Here come the biscuits!

Biscuit Week!

It was Week Two and that meant Biscuit week on the Great British Bake Off. For the first challenge of the week they were asked to make biscotti. I love biscotti and was really looking forward to what flavours the bakers would come up with.

Alvin chose jackfruit, unusual to use in biscuits. I love jackfruit and the judges loved his flavour combination too. Paul thought they were 5 minutes away from perfection! Ian decided to go for rosemary which sounded really good and got a thumbs up from the judges.

I liked Flora and Nadia’s use of Fennel. Matt’s biscotti looked very well finished. The biscotti I was not sure about were Dorret’s and Marie’s.

Then it was turn of the dreaded technical challenge and this time it was Arlettes.

I had never heard of, or even seen, Arlettes before. It is thought that they were invented at the onset of the 20th century but for some reason lost out in the popularity stakes. The tent is not the easiest place to bake something like Arlettes, which don’t like the heat. Delicious Magazine asked me to give these a try. Check out the recipe and my take on How to make Arlettes.

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Everyone seemed very confused by the fact that butter was wrapped around the dough instead of being the other way around. This was going to be interesting. They were not told when to add the sugar which really reminded me of Kouign Amann which we had to make last year and were not told when to add the sugar in the pastry.

So poor Marie came last as something went wrong with her oven, leaving her with only 4 Arlettes. Dorret won the challenge, good save after a bad morning for her.

After the first 2 rounds Marie and Tamal seemed to be in danger and Ian, Alvin and Matt seemed to be doing well.

Show stopper next and it sounded like a great challenge- Box of biscuits filled with more biscuits. Room for so much creativity with flavours and design!

All the bakers making the biscuit boxes reminded me of the biscuit scenes we had to make in the Biscuit week on GBBO 2014

Biscuit week 2014

Ian had a great idea of making a macaron filled biscuit tin and it turned out well with the macarons looking perfect. I also liked Flora’s idea of making a tea box with tea bags. Sadly the box was cracked even though the flavours turned out good. The judges also liked Nadiya’s fortune cookies and Matt’s fire engine. Sue said she had somehow ended up breaking Nadiya’s biscuit box. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall to find out what happened in the tent!

I loved Sandy’s savoury biscuit box. I am surprised that no one else did savoury biscuits. It was Alvin’s turn to have a melting moment as he was unable to finish his biscuit box and had to present a Flat pack version, but the judges loved his flavours.

So it was Marie and Dorret who were in danger and in the end it was Marie’s turn to go home. And it was Ian’s turn to shine as the deserving star baker.

Right now the atmosphere in the tent seems very tense and serious. I am hoping that in the coming weeks the bakers’ personalities will shine through and they will begin to relax a little bit, which will make it much more fun for the fans.

Viewers are always keen on finding out more about what goes on behind the scenes in THE Tent. I shared some behind the scenes gossip with OK! Magazine. Read OK magazine’s article ‘Great British Bake Off 2015: All the behind the scenes gossip you NEED to know

Food with Chetna

If watching all the biscuits has inspired you to bake try my recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies on Food with Chetna

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