The Great British Baking Show Recap: Just Desserts

I have two questions at the very start of this episode. The first is: What exactly does Dessert Week mean? Isn’t everything they make on here, other than bread and a few savory dishes, a dessert? Last week they made cakes; were those not desserts? Or what about when they made Paris-Brest? Is that not dessert? I kind of feel like Russell Crowe in Gladiator, and I want to rise up from the dusty floor of the arena and shout to Paul Hollywood wearing a toga that is a little too tight in a sexy way, “Are you not desserted?!” Like, what makes any of these desserts a dessert instead of a pastry or a cake or croquembouche?

My second question is: Did Dylan somehow manage to become hotter from last week to this week? Did he get a haircut? Is the notch in his eyebrow freshly shaved? Is he just humbled from his terrible performance last week? I don’t know, but as soon as I saw his Lisa Frank–inspired tie-dye shirt and his hair back with one Superman power curl in the front it was the absolute hottest I had ever seen him. This is before he pulled the Baking Show trifecta — getting a Hollywood handshake, winning the technical, and becoming star baker — in one episode. According to @GBBOdata, where I get all my GBBO and/or GBBS data, Dylan is only the fifth person in the show’s history to achieve this feat, following Dan (season nine), Peter (season 11), Giuseppe (season 12), and Syabira (season 13).

This might be why Illiyin and the rest of the bakers think Dylan is the one to beat. During the Technical, Noel is talking to Illiyin asking if she’s scared of Dylan and she says that she is afraid he’s going to beat them all. Noel says it might be due to Paul having a crush on him, and, well, I can’t imagine being a human being with eyes and not having a crush on Dylan no matter your orientation. When Noel asks Dylan if he thinks Paul has a crush on him, he says, “I did hold his hand today.” Oh yes, she ate that and left no crumbs. Do desserts have crumbs? Maybe that’s what makes them desserts? I still don’t know.

The first dessert they have to make is meringue nests with various fillings. Dylan starts by saying he’s the only baker making his meringues in molds so that they will be perfect half spheres because he’s going to make them look like coconut shells. He adds every time he has done them before this they have cracked and broken. This is the point of the show where I yell at my television, “Then why are you doing it!” If they broke every other time, why won’t they break now? What an idiot! But then he gets them out of the oven, pops them out of the molds, and does an adorable little dance that none of them have broken. I hate when these bakers prove me wrong. He puts some crème and booze-filled cake in the middle and Paul and Prue lose their minds. Prue says, “The texture, flavor, and everything is there,” and Paul sticks out his hand and calls them original and delicious.

Georgie is the only other baker who does a good job, and her meringues are as wonky as lipstick put on in a moving vehicle. Her recipe is based on one from her auntie with mascarpone cream, orange curd, and stewed plums on almond-flavored meringues. The way Paul looked at her you could tell he wanted to give her a handshake but couldn’t get passed her cracked and wonky nests.

Gill gets knocked for hers tasting artificial after she used peaches right out of the can, like the kind we used to get as dessert at school lunch. See, Paul, they’re desserts. Get with the program. Sumayah’s, like always, look delicious with a cute little lattice sticking out of them, but Prue says her mix of flavors like pomegranate, peach, tarragon, and honey, make the whole thing more savory than sweet. Christiaan makes the rookie mistake of using rose flavoring. While they were the most attractive of the bunch (next to Dylan, and I don’t mean his coconuts) they tasted like soap because rose always does and it’s disgusting and I don’t know why these people keep trying it. The judges seemed most disappointed in Illiyin’s pina-colada-inspired dessert because it’s Paul’s favorite drink. Her meringues were also cracked, but she intended to make Paul make that silly face he makes when something is really citrusy and he made exactly that face so she may not get a handshake, but at least she got a face shape.

The technical is to make spotted dick, a dessert that lives in infamy mostly for its punny name than its quality. How did this pun-crazy show go a decade and a half without introducing this to the public yet? “You have two hours and 15 minutes left to get your dick ready,” Allison says, and they all fall out laughing. When Sumayah doesn’t cook hers enough and it gets stuck in the bowl, she gets upset and teary. As the rest of the bakers comfort her she says, “I’m crying about spotted dick,” and everyone laughs. I laughed when Christiaan admitted he was the only person who had eaten spotted dick and of course the gay guy is the one to have some (don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it) dick in his mouth. (Sorry.)

Dylan ends up at the top of the technical with an absolutely perfect (girl, don’t go there) dick that everyone wants to get their hands on. Georgie is right behind him. Sumayah is at the bottom and it’s looking like an increasingly bad week for her.

Going into the showstopper, Paul and Prue say that Georgie and Dylan are the only two really in line for star baker and the other four are just trying to stay in the competition. The assignment is to make a very fancy tiramisu. Okay, I’m just gonna say it: Tiramisu is garbage. It is the only dessert I won’t eat. I would rather take a whole spotted dick in one sitting (not the first time) than have to eat even a bite of tiramisu. The only thing that is possibly worse is tarte tatin and pumpkin pie, and they already made both of those this season, too. Gross. Make it stop.

At least Gill thinks that coffee is disgusting too. I knew there was something I liked about her. She admits that she had to have her husband, Steve, taste all of her trial runs so that she could get the level of coffee correct because she knew that even a little bit of it would make her gag. Same, sis. Give her the trophy. The judges find no fault with almost any of the big desserts. Gill’s looks perfect and traditional, with ladyfingers on the outside wrapped up in a pretty little bow. The judges think that it is divine, though they later hint that it might have been a bit basic. Looked good to me, and I hate this stuff.

Georgie’s was another that looked delicious, covered by a chocolate collar in brown, pink, and white like a pint of Neapolitan ice cream. Wow, everything about this is Italian, including half of Georgie. She uses her aunt’s old family recipe but puts hazelnut pralines inside for texture and Prue loves it so much she says that this should be the new recipe of tiramisu everyone follows. None for me, thanks, but good for Georgie.

Christiaan’s is inspired by the Memphis school of design and has a black-and -white-striped collar with pink half circles around it and a green pistachio mousse on top. It looks like a birthday cake you would find in Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Prue’s only problem is that there is too much and she can’t fit it all in her mouth. Maybe her jaw is just tired from all of that spotted dick. (Last one, I promise.)

I thought Illiyin’s looked a mess. She tried to make this chocolate cage around her tiramisu and it kind of collapsed and she had to trim it back. It looked less like a box than some kind of poorly trimmed hedge. However, Prue calls it a “little triumph.” I wonder if we’re looking at the same cake.

Dylan’s, of course, was absolutely magical. He made a box out of chocolate and then put his dessert inside. Since I have already made so many spotted dick puns, I have been informed that I have used up my dirty-joke quota for the week and can’t say a single thing about Dylan’s box other than it looks delicious. He wanted it to look concrete, but it looks more metallic, but it seems like something you would get at an avant-garde New York restaurant, and while I would never eat it I can appreciate that it looks gorgeous. So congrats to Dylan on his trifecta, and I can’t wait to crush on him even more next week.

The only tiramisu that had problems was Sumayah’s. It looked cool, with a printed sponge collar that looked like fancy Italian paper, but Paul could see where it didn’t quite join up and she had to add some scraps to achieve the effect. But what really upset the judges was her using a lemon curd with coffee in it, saying that the flavors are at odds with each other. Yeah, that sort of is like inviting Cardi B and Nicki Minaj to the same party, but Sumayah thought she could pull it off. After the judging she said, “I can see their criticism, but I am bitter.” With no one else making any mistakes, it was Sumayah whose dessert will be her last. Who is going to make fun of Noel to his face now?