This week’s episode begins as co-hosts Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond discuss the best parts of autumn, including Halloween as Fielding dons a sweater with a ghost on it.
“It’s Autumn Week,” Nelly said. “Autumn is colorful, tastes, smells beautiful. Just like me, you can see.”
“It’s my favorite time to bake,” Sumayah said. “I make pumpkin pie, apple pie, apple crumble, sticky toffee pudding. Just the best desserts.”
But some, like Dylan, were feeling the pressure as fewer people remained — and he’s not even a fan of autumn.
Signature Bake: Autumn Pie
This sweet pie with autumn flavors had to include a “melt-in-the-mouth pastry,” and “the filling must celebrate seasonal and autumnal flavors and produce,” Fielding said.
“We’re celebrating everything connected with harvest time,” judge Paul Hollywood said.
“I’m looking for really some lovely fruit and for wonderful pastry,” judge Prue Leith said. Hollywood also added the importance of autumn spices and balance.
“I want the bakers to make a great pie for me,” Hollywood continued. “If it’s half as good as my mother’s, I’d be happy.”
Nelly baked an apple-poppyseed pie, a traditional Slovakian autumn dessert, called jablkové pité. The pastry was also Slovakian and made with baking powder, unlike traditional British crusts. Unfortunately, she had a bit of a crack in the crust as she took it out of the mold. With little owls and trees on top, the pie needed a bit longer in the oven. Hollywood said the filling was exquisite and the pastry was great, even though it needed longer.
Gill made a pastry that she’s made with her mother for over 30 years, what she calls, “proper old-school margarine and lard.” The rich shortcrust was filled with apple and blackberry filling. The look and color was quite lovely, despite a little bit of a crack in the side. According to Leith, the pie was “almost unimprovable.”
Dylan, using a laminating rough puff pastry dough (which was very time-consuming) hoped to wow the judges with his bake. The puff pastry was filled with apples and cider. The pastry required four “laminations” and time in the freezer to chill, in between. He finally put his pastry into the oven to bake just as everyone else took their crusts out to fill them. Not only was his pastry creation time-consuming, his decoration — arranging slices of apples like a rose — was too. His work paid off as the decoration turned out beautifully. Unfortunately, there was a bit of burning on top and the pastry was a bit disappointing.
Illiyin created classic shortcrust pastry filled with blueberry jam, poached pears, and preserved ginger for her autumn flavors. Instead of creating a lattice by hand, Illiyin used a lattice-making tool to speed up her process. However, she had some problems getting the tool out of the machine. Unfortunately, Leith called her pastry, “a bit of a failure,” though he did like the filling.
Christiaan loves everything autumn, like Halloween and pumpkin decorating, so decided to fill his speculaas-spiced pastry with layers of spiced pumpkin filling, almond paste, and poached quince. With leaves and mushrooms on top, his pie turned out very autumnal with “beautiful” colors, according to Leith. Though his pumpkin filling was a bit liquidy, the pastry was perfect. Hollywood also said that the flavors blended well together.
Georgie filled her pie with spiced pumpkin filling and pecan praline. She makes her pie every year for Halloween. She decorated her pies with braids along the top, aiming to redeem herself from some unfortunate braids during bread week. However, she started running out of time and cranked the heat on her oven up, leading to some burning issues on her decorations. Her pie was overbaked and totally over-spiced.
Sumayah created a butternut squash pie instead of a pumpkin pie, as she prefers the texture of butternut squash over pumpkin. “It’s less fibrous,” she explained. She used the squash to make a custard filling, topped with pecans, and decorated with a chocolate replica of her pet rabbit, Rupert. She also created a white spelt pastry. She used dried beetroot and spinach powder to color the dough for the decorations on top. The decorations turned out beautifully, though the spice level was a bit too high.
Technical Challenge: Parkin
Leith set this challenge and said, “there are aspects of this bake that will take much longer than you think.” She set a vegan bake for this Bonfire Night classic, celebrating a British autumn festival on November 5. Northerner Gill was excited about the challenge as this is a Northern England dessert.
“The judges are looking for a rich, sticky, vegan gingerbread,” Fielding announced. “Sliced into perfectly neat squares with candied ginger on top.”
Gill explained that parkin is “a very sticky, gingery cake.”
Explaining how to go about making this vegan, “Because there’s no egg, they’re relying on the baking powder,” Leith said. “Too little and it won’t rise enough. Too much, it’ll rise like anything and then sink again.”
