Yahoo Finance 'The Great British Bake Off' dessert week disappoints with least-delicious pudding ever
Mmm, dessert week on The Great British Bake Off... surely the most delicious episode of the contest yet?
We were expecting rich chocolate puddings, decadent pavlovas, perhaps a boozy trifle - but unfortunately, what we got in the technical challenge was a basket of ingredients that didn’t sound particularly tempting.
Read more: Tributes paid to late Bake Off star Luis Troyano
The quarter-finalist bakers were asked to bake Sussex pond puddings, a steamed dessert many of them admitted to not having heard of and were unenthused when they found out what went into it.
I'm not interested in eating steamed anything #GBBO
— Richard Osman (@richardosman) November 10, 2020
Pond pudding made with suet and the show stopper is jelly. This is the first #GBBO ep that hasn't made me hungry.
— Jemma Beedie (@jemmasaid) November 10, 2020
Even judge Prue Leith, who said that the recipe from the 1700s was her favourite pudding, admitted that the finished bake didn’t exactly look attractive.
She said: “This is not the prettiest pudding in the world, but it’s sort of surprising, because there’s a whole lemon inside.”
this takes two and a half hours and it contains a whole lemon #gbbo pic.twitter.com/4k6gasMnDO
— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) November 10, 2020
Bakers and viewers alike were horrified by the ingredients, which as Leith said, included a whole lemon along with its rind encased in a steamed pastry made from animal fat suet.
Peter explained: “Suet is the lovely protective fat from animals that surrounds the livers, the kidneys.”
This lemony fat thing looks and sounds utterly rank #GBBO
— Sarah Anna (@spooks_books) November 10, 2020
Lemon suet pudding is exactly the time we need the old #GBBO history section
— Kirsten (@blessedorkirst) November 10, 2020
Hermine also seemed revolted by the ancient suet recipe, asking: “I mean does anybody ever use this, in 2020?”
Perhaps Laura summed it up best: “Very medieval... I don’t really fancy eating a whole lemon in a bit of pastry, that’s not how we do it in Gravesend.”
Steamed Suet pudding. Is it Brexit week? #GBBO
— Dave Jones 🏴🏳️🌈 (@WelshGasDoc) November 10, 2020
The end product was fairly disastrous as most of the puddings had collapsed into a pond by the time they were turned out onto their plates.
Judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith decided that Laura’s was the best of a bad bunch, but complained about the bakers serving up raw pastry that had been under-steamed by at least an hour, and “bullet-hard” lemons.
2020 is served. Bon appétit. #GBBO pic.twitter.com/xNangXHEJX
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) November 10, 2020
I’m sorry, but that suet thing, even when baked right, looks like it could cause Covid-20 #GBBO
— Cashins By Lisa (@Tweet_Dec) November 10, 2020
It was a nightmare challenge for Marc, who said: “I’ve never used suet, I don’t really eat meat.”
Things didn’t get much better on that front for poor Marc in the showstopper, where he had to create a jelly design cake.
As he said while making his jelly: “Thirty-five leaves of gelatine, 35 leaves of pig hide.”
The Great British Bake Off continues on Tuesdays at 8pm on Channel 4.
