The Finals
This is the tenth, and final, week of Season 14 of The Great British Baking Show ™.
This page is all about the food that the show brings to our screens. The goal is to have a lasting memory of some of the flavors and taste combinations, to bring some creativity and ideas to your own cooking. I hope you find it fun and useful.
Signature Dish
In the finals of Season 14 of The Great British Baking Show ™, the 3 remaining contestants were required to create two batches of four highly decorative eclairs. Each set should have it's own flavor and decor.
Prue Leith: The pastry needs to be really puffed up and crisp ...
Paul Hollywood: ... and you want beautiful air pockets which can be filled with creams or custards ... but not too much or too wet. It's important to avoid anything soggy.
Black Forest/Banoffee
Matty's black forest gateau eclairs were topped with Kirsch Chantilly Cream.
Banoffee eclairs features, in addition to the banana and toffee, a lovely walnut and pecan praline.
Judging: Prue Leith loved the Black Forest eclairs but Paul Hollywood said he wanted more Kirsch in the cream. He also mocked the look of the cherries on the top. Prue Leith loved how fully packed the eclairs were with banoffee filling.
"He who dares ..."
Dan topped his salted caramel and praline eclairs with crisp tempered chocolate.
His strawberry-and-cream eclairs were decorated with Chantilly cream and cubes of summer fruit punch jelly.
Judging: The eclairs were a little soggy and the praline filling was judged to be a little grainy. Also (useful tip here) the judges were critical of the chocolate shard on top of the eclairs for being larger than the underlying eclairs.
Tropical / Mocha
Josh filled one set of eclairs with coffee pastry cream, topped with dark chocolate and coffee icing.
His other summer-inspired eclairs were filled with mango and coconut.
Judging: Josh's eclairs were judged to be perfectly uniform and perfectly filled (in volume terms). The flavors were good but too delicate. Paul Hollywood judged the mango and coconut eclairs to be a little too sweet. The chocolate and coffee ones couldn't be faulted.
Technical Challenge
The final technical challenge of Season 14 of The Great British Baking Show ™ was set by Paul Hollywood. When asked for a hint for the bakers he said "For perfection, you're going to need patience."
The technical challenge was to bake 9 Lardy Cake Slices. The bakers had 3 hours.
Paul Hollywood said of Lardy Cakes - These are a cross between Danish pastry and bread. This technical challenge is all about getting the timing right. The bakers need to get the dough ready as quickly as possible so that it can prove without rushing. After the first proving the dough gets layered with sugar and fruit. The second prove is critical and the longer it proves, the better. If the bakers have been slow in getting to that second proving, they risk EITHER under-proving or under-baking.
First - Josh
Judged as having good lamination and lovely mixed peel
Third - Matty
The judges loved the flavor and quantity of the fruit but the enriched lardy-cake dough needed more proving.
ShowStopper
The Showstopper challenge was to build an elegant, tiered celebration cake, inspired by their first ever bake. It needed to be at least three tiers. The bakers had 4.5 hours for this challenge.
A slice for all seasons
Josh's first ever bake was a Victoria Sponge which he baked with his nan. For his showstopper, Josh baked a seasonal celebration cake with 3 Victoria Sponges, variously filled with rhubarb and strawberry jam and/or flavored with apple. The tiers were decorated for Spring, Summer and Autumn and had an edible greenhouse (with mint windows!) on the top.
Judging: The tiers were very even but the judges criticized the piping which was a little messy. The flavor of the apple was lost in the bake and Paul Hollywood felt that the sponges needed something more to elevate them. The bottom sponge (bottom one) had been compressed very slightly with the weight from above and although the lemon curd filling was silky smooth, Paul Hollywood didn't find it to be bursting with flavor. The greenhouse was a triumph.
Lemon Drizzle Memory Lane
Dan's cake was a three-tiered "love letter" to the lemon drizzle cake, which was Dan's first venture into baking. Layered with lemon curd and with limoncello mousseline and mint raspberry compote, Dan's celebration cake was finished with torched meringue, shiny white chocolate collars and lemon macarons.
Judging: Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith wished that Dan had left the macarons off - they were undercooked and not sufficiently delicate. Paul Hollywood also lamented the lack of a lemon 'punchiness'.
Chocolate, Lemon and Rosemary
Matty made a chocolate Genoese sponge for two of his tiers. He recognized that he was taking a risk because this ultra-light sponge doesn't much like to be stacked, but he decided that it was worth it because Genoese is "quick to mix, quick to bake and quick to cool". Turned out he was right! His two Genoese sponges were layered with Swiss meringue buttercream and crumbled brownies. (Matty explained that all-things-chocolate brought him into baking.) His third tier was a lemon and rosemary sponge with a fresh summer-fruit jam.
Judging: Prue Leith loved the overall look although both hosts were critical of the fact that the top tier was sloping. Still, the moment that the judges cut into the cake they were speechless because it was so perfect. Paul Hollywood said "wow, that's light sponge. What a great cake." Later, he told the audience "that was the best chocolate cake I've eaten in a long, long time." Both hosts also loved the lemon and rosemary sponge and said the jam was 'superb'.
The Winner of The Great British Baking Show ™ 2023!
Culinary lessons from The Great British Baking Show ™ Season 14
Choux pastry Dough
We learned that it is possible to know when choux pastry batter is ready because it drops off the whisk in less than 3 seconds.
Also, choux pastry needs to be dusted with icing sugar (powdered sugar) before baking to give it the lovely crisp shell for which eclairs are famous.
Eclairs with Craquelin
Josh added a chocolate craquelin topping to his coffee eclairs, very successfully. He was hugely disciplined in measuring a depth of craquelin to 2 millimeters.
The craquelin not only shows off a skill, but it also adds flavor and texture to the eclairs.
Eclairs - how long?
There was a question in the tent - for how long should eclairs be baked and at what temperature?
Josh decided 40 mins (he didn't name the temperature)
Dan decided 30 minutes at 350°F.
Matty was most detailed - he baked his eclairs for 15 minutes at 400°F and then lowered the oven to 350°F for 'as long as it takes for them to be completely dry'. He said - could be anything from 15 - 25 more minutes. Matty ALSO made small puncture holes into his baked eclairs (to let out the steam) and then popped them back into the oven for 5 minutes. Paul Hollywood said of Matty's eclairs "thank heavens, someone has given me properly dry choux pastry".
Macarons take time
The Showstopper challenge allowed 4.5 hours. Dan needed to make lemon drizzle cake, lemon curd, limoncello mousseline, mint raspberry compote, torched meringue, white chocolate collars and lemon macarons.
If macarons aren't left to dry out before baking, they are very likely to crack. Dan most likely saw the threat of this and therefore underbaked them, doubling up on the problem.
Most recipes say to let macarons rest for at least one hour but always until they are too dry to stick to your finger. In my kitchen, it has been known to take over two hours before my macarons are completely dry.
