Well that was a little surprising. Lithuanian cottage cheese biscuits, slipper biscotti’s and laminated wheels. This weeks episode certainly had a bit of bite, and when it came to the crunch, those that played it safe, simply crumbled! (sorry). Uniformity was key for every task this week.

Signature Bake – Biscotti (24)
These are yummy and I love them, especially ones with pistachios. According to Mary and Paul the key points are that they are:

• twice baked making it crunchy and snappy
• dry all the way through, but not break your teeth

I have made these before and served them with ricotta cheese, coated with honey and dusted with cinnamon. Equally they are great with coffee or a nice dessert wine like vincanto. Most of bakers with week seemed to be playing it safe with this challenge, but there were a few that stood out. Ians use of rosemary is something I’d like to try, as the fiance’s favourite herb at least it’ll be something he’d eat. Nadiya’s use of fennel and coconut was another that intrigued me, even if she didn’t add the fennel until the last minute. I’ve never heard of jackfruit and it was interesting to see Alvin use it as a fresh fruit rather than dried which every one else used. Marie provided some great comedy value by trying to appeal to Paul’s generous nature (does he have one?)

Technical Bake – Arlettes (8)
High end, light, delicate cinnamon flavoured biscuit. Basically its a laminated puff pastry style biscuit, wafer thin spiral with a bit of bite and very similar to a palmier biscuits. Last year we saw lots of variation on laminated dough, but this is the first time we’ve seen it in a biscuit. The main difficulty that the bakers seemed to have was the setting of the butter in between the layer folding. If its not set hard between each fold the lamination won’t work and when its cooked it’ll bleed out, leaving you with chewy dough. The other thing was which way to cut and how thin is ‘nervous’ thin? I know that I’ve said that I’m only going to do the showstoppers this year, but I’m keen to try these. Lets see how hot it is this weekend first!

Showstopper – 36 biscuits, encased in a biscuit box, in two flavours.
Well they are certainly starting to ramp things up quickly in this series. Chocolate work last week and two type of biscuit this week, I can certainly feel the pressure, albeit I’m not in that tent! This week has to be architectural, decorative, uniform and flavoursome. Its all about precision. The box needs to be tough, and according to Mary it has to be ambitious and taste really special.

I loved the decoration on Flora’s box, but it was the more abstract boxes that made more of an impression, basically anything that wasn’t a rectangular box. Interesting to see that two of the bakers chose to make earl grey tea and present them in a similar style.

I’ve got a few ideas for the box, but I’m still unsure about the biscuits inside. I’m taking them to a kids birthday party, so they need to be child friendly. Time to get the sketch pad out I think and start doodling!

Ian certainly deserved this weeks star baker. He experimented with flavours and pushed the creative boundaries with his biscuit box. I’ll definitely try to incorporate more herbs to my bakes this year. I’m a little disappointed that Marie has come out this week, I really thought she’d go far. It just goes to show that even if your a solid baker, you need to push the boundaries, you can’t stick with what you feel safe with. Dorret needs to push herself a bit more, I think she was pairing it back considering last weeks failure. I loved the fortune cookies that Nadiya made it’s just a shame that her box didn’t work, but she certainly has determination. Alvin was so passionate about his bakes, and I hope he keeps it together.

The best onliner this week came from Nadiya with “If I go down, I’m going to go down making fortune cookies!”