Great British Bake Off episode 5 review: Pudding week dodged the stodge as the competition hotted up

With three Hollywood handshakes in one episode, pudding week raised the bar

Liam and Julia work on their steamed puddings

If there’s anything colder autumn weather justifies, it’s the excuse to gorge ourselves on comfort food of the sweet variety. So hurrah for pudding week in the tent, which really served as inspiration for next week’s shopping list for me and showed us that at the half-way point, there is some stiff competition this year for the Bake Off crown (stiff not being the quality you want from your pud’s jelly though, please note, people).

The signature challenge called for nostalgic steamed school pudding. Sogginess and stodge were out. Just the right amount of sweetness and light (sponge) were what Paul and Prue were after. These were never going to be bog-standard puddings and there were plenty of exotic flavours in the mix, not least stunt woman Sophie’s ginger, fig and Yemeni honey pud with a tonka bean kick. Scientist Yan whipped up a concoction involving two types of mango. Treacle sponge was about as adventurous as it ever got at my village primary school. Still, I would have had more than a leg to stand on than 21-year-old Russian-born Julia who said that the nearest she’d got to a steamed pud was “baked apple with cottage cheese inside”. The poor gal.

Student Liam and Stacey were both making takes on a quintessential English pudding. It was the "Battle of the Bakewells" as Sandi put it. Stacey admitted to the judges that she’d tried hers out 17 times. 17! Anyone who thinks this baking lark is easy is very much mistaken. There’s always one or two who takes things to new levels. Steven was busy injecting his lemon sponge with blackcurrant sauce using a syringe. “Wow, that’s the sort of thing you inseminate cows with,” said Yan. Quite.

As it turned out, most had done rather well with the puddings. Paul gave out three (THREE!) Hollywood handshakes in this round alone, to Yan, Stacey and Steven respectively. Is the man getting soft or is the standard just high this series?

Elsewhere, Kate, last week’s winner, seemed to have an attack of the Curse of the Star Bakers when her custard resembled weak tea. “That’s not custard, that’s a big mistake,” said Prue with uncharacteristic frankness, but still pleasingly rocking another great geometric necklace.

Noel Fielding continued to be a revelation – the set pieces with Sandi still feel a bit forced but when he’s free from the shackles of the script, he’s brilliant. He was a vision in a yellow jumper this week, skipping round the tent as nimbly as his skinny jeans would allow, and offering words of encouragement and his irreverent Noelisms.

“If I see any stodge creeping into the tent – get out. The thing about stodge, is when you tell stodge to leave the tent, it will do it slowly.”

“Do you want a Fielding Fondle?” He asked Liam when he didn’t get a handshake for his Bakewell effort. The student might not have been keen but such is his charisma, I reckon there were a fair few in the tent who would have been up for it.

Sandi meanwhile, continued to not say very much, until she reassured Kate that she would easily find a bloke: “You cook and you’re a blacksmith, that’s like the perfect combination.” I’m not sure what her Women’s Equality Party colleagues would say about that.

I was pleased to see the return of the gentle history segment. This week Sandi was back at Cambridge, her alma mater, making the steamed pud’s forebear: a minced suet pudding. For some people it might be a now not-needed excuse for a tea break but to me it’s a welcome change in pace from the frenetic goings-on in the tent.

Anyone who thought Channel 4 had stuck too rigidly to the old format – well that dough had to pay for something – might have got a bit of a shock in the technical round this week when we had a staggering of start times. Julia was first out the blocks all on her own in the kitchen. All had exactly an hour to make the seriously delicious looking molten chocolate puddings filled with peanut butter.

It was business as usual though really. The main difference was that Prue and Paul had to start tasting before everyone had finished so instead of the Gingham Alter set-up, they sat with their backs to the kitchen looking like they had been sent out the classroom to the naughty table in disgrace, conspiratorially discussing the their classmates.

The trick, as ever, was getting the timings right. Overbaked and the puds wouldn’t ooze and underbaked and you would have raw cake on your hands. As luck would have it, or so he thought, banker James had done some revision the night before and had glanced at a similar recipe for molten volcano cakes. What a stroke of luck. He was sounding very confident. Shame his were completely raw. Someone always forgets to turn on the oven, this week it was Sophie. It didn’t matter though, she still managed to ace the puds. Yan was obviously missing Mel and Sue’s innuendo and served up her half-dozen offerings in a rather suggestive arrangement.

“If you’re going to serve a cake, serve it phallic,” she said. It didn’t help with her timings though as she also had the judges eating raw mix.

The showstopper called for an ornamental trifle terrine with a baked element, a set custard or mousse and a jelly. One slice had to “look as good as the whole”. The jelly had to be firm enough to be sliced but not too firm that it was rubbery. Simple, except it wasn’t.

There were though some seriously impressive looking bakes, not least Steven’s American flag creation. He’d managed to pipe stars through it, so when cut, you got a serving of the Star Spangled banner. Kate went for a super-traditional terrine. “You can’t have a trifle without custard powder,” she declared. Luckily for her in this case, the judges agreed.

There was more injecting – this time it was Yan’s impressive jelly poppy, shame the gelatin was a bit tough. Poor Liam’s terrine hadn’t set properly and was dribbling. He had a bit of a meltdown but Sandi was there to mop up the tears (and the watery jelly).

Steven’s flag was declared style over substance in the end. “I don’t like rubber,” said Paul. I mean none of us do, pal. Sophie’s yuzu-infused creation was deemed Michelin-starred standard by Paul and she was awarded star baker.

There were post-tent tears from a nervous Julia but it was James who was sent home. He probably shouldn't have been so cocky about those volcano cakes, eh?

Next up: Pastry week. Bring on the shortcrust shenanigans.