The Great British Baking Show ™

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Quick Bread

About the dish ...

Host: "Morning, bakers. Very exciting news this morning. We've got a new category of bread ... quick breads. Quick breads, of course, are just very speedy breads made without yeast. Paul and Mary would like you to make two of these, any flavour you like, but they have to be free form. That is not in a tin. "

Paul Hollywood: "Now, a quick bread is a bread risen without yeast, so the only thing they're going to be able to use to rise is bicarb or baking powder. You throw your bicarb in, which is your alkali, and then you throw your buttermilk in, which is essentially acid. The reaction between the two creates a gas and grows your bread. If they use too much bicarbonate baking powder, it's very bitter and the moment you eat into it, you know it."

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Which bakers were in The Great British Baking Show ™ tent?

What The Great British Bakers ™ served up

Paul's Cranberry & Orange Sweet Soda Bread

Paul Hollywood: "How much flour are you using in this?"

Paul: "800 grams of flour."

Paul Hollywood: "800 grams. How much liquid?"

Paul: "300 to 350 ml of buttermilk."

Paul Hollywood: "Not a lot of liquid. So it's quite a tight structure inside.'

Voice Over: "Paul's close textured quick bread is a break with tradition, as it's sweetened with orange and cranberry."

Paul Hollywood: "Why did you choose sweet?"

Paul: "I just like the texture, I like the taste, like the flavours."

Paul Hollywood: "So how long are you baking this for?"

Paul: "50 to 55 minutes."

Paul Hollywood: "Okay. That's quite a long time. Good luck, mate."

Paul's Cranberry & Orange Sweet Soda Bread

Dyana: "We had a house in Canada on the St. Lawrence river, so that's kind of my memory and where my first love for maple came from. So I am doing an amazing maple walnut babka."

Voice Over: "Inspired by childhood memories from her family's cabin in Canada, Dyana hopes her maple soaked babka with homemade maple candies and bourbon glaze will wow the judges."

Maple Walnut Babka

Nirali's babka was inspired by one of her favorite desserts, baklava. Her filling of almond and walnuts was flavored with cinnamon, rosewater, and cardamom.

Paul Hollywood: "So you've got rose water in there. What levels are we going to get of rose water?"

Nrali: "I feel that like lavender, rose water has a tendency to go into the soapy side. There'll be rose water in the syrup. And so hopefully it won't be overpowering. It'll just be floral enough. It's very subtle."

Rosewater Baklava Babka

Martin: "I call my babka the Andersonville babka. It's a neighborhood I live in Chicago. There was a swedish bakery there for about 90 years. They just closed a couple years ago, and they had this coffee cake that I said, I'm going figure this out. So it's my recreation of this coffee cake in babka form."

Voice Over: "Martin's babka will feature orange and cardamom flavored dough wrapped around a cinnamon and almond filling. To pay homage to the bakery that inspired the recipe, he'll decorate the top with the colors of the swedish flag."

Andersonville Babka

Sean: "I don't know if I know what I'm doing ... more just improvising here and there. For my babka, I'm making a dates and coconut babka."

Voice Over: "Inspired by his parents' date tree and one of his favorite cakes, Sean's date and coconut babka, will be decorated with a glaze and toasted pistachios."

Date and Coconut Babka

Sarah is showcasing her husband's favorite flavors in her babka with a lemon poppy seed filling and a lemon glaze.

Lemon Poppyseed Babka

Susan: "I love making babka. It's very special. This is my Oma's bavarian twist. I call it because she would braid it without a filling. And I'm adding a filling to make it a babka."

Voice Over: "Susan has fond memories of baking with her german grandmother. She's using apricot and cranberry in her babka for a contrast in colors and flavors, and topping it with pistachios for an added crunch."

Bavarian Twist Babka

Karis: "I made a chocolate babka earlier in the summer that kind of exploded because I overproved. So I learned that lesson very early on. None of that today. I'm making an orange cinnamon babka today. And so I've tried to incorporate orange through every aspect of it. There's zest in the filling and a little bit of fresh orange juice in the actual loaf itself."

Voice Over: "Karis is playing it safe with her babka, using her favorite flavors of cinnamon and orange brushed with an orange syrup and decorated with orange peel."

Karis: "I love citrus. I think there's citrus in almost all of my bakes"

Cinnamon Orange Babka Loaf