Great British Bake Off - Discuss

I can't believe these bakers had such a problem with viennese whirls, they aren't that difficult. I would never make GBBO though as I have no piping skills & no hand eye co-ordination for the assembly tasks

I have been a fan of GBBO since the first series, but think now that the format is past its sell by date. It has become so predictable. WE always see the catastrophes, which appear to be the same every series, the dropped trays, the icing that drips everywhere, cut fingers , salt used instead of sugar, tears and fluttering eyelashes at PH! If these are the 'best 12 bakers in the U.K.( Some of the baking is not as good as the average gransnetter could produce)'Let's see the ones who did not make the cut!! Come on BBC! Time for a change ! Rant over!!!!!!

I love Jo Brand's Extra Slice show.

I found my attention wandering last night until I just stopped watching. I can't connect with any of these contestants as I have in previous series. It's a bit like watching celebrity bake off, where you expect some of them to make a complete mess of what they are doing because they are not supposed to have any skill whatsoever. The only thing they're doing at the moment is giving Jo Brand more ammunition for her awful "Extra Slice" show! I know I am probably being too hard.

Its was all a bit of a gingerbread debacle !! First time in a technical challenge I have seen so many just not up to standard .

And some of those Viennese whirls were awful ( my granddaughter aged 9 assured me she could have done better )

I agree Lully the pink lipstick was better .

Welsh Lady (Louise) too her disaster with good grace, I thought.

How do they pick contestants anyhow?

The pink lipstick was an improvement and I liked the idea of the soggy carpet in the pub.

Are this lot more nervous than last year's? Or are they just filming more calamities? I really felt for the Welsh lady when her church collapsed

I enjoy the Bakeoff calamities - biscuits sliding from oven to floor, cakes collapsing, mixer bowls breaking etc

I just think, oops, they're just like me!

Still impressed!

jalima Yes I have an off button too and I use it a lot. IMHO X Factor - Yuk! Strictly - better without Brucie but could be even better without that Tess Daly. Celebrities in the Jungle or in the BB House - flogging a dead horse. GBBO - interesting combinations of ingredients used to try and impress by token variants of the baking members of the population.

I watched Chronicles of Nadiyah (sp?) tonight and thought she came over well as a natural presenter of cookery/travel programmes. She seemed less frenetic than, for example, The Hairy Bikers or Rick Stein. I just hope that 'the powers that be' do not try to push her into the morass of celebrity stardom

Don't be -I started doing it when eldest was about 3 or 4 -he's 16 on Saturday. Bloody gingerbread houses!!!! I made a gingerbread Christmas tree last year for a change ( see Lakeland) they were underwhelmed ?as not so many sweets.

I am impressed whitewave!

It was a joke but um, speechless (nearly)
Mine would end up like louise's.

The gingerbread will be Christmas- bit of a cheat as I always make a gingerbread house at Christmas- cheesed off with it to be truthful. DD eats the gingerbread and boys eat the sweets

Please post a photo when you make the gingerbread creation whitewave

Marmalade sounds nicer than jelly for the Jaffa cakes merlotgran, although I overdid it at the weekend making TWO puddings for the family.

I have an 'off' button on my tv, and I can change channels too. Clever eh!!
So I don't have to watch programmes like the X Factor or Sleb Brother or anything I don't like

But I do turn it on for the GBBO even though i could do without all the hype, and I did enjoy The Chronicles of Nadiya and her travels around Bangladesh and the food she cooked there.

I think I shall expire when I tackle the mirror cake?

Oh that's a good idea merlot I've seen two recipes one with orange jelly with an orange squeezed in. The other with 5 oranges and gelatine. All a bit of a phaff

I used to make Jaffa cakes with my DGCs when they were small, whitewave. Putting a dollop of shredless marmalade on top of the sponge is a helluva lot easier than making orange jelly

Getting back to the current series..., I felt sorry for Louise who was voted off - it was a tough challenge for week 2 and it was just bad luck that her construction completely collapsed.

There are a couple of contestants I can't warm to, but I'm not saying which they are!

Had the wheeze that I would do one thing a week for DD and family. Drizzle cake this week - beginning to go off the idea so not sure how long i will last. Jaffas next?

I don't like baking, watch Gbbo though and finding the whole "Nadiya" thing OTT and rather tedious. She's personable enough and good in front of the camera and I'm quite enjoying the Bangladesh programme she's doing at the moment BUT....I dunno......Why her? There have been other Gbbo winners and they've all sunk without trace. What's so special about Nadiya that she's writing books, travelling around telling us about her life, her recipes, her beliefs?

What a nasty post Sarah, and not true, it's just your prejudice showing.

Why are all the ethnic minorities on the programme "token" ones? Are certain people only allowed to do certain programmes? So baking is white, cookery in general is white, unless it's Chinese or curries. Africans and West Indians can do sport, Indians can do a bit of science stuff perhaps and presumably Muslim women should be sitting at home doing what their husbands tell them.

Can't we just accept that these people are chosen because they're good at what they do? There didn't seem to be any complaints about the coloured nurse from our local hospital last year. I don't know what nationality or religion he was but he was a nice guy.