Just when you thought we were firmly lodged in Nice Telly Land, the Bake Off Tent went off and became the murder scene of a nation’s nerves, thanks to the most anxiety-driven 60 minutes of television New Zealand has made since that Shortland Street volcano.
And it all started so very sweetly in the delicious-sounding biscuit week...
Dean told the bakers to be delicate in the Technical - prompting an unusual dive down the rabbit hole of his personal life by hosts Madeleine and Hayley, and I think there might have even been a wee bit of blushing from the back end of #FleischlSchneider.
Almost as blushed as the beautiful Belgium biscuits the bakers produced.
Well, some of them.
“There are two Belgian things I know… Hercule Poirot, and Belgian beer,” said Sonali, who is certainly a woman of specific and really, quite good, taste.
But if competition-based reality television has taught us anything, it’s that it is almost always a fatal sign when a baker, with no clue what the heck the final product should be, tells us “I’m really just bringing my own flavour to these”...Sonali, bub-bye!
Numbers, rather than flavours, seemed to be the biggest challenge for most of the bakers though. Counting was key in the quest to get 10 perfectly sandwiched biscuits.
Hannah was using her primary school teacher skills to count to 20, and Stacey got 22 out of her mix - with some left over. Show off! While Annabel told everyone she only had 16 halves - before somehow producing the full requirement to the judges. She’s a sly one, that girl.
But it seems more is indeed more when it comes to Technical Challenges, with Stacey named top of the pile with a near-perfect biscuit. Her Belgium bikkie-loving boyfriend will be well proud.
Meanwhile, quietly out the back of the paddock, bottom-placed Joel was offering apologies to the entire Belgian nation for his messy bics.
Never mind, the Showstopper Challenge seems to be where the judges really put their focus for elimination anyway. And this one was a doozy and a half.
Build a landmark with a personal connection to you. Out of biscuits. And glue it together with icing so it stands up. Yeah, I know. That’s not a recipe for bloody disaster, at all. Nah, piece of cake.
Annabel made her high school chapel, Clayton constructed the Beehive (or the Colosseum, depending on how important walls/correct names are to you), Larissa made a Smokefree Stage Quest version of Larnach Castle (all front, no back, and a little like cardboard) and Hannah made a gorgeous lighthouse.
Important Side Note: Stacey making the Invercargill water tower is THE most wonderfully Kiwi thing this or any other television show will ever see.
Joel took a different route, simply stacking a bunch of spongy-looking cookies to make a bridge, which was deemed “a little bit simple” - like “lego” - but quite tasty by the judges.
Simple? Sure. Sturdy? Absolutely, unlike most of his fellow bakers’ creations. And that is where the TV stress-sesh began.
“Did that move or was that in my brain?” Larissa’s tumbling, crumbling, castle caused my heart to race, and even Annabel’s clean-cut chapel wasn’t without a serious Leaning Tower moment.
But the real tension for you, me, the other bakers, camera operators, Madeleine and especially Hayley, was a simple bird house.
Sonali was in tears as she spoke about the inspiration behind her “birdhouse of love”. And it was the rest of us in tears when she admitted she had never actually tried gluing the design together before and so had no clue whether it would stand up.
Reader, it did not stand up.
In fact, by the end of the challenge, it was simply a pile of biscuits smothered in ineffective icing lying in a bit of a sad heap, covered in tears.
It was the show’s first real, absolute disaster.
And combined with her unevenly baked bikkies, jammed together with too much jam, her pile of biscuits saw her leave the tent for the last time.
Let’s be honest though, this was Jeff’s show.
From the dad jokes (“It’s dough-able”) to schooling Hayley on grammar (“Belgium is the country, Belgian is the adjective”) to the maestro FINALLY getting the chance to stretch his singing chops with a wee ditty about beer and dough and beer and some joker named Ray and beer, Jazzy Jeffery was on fire.
All that and then he whipped a rather impressive engineering feat of a biscuit Eiffel Tower, out of his bag of tricks - complete with romantic backstory, of course.
This blue-eyed boy is the real deal - and the real Star Baker of biscuit week. And what a melting moment that was...
The Great Kiwi Bake Off is on TVNZ 2 on Tuesdays at 7.30pm and then on TVNZ OnDemand.
Bridget Jones is a TVNZ publicist and former entertainment reporter.
SHARE ME