occasion,” Nigella said, having run out of occasions that are not the two biggest Christian holidays.

The bakers came back after the technical (and dinner, I’d guess) to prep for an hour in a darkened tent so they could leave dough to rise overnight. Yet like the previous challenges, even the best bread was just so-so. Some was still under-baked, while others overcompensated and made it crispy.

But at laest some of them had fun flavors and designs, like Tom’s stretched-out Christmas gnome, Connie’s Easter bread basket, Gabe’s solstice maypole, and Yannis’ winter market.

Earlier, Noel Fielding asked Tom about his accent, and Tom asked Noel about his muted accent—prompting Tom to say, “You work in TV so you’ve got to polish the turd.” And that’s what some of the bakers did with their bread!

Star baker / leaving the tent ►Tom’s “beguiling” showstopper flavors gave him his second Star Baker, while Molly’s three failures sent her home—which she expected, though so did Yannis.

Despite Nikki’s absence, there was no question someone would leave the tent. “With this standards, someone has to go as well,” Paul said. Fire yourself for that technical!

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