Bake Off review: Jürgen on contestants at risk and Paul Hollywood's critiquing

However, two contestants will now be leaving in Pastry Week, which takes place on Tuesday 24th October.

Here, RadioTimes.com columnist Jürgen Krauss shares his thoughts on Chocolate Week, particularly Paul Hollywood's comments on Dan's Showstopper, and reveals which two bakers could be at risk next week.

You can watch Jürgen give his verdict below.

Keep watching at the end of each video for more from the expert baker.

Jürgen on Chocolate Week

It was a very interesting week again. Quite hard challenges, I found. I mean, that Technical. Quite a lot of challenges. Cheesecake is not easy to set, and then the complication with caramelised white chocolate, which not everybody is familiar with.

I have used white chocolate in biscuits, which caramelises during baking and gives a very nice effect, but doing that in a microwave when you've never done it before – that's a bit of a trap, I suppose. Yeah, so I think they have done all very well.

It was a bit sad that Tasha was unwell, but I think the judges were very kind during the whole episode, and we'll see next week two people leave, which is bound to be an interesting episode as well then.

Favourite bake

That is very hard to say! Well, I can't taste them so I have to go by the appearance, and there were lots of them. I want to start with Cristy's box. Cristy was in danger of going out, but her chocolate box just looked so amazingly creative and colourful, and producing such a big piece of tempered chocolate is hard.

It's hard to mould, it's hard to to get it to set without cracks, because the bigger piece of chocolate gets, the more unequal it will cool and that will create cracks and problems in the moulding, etc.

So I think she did an outstanding job there, and to my eyes it looked amazing, and then I think I have to mention Nicky, Matty definitely and Dana's gold leaf technique was very appealing and her cake looked beautiful.

Least favourite bake

From the appearance [it] was Rowan's paint box of his grandpa. The colour. The matte kind of pastel colour of the chocolates in the box didn't quite do it for me. He went for [a] fairly thin chocolate construction of the box, and obviously the temperature wasn't right.

So, I would think that his tempered chocolate picked up temperature from the worktop and therefore just got too soft, too difficult to handle at the thickness. If you compare that to Saku's box, which was very, very thick. It didn't have a shine, so it also indicated problems with tempering, but just the sheer thickness of the chocolate gave it more possibilities in this environment. I think Rowan went out on a very thin ice, so to speak.

Welcome back Dan

That was really nice to see Dan returning. It looks like he knows what he's doing and the last two weeks are a bit of a blip. I'm looking forward to what Dan produces next week. I'm also not exactly sure what Paul Hollywood meant in his comment about the Showstopper not having enough baking in Dan's chocolate box cake, because he had a genoise sponge.

Maybe the balance between the sponge and baked elements and the cream elements was a bit skewed towards the cream elements, but it was two very different baking techniques. So I'm looking forward to what Dan is up to next week.

Dark Horse Matty

I think now after this week, he [Matty] definitely is the dark horse. I really liked the appearance of both of his Showstopper and the Signature. The sides of the signature, that's kind of forgivable given again the temperature and the environment in the tent, but they both looked stunning and appetising, so definitely the Dark Horse.

Tip of the week: Mastering chocolate

You have to keep your cool and you have to keep your mind focused. So the most important thing is to watch the temperature. You need a very good thermometer that responds very quickly or you need to gain the experience to judge at which point chocolate has the right consistency, which can be quite tricky, and I think in this week in the tent with hot temperatures outside, it showed how tricky chocolate is.

Professional kitchens that work with chocolate will have something like 18 degrees in the kitchen so it's all cooled down. At that temperature, chocolate will mould beautifully, but if it was 25 in the tent, the chocolate will quickly go softer and then just stick to the forms etc. So most important is watch your temperature and stay cool with whatever you do - in your head as well.

Jürgen answers...

Do you agree with the judges not sending anyone home?

Yeah, I absolutely agree. In [the] bake which Tasha could complete she wasn't outstanding, so it was a kind decision to keep everyone in to give everybody an equal chance.

Which two contestants do you think are at risk of going in Pastry Week?

Cristy will have to up her game. I mean, she started very strong in the first few weeks, but things didn't go well this time. I think Rowan might be at risk as well.

He has done very interesting things, but the finish wasn't that great in this episode and Tasha's trajectory, I'm not test this tragic tree, I'm not sure. It might have been due to her feeling unwell from the beginning of this week. So we don't know.

A Week in the Life of Jürgen

I spent most of the time settling into normal life, baking for family, getting back into my IT work, but I'm also preparing for other baking related things and and book promotion.

So I'm doing a bread class on Saturday, I'm going to [an] early music concert here in Brighton, which I'm looking very much forward to. This evening, I've got a big band rehearsal. The first one in four weeks for me, and that's going to be fun. We have a gig the following Sunday.

German Baking: Cakes, tarts, traybakes and breads from the Black Forest and beyond by Jürgen Krauss is available to buy now.

The Great British Bake Off airs at 8pm on Tuesdays on Channel 4.

Looking for something else to watch? Check out our TV Guide or Streaming Guide, or visit our dedicated Entertainment hub for the latest news.

Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now and celebrate the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who with a special issue of Radio Times. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.