Great British Bake Off catch up: Pastry Week sees Dan leave the tent as Bryony wins Star Baker
Briony triumphed as Star Baker thanks to her showstopping pie, while Dan left the tent following a few timing mishaps
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The Great British Bake Off contestants have waved goodbye to another baker, as Dan was voted off by the judges over a soggy fish and some sad samosas during Pastry Week. “It was a disastrous week,” he admitted at the end of the show.
Meanwhile, Briony came out on top thanks to her showstopping venison pie, which was shaped like the top hat from Alice in Wonderland. Rahul and Ruby also impressed this week thanks to some samosa advice from their mums.
Manon struggled a bit on the French technical challenge (ironique, n'est pas?), where the contestants were asked to make some "Puits D'Amour" ("Wells of Love"). It's a French pastry that's something like a cross between a creme brulee and a flan. Once again, Dan struggled to keep up, finishing with flat pastry because he forgot to add sugar and had to open the oven during the cooking process.
Catch up with the latest in this series of the Great British Bake Off (please allow a moment for the liveblog to load).
GBBO fans seemed to enjoy cracking a few pastry puns – many of them were cheeky twists on classic songs. Favourites The Independent spotted on Twitter included "Suet Child of Mine", "Don't bake my tart, my flaky-bakey tart", and "Can You Filo the Love Tonight".
We're pretty impressed with our own effort: "It takes choux to make a craquelin go right."
Earlier this week, Paul Hollywood has opened up about the latest series and also confirmed a major change – he's getting rid of his famous Hollywood Handshake! Or rather, he's reserving it for very, very special circumstances.
Speaking on The Jonathan Ross Show about how he's been receiving some criticism for how many handshakes he's dished out this series, he explained: “I've taken a bit of flack over [it]. The handshake came from when [bakes] looked very professional and they almost cross that line from being amateur to professional.
"Every year the standard has got better and better and better and this year has been phenomenal. Some of the flavours they are bringing out. Rahul's stuff has been incredible.”
He continued: “You will see it happen, the handshakes almost stop. Because what I've done is I've realised they are all moving up in standard so I've got to move my barrier up so that's exactly what I do, I raise the bar and then no one gets over the top of it.”
The Great British Bake Off airs on Channel 4 every Tuesday 8pm
I'm too distracted to even scold Dan for forgetting to put the sugar on his wells of love.
Dan's choux hasn't risen properly. Unless he absolutely NAILS it on his final bake, he's in trouble.
Yay for Briony! She comes out top with her Puits D'Amour and she looks proper chuffed. Well deserved.
OK, we've got one challenge to go. The judges and the presenters are having a catch up, and they're very impressed with Briony.
Dan is definitely in trouble, as is Manon, who struggled with the samosas. Ruby is also in the bottom, despite doing well with the samosas, because she struggled with the technical challenge.
There's still time for each baker to prove (geddit) their worth, with the showstopper challenge. They're being asked to make a pie that would fit in at any Tudor banquet.
Briony is making a pie based on Alice in Wonderland! Pretty ambitious she's filling her pie with mushroom, potato and venison.
Most of the bakers are sticking with a traditional hot water crust pastry, because they're short on time. But Dan, Jon and Kim-Joy are going off the beaten track and using full puff pastry! I'm not sure if that's such a great idea for Dan, who's had a lot of issues with time-keeping over the last few episodes.
Kim-Joy is making a vegetarian mermaid that will be filled with feta, butternut squash, and caramelised onion. Sounds delicious, but surely shaping the pie like a person defeats the 'vegetarian' bit.
Jon is making a Welsh Dragon Pie, and of course it's going to be green. Green puff pastry. Mmmm.
As suspected, Dan is at a loose end because he's waiting for his puff pastry to chill. So he's not going to have much time for construction – which the other bakers have already started working on.
Rahul is making something based on the flavours he remembers as a child, in a lamb curry pie shaped like a butterfly.
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