Bake Off review: Jürgen on "unpredictable" season 14 as Tasha continues to rise
The Great British Bake Off 2021 semi-finalist talks Bread Week.
It was Bread Week on The Great British Bake Off, and it was full of surprises, as former favourite Abbi found herself in a twist, after screwing up the plaited Showstopper. She became the third baker to leave the tent, following behind Keith and Amos.
Dan also had a bit of a soggy bottom when it came to his stuffed crust pizza bread display, which wasn't baked all the way through.
It was a good week for Tasha, however, as she bagged the Star Baker accolade for a second week in a row, but it was a very close call, with Josh impressing with his Tiger Mascot.
Here, RadioTimes.com columnist Jürgen Krauss shares his thoughts on Bread Week.
You can watch Jürgen give his verdict below. Keep watching at the end of each video for more from the expert baker.
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Jürgen on Bread Week
It was a big surprise to me because it's somehow mixed up my expectations. Things happened I didn't expect and I'm getting more excited about this bunch of bakers because it's more unpredictable than I thought. I thought that Dan would sail through pretty well as he did so far and I'm not sure what happened. He might have had a stressful week or just a bad day, or maybe gone in with too much confidence. Things didn't quite work out and then Tasha was just amazing throughout.
Favourite bake
In the Showstopper, there were quite a few interesting ones. Tasha with the Medusa - that was very impressive. I also liked Dana's picnic basket. A basket is not easy to make and it turned our [well], so kudos to her for that. There were a lot of of great ideas and a lot of great execution. There was also the consistent theme by Paul Hollywood of things being slightly under proved, which doesn't surprise me because of the time constraints.
Least favourite
I would have to say Abbi's cottage bake didn't look the part unfortunately, Paul Hollywood mentioned that she had too little salt, and bread without salt tends to get very slack and that could be the reason for it.
Tip of the week
Watch the dough rather than the clock. The dough will be subject to temperature in your kitchen, etc, and to your working, and that's more important to judge the proving from the dough rather than recipes as one hour. I know that publishers like to put timings in, but those timings when making bread depend hugely on the environment and how you work the dough.
If you work the dough heavily that will warm up the dough and affect the proving time, especially if you use machines. If you work it by hand, the dough might stay cooler but it will take a bit longer to prove. Similarly if the kitchen is 90 degrees - I found that about Irish kitchens, for example – it will take maybe an hour longer to prove than in the kitchen with 22 degrees.
Jürgen answers...
Can Dan come back from this bad week?
I think he will brush up. I think that's absolutely in his character. I was also surprised with Matty. I thought he did very well in Bread Week, so I'm looking forward to seeing more of his baking. I would have loved to see more of Abbi – I'm really sad she's gone but things didn't quite work out.
Tasha won Star Baker for the second week in a row – do you spot a winner?
If I were to predict on the basis of the number of Star Bakes, there's quite a few semi-finalists that went out having had three Star Bakers or more. At this point with this lot, I'm really at a loss to predict the winner. Bread Week mixed it up completely, as I said before.
Is there anything you'd love to see being done on Bake Off?
I would love to see consistent Technicals that are not a surprise, so one challenge every year that is the same year on year. The cottage loaf would be an ideal one but the classical one just with white flour. Get every Bake Off class to do a cottage loaf, or a croissant or a baguette. And then you have a handle on the individual bakers as well as on the class year-on-year. I think that could be interesting.
A week in the life of Jürgen
This week was absolutely crazy. The last 10 days, I was on my US book tour and I managed to fill all that free time for relaxing with meeting people from the music scene and going to multiple museums.
So the last seven days I spent most of the time in New York. I was based in lower Manhattan, but I had a chance to go to Times Square and dip into Central Park and some museums there - Jewish Museum, Design Museum. It was really amazing. I enjoyed that.
I met musicians and it seemed that they knew some of the musicians I knew here in Britain. It feels like my network in baking and music expanded! I met with bakers in Baltimore as well as in New York. So the best of times really!
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.
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