It’s nearly the holiday season, which means that it’s time once again for the holiday episodes of The Great British Baking Show to arrive on Netflix. After an incredible new season, one that feels especially relevant as contestants baking under the pressure of not just Paul and Prue, but also the COVID pandemic, the holiday episodes provide for a more fun and casual viewing experience.
(Minor Spoilers ahead, but no winners are named)
“The Great Christmas Bake Off” is the first of the two episodes released, and it features some all-star bakers from the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Briony and Terry (series nine, collection six on Netflix) are paired with Tom and Yan (series eight, collection five on Netflix) in a holiday themed competition.
The first challenge required 24 Christmas themed cake pops in two and a half hours. While that seems like a lot of time, veteran Bake Off watchers know how quickly time can pass in the tent. For Tom, time slipped away more quickly than for the rest, as he decided to make four different sponges for his pops, rather than using one sponge as a base for flavoring later in the challenge. Increased bake time usually results in hectic decorating, and that ends up being Tom’s downfall. While his decorating was impeccable, he was only able to decorate 10 of the required 24 pops. Yan and Briony manage to finish all 24, even if a few of them are a bit rough around the edges. In this challenge, all the contestants flavors were incredible, so judging came down to who was able to complete the challenge.
I’m always a huge fan of Paul’s advice in the technical challenge, and this time was no exception. “Watch your timing, and Merry Christmas.” Thanks Paul. But as much as I’m a fan of Paul Hollywood, I’m even more of a fan of sausage rolls. Contestants had two hours to make a sausage roll wreath with cranberry sauce. The construction of the technical challenge has routinely been the most interesting part of each week’s show, and this is no exception. Though the more casual nature of the competition allows for a lot of levity as contestants compensate for poorly shaped wreaths by helping themselves to the leftover port wine. Contestants fumbled with keeping the butter in the puff pastry, shaping the wreaths, and deciding when to pull them from the oven. Here, the flakiest pastry ends up winning the day.
The next day, the bakers confront the four hour showstopper challenge: a gingerbread structure with multiple confectionery skills included. The designs are lofty, including Terry’s three-foot tall version of the Chrysler Building. Once again, timing and bake issues derail some of the baker’s plans, forcing them to adapt on the fly. The top of the Chrysler building needs to be recut because of a forgotten structural piece, Tom’s ruins his first sugar dome by leaving it in a bucket of water, Briony forgets to make the front of her train, and Yan is having to reinforce her building with an increasingly large amount of royal icing just to get the walls to stay up. In the end, all contestants presented a well baked and interesting structure, including what may be the first animatronic showstopper in history.
“The Great Festive Baking Show” is the second of the two episodes, and has a very different feel to it than the previous episode. Instead of Bake Off contestants, these bakers are actors who play various roles on the TV show Derry Girls, a show about teens growing up in Northern Ireland in the 1990’s. While I was initially skeptical about having amatuer bakers in the tent, the cast is wildly funny and makes for a really entertaining episode. Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Nicola Coughlan, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, Siobhan McSweeney, and Dylan Llewellyn end up handling themselves well as they move through the various challenges presented by Pula and Prue, and add their unique brand of humor to the show.
The signature challenge tasks the contestants with making a three layer trifle in two and a half hours, which is the perfect task for contestants with a wide range of baking experience. Nicola does have some baking history, but she quickly derails her efforts by having to make the sponge cake three times before finally getting it right. The other bakers try their best to battle cakes and puddings that haven’t cooled in time to layer, resulting in messy, but tasty, trifles.
The technical challenge comes from Prue, and it very quickly becomes apparent that this will be a test of organizational skill rather than baking wizardry. The task is to make twelve salmon and beetroot blinis with caviar and dill. Really, the hardest task here is to make the blinis according to uncharacteristically specific instructions. However, they are made with varying degrees of success: James struggles with consistency, Nicola finishes them in oil when they are supposed to be dry cooked, and Jaime-Lee struggles with making them all the same size. Still, it is impressive to see the bakers recover and persevere, as the fun of the first challenge gives way to legitimate nervousness. The simplicity of the blini actually makes it the perfect holiday recipe for home bakers to try this winter, and the perfect excuse for me to buy smoked salmon at home instead of just getting it from the deli down the street.
The showstopper is also straightforward, but still allows the contestants to show off their creative skills. Each person must choose a decade to represent with a two-tier sculpted cake. The 1930’s, 1960’s, and 1980’s are all represented, though some turn out better than others. This challenge is the most entertaining of all three, as these bakers try their best to wow the judges with cakes while trying to pivot around small mistake after slightly larger mistake. It seems like there is a constantly shifting balance of “looks good but baked poorly” to “baked well but looks like a disaster.” Saoirse goes from tie-dye to grey fondant, but the bake is good. Jaime-Lee accidentally burned Paul’s mouth by adding way too much rising agent. The other contestants ran through a range of issues, along with the first recorded instance of a “musty” flavor. Yikes. Despite the issues, a winner is crowned based largely on a consistently good effort and result throughout the episode.
These two episodes, taken as a whole, are standard fare, that still manages to be entertaining largely based on the personalities in the tent, and I wouldn’t hate another one-off episode featuring the stars of another popular show. However, that one-off shows shouldn’t be the Holiday Special, especially when there are so many fun personalities that we didn’t get to see much of during the regular Bake Show catalogue. Regardless, these two shows hit the spot with fun personalities, impressive bakes, and a casual yet competitive format.
