‘The Great British Baking Show’ “Caramel Week” Tortured the Bakers

“Caramel is a very fussy baby.”

So spoke The Great British Baking Show‘s Giuseppe Dell’Anno and I can’t think of a better way to put it after watching that insane “Caramel Week.” This week tested the bakers in ways we haven’t seen so far this season. Each challenge was deceptively simple. Caramel tarts, candy bars, and caramel-flavored desserts. These are all straightforward treats. Except for the fact that they are all painfully difficult to nail perfectly. This week judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith asked the bakers to prove their technical mettle and everyone flopped at some point. The Great British Baking Show “Caramel Week” tortured the bakers, leaving no one unscathed. Not even Jürgen.

The Great British Baking Show always tries to challenge its bakers more and more every week, but “Caramel Week” felt particularly grueling this year for some reason. During the Signature Challenge, we watched as half the bakers chose to set their caramel filling while the other half baked their caramel. As it happens, the set time was the key to nailing this challenge. So while half the tent was able to get their tarts cooled in the nick of time, the other bakers were stuck sweating over their piping hot bakes. As it happens, though, no one managed to dazzle the judges. Lizzie, as always, lacked “finesse.” George’s attempt to sop up cream with his bare hands didn’t go unnoticed, as Paul compared his tart to “global warming in the arctic.” Even Jürgen flailed with the challenge. If everyone was on edge after the first round, it didn’t get better in the Technical.

For the Technical Challenge, Paul asked the bakers to make ten identical caramel biscuit bars, aka Milky Ways. This meant making shortbread, perfectly stretchy caramel, and chocolate work. As baking challenges go, again, it was pretty straightforward in its difficulty. And boy was it a challenge. Once more every single baker struggled. In the end, when Giuseppe edged out Jürgen for the win, Paul chastised the group for applauding the Italian ex-pat. Apparently they all sucked that much.

Of course, the bakers weren’t just tried by the challenges this week. The judges, as mentioned, were tougher on them all. So were the hosts. How else can you explain the weird interlude when Noel Fielding decided to “describe” bakers, but did so in kind of a mean way. Yeah, it’s super cool to roast someone’s whole vibe and appearance to their face while they’re trying to nail caramel. (That’s sarcasm. It was really weird and made me feel uncomfortable.)

Everything crescendoed with the all-important Showstopper. This week, the bakers had a bizarre amount of freedom to make anything they wanted but it had to include a sugar dome. Isomalt was melted, sugar worked, and balloons slowly popped throughout the tent. In a particularly tense moment, Crystelle struggled to get her sugar dome out of her mold without breaking. Desperate, she took notes from Lizzie’s balloon method, succeeded, only to find the dome stuck to the stick mold she had just left behind. As Noel put it, the entire tent had a collective heart attack. (The actual image of which should be hung in the Louvre.)

In the end, no one knocked it out of the park this week. Two people were neck and neck for the bottom — Lizzie and George — and the four other bakers were tied for just being so-so. Jürgen found redemption with his third Star Baker win and George’s Showstopper couldn’t save him. It was, all in all, not the most delightful edition of The Great British Baking Show. It was entertaining, sure, but at the cost of the bakers’ nerves.

I feel extremely protective of the bakers this year and sort of hated watching them all struggle through caramel week. On the one hand, I respect that their struggles came from the inherent challenge of nailing such a sticky, fiddly ingredient. “A very fussy baby,” if you will. On the other, if this is how tense The Great British Baking Show is getting ahead of the quarterfinals, how rough will the final episodes of this season get?

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