Leith also likes it quite spicy but did not include the amounts of spices on the recipes.
As always, the technical challenge is judged blind. Here are the results:
- Illiyin
- Georgie
- Sumayah
- Dylan
- Nelly
- Christiaan
- Gill (unfortunately, she forgot the baking powder and her parkin was flat)
Showstopper Challenge: An Autumn Festival Cake
This autumn week’s showstopper challenge was to create an imaginative cake based on an autumn festival. The cake had to be decorated according to the chosen theme. However, the judges also wanted autumn vegetables incorporated into the cake. Vegetables could include the classic carrot, or parsnip, or beetroot for flavor and color.
“I think the most difficult thing about this challenge is the texture of the cakes,” Leith said. “It depends on how much water there is, whether you’ll get a light cake or a doughy, heavy one. You’ve got to get rid of some of that moisture.”
To get the right texture, the bakers had to remove as much water as possible.
“It’s really important to make sure you squeeze out as much of the liquid that you can,” Christiaan said.
Because of the vegetables and all the extra moisture, the cakes took a bit longer to bake.
Christiaan’s autumn pastry paid homage to two holidays; a Dutch holiday, Sint Marten, where kids create lanterns and sing songs for candy, and Halloween, which he began celebrating after moving to the UK. His cake featured an all-out decorated house, including four individually decorated spooky stained glass windows. The inside was a parsnip, apple, and celeriac sponge, layered with maple buttercream and a ginger-spiced marrow jam. Despite the morbidity of the cake, the stained glass turned out really well. Hollywood loved the cake, as did Leith.
Nelly made a spinach sponge cake. Celebrating the “autumn” of a woman’s life, the middle-age, her cake included layers of chocolate and avocado cream and plum jelly with her delicate spinach sponge. The judges really liked the icing and decoration. Unfortunately the flavors were difficult to distinguish as there was too many.
Sumayah did a parsnip, cumin, and fennel cake and a beatroot, ginger, and walnut cake, really channeling as many autumn flavors as possible. “I wanna do two because I’m not confident in either of them,” she said. “So hopefully one tastes good.” She layered the sponge with a treacle and cinnamon Swiss meringue buttercream and blackcurrant jam. It was decorated with beetroot and parsnip foliage and a tempered chocolate collar. The colors and decoration turned out wonderfully. The judges loved the top layer (the beetroot, ginger, and walnut cake), both for its flavor and texture. Hollywood was left speechless after trying the second cake, to which Leith replied, “She is one hell of a baker.” Sumayah was awarded with a Paul Hollywood handshake and a round of applause.
Georgie used roasted pumpkin and carrot as her vegetables but made sure to tone down the spices, following Leith and Hollywood’s advice. The pumpkin and carrot cake was filled with spiced pumpkin filling and coated in fondant to form a tree stump. The decorations also included pecan praline. Her cake turned out very professional, “could be sitting in the front of any bakery window,” Hollywood said. The flavor was “spot-on,” but it was a little damp.
Illiyin baked a four-layer carrot and courgette cake, filled with orange mascarpone cream, iced with a multicolored walnut praline buttercream. She celebrated Mexican Day of the Dead, Día de los Muertos, with her cake. The vibrancy of the colors were excellent and the decorations were exquisite. The judges liked the level of spice and the moist texture of the sponge.
Gill, celebrating Bonfire Night, tried again with parkin, making a point to tell the camera that she added the rising agent. She combined it with carrot to create a spiced carrot parkin, topped with treacle biscuit rockets and meringue fireworks. She beautifully decorated the cake and had really even layers. Luckily, Gill made up for the parkin that lost her the technical challenge.
Dylan based his cake on Diwali, a Hindu festival held in autumn. His sponge was made with beetroot, layered and coated in a crisp white cardamom cream cheese icing and topped with a hand-sculpted white peacock. Unfortunately, Dylan had to bake another cake as he dropped one — luckily he had extra batter in the fridge. Hollywood called it a bit messy but loved the flavor, calling it “gorgeous.”
At the end of autumn week, Sumayah was named Star Baker. Unfortunately, Nelly was sent home.
“It’s no commiseration. It’s a positive,” Nelly said. “I never, ever was thinking I would come to round six. For me, everything above round three was a bonus! Bonus game. … Of course I am happy! In each of your hearts is a piece of Nelly and you’re never gonna forgot me, and that was my aim.”
Check back next week to see what else the final remaining six bakers will be asked to whip up!
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