Bake Off’s Dairy Week: Crying Over Spilt Milk and a Shock Exit

Welcome to the Eater round-up of Great British Bake Off 2019, as Paul Hollywood, Prue Leith, Sandi Toksvig, and Noel Fielding return to Channel 4 with the 10th series of cakes, puddings, breads, and inevitable recourse to terrible baking puns.

After cake week kicked off GBBO 2019, and Great British Bake Off 2019 Episode 2 tackled biscuits for biscuit week, bread week brought in tear-and-share loaves, baps, and a lot of scoring. This week, it’s dairy, a new, strange, milky week that inspired a lot of spilt milk, a lot of crying, and a shock exit. Here, now, is Great British Bake Off 2019 Episode 4, Dairy Week, (sort of) as it happened.

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01:30: Dairy week? Dairy week?! DAIRY WEEK???!!!

01:45: Michael kicks things off: “bread’s different from dairy isn’t it.” It’s time for a signature, and it’s time for cultured dairy. Buttermilk. Yoghurt. Michelle is trembling. David just loves dairy. Noel Fielding references plant-based almost immediately. Paul Hollywood wants to bring in “a cultured milk.” Come back in ten minutes and don’t get the magazine dirty, buddy.

03:25: Steph is making her “answer to everything” cake, which is chocolate and raspberry. The question is: why are those flavours an answer to everything? Here’s something non dairy:

04:15: David and Rosie are both using limoncello in their cakes. He’s off about microbiomes. Phil has run over a few pigeons and Priya is making a banana and chocolate cake.

07:12: Sandi is cautioning against using too much dairy, and that puts Michael’s double dairy in as Foolhardy Manoeuvre That Will Quite Obviously Backfire As Soon As It Is Mentioned of the Week early doors. He then admits he has a 10 percent success rate with the bake. “It’s torn, it’s been underbaked, it’s been overbaked, it’s sunk.” Maybe ... Don’t? Over on Twitter, Conspiracy of the Week has started early:

08:20: Helena is making a little ghost, as is her wont. Alice is making a pistachio and cardamom yoghurt cake, while Michelle has four different decorations for her rhubarb and custard yoghurt cake. She has also broken her cakestand. TENSION

12:22: Michael’s cake has cracked and failed, just like nine out of the 10 times he tested it. Foolhardy Manoeuvre That Will Quite Obviously Backfire As Soon As It Is Mentioned of the Week is here, and by god, it has truly backfired. He’s as deflated as his cake. Two moods:

16:00: Signature challenge tiers

• Cultured tier: Henry, Rosie, David
• Answer to everything including this challenge tier: Steph
• About to get sued by Snapchat tier: Helena
• Where’s the flavour tier: Phil, Alice
• Claggy tier: Michelle
• Foolhardy Manoeuvre That Will Quite Obviously Backfire As Soon As It Is Mentioned of the Week But With Some Redemption tier: Michael

17:40: How the mighty have fallen: from a Hollywood handshake to an ignominious crack. Tears are flowing over spilt milk broken cheesecake.

24:11: Prue sets the technical challenge: it’s maids of honour. No. Not cannibalism. Curd tarts.

25:29: Michael’s so unbothered about his cake that he’s only mentioned it ten times in two minutes. Michelle has a “LOL” t-shirt. It’s puff pastry so it’s all about layers. Michelle and Phil have a crazed conversation about curd by the freezer.

28:00: Priya meanwhile is in position for Foolhardy Manoeuvre That Will Quite Obviously Backfire As Soon As It Is Mentioned of the Week by not leaving her curd to cool. Now her pastry is in trouble.

30:30: Michael asks Priya why she isn’t crying. Priya says she doesn’t have time to cry. This is too much. It’s gone nuclear. No-one has done anything correctly. Paul is absolutely seething. He’s brutal.

36:20: Technical challenge tiers

• You are all dreadful and Paul hates you tier: Alice, David, Priya, Michelle, Steph, Phil, Rosie, Michael, Henry

38:00: It’s mishti, which is the Bengali pronunciation of mithai, but Bengal also encompasses parts of Bangladesh so it’s not clear as to whether the show is homogenising south Asia or just making a specific prounciation choice. Cue Prue talking about vibrancy! Paul talking about vibrancy! Alice making a British-Indian fusion! Perhaps it is clear after all. Has anyone on this show, like, at all, ever heard of colonialism. Priya discusses the celebratory importance, the difficulty, the technique. Everyone else: “oh yeah rose and pistachio.”

41:00: Henry has chosen to make kulfi, frozen, which is “dependent on the freezer being cold.” Helena is also leaning into a sort of colonialism vibe with British sweet shop mithai. Michelle is making rice pudding, because, reasons.

44:00: Phil’s doing a ... Garden? Meanwhile, a reason the freezer might not be cold would be if someone kept opening it every five minutes. Henry is opening the freezer every five minutes. What. Could. Happen.

47:12: Henry’s kulfi hasn’t frozen, in a week of spilt milk, he’s at the very least not crying. Pre-judging, it’s not hugely clear as to which bakers have made mishti, and which bakers have colonised milk.

Madame Minge, sit down.

48:01: Showstopper challenge tiers

• God tier: Steph, David, Michael, Priya
• Good tier: Alice, Rosie
• Why did you try to make rice pudding tier: Michelle
• Garden tier: Phil
• Stop opening the freezer tier: Henry
• Perhaps two white judges lacking mithai expertise shouldn’t judge mithai tier: Everyone

A pre-judging tidbit:

Star baker: Steph.

Going home: Phil. Have to say, slightly surprised after Michael’s twofold bomb-out. Perhaps it could have been someo-

Running theme: Spilt milk and weeping.